TheFall

THE FALL OF THE TWIN TOWERS

THE CONTINUING SAGA OF SYLVIA THE VAMPIRE

By Ronald C. Tobin

E-Mail: [email protected]

Ah! Hello again, friends. This is Sylvia, once again allowing you the privilege of peering into my world. I'm on this commuter train tonight, it being the 10th of September in the year 2001. September means that summer is ending, and that is fine with me. Longer nights mean more time to prowl, mix things up with you mortals. Best way to handle the red thirst.

Anyway, summer in Southern California was pretty uneventful after meeting with Aurea and Brenda at the nightclub, discussing the untimely demise of one Victor Trent and the fallout resulting from it. I was told to expect an invitation to New York City sometime in September, at which time I would get to meet Maurana, de facto head of Order Ruby. That invitation came on August 25th, so I decided to fly out to Boston on September 5th and spend a few days there to sightsee, and then hop the train down to NYC the night of the 10th. My host said he could meet me at Grand Central Station, where I shall be arriving in a few minutes.

So, Boston was interesting, but I did not like most of the people I interacted with. I swear that the people here on the East Coast have real attitude problems. I mean, Californians are dysfunctional, so don't get me wrong here. It just seemed like they thought they were better than most just because they lived and/or worked in Boston. A couple marks I fed off of I really did want to drink dry because of their surly attitudes, but I restrained myself. I've learned more restraint since I accidentally offed my brother there behind the Whiskey in Hollywood. Did spend one evening in Boston with a rather charming Emerald vampire named Reginald. He told me stories about the American Revolution, which he had actually fought in. He was not impressed with Washington or most of the Founding Fathers.

Enough of this rambling. The train is pulling into the station at five after ten, almost on time for once. I can sense the presence of several vampires, not all of which are with my host, but none are hostile - it's just a large crowd of mortals, so it is easy to feed. There are three vampires with my host, Dennis Van Remmer, Ruby Vampire born in 1600. He has made New York home since the days it was called New Amsterdam. Most vampires move every few decades, but Van Remmer seems content to stay put. To each their own.

Once the train stopped I stepped off with my carry-on bag - I always travel light - and walked over to the four who were obviously (well, it was obvious to me, a casual mortal observer would likely not view it in the same fashion) waiting for me.

"Sylvia Patterson, I presume?" Dennis asked as he shook my hand.

"You presume correctly, Mr. Van Remmer," I replied, being certain to make eye contact with him and the other three.

"Please, call me Dennis," he said warmly. "I'll let my associates here introduce themselves. After all, they are all certainly reasonably coherent and all that rot."

The rather elegantly dressed woman stepped forward and shook my hand. "Pleased to meet you, Sylvia. I'm Carol Ann Vincent, a longtime friend of Aurea and Maurana. Aurea has spoken well of you."

"I am pleased to hear that, Carol Ann," I said with a slight shrug. "She and I have only met once, talked on the phone a few times after that."

Next one to step forward was a sharply dressed Chinese woman (did I mention that Order Ruby has a tradition of dressing well? We do! It's just too cool!). When she shook my hand, had a feel of the rather newly minted about her. "I'm Paulina Wong, Order Ruby. Until five weeks ago I was the mortal associate of Carol Ann. She brought me over when I turned 35."

"Pleased, I'm sure," I replied. "How are you faring as one of us? Miss anything about being mortal?"

Paulina pouted a bit, then replied, "Well, I really don't like that I sleep the whole day away. I know that will pass in time. And the thirst! I have to feed four or five times a night to keep from making some messy kills. Although, last night in Central Park I was able to off a mugger. Idiot shot me, so I drank all his blood and tore his body to shreds." She smiled at that thought.

Then, the one that had stood behind the others stepped forward, removing the cloak that had hidden her face from view. A haunted face that had seen too much. I knew who she was before she even thought anything, much less spoke. I gently took her hand and said, "I'm amazed to see you here, Patricia Ann. To what do I owe the honor?"

"Aurea finally coaxed me out of my stupor back in July," she replied, in a voice that was barely above a whisper. "When I was told that Maurana would be coming to New York, I decided I needed to come out here and be with her. Should help me heal. As for you, well Aurea spoke well of you, so I wanted to satisfy my curiosity."

After that we headed out in Van Remmer's limousine and hit the expressway. I had never been to New York before, and I found the skyline to be most impressive. Most especially the two towers that lorded over all the rest. Noting my interest, Carol Ann said, "That is the World Trade Center, though we New York vampires just like calling them the Towers at Tobin Square. Few remember that name."

"Quite impressive," I replied. "Do any vampires actually live in those towers?'"

"I know of one," Paulina said. "Some Sapphire fellow named Claude de Beere. He lives up on the 100th floor of the North Tower. He tried to convince me to go Sapphire back when I was a mortal. For a Sapphire, he's not a bad guy, just weird."

"Sapphire," Patricia Ann whispered. "Pardon my continuing lack of civility towards them. After what happened to Victor that night, will I ever forgive?"

She started to tremble so I hugged her gently. She looked at me, eyes swollen, and asked "Have you ever seen a ghost, Sylvia? Heard a voice when no one was there?"

"Indeed I have, Pat," I replied."I have seen many ghosts, some even back when I was a mortal. Disembodied voices a few times."

"I know Victor tried to talk to me several times in the month after his death," she said softly. "I could not reply, not even telepathically. My mind was literally frozen. I was trapped in a little room, and it took Aurea and the others months to drag me back out."

Patricia Ann and I talked about her brother at some length on the way to Van Remmer's house on Staten Island. We arrived there about 12:30AM on September 11th. Some of us went out hunting, I just stayed there and read until just before sunrise, when I retired to the basement room prepared for me, small but comfortable and completely protected from the blasted sun. I dozed off, dreaming about those two big towers, with a little voice in the back of my head saying that the mortals were up to something rather strange. Tried to get a fix on that but, since it was no threat to me, when sunrise hit I just fell asleep like I usually do.

NORTH TOWER, 8:45 AM, 9/11/01

As the great tower shakes and groans from the impact and explosions from the jet airliner, one Sapphire vampire, Claude de Beere, was immediately aroused from his daytime slumber. The whole building continued to shake violently, and Claude heard the sounds of cables snapping and supports buckling. "Something big has struck the tower," he thought as he fished his cell phone out of his pocket. The shaking did subside, but his intuition told him that the tower was damaged severely, perhaps even compromised. "This would have to happen during the day," he muttered as he keyed in a telephone number. After a few rings, a nervous female voice answered with a hello, and then Claude said, "Maryanne, this is Claude. I'm here at the office and something has happened to the tower. Can you tell me exactly what?"

"Oh my God, Claude!" she replied. "A passenger jet airliner hit your tower between the 79th and 83rd floors! Your floor is cut off!" She started sobbing into the phone.

"Definitely not good," Claude thought to himself. Then, he continued, "Was it an accident? Do the mortals suspect foul play? Has anyone claimed responsibility?"

"They think it was a tragic accident," Maryanne replied. "Still, it is very suspicious, as Tobin Square is not on the main flight path."

"Certainly no flight path exists going through this blasted tower!" Claude said with a snort. Half listening to Maryanne as she gave him the blow by blow from the news services, he pondered what his options might be to get out, intact, during the daylight. While in this strange state, Claude heard yet another explosion from very nearby. The tower shook a bit, but nothing at all like the first time. "What the hell was that?" Claude inquired.

"Another passenger jet airliner has been deliberately crashed into the South Tower," Maryanne stated. "They are officially calling it a terrorist attack. The fools at the FAA are calling for all planes in flight in the US to land at the nearest airport. They even want the news choppers to land. This is really weird."

"So much for trying to escape by way of the roof," Claude said. In fact, now he was growing very gravely concerned about how to get out. Broad daylight and he was just over 200 years old. He would explode in about a minute from direct solar exposure. He did own a solar-proof cloak, but those were designed for walking in, not for jumping out of a burning building and going down 100 floors to the ground. Cutting off Maryanne's dialogue, he said, "I have to make another call. If I get out of this place, I'll call you this afternoon. If not, well, thanks for being a good friend."

"Good luck, Claude," Maryanne said with a sob as he broke the connection.

Now, Claude really noticed the agitation and desperation in the voices of the mortals in the nearby offices. No smoke in his quarters, but he knew there was plenty of it on the rest of the floor. He decided to call his one Emerald 'friend' in the city, Gaylord Nawles, age 960. If anyone could get him out of this, Gaylord could. After several rings, Gaylord did answer his phone.

"Gaylord? It's me, Claude! I have a real problem on my hands!"

"You mean besides your disability by virtue of being a Sapphire?" Gaylord chided. "Let me guess.- you are in your place on the 100th floor of the North Tower of the Trade Center and you are cut off from conventional escape. Normally, I'd have Alicia fly my helicopter over and take you off the roof, but the FAA is grounding everyone but the military."

"What can I do, man?" Claude pleaded. "I don't want to get destroyed up here!" After he said that, an ominous rumbling and roaring shook the tower. "What the hell was that all about?"

"South Tower just collapsed, so chances are that your tower is fatally damaged as well," Gaylord stated. "Therefore, your best bet to survive this mishap is to do the following: Put on your solar proof cloak, get into your emergency strongbox, lock everything from inside, and then wait. You are far enough up that your box should not be crushed by the floors above coming down. Then you"ll just have to ride it down and hope your seals hold and that nothing breaches the integrity of your box."

"Nutty as it sounds, Gaylord, it also sounds like my only option to survive. I'll do it now and call you if it works." He and Gaylord signed off simultaneously.

Sensing that time was swiftly not on his side, Claude quickly donned the cloak, got into the emergency strongbox, locked all the interior locks, and waited.

Two minutes later, the North Tower started falling. Claude winced as a beam from the 101st Floor hit his box and dented it. Then the sounds around him became deafening, he screamed as he became nearly weightless during the fall that seemed to take forever. A few minutes later, it all came to a halt. Now, the sheer silence was deafening. Claude called Gaylord and told him he had survived. Gaylord told him to stay put until nightfall. For once, he did what he was told.

And all around the city, vampires were waking up, having their mortal associates comb the city to try and figure out how this airplane crashed. That could be quite a feud with the various theories, plus now it comes to everyone?s attention that the Pentagon had been attacked in a similar fashion. Once sunset comes the city will calm down a bit, but until then, smoke, fire, accusations, and mortals singing horrible patriotic songs. What nonsense is that?

STATEN ISLAND, NOON, 9/11/01

Sylvia here, foolish mortals. I am not one of those newly minted ones that have to sleep away the daylight hours, but usually I sleep until 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon. Not today, though. Kept having these awful dreams about planes and burning towers and politicians making ridiculous speeches, and then it started to dawn on me that perhaps I was NOT dreaming. I knew that Van Remmer?s basement was totally solar-proofed, so I just put on some shorts and a T-shirt (yes, I sleep in the nude. Wouldn?t you just love to join me sometime?) and went out into the hall. At this point I heard a virtual cacophony of radios and televisions blaring, all talking about terror attacks against the WTC and the Pentagon.

I went into the recreation room, and just stood and stared at the 70-inch screen. The images, the sounds, all so very...unbelievable. I could see this was affecting nearly all present, vampire and mortal alike. Van Remmer was just shaking his head, muttering "such a waste". Patricia Ann was openly sobbing, drawing out some throaty howls of despair. Since I had not heard her do anything above a whisper before, that was somewhat surprising. The three mortals present, all males, looked stricken, but they were trying to keep their composure, not allow themselves to weep openly - after all, here in the US, a male weeping openly is considered weak and unmanly. It is a very stupid and counterproductive tradition.

Van Remmer's phone rang and he answered it. After talking for a couple of minutes, he put the handset down and said, "Lady Maurana's flight was diverted to Toronto. She has arrived safely, and will be taking a boat across the lake to Buffalo. She should arrive before sunrise. The conference will go on as planned in spite of today's events."

"How many attacks were there today, Dennis?" I asked quietly.

"Three successful, thus far," Dennis replied. "It appears that this group called Al Qaeda, run by this guy called Osama Bin Laden, was likely behind this. At least, that is what the government and their mainstream media cohorts are saying. I'd say that, this time, they are likely right, which is amazing."

"You said three successful," I stated. "I take that to mean that some attack was tried that did NOT succeed?"

"Yes, Sylvia, there is one confirmed failure," Dennis replied. "From what is being said, four passenger jets were hijacked and then they were intended to be used as giant suicide bombs. Two planes hit and destroyed utterly the twin towers of the World Trade Center. One plane hit the Pentagon, causing rather extensive damage but not compromising the structure. The fourth plane went down in rural Pennsylvania shortly after the passengers took control from the hijackers." A rather disgusted look went across Van Remmer's face, then he continued, "It appears obvious that an Air Force jet had already launched a missile at that plane. Just as some passenger got on the radio and said they had control of the plane, said missile slammed right into the middle of it, killing all aboard. They should not have died. The experts figure that plane's target was the White House. Thank goodness it did not get there."

An open debate then ensued among all present, even Patricia Ann had stopped sobbing and was now speaking in a normal voice, to the surprise of all assembled. The topic ran the gamut of how stupid the US intelligence agencies were, how this was waking up the American herd, how this was going to be used as an excuse to further the reach of the police state, and just what kind of military action the Empire was going to use to crush these 'infidels.'

The general consensus, reached sometime after sunset so even our two 'newborns' could be brought up to speed and had their say, was that we vampires needed to stay out of it as much as possible. As Paulina Wong, the newest among us, put it, "This is going to turn into a major pissing match between various mortal States. How can it be otherwise? War on Terrorism? You cannot fight a war against an 'ism,' for crying out loud. States, organizations, gangs, they can fight wars against each other. Terrorism per se is a family of ideologies, and no one seems to have exactly the same definition as to what a terrorist is. It has long been said, quite truthfully, that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Take your pick."

I was impressed by Paulina's perceptiveness. So was Van Remmer and many of the others present. Some of the others went out to hunt after this, but I had lost my appetite for the day due to the bizarre events (where is dear old Rod Serling and the Twilight Zone folks when you need them) of the day. I sat down and just talked, in a normal voice, with Patricia Ann. She smiled wanly and said, "I guess it took more trauma to bring me back entirely. I know Victor would have been outraged by today's events. So much hatred out there, and the US government will just fan those flames. People wrapping themselves in the flag, Congress standing outside the Capitol and singing 'God Bless America' - as if the deity really gives a damn about this pompous empire. Republic - what a joke."

Well, this fascinating conversation went on until just about 3AM, when the hunters came back in, talking about how bizarre things were out on the streets, the rescue efforts going on at Tobin Square, and so forth. Shortly thereafter, Oscar, Van Remmer's chief mortal associate, came down and announced, "The Lady Maurana is now arriving. The Master of the House asks that you all come outside to greet her properly - that means cloaks, folks." I dashed back into my room, threw on some long pants and put on my best cloak. I arrived out on the front yard just as the limousine bearing Maurana pulled into the driveway. Fifteen vampires - fourteen Ruby and one Emerald - on hand to greet the one who had accepted the task of putting it all back together again when Pa Anovas and a few others chose to check out.

When she got out of the car, at a signal from Van Remmer we all bowed low. This took her completely by surprise. "Arise, of course, my friends," she said firmly. "After all, I'm not here to stand on ceremony and pull rank. Much to be done, even though now the mortals have been traumatized. This has not been a good day, for anyone."

As we stood up, a mortal associate named Eric asked, "Even for the fascist supporters of the police state, milady? It would seem THEY had a great day."

"Only for the moment, good sir," Maurana said as she walked towards the house. "Ashcroft may be dancing now, and Bush will have his blasted war, but what they really do not seem to understand is that this is a sign - the American Imperium is vulnerable. Eventually, all empires fall."

With that, a rather traumatic day for us all came to a close. Maurana said she would work through the daylight going over various proposals and suggestions and then we could join her as we woke up. I bid her good day just before sunrise. This time, I slept uneventfully, rising at 3PM on September 12, 2001.

EPILOGUE - September 16, 2001

Well, the once mighty city of New York is still in a state of shock. The residents still have problems believing that they were directly attacked and that the mighty symbol of the city's power, the twin towers, are now nothing more than smoldering piles of rubble. Politicians have been here in droves, even President Bush II was here talking to the rescue teams at what is now known as 'Ground Zero.' Have to give W his due: he is good at impromptu speaking. These attacks made him popular in the eyes of the herd, about ninety percent of voters approve of what W is doing now. Quite an about face, and it does make me wonder.

At any rate, Maurana left here about 4PM to catch a flight back to France. After being grounded a couple of days by the absurd FAA, commercial air travel is slowly returning to the skies, with still more draconian security measures that we all know will not work in the long run. People need to be able to travel armed wherever they go. 9/11 was a resounding success for the terrorists because people were unarmed. I am, frankly, certain that none of this could have happened, had some passengers been armed. The police state, of course, does not see things that way at all. They do not trust armed citizens - they want unarmed serfs.

The discussions about the future of Order Ruby that Maurana held here went quite well. She listened intently to what all the vampires and the mortals present had to say, and that was reassuring. I think she will be a stronger leadership figure than was Pa Anovas, but only time will tell. The most fascinating evening was when we got together with several Emerald Order vampires. Some of them mentioned a vampire they reverently called 'First Speaker.' Patricia Ann told me that was Sybille, the symbolic head of Order Emerald. "If she were here to listen to all this fawning and flattery, she would have a lot of choice words to say about this, and none of them would be polite." I made a mental note about this for future reference.

Maurana and I did have one private meeting, rather early on the 14th after I had returned from Central Park with Paulina Wong, with whom I had had a very successful hunt. She and I found a couple of foolish muggers who tried to attack us with switchblades and brass knuckles. Suffice it to say that those two are no longer among the living. So, Maurana and I spoke for a couple of hours about many topics, and then she invited me to visit her in Avignon, France in early December. Another cache of Atlantean artifacts would be coming in then, and she was sure I would be interested in seeing them. I accepted the invitation, and I hope that while I am there she will tell me more about this Mars stuff I have heard some whispered rumors about.

So, I will be leaving here tomorrow, shortly after sunset. I'll be traveling by car - I refuse to put up with the ridiculous new security measures. Even though I can generally get through security without being hassled, it is the principle of the thing. That, and I don't like being pawed without an invitation. I can react -- poorly.

My advice to you mortals out there, most particularly those who claim to be activists, is to never give up. The herd is awake right now, and unfortunately they are only too happy to trade off rights for a false sense of security. Do not give into the temptation to just run and hide. It may SEEM like a good idea right now, but in the end you will likely live to regret it. Keep fighting the good fight. This is a test, you might say. It was easy, comparatively speaking, to be a radical during the 1990s. Now, it is going to mean something. Some will pay the ultimate price, sad but true. However, those who truly support freedom CAN prevail, if you will just keep your wits about you. Don't fall down to their level, and never play their games, and then you will win. Cry in despair, and the world is theirs.

Myself, I think I'll join Patricia Ann tonight on a crawl to some nightclubs. Yes, attendance is down, but some people will still be going out, and that will improve as the day of 9/11 fades into a bitter memory.

Besides, I'm hungry. Talk to you later...

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[This story originally appeared in the January/February 2003 issue of THE THOUGHT.]

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