Chapter Text
Asterisks (*) indicate a name or term taken directly from Scanners.
Disclaimer: I own nothing of The Strain or Scanners.
In te vivere amem,
tecum paratus sis mori.
[With you I should love to live,
with you be ready to die.]
—Horace
After the first nuke obliterated Liberty Island, it was like the entire world lost its mind. Just for a moment. Just long enough. Leaders panicked, buttons were pushed, missiles flew. And when the radioactive dust clogged the sky, the strigoi emerged. The Master's plan had come to fruition, and now he and his minions would rebuild the world as he saw fit. No more skulking in tunnels like rats. He was the dominant species now.
It had all happened so fast. Vasiliy could barely wrap his head around the fact. All the wars he recalled from history lessons raged for months, years, sometimes generations. This one began and ended in less than a day. One fucking day. And no one even knew who was fighting who, or why, or what the hell even set it all off. No one except Vasiliy Fet and the three other people in the room with him.
They were hiding out in an abandoned tenement too run down for even New York's notorious slumlords to bother with. None of them had spoken since they holed up here, each lost in their own brooding thoughts while the masses of strigoi swept through the city.
Fet cast a surreptitious glance towards the hunched form seated in a corner farthest from the rest of the group. Quinlan's face was still streaked with dirt from his earlier mishap in the initial explosion. Fet wondered just how badly the half-muncher was injured in the blast—he should've cracked a few ribs at least—but as usual Quinlan's stoic expression gave nothing away.
Dutch sat on a ratty ottoman a short distance to Fet's left, halfway between him and the Professor. Her arms were wrapped around herself, shoulders hunched, eyes fixed on her scuffed boots. She looked close to tears, but hadn't broken down so far. Vasiliy doubted it would take much to set her off, though. And who the hell would blame her? They'd failed. The Master won. Vasiliy was close to giving in and curling up in the corner in a sobbing mess himself.
Even Setrakian, whose stubborn refusal to give up had put everyone else to shame, seemed to have withered in defeat. The old man sat in a rickety chair directly across the room from Fet, clutching the Occido Lumen to his chest like a security blanket. Fet worried about the Professor; he'd never seen the old man look so frail.
As for Ephraim Goodweather, nobody had seen him since they left Stoneheart. Had he died as a result of the blast? Been taken or turned by the munchers? Was he wandering through the overrun city in search of them? In spite of recent friction between them, Fet truly hoped for the latter. The doc could be an arrogant prick at times, but he was still a valuable fighter. Then again, maybe none of that mattered anymore.
Movement from across the room drew Fet's attention back to Setrakian. The Professor set the Lumen down on his lap and opened the silver cover. As he leafed through the heavy tome, the others roused themselves from their introspection to observe him.
"Professor," Vasiliy spoke in a low voice, "What're you doing?"
"Looking for the answer," was the old man's terse response.
"What's the point?" Dutch muttered, "It's over. We lost."
Setrakian's hard gaze flitted up to pierce the young woman, then returned to the page. "We lost the battle, suffered a terrible blow, but the war is not over. Not while we still breathe."
"He's right," Quinlan's cultured voice startled Vasiliy. It wasn't that he forgot the Born was there, exactly. Just that the half-muncher was so silent and still, he seemed to vanish into the scenery like he was part of the furniture or something.
"The answer lies here," Setrakian tapped the book with a gnarled finger, "Somewhere."
A frustrated Fet gestured to him and Quinlan with a sweep of his arm. "You and the Wormless Wonder looked through that whole book forwards and backwards. What the hell d'you think you'll find in there you haven't already seen?"
It was the Born who replied, "Seeing is not comprehending." He got to his feet, walked over to the Professor. "We have yet to translate the entire text, and much of what we have translated seems to be in riddles."
"The answer is here," Setrakian tapped the page again more firmly, "We just need to find it."
"Thought the book said only the Face of God could destroy the Master," Fet retorted.
The former pawnbroker's lips compressed to a thin line. "Some of the phrasing mentions the Face of God. But other sentences translate as the Voice of God."
"So, which is it?" Dutch queried.
"And what do they mean?" Fet added, "Face of God. Voice of God. What the hell are they supposed to be? I mean, they can't be literal...can they?"
Quinlan knelt beside Setrakian, his movements slightly stiffer than usual. His pale eyes skimmed over the ancient writing. "The Face of God is sometimes also referred to as the Light of God."
Dutch frowned in thought. "What, like sunlight? We've already tried that."
"Not sunlight." Quinlan looked at her. "Something far more powerful. Something the Master himself used to eliminate the Ancients. To destroy Liberty Island and set in motion this worldwide cataclysm."
The hacker blinked. "A nuke?"
Vasiliy pondered this. The more he thought about it, the more sense it made. "Not even the Master's jumbo red worm could survive a nuclear blast."
"But," Dutch sputtered, "Where would we even find a nuke?"
"I remember reading somewhere that there's missile silos scattered all over the Midwest," Fet stated.
Dutch shook her head in dismay. "So, what, you're gonna go wandering the countryside on the slim chance you'll come across a nuclear silo that hasn't launched all its missiles, smuggle a warhead back into New York, and somehow figure out how to set the bloody thing off and, hopefully, fry the Master?"
Vasiliy opened his mouth to respond, but Quinlan beat him to it. "Yes. That is exactly what we'll do."
The young woman huffed a laugh, but one look at the Professor's serious expression wiped the disbelieving grin off her face. "Seriously?"
"Can you think of a better solution?" the old man challenged.
Dutch tried. She really did. But she finally had to concede that an insane plan with little to no chance of success was better than nothing. "Okay," she sighed, "So we worked out what the Face of God might be. What about the Voice?"
Quinlan interjected, "We already have the solution. We find the nuke—"
"No," Setrakian interrupted, sounding distracted as he frowned at a particular page, "I think I understand now. We need both. The Voice to hold the Master in its sway, and the Face to destroy him."
"You sure about that?" Fet asked.
The old man nodded. "I am almost certain of it. That is why the Lumen mentions both. We need both in order to defeat the Master once and for all."
The Born pursed his bloodless lips. "You say the Voice of God is powerful enough to control the Master. What could possibly do that?"
Setrakian replied, "There are several images that are repeated throughout the Lumen. This one," he pointed down at the book, "I believe refers to the Voice of God."
Dutch and Fet rose from their seats to join Quinlan at the Professor's side. They all gazed at the illustration Setrakian indicated. It depicted a row of simply drawn faces, each with a different expression—sadness, laughter, fear, rage. Lines ran down from the individual faces to converge on a single, larger face below. Somehow, that face was drawn to look both agonized and serene.
While Fet and Quinlan puzzled over the image, Dutch's eyes widened a little. "This is gonna sound mad, but...you guys ever see that sculpture?"
Vasiliy frowned, "Sculpture?"
"Tumult by Benjamin Pierce.*" She pointed at the illustration. "It looks a lot like this picture."
"I didn't realize you had an appreciation for art, Ms. Velders," Setrakian remarked.
The hacker smirked. "I don't, really. But Benjamin Pierce was different."
"How so?"
"He was a Scanner."
Fet's mouth fell open. "Shit, you're right. I remember hearing something about that."
"Scanners are supposedly telepathic, are they not?" Quinlan asked.
"No supposedly about it," Dutch replied, "I was obsessed about them when I was a teen. Looked up everything I could find on them."
In the 1950's, a new drug was introduced for the purpose of easing severe morning sickness in pregnant women. It was called Ephemerol*, and it was so popular that even women with only mild symptoms used it. It wasn't until after their children were born that a terrible side-effect was discovered. The children were unstable, prone to fits of violence, screaming at voices only they could hear. Doctors thought it was some kind of juvenile schizophrenia, until some of the kids started attacking people. Not physically, but in their minds. It was terrifying to witness, even worse to experience. Healthy people collapsing in what appeared to be epileptic fits, bodies convulsing, noses bleeding. Forced to do horrible things to themselves and others. Many victims died of strokes or heart attacks. Some committed suicide or went mad.
Many of the affected children—now known as Scanners—died or went insane as well. It seemed the only way to keep them and the public safe was to isolate and keep them in a drug-induced stupor. Until, that is, the parents of a Scanner discovered that the mother's leftover Ephemerol blocked the child's telepathic powers. The drug that made them different was now used to make them normal. Temporarily, at least.
"I used to be so jealous," Dutch mused, "I read that they could even connect their minds to computers."
"Every hacker's dream," Vasiliy grinned.
Quinlan nodded in thought. "Such a person would be a threat to the Master. He controls his spawn by a telepathic network. A powerful enough Scanner could cause a great deal of chaos among his ranks. Perhaps even harm the Master himself."
"Finding a nuke's gonna be tricky enough," Fet pointed out, "But how the hell are we gonna find a Scanner?"
Again, Dutch had the answer, "Ephemerol's manufactured and distributed by ConSec*. They have a corporate office here in New York."
Setrakian nodded approval. "They are certain to have records of where they distribute this drug. Perhaps even the names of individual patients, since their condition is so rare."
"Shouldn't be too hard to break in and find these records, given the state of things." The hacker's eyes glowed with eagerness.
"So we got us a plan of action," Fet declared with renewed optimism, "Find and recruit a Scanner to disable the Master, and a nuke to destroy him."
"As plans go, we have a slim chance of success," Quinlan stood, decisive, "But perhaps it is the best chance we have."
"I am in no condition to go traipsing through the countryside on this search," the Professor said, "I shall stay here and continue to research the Lumen."
"By yourself?" Vasiliy frowned in concern.
"I'll stay with him," Dutch volunteered.
The exterminator turned to the half-strigoi. "Looks like it's you and me, Born-o."
Quinlan offered no response beyond a terse nod.