Most of everyone went back to what they were doing. Karlson and Aurelia joined James in interviewing Rose in the dining room. Karlson stood by the kitchen’s bar, taken by the flow of disassembling his shotgun and performing caring maintenance. James was on a seat at the end of the dinner table, while Aurelia sat in the corner seat closest to him, and Rose sat beside her in turn.

“Why were you alone?” James asked.

Rose’s lips pulled into a frown. “I didn’t want to be with them.”

They were called “vampires”. They were shunned, hunted, and killed.

“Though, y’know, we’re special vampires!”

But the authorities didn’t see it that way—Rose frowned. Whether or not they were mindless—as long as they had “died” and come back to life with such fearsome powers—the authorities would hunt them down.

“Why?” James asked. Well, he had a good guess.

“People are afraid of us…” Rose replied. “It’s because of that one incident! Guh, I hate them!”

The first time a sentient vampire was discovered, it was in broad daylight. Someone’s son, a teenager in his tender years, had risen from the dead. He was speaking, asking for water—but it was clear as day that he should have died.

He’s a monster in human flesh—was what most onlookers thought. The surrounding soldiers had little idea of what to do, but on the rabid insistence of the witnesses, an anonymous soldier fired a shot. Of course, it rapidly regenerated.

The teen was screaming “Why!” as the soldiers panicked to try and kill him. He escaped to his family’s shelter. The soldiers called for the Vampire Hunters, who found him when his own mother ratted him out. The mother looked on in fear of her own child when he was dragged out by hooks and harpoons, then burned in the open street with a gas flamethrower.

—You can kill them with flamethrowers?

James and Aurelia met gazes. Their eyes said: “Please don’t set me on fire.” “No, I think anyone will die if you set them on fire, you know?” “Oh. Yeah. You’re right.”

More and more of these incidents occurred as time went on, to the point that it had become established practice to always incinerate the dead.

Eventually, some leaned towards the occult hope that they could reproduce the conditions in which these “smart vampires” were created.

James leaned forward. “They could do that?” he asked with an uptone. Behind him, Aurelia listened intently.

“It worked sometimes, I heard,” Rose replied. “The authorities cracked down on them though, so if anyone knew how to do it, they’re long dead.”

That cult was supported by those who believed that the process was a form of resurrection, and that the vampire that was created was not simply a monster, but a transformed vessel that contained the same soul as the person who had passed—an almost religious belief fanned by the fact that such vampires recognized their previous family, and were capable of operating modern technology.

“Then how about you?” Aurelia asked. “How’d you become like this?”

Rose shook her head. “I was a volunteer. We were gathering supplies when I got bit by a—skeleton in the closet.” She shivered from the memory. “My brothers brought me back, but I was basically good as gone, then… they had my dad give the mercy blow.”

She pointed at the bandage around her head.

“You need a replacement for that?” Aurelia asked. “I’ve got a lot.”

“Oh, uh—thanks. I’ll take you up on that, I guess.”

“Then?” James said.

“Ah—I, uh, I just woke up on a cart. On the way to the incinerator. Yeah.”

“So you just got up and left?”

Rose chuckled. “Something like that? It took me a while to realize what was going on, but when I did, I realized that… ‘I can’t come back here ever again.’ ”

“...Then you got up and left?”

Aurelia lightly slapped James across the head. Rose laughed at this. “You’re close, huh?” she remarked. The two returned warm smiles. Rose felt more at ease being with them.

“If it won’t trouble you… Can I join you?” she asked.

“Sure.” “No problem.”

Aurelia was excited at the prospect of having a new friend who was like her, while James took a second to process the possible consequences and thought that it didn’t look like a bad deal.

“… Wait.”

—She said something a while ago that worries me.

“Didn’t you say you didn’t want to be with—‘them,’ was it?”

Rose blanked out. Then frowned. “R-right.” She unclipped her machete’s wooden scabbard from her waist and laid it on the dinner table. On it was a glyph burnt onto the wood, corresponding to the Philippine Baybayin “na”—the upper half of an ellipse with a zigzagging, lightning-like descender coming down from the middle.

“I escaped north to around here, where they found me and took me in. They’re—they’re dangerous!” She raised her voice. James and Aurelia leaned back from surprise. Rose realized her outburst and apologetically withdrew.

“There there.” Aurelia patted her head. James allowed her a few seconds to compose herself before he continued. “Do they have a name? What do they do?”

“They—they’re the survivors of that—that cult I mentioned.” She sniffled and wiped away a tear. It looked like she was settling down well. “ ‘Los Muertos’—that’s what they call t-themselves. They’re a bunch of vampires trying to take over the city.”

—Hah. Great. Revolutionary vampires.

James rubbed his forehead. He didn’t think they’d be landing themselves in the middle of a “government handover process,” but that’s what happened.

At this point, there was a chance that the mission had to change. This place was quickly becoming unstable, and it was possible for its strife to spillover and reach Diliman, in one form or another.

“How many people live here?” James asked. “How many people are still in this city?”

Rose eyed him curiously for the question. “There was a census like, four months ago. I think there was―3000 people?”

—Jesus, that’s a lot of people.

“The heck, how’re they all getting fed?” He made no attempt at hiding his surprise.

“Oh, um, we have people going out to fish in Laguna Bay.”

—Jesus also fed thousands of people with fish didn’t he?

Rose continued, “There are also volunteers coming out of the safezones to loot warehouses and houses, so…”

“Did I make you feel too bad remembering these things?” James asked.

“N-no!—well, a bit—but! It’s okay! It’s okay. I wanna help.”

“Heh, you just met us, you know?”

“I guess… I just have a good feeling, I guess?”

REPORT. 2020-10-05 2208H. FROM 16AC SO3 LORETZ. TO 16AC NLT CORONEL:

The mission leader has recruited one (1) intelligent Gamma local to Pasig City as a guide and potential fighting force. Per the guide’s anecdotal report, the local community appears to be politically unstable, with one group of intelligent Gammas aiming to usurp existing martial authorities. The local community also appears to reject intelligent Gammas as sentient individuals, and are hostile towards them.

The mission leader has remarked that repairing the Contract Terminal may potentially take second priority to stabilizing the local political situation, airing concerns of refugee and bandit spillover if Pasig City is unable to feed its population.

There have been no recent traces of 17AC activity. Several area repeater modules have gone offline from disuse, but enough are still active that the local comms net is not unusable, and it remains connected to the regional comms net. However, the 17AC command post remains disconnected from the local comms net. It is determined possible to reconnect the command post to the local comms net. No reconnection attempts have been made, per orders.

No confirmed nor probable traces of Kartesh activity have been detected. The present 16AC liaison officers will move forward with the assumption that the Pasig insurgency of intelligent Gammas, locally called and will be referred to in future reports as “Los Muertos,” is responsible for 17AC’s current situation.