“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.