The next morning at Five, when Father Joseph returned to Suite 2002, Lexie was ready for him. Rebecca saw her off with a number of warnings and stern admonishments, and whatever she had left over she dumped on the priest. The priest duly promised to be careful. Lexie blew it all off, figuring the trip would be a lark, and one she intended to enjoy to the fullest. As she and her new companion made their way east down the central corridor from Adama's, she tried to pump him for information on Vamps. "So what are these things, anyway? Is the one we're going after really me? Tell!"
Father Joseph did his best to fill her in. Discovering from his researches that Dabbler was the resident Author expert on Vamps, he had been in close contact with that worthy since he had last been to Adama's, and learned everything he could, which was considerable. Dabbler had told him of Wu and Sullivan's experiences with the Vamps, of his own spy-data from the Loophole, and of what he had managed to decipher from the Old Wizard's fragmentary spell-notes abstracted from the Bar & Grill. All of which Father Joseph now passed on to Lexie.
"It isn't precisely you," he warned. "The you the Vamp was in life appears to be from a slightly different lifeline, and moreover it has been augmented by the DNA and experiences of all the sinners in Hollywood. I imagine its outlook is therefore somewhat different in many ways -- more, er, mature, perhaps, in some. And according to Dabbler there was some sort of error in the creature's creation, with undeterminable consequences. But I'm still confident that confronting the thing with you will lay it to rest."
"How, exactly?"
"I'm not sure, but I believe your Reality will dissipate its own Unreality in some fashion."
"And this is the only way to keep your friend F-Troop from going bonkers and getting killed by it, right?"
"F-Cup," Father Joseph replied. "And parishioner would be a more accurate label than friend, I'm afraid. He only considers those he goes out drinking with to be friends."
"You don't drink, padre?"
"I take and serve Communion. F-Cup Fitzgerald, however, as yet to appear at the sacramental table."
They reached the elevator leading down to the Bar & Grill, and took it down.
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Thu Jan 30 23:41:48 2003
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