Hello Grandmother,

I tend to take it personally when someone steals all of my stuff. So I’ve kind of had a chip on my shoulder about Flux especially now that it has resurfaced. The big lesson that I’ve learned from my dealing with Flux is that it likes to manipulate information. So when Flux tells me where it’s been I don’t take it at face value.

However, information has surfaced that confirms Flux’s story. There are indeed robots, of strange and peculiar appearance, that live in the sewers and underground areas beneath human cities. And according to some of said robots, Flux has been hiding out with them, from whatever it was that Flux was hiding from. So then I have to ask myself, why would Flux just tell me the truth. What reason would it just tell the truth. What I think I’ve come to as its reasoning is that it wanted to reveal the existence of said non-humanoid automatons to the world, to force them into the robot/vampire conflict. Well, unfortunately for Flux, said robots are more than willing to come to the surface, if they know they aren’t going to be destroyed. I think that I can work with these machines a lot easier than their more human-like cousins. So we’ll see whether Flux’s manipulations turn out to have positive consequences for humanity in the end after all.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

The tests are going out. The Seven Deadly Ministries are turning on themselves, as draconian tactics dismantle the fragile trust that the vampire community has in one another. That’s the only way I can explain it. It’s getting very hard out there to be a creature of the night. The vampires, at least for the next couple of weeks, do not trust one another. Anyone could be an Infiltration spy. And it’s tearing at the very fabric of vampire society.

I’m getting, if only secondary, reports that there are massive stakings and imprisonments going on in the head offices of the ministry houses over the last couple of day. Whole regimes are being exterminated. The stories I’m getting are wild and crazy, and I’m not sure what to believe at the moment. But suffice it to say: the Infiltration has accomplished its first goal. It has the center of the vampire power structure scared to its lack-of-a-soul.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

When you’re dealing with someone you know you can’t trust, every interaction becomes more and more complicated. You start looking for the lie in there words, what they benefit from and how you can avoid being played. The problem I have with Flux at this point is that I have no idea how it benefits from anything. Why did it take my stuff? Where has it moved all of it to? And where the hell has it been?

The double-talking android has not been forthcoming with answers, at least to the questions I want to know about. I know I’m not going to be able to trust the answers I get from the bot itself. And I’m tired of playing games. So this goes out to anything that know where he’s been for the last few weeks. Can it’s story be corroborated? Is there any truth to it’s tale? Inquiring minds want to know.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

As the Ministries implement there new policies, their enemies inside the vampire community are starting to institute changes of their own. Namely, they’re forming a competing organization, grouped together from the vampire houses left powerless in the vampire revolution. They’re given voice by Richard III and the growing community of frustrated vampire lords seeking the chance to settle old grudges, on the human community and each other. This group is called the Vengeance Guild.

The Guild is looking to establish themselves as the premiere source of revenge work for the vampire community and the grouping place for vampires disenfranchised by the Ministries. Their first real test is going to be in situations like I spoke about earlier this week with Li Yu, whose beef is with robots and not vampires. Where will the Guild fall on this issue? It’s going to define how the relationship between robots and vampires moves forward.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

History is a matter of perspective. Which means you have to be careful with who you get your history from, and how much you trust of what you get. I’m getting competing views of robot history, and maybe they add up to the same whole, or maybe I’m being lied to straight to my face. Either way, I’m going to need more info to complete the picture.

The Turk is sending me a history of his adventures, and clearly it takes place outside of the regular robot continuity. From what I understand, he’s most proud his time as a pirate on the high seas. I have a hard time believing that there was technology available at the time to replicate a human appearance, but I can’t really refute it either. The other information I’m getting, the bit from the robot manipulator Flux, is more believable if more bleak. It’s giving me schematics from the Illuminati’s plan to replace all political and cultural leaders with robot duplicates. Apparently there are whole unused factories across the nation filled with robot versions of famous people. Where the conflict come in is how big the Infiltration is, and how deep it goes. According to the Turk, it’s a sparsely populated group spread out across the country, trying desperately to grasp the nature of a creator it doesn’t understand. According to Flux, it’s a movement that’s got it’s fingers in every aspect of the Ministries and human society, that it has the capability of communing over vast difference into a powerful whole. Flux intoned that it’s only a matter of time before they have the entirety of the human soul mapped out, and any reason for keeping humanity alive will have disappeared.

So which is it? An overarching conspiracy, or a desperate and misunderstood child? Or both? Saying more understand is necessary is mute at this point. The question is whether either side is going to get their act together before the killing starts.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

Vampire policy changes are being put into action. One of the big ones I’m seeing right off the bat is a power sharing deal in Los Angeles. No longer will competing warlords battle for supremacy in the streets. What this means in practice is that Fang has to start sharing his dominance on the streets. There’s one other army big enough to compare with Fang’s werewolf roughnecks that patrol the streets daily: Muetro’s Knights of Day.

So now the human Knights of Day and Fang’s werewolves are going to start patrolling together. I don’t think I can beat your own brain in getting to you first that this is not a status quo that’s going to last long. The question is what are the Ministries going to do once two vampire aligned armies start warring on each other in the day time, in the one city in the world that has no real power structure to clamp down on it. All I can say is that us here in LA better be prepared for a bumpy ride.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

There are a lot of unanswered questions about the evolution of robotkind that I have at the moment. So it’s only natural that the most duplicitous robot I know would come forward with answers. Flux, the faux-junk dealer who stole my most prized possessions (which, honestly, I didn’t mind since they seemed to put a price on my head) has surfaced finally.

And it’s claiming that it has been seeking out the truth of the Infiltration, living secretly amongst the underground robots hidden beneath the city streets. Should I listen to it’s story? Should I allow the one robot I know I can’t trust try and sell me another pack of lies? Will I every really get my stuff back? These questions and more will be answered in the next few day, as I follow the frustrating track of trying to discern mechanical fact from calculated fiction.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

Vengeance. It’s a common trait amongst vampires. It makes sense, you live long enough, you eat people, you’re going to have a grudge against someone. The Ministries work by subverting that, though. Like they’re trying to creat egalitarian vampires who suck from everyone equally. Personal grudges get submerged into big, goal-oriented structural issues.

So what’s an angry vampire to do? Li Yu has a lot to be angry about. He’s the last remnant of a Chinese vampire faction that has been replaced by robots. I’m still trying to get details here, but he appears to be part of the Asian vampire clan that was dethroned by robots sometime in the last twenty five years, allowing robots to control the Asian continent. Li Yu has been an outspoken critic of the western vamps lack of support for their Eastern brethren. Now Li Yu is on his own. Sinking into shadows, he’s become a one man wrecking crew against robot imports from his homeland. But apparently this isn’t going to last. Fang, the big warlord vying for control of Los Angeles, has made public his support for the robot hunt to kill Li Yu. Now the metal men have free reign to hunt in the night, and they will go up against it’s most dangerous predator. How long Li Yu is able to survive is going to mean a lot to a lot of different folks.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

The problem with researching the past is, sometimes it comes back to bite you in the ass. I mentioned yesterday, the robot Turk who may have been one of the first robots to live successfully hidden in society as a human. Well it appears he’s written me a letter. In which he promises to divulge the secrets of robot history. Can I trust him? It’s a slippery path that one.

The first tidbit he gave me came as important context to the events of recent history. I’m still verifying the info, but it rings too true right now for me not to trust it a little. Because according to him, nearly 10 years ago, there was an earlier war. A secret civil war between robots that wanted to terminate humanity now, and those that thought we still had some value. According to his information, the Infiltration forces were mostly on the side that wanted to wipe humanity out. And they almost did. But the Seven Deadly Ministries intervened on our behalf, and have ever since kept the Infiltration cities under tight security. Is this the truth? I’m having trouble trusting the mail I get at the moment. But I know if it is true, then the Ministries are going to have to answer to their own kind who don’t like being left in the dark.

-1159

Hello Grandmother,

The fear and panic over the shadowy threat of the Infiltration has allowed me access to robot history that I wouldn’t otherwise have available to me. One of the biggest questions I’ve been asking is: since when have there been robots capable of emulating people? I know, in general terminology, about the robots designed around the turn of the century to appear human, though I also know they lacked any real cognitive functions. The more I research, however, the more strange peculiarities arise.

For starters, there’s the robot population of Baghdad, circa 1258 A.D. Mechanical birds and trees were all the rage, and a mechanical band was a staple, all prior to the Mongol sacking that set human science and culture back centuries. Mechanical intelligences started popping up again in Europe around the 18^th Century as chess playing automata called “the Turk”, in reference to the earlier middle-eastern machines. Publicly, the Turk was dubbed a hoax, the papers on how it was performed released after the machine had supposedly been destroyed. However, Illuminati codes indicated that the machine was real, and in fact had existed as an independent intelligence already for six hundred years. I can’t help wondering: what had the machine been up to all that time? How had it stayed secret? Had it fully replicated a human appearance, and merely used the Turk disguise as a ruse for it’s own amusement? What effect did it really have on the rise of the Illuminati? And where the hell is it now?

-1159