Chapter 12

Mark lay half-awake in the enveloping darkness, consumed by guilt over his involvement with Lilith while his wife remained missing. It felt utterly unforgivable. His mind wandered back to that first night when he’d awoken to find Lilith, completely nude, beside him in bed. And just minutes later, they had had sex! It was insane! The whole situation was utterly surreal. But then again, his entire world had taken on an otherworldly quality. He was no longer an ordinary human being; he had become an Elysian. His head whirled — none of the conventional rules seemed to apply anymore. Sex was no longer confined to one’s partner; it was fine to have sex with just about anyone. It wasn’t merely tolerated; it was deemed essential. Mark reflected on Charles and Vivian, who had both had sex with one of them in full view of the other. Were they married? He couldn’t quite remember. But sex was essential to the conversion process. Not just sex with a stranger, sex with your parent! And female Elysians had to have sex at least once every month just to stay alive! It was an ever-present element of their lives, happening whenever and with whomever necessary or desirable.

He heard noise in the next room. Lilith! He turned on the light.

Lilith walked in. She was dressed entirely in black, unzipping her jacket. She was holding a small backpack.

“Hi,” she said, tossing the backpack on the floor.

“Hi,” said Mark, glancing at the clock. It was a little after 2:00 a.m. He rubbed his eyes.

Lilith sat on the bed.

“Awake?” she said.

“Mm-hm.”

“We need to talk about Julia.”

Mark shook his head. “I don’t want to.”

“Neither do I, but we have to.”

“Why?”

“We have to find her.”

“We?”

“Yes. I converted her. I’m responsible for her.”

“Oh really. I’m touched by your concern.”

“Oh, Mark, please don’t. We’ve been looking for her. You know about the need?”

“Yes.”

“We’re running out of time. If she doesn’t find an Amritan within 30 days...”

“A what?”

“A Dacian or an Elysian – I’ll explain later. She needs to have the need fulfilled or she’ll die.”

“And that’s why you’ve been looking for her?”

“Of course! What was the point of converting her if she dies?”

“How do I know you don’t already have her?”

“Mark, why would I be asking you for help looking for her if I’d already found her? I don’t. I promise.”

“Well, how do you know she isn’t with the Elysians?”

“I know,” Lilith said.

“She’s in danger because you’re after her.”

“No, Mark! She’s in danger because she may not think about fulfilling the need —not thinking rationally. Some people are fine after conversion. But others, particularly women, have psychological stress like post-partum depression or PTSD. I was completely messed up myself, but my sister was there to take care of me and then my Mom.”

“You were still with your sister after you were converted?” Mark said in surprise.

“Of course. We were converted within days of each other.”

“The Dacians didn’t ... take you?”

“Take me where?”

“I don’t know. Wherever they are.”

“Mark, what are you talking about?”

“Forget it,” said Mark.

“Anyway, we’ve been looking for her, but we’re operating on very limited information. Where would she go at a time like this? Her mother, or does she have a particular friend she might seek out, or a particular place? All of that kind of information would be helpful, and we don’t have it. That’s why I we need to work together to find her.”

“She’s being looked for already, by people armed with all that information. And what makes you think I would trust you with that information anyway? You’d just find her and she’d be gone for good.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Again, I don’t know. Wherever you people go.”

“Mark, what on earth are you talking about? Where we go? We? Who’s we?”

“Dacians.”

“We don’t go anywhere. I honestly don’t understand what you’re getting at.”

“Where do you live?”

“In a house.”

“With?”

“My cat.”

“Oh,” said Mark. He was quiet for a moment.

“No one else?”

“Mark, I’m just completely baffled. What are you asking about: ‘Who else?’ ‘Where Dacians go.’ They don’t go anywhere. They live in houses in towns or suburbs or rural areas just like everyone else.”

“That’s not what I’ve been told,” Mark said.

“What have you been told?”

“That they’re basically underground.”

“Under the ground?”

“No – just secreted somewhere.”

“What on earth? Mark, that’s just complete nonsense. They’re not ‘underground.’ I live in a house, on a street. I buy cat food. I go out to eat. So does everyone else.”

“I was given to understand that the Dacians were together somewhere ... clandestinely. Not all of them together, but in groups.”

“Well, you were given to understand a bunch of bullshit,” Lilith said, her eyes angry.

“Well of course you’d say that.”

Lilith just stared at him for a moment shaking her head.

“Okay,” she said. She pulled out her phone and searched for a moment. Then she turned it toward Mark.

Mark looked. It was a picture of a young woman with a graduation cap, holding a baby, surrounded by fellow graduates.

“Dacian,” said Lilith, taking the phone back and scrolling through it again.

She showed him another picture. It was a group of people seated around what looked like a picnic table, ranging in age from elderly to toddlers, with plates and glasses in front of them. One of them was standing with a raised glass.

“Dacians,” said Lilith.

She scrolled again and turned the phone to him.

It was a man in a tuxedo with a woman in a wedding dress seated in his lap. They were smiling and holding up glasses of champagne.

“Dacians.”

She showed him another picture.

It was Lilith with a short bob.

“Elysian,” said Lilith.

“Wait, isn’t that you?” Mark said.

“No. It’s my sister,” Lilith said.

Mark looked more closely. Now he could see differences in the eyes, the cheekbones and the nose. It wasn’t Lilith, but her sister was just as breathtakingly beautiful.

“The point is, Mark, that Dacians don’t live holed up somewhere. Just like Elysians, they live in society. They go to school and college. They get married. They have babies. Their children go to school. They join clubs and serve on boards. Just like regular people.”

“They’re not like Elysians.”

“In what way?”

“Well, look at what you and your henchmen did to me and Julia, for example. You kidnapped us and raped Julia. God knows what you would have done if those guys hadn’t burst in.”

Lilith was silent for a moment.

“I’m sorry about that Mark. I truly am. I’m sorry about Julia – which is one of the reasons I’m talking to you about this. You got caught in an age-old conflict. I did, too. It’s just turned out to be the only way Dacians can survive as a group, because the Elysians won’t share the Amrita.”

“Yes, you convert them into something they don’t want to be. Forcibly convert them.”

“Something they don’t want to be – what’s that?”

“Having the traits of Dacians, not Elysians.”

“What are those?”

“You know a lot better than I do.”

“Really? I know the opposite. My traits didn’t change after conversion, except for the enhancement part, and neither did my sister’s. We’re both the same.”

“But what about the traits of Elysians and Dacians getting passed on in the conversion process.”

“How?” Lilith said.

“I don’t know how any of this happens. Through having sex with them or, at least, the anal part. That’s what I understood. And the interruption of the conversion process by Dacians results in Dacian traits.”

“Do you seriously believe that?”

“Yes.”

“How? How does that work?”

“I don’t know. But it obviously does.”

“Come on, Mark, think about it. Don’t just blindly swallow it. How? How could genetic traits get passed on from one person to another just by having anal sex?”

“I’ll admit, I don’t understand all of it, but that’s the basic concept I was told. There are Elysian traits and Dacian traits, and that’s why the Dacians want to interrupt the conversion process, essentially to convert the people into Dacians rather than Elysians.”

Lilith shook her head. “Mark, you’re a nice man, and very smart, but you’re a little naïve and trusting, particularly for a lawyer. It’s endearing. But it could be quite hazardous in this context.”

“I’m just telling you what I was told.”

“That may be what they told you,” she went on, “but it’s absolutely false. It’s a myth. It’s a myth that won’t die. There aren’t genetic traits passed on by Elysians and Dacians in the conversion process. Again – how? What is the scientific explanation – or even just the common-sense explanation – for how having anal intercourse with someone causes you to suddenly inherit certain traits? On the face of it, it’s just preposterous. And the more preposterous the theory, the more evidence you need to support it. And I can tell you, there isn’t any. There’s absolutely no scientific basis for the claim that Elysian or Dacian traits are somehow transmissible through the conversion process.”

“I’m supposed to take your word for that?” Mark said.

“Mark, my sister, who’s an Elysian, who went through the conversion process at the same time as me, didn’t suddenly become more noble or altruistic or gallant, or whatever traits they told you Elysians possessed, but not Dacians. She’s exactly the same as she was before. She can be petty, or selfish, or jealous, and she can be thoughtful, and generous and forgiving, and I love her for all of it. She’s human and has all of the same human traits, good and bad, she had before.”

“Okay, but what about the other things – the physical changes, the cognitive stuff. You can’t deny that that happens,” Mark protested.

“No, I can’t. But that’s completely different. The changes you’re talking about can be objectively verified – they can be measured, tested, and compared with prior metrics for the person or people in general. We know empirically that those things have changed, and we know that Amrita is principally responsible even if we don’t understand exactly how. And we know the same is true for both Elysians and Dacians. But what you’re talking about is a hypothesis that Elysians inherit ‘noble’ traits from other Elysians. And that hypothesis is completely unsubstantiated. There’s no evidence at all that peoples’ fundamental personality traits change after conversion, much less whether they change based on whether they’re converted by Dacians or Elysians.”

Mark listened in silence.

“And keep in mind,” she continued, “that Elysians select for certain traits. They don’t just pick anyone at random. They look for people with all of the traits they want. And believe me, they do their due diligence, the same way Stanford or Princeton does. They look at you with a microscope. Your chances of getting in are far lower than becoming a Rhodes Scholar. They look for high intelligence, high achievement, leadership skills, sense of social responsibility, commitment to service, etc. So, is it any surprise that the people who become Elysians have these attributes? Well, nothing changes if they become Dacians.”