The collapse of mainstream media and the proliferation of blogs and freelance news mean you have no difficulty passing yourself off as a reporter for a minor online news agency. In that guise, you chat up the scientists, who are eager to talk about their work. You learn a great deal about KXG's genetic research, its blood-tagging operation, and that time a reporter called Dr. Caul "the next Elizabeth Holmes," and she threatened to cut out his tongue and crucify him.
Oh yeah, you remember reading about that on BoingBoing.
You can't get them to open up any more than that, but they seem relaxed and friendly, and you do learn one important thing: everyone here kind of knows that something is weird about their research, even if no one says the V word.
Next
"Hello, Krarr," a cool and professional voice says. Dr. Caul sounds like she's the voice of a computer assistant. She's dressed for the celebration, in a long red-and-black dress. It takes your eyes a moment to resolve the serpents and wolves that form the design. She holds out her black-gloved hand for you to shake. Or kiss. You decide to shake.
"I have heard so much about you," she says.
Her face is dark, her hair jet-black and worn in a flapper bob, and she has thick, expressive eyebrows that bounce around whenever she talks. Her features are animated and friendly, in contrast to her flat and chillingly hypnotic voice.
Dr. Caul glances around at the party and says, "I'll be back in a few minutes to enjoy the party, everyone. Ta for now." She gives an elegant little wave, then gestures for you to follow the way she might order a dog around.
Next
"Everyone in the Spill Zone knows what we are," she says, pointing to a sign that resembles hands spilling something out of a bowl. She ushers you through another silent sliding door into a stark, minimalist chamber with hexagonal white floor tiles and cool white walls.
Artifacts of sorcery are visible behind frosted glass or in cloches atop hard plastic pedestals. You see mummy fragments and incunabula, fragmentary scrolls and broken amulets. There's a diagram of the "California Stonehenge" they found a few years back—you've heard of that, since Kindred say it was some kind of ritual site. The far side of the room contains a Louis XIV escritoire, a Shaker table with a phonograph and an apparatus for reading wax cylinders, and a microfilm reader.
Dr. Caul scans the Latin document Prince Lettow prepared for her and tosses it on an end table. Vani, her assistant, places it carefully on a coffee table so her mistress won't lose it.
Two studious-looking and handsome young men lounge on the couches nearby, reading books in a language you can't identify.
"You're hungry, Krarr," Dr. Caul says. "And I don't like hungry Kindred wandering around my domain. Please, enjoy Rene or Sonam. Rene is a doctoral student in robotics, and Sonam is an occultist from London by way of a small village in Bhutan. In a year I will choose one of them. Hmm, though from what I've heard of you, neither will be suitable." She glances toward Vani, who sends a text. A few minutes later a pair of elderly women appear. Food.