Interesting Places (Interesting Times #2)

by Matthew Storm

  The cyborg filled two vials with Oliver’s blood and withdrew the syringe. “Satisfied?” Oliver asked.

  “For now. We have an interesting new set of tests to run.”

  “Oh?”

  SCI-3422XB nearly looked pleased with himself, although Oliver knew cyborgs never felt pleased, or felt anything at all. “We have discovered someone else who cannot be converted. We intend to compare your blood to hers.”

  “Seriously?” Oliver asked. “Who is she?”

  “A prisoner we captured nearby. It is a most unusual situation. She claims to be a vampire.”

  Oliver nearly laughed. He was about to tell the cyborg that vampires weren’t real, but then again, it wouldn’t have been very long ago that he’d have said that cyborgs weren’t real, either. He wasn’t sure if he was comfortable making any assumptions. “Well…that’s pretty interesting.”

  “Indeed. We were unfamiliar with the concept, but we confirmed that she is averse to sunlight and must consume human blood to survive. She does not find our blood agreeable, so we intend to introduce you very soon.”

  “Oh?” That sounded ominous. “Should I be worried?”

  “I suppose it depends,” the cyborg said.

  “On what?”

  “On how delicious you are.”

  The introduction the cyborg had spoken of came the very next day. Oliver was led under guard into an empty operating theater and left alone. He spent a moment looking at himself in a large mirror set in one of the walls. It was probably one-way glass, he thought. Most likely all of the cyborg scientists were in an adjacent room, watching and waiting to see what would happen next.

  After a few minutes the door he had been brought through opened again and two cyborg guards forced a woman in a blue hospital gown inside. The woman’s hands had been bound behind her back with metal cuffs and chains fastened her arms to her sides. She hissed malevolently at the guards as they propelled her toward Oliver and then retreated through the door. The door shut, locked, and Oliver found himself alone with the vampire.

  She didn’t look like much, at first glance. The woman was Mexican, with dark hair and eyes that lingered on Oliver for just a moment before scanning the room. Looking for an escape, Oliver imagined. Maybe she’d find a way out and leave him alone.

  That was not to be. After a moment the woman turned her gaze back to Oliver. “What time is it?” she asked.

  “What?”

  “What time is it?”

  “There isn’t a clock in my room,” Oliver said. “It’s daytime.”

  “Is the sun out?”

  “Ah…yes.”

  The woman grinned at him and he saw fangs glistening where her canine teeth should have been. “Well then, you understand I have to make this look good. And the truth is, I’m very hungry.”

  Now it was Oliver who wanted very much to escape, but there was no way out, unless he thought he could jump through the mirror into the observation room. The vampire took a step toward him. Even with her hands and arms bound, Oliver didn’t think he had much chance of beating her in a fight, and he had just enough pride left that he wasn’t going to start screaming and running around the room.

  “We haven’t met,” he said. “I’m Oliver. What’s your name?” Maybe if they made friends, she’d be less likely to eat him?

  The vampire stared into his eyes for a moment. “You really have no idea, do you?”

  “No. I’ve never actually met a vampire.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said. Then she moved at him so quickly Oliver’s eyes hadn’t even registered it until her fangs sank into his neck. Pain like fiery needles ran from the twin punctures all the way down his arm and he nearly screamed.

  The vampire took several gulps of his blood and then released him. “You taste strange,” she said, her breath cool on his neck. She looked at him quizzically. “You’re not exactly human, are you?”

  “I was the last time I checked,” Oliver said. His knees threatened to buckle at any moment, but the pain from the vampire’s bite was already receding, replaced with a dull throbbing that wasn’t much worse than a mild headache.

  “And you’re already healing,” she said, watching the skin of his neck. “Impressive. Chantal said there was something supernatural about you, but I suspected she was willing to say anything to keep me from ripping her head from her neck.” She smirked. “She failed.”

  Oliver wondered if blood loss was making him delirious as well as dizzy. “What…the hell…are you talking about?”

  The vampire shrugged as much as she was able to with her arms chained into place. “It doesn’t matter right now. My name is Maria, by the way. You’ll see me again.” She turned to the mirror. “What else have you got?”

  Two guards half-carried, half-dragged Oliver back to his room. When they had him situated in his bed SCI-3422XB put a needle in his arm and started an IV. “We must get your fluids back up, Oliver Jones.”

  “What did you really think you’d learn from that?” Oliver asked. He was no longer in pain, but found himself oddly tired.

  “To see if you’d live, firstly. To see if your blood can sustain her better than ours. At this moment we are examining her to see how your blood affects her system. Depending on the outcome, we may next want to see how her blood affects yours.”

  “You want to give me her blood?”

  “According to the mythology we have accessed, that is typically how one becomes a vampire,” the cyborg said. “If she is able to convert you, we will have learned something. If not, we will also have learned something. Life is full of mysteries, is it not, Oliver Jones?”

  Oliver would have been inclined to agree, but at the moment all he wanted to do was shut his eyes and go to sleep. A moment later he did just that.

  Chapter 13

  Oliver woke up to find SCI-3422XB sticking another syringe in his arm. He watched as more of his blood was sucked into a tube. “You guys never stop, do you?”

  “We do not,” the cyborg said. “Unlike you, we no longer require sleep in the conventional sense.”

  “How long was I out?”

  “All night, and most of the day. You seemed to need the sleep, so we did not wake you.”

  Oliver nodded. “Do you rest at all?”

  “It is more of a recharging period,” the cyborg noted. “You will find it very efficient, once we are able to convert you.”

  “Lucky me.”

  Oliver sat up in the bed once the cyborg had finished taking his blood. “How did your tests go?” he asked.

  “It was interesting. Your blood had an unusual effect on the vampire. She appeared to be intoxicated for several hours after ingesting it.”

  “Really?”

  The cyborg gave him a stern look. “Oliver Jones, have you been entirely honest with us?”

  Oliver frowned. “About what?”

  “The vampire was unusually talkative during her intoxicated state. In between threats to tear the heads from our bodies, she indicated that the two of you have met before.”

  “Really?”

  “We can only conclude that one of you is lying, but we have been unable to identify what motive either of you might have for this.”

  Oliver shrugged. “I think I’d remember if I’d met a vampire before. Honestly, I thought they were just stories to entertain teenagers until I actually saw her.”

  SCI-3422XB studied his face for a moment. “You do not appear to be deceiving me. Then again, neither did she. This is a very strange situation.”

  Oliver tried not to laugh. Everything about the last six months had been strange. “I guess so.”

  “Further, the vampire indicated that her condition after drinking your blood was not the result she had expected. She suspects you are not really a human.”

  Oliver looked at his arm and brushed off a drop of blood that had formed there after the cyborg had removed the syringe. “You’ve done enough tests on me. Wouldn’t you know if that was true?”

&nbs
p; “We would expect so, but nor should an ordinary human be able to resist the nanobots. We initially suspected a genetic mutation, but that cannot explain the thermal reaction that takes place.”

  “Life is weird,” Oliver said. “So now what?”

  “Now we will see what effect the vampire’s blood has on you. We will compare this to the effect yours had on her.”

  Oliver didn’t see any more syringes waiting. “You’re going to shoot me up with something?”

  “No. We intend for you to drink her blood. Your mythology indicates this is the normal procedure.”

  “You understand how strange the word normal sounds right now?”

  “Perhaps to you. We find new situations easy to adapt to.”

  “We’re going to do this right now?”

  “No, we must wait until dusk. The vampire has informed us that the change cannot take place during daylight hours.”

  Oliver had never heard of that before in any vampire story he’d ever read. “That seems strange.”

  “Indeed. We were unable to confirm this in any of the mythology we have studied, but nor could we confirm that it is false. A few hours should make no difference, and then we will discover the truth of the matter. Until then, perhaps you would like to rest and watch a DVD?”

  Oliver didn’t think watching old movies was going to make him feel any better about what was coming. “I’d like to take a walk, if you don’t mind. It might be my last one.”

  “As you wish. The guards will convey you to the yard.”

  The cyborg left the room and shortly afterward two armed guards marched Oliver to the fenced-in area outside, where they watched as he walked along the yard’s perimeter several times. Oliver found he wished he could see the ocean from where he was. It would have been nice to sit by the water for a while. If he really did turn into a vampire, he wasn’t going to be spending much time at the beach. If he died, he wouldn’t be spending much time anywhere.

  When the sun began to set the guards collected him and marched him back to the operating theater he’d been in the day before. Oliver couldn’t help but feel like a condemned man being taken to his place of execution. Part of him wanted to make a break for it and see how far he could get, but he knew from prior experience he wouldn’t even make it to the first bend in the hallway before the cyborgs dropped him. Their weapons had a stun setting that he’d been on the wrong end of before. It didn’t damage his body, but it left him immobile for the better part of half an hour. On top of that, it hurt like hell.

  The guards pushed him into the room and shut the door behind him, leaving him alone. Oliver glanced over at the mirror where he knew the cyborgs would be observing him. “Screw you guys,” he said.

  There was no response. A moment later the door opened again and Maria stepped through. She was bound in exactly the same way she had been the day before, hands cuffed behind her back and arms chained to her sides. Three cyborgs in armor accompanied her, two holding her arms to guide her and the third carrying a scalpel at his side.

  Two of the cyborgs propelled Maria forward, directly at Oliver, who quickly found himself backed against a wall. The vampire looked at him curiously. “What are you?”

  Oliver swallowed hard. “How do you mean?”

  “Your blood…I’ve never felt like that before.”

  “Well, thanks, I guess.”

  A speaker on the wall crackled with static and a voice said, “Begin the experiment.”

  “What time is it?” Maria asked.

  “Um…” Oliver said. “I don’t know.”

  “Is it after sunset?”

  “Oh. Yeah, the sun was going down when they brought me in here, so it’d have set by now.”

  “Good.” She leaned forward. “I’m going to need a distraction,” she whispered, “so make this look good.”

  “Make what look…” Oliver began, but the vampire sank her fangs into his neck before he could finish the sentence. Pain shot through his body again. Unlike the regular needle jabs the cyborgs had put him through, Oliver doubted this was the kind of thing a person could ever get used to.

  Maria took one good swallow and then pulled back. She sighed deeply and licked her lips. “I don’t think I could live on that,” she noted, “but it would be nice to have once in a while. Like a really good Cognac.”

  Oliver blinked twice and shook his head to clear it. The vampire had taken much less blood this time; he didn’t feel nearly as dizzy as before. Still, it wasn’t an experience he’d choose to repeat.

  Maria nodded at the cyborg with the scalpel. “Now,” she said. “Like I told you.”

  The cyborg stepped forward and drew the blade across her neck in a quick, clean motion. Blood welled up in a line on her skin. She smiled at Oliver. “Come give me a kiss.”

  The cyborg who had been holding the scalpel put it away and seized Oliver, forcing his head forward until his lips were touching Maria’s wound. He felt her blood seeping between his lips and into his mouth. It was room temperature rather than warm, but sweet and spicy with none of the metallic taste he might have expected. He couldn’t help but take a swallow. “Now remember,” she cooed, “give me that distraction.”

  Oliver’s stomach did a flip-flop and he suddenly felt sharp pains in his abdomen, as if he’d swallowed a handful of razor blades. He pulled back from the vampire, who watched him with interest. The three cyborgs did the same. Oliver took a deep breath; he felt his body heating up with fever and sweat began to form on his forehead. It was similar to the way he felt when his body was rejecting the cyborg nanobots, but far more intense. His body was no more receptive to vampire blood than it had been to those tiny machines.

  Oliver leaned forward, retching once, and then vomited the blood and the contents of his stomach onto the operating theater’s clean tile floor. Tendrils of smoke rose from the blood, and then the blood itself caught fire as if someone had dropped a match onto a pool of red gasoline.

  Maria watched the small blaze for a brief moment. “Good distraction,” she said. Then she jerked her arms outward and the handcuffs and chains binding her arms snapped as if they’d been made out of silly string. She turned in one quick motion and seized the nearest cyborg’s head, yanking it sharply to the side until his neck snapped. Before Oliver even registered what had happened she drove her fist through the next cyborg’s chest plate, rooting around for a moment before tearing his heart out through his ribcage. She held the heart up so the third cyborg could see it, then reached out and twisted his head around so far it was facing in the opposite direction. Oliver heard a loud snap, and then Maria pulled the head right off of the cyborg’s body.

  The cyborg bodies had hit the ground before Oliver fully realized what was going on. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m Luke Skywalker. I’m here to rescue you,” Maria said. Then she turned and hurled the severed cyborg head through the mirror that led to the observation room. The glass shattered like it had been hit with a mallet, revealing half a dozen cyborgs standing there.

  “We seem to have underestimated the vampire’s strength,” SCI-3422XB noted. Maria was through the broken mirror half a second later. The next few seconds looked to Oliver like what might happen if six cyborgs got caught in some kind of industrial blender. Maria came back through the mirror once she’d finished with them, absently tossing a severed cyborg arm aside.

  “We should probably get going,” she said.

  Oliver stared at her. “You’re Luke Skywalker?”

  The vampire shrugged. “Your friends told me to say that so you’d trust me. It’s quicker than explaining all of this to you. Now let’s go.” She took an assault rifle off one of the cyborg corpses. “Do you have any idea how to use this?”

  Oliver took the gun and examined it. The cyborgs had brought their own weaponry when they’d invaded Earth, but the basic principles looked the same. “It fires energy bolts,” he said. He raised the gun and looked down the barrel. “As long as it’s just pulling the tr
igger, sure. But where exactly are we going to go? They control the entire west coast, unless you’re thinking of the San Diego Resistance?”

  “We only have to get as far as Filbert Street.”

  “What’s on Filbert Street?”

  The vampire stopped to pick a bit of skin out of her teeth, examining it for a moment before dropping it to the floor. “Look, I’m not going to pretend I understand any of this, but your people have a way to fix everything. I didn’t remember any of the last year, I mean the real last year, until they found me.”

  “The real…hang on. Who sent you? Who are these people?”

  Maria looked into his eyes. “You really don’t remember any of this, do you? Artemis? That twisted bitch Sally Rain?” Oliver shook his head. “Not even that talking cat you hang around with?”

  “No, I…talking cat?”

  “Forget it. Let’s go.” Maria turned and started for the door. Oliver hesitated for a moment, then followed her. He had very little else in the way of options, he thought. Even if he was captured, he’d only find himself back in the same situation he’d been in an hour ago. Unless the cyborgs just decided to kill him, which was probably inevitable, anyway.

  Maria eschewed bringing an assault rifle of her own, but moved so quickly in the face of danger that her hands were probably more effective than any weapon she could have brought, anyway. Two cyborg sentries met a quick end in the first hallway they entered almost before Oliver had even noticed they were there, and much less before he’d have had time to think about raising his weapon and firing at them. A moment later he found himself watching as Maria flattened the skull of another cyborg up against a wall. “I’m surprised you don’t…you know.”

  Maria wiped cyborg blood off of her face. “What?”

  “Eat them.”

  “Only when I absolutely have to.” She made a face. “They taste awful. It’s those little machines in their blood.”