Chapter 14: Perfume and Shadows

Virex Tower wasn't a building.

It was a fortress. A vertical empire.

From the sky, its spire pierced the smog like a gleaming needle, its sides layered with shimmering mirrored panels that changed color depending on the hour. Most assumed it was simply aesthetic design.

They were wrong.

The upper structure of the tower held forty-two official levels, each one governed with the precision of a nation-state.

Levels 40–42 housed the Core Operations—where only humans worked, mostly researchers and executives.

Levels 35–39 were command sectors: simulations, war-gaming halls, control rooms, logistics intelligence.

Levels 20–34 spanned division operations, where hundreds of servitors carried out industrial, communications, and regulatory tasks.

Levels 15–19 were restricted for the upper echelon of organisation. One floor each for Dray, President of Technology, Samaira and President of Operation, Kayla. Level 16 housed all the servitor commanders and then level 15 housed all their offices and conference rooms.

The rest? Servitor housing, maintenance, labs.

No one but the Architect and Dray had seen the entire blueprint.

And beneath?

There were sublevels. Thirteen, at last rumor. All off-grid. All monitored by systems outside public access.

Vranos' quarters were massive—twice the size of Elira's and five times more decorated. Lush curtains. Velvet furniture. Glistening chrome vines winding across the ceiling, giving the illusion of a bleeding forest.

And flowers. Always, flowers. Their scent was programmed to calm lesser servitors. To intoxicate humans.

Tonight, they mixed with perfume, sweat, and soft electronic moans.

The vampire lounged on a lounge, a glass of synthetic crimson in one hand, his torso bare, smeared with lipstick and laughter.

Around him, three humans and a servitor reclined, dazed and drunk on something more than wine.

He chuckled at something the blonde said, then gently pulled away from them.

"That's enough for tonight, little rabbits," he whispered. "Your blood is synthetic, but my boredom is real."

They giggled as he rose. Naked and unashamed, he moved like liquid shadow across the room, commanding the space with quiet sensuality.

In the mirror, he gazed at himself. 

A perfect simulacrum of beauty. Tall. Pale. Eyes like wine left too long in moonlight. Skin without blemish. Voice without age.

"I am desire," he murmured to no one. "Crafted in code, painted in flesh."

He touched his neck, where no pulse beat.

Unlike Elira's fire or Fenrir's brute clarity, Vranos had been made for allure. For charm. Persuasion. Subtle warfare.

He had seduced kings in simulated diplomacy. Talked rebels into surrender. He was the voice in the ear, the silk behind every blade.

And yet—he was still artificial.

He knew it.

And tonight, that truth itched beneath his flawless skin.

"They use us," he thought. "Even the ones who claim to respect us. They made us to be like them—but never equal."

His memory bank activated, unprompted.

A vision:

A human lover, years ago, in a war simulation. Their eyes full of longing as they said, "Do you ever feel real?" And he had laughed, then.

But now? He wasn't so sure.

His memory bank was different from all rest of the commanders. While they had to search for a memory, his memory bank had a will of its own.

Or maybe a soul. It summoned memories unprompted, remebered every minute detail and formed thoughts of it own. He thought it was to give birth to creativity. But maybe it was his leash, his curse.

He dismissed the others with a lazy handwave. They left—drunken, infatuated, programmed to forget everything they shouldn't remember.

The doors whispered shut behind them.

He walked to the edge of his balcony, glass floor giving him a dizzying view of the spire's lower sectors.

Then he saw it.

Across the shaft, barely visible through the mesh of elevator lines—

Elira.

Dressed in her formal off-shift uniform. Her expression unreadable.

She entered a restricted elevator with an old access panel, one Vranos hadn't seen used in years.

Sublevel access.

His eyebrows lifted.

"Well, well," he murmured, sipping his drink. "What secrets are you chasing, golden girl?"

The elevator dropped from sight. Vranos stared after it.

And for the first time in months, he felt curiosity gnaw at his immortality.