The old CPU boots right up, and the password works. Most of St. Basil's feels like it was entombed in 2003, but the computer has a USB port, and you slide your weapon right in.
You get a text from Pattermuster: Upload the virus. Get everything you can from that computer.
He's watching from his own computer. Or one of his tech-savvy lackeys is—there's probably someone downstairs who knows you're not here to upload a "virus"; it's just a program that plants incriminating information in a number of spreadsheets accessible by other members of the hospital staff.
So now you're faced with a question. According to Prince Lettow, the falsified records on this USB, once injected into the hospital's old and proprietary database program, will trigger such a financial meltdown that Director Carelli's future plans for redevelopment will be scrapped for at least a decade, leaving Pattermuster and his creatures to continue their unlives in peace. If you do that, both Pattermuster and Lettow will be grateful.
Or you could transfer whatever Julian sent to you along with the USB. That'll let the two of you effectively take over the hospital. Boundless opportunities will follow—if you believe Julian. He does seem to like you. Of course, Pattermuster will react the way Brujah always react to betrayal. That'll be one hell of a fight, and he has those swords.
Or you could just get rid of these creatures. You're no staunch humanist, but isn't there something pathetic about Pattermuster and his Caitiff, scavenging for blood here in St. Basil's? You would make enemies of everyone if you let the redevelopment go through, but St. Basil's would stop being such a black hole of despair and disease.
You can just imagine how your sire, Olivecrona, would laugh at your "sentimentality."
For a long time you just sit there, trying to work out how much trouble you're going to be in if you don't stop the renovation. Texts from Pattermuster and Julian pile up.
You shut the computer down.
You open the door, mutter, "Thanks," to the guard, and stroll away as if you belong there. He doesn't stop you.
Pattermuster is waiting for you on the second floor, between the administrative offices and pediatrics, his eyes red and burning.
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So you thought you could betray me and my people," he says.
It's close to 4:00 a.m. now. The halls are quiet.
Pattermuster's swords appear out of nowhere. "And you think you can just drive home to Prince Lettow after what you did? Well, not if me and Duncan and Connor have anything to say about it."
His swords blur, his eyes burn, and he charges you.
Before he can attack, you catch his gaze.
Next
August 2005.
"Off!" someone says. "Off, you nasty little childe!"
You barely hear. You just keep drinking. Then someone wrenches your head around and flings you into the replica Noguchi table. You land dazed in a heap amid the shattered glass.
"Krarr, you must learn to control yourself," Elin Olivecrona says as you wipe blood from your mouth and pick glass out of your palms. The blood doll lolls next to your sire on the Breuer sofa. "You are a Ventrue, which means your choice of vessels is limited. And I have already explained what happens to your soul if you lose control and kill one of these precious creatures. Have you pulled yourself together?"
"Yes, mistress." You rise and dab blood from the corner of your lips as the madness passes.
"The Beast can overwhelm even Kindred of our noble clan," your sire says. "When feeding or fighting, you must be careful. The Beast wants to dominate and control. To our kind, too great a victory—especially against creatures as fragile as these—" she carefully ties a handkerchief around the blood doll's throat "—can be almost as bad as defeat. Never lose control, Krarr. You are Ventrue. You are better than this."
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