Author's Note: Hey guys! New update! Hope everyone had a great Christmas and New Year! Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far. I love getting reviews and you guys have written lots! :) So things are getting sticky for Connie. And we're going to learn some important stuff from her past. ;) Hope you love it! Happy reading!

Chapter 3

I wake to silence all around me. The air is cold. The ground is cold. I am cold. I open my eyes: darkness. Nothing feels quite right. Something is wrong.

I listen for a voice, a sound, anything. Nothing. I look around and all I see is grey. My heart begins to race. This surprises me. It shouldn't be beating. Right before everything went black it had stopped. I look up again and everything is clear. I recognize this place, but not because I have seen it before. I have seen enough crime shows to know it well; I am in a morgue. Silver cabinets and black counter tops. Instruments and tools of steel and rubber.

It is only now after my mind has cleared that I realize my heart should be beating. 'Was I dead?' The question rings in my head several times before I can stop it. It couldn't be. I can feel my heart pump, my breath come in and out. I am alive. That much is clear.

I look down at myself. I am stark naked except for a white cloth that covers me from head to toe. The table I lie on is metallic and cold. I try to sit up, but at first my strength fails me. I try again and this time I manage. Sitting on the table, the silence around me, knowing people think me dead yet here I sit alive, creates such a surreal and profound moment I am momentarily lost in the awe of it all. I feel like a monstrosity; a corpse risen from the grave.

I step off the table carefully, momentarily forgetting myself as I let the cloth slip from my bare form. I stand on my own two feet, awkwardly at first like a newborn animal, but soon I begin to feel like my old self.

I gaze around the room and see my soiled clothes. It suddenly comes flooding back to me: the shard, the explosion, the pain, and then the overwhelming darkness! I nearly collapse to the floor when the realization that I should be dead hits me. In a desperate attempt to find something I recognize, something to ground myself in all this wild uncertainty, I wildly look around the room. I see my clothes again and dash over to them, flailing my arms to keep my balance. I put on my uniform in a trance like state, soothed and numbed by the motions long ago made routine.

Only once I have my shirt on do I see the hole in the fabric over my left breast right where my heart is. Next to my clothes is a manila file folder. I pick it up and open it. I find papers and photos inside. The mortician's report is on the very top. I read it: "Cause of Death: shrapnel piercing the heart. Massive and traumatic blood loss."

I pick up a photo just behind the paper. A larger version of my ID photo. It has "deceased" stamped over it in red ink.

Consciousness returned to me finally after what must have been hours. A bright light blinded me for a moment, but my eyes adjusted swiftly. I found I was sitting bolt upright in a metal chair, my wrists handcuffed to the bars that formed the back. The room was small and stark white. A steel table was in front of me. I followed the surface with my eyes and found Agent Simmons sitting opposite me in a relaxed position.

"Glad to see you decided to join us again, Ms. Ambrosius." He said with the same smirk as he threw a manila file folder on the table between us. It fell open and he began to leaf through it as I watched. Somehow his words sent a chill down my spine, but I was slightly distracted by ringing in my left ear. I looked around the room and spotted cameras mounted on the corners of the walls and a large, wide mirror (that I seriously suspected was one-way glass) behind Agent Simmons.

These people were Sector 7 and I was on edge. The first moment I heard "Sector 7" in the observatory a flood of old memories and fears rose up and nearly drowned me. Everything had happened too quickly for me to react so the panic hadn't set in yet. Now, I could feel my skin crawling and urge to throw up as increasing.

My mind's eye went back to the day in the lab under the Hoover Dam. Watching Simmons flip though files brought me back to- I pushed the thoughts out of my head knowing if I continued to linger on them it might send me over the edge. I only prayed that they wouldn't figure out I had worked for them long ago. That would lead to questions, and questions were what I definitely needed to avoid. The only thing I could count on was that anyone who would recognize me would already be dead or absolutely ancient.

"How are you feeling?" Simmons broke through my thoughts. I winced a bit at his voice since the sound seeming loud in the quiet of the room. My ears were extra sensitive due to the blow to the head I had taken. Simmons seemed to notice.

"Ah, yes," Simmons said, catching my attention again, "sorry about that. We have a new agent and he got a little… um, carried away." His smile was gone and he seemed actually sincere so I nodded my head in acknowledgment of his apology.

"No need to apologize to her, agent Simmons," a man I had never seen before entered the room from a door that fit seamlessly with the wall, "If she hadn't resisted your agent would have had no reason to physically subdue her." Both his glasses and his scalp peeking out from under his thinning brown hair shone in the light of the fixture above.

"But did your men at least have the common courtesy to have a medic check her?" Simmons addressed the man.

"We had her checked for wounds," the arrogant man gave me a suspicious look, "There were none. No thanks to the training your agents appear to be getting nowadays."

"Ms. Ambrosius, this is Mr. Galloway, the U.S. National Security Advisor" Simmons introduced the man as if he was forcefully saddled with delivering a bit of inconvenient and annoying news.

"So, I hear you had your eyes on a meteorite that landed in the desert outside of Phoenix," Galloway leveled his eyes at me, his tone superior and patronizing, "Since you wouldn't tell our S7 agents why you and your little friends were down there, you'd better start talking to me." I didn't respond to his words in any way. I had to think this through, but I was running out of time. I knew how these men worked; I needed to play the role of the local yokel who just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Only then would I get out of this unscathed.

"Do you think this is a game, Ms. Ambrosius?" Galloway suddenly flared with indignation when I didn't respond. I mentally noted with amusement how easily it was to upset him. "I don't think you realize the serious trouble you are in, young lady."

Young lady? I bridled at bit at his words, I'm so much older than him I could be his grandmother.

"No, sir." I shifted in my chair uncomfortably. I was civil, but I didn't use the kindest of tones.

"Good." Galloway smirked and leaned back in his chair, "Looks like we're getting somewhere." He then turned to Simmons and said, "Seems I'm getting more cooperation than you did. You may want to pay attention." Simmons nodded disinterestedly, but I saw him roll his eyes as soon as Galloway looked back to me.

"So why did you go find that meteorite?" Galloway leaned forward in his chair. I assumed he was trying to look intimidating. He reminded me more of a computer nerd that once asked me out in high school, leaning forward in vain and desperate hope I would say yes to a date.

"We saw it fall and thought it would be cool to find." I dumbed down my answer just enough; short, dumb, and naïve.

"And we found you guys at the sight. What did you find?" Galloway followed up quickly, as if his speed of his questions would make me slip up and confess something accidently.

"We didn't find a meteorite in the crater so we assumed it broke apart and shattered on impact." I shrugged my shoulders simply.

"So why did you run?" Galloway laced his fingers and looked smug, as if this was all part of his plan and he had me right where he wanted me.

"Phoenix is a big city so it has gangs. We saw guns and thought you were going to kill us. You didn't announce yourselves like the police so we thought you were criminals."

Galloway looked disappointed by my answers. I knew he was looking for something to hang me with, but my utter lack of incriminating testimony left him with little material for even the rope.

"Uh huh, you sure are makin' her talk." Simmons looked anything but interested.

"What are you implying, Agent Simmons?" Galloway turned on Simmons with anger in his eyes, "Are you trying to say that I can't tell when someone is lying and when they're telling the truth?"

"Listen, Galloway, I've been at this for years," Simmons said like he was explaining something to someone who was rather slow, "I can look in her eyes and know that she's lying to your face right now."

"Look at her, Simmons!" Galloway exclaimed with a gesture towards me, "She's just a scientist from a little private observatory in the middle of the desert. Yes, she has 'threat to national security' written all over her." Galloway looked at Simmons as if he were crazy. I had to hand it to Simmons, he had an eye for lying. And an eye for stupid.

"I'm going to prove to you that's she lying," Simmons stared the man down, "Her and those other two aren't as innocent as they'd like to have you think."

"Give it a rest, Simmons." Galloway just shook his head at the man as he stood to leave, "I think you boys down in Sector 7 have just been chasing conspiracies for too long now."

"And I think you boys on Capitol Hill have been pushing papers for too long." Simmons retorted as Galloway walked out the door. A few seconds after the door shut he turned to look at me.

"I know you're hiding something." Simmons held up my camcorder for me to see, "And I have the proof right here."

Oh crap, I thought, how can this get any worse?

"But I'm not going to turn you in right now," Simmons explained, "You're gonna stay here while I think of what to do." I was surprised by the lack of malice or smugness in his voice. "I'll fill you in on what you need to know later," he ended with.

A snap of his fingers later, two men in suits uncuffed me from my chair, blindfolded me, and led me away.