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"What happened at the manor, and does it have anything to do with what happened out here?"

Ceres considered the questions. She gathered her legs onto the chair and crossed them, then leaned back. She said,

"To your second question, no." Ceres looked down and shook her head. She then raised her head to meet Edgar's gaze. "What happened out here was something no one would have guessed until it was too late."

Isabelle, absentminded and kicking her legs, chimed in.

"An alien invasion, right?" She chuckled. "Can you imagine?" She looked at Edgar who shared her amusement.

"Actually, yes."

Isabelle and Edgar snapped their attention back to Ceres, who sat with a grim expression. They waited for the change in her demeanor to indicate she was joking, but the grimness never faded.

"That's one hell of a poker face, Ceres." Isabelle expected the punchline to drop any moment. When it did not, she turned to Edgar.

Edgar shrugged and returned his gaze to Ceres.

"You're serious." Edgar's tone was matter-of-fact. If this was a joke, he wanted to draw it out sooner rather than later; he was growing impatient in his desire to learn what happened at the Manor.

"Oh, I'm dead serious," said Ceres. She unfolded her legs, placed them on the floor and stood, snatching up her helmet in the process. "In fact, I can show you," she said, and settled her helmet over her head.

Isabelle raised an eyebrow to Edgar. Edgar raised an eyebrow in response. He, like Isabelle, expected a joke; if this proved to be a joke indeed, he would lay into Ceres for wasting his time. However, the Ceres he knew was not given over to flights of fancy and ridiculous ruses. He was inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt. He stood as Isabelle jumped down from the table. The followed Ceres' example and put their helmets on as well.

"Let's see your aliens," said Edgar.

Ceres led the way out of the conference room and back to the stairwell. The vampires kept close as they moved up two levels. Upon exiting the stairwell, Ceres crouched and gestured to Isabelle and Edgar to follow suit. Moving close along the ground, they entered a floor flooded with sunlight. Low walls and cubicle dividers blocked their view of the area. Ceres guided them to a corner office where the furniture had been removed and chipboard panels covered the windows. Slats were installed in two panels on adjacent walls. Once inside the office, Ceres stood and walked to one of the panels with a slat. She slammed it open, peered outside, then slammed it shut. She moved to the other panel and repeated the motions. She then turned to Isabelle and Edgar.

"They're swarming outside. Plenty to see," she said, then wandered to the corner and sat on the floor with her back to one wall, facing in Isabelle's direction.

Isabelle and Edgar stood and walked to separate panels. Edgar followed Ceres' example and slammed the slat open. Isabelle attempted to open the slat slowly but found it got stuck easily. Ceres rose and came up behind her and slammed it open for her. Isabelle felt heat rush to her cheeks, with Ceres standing so close, her hunger all but forgotten. Ceres stepped away, returning to her spot in the corner, and Isabelle turned to look out the slat.

There was no need to crane her head and strain her eyesight to look down to street level: the height afforded a comfortable view over the nearby buildings. She and Edgar didn't have to look at the streets below. A glance at the streets surrounding their vicinity showed them all they needed to see.

Continued after the break

Lanky, humanoid creatures moved about in large groups. Pairs split off from these groups on occasion to rejoin them moments later. Their height and limbs were of strange proportions and uniform across every single one he watched. They way the moved was odd as well. It took Edgar all of three minutes to recognize they moved in a pattern. Unless human evolution accelerated over the past three hundreds years to arrive at the beings Edgar was watching—which he thought dubious—these were not humans.

Isabelle mused aloud. "Are they aliens or robots?"

This echoed Edgar's thoughts. The pattern in which they moved appeared mechanical, automatic. Likewise their individual movements. All of a pattern. All in uniformity.

Ceres removed her helmet.

"I'm not sure how much of what they are is biological, and how much is robotic," said Ceres. "I haven't been able to find out. They decimate anyone who gets too close."

"Anyone?" Edgar slammed the slat shut and turned to face Ceres, removing his helmet.

"Anyone. Human or vampire, doesn't matter."

A chill ran down Isabelle's spine. She fought with the slat to close it, slamming it shut after a few tries, then removed her helmet as well. "How do they kill the vampires?"

"Same way they kill the humans. They use some kind of incinerator."

"Like a plasma gun?" Isabelle's brother often talked about the nasty things they used against infantry when running guerrilla operations. A plasma rifle could bore a palm-sized hole right through someone's chest, cauterizing the wound as the blast passed through, leaving them in excruciating pain while their organs failed. It sounded like a terrible way to die.

"Not quite, though equally bloody terrifying. This thing will reduce a body to ashes in minutes. I've watched them use it."

Edgar was lost to the conversation. Weapons technology, it seemed, had advanced leaps and bounds, and not in a beneficial way. One thing however remained true: humans were always looking for greater and more efficient ways to make one another suffer.

"They move like a hive," he said, without turning away from the slat.

Isabelle looked at Edgar, then returned to the panel and fought with the slat once more. Ceres started to rise again, but Isabelle figured out the trick and slammed the slat open. She watched the beings as Ceres responded to Edgar:

"That's how I know when and where to go to avoid them. They run the same pattern over and over again." She sighed. "What's bloody annoying is there are enough of them that they can comb the entire fucking city in about 28 days."

"Impressive," said Edgar, his watchful eyes still scrutinizing the beings. "And the drones?"

"The drones do their dirty work at night. I've never seen the aliens out in the dark. It's as if they fear it. Which reminds me—" Ceres stood and leaned against the chipboard panel at her back. "They scurry like bloody rats into their little tunnels as soon as the sun dips below the horizon. The drones don't come out until well after midnight. We cover a lot of ground during that time."

"Yeah, which reminds me," said Isabelle, pulling away from the panel and turning to Ceres, "What are you doing with those humans?"

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