Mile High with a Vampire - Episode 11

Can you make cheese with Vampire breast milk if the nanobots exist in the milk? If you can, how much does someone need to eat before they become a vampire? I'm at the speculating again because of some information presented that utterly confused me and may have potentially broken the entire established lore for the series. 

Transcript

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Welcome back to Storytime with Uncle Beanbag, Mile High with a Vampire, Episode 11. What's the Brass Circle? Jet asked. And what does it matter if a couple of their members are spotted in Italy? I guess the Brass Circle is maybe an anti-vampire organization or one of the factions that's against the main vampires. Kind of like how the Volturi had other factions in Twilight that were against them. His gaze slid from Dante to Mortimer as he waited for an answer. Oh, the Mortimer thing, too. I completely ignored in the last chapter that Mortimer had a first name and Sam Mortimer was his wife, even though in the beginning of the chapter it said something Mortimer, Gail Mortimer or something like that. I can't remember his name now. But you know, the whole Mortimer Mortimer thing was when I was listening to it again, I'm like, oh, you just said his name like 20, 30 minutes before, you dumbass. As he waited for an answer because the man hadn't dragged them out of the garage jail cell at the back of the property to show them anything. He wanted to talk to them away from the women and tell them the latest developments that had come to light about the plane crash and the bombs that had caused it. At least that's what they'd told them he was gonna do as they'd finished talking to the pilot, Sid, and headed to the Jeep where the women had been waiting. However, he'd started this conversation with the announcement that the members of the Brass Circle had been spotted in Italy, and Jet had no idea who the hell they were or what it had to do with bombs on a plane. The Brass Circle are a group of rogues in China, Mortimer explained quietly. That is exactly what I thought then. Not the Chinese part, but it makes a lot of sense. But they aren't like other rogues, Dante put in. They're not insane and running around turning or killing immortals willy-nilly. They're in it for the money and power, they're organized and deadly, kinda like triads, I guess. They operate like nor uh mortal crime syndicate, but where a mortal crime syndicate might run underground and trade in sex slaves. They run something similar with mortals to be used as cattle to feed from, things like that. And you guys haven't done anything about it? Jed asked with amazement. I thought you were enforces and taking care of that stuff was your job. He addressed the question to Mortimer because Dante wasn't really an enforcer. His official job was the Knott Construction Company, but he offici he occasionally helped out if the enforcers needed a hand. Mortimer Howard was supposed to be head of the Immortal Enforcers in North America. Makes me wonder too how many other clans there are, because you have the knots, you have the Arginaux. Arginaux is probably the biggest. Did you miss the part about being a group in China? Mortimer asked dryly. We don't have any more right to go over there and take care of the brass circle than the mortal police have to send cops to take care of the mob in Italy. He scowled them briefly, but then admitted Lucian and a couple of the other council heads from Europe have offered to help out to eradicate the brass circle, but the head of the council in China refused their offer. Why? Jet asked once. He thought they'd want to be rid of a group like that by any means possible. They say because it was starting a dangerous president, but we suspect it's really because members of the council over there are paid off or blackmailed into letting the brass circle do what they want. Brass Circle keeps reminding me of the brass rings in Merry-GoRounds that they used to have. I never saw that personally, but it used to be a thing on a merry-go-round where you would have a setup on the side that I would have a brass ring that as you go around, you're supposed to grab and pull the ring off. And I don't remember if there was a prize associated with it if you did do that or if you got to go around again. But it was a pretty popular thing for the beginning of the Merry Ground's life. I'm probably sure that it's not going to be related to that. Cause it would be the brass ring if it was, but maybe Hm, Jet Mothered, thinking. Didn't that figure. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised that there might be corruption among the immortal governing officials just as there was with mortal ones. Immortals are humans of long lives, they suffered under the same greed and flaws as mortals. Sighing, he pushed away those thoughts and said, Okay, what is a couple of their members have being spotted in Italy to do with my plane crashing? That's how it's written. Jet glanced at Dante first, but he shook his head, apparently having no idea. When Jet turned to Mortimer, the man hesitated but finally said Well, Pet and Quinn's mother and stepfather were murdered by the brass circle when they were children. Okay. I totally forgot the pet and the Petronella and Quinn connection to China. Shit what? Jet asked with amazement. Mortimer nodded. It's why they were sent to live with the Stones in America. Mr. Stone was their mother's best friend since school and was their godmother, but they still did have a family in China on their mother's side who could have raised them. However, the enforcers on their case thought it would be safer for them to disappear. Why, Jed asked him once and why were their mother and stepfather killed? Their stepfather was an enforcer who was pursuing the brass circle, and so Okay, that brings in a lot more light that their stepfather was I'm assuming to be an enforcer you have to be an immortal nanobot vampire. So their stepfather was at least was a nanobot vampire. So they have connections to the clans and everything and the vampire world beyond what happened with the oh. That's why the rogue moved in next door. That's why the rogue attacked Patrick and everybody else. And you know, Patrick Hmm. See, that's an interesting thought there, too. So it wasn't just a random attack to kill everybody, but I wonder if the goal was to actually kill anybody. If it was just to turn them and then use them. We'll have to figure we'll have to find out. I mean, I'm maybe they'll cover that. I'm sure they will by the end of the book. It's an interesting thought though. Oh, Jet said with surprise. Anyways, I was saying the stepfather's trying to uncover the higher ups in the brass circle. Actually, he was part of the task force of enforces trying to unravel the group. But the story is someone was passing information about the task force to the brass circle members were being identified and killed off one after the other, and their families were killed along with them as brutally as possible as a warning to others to leave the organization alone. I gathered the stepfather wasn't taking protects protects. I gathered the stepfather wasn't taking steps to protect his family. I almost said protects to step his family. His wife wouldn't leave him, but he convinced her to arrange for the children to go to America to stay with a dear friend, Mrs. Stone for a while. The Stones flew over to collect the girls and take them back to America, but they arrived the morning after the murders. They were the ones to find the charred remains in the courtyard, and Pet and Quinn hiding in a closet inside the house. Are the Stones vampires? Are they aware of all this shit happening? Hell, Jet breathed, imagining a sweet faced little Quinn cowering in a closet listening to the screams of her parents being murdered. Taking a deep breath to clear the thought from his head, he asked. So the enforcers were worried the brass circle might try to kill Quinn Pet if they stayed in China? The couple little girls? Why would they bother? Because it would scare the hell out of the other enforcers, Mortimer said simply. Just suppose that was true enough, still. Okay, but they'd hardly come after them now all these years later, would they? And how would they even know who and where they were? Probably wasn't very hard to kind of follow the stones and keep track of them. How did they know who the enforcers were that were chasing them? Mortimer asked with a shrug and then answered the question himself. By paying for the information, probably. He was silent for a minute, then added, as for their coming after them now, after all these years, he shrugged. They're known to be vengeful and have long memories. Yeah, well if they're immortals. And it's not really all that long. It's only been what, thirty years since then? And they were spotted in Italy? Jet asked with a frown. Mortimer nodded. When? Santo noticed some men watching Pet and Quinn at the airport and recognized that they were immortals. He couldn't read them, but he didn't like the way that they were watching them. He said it was predatory. Santo's pretty old, Jet pointed out with concern. Very old, Dante agreed. His next line is really confusing to the whole nanobot vampire thing. Which leads me to believe that she's going to have them be time travel nanobots or she's going to have them be alien tech that crashed on Earth a very long time ago. Because the line is he was born in 965 BC. Jet took a second to absorb that and then said, Well, hella he couldn't read these guys. 965 BC. 3,000 years ago. He's a Nanobot vampire. I mean it doesn't say it doesn't say if he is a regular vampire or nanobot vampire. It doesn't even say if there's regular vampires in here. There was a part in, I believe, chapter one or two where they talked about vampires being soulless and the nanobot vampires weren't. So that led me to believe that there's legitimate vampires and then there's scientific vampires. But Santo is with the rest of them, and he's 3,000 years old. So the only way that he could be a nanobot vampire is if he actually got nanobots time traveling. That doesn't make any sense. Maybe he was a vampire before and then was infected with the nanobots. What happens too if you have a different type of vampire and you infect them with the scientific vampire shit? Does that overwrite everything? Do the two get into conflicts? If you have a vampire that has uh very good regeneration, like a traditional, more demonic type vampire, does the nanobots trying to rewrite everything screw up because it keeps trying to regenerate as it the old part was? I'm probably way overthinking this, and I don't think Lindsay probably even thought a damn about any of that, but more questions, man, with that one line than anything else. They must be older, Mortimer finished for him. So he can't Santo can't read them because they're older than him. They're older than 3,000 years old. Alright. Right, he breathed in and shook his head. Okay, so Santo sees some old immortals watching the girls end, and he was starting to get twitchy about it, but then the men left and he forgot about it. He didn't think of it when he heard about the plane being missing. But when he found out about the bombs on the plane, Mortimer explained, he immediately went to the airport and got pictures of them from security footage and took it to the main enforcer base in Italy. One of their people is able to identify them as Yun Xian and Xiing Liang. Although they'd say it was the other way around in China. Sheng Yun and Nangxiing. They say the last name first over there, kinda like Japan. He explained and then went on. Both men are equally suspected of being members of the brass circle. Did the council put protection on pet? Dante asked with concern. Mortimer nodded. Pet Parker Santo were immediately taken into protection. Okay, so this is this is another thing why I really fucking hate the whole lifemate situation shit. Santo has been alive since 965 BC or whatever the fuck it was. It's on the other page. I'm not gonna go turn back to it. He's been alive that goddamn long, and only now, 3,000 years later, has he met his life mate, Petronella, and they're together 3,000 fucking years, and nobody else fit that criteria in that time for him except Petronella. I don't know if they're saying that it's one person for your entire existence, but they kind of hinted that, or if they're saying that every so often there's another one. Like if one dies, does it reset and then you can find your life mate again some other time? Are there it wouldn't be the way that she wrote this, but it should be that there's multiple options that are available that are very close, and then if you spend if you come across one of them, I was gonna say if you spend time in proximity with them, it develops, but it's not like that because it's like an instant bullet thing. Because with Jet, as soon as he saw Quinn the first time, he was fucking hooked. So it's gotta be that once you're around somebody, it clicks, but it didn't click for Quinn. Is that because she was processing all the trauma or and just ignored it? Because she she doesn't even know who the fuck Jet was at that point, even though they'd met several times or been around each other several times in a very limited capacity. She had no fucking clue who Jet was up until their crash, but Jet had been lusting after her for four fucking years. This is why the whole life made business is super fucking confusing. Because if it's one person, that means Santo never had any of that until 3,000 years after he was fucking born. And what happens if Santo dies or Petronella dies, would it be another thousand years for Santo? Would Petronella's lifemate not exist anymore because he died before they could get together? I don't like any of it, Lindsay. I just I just think it's like it's like alternate universe shit. A mere universe shit, I should say, where you go into the mirror universe and yourself is standing there and it's just like a a mirror version of you. Statistically, that is absolutely fucking impossible because in order for you to exist, all the decisions that were made to bring you about have to be made to bring about an alternate version of you. Any little bit of variation there, and it's not gonna be you because your father's sperm that turned out to be you almost said infected, impregnated your mother's egg at that specific time, and no other time could have been any of the other millions of sperm that were there, but it wasn't. It was that one sperm in that one egg at that one time that produced you. And any other variation of that, your father decided to, you know, not get hard that night, or couldn't get hard that night. Your mother decided to take birth control, your mother had too many drinks and passed out, and so they never had sex that night. Any of those variants, but that's just small scale. Let's go bigger scale. Let's say four or five generations down the line, your grandfather doesn't end up getting off the boat in America, he dies of fever on the way over. No, that entire fucking line's gone. You're gone. Everything that pre you know came after him preceded? No, preceded before. Everything that descended from him is gone because he died before he could pass on his genes. That's why I don't like mirror universe shit, because there's way too many statistical improbabilities for it to happen that if I slip into a mere universe, all of a sudden my counterpart's there. Or like if my counterpart's there but my counterpart's female, that doesn't work either for me because that we have the same parents in both universes. Well, that means statistically, all of their fucking choices led up to that, which it you know, when you go to a mere universe, it shows and you see yourself, it shows immediately that there is no free will in the universe and that everything's predestined. Which I don't like, which leaves into the lifemate shit. So that's why I keep going on rants about lifebates and stuff, because it's an erosure of free will. If everything is predestined, that means we'd have no choice. Any decision we make does not matter at all. Which I don't like because I like having free agency over my choices and responsibility for my choices. And if you don't have a choice, everything's predestined. There's no responsibility for anything. Doesn't matter what you choose, that's what it was going to be to begin with. And it's bullshit. Because life doesn't work that way. Mortimer nodded. Pet Parker and Santa were immediately taken into protection. Jet had been listening silently, but now said, I still don't understand why the Brass Circle tracked down Quinn and Pet after all this time. You don't have some kind of file on them listing their history or something, do you? No, Mortimer assured him and then grimaced and added, I wish we had. Then we might have thought to have Quinn pick a different name for the new Canadian ID and bank accounts that were set up for her last week when she arranged to come here. Jack glanced at him with surprise. She changed her name? Mortimer nodded, and then said, Finally we've been trying to get her to pick a new name and birth date ever since she was turned, but she refused. Since she was going to be in Italy where no one was likely to know the name Quinn Peters, we didn't push it. But Lucian insisted she had to if she wished to come back to the side of the pond, as he put it. Why? Jet asked. It'd be super fucking funny if she chose the last name Lasseter. I don't know if that's where it's gonna go. And if it does, then that means Quinn was very aware of Jet. She just suppressed everything. Mortimer shrugged. I suspect it was his way to make her finally choose a name and birthday. Greg thinks doing that often helps a person adjust to their new circumstances. Greg Hewitt, Marguerite's son-in-law, the psychologist? Jet asked. Why is it why is he asking in on the page it's written like he's completely shocked at that about that? Greg Hewitt, Margaret's son-in-law, the psychologist? I I don't know why it's written like that. Jet asked when Mortimer nodded, he asked, So what's her new name? No, it's not Lassiter. It's interesting. She's Quinn Feon Ming now on her paperwork, and Parker is Parker Ming. Jet liked it. He thought Feon was a beautiful name, but he didn't understand why it would have made her a target. I don't understand what the name means. It's probably one of those things where Lindsay Sands either ran it through a translator to try to get something to pick up or ask one person. It's like when people get tattoos in Chinese or Japanese, have no idea what the fuck it says, and it does not say at all what they mean. My friend Bruce got one of those. I think it was on his shoulder. And I don't remember the kanji, but he said it was supposed to say Immortal Warrior, and it came out from I think I snapped a picture of it and sent it to my brother-in-law back when he and my sister were dating before they were married, who speaks Japanese and and reads Japanese. I think it came out as in like Happy Goldfish or something like that. Mortimer seemed to realize that because he said Quinn and Pet's mother was spaying Ming after she married Tiang Ming, their lifemate. Okay. I'm taking a pause to process information. I'm not reading ahead just yet because well, the stepfather was the enforcer. So are they talking about the stepfather? Their mother was the lifemate to the stepfather, and she hadn't been turned yet because if they had been like if their father or mother had been a vampire, they would have been a vampire because they would have been born that way. But they weren't. Both of them were born. See, this this is just annoying because it gets it takes all the special shit and just kind of crams it down your throat. Instead of Quinn just being, you know, all the stuff that she was, and then she just happened to encounter a rogue vampire that fucked over her life entirely. This is more that predestination shit where she was born if you take Star Wars, for example, like Ray Palpatine. She was born a Palpatine, so she was destined to have this thing happen. It's just like I don't fucking like any of that shit. I don't like any of that shit pulling back to it. Cause it I'd much rather it be like a mundane situation where people are thrown into extraordinary circumstances instead of this is always gonna catch up with them because it's part of their past, even though they weren't aware of it. Just um I don't like that type of writing. Quinn probably took her mother's name to honor her, but but it's brought the brass circle down on them, Jet breathed in realization. She probably didn't think it would matter this long after her parents' death, Dante murmured, but Mortimer shook his head. Well of course it's gonna matter. They're immortals. They have long fucking memories. Quinn's an idiot, though. She doesn't know it wouldn't matter anyway, according to Pet. Quinn doesn't remember anything from their past in China. As far as she's concerned, their mother and stepfather died in a car accident and the stones adopted them. Okay, well that makes sense a little bit more. How is that possible, Jet asked with disbelief? You said they were found hiding in a closet. I assume they witnessed the murders or at least heard them. Otherwise, why were they hiding? They witnessed them, Mortimer assured him. Pet remembers it all, but I guess Quinn blocked it from her memory. She came away not remembering any of it, and when she asked where her mother was, Mrs. Stone said she'd been in a car accident, and Quinn believed her and has believed her ever since, he shrugged. Pet apparently tried to tell her the truth when they were still kids, but Quinn didn't believe her and got angry at her for trying to scare her with what she called monster stories. Pet never tried again. Lucy doesn't want her told, Mortimer admittedly Fuck. Said solemnly. Six pages this time. We're at eleven chapters. Every single fucking chapter has had at least one. Most of them have had more than one. I really wish we could stop with that. And then I'm listening to another podcast. I don't know. Remember what the hell the podcast was. And somebody was saying, Well, not to be solemn about it, and I just went, Fuck, god damn it, fuck. It's such a I hate this term, but it's such a triggering word now. Anytime I see it anywhere or hear it anywhere, I'm like, fuck you, Lindsay. Well, that's solemn number one. At least not by us. He wants it left to whoever counsels her to handle it and to get her to remember her own on her own to avoid more damage being done to her psyche. Jet's eyebrows rose slightly. Lucy and Arjuno has always been s had always been square with him. He was the one who actually gave him a job as the pilot with Argino Enterprises, but he knew the man had to rep as a total hard ass among the immortals. So I was somewhat surprised by his handling this so sensitively. Yeah, they're reading him. Don't be too impressed, Dante said with amusement, because he just read his mind. Lucian just doesn't have like oh fuck. Lucian just doesn't like having to put down lame immortals and hoping to avoid and oh my fucking lord. Lucian fuck. I can't read this. Lucian just doesn't like having to put down lame immortals and is hoping to avoid it. You think that would be an easy sentence for me to come out with? Jack glanced at him sharply. Put down, he wouldn't kill Quinn. Dante hesitated but then said It won't be an issue. We won't tell her and risk her going crazy. She'll dig it up naturally in counseling and be fine. We don't even know yet if the brass circle planted the bombs, Mortimer pointed out before Jack could pursue the matter of Quinn possibly being put down. The two men Santa saw might have just been looking at the girls because they're attractive. Dante scowled. I'm surprised Santo didn't get the security footage of the plane while he was getting the pictures of he did, Mortimer erupted. Erupted? Interrupted. Apparently they're being viewed now, but there are hours of taste from several different cameras to look at. They'll contact us if they find anything. Dante nodded and then commented, Well, at least Basha and Marcus won't have to make a trip to Italy to get them. Yes, and Bastion, more people I don't fucking know. Won't have to scramble to find a pilot to take them, he pointed out unhappily and told Jet. Bastion's gonna be very happy if it turns out that the Brass Circle are behind this and you can be released from protective custody. He's going trick crazy trying to cover all the flights out there right now. He's down two pilots with Jeff Dead and you in lockdown. Yeah, well, if it turns out the Brass Circle is behind this and they're gunning for Quinn, he can forget about my going back to work until it's resolved. I'm not leaving her side until it's over and she's safe. Because you're life mates, which I fucking hate the whole fucking concept. Which I've talked about now at length. Can't promise I won't bring it up more, but I think I've stated my point pretty clearly on that. You may not agree with my views on it, which is fine, but I tend to come at it more from like a practical instead of philosophical thing. I don't I was about to say I don't like the concept at all, but I've already said that several times too. So now we're switching perspective again. Hmm. Sounds to me like Jets feelings hurt ultimate Well, fuck me. Let's try this again. Hmm, sounds to me like Jets feeling hurt and ultimately rejected, Marguerite decided when Quinn finished telling them about what happened on the plane. I haven't rejected him, Quinn protested at once. Dear girl, you told him you're not ready for a life, mate, Marguerite pointed out. Why are they siding with her? She said not ready. She didn't say not sometime. But still we talked, I already covered that last chapter. Yes, but we could still have sex and make him a booty call, Marguerite suggested. Quinn flushed at the gentle accusation. Marguerite made it sound so toddry. What was wrong with taking him as a lover rather than his life mate business? Maybe he's hoping she'll decide she's ready for a life mate after all, if it's the only way she can have sex with him, Sam suggested into the silence that followed. That's possible, Marguerite agreed and then glanced at Mary. What do you think? They're you're the psychologist. Hurt feelings are blackmailing her into accepting him exchange for sex. What? Are okay. My diagnosis would be extreme sexual frustration and feeling out of control combined with the fear of losing her, Mary said slowly. Feeling out of control, Quinn asked with surprise. Mary raised one eyebrow. Do you feel like you have any control over your desires or body when he's around? Because I know I didn't with Dante, and good lord it was awful, she admitted without embarrassment. I was a retired old widow and Dante looked like he was younger than my own children. I felt like a dirty old woman lusting after a baby and lectured myself repeatedly to behave, but all he had to do was touch me and I went up in flames and tried to climb up him like some young Hotsy totsi totse. Alright. Still do, she admitted with a grin. As the women chuckled softly, she continued, the desire spurred between life baits is irresistible and leaves the couple feeling out of control. It can be almost it can be most alarming. As for Jet, that's compounded by the back fact fuck me. As for Jet, that's compounded by the fact that for him it started four years ago. What? Quinn asked with amazement. She had vague recollection of Jet mentioning that he'd been attracted to her since first meeting her, but that had been in the dream. Besides, being attracted to her was far away from the madness that overcame them every time they touched one another. He's felt this uncontrollable attraction for you since welcoming you to his plane the night he flew you. Marguerite and Julius back to Toronto from Albany four years ago, Mary explained. Every woman he's dated and had relations with since he has worn. Wow, I read that one wrong. Since he has worn your face. That's not what it says. And all of a sudden I started thinking about like Buffalo Bill, even though Buffalo Bill didn't technically wear a face, but he had a skin suit full of women skin. Let me try this part again. And Julius back to Toronto from Albany four years ago, Mary explained. Every woman he's dated and had relations with since has worn your face when he's closed his eyes and he sought out information about you at every turn, feeling like a stalker even as he did it, but unable to stop himself. He was starting to worry that there was something wrong with him psychologically, and he should seek help. So he's either talked to Mary about this or they've heard this 'cause he keeps pouring over in his head. But if we're life mates, why didn't I feel that way? That's the question I had too. Quinn asked with concern. I don't even remember him or the flight even really. You were not in a good place then, Margaret said number two solemnly. Ugh You weren't aware of much of anything. Your mind was having trouble accepting what had happened and kind of shut down for a bit to allow you to adjust. That's why we didn't drive you back in the RB as we'd planned. We flew you back to Toronto. There was a silence for a minute, and then Sam muttered, Poor bastard, it must be for help for him right now. I mean, if he thought he was going crazy before even touching you, now that he knows what he's missing, the possibility of losing you must be making him bonkers. He's afraid that if Quinn refuses him as a lifemate as part of her self punishment, she turned into a crazy Renfield eating bugs and following her around he'd turn into a crazy Renfield. Like eating bugs following her around like a lapdog, Mary told him. So she's been listening in on everything Jet's been broadcasting. What? Quinn turned on her with horror. That's the pure utmost in his mind, Mary assured her. But that wouldn't happen, would it? she asked with concern. Why, Mary arched one eyebrow? Are you planning on using him as part of your self-flagellation as he fears? Having sex with him when the urge strikes you, but never claiming him and allowing him a proper relationship. Quinn scowled. What's wrong with that? It's not like is it the nineteenth century? People take lovers all the time. Why do I have to claim him? What does that even mean? Marriage? she shook her head. Marriage is an antiquated institution. And I don't just have any more children. What? Oh, and I don't plan to have any more children. So why can't we just be lovers and enjoy each other? How thoroughly modern of you, Quinn, Marguerite said with amusement and then explained. Claiming him has nothing to do with marriage. It means turning him and accepting him into your life as a partner. It's a lifetime commitment. There's no divorce with the mortals. Once you're fully bond, it's for life. Okay, but then what happens after? If one of you dies, then does like I said before in the whole life mate fucking discussion, does the clock reset? Is there another possibility three thousand more years in the fucking future? Stupid. The way I would like to approach something like that is if the two of you get to that point where you want to be parabonded for the rest of your immortal lives, then you should go through some type of like ceremony in which there are physiological changes to make you mated for life. That would make a lot more sense than the whole fucking life mate shit. It's it's the it's the you know the imprinting on Twitch. I said I wasn't gonna talk about it, but I'm still over and I didn't say I wasn't gonna talk about it, so I probably will talk about it. I didn't whatever. Okay, let's move on, because I've already gone over that at at you know at length. Quinn winced at those words, her mouth tightening at the thought of doing to Jet what her husband had done to her. She hated Patrick for turning her. How could she then do that to someone else? And how would Jet feel if she turned him into a monster like she had become? Wow, now I think my feelings are hurt, Sam said wryly, and then when Quinn Quinn glanced at her what? Quinn okay. When Quinn glanced at her in question, explained, Well, it's never nice to know someone sees you as a monster. I don't think you're a monster, Quin said awarily and then scowled. Besides, it's your own fault for reading my mind. Fascinating, Marguerite murmured. Mary nodded. Her reasoning mind doesn't think we are monsters just because we're immortals, but her subconscious, what Freud calls the id, does. Suggestophobia, perhaps your subconscious reacting to a past experience. Oh. So that's why Quinn used the whole vampire shit as monsters because the vampires tore apart her parents or mother and stepfather. She narrowed her eyes on Quinn and asked, Have you encountered immortals before, Quinn? What? she asked with a start, and automatically shook her head through a flicker of memory tried to rise up in her that she almost habitually pushed back down. Mary's eyes narrowed further and she asked, Are you sure? You've never even heard of immortals before Patrick attacked and turned you? Quinn hesitated, recalling Pet trying to tell her some story about their parents at one time, but the memory is a whisper. She couldn't quite hear her, and finally she shook her head again. No. Couldn't Patrick's attack be at fault? Sam asked. I mean, it must have been traumatic. I hear he was crazy looking and his clothing was filthy filthy, torn and covered in blood, and then he ripped his wrist open and nearly drowned her, making her swallow his blood. That could give anyone a phobia. Heck, the turn was traumatic for me and I knew what to expect. Quinn didn't. Hmm, Mary murmured. But she was looking at Quinn in a way that made her terribly uncomfortable. Okay, so to turn somebody you have to give them your blood, which is standard vampire stuff. But so you can't turn people by just having sex with them. You can have children as a vampire that are vampires. If you have sex with a woman and you're a vampire, how many times do you need to come in her before she becomes a vampire? Does it work that way? Probably not. But that like there's logical inconsistencies with the whole however all the shit works. Because it should be a significant amount of bodily fluid, no matter what. If your life mates are fucking constantly. If you're a male as a vampire, I can see it not really working that way as a female because you're not ejaculating anything into the male, as far as I'm aware. I mean, I have seen some interesting Japanese comics that say different. But with how all of that works, if you're fucking constantly and you're coming inside of her a lot, like how much blood does it take to turn? So how much semen would it take, nanobot infused semen, by the way, would it take to turn her? But the other issue with that too is that if the semen doesn't have nanobots in it and it doesn't work that way, then you can't produce children that way that are vampires. But are people Okay, this is another part of the fucking shit that just confuses me. If you can't legitimately produce vampire children by fucking and impregnating somebody and having them give birth to a vampire child, not a vampire child, does that mean then uh like with Mormon tradition, it's w with the when the baby's born within a couple weeks you do a baptism, then you also or no, sorry, it's not a baptism. That's that's Catholic, it's a blessing that you know you you basically put the baby up in front of the congregation, you bless them and everything. Because in Catholicism and other Christian sects, it's and Mormonism is not a Christian sect, by the way. Fucking wild what some of the fucking shit that we believe. Well, I say we, I'm not Mormon anymore, haven't been for a long time, but anyways, Mormons are not Christians, even though they claim they are. But other Christian sects will do baby baptisms in the baptismal pont and everything, which is fine, but it makes me wonder if after the baby's born are they forcibly turning them into immortal nanobot vampires by giving them blood? Do vampires exist within breast milk? Do vampires exist within breast milk? That doesn't fucking make sense. Do nanobots exist within the breast milk? Is it just blood? Because they need blood to power them. But how the fuck do you get children off of that if they're not cum powered, if they're not breast milk powered? It doesn't make any fucking sense. So someone has to if there's just pure blood, someone has to be forcibly turning children when they're come out. Because I know placental material and umbilical cord and everything filters out a lot of the toxins from whatever the the mother is ingesting or exposed to, uh, but nanobots need the blood to power them, which is the entire reason that the fucking nanobots are associated with the vampire shit to begin with, is because they need that extra blood. Lindsay, all of this is so fucking confusing because there's no clear stuff, and I would much rather prefer it to become organically through conversation, but like in the first chapter, she established a hell of a lot of the fucking lore, and I've been pondering over it now for almost three months since I read that, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on with all of this shit, because it's so ridiculously absurd, and I want an explanation, and logically, I can't come up with one except for the nanobot vampires are most likely either time travel or alien tech if people like Santo have been around for 3,000 years and are nanobot vampires, and then as soon as their children are born, they're force-feeding them nanobot blood to turn them into vampires. Because in Parker's case, he became a vampire, but he's still aging. And they've talked about you know people who were born vampires, or they've alluded to, I mean, I don't know if we've addressed anybody actually being born a vampire yet, but they've alluded to that's a very sh, you know, that's a possibility. People can be born vampires, but because the nanobots function on blood, they can't be born a vampire through cum, or they can't be born a vampire and then like suckle at a tit for breast milk. Can you make nanobot vampire cheese? See, that's the other part, too, is like if they come through breast milk, then you can make cheese out of it. And then if somebody eats a copious amount of nanobot vampire cheese, which you know, like I said before, with human cheese, the enzymes don't quite make a nice solid cheese, so it would be a soft cheese that would be good for the fat quality content and everything. But if people eat like a lot of cheese, do they become nanobot vampires? See, what the fuck? And I guarantee you, Lindsay Sands has never thought that extensively about any of this. She probably just came up with it like 30 pages, 30-something books ago, and she's been slowly building on it since. But this is the kind of question that drives me nuts with shit like this. Because I want it to function within rules in the story, and it just doesn't. Unless there's some wild piece of information that's going to drop by the end of this book. Probably not. Hmm, Mary murmured. She is looking at her uh she's looking at Quinn in a way that made her terribly uncomfortable. Well, Marguerite said. You'll have to work with her on that, Mary. But what if But what if she can't help Quinn get Hmm what if she can't help Quinn get past her phobia? Sam asked with a frown. We just leave poor Jet to be her Renfield. Quinn scowled at the suggestion. Jet wouldn't be a Renfield. They could be lovers and friends, and no, of course not, Margaret said. He deserves a chance of the life of the partner who can love him as he deserves. If what did you say deserves twice? If Quinn can't move past this phobia of hers, we will wipe his memory and let him go find a mortal woman who can give him love and the children a happy mortal life, so that's a thing they can do. Wipe his memory. Quinn stared at her with dismay of this news. Well then what happens to Quinn at that point if their life mate bond? You know, if they're uh it all just ties back into that fucking shit. If Quinn can't get past it, they're gonna wipe Jet's mind and let him go beyond. Then what the fuck happens with Quinn? And Jet's probably still gonna have this deep lawning for something. He won't know what. Or perhaps I can find him another immortal who he might be a life mate to. That right fucking there. That right fucking there. Okay. That fucking line. Let me read the entire paragraph again. Quinn stared at her with dismay at this news, and then the woman added, or perhaps I can find him another immortal who he might be a lifemate to. So it's there is choice, kind of, but it's the worst possible thing because there it does exist the ability now. That line tells me everything I need to know right there. There exists the ability to have more than one life mate. But I don't like how it's like instantaneous for the people. Fuck, dude. There's no choice in the matter. There are other potentials, is what Lindsay Sands just established, but there's no fucking choice in who your life mate actually is. But that tells me that they're not locked immediately. So maybe Santo did have life mates in the past, but they passed on for whatever reason. Oh fuck, I hate this shit so much. Hey, read a vampire romance fiction. Mile high with a vampire. Start your podcast off with it. Sounds kind of interesting. And then you can talk randomly about shit that happened in your life. First episode, yeah, okay, we got that done. It's pretty good. 30 minutes in, nanobap nanobot vampire shit drops. Completely fucking breaks your brain. Nearly three months later, you're still trying to figure out what the fuck any of this is, and you're going into insane depths with it. It's like a house of madness in which your mind is trying to fucking make any sense of this, and all everything you've been postulating gets destroyed or rewritten with one line that has immeasurable consequences that you wonder if the author has even talked about to herself, or she just chucked that line in there because it sounded good at the time, not realizing that it's like universe changing for the everything she set up before. I couldn't have picked a better book to start this podcast with. Okay, that's the other thing too that I'm questioning right now. Or another thing. To be lifemates, you can't be vampires both of you. One of you has to be mortal. The mortal is a possible life mate for more than one, but once they become a vampire, I guess it's depends on who turns them. But if you're a vampire and you meet another vampire, you can't be lifemates. What none of this makes any fucking sense? Margaret said with a shrug and then grimace and added, it might mean Julius and I have to travel around quite a bit to find one. But he wants to travel more anyways. We haven't got out much since our RV trip was derailed. But he I you can't, Quinn stammered and able to get her protest out. We cannot stop you from punishing yourself, Quinn, Margaret said gently. Only you can decide to move past the self destructive urge. But we cannot allow you to punish Chad along with yourself. He deserves to be happy. She let her think about that for a moment and then added, but this probably isn't a worry anyways, you're going to be working with Mary to clear up your issues, so I'm sure everything will turn out fine. Apparently done with the conversation, then Marguerite turned to Sam and asked, How are your sisters, dear? I haven't seen Joe and Alex in a while. Everyone is so busy with their lives nowadays. Quinn didn't hear the other woman's answer. She was caught up in her thoughts and a sense of resentment at what she was being threatened with. Basically, unless she accepted Jet, which apparently translated to her turning him and making a lifetime commitment to him, they would take him away from her. That's kind of how it works, Quinn. Aside from the whole turning him into a monster issue she had, commitment was an anathema to Quinn at the moment as well. She'd been married once and that was enough. She'd watched it fall apart and suffered the ultimate betrayal when Patrick had basically killed her by turning her. Oh sure, she was still alive physically, but she wasn't human anymore, and Quinn Peters was dead. She was the immortal Quinn Pan Maine now, and had to start a new life. She lost everything that mattered to her. Well, not everything, she acknowledged. She still had Parker and Pet, and she was grateful for that, but Quinn had gone to school and trained for sixteen years to be a cart. Here we are again, cardiothoracic surgeon. Closer to thirty years of her life, really, if he included the kindergarten to grade twelve, and the majority of her life had been put towards her career, and then in one moment of selfish cruelty, Patrick, the man who had vowed before God and man to love and cherish her, had ripped it all away. Only a fool would tr risk trusting another man enough to let him into her life after something like that. I can very much sympathize with Quinn because of the past trauma that I went through, where it was a series of women, it wasn't just one, though, it was primarily one. Because of what they did to me. And I can't trust anyone like that ever again. Which is sad, but I'm 20 plus years now on that. I've come to terms with it. I know I'm fundamentally broken that way, but there's nothing I can do about it. Even therapy at this point wouldn't help. I've just lost all capacity to be intimate with anyone, which is fine, because you know uh I have the desire sexually, yeah, but I don't have the desire to physically be with someone. That's why I like monster girls, because the monsters on the outside, you know what you're getting in the package, instead of having them be sweet and then turning to other demons and fucking over your entire life. So I I sympathize with Quinn. Taking Jed as a lover was one thing, but committing to him and turning him she'd rather go back to her dull, empty existence at her cottage in Italy, avoiding people both mortal and immortal, and just let time sweep by until she was fortunate enough to die. That's not gonna happen for a long fucking time. Quinn winced at the thought. She even she knew it wasn't a healthy one, and what about Parker? What kind of mother would she be to him like that? Sure, Pet would step in and help, but it was the equivalent of Jet's mother crawling into a bottle and leaving him to be raised by Abigail's mom. Only in Parker's case it would be his aunt taking up the slack rather than the neighbor lady. So what should she do? Obviously she needed the counseling she'd come here for, but she wasn't looking forward to it. Quinn knew it would take a while, many sessions and hard work and all that crap. She wished there was just a pill she could give her, or that they could erase her memories of Patrick and being turned and whatnot. Maybe they could make her think she'd always been a mortal and that she was content to be one. That would be nice. But nothing was ever as easy as she suspected that would be the case here. Quinn scrubbed her phrase her face? I don't know what a fucking phrase is. Quinn scrubbed her face with frustration. She was so tired of being angry and confused. The only time she didn't feel like that was when Jet was with her. Then she felt alive and excited and there were like there was some hope in the world. But when he wasn't nearby, all these worries and fears crowded in and exhaustion settled over her like a smothering blanket. She wished she could just go to bed and forget everything for a while, but she had no idea where she was supposed to sleep, so she stood abruptly and murdered. I'm gonna go out and get some hair. When no one protested, she moved away from the table and headed out of the kitchen. Quinton wasn't aware that Bailey had followed her until she got to the front door and the dog bumped against her side. She is Bailey an immortal. That would be interesting if the dogs Oh so whoa, okay. Well, like Bunicula was a vegetable vampire. But there are other stories where creatures, pets, whatever you want to call them, are vampires with the people, like in The Littlest Vampire, I've only ever watched it once that I remember, but I remember there being a bunch of vampire cows for some reason. Are animals capable of becoming vampires through the nanobots? But are they also capable of overriding their baser instincts to constantly consume blood from a source? Because if you have an animal like a cougar that turns into a vampire, it will be constantly attacking and drinking blood from everybody. Interesting thought. Don't think anything's gonna come about it. Mary, is it okay if Bailey comes out with me? Sure, she probably needs to go potty anyways, Mary answered. Potty, huh? Quinn asked the dog and smiled crookedly when the German shepherd wagged her tail widely and barked. Potty it is, she said wryly and opened the door. Alright, well, that's chapter eleven. It's the bankruptcy chapter. Kind of fun, kind of interesting. Um, a little bit of weird lore-breaking shit that probably isn't lore-breaking in the grand scheme of things, but for right now I'm loathed to come to terms with what the fuck any of that meant because it's completely rewriting everything that has been established lore-wise before. Um I might expand upon that later. I might not, just because I want to kind of see where things are going before I do a big postulation at the end, uh, or you know, kind of explain how my thoughts are on this right now, because it's really jumbled. Like I can see everything clearly, but I can't translate that into a way that you can understand it right now. Because I need more information. I'm lacking critical information. So I'm hoping more pieces of the puzzle come in because I can make logical leaps, but I'm lacking enough information to make a really decent logical leap to kind of figure out exactly how all these pieces fit together. It's like looking at a jigsaw puzzle and you know, without looking at the box. So you have all these pieces and you can put them together and you can see, okay, this looks kind of like maybe a field of flowers. Maybe this is part of a chimney, so because there's a chimney there, there's gonna be a house, but you're missing the majority of the picture because there's just not enough information and not enough detail to fill in the rest of it. So I can say it's probably gonna be like some scene in the meadow in a cabin or something like that, but I don't want to commit to that yet until I start seeing what the roof looks like, what the walls look like. Is there like a horse pasture, you know, or is there a vehicle in front of the the place? That type of shit. So that's the more information that I need to draw the final conclusions there. Well, thanks for listening to episode 11. Join us next time for episode 12. We're only a couple months out until this book is over. Thank God. I don't know how many more solemnlies I can take. And if it shows up in another book written by a completely different author once or twice, I'm gonna lose my fucking shit.