Gene's Sunshine

The vampire and I have been partners in exile for a long time now. Gene is stoic. She doesn’t complain. Not with words at least. She’s red hair, brown eyes, pale skin, and a frown. There are people in all our lives we never forget, no matter how long ago we lost them. She carries the pain of those losses in her eyes. Oddly I don’t think the loss of family stung her as much as the man she never expected to find.

    Gene talks about her mother and father, her older sisters. She never mentions him. He is the look in her eyes, a shadow that has not lifted from her in hundreds of years. Without daylight to chase the shadow away, perhaps it would always be with her.

    That’s the problem with being a vampire like Gene. She’s immortal, unageing, without sleep. She can never bask in the glow of sunlight which has long been known to benefit those with depression.

    You probably want to know more about what she looks like. She’s 195cm which is short these days. People just keep growing and growing. She likes to wear black. She likes jackets with lots of pockets and the same goes for her trousers. She’s wears hiking boots these days but I don’t think that trend will last.

     Gene isn’t one of those bloodthirsty vampires that go around drinking people dry in dark alleys at night, not nice people anyway. Generally, she gets blood donations at work. She works as a surgeon so saying a patient needs an extra pint of blood here and there doesn’t raise any eyebrows.

     I know what she wants, other than her dead lover back. She wants to walk in daylight. She wants to sleep. She wants to live without drinking blood.

     I have no idea how to help her. Luckily, she’s a bit of a genius. There are other vampires out there who have been after the same things for millennia. Long before humanity lost its home planet among the endless stars, vampires were looking for ways to walk in daylight.

     I bet you think that’s a bad idea. True. Most vampires are more like the stories. Nothing corrupts like power and vampirism comes with a shedload of abilities. They can’t transform into bats or anything but that’s the least of your issues if you’re worried about immortal blood suckers.

     Gene is stronger, faster and can sense heartbeats. I don’t know if she hears them or senses the heat. No idea. She can hypnotise people. Add to those the fact that she was damn smart to begin with and she should be a galaxy class psycho.

Luckily for all of you sensitive flesh bags she has an immutable conscience. It’s me you should worry about.

After centuries of wishing it seems fate provided for Gene. Another vampire, far older and far more the bloodthirsty monster type, had called her for help.

Apparently, vampires aren’t social. The more they gather together the more obvious it becomes to other people that someone is drinking the blood of mortals to live forever.

We showed up to Naga’s haunt, a tower block covered with gang graffiti. The kids with guns at the doors knew who I was because I’ve been killing people for a long time. Unlike Gene I don’t favour stealth. I’m an immortal soul, if I die I can just find another body, perks of being what people used to call a demon/angel.

Like kids who have guns and money from a young age they were all in flashy clothes, gold plated nonsense hanging from their necks and tattoos to make them look fierce. As if it would help in the next gunfight with police or another gang.

We were led by the teenage soldiers to their master at the heart of the tower. In a lift that had been closed off for other residents of the tower we headed straight to the penthouse, fifty stories up. On the highest floor there were bars to stop anyone accidentally throwing themselves off the balcony. Naga no doubt found a way when she had to.

Her apartment was all class compared to the rest of the tower. Every window had been covered with armoured shutters that were welded shut. The lights inside were low, the carpet beneath my black shoes was thick. There were fancy paintings on the walls as if Naga was trying to impress someone. I laughed when I saw the imitation fireplace with its holographic fire. The only thing that impressed me was the alcohol collection backlit across an entire wall. Naga had expensive taste and with her gang bringing in a kingpin’s salary she had the cash to indulge.

A boy in a diamond studded bullet proof vest knocked on an armoured door to announce us.

“It’s the scientist and Taiga, man, let us in.” In the light as he turned to look at me, I could see that he had gold flecks in his eye. I have no idea how or why anyone would want that, but I suppose it went with the rest of his look.

A camera whirred and turned to take us in. I smiled. I like to show all my teeth to the enemy, so they know I’m willing to use them if I have to.

The heavy door clanged and opened into a lab inside a safe room. Naga sat there on an incongruous leather throne. Ever the one for melodrama. She stood in red leather trousers and matching sharp red nails. Her black jacket had the collar turned up because I suppose she liked to look like the singer of an operatic metal group.

She was taller than either of us with curtains of black hair either side of her almost black eyes.

“Leave us.” Naga told the young man who’d opened the door to the safe room. He bowed to her and left. Despite his silk suit he had spiked purple hair and gold knuckle dusters on both hands. He’d outlived most of the kids she had working for her, but he’d never outgrown their sense of style.

“It’s good to see you both again. Especially since I have such perfect news.”

“It’s finished?” Gene asked. The redhead looked around as if whatever they were talking about would glow beneath a neon arrow.

“I believe so. Ten successful tests in a row,” said Naga in an accent that was classic Mumbai. She’d gone to a nice school before becoming a vampire in her late thirties I’d say.

“Were the test subjects all vampires at the time?”

“Of course. I wouldn’t bother testing them any other way.” Naga smiled. She seemed like the kind of girl I could get on with. She was hundreds of years old but for me, being as old as time. I get to call any mortal soul a kid if I want to.

“Do I get to talk to any of these successful subjects?” Gene asked.

“You can examine them if you want to Gene. I couldn’t have them running around. You understand. They were little gangsters. I made them vampires and then I made them immune to sunlight. Your hypothesis was correct. It just needed tweaking.” She was so casual while discussing death. Definitely my sort of immortal.

“I want to see them,” Gene said, tucking red hair behind a lily-white ear.

Naga pointed to a chest freezer at the other end of the long room. I watched Naga closely while Gene had her back turned. Naga was my kind of woman which meant I had to keep a close eye on her.

The mist of warm air mixing with cold poured from the lid of the freezer as my favourite vampire opened it up to look inside.

“How long did they survive exposed to daylight?” my vampire asked. She was cool as she looked at the bodies in the trunk. She even sounded excited.

“The first one I only tested for an hour. No signs of burning within that time. The second one I left out for a day. Again, all good, until the bullet in his brain. Number three spent a week gagged and bound on top of the roof above us and never felt anything but hunger. There’s only one test left,” said the host, pausing for dramatic effect.

“What’s that,” Gene asked, turning back from the freezer.

“I want you to try it,” said the host. Her eyes were black glitterballs.

“Me?” Gene asked.

“My oldest friend,” the gang queen smiled. “You had the initial idea. You got a good start on the research. Me and my team just finished it off.”

            “Then you finished off the team I bet?” asked my redhead companion.

“You know me,” Naga shrugged, “all business.”

“And you need someone to test the effect on older vampires. All of them,” Gene pointed to the open freezer, “were brand new.”

“I’m cautious, like you. That’s why we’ve lived this long.”

For curiosities sake I wandered over for a look in the freezer and couldn’t stifle a laugh. They were green. All of the bodies had green skin as if they were turning into broccoli.

“What’s up with that?” I asked. “They’re all green.”

Gene answered before Naga got the chance. She told me the green was Chlorophyl. The vampirism stopped it from taking over and bound it to the epidermis. With vampiric magic the result was not just immunity to sunlight but a nice energy top up.

I clapped. Clearly it wasn’t appropriate. Both women stared at me with disapproving looks before Naga looked back to Gene. To ask her question she simply raised a midnight black eyebrow. My companion nodded.

When Naga stood, looking every bit the singer for an operatic rock band, Gene looked back at me. In her eyes I saw a signal we’ve developed which meant at some point we would have to fight. What it really meant was I would have to fight. It was why she had given me extra strength. She was the brains; I was the muscle. It wasn’t an arrangement I minded.

Naga keyed a seven-digit code into a safe sitting on a pristine metal bench. When the door opened, I saw credit disks and a tiny red cool box. The cool box had the name of a hospital printed on it and was clearly stolen.

Naga unlocked the cool box to reveal four needles filled with what looked unimpressively like water. Why can’t cool science stuff glow or at least be a fun colour? Is that too much to ask?

Naga took out one needle, locked the box and put it back in the safe. She closed the safe and turned back to Gene. My vampiress held out her hand. Our host placed the needle in it.

With the needle in her possession Gene asked to see evidence, video or other, of the experiments on the dead bodies in the freezer. As Naga had pointed out, she was a cautious soul.

Our host smirked, satisfied with the proposition. Pulling her communicator from her back pocket she pressed two fingers on the screen to unlock it. Flicking through videos on the device she selected one and tapped her screen to project the film into the air above it.

A teenager, tattooed all over and dripping with jewellery, winced as Naga took his blood for the ritual to pass vampirism from her to him. Contrary to legend biting will not make a vampire, just teeth marks. It’s not a pleasant sight for others to watch but as a bloodthirsty mongrel I always find it funny. I laughed as the braggadocio gangster screamed in pain. I sighed as he fell asleep for the last time.

The projection skipped to him being woken with a slap on the rooftop of the tower. He blinked as the first shades of red lit up the night’s sky. His head began to twitch about as did everything else as Naga fast forwarded through an hour before a bullet burst through the back of the gangster’s head.

Once more we saw one of her foot soldiers turned into an immortal bloodsucker. Again, she fast forwarded through footage of the man on the roof as a full day passed. Again, it ended with a gunshot. From the stairs on the rooftop Naga clearly didn’t reserve her executions for test subjects.

The third of her pet plant vampires was strapped to frame on the rooftop watching the sun rise and set until his brains painted the rooftop with a fresh coat of blood.

The projection ceased, making the safe room darker again. Naga’s white teeth seemed to light the room. She knew she had something Gene wanted and all she asked was for my friend to go first.

My vampire held the gaze of our host. Gene’s brown eyes were looking for a reason not to trust the woman who dealt drugs and death daily. As I remember though, they were alike in their pursuit of a scientific goal. My companion’s speciality is prosthetic surgery and design. She’s a good mechanic as well but Naga is the one with degrees in biology and chemistry.

Gene held the needle up to see it more clearly. Gripping the syringe in her teeth she rolled up a sleeve then removed the air from the tip of the needle and plunged it into her flesh without a moment’s thought. I was shocked to see how quickly she would risk eternal life for a shot at sunlight.

Naga’s grin was born anew, wider than I’d ever seen it before. She turned her back and opened the safe room door. All we had to do now she said, was wait.

She was a gracious host. We got to drink her good stuff. I filled up on wine and whiskey while she sat in an armchair opposite Gene in what looked like a throne. The redhead vampire checked her arm once in a while as green tendrils spread across her white skin.

“How do you feel?” Naga asked.

Gene shook her head and shrugged. It wasn’t like her to be vague. Eventually she didn’t need to lift her sleeve to see the green creep of the chlorophyl through her skin. It crept up her neck and to overtake her face. I’d known that face for three hundred years. Always serious, small nose with a little pockmark on the right. The green crawled over that face, around her brown eyes to her forehead.

“Nothing?” I asked. It looked like something from horror movies that should have her screaming and twisting in pain.

It took two hours from the green tendrils to merge on her toes. By then her whole body was green. It looked weird. Imagine a redhead model with perfectly green skin in an all-black ensemble and knowing she was part plant, part vampire.

Naga watched the outside world through the same camera that had recorded her test subjects on the roof. The sun was rising.

“Where are the stairs?” Gene asked.

Naga walked us to the staircase. A series of heavy locks barred the doorway. Naga unlocked them all and stood back from the doorway. I had expected light to pour in but there was another door down a passage. Our host was paranoid.

“Good luck,” said the drug dealer.

I went with Gene, past the heavy door to the next set. The other door locked behind us. I snorted. That little door wouldn’t have stopped me if I wanted it open.

“Going to stick a finger into the light to test it?” I asked.

She shook her green head, red hair flicking as she did. “No. I’m going to walk into the sunlight and if this doesn’t work.” She shrugged.

I put a heavy hand on her shoulder. She looked into my eyes, gave me a wink, and shrugged off my hand. Turning the handle she said something so quietly even I couldn’t hear it.

Golden light grew around the rim of the door as she pulled gently. The light cast the door in a deeper black as my eyes adjusted. Then the door flung open, Gene became a silhouette. She froze. Seeing only her back I couldn’t tell what was going on.

“Are you alright?”

Nothing.

“Gene?”

I put a hand on her shoulder to pull her back into the darkness again. She batted the hand aside and walked up stairs. I caught the door as it swung shut behind her.

She seemed fine and yet she was silent. Her pace quickened with every step. I had to run up the stairs to keep up with her. We emerged on a bloody rooftop.

From the look on her face, you might have assumed we had just emerged into paradise. It wasn’t quite blissful so much as the joy someone has when great pain ends. She stepped towards the edge of the building, feet sticking to fresh blood on the rooftop.

All around us were ragtag tower blocks. Some of the windows were boarded up. Some of them were barred. Gene’s joy at seeing them in the bright sunlight was a zen master when the thought of enlightenment feels in reach. Wind whipped her red hair across her green skin and for once, just briefly, she seemed truly happy.

I knew what I had to do.

I left Gene on the rooftop and went back down the stairs. Naga waited by the inner door.

“How is she?” asked the host.

“Happy,” I said. I then crushed the life from Naga because I knew Gene would never want the ability to walk in daylight in the hands of a monster like her.

I punched my way through the safe room door to get the box with the other vials. Gene took them from me when I found her again in the sunlight. We destroyed every single one.