Naked Came the Vampire (Hypernaturals 1)

Reveal

I looked Jessica up and down. Remembered her naked body. No flab, but not bodybuilder either. "There is the issue of how you can carry me around like I am a laptop computer. So... I am ready to hear more. As long as it ends with I get to be with you for as long as you can stand me, I do not care. I would prefer not to morph into a cockroach. I hate that story."

"No Kafka..." Jessica proceeded to have a short conversation with herself. "I let you see my strength. Several times. I told you my birth name... Never done that before.... I must have known at some level. Maybe I smelled it? Now that I know it, I am getting the first scents of it. It is kind of is like mine. A hint of my scent? I did this... Never turned anyone before. humm. Interesting."

I listened and waited for clarity because that conversation was one-sided and unenlightening.

Conversation with herself done, she came back to the room. "All right. Here is the short form. I am not a human either. Not anymore. Like you, I am a Vampire. I am young as these things go. I am one hundred twenty-three years old. I inadvertently turned you into a Vampire as well. Not that there is anything I can do about it now but, well, sorry?"

So much there to ask about, but one word hovered. "Inadvertently?"

"Yes. I have no control about turning. No Vampire does. I would not intentionally steal your humanity. Human-species-ness I mean. We Vampires have no control over turning someone. It sometimes happens. It is nothing like the Vampire fiction, where it is a choice, or there is a master Vampire draining all your blood and replacing it and all that. All turnings are accidents. Every bite of a human by a Vampire has the possibility. The chances are millions to one against for a male. I have not turned anyone ever as far as I know. I have only bit about one thousand men."

"You don't control it?"

"No. Not at all. It's like this... you know about HIV?"

"Virus. It attacks the human immune system. Related to SIV. Causes AIDS."

"You know how a virus replicates itself?" Jessica asked.

I didn't know there would be a test. "It takes over cells. Makes them ignore their own DNA and use its cellular machinery to create new copies of itself instead. The human genome is littered with all sorts of fragments from viruses, bacteria, and the like. There is controversy about this so-called 'junk DNA' and whether or not it's used for anything. Some think the purpose of a gene is to preserve itself."

That got a warm smile. "Exactly right. Do you know about Epigenetic's, gene expression, RNA, and so forth too?"

I hated to admit I did not know something "A little but not much. Just what I read in a general science magazine like Scientific American. I am the family computer boy. My mother is the epidemiologist and physician."

"Yes, well computer boy, gene expression and DNA sequences and coded proteins: It is all very complicated and it is all not entirely about what you are born with. DNA is not destiny. Outside influences can change things. Example: Being sick one day with diarrhea can change your genetic code. Look at HIV: Outside the human body that virus is very weak. Requires direct body fluid contact to pass it most of the time. The virus complex that causes the Vampire mutation is far weaker outside the body than that. It seems to require certain sequences to pre-exist in the DNA or perhaps other gene expression sites before taking hold. It is mostly sex-linked. About one in four or five thousand women bitten by a Vampire is infected. A number of those don't survive the transition. For men, it is far lower. One in many millions. Males have a lower transition survival rate than women as well. That would probably be different in modern times since there are support therapies now. IV's and O2 bottles and feeding tubes. There are maybe...40 male Vampires alive today in all of North America. It may not be that many."