Walking through the double doors that led to the pristine decontamination chamber the lights in the chamber automatically switched on and lit up the vampire dressed in black with a bright white light.  The smell of ozone crept into the chamber from the enclosed ozone generating lamps designed to prevent the transmission of disease, mostly from human to vampire then back to human again.  Though the vampires weren’t susceptible to the many diseases that the humans may carry, they could still transmit them inadvertently.

Humans had for some time been organizing within the icy grip of the vampire control.  The southwest region had been the home of the original Ratones and their graphiti could be seen here and there, the Rats were eating the beast from the inside out.

His mission had come down from the highest level.  He had been in the field hunting “rats” when the Emperor had sent him the call.   Los Ratones, was the underground organization responsible for the loss of a great many of the vampires’ precious human cows.  Not just the Emperor’s personal supplies were being targeted either.  At this point the regional Overlord of the Southwest of what used to be The United States of America was frantic with the tide of suicides and breakouts.  Often they didn’t get far and offered the sport of hunting them down, but the cost was mounting.

          The vampire walking with terrible purpose was brought in to root out the problem.  His inquiry so far had led him on several wild goose chases within the labyrinthine halls full of caged humans.  A human will say anything given the right motivation.  This was the motivational vampire that the Emperor used for situations requiring special creativity solving the riddles behind crimes against the Empire.

        His name was Mortin, and he was 400 years old.  He could remember the way things had been before the collapse and the rise of The Empire.  He was aware that things weren’t perfect within that Empire, and he was more than happy and willing to break bones or spirits in search of a future securely in the grips of the Emperor.  His mission today was to root out the individuals that had been supplying the Rats that were taking refuge in the massive hunting hall complex. 

For over a century the Rats had been gaining greater and greater numbers.  It was mostly a fictional group in reality, a myth perpetuated by generations of human prisoners, the organization was less an organization than a means of maintaining morale amongst a destroyed people.  At first there had been only the one incident, one human stood up to a vampire overseer after learning of the human colony on Australia and New Zealand.  He had gotten himself disemboweled in front of his family for his zeal, the reaction of the humans in captivity was nearly immediate however.  Within three days the word had spread throughout the complex and soon, “El Rato” were two words that every captive human in the Emperors cages knew and would graphiti any chance they got. 

It had been amusing to the Emperor at first but when humans began to stand up to their guards more often and refuse to peacefully be drained of their blood in their bi-weekly session he had realized that things were rather more pressing.  He was aware that in the hunting hall complex there were tunnels dug by the Los Ratones group, skillfully concealed by the human workers that dug them.  He hadn’t yet found them but that was why he brought in a specialist to root out the problem.

The vampire walked between the two rows of cages on his way to cage 1134, he could see it in the distance, the cold shower was ongoing.  35 degree water showering over 29 humans clothed in rough sewn cotton sheets of patchwork colors, as the materials had been available.  In most cases the sheets were hand-me-downs, bloody smelly clothes from the last cow that wore them, when they were received by their new owner.  As the tall thin figure walked he rattled his electric prod against the cages of humans covering the last two hundred or so yards to his destination.  The humans in the cages were silent, eyes wide following his every move, and also careful to not make eye contact at the same time.

The Empire in general had a policy of using a minimum of behavior modification chemicals on the human cows that were primarily used as food.  The taste of anti-depressants or sedatives, or the stimulants that were sometimes used to maintain the servant classes of humans simply taste bad.  A vampire’s taste in blood varied with the vampire and the nature of their own conversion, some prefer fear, some lust, it all depends.  This vampire today wasn’t interested in a feed however and the humans huddled together in the corners of their cages weren’t about to take any chances inviting an attack or worse by acting up.  Fear of being frozen to death in an icy shower was all that was needed to keep them in line.

He walked looking into each of the cages suspiciously, reading the faces of the terrified zombie-like blood generators for signs of insurrection or rebelliousness.  His narrow eyes stared deeply into any eyes foolish enough to be caught by his.  As he got closer to the cage in question he could feel the energy around him growing more and more hostile.  Behind him and further down, in both directions from him, a hum began to grow.  A murmur not yet loud enough to resonate in the long hallway; the voices of nearly five thousand captive humans beginning to grumble their discontent. 

The cages immediately around him of course were perfectly quiet and the sounds of the other humans more distant from him in the hall remained audible but subdued as he approached the cage 1134.  This was the cage where his information led him to believe he would find one of the Rats; a Rat that had been ratted out, as it were.  One of the maintenance class humans had overheard talk that the Rats leader was somewhere in this section of the cow cages and offered up this information in return for a chance in the hunting halls to earn ‘the gift’. 

The intelligence service had been able to use the audio surveillance microphones in place in the cage halls to listen to noise levels and had decided that this cage, or the one directly next to it must be the one.  While the humans were careful enough at maintaining secrecy within their communication, they were unable to prevent the vampires from knowing that they were communicating.  By monitoring the tap volumes and the general pace of the communication that went on the vampires were able to infer more than the humans realized, as truly careful as they were.  The humans in cage 1134 knew now though that they had been found out of course as they were huddled together fighting the freezing cold.  The feeling of the humans in the other cages around where the vampire interrogator now stood was downright hostile, but they were powerless to stop him and his intentions.

He yelled into the cage 1134, “SO, WHO IS IT?  Someone wants out of that shower I KNOW it”.

This was the standard method of gaining cooperation, rather than using the prod or truth serum that could be tasted for weeks in the contaminated human, simply freezing them until their survival instinct took over was preferred.  Humans would be kept alive and in freezing agony for weeks.  Warm them up, freeze them back down, till they talk.  The fear attached to knowing that one was most likely going to be frozen nearly to death over and over again was enough to wear anyone down after three or four hours normally.  The vampires could go for weeks without sleep as a human would think of it.

“Who wants a warm bath and a hot meal?!” he taunted.  “Whos cold?  Brrrrrrr! Im freezing out here.” He mocked their pain.  “I know you are in there you fucking Rat!  Who wants to save their cage?  I am authorized to let you all freeze on the first ‘cold’.” Referring to the shared knowledge of the freezing and warming that happened, implying there would just be no warm, ever again for these people.  “Do you all want to die?  You there”  and he pointed through the bars at the huddled mass of humans in the center of the cage where the spray was a little weaker because the light fixture above demanded some space.  The humans would cram together like penguins conserving warmth in the Antarctic winter.

In this cage there were two complete families, from the three small children to the various other ages and on up through to a, ‘quite old for the conditions’ fifty something year old man and woman who were talking soothingly and low amidst the sound of the spray, keeping their respective families together.  They all had stories, as simple as they may be, and lives, and they all hoped for a future beyond today. 

“You there! BOY!”  he singled out a teenage boy on the outside of the pack, calling to him, “you look strong!  We could use you in the maintenance ranks!”  he had to shout slightly over the sound of the spray nozzles above.  “you look smart, don’t let yourself die with these losers today!”

The boy looked back over his shoulder and at the vampires black boots and was quickly helped lovingly by a female arm in towards the center of the mass of crouching shivering humanity.  Many of them were crying now, the children sobbed as their parentts tried to cover them completely from the icy water and soothe them.  The boy had not given it much thought, but that was largely because of his now more slowly working mind.  The ten minutes it had taken the vampire to deal with the maintenance human who had tried to spare this cage and then walk the distance to where he was now, was already taking its toll on the boys brain.  He was thirteen years old and had never seen the sun.

“Ok then!” shouted the now slightly angry vampire.  “how about you ma’am!”  showing a level of politeness that while obviously faked for the moment sounded horribly appealing when accompanied with his offer.  “how about I let you and your baby live?!  How much is THAT little rat worth to you?  Do you believe in GOD?!  Is that who is pouring out icy love over your baby’s precious naked skin???  I will let you both out right now, just tell me which one of you is the Rat in there?  Or is it your baby there?  Is it the rat?  Should I just torture the truth out of IT?”

The woman he was speaking to had dark hair and tanned looking olive skin despite the fact that at 24 years of age she had also never seen the sun first hand.  Life in the cages was numbing to the senses and ones family was the only break from the sensory and spritiual deprivation that came with isolation from the natural world.  The vampires simply left families together whenever possible because the humans lived longer and could be bled 14% more often.

She heard the mans words and felt her one year old baby son squirming and crying in the cold water, that while warmed by her back was still probably not much more than 40 degrees by the time it ran over his infant body.  She raged inside and at the same time felt a hand on her right forearm, it was the eldest man, her grandfather.  “he will probably kill you both if you listen, don’t give in” he whispered in her ear nuzzling into her hair and neck paternally, warming her, protecting his great grandson lovingly.

The emotional pain was nearly unbearable, holding her whole world in her arms and unable to spare her son or any of her family the pain that was everywhere, she gritted her teeth so hard that one broke, then another, sending shooting of pain all the way up the nerves invigorating her quickly numbing brain.  Looking around at the floor between her bruised and scraped knees, perpetually damaged with the life on the rough cement floor, feeling her life slipping away, aware of her own pain and the pain her writhing child felt, she was beginning to snap.  She didn’t have the words for how angry she was, she wasn’t angry she was enraged. 

All the humans had was each other and they often shared stories in whatever language they had or could learn.  The one concept that kept them going was God.  While it might seem unlikely the concept of God was even stronger in this pit of despair.  Life in the dark only made the light at the end of the tunnel seem brighter.  It was hard for vampires to fathom this fact.  They didn’t care if their humans killed themselves, in particular if they were there to drain the corpse quickly enough.  They would often push their humans to the breaking point trying to get them to ‘pop’ and assumed that there was a fundamental design flaw in the human mind, belief in the unseen, unprovable God, that led it to suicide, rather than become vampire.  Most vampires couldn’t understand the pwer of mortality after a few short days with the gift.

She raged in her mind as this vampire held over her head, her today tomorrow and yesterday, but she never abandoned what she felt was her only hope, her faith in a world under the sun.  A world of humans her grandfather, the kind man who now comforted her, had told her existed and would exist again.  “As sure as the sun rises every day, whether we are there to see it or not; it goes around and around”.  She held onto her child and the warm hand on her forearm she guided to the exposed parts of he childs back that she just couldn’t cover on her own.

Watching the touching scene unfolding before him the vampire started in on another of the mothers, taunting her with the life of her child.  This mother was older by a few years and had two children, one around 3 the other 7 or so.  He prodded at her mind with images of warmth and comfort, food, peace, an opportunity to help herself out of her current predicament and save her children at the same time.  He took a walkie out of his inside breast pocket and mumbled something into it, the temperature of the water in the cage raised to a skin searing seventy degrees Fahrenheit.  There was an audible sigh of relief from all the humans in the cage and despite the sounds of the water still flowing the absence of the sobbing of children drove home the sickening reality of the sounds that had been emanating from the cage just a few seconds before.

The hum of the other humans had been rising and falling as the drama played out, those furthest away grew louder and louder, feeling safely distant from the immediate threat of anguish.  The vampire looked around himself and raised his arms as if in the rain of the growing rumble of human emotion, bathing in the anguish.

“what are we going to do here people?” he looked across the ten foot span that was plain cement the same as the cages at the humans in all the cages.  As his eyes fell on this or that cage the humans fell silent, then began their hum again as his eyes moved on.  He sensed the resentment and emotion growing around him and sighed.  How could he get the information he wanted, that the Emperor wanted?  There was a Rat in one of these cages he knew it.

“okey dokey people, you give me no choice!” he barked out with arms still outstretched in the sign of the Cross.  Pulling out his walkie he held down the button with his arms still wide, capturing the sound of the spray in cage 1134 still rewarming the inhabitants there, the sound of the rising rage around him and his voice as he screamed a shrieking howl, “TURN EM ALL ON!”

With that, the sound of a waterfall filled the long narrow hall and all the human sounds stopped.  Freezing cold water, taken directly from the mountain streams high above them and in the sun, and then chilling it further to the desired temperature.  The humans throughout the long hall instinctively assumed the same position as those in the unfortunate cage in front of the interrogating vampire.

“I can do this all night you thankless worthless animals!” he yelled at the masses of huddled humanity around him.  “I can freeze you all to death and the Emperor would thank me!”  He antagonistically grabed and shook at the bars like he was trying to get in to beat them, he shoved his twelve inch long prod through the bars of the cages, pressing the discharge button making it spark wildly in the freezing mist.  “We will drain you all and feed your empty skins to the next batch we bring in!  someone wants to tell me who the rat is!  Who are you you weak minded toad?!  Which ONE of you is going to survive ME?” 

The lights above him flickered and made weak rainbows in the mist that overflowed the cages as he paced watching as first this and that person began to cry.  Cries for mercy began to be heard, “mercy” they called through audibly chattering teeth.  “So is this how you are all going to die?  Begging me for mercy?  Tell me there isn’t one of you that would like to have the gift?”  he was upping his price, he felt.  “if I walk out of this hall without my RAT” he said emphasizing the word, “you will all die and I will be a hero!  Who wants to have dinner with me and the Emperor tonight, the rest of them we can eat TOGETHER!”  This of course wasn’t at all true, he had strict orders to not harm any of the other cages, permanently.  The terrified and freezing humans couldn’t know that though.

The mother holding her baby in cage 1134 still clenched her broken teeth despite the warming water still flowing in their cage, intentionally, to enhance the pain.  She wasn’t fooled by the warm water.  Neither did those others in her cage, buy the vampire pain games being played, they were all of them, RATS.  The father of her child, crouching next to her with his arm around her holding her close, saw the pink of diluted blood leaking from her mouth and imagined she had bit her cheek.  “I love you, forever” he whispered to her in the now less searing than pleasant seventy degree water.  “no matter what Eassau,” he said finally naming the child after a year of life, “will live forever with us.  No matter what.  They will never stop us all”  he said through is own gritting teeth, and tearful rage, helpless to stop the pain afflicting his family, his whole world.

Madelaine, the mother, started crying with rage and pain and the vampire saw her shaking with the tears.  “what are you crying for NOW?”  he asked with mocking annoyance.  “YOU got the warm water now, what should I do for you?  Invite you back to my quarters?  Would you like to earn the gift the old fashioned way?”  he was trying anything he could to get a reaction.  He was losing control of the situation from the standpoint of his goals; at this rate there would be no constructive information gained today, he figured he might as well have fun with it.

“I could introduce you to some of my other slaves, im sure they would like you very much indeed!”  he looked at her sidelong, ogling her clearly visible body.  The shower of icy water continued on the cages around them.  The hum that had increased to a rumble was now gone, replaced by the sounds of crying.  Two thousand cages, in this hall alone, sobbed as one it seemed.  in some of the cages some triednow to call out, offering information.  None of them had any of course and the vampire with a look was able to tell this as he walked a few feet this way and that up and down the hall, feigning interest in this humans attempt or that persons attempt to gain his attention.  They were freezing, they were lying, he didn’t need converts, or slaves, he needed information.

As some humans tried to sell their selves to this vampire in the cages around them, the vampire refocused on the cage in front of him again as he returned from taunting and prodding the unfortunate humans that attempted to gain his ear, his favor.

“what do you think you fucking rats?”he said to the humans still enjoying warm water in front of him.  “do you want the cold back?  Should I leave all you pathetic worms to wriggle around until you die?  Surely you are worth more to yourselves than that?  What about your kids?  Think about the children!” he said mocking them, with the lives of their children.

Here he waited listening to the shivering and sobbing barely audible above the white noise of the spray heads that were in each cage placed four to a cage, for proper coverage of the cell area.  He took out his walkie and ordered the temperature back down for the cage in front of him and rattled his prod on the bars.  This was his final ploy.

“ok you all, im sorry you are going to have to die like this, but its your choice, I tried to be reasonable.”  He made a show of walking away down the center of the low hall and its evenly spaced fluorescent lights.  But still noone in cage 1134 said a thing, not one word, not even the parents.

As he walked past cage after cage of humans huddling in masses on the floors of what they had to assume was to be their tomb, he heard at long last what he wanted, a truthful voice screaming in rage, a female voice.  “I AM THE RAT!” she screamed over and over, shreiking.   He stopped in his tracks and smiled a reptilian smile, pulling the walkie out he ordered all the cages spray systems turned off, except 1134.  he suspected it was the mother he had so thoroughly taunted and he walked briskly back to what he assumed would be the window of opportunity to break open Los Ratones and secure the Emperors information and favor.  He was counting his reward as he walked.  Maybe he would get all of them?  He wondered to himself.

He found the woman whom he had suspected the voice to belong to, standing at the bars screaming with her child no longer in her arms.  The sheer cotton garment clung to her skin revealing a full and beautiful motherly form as she screamed with a near unholy rage through the bars and shaking herself back and forth trying to dislodge the bars from the cement, itself poured on the living rock of the mountain.  

“Soy la RATA!” she screamed as he approached.  She was visibly scared of the approaching figure but she didn’t slow down or stop screaming and spitting blood and pieces of her own broken teeth on her self as she did.  He approached her walking through the freezing mist from the spray nozzles above and enjoying her ire and smiling at her as she screamed and spat.

He knew she was lying now, although she was making such a scene that the now less cold humanity around them was beginning to chatter and yell, like angry chimpanzees.  He took one long look at her, sizing up her emotion, and reached through the bars allowing the water to wet his black leather clad arm and grabbed her by the hair.  She went on screaming “SOY LA RATAA!” and spitting tasty blood in his face.  He looked her over with cold disdain and taking his electic prod and its 20,000 volts of nerve wrenching love, he shocked her where her adams apple would be and she convulsed, held vertical now only by his grip; she was vomiting bile and remnants of wheat paste uncontrollably.

The cages nearby fell silent while those too far away to see the commotion went on screaming and carrying on now like monkeys, throwing feces and whatever they could stand to lose that might do damage.

Mortin, now shocked her cruelly again on each breast and then again on the forehead before dropping her and shaking his jacket arm clean of her vomit and blood.  He wiped the tooth bits off of his front and looked at her,

“youre no rat.  But you are going to die like one” he said now assured that he would get no information out of this cage today or ever probably.  If he killed them all, he would get the Rat.  he perused the rest of the humans in the enclosure as the woman’s man, a shorter fellow crouched low in the continuing rain of icy water came and collected her spasming form. “you people just will never learn will you” spat Mortin at shivering mass of monkeys.

He took his walkie out again and he barked an order in a mix of several languages and all the sprinklers again came on.

As he walked back towards the exit, visible off in the distance down the narrowish walk between the rows of cages now silent of human ruckus again, the sound of water spraying again filled the hall.  He walked calmly but briskly.

As he reached the doors of the decontamination chamber a second vampire was waiting for him standing at the control panel looking at him sidelong as he approached.

The second vampire was the aide to the Investigator and had been in an adjacent hall seeking the same information in another cage when he had gotten the call to turn on the spray in these cages.  “so,” he started,

“how many get to sleep forever tonight? And are we going to collect them up?”  he asked with some purpose, as he was hungry.

“just the one cage dies, and no we can grab a drink at the bars.  I want them to rot.” 

And with that the second vampire smiled and cocked his head in an ‘oh well’ gesture and turned a dial and all the cages, but one, turned off and the monkeys started to howl again.  The two vampires walked, the second letting the first pass with a nod, into the decontamination chamber where a series of blasts of disinfectant ozone gas impacted them from all sides making their clothing fluff out and flutter with each of the six blasts.  The elder of the two, who still had some bloody tooth and vomit on his sleeve walked over to the rinsing station at the corner nearest the exit doors and began to wash himself.

“so what is our next move then eh boss?” said the slightly shorter and larger of build, aide.

“we keep looking…  we should examine the hunting halls again, the worst of the problem has to still be in there.  This is the heart of the issue here in the cages but ill guarantee the head is somewhere in those hunting halls.”  He was referring to the massive complex of hunting halls that totaled nearly ten million square feet of space and many more million cubic yards of volume, all under ground, hewn out of the rock beneath the mountain.  Once the complex of NORAD, it was now the playground for vampires.

As the two departed the hall they talked about their next move and planned out a strategy to solve the Rat problem, quickly; the Emperor was not patient.  Meanwhile behind them in the hall the shower continued and the humans in cage 1134 froze to death, in each others arms.  Except one.

 The woman, now blissfully incapacitated by the savage shocking she had received and unaware of her own freezing death, had shoved him through the bars, squeezing the child painfully through, desperate to save him.  It worked.  Cage 1135 had a new member and a teenage girl, barely seventeen had a new baby boy.  The rest, too large to escape the bars, froze, and were left for weeks decaying in a pile.  It was a calling card. 

“Vampires own you”, it said.

“How can they be so stupid?” sighed a tired looking blonde woman in her mid forties.  She stood there in the warm light of her dressing chambers thinking, with the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“they don’t understand.  They think simply selling the blood out of our veins will stop all this.”  She was referring to the situation that faced the human colony on Australia and New Zealand.  The Americorporation had effective control of the trade routes between New Zealand and the Trade Zone to the north in the Islands controlled by the vampire pirates; what remained of the British Crown controlled the mainland of Australia.

“they don’t understand that the it wont matter if there are ten billion people in here” referring to the controlled regions inside the laser UV fences that kept the vampire infestation at bay, she continued; “it wont matter one bit if those fences go down.  I don’t like my people dying of thirst or hunger but if it comes down to losing a few to save the many, I will make that choice.  The last thing I want to do is condemn anyone to death as a human or worse, to life as a vampire.  But if forced between a few and the many I have to save the many, don’t I?” 

The man she spoke to seemed to nod approval.  He was an older man, he had been her fathers long time friend and councilor, now he helped the new Queen apprise the situation.  “it seems to me m’lady, that you are correct, although I don’t think the nobles will want to hear it.  The riots are getting worse your highness.  We don't have enough fighters, enough trained hunters.  What of the Corporation your majesty?”

“call me Anne dammit! you called me anne yesterday my father just fucking died, charles.”  She was showing the signs of her position.

“you weren’t deciding affairs of state yesterday m’lady” he replied solemnly.  “with your fathers passing you are the Queen now, your highness.”

“then as your Queen I order you…”

Cutting the queen off to make a show of his grasp of her request he replied “I understand anne, we are all in this together.  You are strong just like your father, I know you have what it takes, your father is here with you.” 

Taking in a deep breath and sighing audibly with nearly a whimper and some relief she continued “thank you, you have no idea what you mean to me right now.”

“I believe I have some idea Anne, although that doesn’t help us one bit deal with the situation in front of us, highness.”  He felt horrible pushing on past the recent and still hurting feelings of the little girl he had bounced on his knee so many years ago.

“oh damn man, I know, I know!”  He cringed inside as she was forced to bear a weight so heavy.  “I have to tell the Council that they must continue to deny their people; that they aren’t allowed to sell their blood.  That they must watch their people die, starve, turn into vampires, kill their families.  And I am telling them that the one thing that they can actually do, right now, they cant.  They could feed their families and put water on their tongues but I say NO!  and they don’t understand WHY!  But its THEIR blood! How can I tell them what to do with their own blood?”

“somehow we have to make them understand, highness, you are the Queen.  When the people are ignorant, you must be their wisdom”  he left it at that, being old enough and wise enough to know that she had to make and execute this plan herself, she was the ruler now.  He left the room silent, as much as it pained him not to soothe her nerves.

Her father had passed just two weeks ago and this was her first real action as the new monarch.  People were hungry, thirsty, scared and tired of captivity on little island preserves, no matter how big they may be.  The systems that had been put in place to supply energy for the vital systems for what was often spoken of as “HMS Australia” were robust and efficient, and were also designed for a population half that of the current one.  Times inside the fences had been good these 100 plus years and now as a result of the success of the last remaining human colony, people were dying of lack once again.  The conditions were eerily similar to those that had led to the collapse that had left humanity huddled together on just the few square miles of Australia and New Zealand.  There were more mouths than could be filled and more dreams than could come true; this was either the beginning of humanity’s return, or its one final end.

“how can we make them see that if we allow the blood market in, that will guarantee the end?  It is awful and indeed regrettable to lose even a single one of our number, to thirst! we are all there is!”  she exclaimed nearly choking to tears as she played out the scenarios of very real anguish happening right now, in her mind.  She felt the pain of every thirsty child and every desperate father or mother who prayed sincerely to God that it could ever make sense to sacrifice themselves that their children could live.  She breathed heavily and used the intelligent grey eyes of her listener to guide her intuition through her own despair.

“perhaps we buy them off with a promise that the market will open next spring, highness.  It has been shown that during the spring blood production naturally increases.  They will see this as our attempt to do just what we are doing, buying them off..  I would guess the Americorporation fools and the vampires both, anticpate the move.”

“right, but how and what are we going to do in the meantime to prevent the black market getting any worse? Never mind our own growing fucking internal vampire population?  and how on earth are we going to contain them next spring when they have had their hearts set on the fountain of money flowing in their veins all winter long?”  she paused thinking and looking at the man who now adjusted his feet and looked for something to casually lean against as he listened and waited, allowing the Queen time to hear her own question hoping she would come to what he saw as their only hope, for herself.

 “well highness…”

Here she lit up as he slowly spoke, “I can see now”  and she paused eyeing the now smiling figure sidelong as though checking to see his opinion of each new word she offered.

“What? What do you see anne?  Anne of the End Times!”  he now shouted with a booming roar that sent a shiver up her spine and sent her eyes wide as she felt her destiny snap into place around her.

 “This is the end isn’t it?  Really the end!”  She now seemed alive with her situation.  “We can’t count on tomorrow to set us free when we sold it yesterday.  We simply don’t have enough land, not enough land to harvest enough energy to feed and supply ourselves.  Either we start killing ourselves, selling ourselves to the vampires, or we go on the offensive.”  Far from sounding enthusiastic she rumbled now, like thunder beat in her heart.  She was talking about doing the impossible, retaking the planet, or at least part of it.  Who even knew what they would be taking back?  It had been many long years since free human eyes had seen any place north of the equator.  “they have me cornered”  she said in a low breath to herself.

The bottom line she now grasped was that humanity needed room to grow and couldn’t take any more pain.  Her citizens and nobles thought that adding the drain of blood selling would be a multifaceted gain, not only would it slow population growth but would also raise the standard of living for those alive.  They didn’t understand the situation the way her father had, had made sure she understood it.

“if we let that market in, the market isn’t for blood, its for their souls!  You would think that losing control of the entire planet would have wised them up some but I guess not.  They simply cannot sell their blood.  Blood is most efficient in the veins of a human, that is the fact!.”  Here she spoke of the ancient understandings that had been passed to her by her father.  For thousands of years vampires had been a nuisance, a well understood nuisance by some.  The knowledge had largely been lost, but it still lived on in the Court of her Majesty Queen Anne of Uluru, the name taken by her fathers father, the great Alexander Uluru, and she would be damned if she were to allow the flood gates to open, pouring out the souls of her people onto the tongues of the insidious, spiritually wasteful creatures; vampires. 

The logic was simple although the mathematics became complicated, if more complexity and beauty was generated by an organism per unit of energy it took from the energy cycle, it was deemed, by these ancient maths, a beneficial creature, or species.  Humans while being horribly wasteful also generate tremendous variety and add to the overall complexity and spiritual depth of the system even if the net gain is only at the margin.

In the traditional teachings, plants are the suppliers of most of the energy available and also supply such variety and complexity while themselves removing none, that the entire tree of life has at its roots, plants.  Likewise in the traditional energy cycle the cows that eat the plants add to the landscape more than they take and though they do take, they also add.  So too does the wolf that eats the cow.  At each level the added complexity of predator and prey; the dance, justifies the existence of that level by what has been looked at as The Great Accountant, The God of Energy and Change, The One True God.  According to the ancient maths, we all have to add up.  It had been assumed that the cycle was maximized by human life and that God would naturally leave it so.

It wasn’t in the past, and will never be, possible to predict the future.

In the fringes of a growing human culture and population, in the faces and hearts of the forgotten, the shunned, the starving masses serving opulence, a menace of despair and rage began to simmer and pass on just as any other part of culture would.  The pain of the parent was shared with the child concentrating itself in the souls of the desperate and suffering over the generations.  The first souls to ‘pop’, the common term for the spontaneous conversion process, woke to a second life of bitter everlasting night in the slums of the first human cities, some ten thousand years ago.

Feeding on the already stressed energy cycle, stressed by the same wastefulness that had ultimately led to the anguish of their vampire formation, vampires feed on the growth that is human culture.  Like wolves they prey on humanity but in this case, no beauty is added, complexity and order are reduced.  Solitary vampires hunting humans had long been thought a check, provided by God, on human wastefulness.  Our ugly secret had been the menace in the lonely night.

This had been taught, naïve of the possibilities, as human culture tapped into ever more energy rich resources and technologies for harnessing them, for thousands of years.  Governments and Nations came and went but onward always went human advancement, always dogged by its vampire conscience.  Now in the wake of the failure of humanity to grasp the consequences of dependence on nonrenewable resources, vampires controlled the world and farmed human souls in cages.  A planet that supported 8 billion humans, now housed less than 100 million vampires and only 2 billion human inhabitants.  That included the nearly one billion souls crammed onto the islands still under human control. 

The energy cycle had been redefined, by the minds of a very few, very greedy vampires.  They didn’t care about the whole, only their part.  The Covenant had been stuck in Cassandra’s nightmare and powerless to stop the collapse in the face of the human failure to see its own demise coming.  The weight of humanity, so many people, behind the misunderstanding that God simply wouldn’t allow such a robust and efficient system to fail, led to the collapse.  The system, as described beautifully in the acient maths, was truly majestic, wonderous.  It was a near perfect expression of energy allocation, natural order; “God’s will” it was figured.  As darkness spread, 2041 would forever be remembered by those humans who maintained their languages as “The Great Failure”.

The great energy cycle had been understood for millennia, and she was now the keeper of the flame of understanding.  She and a few others held the knowledge that could save humanity.  Vampires were humans, tortured souls forgotten in pain and left to die by their loved ones mostly, that had undergone the conversion that left their souls no longer centered on the concept of a universe based on something, but one based on nothing, nothingness.  If a human soul were to be likened to a star, a sun, built on the principles of existence and warmth that radiated out into the surrounding space, the vampires soul had collapsed into an insatiable black hole, without bottom and to which time no longer applied.  Vacant souls writhing, colder than deepest space, craving the release of energy only to be had as a blood cell bursts.  She knew that far from being the improvement her nobles and noble people wanted, allowing the sale of blood on the open human market would mark a turning of the tide, humans would begin to accept what would then be undeniably their own vampire nature, as they fed on themselves.  She just couldn’t believe that was the future.

This is what the enemy of all humankind of course wanted.  The Emperor Delitus was very pleased and had for many years patiently been allowing the human colonies to grow and stretch their resources to the breaking poin.  He had allowed them to again cram themselves into an impossible situation that even in his worst case scenarios, would leave him a terrified and blood weary people easily subjugated.  He had time to wait and it was paying off with the current dilemma and panic creeping in on his human ‘pets’.  He watched from his faraway mountain lair, coldly enjoying the show and biding his time.

This was the situation faced by the new Queen.  Her brood was being surrounded, cut off, undermined from within and was now begging her to sell its soul for a glass of water and a plate of food.  Things could go on, a while, but for how long?

If there was any hope at all it would be the will of her and those like her that would save humanity, if it could be saved.  She wasn’t the only one who understood however.  Her father’s father had learned of the ancient spiritual maths that governed the formation of vampires and explained the great energy cycle, from an organization that now had a chance to succeed where it had already failed once; to protect humanity from vampires. 

The Covenant was an organization older than any other, and while it was ancient and there were many wise among their ranks still, many members of the organization, as it was often called by its members, were now pirates.  Failing to find the freedom that had for so long defined the values of the organization and its members within the confines of the rigidly controlled society inside the UV walls, many had opted for the synthetic life; lives ‘enhanced’ by every trick in the book.  Genetic modification, stimulants, steroids, and the now generally available endocrine rejuvenation chemical gonadulin which made long term survival as a “synth” possible, were all used by the generally impressive synthetically ‘improved’ humans.  Those who had once been the champions of human purity and freedom were now to most ‘monsters’, though with their presence still helped keep the vampire overlords at bay and out of the Trade Zone not to mention the islands beyond.

“order conscription”  stated the queen flatly.

The man leaning against a large stone pillar and seeming lost in his thoughts started and stood up looking at the Queen somewhat sleepily at first; “absolutely your highness”  he stretched slightly and smiled a sixty three year old smile; he had been itching for a chance at payback for what he had lost to vampires for nearly three decades.  He was a year or two past his prime but he was in, war was on.  He felt the little girl before him change with the passing of seconds, before his eyes.

He looked her up and down he saw a leader, “what of the Americorporation, majesty?” he asked the now purposeful monarch referring to the leftovers of the American super corporation that formed in the few decades prior to the collapse.  They controlled what had been New Zealand. 

“oh they will love the news that the Royal blood market will open in the spring.  This will buy us a few years, at most.  We must watch carefully the rates of spontaneous conversion though.  If they rise as a result of this news, we are in worse shape than we thought.”  At the moment nearly one person per week within the fences “popped”, under the stress of starvation, fear, and thirst.  “if that increases you know what that means right?”  The intent of her ruling was to alleviate pressure, if the populace took it rightly, as the sign of ultimate defeat it was, it could and probably would lead to a sharp increase in the despair felt by those closest to the pain and could precede a speedy collapse. 

“I never thought I’d be hoping my own people would stay stupid and look forward to selling their souls.  How can we play such games?”  She felt the pain of deciding for others their fate.

“When a bully has their foot on your chest, first secure breath, then vanquish the foe”  stated the less and less elderly seeming man.  The thought of carrying a UV light and some Holy Water into battle and staking vampires to hearth once more delighted him immensely.  He would love to see the Trade Zone once more.

The queen walked away and stopped short, “Childsworth, my mp3 player please?”

Tossing it to her with an underhanded gentleness one would show technology he said to her “Anne, your father would be proud of you, I think you have found the only option left us.  If there is one, we have to pray this is it.”  He had a full head of ideas about what and how to do what should be done, but he understood that if humanity had any hope at all, this Queen had to survive and succeed.

She strode from her enormous dressing area and its stained glass light in the midmorning sun aware that she had her father’s best friend, a highly decorated and respected vampire hunter in his day, on her side.  She secretly prayed for the visit she wondered if would ever happen again.  The vampire that had installed the British Crown rather than claiming Australia as his own, was her only hope.  She knew that with the few hundred thousand fighters she could muster, at most, she had no real chance.  She needed the pirates if only to contain the Americorporation.  Traitors to humanity she felt, the “Americorpse” pushed for the Blood Market and the needles of the Blood Empire itself she and others saw, to be in every home, every vein.  The “corpse” sold its blood to light its lights, to keep the bellies of those living there full, and to keep the vampires out of their homes.   She felt bitter at their lack of appreciation for what her people provided for them.  The Americorporation  provided a buffer from the vampire north to her Australia and loudly so they claimed, while to her it was little more than a leak in her boat.  They could shout what they like; Her Majesty’s Ship Australia, maintained a home for their very souls.

            “Leave it on!” barked a male figure dressed in black from head to toe to a man dressed in a burlap shirt and pants that looked sewn by a chimpanzee.  This was the uniform worn by those humans who were used by the vampire overlords to perform menial and even more technical tasks to uphold the empire.

           

           “But its set on cold m’lord” apologized the man in burlap clearly afraid to speak out of turn to the well dressed sharp eyed character standing sternly in front of him.

“Well I know its set on cold you puke.”

             The man dressed in burlap set down his box of tools and reached over to the control panel that was set into the plain unpainted cement wall and closed the plexiglass cover that rested over top of all the knobs and dials that were used to control the cells doors, autoclean, and reward/punishment systems.  He tried to stealthily turn up the temperature gauge that corresponded to the cage in question, 1134.  He turned back towards the other figure who was standing in the middle of the control area of the huge underground chamber.  It was nearly a mile long and lined with thousands of cages, plain square cages with bars vertically that made them appear like animal cages; they were really at this point.  Although they housed humans, they weren’t human like one might hope.  After a generation or four of subjugation nearly nothing remained of their culture.

              The man in black stood in the cold light of the very few fluorescent bulbs that were used to light the farming facility.  As the man in burlap looked at, and then past the other man, he could see the long low warehouse full of cages and thought about those that would be affected by the events happening right here.  He prayed the other man hadn’t seen him turn the temperature up from 35 to 55 degrees F.  He hoped it might be enough that the people in that cage might survive until the man in charge had had his fun with them.  The man in black was of course no man at all, not anymore.

            The tall thin figure in black paused looking almost fatherly at the other man, “now why would you go and do a thing like that?”

           “What m’lord? What have I done to displease you?”  he knew he’d been caught but he tried to stay within the training guidelines he knew, “follow the rules like you'd follow the light” it was said.  Always be polite to a vampire, especially one in charge of your very existence.  This vampire was relatively young, not that that meant anything to the man at this point.  Whether a vampire was feeling kind or cruel wasn’t much a function of its age after a year or two.

           “What have you done?” asked the vampire smiling at the man.  “nothing at all? I didn’t see you turn that temperature up ten or twenty degrees or so.  I missed that entirely!”  he cocked his head to the side and walked slowly and ominously towards the man mocking him. The vampire continued; 

            

          “Do you know why there are rules?  Do you know why we teach you people manners?”  he asked with clear disdain and the man looked away and to the side. “For moments like these, you liar.”

The vampire paused, letting his insult find the man and it did; the man felt bad.  How could that be?  He couldn’t believe his own feelings.  How could a guilt trip from a vampire be so painful?  He felt like a bad person. 

 He became angry with himself and the vampire but he knew better than to let on.  He tried to conceal his feelings aware that he was probably about to be fed on or beaten or both.  How could he feel bad about being thought a liar by a monster like this.  He had been raised fully in captivity though he knew well the difference between himself and this vampire though he had never seen a free human in his entire 27 year life.  He paused waiting for the vampire to continue, realizing that his hole was already dug deep and he had better not make it deeper than he need, or he might end up in a cage with the cows.  He enjoyed the life of a “techy”.

          “Does that make you angry? Being called a liar by a monster who has just ordered you to leave a cage sprinkler on cold and then leave the area?” it was as though the vampire had read his mind.  He of course hadn’t read the man’s mind, he just knew the man better than he knew himself perhaps.  The vampire could feel the man’s every emotional move in his adapted salivary glands and through his entire vacant spirit, the man’s frustration felt like the sight of ice cream on a sunny day might, to a human. 

More firmly now the vampire glared at the man “answer me! DOG!” 

          “yes m’lord.  I’d become angry at the idea of aiding in the loss of so much blood”

Laughing and emptyheartedly embracing the fiction, the vampire threw his arm around the man and walked with him back towards the control panel in the dim light under the railing above.  With his arm around the man’s shoulders and looking at him, he smiled coolly and put his nose an inch or two away from the man’s nose.

        “How about you go right on ahead and turn that back down where I told you to.”  He continued, “and believe me, I will let the emperor know that you tried in earnest to save his cows from my callous desire to let them, chill, over night.  I’m sure he will appreciate the gesture”.  There was an eerie tone to the vampire’s words but “fucking when wasn’t there” thought the man to himself. “thank you my lord he said, keeping his feelings as subdued as possible”

        “That’s more like it, you are the type of human we need more of around here” he said slapping the mans right shoulder with a vampire touch and shoving him assumingly towards the panel that was now closed but s till showed its glowing and flashing red and green lights with dials and gauges and a digital readout at the top to indicate which cage was being adjusted. 

         The man walked up to the panel with the help provided him by the now quite pleased with himself vampire.  He was again confronted with what he was being asked to do.  And despite his best efforts to spare a cage full of 25-30 humans, probably children as well, he was forced to turn the dial back down to 35 degrees, the coldest setting.  The vampires used simple cages and sprinkler systems to control the behavior of their most prized resource, their “cows”.  Good behavior got you a warm shower, bad behavior could be rewarded by hours of freezing cold water showering over you and your near total lack of clothing.  The cement floor with single drain in the center wasn’t much comfort either and served to aid the water in sucking the heat and possibly, life, out of a person.  The man thought to himself about his cage and the people he lived with as he turned the dial back down.

           He knew there were, somewhere in that vast facility, twenty something souls that could nearly instantly feel the change in temperature.  A cold rain at 55 degrees in the 67 degree facility, it apparently wasn’t going to stop for them, and it had just gotten colder.  He knew that if he didn’t do as he was asked, the vampire would kill him and do it himself.  He looked at his feet as he closed the panel.

           Smilingly the vampire slapped him on the shoulder again and walked with the man guiding him to the nearby doors that led first to the decontamination chamber and then out.  Vampires, despite being generally filthy spiritually, appreciated washing off the shit, piss, or blood that sometimes ended up on them whilst examining their humans.

          The vampire casually talked to the man as though they were friends now.  “I’m sure the emperor will grant you extra food or something for you special.  Maybe for your whole cage? A woman?  Man?  Perhaps he will throw you in the pool for ‘the gift’?”  and he got almost giddy at this thought.  “That’s how I got it you know.  One day he just took me from my cage, in a facility very much like this and said, ‘thank you for your service’ and bit me.  I had been surprised to feel pressure instead of the normal feeding drain, you know…” alluding to the “feeding” feeling he knew they both had experienced and using the memory in the man maliciously.  It of course hadn’t been exactly like that, there was always a price to pay, nothing was free with the Emperor and generally he made the profit and you took the loss, and you liked it. He continued looking at the man and motioning to his neck and smiling recalling the warm burn of the Emperor’s blood and saliva mixing and entering his bloodstream.

              The man stood there trying to listen and be interested in becoming a vampire despite the fact that he couldn’t keep his mind off the of the freezing people he had just left at the mercy of this vampires desire to do harm.  Perhaps this was the order of the Emperor himself, maybe that was why things seemed different.  He had been called as he normally was to see to it that the sprinkler systems were functioning properly, but rarely was a human in charge of touching that control panel unless they were directly ordered and supervised.  He had been both but still it all seemed odd.  A normal inspect had turned into torture.  Perhaps it was a test?  He didn’t know but for the moment his head swam with the odd mixture of fear and uncertainty and the extremely rare sense of friendship he felt from this vampire whose name he didn’t even know. 

It happened sometimes that a vampire would like this or that human for whatever reason, taste, looks, personality; but he had no clue who this guy was or why he was here with him.  It all made him nervous to the point he pissed his pants.

“What?” said the vampire seeming surprised, though not really being so.  “Now now” he reassured the man.  “Don’t you worry about a thing there, uh, what was your name?” he asked, feigning ignorance.

“Angelo, m’lord my name is Angelo” replied the man.

The vampire pulled his walkie out of his pocket and mumbled something in a nearly unintelligible mix of several different languages the man could barely understand any of.  He could pick out the English words but the others were more difficult.  He spoke Spanish as well; the humans had done their best to keep language alive in their cages, it was fading knowledge though indeed.  It was clear he was on his way to be awarded something he couldn’t understand by the Emperor’s aide himself, who was a notoriously cruel vampire although he was also powerful.  Perhaps he was the one that oversaw “given conversions”?

The idea of becoming a vampire was terrifying but to the man at that point, less so than some of the other things he had heard of happening to humans who had fallen out of favor with the Empire.  He was already preparing himself for a life of soulless eternity and not even blinking at the thought.  He was too scared too often to feel it wholly any more.

“Now go ahead and leave your tools here and go with this lovely thing here and she will see you to where you need to go”.  As he said this, a female vampire entered the room, she was beautiful and nearly nude as was often the case of the youngest vampires that were still earning their way through the levels of servantude that went along with receiving the gift. 

“Right this way” she said with a sly grin.  Her hair was rich auburn redish brown and her top was a loose fitting and paper thin t-shirt with equally thin, cotton probably, pants that were sheer enough as to not be much of a barrier at all.

 The mans head swam with a rush of  sexual chemicals and the vampire that had summoned the female smiled at the two as the left on their way to see to it that this insolent human, who thought he could lie to a vampire overseer, received his gift.  He walked back through the decontamination chamber and into the cage areas thinking to himself “they will never learn” and smiling with full knowledge of the mans fate.

The man and the intoxicating female left though the swinging doors at the far end of the locker areas used by the vampires who were using the adjacent “hunting halls” for sport.  Humans could be purchased or won or awarded and used as their new owner saw fit.  It was always bad to go to the “hunting halls” as anything but cleanup, and that was no good either.

The man had no idea what was happening and couldn’t even really think, he just walked, too scared to even be very turned on by the delicious form in front of him.  She walked beautifully, five feet five inches and feeling her buttocks slide past one another in front of the bewildered man.  She felt almost human again, she had been a vampire only a month, chosen for her, assets, she was still the age she looked, around 25.

The man asked her “what is going to happen to me mistress?” she was young and he could tell by her attire, so he knew she wasn’t particularly powerful but he knew better to be safe than sorry, she could after all kill him herself right here.

“I don’t know to be honest with you, don’t be frightened though.  This doesn’t feel like most killing fetches they send me on.  Her cold comfortability with her job gave her away as a vampire.  She smiled at him, “maybe he is going to convert you himself, that would be a gift indeed.”  She beamed.  “that’s how they got me, I asked for it at the end” she said proudly smiling at him with a cold wink.

The man didn’t say another word and simply walked behind and to the side of her, despite her appearance, she still smelled like a vampire.  Not the sweet smell the of the sea he wished to see again.  He wished she smelled as a healthy woman, not only because of the sexual appeal, but because it would mean this all might be a dream.

He had never gone anywhere outside his cage without his tools.  His having been asked to leave them with the tall vampire who had pulled him out of his own cage in the skilled humans housing section of the enormous underground complex that morning seemed very odd indeed.  The complex was enormous and was in places highly technical in its operation.  It had once been used by the now nostalgic United States of America and called NORAD.  It had been enlarged many times and now he was in a section of it he had never seen before.

The two walked through corridors lined with smooth black marble and past many areas where he could tell vampires were staring at the two of them through the one way mirrors that occurred every so often.  They took a straight path; that never happened either.  Vampires liked to disorient humans in transport, blindfolds were standard.  None of that was happening.  His mind spun, “what was happening?” he asked himself over and over.  He couldn’t stop his mind reeling, he tried to think of someone, anyone, who might come to save him.  He pictured every friend he had from his section and skill set, he couldn’t think of s single person that he could count on in his mind even to break his fall into panic.

The female sensed his fear and suggested “calm down man”.  She said it almost humanly he thought.  That felt nice, and was a good sign he finally decided.  He was starting to become comfortable with the idea that he might soon be required to do something horrible to “earn” his gift.  He knew that simply saving some cows wouldn’t ever be enough to earn the gift and a share in the Blood Empire.

As the two of them approached the Emperors’s section, deep in the mountain the female turned to him and looked at him stopping him in his tracks.  He stopped not just with at the wonderful visage before him, which was quite clear in the stronger light and close proximity, she was marvelously groomed and fit.  Her pale skin shone in the overhead lights, warmer here than in the cage areas.  He lost himself in the light bulb over her head and she snapped her fingers, her chest shaking visibly as she did.  He came back to her eyes and she said, “look, have you ever seen the Emperor? In person?”

“No.  err, no mistress” he replied swallowing hard and trying his best not to notice her form and eyes.

“Then this isn’t likely a killing.  Well, not likely your killing anyway.  He might want you to kill though.” She said suggestively seeming to almost fantasize about this man before her as a vampire.  She was trying, consciously to embolden the man.  Still human of her, she would continue to change with time.

“Think twice before you hesitate in his chamber.” She said enjoying her own ironic choice of words and seeming playful.  “Don’t hesitate for anything, just do it before he can think if he asks you to kill.  If not, the other guy might just kill you.”  She said it with a near giddy thrill as though death had already lost meaning for her.  “the same day I was chosen, I saw two who refused to kill each other, they both left in halves, right down the middle” she calmly recalled.  “I didn’t see it happen but I heard it, remarkably quiet slicing someone in half apparently, I assume it was his sword… The Emperor’s I mean.”

The mans stomach dropped as he considered what was about to happen after he walked through those huge heavy looking black doors with their brushed aluminum handles.  “his Sword?” he thought to himself.  “Fucking sword?” he said then aloud unaware of his speaking aloud.

“Do you like me?” she asked him changing the subject.

He was startled, “like you mistress?” he replied.

“Yes! You know? like me?” she said doing a jumping jack and a skillful twirl that showed all her best sides.  “Would you fuck me? If I were a human I mean?” obviously aware he might not find her quite as attractive as he would have a few weeks ago.  “You best not be so dense in there” she said.  “if he asks you a question and you return one, I’ll bet you are dead before you can finish speaking.”

“Yes of course mistress.”  He stammered slightly at what he’d just seen and understood.  “You are magnificent I can see why they chose you to be vampire”.  He was still trying to be polite and hang on to the idea he was different than her, although he was starting to warm up to the idea of not dying today.

“Touch me” she said.  “Touch me here”, she said pointing to her beautiful nether regions. 

His eyes widened and she said “THERE don’t hesitate!”  she continued “you might be in troub…”  he got it.

Before she could finish the word he had felt the sexual tension and terror snap into a single action.  He felt himself, as though reflexively, reach out with both hands in one double thrusting motion and grab both her throat and her crotch.  She smiled tilting her head back and enjoying his touch.  She sighed, almost a moan, and said “there ya go, now, go ahead, you can do it”

He shook his head as if shaking off a daze, almost unaware of his own steps towards the doors.  He was numb.  He felt empty, terrified, but hopeful.  He didn’t have any clue what his next five minutes would be, never mind tomorrow.

"Smells like blood", a lone vampire standing on a dock looking out over black water said to himself.  It was midnight on the south shore of the main Island of the Trade Zone islands in early march, it had once been called Papua New Guinea.  He looked into the distance deciding what his best course of action would be.  He realized with the time of year and the weather being what they were, not to mention other types of climate, now wasn’t the time to cross.  He wanted to make the crossing by way of a largish island south of the coast, to the relatively nearby Australia, but sensed it wasn’t time yet.  Breathing in deeply, savoring the smell of the air coming from the south on the odd southerly breeze, he imagined life going on there.  The time was almost right, but not yet.

His thoughts returned to what he must do rather than make the crossing he so longed to.  He took a long look out over the rolling blackness and its seamless connection to the moonless sky, and paused.  Then without another thought turned purposefully to the north and walked quietly back up the pier towards the short rickety wooden staircase that delivered him to the sand below.  He had almost a light step, vampires are known to be light on their feet, but they appear heavy to the eye as they do it, this was the light touch of one longing to fly.

He looked about, up and down the beach in the blue light of the night, a warm breeze blew up from the south making him feel almost uncomfortably warm despite the time of night.  In the starlight he walked towards the tree line considering his options.  He had for many years now been running a smuggling operation between the vampire controlled territories to the north and the human colony that still remained on the islands of Australia and New Zealand.  There were many other small islands as well that were still controlled by the last remnants of the human resistance under the last remnants of a fading English Crown.

His operation was simple; supply blood to the north, from the south and do what he could to keep the two separate.  How else would he be able to make a living, how else would his plan work.  He stood nothing to gain by aiding in the collapse of that last human colony.  Despite the propaganda of the vampire overlords he knew better than to rely solely on the farming that had been the centerpiece in the plan of the Emperor Lord Delitus.

Humans had lost control of most of the planet following the collapse of their larger society and the subsequent seizing of control by the vampire Delitus and his few but strong loyal followers.  In one moment of indecision and under-preparedness humans had simply lost control, totally.  With the exception of the Southern Colony there was nothing left of Humanity.  If it were indeed appropriate to call it humanity, what went on there.

The vampire walked past the burned out and now almost completely reclaimed by the jungle remnants of the human shops and fishing huts that had over one hundred years ago been a bustling human settlement.  Pausing, he now turned back, looking over his shoulder as if still not quite sure he couldn’t go, but he couldn’t and he knew it.  Not yet.

            He walked into a jungle strangely devoid of animal sounds.  In a world where blood was the most valuable commodity, animals didn’t stand a chance against both the forces of human predation and vampire.  There were of course still many animals surviving, but only the ones that knew how to stay clear of two legged, things.  As he walked he went over what he would say to his camp.  They were mostly vampire but there were also many humans working for him as well.  As far as vampires went this was the one to work for regardless of if you were human or vampire.  Most vampires gave no care whatsoever for what it meant to be human, though each and every one of them had once been themselves human.  Even vampires could benefit from kindness and the type of mutual care that could only be called love.  This is what bothered the vampire as he walked and thought.  How could he explain to them all that the time was coming when it would all necessarily come to an end. 

The operation had been going on for most of the time since the collapse and the humans that were working with him were of course not the same humans that had helped him establish the free zone in the islands south of the southeast asian peninsula, though they were very similar in character.  The only people that could handle working around vampires were those with serious problems themselves, people around whom other people felt uncomfortable.  Most of his humans were of the “synth” variety.  This was the slang term for the genetically modified and chemically altered, stimulated, and completely adulterated humans that had basically given up on any notion of staying “natural” humans.  It was a gamble that vampires could respect, or at least understand.

The vampires working for him were likewise not the average vampires either.  Most of them were the ones who had, until they met this vampire, outcasts living on the fringes of the vampire Zones of Domination, as they were called, each the responsibility of a hierarchy of vampire overseers under the Emperors icy control.  They were mostly those that had been ridiculed and often killed and persecuted by other vampires for refusing to drink human.  Working for this vampire, they got to have the best of both worlds, human blood and clear consciences.  Not that conscience was the right word, even the softest of vampires could run ice cold at the drop of a needle.  It came with the territory, you can’t take the vampire “ride” and not see more than you want.  They still, the 1000 or so vampires that helped him control the island mostly in defense against other vampires, were the type that he could buy with spiritually clean blood.  Many vampires preferred the taste of fear and rage chemistry in the “donating” human. Some, these, preferred blood given peacefully and willfully.  To he and his followers, “Choice given” blood was tastiest blood of all.  Sweet with freedom, they reveled as they drank.

He continued through the jungle watching his step in the hear pitch black under the jungle canopy at night.  Every now and again he would leap high into the air to get his bearings, even though this was his jungle and had been for more than a hundred years, plants gave no blood and so they overgrew everything and changed with the seasons.  He could easily get lost in his own backyard, as it were.  He loved that though, the forest. Muted shades of grey and black that he knew to be beautiful green like those plants he kept in his home where he could tend them in the safe light of his basement levels.  As he walked he thought about how to handle those humans that would never be accepted back into their own colony, either for what they had done before they left, or after.  He was possibly the most conscientious of vampires with regards to human life, however often humans would disappear on trading missions to his trading hubs along the south coast of the main islands of what was once the southeast asian nations of Indonesia, New Guinea, and Malaysia.  They were mostly taken for their blood by marauding vampires or possibly even the more unscrupulous human pirates that often sold “taken” blood as “given” blood and dealt in human “cows” as they were called sometimes in the trade.  The vampire could tell the difference but so often there was too much blood to check it all.

Jumping high, brushing aside the large leaves of the canopy, grabbing a tree trunk and jumping again he was able see far into the distance and landing lightly on his feet he would carry on in the direction of the fires he saw that stood atop the defensive bamboo walls of his main compound.  He was about as merry as he could be though, it was his way   He was thirsty, there was blood ahead, and dawn was still hours away.