"Gimme a sec, Brandon," a robotic voice spoke in Brandon's head; the words shot out rapidly like bullets from a machine gun. "I'll make a proper introduction after this."

Intense heat ran down along the streak of glossy blue on Brandon's torso. The line glowed just like Mika's left hand.

"Orion?" Mika asked.

Brandon approached Mika, who kept staring at the cyan light around her hand. Were the aliens talking privately to each other?

Soon, the radiance around Mika's hand dimmed. Then the heat on Brandon's body faded, and the blue line there stopped glowing.

"You guessed it right," the same rapid robotic voice came from his torso. "It's something personal among us Methuselah folks."

Brandon's face contorted in bewilderment. A talking hand was tolerable, but a talking torso? Ridiculous!

"You'll get used to it. No worries." A pause. "All right, let me introduce myself. My name is Scutum. Your creator chose me to infect your corpse for two reasons. One, you always tried to protect your loved ones during your mortal life. Two, I'm known as 'The Shield.'"

Mika stroked her chin with a finger. "That means you can teach Brandon how to cast a barrier?"

"Teach?" Scutum laughed. "I can generate a barrier whenever he's attacked in such a misty region. Try punching him, Mika."

"But-" Her left hand curled into a fist and ripped through the air. A thick wall of glass stopped the blow and vanished once Mika retreated.

"Sorry for hijacking," Orion said, "but I noticed that you were unwilling to give Scutum a chance just because your target was Brandon."

Mika's worried look turned into a smile. "No problem. Now, I'm even more confident that with Brandon around, we can slay the dragon!"

Brandon nodded. A talking torso wasn't that bad after all; with its power, he could protect Mika even better.

"That's one of my specialties," Scutum bragged. "I'm also great at sculpting."

Mika quirked an eyebrow. "Sculpting?"

Brandon frowned. Scutum had better not spend too much time on bragging, especially not about a worthless skill.

"Just look at these pecs and abs, Mika. I created them by restructuring Brandon's body composition." Scutum laughed. "Don't they look great?"

Hmm,  Brandon did like how his body looked. Rock-hard pecs and six-pack abs aside, he also had a narrow waist and a set of artfully sculpted lats, delts and biceps. With a pair of solid thighs and calves, he could easily become a model for Men's Health magazines. Too bad humans never liked the undead.

"Brandon always looks great," Mika said rather plainly.

"No credits for me? Come on, I've also given him big guns."

Mika blinked. "You created Cerberus? I'm pretty sure that Brandon's creator crafted those guns..."

"'Guns' is also a slang for the muscles on your upper arms," Brandon chimed in, his words coated in annoyance. Damned thing really had to stop bragging now.

Scutum questioned in his head, "What's the matter? I'm just talking about my talent, you know?"

A growl escaped through Brandon's gritted teeth. Talent, eh? What if he had died with a potbelly instead? Could this boastful little alien make him this ripped?

"It'll just take more time."

"Done talking, Scutum?" Orion asked. "With so much mist, it's not good to stay in one place for so long. Especially not for bragging."

Brandon looked around and noticed the thick wisps of white. He could still tell the height of the neighboring buildings and see the peeling paints on the walls, but whether there were enemies or not, he didn't know. However, he could somehow feel the presence of stronger abominations ahead.

There was no telling when a fight would destroy a building, and Mika couldn't possibly survive a fall.

So he picked Mika up and hopped off the building. When his feet crashed into the pavement, his ears registered an audible sigh from her left hand. He hissed while letting Mika go; an alien would never make a better father than an earthling, 'nuff said.

"It's okay to give Orion a chance, Brandon. We Methuselah folks care a lot about our hosts' survival."

They cared? Well, hadn't Scutum been leeching off his blood and threatening to destroy his body once it could no longer sustain the parasite?

"No, no, no! You got it all wrong!" Scutum suddenly exclaimed. "I'm never that terrible, you know? In fact, I always try not to consume too much blood just so that you can last longer. You, as a corpse, can't produce blood by yourself."

"Really?" Mika asked, walking along the desolate pavement with Brandon.

"Scutum speaks the truth," Orion replied. "I haven't told you this, but yes, we Methuselah folks always try our best to keep our hosts alive. Why? Because if something goes wrong with our hosts' bodies, we'll die."

"In Brandon's case, when he runs out of blood, I'll die," Scutum added. "When that happens, Brandon will disintegrate. If you wonder why he won't rot like a typical corpse, well, it's because his body cells aren't those of an earthling's anymore. I've altered them so that I can live in him."

Mika halted and shuddered. Giving Mika a hug and patting her back, Brandon looked at his torso and growled. Scutum was such an insensitive jerk for haunting Mika's mind with the image of her petite body crumbling to dust.

"I'm sorry, but that's the truth. With Orion in her, Mika's cells have also changed."

Brandon released Mika and shrugged; at least this little pest had decided to speak just in his head.

As they resumed their walk, Scutum questioned in Brandon's head, "Are earthlings always so protective of their children?"

Ah, aliens could never have children, could they? Brandon still couldn't tell Scutum's - and even Orion's - gender either.

"Interesting question," Scutum's voice escaped from the line. "We don't have a gender, but we can mate. We call the process 'conjugation,' which is quite similar to the sexual reproduction of bacteria."

Brandon gritted his teeth in exasperation; did Scutum know that studying science always threatened to toast his brain? Also, could this alien ever learn how to speak more slowly?

"Um, what do you guys look like actually?" Mika asked. "Rod-shaped like bacteria?"

"More like amoebas. We're microscopic and shapeless," Orion answered; its slow, gentle voice cooled Brandon's head. "Anyway, a Methuselah folk can perform a conjugation only once in a lifetime. Two virgin folks need to get to know each other before they can trade their genetic materials. When the exchange is done, each folk can split once to create an offspring."

"Virgin?"

"Those who have never traded genetic materials are called 'virgin folks' in Planet Methuselah." A pause. "Doesn't 'virgin' mean something similar in human community?"

"Um, yeah."

"The process can be annoying," Scutum - or rather, Machine Gun Mouth - added. "Another folk can steal your potential mate, and your potential mate can just leave you and seek another folk. Those incidents hurt a lot."

Brandon nodded. So, they also knew a feeling called "heartbroken." He had experienced- no, deserved that painful feeling. Maria - Mika's mother - had left him because he had never cared; all he had in his mind that time was just work, work, and work.

Thanks to Mika's existence, he could now atone for his mistakes. He had also sworn to himself that he would never, ever fall in love again. Luckily, his putrid body odor - which Mika had grown used to - drove humans away more often than not.

Amazing how the musing could sear his heart and bring tears into his eye...

"Is it normal for an earthling to never mate? From a quick scan of your brain and body, I find out that you're forty-four but still a virgin."

"Shut up!" Brandon snapped, blood rushing into his cheeks. The nerve! If Scutum had been a concrete being outside his body, he'd have kicked its ass so hard that it'd land on its home planet.

Screech!

Brandon and Mika stopped their walk. Crystalline dragonflies and silver gargoyles came flying from all directions; without any sort of weapons other than pointy appendages for the insects and massive fists for the winged giants, they were nothing but harmless pests.

Fatality Bringer, his heart commanded as he brandished his coffin. The barrel of an assault rifle emerged at the tip of the coffin, and he jumped and whirled. Bullets sprayed out of his spinning form and created a rain of smithereens and silver dust.

Landing on the ground, Brandon looked up. A small swarm of dragonflies survived, but a sphere of light soon slammed onto them and blasted them to bits.

"See how strong Mika has become?" Orion's proud voice came from behind him.

With the coffin's chains wrapped around his upper arms, Brandon growled. Trying to rival him, eh? Well, an alien would never be a better father than an earthling. Brandon had taught Mika not to panic when an enemy approached, while Orion had only taught her to throw an explosive orb. Without his lesson, his child couldn't possibly wield the superpower so well.

"You really should try seeing Orion as your friend," Scutum quipped in his head. "Both of you are doing your best to take care of Mika."

Brandon sighed and resumed his journey with Mika, ethereal tendrils creeping around him, his child and the surrounding tenements. A few moments later, they reached a crossroad with dead traffic lights. A 7-Eleven convenience store stood across them, surrounded by shophouses with open doors.

"It's the heart of the slum," Mika told him. "Be careful."

His ears registered some groans and scraping sounds from the distance. The further he went, the clearer the noises grew. Also, he began seeing four-winged figures everywhere.

One of them - a woman - shuffled past a street sign and towards Brandon, her head tilted. "H-help," she groaned, reaching out a shaky hand while looking at Brandon with her compound eyes. As she drew closer, Brandon spotted a pair of small antennae on her head. Swaying scissor-like appendages surrounded her gaping mouth.