Travis Webber

From SuspireWiki

The Spoken History

The plane’s finally landed outside. After a 3 hour delay in Buffalo, I was getting a little concerned about my timing for this move. The captain’s saying now we’re going to be taxiing for awhile so remain seated. No problem, I’ve still got a few hours till dawn, so that should give me enough time to get myself to a taxi and to my hotel room. I saw Atlanta as I was flying in, lots of sparkling lights and lines. It was nice looking to be honest.

I’ve been pretty giddy about this move for awhile, probably after that Nomad flew in and said things were a-changing in the south and explained how large and metropolitan some of the cities had become – especially Atlanta. So, I looked into it a little. What I found was pretty fantastic, truth-be-told. They’ve got pretty much everything that I was thinking about needing that was in Chicago and New York.

James wasn’t too pleased about it, but then I guess it’s sort of a bitch to lose your top seed political support so I can’t really blame him. It was hard to explain to him that I needed, well, more than what I could get in Buffalo. I needed to get away and try my hand at what my sire told me I’d probably start feeling sooner rather than later.

This is my first real move since I died, so I’m pretty nervous about it – but I’m also pretty excited.

Hmmm, every time the no-smoking light flashes off I get a little nervous, even though I know it’s illegal to smoke on flights. I wonder if that was an ingenious plan by some unsurprisingly intelligent vampire? Eh, probably not – but I bet a mid-air freak-out would have been a horrible, horrible thing to behold.

Anyway, so I’m thinking to myself how nervous I am. I think the excitement was the main feeling I had when I was leaving Buffalo, but... now I’ve got way too many questions. Who am I going to see? How’s the politics? What if someone tries to kill me for being “new” and “unknown”? What if the Carthians hate me? What if there’s only a few vampires and I was tricked? It’s all a little swarm of doubt in my mind.

But, then again, there’s no real turning back now. I’ve already handled moving the electronic funds from bank to bank, and I already made notes of my site’s servers being moved from the main offices to Atlanta offices – which is, you know, generally my home, I just get a T-1 line run in to handle it. I hope that’s already installed in that place like they told me it would be.

I sent the movers down a couple days ago, so hopefully all my shit hasn’t been left out in the rain or something, because that would definitely put a cramp in the plans. I’m probably just overreacting, but this Mekhet blood man, it makes me question just about everything a trillion times until I see it for myself.

I wonder if the woman next to me who keeps asking me if I’m going to be living in Buckhead and keeps trying to get me not to notice the wedding ring on her hand while she flirts with me would freak out if she knew she were trying to get a vampire to tend to her garden. Heh heh heh. This is why being a vampire is fun, you get to say one thing and mean a total other.

She’s a consultant, apparently. What is a consultant anyway? They just give advice. Big whoop. It’s the best job in the world. If a company skyrockets because of your advice, you’re the shit. If they plummet, crash and burn, because of it – it’s not your fault, it’s their implementation and work force. Gotta be a great life.

Hmm, she gave me her number; I guess this is a start. Didn’t think I’d get connected so quickly into Atlanta, but then again, when people make googly eyes at you, it’s almost impossible to not take advantage. I wonder if I should feel bad about that... Do normal people feel bad about that? I don’t think they do, but sometimes I wonder if I’m becoming distanced from humanity and I get a little panicky. I’ve seen some of the older vampires... that shit is scary.

One time, we had some guy trundle in for some kind of a meeting in Buffalo, about scared the bones right out of my body he was so old. Didn’t trust him a damn bit. Turns out I was (and the other Carthians) were right too. Prick was trying to spread out and increase his holdings, at the expense of the baby Carthians. We showed him who was boss! Those were good times, though we totally wasted all that cash we nuked from his accounts. Too much of that liquor stuff from James’ “friend”. Shit was expensive, too, because we didn’t want to pay in favors. But ah well.

Oh, the plane finally came to a stop, guess we’ll be unloading soon, which is all kinds of good, because I don’t want this woman to touch my leg again up near my zipper without a place no one will wonder why I’m sucking on her neck from. Maybe the airport’s bathroom? Not too sure about the security systems around here – though I’d hate for someone to have to watch people taking a dump 24/7.

I don’t understand women sometimes, especially women like her. What’s her deal? Why does she want to slut it up with some guy who’s just another face? I know I don’t extrude Daeva sluttiness, so I’m always curious about these people. What goes through their heads? It’s probably why I like dealing with them so much, because they’re just so damn curious.

I’m not sure why others can’t see it as well as I can. I mean, the other Carthians have it close, sure, but with me... I don’t know, I just feel so much more connected with them. Like, I don’t know what I’d do without their involvement.

I guess I’ve always felt the need to be with the Carthians because of my sire. She embraced me mainly because she was getting too old, as it was explained to me by James. He’s always been better at understanding Kindred than I have – my forte has pretty much always been dealing with people. He doesn’t really know what or how she embraced me, but he knew I was different than other people. He suspects it was her magics, and other Carthians sometimes shy away from me (like I’m some sort of fucking spy or something), because when I came into the Danse Macabre I was older than normal baby vampires, which threw everyone off.

Hell, for the longest time the damn Kindred thought I was lying when I said who my sire was and when I’d been embraced. It’s probably why I broke away from her and joined with the Carthians to be honest. I mean, she made my first few years a living hell because she made me some kind of bizarre freak embrace. It was difficult to adjust to, as if turning undead wasn’t weird enough.

Oh, there we go. Grab my bag... the woman’s name is Jennifer. That’s a cute name; when’s the last time you met a vampire named Jennifer? That’s what I love about people. It’s such a change from the silly names vampires give themselves. It’s not pretentious, just pretty damn plain and all she wants is to connect for a little while. Heh heh heh. She says she’s got a room nearby we can go to, but I declined. It’s not really my business to just grab a bite to eat before I even know if she’s a part of someone’s property. I doubt she is, but, you never know.

Anyway, we parted ways, but I have her number. I’ll probably call her when I get settled in; she seemed okay with that, which is good. She’d probably be a good meal every once in awhile anyway.

But now, to the baggage claim, got to pick up the bags of clothes I brought along with me, just so I wouldn’t look suspicious. Man, I’m almost sad I’m out of the airport, now that I am...