We’d been in the air for almost two hours and I still could not make any sense of the Tarot cards that were spread out before of me; having lost track of which ones I’d tried or in which order that I’d spread them. Even starting from scratch with my favorite spread cycle resulted in the same blasted cards.

You’d think Tarot reading would be clearer than mud on a rainy day. But I guess having spent the last six weeks huddled over a computer keyboard, fighting with a stubborn mouse and glaring at a monitor while everyone else enjoyed the California sun would not make even me really think about mud very much. It simply hadn’t rained much in Redding, California -- not even indoors.

Proudly touting itself as the second sunniest city in the United States; Redding, California averages roughly an eighty eight percent chance of being sunny and beautiful at any given time, if you’re into statistics.

With a degree in mathematics, collection of such mundane tidbits of information has become ingrained enough to become a hobby of sorts; without which I wouldn’t get out into the sun much or enjoy its affects otherwise. That is usually my choice, rather than any real necessity of any sort.

Really, I’ve taken several vacations to Mexico. The hotel rooms are nice. The restaurants are nice. The local shopping centers are fun to visit. But seriously, who needs sand in their laptop anyway?

Sunburns itch and burn and the drinks are just as cold inside as they are outside. Need I say more? Well there is the lack of tan lines on smooth, soft female skin that can cause distraction. But those activities are enjoyed as much indoors as out. I’ve got the statistics if you want to see them; someone has to venture outside in the name of science now and again. Collecting statistics can be as much fun as analyzing them.

I sat back and tried to regain the calm that had eluded me since the arrival of the very disturbing e-mail message, which in turn had prompted my quick and unexpected departure shortly thereafter. Fortunately I’d just completed my current assignment, or it might’ve been a bit more difficult to leave as quickly as I had.

The message itself had been simple, straight to the point and signaled that something was seriously amiss back in Toronto; or else Mids would not have sent it.

“Heghlu’meH QaQ jajvam”

One simple sentence that would; when properly translated, mean volumes.

Almost ten years ago there had been an agreement of sorts about that particular signal, figuring no one would ever understand the significance; let alone what it meant.

The words were from the Klingon language, not English; which when translated roughly meant “Today is a good day to die.”

If we were to ever get the message, it would mean one; and only one thing -- make your way to Toronto by the fastest means possible. Do not pass go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Simply pack up and go.

So I did.

Well, I did collect my fee; did pass a street actually named Go Court and had never really unpacked my luggage since my arrival. Hotel laundry services are such great inventions. The company even paid for housekeeping to do my laundry rather than have me mess with the non computerized machinery. Geeks really are me.

Mids is another LLI employee whose actual full designation within our organization is Midknight much like mine happens to be Phantom. While I’m a technician, she’s the operations manager for KOTC radio back in Toronto; yet another division of LLI Limited.

What had me worried the most at the moment was that the message hadn’t actually come directly from Mids; but rather from an automated service which had been set up to handle only the most extreme emergencies.

I hadn’t bothered to try to contact her, having agreed long ago that such efforts might cause even more problems than they would solve. Especially if someone were waiting to see if they’d triggered some sort of alarm in the process of doing whatever it was that they’d done.

You could almost call the message a very silent kind of geeky alarm.

Fortunately, LLI Limited also had a company Learjet nearby which had not been scheduled for use anytime in the near future and was in need of some air miles under its wings.

Leviticus LaRouchette Inc. had to be Limited in Canada, hence the LLI Limited name. Unfortunately Leviticus never did quite see the humor or irony of that designation.

If there was one thing that Leviticus LaRouchette was definitely not; it was allowing himself to be limited in any way, shape or form.

It seemed to bother him when we laughed every time we explained the name to someone. Not that anyone ever dared to completely clarify it for him; you just don’t explain something like that to the sitting Master of Toronto.

Yes, Leviticus LaRouchette is a Vampire. Tall and considered well built; he carries himself with steely assurance marked by a squared jaw and piercing ice blue eyes. Many assumed, ironically correct as they were; that he’d been in the military -- what with his close-cropped blond hair cut flat across the top of his head.

Unfortunately, the last time Leviticus had been in the military, he’d been a commander reporting to those in charge of Rome. It was part of the reason that he’d become a Vampire as he had.

Not just any kind of Vampire though, but a sitting Master Vampire. That means two things, age and power. Okay, more than two things; it also means money and Lear Jets like the one in which I now sat.

Jet black on the outside of course, as no real Vampire would ever be caught undead in a plane any color other than black -- at least according to the rules set out by Leviticus LaRouchette. Perhaps his choice of color schemes would be one of many things about him that would be left for us to ponder.

Plush tan leather interior with full bar, entertainment center, computer systems and just about anything else you might need to entertain yourself on a long flight. Even the tables could be converted to fairly good sized beds. Sleeping comfort for business trips; go figure.

I resisted the temptation to run a black light over the cushions. It was really tempting. I’d already suspected that the bathroom would glow brightly under black light. Imagine what a cotton swab would’ve found under the rim of that sink.

Like other geeks, I watch all flavors of CSI on television and take notes.

My escort, “just call me Abby”, has been the one keeping me from any mischief that I might have otherwise wreaked while we traveled.

As a Vampire, she was proving to be the oddest travel companion that I’ve had in a long time. Goth meets GQ. Black form fitting tuxedo suit and limo driver’s cap offset the spiked dog collar around her neck, along with the general black meets olive flesh color theme of her hair and makeup.

Don’t get me wrong, if you add in her black pony tails, black lipstick and the collar, it does give one strange but interesting thoughts about female Vampires. I’ve heard they bite when they want to be intimate.

Unfortunately as a resistor to their techniques that might help soften the pain of such an encounter, I have a sneaking suspicion that it would still go badly if the biting were done in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I’ve researched it on the web. Fear the ever growing power of Google. But the stories that I’ve found have only served to give me plenty of other kinky information to ponder about Vampires. We apparently live in some very strange, yet interesting times.

Still the biting part still bothers me; maybe -- but then again, maybe not. Imagination can be a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.

If you happen to spend enough time around Vampires, you may notice that they can, and do sit perfectly still for very long periods of time. Don’t bother trying to interpret why they do it; they simply do it at odd times for reasons that they don’t apparently consider odd. They could be preparing to strike or simply exercising idle curiosity as they watch you watch them.

I’d actually been testing this theory as Abby sat near the cockpit and watched me during the flight. A common sign of life might be regular chest movement when someone breaths.

Alright, I admit it; studying her breathing habits gave me an excuse to watch her chest, but anything for science right? I’m fortunate to have very good peripheral vision.

After much observation, she didn’t appear to breath on any regular basis; nor blink all that often either.

I’ve read that after a while, Vampire victims actually kind of forget Vampires were even near them -- but I know better. I’ve been around them long enough to know that you never, ever want to forget that a Vampire is watching you. Even if she is cute and dressed in a well fit tux that might lack signs of panty lines.

It just leads to bad things happening. But truth be told, I was getting bored and was really in need of some conversation. Perhaps getting to know the help might pass the time better. Or was it torture the help; I forget how Leviticus used to put it. I’ll have to ask him when we arrive. It should be an interesting reunion of sorts, having been almost been ten years since I’d visited either him or his KOTC studios.

“Abby, if you’d like to join me, you’re certainly welcome.” I finally offered, closing my eyes to consider what the cards had been really trying to tell me. You don’t have to actually speak all that loud as Vampires have very good hearing. Without opening my eyes I could sense her settling in across the table. But I have to admit I’m sort of cheating. My spider senses told me exactly what she did when she got up and sat down -- and spider senses never lie. They can be distracted by struggling prey every so often, but lie; never.

To kill my boredom, I’d tried to count how many spiders were up with the pilots or back with the luggage; but I found myself distracted while wondering if the spiders would get frequent flier miles. That would be a painful irony, I suspect. You know flies, spiders and webs? You can’t be serious that you don’t get it. Oh well, arachnid humor can be like that, I guess.

Opening my eyes I found that she’d removed her jacket and the hat. Turns out she’s more stylish than I’d given her Goth look credit for; black leather wrist guards matched the collar around her neck. She’d picked up the Tarot deck and began shuffling the cards from hand to hand -- a trick that I’d not yet mastered, but had fun watching someone who had. Perhaps it was the black nails flashing as the cards moved through the air. Boredom can do strange things to a person. She smiled as she did it, and suddenly I smelled a card shark -- the glint of amusement in her dark eyes probably tipping me off.

“May I?” She asked, gesturing to the table. I nodded and watched her prepare for her first spread. She started as I had, setting up the initial three card layout. Past, present and future were each represented by a face down card. Instead of turning them over right away, she moved them around on the table. “Chaos effect” She mumbled without looking up. Flipping them over left to right, I was startled to see the same cards that I’d spread on my first attempt.

Justice represented the Past. I’ve come to know this as the “what goes around comes around” card. Death marked the present. Unlike the common misunderstandings of that particularly nasty card, it usually represents a growing phase more-so than actual death. I’ve seen folks have mild heart attacks when that card had turned up for them.

Finally the future was displayed as the Queen of Swords which meant that others will suffer the consequences of their actions. Yeah, even after I’d seen it so many times in a row, it’d still made no sense to me either.

“Interesting” She murmured with the same puzzled annoyance that I’d had when first seeing them. Picking up the cards, she moved on to her next spread. It is not entirely uncommon to see the same cards show up during different spreads; just not back to back without knowing what thoughts were being concentrated on. This was the first that I’d ever seen it happen between two readers on their first spreads; each person having a different karma, for want of a better explanation.

Reshuffling the cards from hand to hand again, she followed up with a horseshoe spread. Once more the cards were laid out and shuffled around on the table as she’d done before; chaos theory apparently again in action.

Slowly she flipped each card over as I held my breath. The same cards I’d set out were now showing up for her. Once again, they’d started with Justice, passed through Death and ended with the Queen of Swords. I got up to fix a drink as she looked through the cards. What cards that’d fallen between the three were not as important as the major elements of the path to the result; such being the strange ways of things Tarot.

When she started laying out the Celtic Cross, I was a little startled. Okay, a lot startled. Not many Tarot card readers use the same schema for spreads. The odds of that are somewhere between … okay, let’s just say it’s rare.

As I saw the chaos effect rear its ugly head again, the same cards I’d seen now were causing her much of the same consternation that I’d suffered.

Justice throws to Death who turns and rifles one to the Queen of Swords for a triple play. Three outs, end of the inning; change of sides. The cards that fell in between only seemed to help lead from one to the other with each spread … again.

“What is with this deck?” She muttered, more to herself than as a question to me.

Having seen how the cards had run earlier, I just sipped my rum and coke, watching her shuffle. “No offense, but I’d suggest we give up on those,” I offered as she prepared for her next spread. I already knew what the result was going to be and didn’t want her to become as unsettled as I had suddenly discovered I was; karma shmarma.

“Alright” She agreed with a sly grin, setting the cards to one side and resting her elbows on the table while tilting her head a little to one side. Ok, I’ll admit it; pony tails can be fun to look at; mental note to self -- check alcohol content in the house rum.

“Tell me about Chastity Belt and how long until Candyman goes gold. I like to keep my candy secret at five hundred and twelve bits.”

I could only smile, realizing where she’d learned my style of tarot reading; it all made sense now. I’d designed a firewall application that secured data with a database as independent elements rather than as a whole.

This made hacking much harder as each data file, or element, had its own separate security wall protecting it. At first the marketing people had scoffed and squabbled about the name, but once it caught on in the public domain; it stuck. Rumor has it there are even plans for tee shirts with the logo “have you checked your Chastity Belt lately?”

Apparently there are those who know what real chastity is. The secret, as I’d revealed in several published articles about the program, was in the use of Tarot card logic. There really isn’t anything as random as a Tarot deck. Something is only really considered random if you don’t, or can’t understand it.

Candyman, on the other hand was the hack that would allow someone a chance to violate security shields. While testing it, I’d released beta versions which had spread far enough to cause concern; but, given the market that the concern created for sales of Chastity Belt, it seemed to alleviate many of our worries.

So far, Candyman could not break Chastity; unless certain parts of the program were activated, but normally it would fail. I like back doors that only someone like myself might know about; paint me the hacker.

We talked code, encryption, security and blue sky ideas for the rest of the flight.

By the time we landed in Toronto we were debating the number of violations that could be incurred by United States Customs if they found keys larger than one hundred and twenty-eight bits were in use.

Who knew you’d get charged for illegal munitions when that happened? Code considered ammunition was a bad sign of the times. But then that was the United States of America for you. Fortunately, we were now in great land of Canada.

You know, the land of “Ya, hey der eh?” Growing up where I had, with the combined influences of Northern Minnesota, Finland, Norway and tourists from Canada, you just couldn’t help but mix them up into such a distinctly un-succinct sentence.

We made it through customs in record time and I even allowed Abby to transport my luggage; I had to, she insisted. I think she enjoys role playing.

Turns out she is some sort of a lab technician specialist for LLI and had been working in the Redding area doing field studies for them. As her presence in Toronto had been requested on another matter, she’d volunteered to be my escort.

Someone at corporate must have thought I needed one apparently.

She has numerous bachelor degrees along with several masters and a few doctorate level degrees. Even a Vampire can be a geek it would seem; turns out she also studied forensics as a hobby -- ironic as it might have been for drawing her Vampiric interest as it apparently had.

Hobbies for Vampires could easily translate to careers for most mortals; they just have more time for hobbies to take up. She also promised to show me several new on-line computer games that she’d enjoyed. You could almost say she and I were a lot alike, except that she was, well … a Vampire. Small issue in the grander scheme of things, maybe.

I settled into the back of the limo as we headed into town. Abby took the shotgun position next to the driver and obliged client privacy by raising the divider. It was good to be back in Toronto. I wondered how many others had received the message and would be waiting for us at the KOTC studios.

I used the opportunity for a nap. The scenery along our route would be nothing new. I had seen it all before and could probably direct a tour bus if they needed me to. I was simply too tired and too comfortable thinking about tuxes without panty lines.

* * *