The Alien Agenda Read Online Free Page B

you think that I do not consider this?  I do not want to consider this, but I have no choice.  I have been able to think of little else in recent years.  How can I not look around myself and think these thoughts?”
Sonafi looked at me with an expression I seldom see- at least directed towards me.  The look was that of calculation.  Depression had always to be guarded against, watched for, and rooted out.  There was always the danger of one of us going rogue.  The peril that places us within, not only from the rogue himself, the threat he posed directly to us, but the added risk of exposure to the Human population that such actions generated.  It was a delicate balancing act we played, with every single being a potential enemy and no safe haven anywhere we might turn.  I smiled reassuringly.
    “I'm not going rogue.”  I said.  “If that's what you're worried about.  It just angers me that t he Others have such power.  The technological advantage they hold.  The fact that we have to react to their pressures and cannot take the fight directly to them.  That we have to run and hide.  That I have become fond of this city and now have to leave it.  I am not losing my sanity.  Unfortunately, I have never been so sane.  I have never been more sane.”
    “A creature of habit can be predicted by his habits.”  Sonafi said, giving my arm a squeeze that felt like a hydraulic press clamping down, despite my own supernatural strength.  Her hands had always been exceptionally strong, due to her personalized training regimen.  The finger exercises, specifically.  Those of us who liked our lives, wished to continue living them, must actively participate in their perpetuation.  To lie idle and unprepared meant certain death when we faced the Others.  The Others had no such weak Human sentiments.  All a Vampire possessed was his or her preparation.  Sonafi and I both trained daily.  The mettle of our resolve was the measure of our survival.
    It was not as if our Human halves had brought nothing to the union, however.  Plucked directly from their native habitats, my pre-Human ancestors had been little more evolved than the wild animals with which they had co-existed.  Lifted genetically from the abyss of ignorance, both Humans and, at my inception, we Vampires, were a hybrid of both savage and civilized, so at my core, within my Human half, beat the heart of a savage animal, and to the basest of all instincts.  That the will to survive at any cost.
    As technologically advanced as the Others were, they may have manipulated their own genes to create their super strength, speed and agility, but they had been civilized for far too long.  They did not have that which a Vampire had.  A savage, primordial heart!
    “I would almost welcome a visitation.”  I said, twirling my cane.  Hidden inside its length, a mere twist of the handle away, was the cold steel of a walking cane sword.  If I were suddenly to have to use it, it would not be the first time, nor would I expect it to be the last.  Sonafi was similarly t hough differently armed.  She carried more weapons than I would care to count, every one of them hidden away, invisible in plain sight.
    “I do not relish the thought.  Nor will we continue always to be victorious.”  Sonafi said, though there had been times when she would very much have relished the thought.  When the savage glut of killing the Others was all she lived for.  “The Others are far from ignorant.  They are capable of evolution, as well, and nothing engenders evolution more rapidly than the threat of extinction.  We are that threat!”             
    “I think we are less a threat than an annoyance.”  I said.  “They would like to see us eliminated, but they aren't going to move mountains to stop us.”
    “I do not agree.”  Sonafi said, never one to quibble, always willing to say just exactly what was on her mind.  “It is more than arrogant