The Vampire-Alien Chronicles (3 page)

Life could become tiresome when
the same activities had been repeated more times than could be counted and when the days blurred one into the other.  When life became barren and devoid of meaning and when there was no possibility of there ever being a change, any being could lose purpose.  Most Vampires did.  The will to continue and live simply slipped away.  I have lost track of the number of times this has happened.  I refuse to remember.  I am, after all, the father of the Vampire species.  It has often been left to me to handle these rogues.  I do so begrudgingly but out of necessity.  They threaten us all.  Many have been my own children, and not just Vampires I have made, but of these latter the number is uncountable.

When a Vampire goes rogue
it was usually within the first immediacy of life.  The thousand year mark seemed to be one of the pivotal fulcrums of a Vampire's life.  Still very immature yet faced with what might be called a midlife crisis.  Sometimes simply unable to make the mental transition that this life could really last forever, the instincts of our Human part rebelling at what it couldn’t understand.  Eternity was a huge concept to grasp and entirely alien to our Human halves.  A Vampire either lived in the now, enjoying the little things that each day brought, or must face the yawning gulf of eternity with uncertainty.

Many of th
is the youngest generation has eagerly embraced the eternal.  They pine for the glory of the technological society to come.  Exploration of our galaxy and of the Universe.  Manipulation of the complexities of the protein building blocks of life and the atom.  Control of fusion and the forces that made the Universe.  There was really no end to their aspirations.  Those with such dreams would find the thousand year mark no more pivotal than any other year.  It was against those who could not see this future that we had to guard.

When a Vampire goes rogue, it is not against Humans that it turns.  Not any more than some Vampires do as normal routine.  It is against their own kind that they turn.  Something comes undone within them.  Something becomes unhinged.  They begin to hate their own kind.  Turn against their kindred.  It is against the
Juveniles, the youngest, weaker Vampires that they turn, and you did not know they were going to turn until they actually began killing.  Then it was too late.  Too late for those killed, anyway.

The loss of an eternal life could not be quantified.  The sum was far too great.  The potential loss too vast.  With every Vampire taken an eternity of promise vanished.  I felt the loss of every individual personally, the more so because I am the father of my entire species.  Thus it is often left to me to face these rogues.  I am often the only Vampire capable or willing to do so.

Unpredictable, we are mostly by and large loners.  Those not connected by the thread of direct lineage.  Why few Vampires have children.  We often make other Vampires, but could seldom tolerate one another long enough to procreate.  A Vampire's strengths are not reserved to the male gender.  It is age dependent, not gender oriented.  For their sexual relations, most Vampires, both male and female, preferred their weaker Human counterparts, through which no procreation is possible.  Most Vampires!

“I'm just naturally submissive.”  Sonafi said as we walked arm in arm down the length of a scenic overlook facing the Mississippi River.  She had peeked into my mind in my quietude to see what I was thinking.  I turned to her with a smile of pure amusement.

“The night is beautiful.”  I said, ignoring her preposterous statement.  “I love the river.  I love the city.  We've been here so long.”

“You know they will never give up.”  Sonafi answered my unspoken question.  “They believe that once you are gone the rest of us will fall like dominoes.  They may be right.”

“What happened to submissive?”  I quipped, making light of her earlier statement due to the fact that she was still insisting we needed to move.

“Yeah right.”  She said.  “You only wish.”

“They'll accomplish nothing by killing me.”  I said.  “We've become too numerous.  Too strong.  They have created a race in Vampires both independent of themselves and humanity.  Eventually we will be their undoing.”

“I don't believe that.  I never have.  I think the telepathic ties that bind us are far stronger than you believe.  We are all, in the end, descended from you.  What if the link is stronger than you believe?”

“I do not intend to sacrifice myself to find out.”  I said.  “I assure you of that.  I have begun to wonder, in all honesty, if the Others have not decided to let us be.  We are kin, in the end, after all.”

“They will never stop hunting you.  Half is not enough for them.  It will never be enough.”  Sonafi said with conviction.  “They can never make us entirely like them, so they cannot allow us to live.  They are arrogant.  The entire Universe is not large enough for both our
species.  For our three species!  There is only one thing the Others respect, and we are not powerful enough to face them in that manner.  So what happens when the entirety of the Human race has been bleached away?”

This was the dilemma with which we were faced.  How far the genetic addition had already progressed.  The signs of it
were everywhere to be seen.  Its progression was measured and sure.  During the span of my life, albeit it has been a long one, I had seen man progress.  I had seen them slink from the forests.  Learn to cultivate the ground.  Build cities.  Take to the air.  Leave their planet and even colonize other of Sol's celestial bodies.  A monumental technological advancement that Humans believed had been entirely natural, an arrogance directly attributed to their alien influence.  An arrogance directly attributed to the Others.

Many Humans still ridiculously believed that they were the only life in the Universe. 
This is what they thought
when in reality
they
had been cultivated and nurtured like they themselves had cultivated and domesticated cattle wheat and corn.  Not only genetically and domestically elevated from their existences within the forests and jungles within which they had dwelled, but their thoughts generated, their memories implanted, their ideals and concepts those of the Others.  Yet Humans were completely ignorant of the process even as it was being applied to them- ignorant of their own coming demise.  Too ignorant to see their cage, much less the laboratory in which their cage resided. 

“Then why do we go on
?”  I asked.  “The odds we face.  The deck stacked so unevenly.  You are right.  What will happen when the Humans become so predominantly the Others that they reach their group consciousness? There will be
no
place to hide. Do you think that I do not consider this?  I do not want to consider this, but I have no choice.  I have been able to think of little else in recent years.  How can I not look around myself and think these thoughts?”
Sonafi looked at me with an expression I seldom see- at least directed towards me.  The look was that of calculation.  Depression had always to be guarded against, watched for, and rooted out.  There was always the danger of one of us going rogue.  The peril that places us within, not only from the rogue himself, the threat he posed directly to us, but the added risk of exposure to the Human population that such actions generated.  It was a delicate balancing act we played, with every single being a potential enemy and no safe haven anywhere we might turn.  I smiled reassuringly.

“I'm not going rogue.”  I said.  “If that's what you're worried about.  It just angers me that t
he Others have such power.  The technological advantage they hold.  The fact that we have to react to their pressures and cannot take the fight directly to them.  That we have to run and hide.  That I have become fond of this city and now have to leave it.  I am not losing my sanity.  Unfortunately, I have never been so sane.  I have never been more sane.”

“A creature of habit can be predicted by his habits.”  Sonafi said, giving my arm a squeeze that felt like a hydraulic press clamping down, despite my own supernatural strength.  Her hands had always been exceptionally strong, due to her personalized training regimen.  The finger exercises, specifically.  Those of us who liked our lives, wished to continue living them, must actively participate in their perpetuation.  To lie idle and unprepared meant certain death when we faced the Others.  The Others had no such weak Huma
n sentiments.  All a Vampire possessed was his or her preparation.  Sonafi and I both trained daily.  The mettle of our resolve was the measure of our survival.

It was not as if our Human halves had brought nothing to the union, however.  Plucked directly from their native habitats, my pre-Human ancestors had been little more evolved than the wild animals with which they had co-existed.  Lifted genetically from the abyss of ignorance, both Humans and, at my inception, we Vampires, were a hybrid of both savage and civilized, so at my core, within my Human half, beat the heart of a savage animal, and to the basest of all instincts.  That the will to survive at any cost.

As technologically advanced as the Others were, they may have manipulated their own genes to create their super strength, speed and agility, but they had been civilized for far too long.  They did not have that which a Vampire had.  A savage, primordial heart!

“I would almost welcome a visitation.”  I said, twirling my cane.  Hidden inside its length, a mere twist of the handle away, was the cold steel of a walking cane sword.  If I were suddenly to have to use it, it would not be the first time, nor would I expect it to be the last.  Sonafi was similarly t
hough differently armed.  She carried more weapons than I would care to count, every one of them hidden away, invisible in plain sight.

“I do not relish the thought.  Nor will we continue always to be victorious.”  Sonafi said, though there had been times when she would very much have relished the thought.  When the savage glut of killing the Others was all she lived for.  “The Others are far from ignorant.  They are capable of evolution, as well, and nothing engenders evolution more rapidly than the threat of extinction.  We are that threat!”
             

“I think we are less a threat than an annoyance.”  I said.  “They would like to see us eliminated, but they aren't going to move mountains to stop us.”

“I do not agree.”  Sonafi said, never one to quibble, always willing to say just exactly what was on her mind.  “It is more than arrogant annoyance.  We are still able to infect Humans with our blood.  Our blood is the stronger.  Humans have already become much the same as the Others and yet we are still able to infect them.  So consider.  What if we were able to infect the Others as easily as we infect Humans?  Think of the possibilities.”

“Infect the Others?”  I asked slowly, thunderstruck.  “I have never even considered the possibility.  “Where did you get such an idea?”

“It wasn't really my idea, I admit.”  Sonafi said.  “I do think it has a great amount of possibility, though.  Think if we could plant a colony within their midst!”

“A fourth species with no potential ties to any of us?”  I asked, not sure I liked the idea, not sure what new terror that might not be unleashing on the Universe.  “More easily suggested than accomplished, I think, as well.”
  I added.

“I think that time is running out for us.  At some point we must attempt something.”  Sonafi said.  “Some of the younger generation made the suggestion.  They wanted to bring the idea to you, but I must
admit, I did not think that would be a good idea.  I did not think that you would be agreeable.  But now, with what you have just said, I decided that maybe now is the time to mention it.  Maybe you are ready for such an idea.”

“You meant to leave me out of the loop?”  I asked, astounded.

“You're rooted in your old ways.”  Sonafi said simply.  “We did not know how you would greet this as a scientific theory.  You may not believe it, but the Community very much revolves around you.  You and what you think.  We were afraid that if you were against the idea, you would turn the entire Community against it, and there are a great many of us who want to do something, are tired of the incessant attacks.  Though there have been none for fourteen years, anywhere, we have reason to believe the lull may be over.  So we have devised this plan.”

“You have a plan?”  I asked, further surprised.  I stopped to look at her.  The glow of the brilliant moonlight
was bathing her face making her appear alabaster and slightly to glow.  Though direct sunlight would burn a Vampire, the visible light reflected by the moon did not.  Whatever the elemental particles were that the sun produced in its fusion process, that neither the Others nor Vampires could tolerate, could not be reflected by the surface of the moon.  They bored into it, possibly even all the way through it.  I did not know.  Even though dark hued, Sonafi still looked eerily undead in its ghastly glow, hence the legends that Vampires were not true, living beings.  “What plan have you hatched?”

“We hope to capture and infect one of the Others.”  Sonafi said, bluntly ignoring my sarcasm.

I didn't say anything for several long moments that I spent staring into the star-studded expanse of the firmament above.  Which of the stars above me were more than stars, I wondered? 
They
were still up there.  I have seen their ships many times.  More than just the occasions they had meant to be seen.  Their activity could almost be considered frenzied.  Constant.  Yet they went almost entirely unnoticed by Humans.