II

Bastian lounged on the floor, the warmth of the woman's blood seeping through his veins. This was the satisfaction of a predator. Soon the sun would abandon the humans to his games. Soon. He swept his gaze around the room, savouring the black mould that crept up the walls.

There was at least another hour until the sun set. He glanced at the body sprawled next to him on the floor. An idea sprang to mind; he was staring at the perfect distraction for the night's activities.

"You're going to see the sky again," he told the corpse. "You can finally get even with the bastards who made you live down in this shithole."

Sitting up, he tore his fangs over his wrist. Black blood gurgled out, it had the consistency of Jello. Tilting the old woman's head back, he allowed his blood to drip down her throat in congealing clumps.

She'd been dead for too long to transform properly, which bought on a whole host of problems; anger issues, degraded nerves, brain damage. He hadn't made animated a corpse for nearly a century now.Satisfied she had enough of his blood to survive the night but no more, he pulled his wrist away. 

Bastian hauled the body back into his sack. It was cold now; a dead weight. He chuckled at the joke. He'd leave it awaken somewhere secluded, but still populated with trick or treaters. After all, what sort of Halloween wasn't rife of fright and bloodshed?

Without warning, light forced its way through his boarded up windows. Had his abduction rallied an angry mob? Mobs were delicious. Wiping his lips with a dirty sleeve, he crept up to the window, peeling back the rotten boarding to see who had dared to come this close to his abode.

Unable to believe the sight in front of his house, he hissed. Was he hallucinating? Had the old crone had narcotics in her bloodstream? Bastian screwed up his eyes, and squinted at the moving light. There was glow-in-the-dark frog levitating past his barbed-wire fence. He tried to rationalize it. The frog's armored suit was producing the light, a large 'B' was affixed to his front. Was he affiliated with London's resident superhero?

Bastian despised Big Brother. On his first day stalking the city's streets, the superhero had had the audacity to follow him down into Subterrania with his human prize. He'd made him pay for that; but the bastard's blood was sour, and the body had disintegrated when he'd snapped its neck, leaving only the suit and a pile of sand. Imagine his surprise when he encountered the superhero again not a week later. Big Brother was like a cockroach. He was everywhere, and seemingly impossible to kill.

His eyes adjusted to the light, and he realized the frog was not levitating as much as it was riding another creature, like knights used to ride stallions. The creature - a meerkat- Bastian noted, slunk close to the ground. It sniffed the air and faced his abode growling. The frog glanced at a glowing panel on his arm, and growled back.

The meerkat barked, and scurried towards the pylon, causing the frog's suit to send light sprawling in all directions. Bastian scented the air. It wasn't a hallucination. The duo had a peculiar smell; they smelt of the flooded subway tunnel, and something indistinguishable. How the obscure pair had ended up in the depths of Subterrania intrigued him. If they were spies of the superhero, they'd have to be dealt with.

They had heartbeats and heat signatures, so they weren't robots. But what living creatures would dare to pass his lair with light? Even bugs fled from his presence. With his sack against his back, Bastian left the house, and caught their scent. It stopped at the base of the pylon, and continued straight upwards. No normal meerkat would be able to climb that vertical face. The ladder and wires didn't appear until at least five meters from the ground. As he searched for the meerkat's silhouette, Bastian's ears picked up to the sound of air being rapidly displaced. He leapt backwards, as a sizable icicle impaled itself into the ground, directly between the footprints he'd been standing in only moments before. Cold pangs shot up his spine; nothing had got that close to staking him for centuries. He crushed the ice beneath his combat boot, vowing to do the same to them. They'd be much less intimidating when they were digesting in his gut.

Only restraint kept him from pursuing the animals immediately, and tearing their guts from their warm bodies. The frog's 'B' marked him as a lead; their scent was so strong that it would lead him straight to the real Big Brother, for once and for all. He adjusted his sack. Tonight he'd unleash a zombie, and remove a superhero from the world. It was shaping up to be a good Halloween.

*

Climbing the pylon was exhausting work. The metallic structure was smooth, with wires entwining like gnarled roots, higher up there was a human-sized ladder, which they used as often as they could. It was rusted, and groaned as they climbed in the darkness. Lars went ahead of his companion, creating icy footholds out of horizontal icicles where necessary. He'd dropped one near the beginning, losing almost a quarter of Seth's stored water.

Ever since they'd left the flooded place, Lars had had a feeling someone was following them. It was irrational; the life sensor hadn't picked anything up, except two decaying human bodies in the house. They hadn't stuck around to see what had killed them. At the top of the pylon, they squeezed through a hole, which led to another human tunnel. This one was carpeted. Fluorescent bulbs hung from the ceiling, so Lars powered his suit lights down.

The human tunnels were a hot labyrinth of doors and winding passages. They stuck to the edges, following the green "EXIT" signs. The warm air dried their suits. Lars checked the communicator on his arm. They'd already used a lot of water climbing the pylon. The heated air-conditioning left them with 53% reserves.

When they finally came to the exit, Lars forced open the fire-exit door. It was too heavy to push open, so he fed precious water under the door frame and froze it, repeating the process painstakingly, until the door forced itself open.

Outside, orange streaks spewed across the dank grey sky. They sheltered behind a foul smelling container as a pack of young humans ran past. The air was cold. Buildings stretched into the air around them. It was bright, and loud. It's always a strange, being dumped into a world where giants dominate, Lars thought. It made everything feel out of place. Seth leapt backwards, avoiding a rustling plastic square that spiraled about on the wind. Lars sighed. Humans were about as responsible as tadpoles; all movement, and no thought into where the current might take them. All the more reason to intervene tonight.

Protest posters peeled off the wall above them. 'Save the wasps,' and Lars' favorite: 'AI-n't a good idea,' which starred a metal robot with malicious eyes.

Seth's ears flattened further against his head "It's too exposed. Can we get somewhere higher?"

"Good plan," Lars said.

Humans weren't the only threat. They both know the dangers of dogs and cats, lower species enslaved by the humans. Lars had no desire to become a snack. Another pack of humans announced their presence with pounding footsteps. They thundered down the street, shrieking gleefully at one another, while two fully grown humans struggled to keep up. It was a strange spectacle. The small ones toted large bags, and dressed in flamboyant colors, with masks, wings, and tails affixed to their persons.

"Hey, that one's dressed like you!" Seth said, pointing out a male at the front of one of the packs. He wore a tight navy suit, with a 'B' on the front, highlighting his lack of developed chest muscles.

"I'll admit it's similar to my amphi-suit," Lars said thoughtfully, "but I bet it doesn't have titanium reinforced bone plates and bio-sensors. He regarded the dense population around them. "Why do you think they're travelling in packs?"

"Protection from predators," Seth said thoughtfully. "That, or they're going to fight each other to the death for dominance of the area."

Lars nodded. Humans were irrationally violent on occasion. What fools would divide land by static boundary lines, and then lob explosives at one another? "Come on, we need get to the museum, before they become victims of their own destruction."

He looked around. There were no trees to climb, more worryingly, no plant matter of any kind. "Let's go behind the back of this building, we can use the pipe to get to the top. It'll be easier to find the museum up there."

Seth looked unimpressed at the prospect of more climbing.

"Anything I see in my mind, I can create. I've just got to focus, remember?" Lars joked. Climbing used massive amounts of water, but they had to get to the museum somehow.

*

George Goodman had just started his shift. He reclined in the office chair, flicking mindlessly between the screens of footage. Children pulled their parents through the streets in their quest for candy. For Halloween, he'd decided two Dopplers was appropriate. There wasn't much worry of being identified tonight; he could just claim to be a fan. He sipped at his scaldingly hot tea as one of the security feeds caught his undivided attention. The Subterranean Terror was above ground again! His mug angled sideways, spilling the hot liquid on his crotch. George swore furiously, slamming the mug down in his desk, where it sloshed over the touch-pad too.

When he looked back at the screen, his nemesis had disappeared from view. The Subterranean Terror wasn't his real name, but that was what George called him. He was a thin, blonde man who always appeared before other people disappeared. From the glimpse, he'd seen a black sack, and hooded cape.

The Terror had appeared in the city only a few months ago. Apart from his ability to avoid surveillance just as well as Big Brother, he knew scant else. George suspected he came from Subterrania, the long-abandoned underbelly of the city. Only criminals and lowlifes survived in the darkness; their souls as black as their crimes. He'd learned that at Grade school. One of his Dopplers had followed him into a service tunnel once, but the Doppler hadn't come out. They'd been nemeses ever since. George often illustrated the Subterranean Terror with a white 'S' on the cape his super-villain costume.

He spun idly around on his chair. Being the alibi to his own superhero activities was boring. The Telegraph had done a Big Brother tribute six months ago, after mistakenly believing him to have been crushed in an industrial beef mixer. He recited his favorite line, voiced by Lucy Laverne: "How do you find someone who has spent a lifetime covering his tracks? For some, he was a guardian angel. To others, a ghost who never quite fit in."

A quick glance at the CCTV screen provided another obscure image: someone's lost, costumed pets (as Big Brother too, bless them) were loose on the roof of the Imperial Science Building. There was something eerily familiar about them - but man, that reporter Lucy Laverne was a really hot. He never quite got her voice right. "A guardian angel..." he tried again, imitating her accent.

George ran his fingers over the available buttons. He could direct Authorities to scenes of unfolding crimes, call for an ambulance if someone collapsed, and if any homeless or filthy Subs tried to sleep on the streets, he'd summon Home Force to deal with them. He could also order pizza if the occasion demanded it. For the obscure animal pairing, he summoned pest control, feeding the coordinate information to a contractor in the area. 

The remainder of the time, George watched. Watched people dating, or making out in dark alleys. He watched, and watched, and watched until his eyes hurt, picking up misdemeanors, and directing Authorities accordingly. He wished he had some form of contact between his Dopplers. Because technological footprint was so easy to trace now, it was too dangerous to even send text messages (a messaging system used solely by senior citizens these days). Telepathy would be nice, he thought.