Psalm of Vampires: Chapter Sixteen

Broken Memories

I was perched on a chair in a small café looking at two stunned faces in front of me, both of whom were stuttering in Malay that I was an alien from outer space. They were young men with phones and tablets in front of them. College students, judging from the backpacks full of decals sitting next to them on the white metal table and an organic chemistry book off to the side.

I waved at them. They nervously waved back. I looked at my phone, but it said, “No service.”

“How’s it feel making first contact?” I asked in Singlish, a colloquial English common to Singapore. Neither of them responded, so I stuck my hand out and said, “Jade Mourning. Nice to meet you.”

They still said nothing — just stared at me. Finally, one of them said, “Bennie Chua,” and stuck his hand out to shake mine. “And this is my brother Philip.” Philip stuck his hand out, so I shook both of theirs.

Philip said, “You don’t have an interplanetary virus or something do you?”

Bennie said, “You know what happens in War of the Worlds. The Martian ships all crash and the Martians die because they’re the ones that get infected — by earth viruses.”

“Yeah,” said Philip, “My money’s on planet earth. We got the best viruses” Bennie nodded heartily.

Bennie leaned in. “Are you from an exoplanet?”

I shook my head. “No, Bennie, I am not.”

“Europa? Ganymede?” guessed Philip.

“Nope.”

They both looked at each other like they had lost an easy bet.

“Can’t be Mars,” said Bennie. “No oxygen.”

“Besides, they were already here,” said Philip. “And they got smoked by germs.” The brothers laughed together in unison.

“There’s no oxygen on Europa or Ganymede, either,” I said plainly. “Well, this much,” I touched my index finger and thumb together.

“Have you been there?” asked Philip eagerly.

“No,” I said.

“Then how do you know?” asked Bennie.

“Google it,” I said.

“You use Google where you’re from? Did you research Earth using Google? Are you here to destroy us?” asked Philip.

“Philip,” said Bennie. “There’s no reason for extraterrestrials to destroy us. There are billions of uninhabited planets with all the minerals and water any civilization would need. So says Mr. Webb.”

“Mr. Webb?” I asked.

“Mr. James Webb,” said Bennie. “He is a telescope. Very famous here on earth.”

Philip said, “Maybe they consider us pests. And then, zap! Are we pests to you Mr. Mourning?” I thought of Longtooth, who surely would have said yes.

“Or pets,” laughed Bennie.

Apparently, the two brothers cracked each other up frequently, because Philip laughed in a way that told me that he often did when his brother spoke. And vice-versa.

“I come in peace,” I deadpanned.

“This is exciting,” said Bennie. For all their levity, he sounded serious.

“Are we the first earthlings you’ve contacted?” asked Philip.

“That is why I asked the question I asked.” I couldn’t help myself. I had to run with this.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” said Bennie. He took out his phone, tapped a few things. “Oh, funny man!” he said, showing the phone to Philip.

Philip smiled broadly, then laughed.

The brothers were dressed conservatively, with polo shirts and khaki shorts on their thin frames. Their hair was close-cropped. They both wore white Apple watches with an annoying tendency to beep at the same time.

The brothers laughed, then said more things in Malay, wrongly assuming that I didn’t understand them.

“He’s that crazy streamer who thinks he’s a vampire,” said Philip in Malay.

“No, it’s an act, I think,” said Bennie in Malay. Then he said in English, “Funny man!” He showed me his phone.

I shrugged and said, “You’ve outed me.”

They both laughed and nodded.

“But how did you do this?” asked Bennie, pushing his hands together, then apart quickly while saying, “Poof!”

Philip looked under the table.

“I don’t have time for this,” I said, wondering how the hell I got there. “Gentlemen, it has been a pleasure, but this vampire needs to find a good genome researcher pronto.” I hissed, showing my fangs.

Bennie laughed. Then, more seriously, said, “A geneticist?”

“You’ve heard of book editors, right?” I asked. They both nodded. “I need a gene editor.”

“Ah! Don’t we all!” laughed Philip.

“Someday there will be gene editing drive-throughs next to every Starbucks,” laughed Bennie.

“Purple hair to go!” said Philip. Both laughed again. I was beginning to subscribe to Longtooth’s theory of humanity. I started to get up, wanting to bang their heads together. Let’s see if they laugh at that, I thought.

“Wait!” Bennie sounded like I was forgetting something, so I paused and sat back down.

“Why do you need a gene editor?”

“I suffer from a unique gene defect. I believe it can be edited in a way to give me a more normal life.” This was true, even though it wasn’t my current goal.

Bennie slid his backpack closer and started to dig through one of its small side pockets. He searched frantically like he was trying to beat a timer on his smartwatch. He opened a small metal case and pulled out a business card. “My uncle,” he smiled happily. He handed the card to me.

The card read, “Dr. Chua Mi Tien. Principal Engineer. Singenics Biotechnology, Ltd.”

Wow, I thought to myself. Moreland’s talent is pure magic. Not only had it landed me in what was, romantically speaking, my ancestral home, but it dropped me in front of someone who might be able to help me with our DNA problem. It was crazy. Quantum crazy.

“That’s exactly what he does,” said Bennie. “If you’re serious. Which I’m sure you’re not. But, just saying.”

“Gene editing?” I asked.

Bennie nodded happily. “Yep. Melanomas, leukemia, and something to do with eyes, but I forgot what. Novel therapeutic gene therapy he calls it.” Bennie slid his big organic chemistry book toward me and patted it. “He’s the one who talked me into this. The headache of my life. Long running, never ending.” But he laughed anyway.

“Bennie, what if I told you I’ve never been more serious about anything in my life, and I’ve been alive for more than two thousand years?”

“I would call you a crazy man. Maybe he can fix your brain!” Bennie said. The brothers laughed in unison again. I decided they were fraternal twins.

“Uncle Mi! There’s trouble on the hippo campus!” said Philip. More silly laughter.

“You know what they did in the old days to fix nutty brains, right?” said Bennie. He took a butter knife and slashed at the table with it “All done! Problem solved. That’ll be five million dollars please.” More laughter.

I snatched the butter knife from Bennie and effortlessly bent it.

“It’s all that red meat Americans eat,” said Philip. Bennie nodded, then raised his arm to flex a bicep. There wasn’t much to flex. “Very powerful,” he said quietly, almost in a whisper.

I was determined for them to understand that I was a vampire. This wasn’t going to be easy, because these guys were not stupid. “Do you follow my streams at all? Or WallaceCam?”

“WallaceCam!” said Philip. “Greatest show on earth!”

“Look,” said Bennie, sliding and tapping his phone. “Number one on Twitch right now. People are disappointed that it is all recorded now. What gives?”

“It’s not an act,” I said. “How do you explain my arrival? Like you just said. Poof!”

“That’s because it is the best act on the planet now. It’s amazing,” said Philip. “Forget how. Why did you come here? All the way from New York or wherever the hell you live?”

The amazing thing was that the café was packed full of people. Nobody else seemed to have noticed that I emerged from nowhere. I doubted that these two would have noticed had I not emerged immediately in front of them. “I told you,” I said, acting like I knew what I was doing. “I need to find a gene editor.”

“Lots of those in America,” said Bennie.

“Laws are strict there,” I said.

“Here, too. Maybe stricter,” said Bennie. “Very, very strict. Licensing is a bitch. You should go to China. They’ll do anything there.”

“Especially if you give them money. You got money?” asked Philip.

I nodded. “Your uncle is above working for some extra money on the side?”

“Bare your fangs and he will!” laughed Bennie. I was beginning to think that it would come to that. Which was fine. But there was a reason he gave me his uncle’s card. “Can you introduce me to your uncle?” I asked.

“Can you take my organic chemistry test for me tomorrow?” asked Bennie. “I gotta study, dude.”

“I can take you,” said Philip. His tone turned studious and determined.

Bennie looked at his brother like he was crazy.

“What if he is a vampire?” said Philip.

Bennie laughed. “Uncle Mi would pee his pants.”

“Uncle Mi would be pissed if he found out later that this guy’s war was real, and we didn’t help him.”

That erased Bennie’s smile like someone erasing a chalk line from a blackboard. Bennie quickly nodded a few times. “He would, wouldn’t he?” said Bennie.

Still serious, Philip leaned in. “So, are your genes different? Your DNA. Is it different than ours?”

I nodded. “Quite extensively so.”

“Ben, it will take Uncle Mi thirty seconds to prove or disprove it.”

“Twenty, I think. And if he’s lying,” said Bennie, “We chop Mourning’s head off like a Wardluck!” They both laughed.

I wanted to react to the brothers’ playful banter, but I couldn’t because I found myself crawling around on the ground outside of the tent where I had been talking with the others. I noticed I was holding a business card from somebody in Singapore. My memory of meeting the young men in the café was not with me (it would return later). There was a fuzzy remembrance, like the edge of a fading dream when you wake up, but that was it.

I stood up, stumbled around, barely able to walk, and put my hand against a tree to steady myself. Moreland, Daphne, Charly, Owens, and Vance came pouring out of the tent. Daphne was first to reach me, bounding toward me like they were having a contest over who could reach me first.

“Jade!” she exclaimed. “We thought those creatures got you!”

Moreland was next. “That was fast,” she said. “How did you get away?”

I was too foggy to understand the question. “Get away?” I asked.

“Yeah, one of them grabbed you, right?” she asked.

“Umm…” I was faintly recalling a table and two young Asian men. I didn’t remember Wurdulacs grabbing me, but I supposed it was possible. Since it seemed like a dream, I finished by saying, “…I don’t think so. I dunno what happened.” I looked at the business card. “Or why I am holding this. I’ve never heard of this guy.” I handed it to Moreland, who then gave it to Daphne.

Moreland put her hand over her mouth like she was about to giggle.

“What? What’d I do?” I asked.

“Dude. You just went to Singapore,” she said.

“Huh?” I asked. I considered that one of her dumbest comments in a while.

“Charly?” asked Moreland. “You don’t remember anything at all about disappearing? I mean even something that seems ridiculous?”

“No. I mean, sort of this image like in a dream for just a second, but it was probably me just coming to.”

“What image?” Moreland asked emphatically.

“I dunno. Like some dude blowing away on his trumpet. Like a dream, man. A cornet, actually, not a trumpet. With a mute on it. But it was like, for a second or two. A dream, you know?”

“Holy shit,” said Moreland. “Vance?”

“Same thing. Sort of a moment in a dream. I was looking at wedding rings.”

“Wedding rings?” Owens asked. “Dude, you’re married.”

“Yeah, man. Just a crazy dream. I have been planning on asking Van to marry me again. Even though we’re married.” He laughed. “A second honeymoon kind of thing. Like giving a woman flowers, only a whole lot better.”

“She’s mad at you?” Charly asked.

 Vance ignored the question. “I was going to get down on my knee and everything, like a human would. Before all this happened. I sort of like that tradition.”

Daphne was looking at the business card and furiously tapping her phone.

“I’ll be goddamned,” said Moreland. She took her phone out and tapped into it. “Angry Joe doesn’t remember anything,” she said after a short interaction led by her tapping fingers. “No dreams, nothing. He said that just before, he was just imagining himself in a field of daisies or something weird like that.”

“Check this out.” Daphne showed her phone to Moreland.

“Whoa,” said Moreland after seeing Dr. Chua’s biography on Daphne’s phone. “None of you were abducted by Wurdulac. The terror of your situation forced you into wishing you were somewhere else, and then you were.”

“But I wasn’t really feeling terror when I was abducted,” said Vance.

“Me neither,” said Charly.

“But I was talking about arresting you,” said Owens to Charly.

“That doesn’t terrify me, my brother,” said Charly sternly.

“Okay, terror was a bit strong,” said Moreland. “Stress, maybe?”

Charly shrugged.

“Stress is a better word, but I’ve been around a long time,” said Vance. “Stress has never taken me on a trip before.”

“What the hell are y’all talking about?” I asked. I was still in a dream state.

“But Vance, the Wurdulac were coming hard at us when you disappeared. Charly? I don’t know what his deal was,” said Moreland.

“My deal was that I don’t think I’ve ever wanted to be away from someone as much as I wanted to be away from Owens at that moment. I was trying to enjoy my damn food,” said Charly. “Every time he spoke, it made my skin fry, like a vampire in the sun.”

“I thought that was a myth,” said Daphne.

“It is, but that’s how Owens made me feel. All creepy and shit.”

“I made you feel creepy?” said Owens. “That’s like the lice getting creeped out by the hair.”

“Come on, Owens,” chided Vance.

“There was a Wurdulac in Jade’s house when I disappeared, though,” said Charly. “And you just said that Vance was stressed out over…”

“I don’t think there’s a direct connection between the Wurdulacs being there in either case,” Moreland said. “Maybe we have an instinctive response to them? Forget the Wurdulac for a minute.” Moreland handed Daphne’s phone to me.  “Your business card man is a genetic engineer,” she said.

Nobody had a response to that.

“Specifically,” Moreland added, “He is one of Asia’s foremost experts on gene editing techniques.”

“Son of a bitch,” I said. “Why would I have his card?”

“I’m telling you. You went to Singapore,” said Moreland.

“But I didn’t.”

“He was only gone for a minute,” said Daphne.

Moreland snatched the business card from Daphne and waved it around at everyone. “He was gone for a lot longer than a minute.”

“No, that’s nuts. I musta got it from somewhere else. Musta been in my pocket or something.”

“Except it wasn’t,” said Moreland. “Does this look worn? Like it’s been in your pocket at all? Do you remember where you got it? Why you’re holding it now?” She shoved it back into my closed fist. I took it. The business card was crisp like it was printed the same day, other than new folds created by Moreland’s crunching it against my fingers.

“We should call the guy,” said Daphne eagerly.

“What about your in-law?” I asked. “The one in San Francisco.”

“The universe is guiding us to this guy is why,” Daphne said.

Moreland nodded her head.

“You need to go back to Singapore, Jade, and talk to this guy,” said Moreland.

“But I’m telling you,” I said, “I haven’t been there in years. Before humans mapped the genome. Before the internet, even. I mean, decades and decades, Moreland. Me having this card makes no sense.”

“What were you thinking about in there?” asked Moreland. “When I told you how all this works just now in the tent?”

“Umm, I don’t know.”

“I said you have to think about the one place you wanted to be more than anything.”

“Singapore,” said Daphne.

“But no,” I objected. “I don’t have a strong desire to be there. Too many broken memories.”

“Exactly,” said Daphne.

“And how’d I get back?”

“You wanted to?” said Daphne. “Anyways, you won’t be whole until you get closure on Singapore. It’s where you wanted to be at that very moment. Probably where you’ve wanted to be in a lot of moments, even if they were half a second long. That moment you wanted to be there may have been super short. But it was intense. Normally you would have bottled it up or whatever, but this time, you wanted it so bad that it got you there. That, and the need to find a DNA guy.”

I’m pretty sure nobody has seen me cry. But a tear dripped down the corner of my right eye. I didn’t try to hide it. Daphne took my elbow. “You need to go back now,” she said.

“I can’t deal with this now,” I said.

“Not for that,” said Daphne.

“This,” said Moreland, grabbing my hand holding the business card and shoving it in front of my face.

“It won’t be anything you can’t deal with,” said Daphne. “You wouldn’t have gotten this card if it was too painful. And anyway, you’re stronger than you look,” she said with a grin.

I wiped the tear away and said to Moreland, “So we’ve all got your talent. It’s latent?”

Moreland nodded. “It’s all there. In our DNA.”

“Why would such a kick-ass talent get stuffed away like that?” asked Owens.

“Probably because of assholes like you hunting us down,” said Charly.

“Okay. Here we go again,” said Owens, rolling his eyes.

“But in a way, he’s right, isn’t he?” asked Daphne. “Darwinism. Certain traits are no longer beneficial. Vampires did everything they could to keep a low profile. Didn’t they?”

“We’re talking about a change you would expect to take generations maybe happening in one generation,” said Vance.

“That’s a huge advantage,” said Owens.

“The gene didn’t disappear,” said Moreland. “It’s just sort of asleep. I think. And maybe changes happen within generations, within one lifetime, since our lifetimes are so long. Or maybe the Wurdulacs have somehow altered the quantum field that governs all this shit. I dunno.”

“But it’s weird how no time passed when I disappeared,” I said. “I mean, not really, it didn’t. That doesn’t happen with you, Moreland.”

“No, it doesn’t,” said Moreland. “Look, I don’t know shit about genes. But maybe yours is more advanced than mine and it can fuck with time.”

“Too weird,” I said.

“It’s not if what you’re doing is truly quantum,” said Moreland. “Which is all too weird to understand, at least for me, but it’s supposed to be about how the state of something is affected by observation.”

“That makes no sense,” I said. My phone’s notifications had become one continuous buzz since my “return” from Singapore. Vance, who had mostly been staring at his phone during the conversation, was forwarding messages about the attack on Jerrold Mountain. Our problem, though, was the same. Filing out of the campground into town on the two-lane highway leading out of town was suicide.

Daphne spoke up, saying, “I was reading about it not so long ago. There’s this thing called the Quarter Q Paradox where two people flip two quantum entangled quarters. So, say, Jade and me, because, you know, who else?” She smiled at me. When she was making a point she felt happy about, sometimes she stood on the tips of her toes for a second, which I adored, and which she did now. “So, if Jade checks out his quarter, and it comes up heads, then mine will be tails. Even if he is in Singapore and I’m here. That’s quantum entanglement. But if I look at mine first, and it’s heads, his will be tails when he looks at his.” I knew her sarcasm well. So when she said, “makes total sense,” I knew she was being facetious. She didn’t play the sarcasm game anywhere near as well as Moreland because nobody could, but her sarcasm wasn’t the same, anyway. Daphne’s kind of sarcasm was playful.

“It makes no sense whatsoever,” said Owens. “And scientists are trying to build quantum computers based on this shit? They doin’ shrooms or somethin’?”

“It can also mean that while Jade is here, he is also there,” said Moreland, referring to Singapore. “But not simultaneously. Just, almost simultaneously. As in a second from now, or a second ago.”

“Taylor Ho Bynum, man,” said Charly. He hit me in the shoulder when he said that.

“Ho, what?” I asked.

“Cat was playing this wild ass cornet once on the west coast on one of his tours. I’ve wanted to check him out for forever since I saw him there. Lately, I been thinkin’ to meet up with him at Dartmouth. Watch him play up there with one of his session bands. I’ve seen him up there a couple times, man. Talked to him a few times.”

“Dartmouth,” I said. That seemed like a weird place to check out a jazz act, but then again, I’d never been to Dartmouth. Maybe it was the jazz Mecca of the Ivy League.

“Yeah, man, he teaches there or somethin’,” said Charly.

“Does he teach genetics?” I asked.

“No, dumb-ass, he teaches music,” answered Charly.

“Okay, what’s that got to do with any of this?” I asked.

“Man, that’s where I was! Dartmouth. When we thought the Wurdulac got me. I just now figured it out.” Owens was looking like Charly was the first humanoid to discover fire.

“So, it’s coming back to you?” asked Moreland.

“I dunno, man, I guess so.”

Owens said, “And Vance with his wedding rings. That was where he wanted to be. That’s some wild shit, man.”

“Uh-huh,” said Charly. “We can agree on that,” and they fist-bumped again. Things were getting weird for sure.

“Well, now what?” asked Vance.

“Well, I still don’t understand it,” laughed Daphne.

“I think it’s the one part of science we aren’t allowed to understand. God won’t let us,” I said.

“Oh, shit, here we go,” said Moreland. She was not a big fan of God concepts. “Look, it doesn’t matter. There are thousands of scientists trying to figure it out while we’re standing here, so let’s let them deal with it. K?”

Daphne looked at me and smiled. I had told her about my centuries-long dispute with Moreland about God after she told me about her dad in the coffee house.

“Yeah,” I said, “Let’s skip that part.”

“So, what are the two quarters in this case?” asked Owens. “If we want Mourning to try to get to Singapore again. What was the other entangled object when he got there the first time? What is the other entangled object when you travel?” He was looking at Moreland when he asked.

“I think,” Moreland said. “It’s ourselves. In another space, maybe another universe, another time? I don’t know, Owens. I just think about a place and I’m there. If people knew the answer to that, there’d be no cars.”

“Your Lincoln would be useless,” said Charly.

“It’s a good car. I’d keep it anyway,” said Owens.

“Of course you would,” said Charly.

“It’s not a good car,” I said, “It’s shit. It yells and squeals at you every time you start it up. Good car my ass. It’s a metal dumpster with Firestones.” Then, I switched gears. “I don’t think the other entangled object has to be me. I think it only has to be something I’ve had a connection with.”

“So in theory you couldn’t take off to another planet or something,” said Vance.

“Maybe if I used one of Owens’ meteor bullets I could go to where it came from,” I said. “Don’t think it would be a pleasant experience, though.”

“I like the idea,” said Owens. He was a model of consistency. “Maybe when this is all over you can shoot your ass off into space.”

“So, Singapore,” said Moreland. “Do you have any idea where in Singapore you were just now?”

“None. I only remember looking at two guys. Barely remember their faces. It’s all fuzzy. Like a dream I can’t fully recall.”

“But one of them may have given you that business card,” said Daphne. “I’ll bet that you didn’t get it from the guy on the card.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said.

“So there’s your connection,” Daphne said.

“Sang Nila’s castle,” I said.

Moreland looked at me quizzically.

“That’s where I would have wanted to go, and it’s my connection to that place. It would be something else now. Something completely irrelevant to my experience there long ago.”

“A bar, maybe? Or coffee house?” asked Daphne.

I nodded. “Who knows? Something else. Castle’s long gone. Could be somebody’s office cube. Could be a city plaza. I dunno.”

“And another thing,” said Daphne. “Somehow within this whole quantum universe thing, there was data that knew this professor guy in Singapore was important. It may have had more to do with you being there than anything else.”

“Close your damn eyes and try to go there again,” said Moreland. “Whoever gave you that business card. That’s your connection.”

I nodded. “Let’s go sit exactly where we were a few minutes ago.”

We all filed back into the tent.

“Whoa,” said Bennie a moment later.

Philip just stared. They both looked around, but the bustling café was unaware of what the brothers had just witnessed.

“He comes, he goes,” said Bennie.

“Yeah, holy shit,” said Philip. He pulled out his phone and tapped away. “Yeah, Uncle Mi, call me back. We got something to show you. It’s really important.”

“What we really need at the university is a physicist,” said Bennie.

“The German guy, Dr. Henninger, maybe?” asked Philip.

“I don’t know him well enough to try to present this to him,” said Bennie.

“Me neither,” said Philip. “Let’s just blow away one scientist’s senses at a time here.”

“That’s a good plan,” said Bennie.

Philip’s phone played a tune. A song called “Biology,” by Girls Aloud. “That’s Uncle Mi,” Philip said to me. He spoke into his phone using a combination of Vietnamese and Malay. “Yeah, hey Uncle Mi, thanks for calling.” A long pause. “I can’t explain it. I have to bring it to you.” Another pause. “Yeah,” he said, looking at me, then said in English, “It’s kind of an it.” He mouthed the word sorry to me. “Yeah, it’s the most important discovery of mankind.” He covered the phone microphone, “He’s laughing now. Thinks I’m a funny man.” Then he listened. “Can we bring him now? Well, not Bennie, he has a test. Just me and this sort of bipedal biological question mark sitting with me.” Another pause. “Yeah, no. Not my apartment. We need your lab. I told you, most important discovery of mankind. We need confirmation. No, I’m not crazy. That’s Bennie, remember? He’s the crazy one.” He listened again, then said, “An hour? Yeah. We can get there in an hour. We have a special method of transportation.”

I shook my head wildly, whispering, “No, you don’t!”

“Never mind, uncle, it was just a joke,” said Philip. “Yeah, we’ll take the MRT.” He nodded, as if his uncle could see, then tapped off his phone.

“We’ll take the Circle Line to HarbourFront,” he said to me after he finished talking to his uncle. “We should go now.”

“To hell with my test,” said Bennie. “I’m going, too.”

“Resila will kill you if you don’t study for your test,” said Philip.

“Oh, come on!” I said loudly enough to shake the building. The chattering, clanging, laughing, bustling of the café fell silent.

“What? What’d we do?”

“Resila? Seriously?” I said.

“It’s just his girlfriend, man. Relax,” laughed Philip. The café, almost like someone turned a dial, resumed its former racket.

“She can be controlling,” laughed Bennie.

“She wants him to be very successful so she can marry him and steal all his money,” laughed Philip.

“Ha, she’s a lot smarter than me. I’ll take her money instead,” said Bennie.

“Goddammit, do you have a picture of this Resila?” I asked.

“Yeah, but you can’t have her,” laughed Bennie. He grabbed his phone, swiped a bit, and handed it to me. It wasn’t her. I was very glad because I liked these guys and didn’t want to have to kill them. “Resila — isn’t that a somewhat unusual name for a modern Singapore girl?” I asked.

“It’s from some legend,” Bennie answered. “It’s not that uncommon.”

“Oh, great,” I sighed.

“You’re a very peculiar man,” laughed Bennie.

“That’s because he’s a vampire,” said Philip. The unison laugh.

The stories I could have told these two.

The brothers gathered their things, and we took the MRT to their uncle’s lab. Unlike the café and its crowd of uninterested university types, the sleek, modern train car of the MRT, which made American light transit cars look like rickshaws, was full of questioning looks when I got on board. I ignored them and rode in a seat facing the brothers.

Contrary to the rickety, loud, clanging things in America, the Singapore train car glided like it was riding on air. I had missed a lot by skipping out on visits to Singapore all these years. America looked like a dingy, rat-infested basement compared to the glimmering, clean city Singapore had become. I had the strong sense that no matter what happened in the near future, I’d be back.

After the train silently pulled to a stop, we disembarked. Philip led us to a cylindrical glass building that looked like it would shatter into a million pieces if we stepped too briskly through the revolving door. The office building’s vestibule consisted of layers of marble, glass, and tall, reflective, round steel beams with a thick girth that reached up to the top of the building. From an architectural standpoint, the vestibule acted as an immense round office courtyard. Looking up, I saw that it was surrounded by dozens of floors rimmed by shiny tube-like railings and pathways of scurrying people.

A stern, large man sat behind a large round white desk in the middle of the circle’s floor, watching my every movement as we approached. I wanted to run, just to see what he would do. Maybe I could tackle and bite one of the pristine pedestrians. The thought made me smile, which probably made the desk attendant more suspicious. He tapped a few things on a long, curving screen that wrapped around half of his desk area.

“I’m here to see my uncle,” said Philip to the stern man, who said nothing. “Oh, umm, he’s Doctor Chua.” Still nothing from the attendant. “Singenics?” Philips continued.

“Do you have an appointment?” asked the stern man.

“Yes,” said Philip.

The stern man tapped a few places on the screen, then took out something that looked like a virtual reality headset attached to an old-style telephone cord. He pushed it my way. “He needs to place his eyes on the headset,” he said, referring to me.

“Why?” I asked.

“You look ill. We have strict protocols. This inspects your system for six hundred and thirty-nine pathogens. Good luck.” He pushed it closer.

“Welcome to Singapore,” laughed Bennie, which triggered a dirty look from the unhappy attendant.

I put my eyes against the headset, which made a brief humming noise. The stern man handed us three key cards. “Building One,” he said.

“There’s more of these things?” I said, looking up.

The attendant said nothing, so Philip darted toward a large metallic arch that led to another section of the edifice. I wanted to own a building like this, so I made a mental note to try to do so.

“This would make a great HQ,” I said as Philip and Bennie scampered ahead of me. I felt very far away from my troubles at home.

Bennie peered behind me as he trotted with his brother. “Fang HQ number two?” he asked.

“Or one,” I said.

“Upkeep will be very expensive,” said Bennie. “Especially with all those parties and Wardluck death matches.”

We found a group of elevators. “This is it,” said Philip. When we got inside the elevator, he swiped his keycard, which was automatically set to the floor he wanted. Impossibly, the elevator made no noise as it shot up to the fiftieth floor without stopping.

We walked from the elevators to two massive glass doors labeled Singenics Biotechnology, Ltd. A beautiful receptionist with long black hair peered from just beyond the top of a pair of oversized purple horn-rimmed glasses and smiled. She was a hell of an entry point for the company. “Welcome to Singenics,” she said through her perfect smile. “How can I help you today?”

Philip nervously said that he had an appointment. “I have an appointment with Uncle Mi. I mean, Doctor. Mi. I mean, Doctor Mi. Sorry. Doctor Chua.”

“And the two gentlemen with you?” she inquired with an understanding smile. Understanding in the sense that Philip was insensible because of her arresting beauty.

“Oh, they do, too,” Philip said. I wondered how much the poor guy was sweating under his polo shirt. I discreetly sniffed. He was sweating profusely.

The receptionist managed to retrieve Philips’ name from him after a couple of tries, then called it in. “He’ll be with you shortly,” she smiled. Philip tried to make small talk with her but was clumsy enough that his brother finally hit him in the shoulder, which triggered a sly smile from the bemused beauty.

But then the receptionist said to Philip, “Have I seen you at university?”

“NUS?” asked Philip.

She nodded. “Uh-huh,” she said. “I’m a grad student in the integrative sciences and engineering program. I think I’ve seen you a few times at Dr. Suh’s office.”

Philip nodded happily. “I’m a T.A. for him.”

“You’re kidding! Oh my God. I need to pick your brain sometime. I’m taking one of his classes and he’s soooo hard.”

I was very happy for Philip when she gave him her number. Life can sometimes be good, even when it’s bad. I know, sage, right? But each short moment of joy should be cherished, and I cherished this one.

His uncle showed up immediately after they exchanged numbers. Dr. Chua Mi Tien looked as stern as the downstairs attendant, and almost as beefy. I don’t know about you, but when I think of college professor types with doctorates in the sciences, I think of very slight builds and spectacles. That is not an unfair profile in my experience.

Chua was built like a gladiator. He was almost as tall as me, with a finely cut square jaw and thick black hair. At first, I thought he was a vampire, but his human scent was unmistakable. Although, I thought, he is a geneticist. He was wearing the kind of long white sleeve shirt you’d expect under a suit, but it was so tight that you could see his nipples. The shirt was rolled part way up his forearms, one of which had a cobra tattoo. I liked him already.

After we made introductions, he led us through a set of well secured doors using his key card, then another set using his eyes. The hallway looked very medicinal — like you’d expect a doctor in blue scrubs to breathlessly pop out of one of the doors yelling to a nurse, “I don’t care how you do it, just do it!” as he flies down the hallway to his next emergency.

All the doors were metal, including his, which he opened with his eyes peering into an iris-reading device on the wall. His office wasn’t a typical office. It was an expanse. There were dozens of metal tables, each decorated with flasks or test tubes or microscopes or digital equipment lit by dancing patterns of LED screens. He led us to a small enclave within the office, where there was a comfortable-looking blue velvet couch and several plush chairs.

“Sit,” he commanded. He seemed like a military man. I was certain that if I had bothered to read his biography more carefully than I did when Moreland showed it to me, I would have noticed an early armed forces background with a pattern of advancement.

“It is good to see both of my nephews,” he said, looking at me the whole time. “What brings you with such urgency?” Still looking at me.

“I’m getting married, uncle,” said Philip, probably referencing the receptionist who had taken over his senses moments earlier. Bennie hit him in the shoulder.

“Don’t listen to him, Uncle Mi,” said Bennie. “He lives in a fantasy world.”

“And how is this fantasy world working for your studies? I trust well for both of you?”

They nodded in unison.

“Good,” said Dr. Chua. “Now, why you are here? Not that I am not glad to see you two. I’m always very glad for that. But it is unusual to see you at my lab.” He was still looking at me, aside from an occasional glance toward his nephews.

“Our friend here. As you can see, he is very blue,” said Philip.

“He is indeed,” said Chua. “And you’d like me to sample his DNA and see if I can find out why, I trust.”

“Yes, how did you know?” asked Bennie.

Rather than answer Bennie, he said to Philip, “This is the historic discovery you mentioned?”

Since he was still looking at me, I said, “It’s nothing historic. Nothing of the kind. I’m just looking for some answers.”

“To…” Chua didn’t use a questioning inflection.

“Why he’s so blue,” said Philip.

“That is your answer, Philip. I would like his,” said Chua.

“Some of my species can teleport. Some can’t. I need to understand the equation within the genome for that,” I said.

“I see,” he said, perfectly seriously. “Are you seeking this superpower for yourself, like a jealous child?” He sounded like a father scolding his upstart progeny.

“No,” I replied. “Some of our kind appear to have developed the ability to cloak. I am hoping that the gene that controls it works similarly to the gene that controls teleporting. I am one of our kind who can teleport. But others can’t. We believe the gene is dormant in some of our population. We are wondering if this gene that is allowing some of us to, for lack of a better word, become invisible, works the same way.” I wanted to mention Longtooth’s telekinetic abilities, too, but I didn’t want to overwhelm the poor doctor.

“Nephews, I have no time for such games.” Good thing I didn’t mention Longtooth’s telekinesis. He looked at his watch. “Halloween time in America, and now too many people in this part of the world are showing interest in that vapid holiday. We should pass a national law against it.”

“Halloween was yesterday,” I corrected.

“Can you just take a sample of his DNA and look at it for us?” asked Bennie.

“Why would I do such a thing?” asked their uncle. He didn’t seem annoyed. He was asking and answering questions like he was conversing with government officials.

“As a favor,” said Bennie.

“To whom?” asked the uncle.

“All of us!” smiled Philip.

I was expecting Dr. Chua to, at a minimum, demand to know who would pay for the procedure, but instead, he said, “I can use microcapillary electrophoresis to review his base pairs. It will take a couple of hours for detailed results.”

“Well, I can’t wait around for that. I need to study, but Philip can,” said Bennie. His uncle nodded, more like a seated bow, his head gliding down slowly, then back up slowly.

Bennie jumped in: “This may sound crazy, Uncle Mi, but can you do a preliminary analysis just to see if our friend here is human?”

Again, the good doctor seemed unfazed by what should have been a silly question. “You and I,” he said to Bennie, “are about ninety-nine-point six percent identical vis-à-vis our DNA. Ah, but what about that point four percent? Doesn’t sound like much, does it? But that tiny percentage difference represents twelve million base pairs. Which in turn represents the very essence of individualism!”

He stood up to pour some tea from a decanter that had been sitting on a glass table in front of us. He offered some to the brothers, then to me. We all declined. “So, can I run a preliminary test to see if he appears to have human DNA? Yes, I can. But I am most certain that he has human DNA. Perhaps he is ninety-nine-point-five percent identical instead of ninety-nine-point-six. Truly, I will argue that this will make him no less human than you or I.” The doctor looked at me less sternly than before. I detected some warmth in his eyes.

I was curious why he didn’t appear taken aback by the brothers’ strange requests. I wanted to ask him if he knew of the legends of Sang Nila, or even my wife Resila. But I would not act rashly. I would wait. I hoped that his military background would not send him rushing to his armed forces buddies after he reviewed my DNA.

After the uncle’s lab assistant took a blood sample, Dr. Chua instructed us to wait in a posh cafeteria on another floor. Attached to the cafeteria was a plush media room with one man in a lab coat watching anime. We ate in the cafeteria, after which Bennie left for the university library to study.

After eating, I walked into the media room and sunk into a large, comfortable chair, which was on the end of a row of chairs with tables attached to the front like in a movie theater that serves dinner. I hadn’t slept for several days.

When I awoke, Philip was prodding me on the shoulder. I looked at him. He pointed to my left, where Dr. Chua was standing. “How long have I been asleep?” I asked through a groggy yawn.

“Couple hours,” said Philip. “You missed Halloween.”

“No, I didn’t. It’s come and gone before I got here.”

“The movie!” he grinned.

Dr. Chua was wearing a long white lab coat. “Come with me, please,” he said in his military voice.

“Am I in trouble?” I asked, not really concerned.

He didn’t respond, so we stood up and followed him back to where we had originally talked. He offered me tea again from what looked like the same decanter. “Is it three hours old?” I asked.

“Prepared just moments ago. It is a Japanese matcha tea. Very good.”

I accepted the drink and sat down on the velvet couch. He sat in a chair facing us at an angle.

He looked at Philip. “Your friend here has some significant differences in his genome.” He directed his look toward me. “The source of your blue skin was easy enough to determine, but there are other… things.”

“Things?” I asked.

“I realize that is not a scientific analysis, but the truth is I need more time to analyze. But you have more base pairs than the average human. More genetic information. In addition, you have an irregularly high density of fructose-bisphosphate enzymes, which can enhance brain activity. Even more strangely, your body may contain significant amounts of a female hormone called estradiol, which is a vital part of embryonic brain growth. I can’t tell you yet what exactly it all means yet.”

“Dr. Chua, I appreciate all this, but none of this seems to catch you by surprise. It’s almost like you are expecting me to be, I don’t know. Different.”

“Have you looked in the mirror lately?” he asked without humor.

“He avoids mirrors!” laughed Philip, his eyes darting to each of us to gauge a reaction. I gave him a dirty look, but he only smiled. I loved this kid.

“So is he?” asked Philip.

“Is he what?” asked Dr. Chua.

“Oh come on, uncle, don’t make me say it out loud.”

“Whisper it,” I said.

“A vampire,” Philip whispered.

“Almost every civilization on earth has a legend of one kind or another regarding such creatures. Does it not make sense that some of that legend would be rooted in truth?” asked Dr. Chua. “What do you think, Mr. Mourning?”

I smiled broadly, making sure he saw my incisors. “Oh, doctor, I know.”

“Of course, you do. And you want to discover an invisibility gene in your genome. Not a simple task.”

“What if I was able to obtain DNA from one of my kind who I know can render himself invisible? Something to compare mine to?”

“Well, then, my friend, I will become a very rich man, and I will have no need to request compensation for my efforts,” he said with an unexpected smile.

Thanks for reading!

Need to catch up? Here are previous chapters:

Psalm of Vampires

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