Afterwards I walked alone across the short-cropped grass of the darkened training area as fires blossomed and bloomed across the complex. The search lights had gone dark and shadows slashed across the tall fences surrounding the yard so that they looked alien. I had wanted to be alone, to try to parse the knowledge of my origin. Fertilized human eggs had been tweaked, DNA removed, DNA inserted, genetic markers turned off and on. A mish mash of bat, tortoise, fly and even plant and virus DNA had been hodgepodged together. I couldn’t understand the technical details, didn’t really care to, all of them had been jumbled together to create men who could navigate darkness, survive lethal wounds, and possessed supernatural strength. Patented assassins crafted to do slave work for the armed forces. The thirst was an undesired trait, but they’d been unable to eliminate its occurrence. The General had been pleased to learn that humans did not yet know of the condition’s ability to spread to drained victims and had been amused to find out that the President was fully aware of the project. I felt no joy at the discoveries, no emotion at all except a disappointment that I felt no emotion. Should I not feel something upon discovering that I’d been created to kill at the behest of men, disgust, ironic satisfaction. It had changed nothing.
As I mused, I approached the glass coffin (though I had not thought of it as a coffin when it had first been introduced) twinkling softly in the center of the field. It seemed to have dulled, its corners rounded since I’d last seen it. A dark shape laying in it caught my breath in my throat but as I drew close enough to stand over the cell and peer down through its lid I saw that the shape was not Derrick, still shriveling away inside as I’d feared. I exhaled despite thinking that I had only transferred that horrific punishment to several young boys. The prisoner did not even acknowledge my existence though I tapped the glass as if he lay inside a terrarium. His glazed eyes didn’t even blink. Just when I’d assumed, he was dead his head began to rock back and forth slowly. Drool rand down his cheeks from his opened mouth. He raised one arm slowly to the lid, but his eyes still did not meet mine. His eyes were filled with a slow uncomprehending madness, they were sapped of sense. I backed away slowly, abandoning any ideas of freeing him. He could not distinguish between being alive and being dead, so I deemed him to be dead though he lived on suffering a fate that no human has ever had to endure.
After those first vampires disseminated from the compound, and some of our targets had turned, bringing vampires outside the reach of military discipline it did not take long for the media (I must have looked puzzled for he spread his hands wide to indicate the breadth of his words and said) magazines, TV, newspapers. It didn’t take long for them to get word of our existence. One hundred people drained and a twenty percent turning rate was enough. We had always called ourselves the Night Asps, the name our unit had been given. It was the press that first referred to us as vampires. If only they had known. I remember one local news station asked ‘Are these terrors Edward Cullen, or Lestat? I guess they got their answer. Of course, these myths benefited us immensely. No one expected us to be able to endure the sunlight; therefore, there was little suspicion of those of us who maintained self-control. No one ever suspected the General though his superiors died off, if anyone suspected they died or were turned themselves. The General captured newly converted vampires and had them executed so that he was elevated to the status of a hero. The public loved him, his bravado, his soft slurred drawl. He weakened the United States so that he might take control of it, and dispatched other vampires to all corners of the globe to spread out corruption and prevent anyone from taking advantage of the softened nation. Everything seemed to be going his way, total control seemed close. The ranks of naturals swelled quickly though and began to run amok through the cities and blister the countryside. Even that went his way at first as Marshall Law was declared giving him almost complete control of the nation.
But the infection spread too quickly, and the nation shut down in terror. The army could not contain the vampires’ growth. Shipping halted, groceries emptied, and starving people rioted even as vampires feasted among them. Thousands of humans and vampires were mowed down in attempts to restore order in DC alone. Any vampire who was not seen as loyal to the General, who drank against his will was dismembered if captured. Limbless torsos fretfully wiggling their heads as they begged for help, for mercy, for weeks and weeks on end until they grew too weak. Once the President was drained by an unknown vampire and didn’t turn the last grip of control on the nation slipped
