Allen: Welcome back! Please enjoy the chapter while IWTV boards up the door for android attacks.
IWTV: Lydia, what the fuck?! Why did you let her in?!
(Dude, I don't get paid enough to be secruity here. You take care of it.)
Allen: P-please enjoy the chapter (cue scared smile).
Chapter Four: Two Sightings Too Many
The next day when the Vector buddies all gathered for their lunch break, Togashi had his turn staring off into space with a shocked expression. Miyuki and Allen were talking to each other, with Allen retelling the riveting story of how he passed out in front of Shion this morning.
"You asked her out by fainting in front of her?" Miyuki stated to the pitiful man.
"Well 'ask' is a strong word. I more or less, fainted when she said, 'Allen, are you feeling better?'" Allen mumbles with his head on the table moping.
"What am I going to do with you? There has to be a way for us to get you and Shion going out on a date." Miyuki pondered out loud. "Oh Miyuki, I think that ship has sailed ever since I had that outburst yesterday." Allen frowned.
"So you had a bad day, Allen. You can't let yesterday discourage you from going after Shion. What would Setsuki say after that great pep talk you gave him yesterday? Togashi! Back me up here," Miyuki looked over at the zombified Togashi. The spunky woman puffs out her cheeks when he doesn't acknowledge her gains for attention. "Earth to Togashi! Are you in there?" Miyuki yelled in his ear.
"Ow! Don't do that, Miyuki!"
"What is with you today? You haven't said a thing all day." She asked.
"It's nothing, I just…had a bad dream."
"Don't tell me it was about vampires," Miyuki grins.
"No! It was about…Janitor Bob in a speedo," lied the man.
"…well that would give me nightmares too," Miyuki replied.
"Togashi!" shouted a boy from behind them. The three Vector employees look behind themselves startled by Togashi's kid brother. The young man looked like the usual moody teenager with his baggy shorts and dark tonberry tee shirt. Beside the teen was a blonde girl with dark sunglasses smiling quietly. The group could see Setsuki maintaining a goofy smile on his face as he kept an indifferent tone in his voice.
"Bro, you remember my friend, right?" Togashi tries to respond when he suddenly begins daydreaming of his boss ripping out their throats and drinking their blood like in 30 Days of Night. He could picture himself begging for his life before the Wilhelm and his vampire minions tackle him to the ground and begin munching on his flesh. Togashi silently screams while daydreaming in front of his friends. The blonde girl looks around the room uncomfortable as Togashi gawks at her with terror, while Allen looks at the girl with an apologetic sweat drop on his face. Miyuki shakes her head at the two socially awkward men and jumps in, "Hi! You must be Setsuki's friend. I'm Miyuki, Vector Programmer and Inventor of awesomeness, and keeper of Togashi and Allen here. It's nice to meet you!"
"It's nice to meet you too, Miyuki." Smiles the girl with relief. She gives Setsuki a mischievous grin poking his shoulder and away from the awkward greetings. "So, this is where you've been hiding since you moved," the girl teases the blushing teen.
"I haven't been hiding! My parents have been keeping me busy with that junior engineer's society is all. A-Anyway, you ready to go to that movie now or what?" Setsuki hurriedly asks which makes Miyuki giggle.
"Yeah! Let's go," The girl giggles and grabs Setsuki's hand to drag him along to the movies. Setsuki weakly waves at the three adults, the boy floating off the ground with joy as his date walks with him out of the lunchroom holding his hand. He mouths silently the words, 'Thanks Allen!', while Allen and Togashi gawk at him for different reasons. "Ahhhhh, that was so CUTE," Miyuki giggled watching the short display of puppy love. Miyuki hears her cell phone go off with a happy ringtone. She reads the urgent message from the programming office and hops up from her seat. "Looks like lunch is over. To the Control Room! Miyuki Away!" The hyper woman rushes off, waving goodbye to the two men who had their minds set elsewhere.
Allen continues to mope at the lunch table over his fainting episode, bemoaning how a bashful teen was able to ask a girl out quicker than he could. The discouraged man contemplates going back home to sleep. Togashi turns to his depressed friend, poking at his shoulder with urgency. Allen lifts his head to glare at him. Togashi gives his mentor an expression of distress. "So, you know how you were going on about Vampires, and our boss being a blood sucking creature of the night?" Togashi asked.
"Yes?" Allen gives a blunt reply.
"Annnnnnddddd how we basically thought you were going coo-coo?"
"Yes, Togashi. I remember yesterday very clearly," glared Allen.
"Well, I…..I think you were right about the vampires." Allen looks surprised as Togashi hangs his head in a sheepish manner. "You got to be kidding me. Is this some kind of joke?!" Allen yelled.
"Look I'm sorry we were ragging on you before, but I saw something last night that changed my mind about what you said." Togashi quickly explained.
"Well what did you see?" Allen asked. Togashi pulls him in close and dashes off with the man all the way to the bridge where he saw it all. Allen blinks rapidly looking around in amazement. The man had no idea Togashi could lift him up that easily. Damn showoff….
"You see that bench underneath us?" The whispering Togashi points to the bench from the night before and Allen nods confused. Togashi gets serious and says, "Yesterday evening when I was dragging your tired ass home, our boss was with another person dragging a female employee and they put her on that bench. He was talking about energy and a bunch of weird hocus pocus stuff with this hooded figure in the botanical garden before they disappeared."
"You-you can't be serious," trembled Allen. "They must have been the ones that put that woman on that bench. Security found her this morning sleeping on the bench confused."
"That's right! And the scariest part is I think he has someone roaming around helping him 'feed' from behind the scenes. Like one of those zombie minions from that Van Hellsing movie."
"But Togashi, who would believe you? We got no video evidence of this guy attacking someone, not even a verbal admission. How are you sure it was our boss who did it?" Allen asked.
"Oh now who's getting skeptical about this. We got to stop him, Allen. Before more people become his victims," pleaded Togashi.
"Fine, but we need proof. People like Shion or Miyuki are not going to believe us. We need physical proof that Wilhelm is a space vampire."
"Did you boys say, Space Vampire?" An unknown voice asked from behind the two men. His voice was scruffy like a badass action hero. His lips turn to a confident grin.
-Six hours later, Dammerung Control Room-
Miyuki hums a unique tune about Jr. and MOMO pushing Alby in a baby carriage, typing cheerfully on the giant computer screen. The woman sways her hips as she hums along, making her own song and dance as she fixes the error found in the control room. A demented shadow watches her from behind, sneaking up close while eyeing her silhouette. The shadow wandered in bored after another meeting, orinigally walking in to tick off something on his forever growing to do list. His ears perked up hearing the woman humming, now deciding to mess with the petite beauty at work. His shadow inched closer to the woman with shadowy hands reaching out like claws to her neck. "An interesting tune you have there, Miss Itzumi."
Miyuki flinches and looks behind her quickly to see a man in a dark suit. He smirks at the cheerful looking woman before walking up to the computer to eye the screen. Miyuki blinks wide eyed at the man, astonished to see one of the businessmen standing behind her watching her work. She studies his body for a moment admiring the man's porcelain skin and charming smile. A smile she thought was similar to how Ann Rice would describe Lestat from some of her vampire novels yet couldn't overshadowed her suspicions of how he managed to sneak up on her unnoticed while she was typing. She didn't even hear the door open, as if he just appeared from thin air.
"How has the security systems been running so far for wings A-J on the northern half, Miss Itzumi? Are the glitches taken care of?" The man asked with a serious tone. The Vector programmer goes back to typing on the screen with haste and replies, "Most of the glitches have been taken care of as requested. I should have the last of it fixed in three, two…" The red light from the engineering related error to the security system is replaced with soothing turquoise, numbers falling on the screen in their expected calculation. The man's red eyes scrutinize the data, touching pieces of the newly fixed system with appreciation over its efficiency. "This layout, Miss Itzumi, is quite meticulous. This updated security system will certainly save us some headaches in the future."
"I even added a data log for the system to use automatically in order to make things easier to track. Would have helped me fix the programming on this subsystem better if all the data was currently present, you know?" Miyuki added with a prideful stance at her computer work.
"Impressive," the man softly laughs at the boastful woman's smug smile. "Impressive enough to leave early today?" The woman pitches to her superior.
"Not quite," Wilhelm replied with a strained smile. "Oh, it was worth a try. I still have another hour left into my overtime anyway," Miyuki sighed.
"I can't thank you enough for taking on this extra work to correct the glitch. Serious security errors such as this can't go unaddressed," Wilhelm said while studying the screen once more. "Of course," She smiles. Miyuki grabs her phone and connection gear and starts walking out of the room. She turns around to glance at the white-haired man looking up at the large screen with a pensive frown. He brooding gaze now reminded her of Edward Collins, how he would stare pensively at Bella, the object of his affections, torn between desire and fear. Miyuki stifles her blushing once she begins imagining the businessman unbuttoning his shirt to show his body sparkling like diamonds. She shakes the feverish daydream out of her head and tries to act she wasn't trying to undress him with her eyes.
"Is something wrong, sir?" The man doesn't turn around but answers, "It's fine. I was just thinking about getting a copy of this log and the previous data from before the glitch. There is something, odd, about this. It has been happening way too much to my liking."
"I understand your concern. That glitch, from what Chief Uzuki said, could have caused a malfunction with the oxygen supply." Miyuki frowned while hiding her relief he didn't notice her staring.
"Correct, gravity and air supply would have gone haywire along the northern side of the ship. I perish the thought about what amount of damage that would cause," He said.
"I would be happy to send you what I have if that would help us get to the bottom of it sooner, sir." Miyuki offered with a smile.
"That would be appreciated, Miss Itzumi. Send it to me through email as soon as possible." Miyuki nods and starts walking out of the room. "Wait," The man commands with an assertive tone. She turns around and sees him walk up towards her. Miyuki feels the heat rush up her cheeks as he walks up to her with red eyes locked on her. An unusual chill ran down her spine as she felt a rush of cold air. A few seconds later, her phone dings in a new text message. "Your superior offered your number in passing when I was trying to get further information about the security glitch. Please, keep my personal number for the future if we ever need to speak again." The man gives a beguiling smile when he puts his phone away in his pocket. He glances at the silver necklace around her neck, a thin chain holding a shiny silver square in the center, his claret eyes noting the lead hanging from her neck. Miyuki turns to a strawberry red as he continues to smile, hiding his darker intentions when a couple of other employees enter back into the room.
"It would be a shame if we didn't get to talk more in the future, Miss Itzumi. Until then…take care." Wilhelm winks as he walks off humming her unique tune. Miyuki was left in the room stunned by the encounter. The woman looks down at her phone, slowly registering what just happened as she clutches the phone and connection gear to her chest. "Did-did, DIDMYHEJUSTHITONME?!"
Allen: Shion, why? Why would you send KOSMOS after us?
Shion: Oh Allen, I only sent KOSMOS to get IWTV. I atleast told her to spare the secretary, didn't I?
IWTV: AHHHHHH! (running away from KOSMOS)
Wilhelm: Just when I was about to sneak out of here too.
Lydia: Not going to happen (texting and blocking the exit with a taser).
Wilhelm: What the fuck? Why on earth are you still here?!
Lydia: Hmm? Oh that writer chick gave me a job as her secretary for the semester. Pay sucks, but the benefit aren't so bad.
Wilhelm: (looks towards Shion exasperated) Why, just why.
Shion: Stayed tuned for the next chapter :).