Chapter 9

as soon as any soul becomes a traitor,

as I was, then a demon takes its body

away and keeps that body in his power

until its years have run their course completely.

"Julie?"

Juliet inhaled sharply and tensed every muscle when she heard the voice. She had been asleep, albeit fitfully, and had curled herself up against one of the corners of her cell. Upon hearing the voice she woke up suddenly and coiled herself even tighter, trying to make herself as small as possible. She drew her head, elbows and knees in tighter against her torso and squeezed her eyes shut, making fresh tears well up without her bidding, and shook her head. "Please, no," she pleaded, her voice no more than a mere whimper. "No more, please. I can't. I just can't-"

"Julie," the voice said again. Though it had that sickeningly familiar Visitor vibrato, this voice was gentle, soothing. "I'm not here to hurt you."

It took every last bit of her courage, but somehow Julie forced herself to look over her right shoulder at the owner of that voice. She peered through her tears and saw a tall, lean figure in red. It was a Visitor woman with long, blond hair. Juliet sniffed, using the back of her hand, which still hurt from when she bit it not too long ago, to rub the tears from her eyes so that she could see better.

"I'm Lorraine," the tall Visitor said. She knelt down next to Julie, who whimpered and pressed herself harder into the wall. "Don't be afraid."

She peeked over shoulder at Lorraine again. She had never seen this particular Visitor before. Then she realized that the only ones she ever remembers seeing, the ones who entered her cell and dragged her out to be tortured and driven to near-madness, always wore gold helmets with the black visors lowered, obscuring their faces.

This Visitor smiled gently at her. She was carrying a tray with several items on it, including what looked like a tall cup which Julie hoped contained some water.

"I've brought you some food," said Lorraine. "Please eat. You need to keep your strength up."

"I don't want to."

"But you will die if you do not eat." Lorraine hesitated for a moment, then touched Julie's arm gently. The human flinched as if she had been burned, curling herself even more tightly.

"Don't touch me!"

Lorraine frowned. "Please, Julie." She put the tray down and lifted the lid off of one of the containers. "It's warm. I'm told you like your food warm."

Julie didn't respond. Lorraine waited and considered the situation.

"Please eat something," she prodded again. "If not, Diana has ways to force you to. As you already know, her ways can be," she paused for a moment, "very unpleasant for you."

Julie trembled visibly at the mention of Diana's name.

"Do not cling to the hope that she will simply let you starve. She hasn't let you yet; she will not allow you to die."

Julie raised herself slowly up on her elbow, still keeping her back to the Visitor in an apparent attempt to preserve her modesty. She hadn't worn a stitch of clothing in weeks, but she could never adjust to her state of constant nakedness. She looked at Lorraine, then at the tray of food which lay next to her.

Lorraine stood up from her crouch slowly and turned around, allowing the human some much craved-for privacy so she could take the food and drink from the tray with some dignity. "I am glad you have decided to eat. I'm told that, most times, you refuse to eat; you only drink the water."

Julie didn't move for about a minute, then she asked quietly, "Why are you still here?"

"I don't understand your question."

"Most times, someone just brings me the tray of food." Julie's voice was very still and small. "I never see who it is, or even when they bring it. They do it when I'm asleep and out of it." She cleared her throat. "It's as if... it's as if they don't want to be with me any longer than they have to. Like I'm worthless, or disgusting, or something."

She looked up hopefully at Lorraine, who still hadn't turned to face her. "I feel so dirty. I haven't bathed, or..." she trailed off, tears falling down her cheeks. She drew a deep, cleansing breath and tried to compose herself.

She looked down at the tray and its contents. She frowned at the visually-unappealing meat and the piece of bread, then confirmed that the cup did contain water. With her fingers, she tore off a small piece of the meat – it looked like a boiled chicken breast to her – and started eating. She took another small morsel, noting that, as always, the food was bland and flavorless, then took a sip from the cup.

"Do you think I want to die?" she asked Lorraine after a few minutes.

Lorraine didn't look at her when she answered. "I don't know. Do you?"

Julie carefully picked off a small piece of bread and nibbled on it. "Do you know how painful it is? How much it hurts?"

"I don't."

"No, you don't!" Julie shocked herself a bit with the aggressiveness of her tone. She blinked, making new tears trace hot paths down her cheeks, then put the food back on the tray. "I couldn't begin to tell you. You simply can't know what it feels like."

"Tell me."

She then lay back down onto her side, sobbing. "She's right... momma was right. I killed her."

"'Momma?' You killed your mother?"

"I didn't want to. But I did. I told her what happened, what Uncle Frank did. She said I was lying, but I wasn't. But she thought I was.

"I never lied to her, but she thought I did. I never did. Not about that.

"I broke her heart and she died. I killed her."

Julie sobbed anew. Nothing she did could keep the guilt and the grief from stabbing at her heart. She squeezed her eyes shut.

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry... I'm a bad person... I hate myself..."

She wept freely, as if she thought her tears could wash away the guilt that stained her heart and soul. "Momma," she sobbed, her breath catching in her throat. "I need you, momma."

"Shh. It's okay. I'm here."

Julie felt a comforting warmth spread through her. A gentle hand stroked her hair and touched her cheek. Loving lips kissed her softly on the top of her head, making her sigh.

"I've missed you."

"I've missed you too."

"Momma... I'm so sorry-"

"Shh."

"I need you... I can't keep on fighting it-"

"It's okay. I'm here."

"It hurts so much. I'm so scared."

"Be brave, Julie. You've always been brave-"

"I'm too scared, momma! I need you! Don't leave me-"

"I don't belong here, Julie."

"Don't leave me, please!"

"Be brave; be strong."

"Hold me... don't go-"

Julie felt her mother's loving arms encompass her. The embrace, so warm, so tender, filled her with a feeling of security she had not felt since... she couldn't actually remember the last time she felt so safe.

Eagerly she propped herself up, her arms returning the embrace. Julie leaned up against her mother, nuzzling her cheek, moist with her tears, into her mother's bosom. She sighed as she felt and heard her mother's heartbeat.

"I love you, momma."

"I love you, Julie."

"Stay with me, mom-"

"I am with you."

Julie choked on her sobs. "I... I'm so sorry... I didn't mean to-"

"Shh... I know... I know..."

The tears fell freely down Julie's cheeks as she closed her eyes, allowing sleep to claim her once again.

VVVVV

"This does not look good."

"That's hardly descriptive."

"She has been damaged; even you must see that."

Martin and Bruce were in the observation room adjacent to Juliet Parrish's holding cell. The door to the room slid open, and Lorraine stepped through.

"I tried to speak with her, but she just lay there. I just left her food in the cell," Lorraine said. "I hope she is at peace."

"For the moment," Martin said, gesturing to Julie who was clearly in the midst of a hallucination. "Until her own mind assaults her again."

"Or until Diana calls for her to be returned to the conversion chamber," said Lorraine angrily.

"That won't be for a while. She has at least four or five hours before then," Bruce said. "She has to detox sufficiently before Diana can resume the conversion process. There's only so much of the serums that the human body can take within a given time period. Plus she has to recover from her heart attack. Our medicines should help her immensely." He looked at the human sadly. "With her, we've sometimes gone over the safety thresholds. I always advise Diana against doing that since it risks her health, even her life, but she wants to keep pushing."

Martin nodded, then turned to Lorraine. "At least she is eating some of the food you brought her."

"I wish we could do more to help her," Lorraine said. "Even take her back to her own people."

"As do I," replied Martin. "Unfortunately, as you know, that's simply impossible at the moment."

"I don't want to imagine what it's like to be her right now." Lorraine moved towards the one-way window, the palm of her right hand resting on the glass. It looked to Martin as if she was trying to reach through the partition to lay a comforting hand on Julie.

Lorraine continued, her voice low. "She didn't move, didn't say a word, when I came to bring her food in. She just lay there, stayed still and looked at me, a glassy look in her eyes, even as I spoke to her."

"We saw," said Martin. He then looked at Bruce. "I need to know: How bad is it?"

"I'll be honest with you," Bruce began, his hand rubbing his temple in an all-too-human gesture of consternation. "I monitor her vital signs, her physiological responses to the conversion process. Unfortunately, my specialization cannot determine the exact degree of the damage done on her psyche."

Martin looked grim. "But surely you can offer an informed opinion?"

"Martin, I know you work closely with the local rebellion, and that this prisoner is purported to be their leader." Bruce's curiosity was evident. "But you've never been this interested about anyone who has ever gone through the conversion process."

"I need to know," Martin said simply. "I must make some very difficult decisions, and I need as much information as I can get in order to make the right ones."

"Well," Bruce said, rubbing his temple again, "it might be altogether better if I don't know the reasons behind your curiosity." He shrugged. "Diana hasn't broken her yet, which, frankly, is amazing to me. But I fear that she is at her limit."

"Is there anything you can do to keep her from being converted?"

Bruce shrugged. "As part of Diana's handpicked team for this particular conversion operation, I do have some influence. But it's not nearly enough; Diana makes all the final decisions. From the outset I strongly advocated a conservative approach, if only to buy some time to allow you to find some way to return her to her comrades."

Martin flashed him a quick look, and Bruce smiled. "I recognize the danger to our movement that successfully converting this young woman represents, even if she's never had direct contact with us. Moreover, your compassionate nature is no secret; it is but one reason why the Column looks to you for leadership."

"I fear for her," Martin admitted, also deftly shifting the conversation away from himself. He turned to look through the one-way window at Julie. "She's running out of time."

Lorraine walked over to Martin and reached out to squeeze his shoulder. "I can sense the turmoil you're feeling," she deadpanned. "You and Donovan have discussed the possibility that it may already be too late to help Julie and have a plan just in case, haven't you?"

Martin shot her a look, and she met his gaze with resolve. "Some secrets you keep better than others."

"I will be honest with you," Martin said, breaking eye contact first. He looked at Julie again. "Donovan and I have had conversations about that possibility. We have... a worst-case scenario contingency plan."

Lorraine tried to read Martin. His face was inscrutable. "Well?" she asked. "What is this plan?"

Martin didn't look at either of his companions when he spoke. "Donovan and I have agreed that, if it is clear that Julie has been converted, we will have to arrange an assassination attempt."

"Kill her? Isn't that a bit extreme?" Lorraine asked.

"It's too big a risk to allow her to return to the resistance if she has been converted," said Bruce. "I don't like the idea of killing her, but I do understand the logic behind this decision."

"Killing her doesn't sound like something neither you nor Donovan would sanction," Lorraine said to Martin. "You may be a soldier – an excellent one, in fact – but I have never known you as someone who was willing to take the life of an innocent."

"You are astute," Martin allowed. "Neither Donovan nor I want to kill Julie. But an ally of his – a man named Tyler – said something that was completely correct: This is war, and you must be pragmatic."

Lorraine looked at him doubtfully.

"War requires many sacrifices," Martin said. "Even ones you are most unwilling to make."

Lorraine touched Martin's arm. "But what if you're wrong, and she isn't converted?

"Are you prepared to be a murderer?"

VVVVV

"Thinking about your little lady friend."

Mike Donovan looked up at Ham Tyler. Mike was sitting on the porch of the saloon, one of the few buildings at the movie ranch which was actually mostly functional and not just a facade. He had felt the wooden floorboards move as Tyler approached, so he shifted position to give him a wide path down the steps. He thought that Tyler was on his way to another part of the rebel camp.

But Tyler had just stopped and taken a place behind him. Apparently this was one of those rare occasions when the ex-CIA man actually wanted to talk.

Donovan didn't want, or expect, any conversations at the moment.

The front of the saloon just happened to be oriented towards the southwest, giving him a view of the Los Angeles skyline. Even from this distance he could see the lights on the skyscrapers marking the heart of downtown. And above the skyline, two gigantic Mother Ships hung over the city. He thought that the pair of mammoth spacecraft looming over the city looked like ominous storm clouds.

The comparison to storm clouds seemed apt to him; they echoed the tumult raging deep within himself.

Donovan sighed, and his mind returned to the present.

Tyler was still standing there, just behind him, still also just staring out towards downtown Los Angeles.

What Tyler had said puzzled him, though, as it didn't strike him as either a question or a statement. "What do you want, Tyler?" he asked, finally, deciding that it was impossible to decipher the inscrutable ex-CIA man.

"How did it happen?"

"How did what happen?"

"How did your little lady friend get nabbed by the lizards in the first place?"

Donovan stood up and shrugged, then leaned against a wooden post. It was as if that was the only thing that kept him from collapsing into the dust. "We were on the run, in the hospital. We had a plan to get out of there, with the Fifth Column's help. Martin and I, we had everything set up."

"There was a hitch, something you didn't account for."

Mike nodded. "Somehow she wound up covering the rear, while the rest of us were rushing into a deactivated elevator shaft up to the roof of the hospital. We had ladders set up; we had our ride home arranged and waiting for us.

"I thought we had every base covered.

"But then I guess she saw a bunch of troopers rushing to our position, so she decided to take a stand and cover us. I heard her yell to close the door to the elevator shaft – we couldn't open it from the inside – and she was separated from us. I wanted to go back for her, but -"

"It was her choice, Gooder."

"I know it was, but -"

"She made a choice," Tyler repeated. "She didn't want the whole outfit to get caught or, much worse, killed." Donovan looked at him doubtfully. "It's not your fault she got into this jam."

"Oh no? Why does it feel like it is, then?"

"'Cause you've made the mistake of mixing business with the personal stuff." Donovan whirled around, apparently stung. "Deny it if you want; you know I'm dead on target.

"Don't get me wrong: I said we'll help get her out of this.

"But you've got to let go. Guilt is a monster, and it will eat you alive if you let it. It'll be the death of you."

Donovan looked at him, then looked down at his feet and shook his head.

"Damn."

VVVVV

This is what Juliet Parrish feels, right now:

Your legs strain as you dig your feet into the floor beneath you. Your shorts are wet, having urinated on yourself in fear. A very strong, roughly-calloused hand grips your left arm. You do your best to wriggle and twist away, but you are far too small, far too weak to do anything.

You shut your eyes, and you scream.

You don't want to look at him, even if the darkness is enough to obscure his face.

You hear his breathing: Rough, heavy, frightening. It is almost bestial. When he talks to you, you hear and feel the malice.

He laughs at you, and you scream at the top of your lungs. But it fails to drown out the malicious laughter.

You feel his other hand grab your other arm. He drags you down effortlessly onto the floor. You try to punch his arms, claw at his hands, anything to try and get him to release his steely grip on you. One of his hands does release your arm, but he holds you down very easily even with just his other hand.

"We're going to have so much fun, kid," he says to you, his voice echoing in your mind. "So much fun playing together!"

His free hand lifts the hem of your shirt, and you feel his fingernails, long and claw-like, dragging themselves lightly over your exposed skin in circles. Then he pulls your drenched shorts off with one tug and rubs you with his fingertips through your underwear.

You can't suppress the shudder.

"Don't tell anybody about this," he threatens. "If you do, I know where you live. I'll kill you, your daddy, and mommy too."

With a strength that frightens you even more, he tugs on your underwear, forcing the material to dig painfully into you and lifting your hips off of the ground before it finally rips away in tatters like paper. You instantly lift your knees up to your chest and squeeze your legs together, trying to roll yourself into a ball to protect yourself. He laughs as he pries you open easily, his hand again touching the most private places.

He laughs as you scream again.

Then he growls, "Look at me!"You keep your eyes tightly shut, not wanting to face this monster hovering above you. "I said look at me,"he insists again.

You don't comply, so he starts slapping you. The pain makes you gasp, and you can't help but choke on your sobs. After a few seconds, he stops hitting you. Then you feel his hands all over you again, especially on parts of your body not covered by clothing. You try to strike at him blindly, but even when you hit him it hurts you more than you know it hurts him.

"You'll like this!" he says as he stops for a moment. "I'll make you feel like a grownup, and you're gonna feel so good."

You gasp in shock as you feel him push first one of his thick fingers, then two, inside you, squirming and twisting around like fat, giant worms. He pulls his fingers almost all the way out of you, then pushes them in again.

"Momma," you call out weakly. "Help me, momma-"

"She can't help you,"he sneers. "She WILL NOT help you."

You start to seriously hurt between your legs, and as he moves his fingers in and out you feel something wet trickle out of you. "You're starting to bleed,"he taunts.

You hear a moist pop as he yanks his fingers out, and as you gasp in surprise you instinctively open your eyes.

In the darkness you see the fingers that had been inside you mere inches in front of your face.

They are coated in a green liquid.

His fingers, which had been inside you, ARE COATED IN GREEN.

You are BLEEDING GREEN.

Then you see his face, twisted in a grotesque smile that proclaims his complete contempt for you.

You see Michael Donovan's face.

And you scream again.

"It's not true! It's not true!" Julie kept repeating. "It can't be! Not you!"

Bruce frowned as he studied the telemetry on Julie's medical status. "Diana, I warned you of the seriousness of-"

"Yes, yes," Diana interrupted, waving a hand at him impatiently. "Never mind." She then leaned towards Paul. "Give me maximum."

Paul flicked some switches on his main control board.

Coruscating beams of red light danced on Julie's face and joined the blue flashes encircling her in the conversion chamber, making her scream anew.

You are seized by involuntary convulsions, and you shake in uncontrolled, jerking spasms. Red lights moving madly all over your entire field of vision introduce you to a whole new definition of pain, as if the crimson flashes in your eyes are bypassing all of your nerves, searing the pain receptors in your brain directly.

For a few fleeting moments, just after the red beams first flashed in your eyes, you hear nothing, even as you virtually empty your lungs wailing in agony. A small corner of your mind wonders about that apparently silent scream, and you panic. Have you gone deaf? Have all these high-tech torments permanently damaged your mind, destroyed your senses, your ability to perceive and interact with the world? Given all the torments you are being forced to suffer – how long have you been fighting to hold out against the tortures now? You can't remember – you think that maybe this is better anyway.

Maybe this is the beginning of the end, and this is how it feels to die.

So sweet, the mercy of death, the freedom from torture.

Then, all of a sudden, you regain your hearing. You are shocked when you hear your own agonized screams echoing within the conversion chamber. The chamber's glass walls reflect the sounds back to you, reinforcing the idea that, in here, pain and terror are your constant, and only, companions. The sound of your own pain-filled voice, raw and strained, filling your ears only adds yet another layer to your suffering.

And yet, beneath your own screams and their echoes, beneath the sound and sensation of your own frenzied heartbeat pounding like a bass drum played hard and fast in your ears, beneath the sound of your ragged, panic-filled attempts to replenish your lungs with oxygen, a high-pitched pulsing tone drills itself into your consciousness, latching on to your auditory nerves and overwhelming your mind's capacity to organize your own thoughts and make sense of anything.

And beneath that pervasive pulsing tone, you hear a voice.

A comforting voice.

A soothing voice.

A voice that sounds musical, harmonic and melodic, seducing you to give over all of your being if the voice asked you to.

It is her voice.

She is speaking to you, the tone in her voice imploring you to comply.

"Let me stop the pain, Julie. Let me help you."

"No!" you scream without thinking.

But even as the words leave your lips, your body is racked with a new wave of electric agony.

It is dark. The shadows have cast a nearly impenetrable veil on your vision.

But your ears compensate, and you hear everything. And everything you hear makes you flinch.

You hear the grunts, the heavy breaths, and the sounds of flesh slapping repeatedly against flesh. You hear the whimpers and the meek protests, the word "no" repeating over and over and over again as counterpoints to the grunting and the heavy breathing.

Everything you hear frightens you, so you want to run far away from the source of these sounds and voices. For some unknown reason, however, you feel drawn to them. So you pad slowly and quietly towards them.

The darkness slowly becomes less complete, and you can see a little bit more with each reluctant step forward. You continue, feeling your way with your fingertips gliding along the walls.

You round the corner, knowing through familiarity that you're almost to your parents' bedroom.

Then you stop in your tracks as you see dim yet unmistakable shapes in the shadows.

You see two people. One is larger than the other. Even in the darkness, you can tell that the smaller figure is a woman on her back lying on the bed, and the larger one is a man, a thick bundle of what you think are his trousers around his feet.

For some reason you don't quite understand, the man is between the woman's legs as he stands at the edge of the bed. He is bent forwards at the waist so that his arms are supporting much of his weight. The woman tries to raise herself up from the bed, struggling to kick away at the man in between her legs, but cannot do it, losing out to his superior strength and leverage. You watch as she cries.

The man is moving in sudden, almost violent motions. His movements are matched with grunts in rhythm with the motions, and each grunt is answered by a pained whimper from the woman. You suddenly understand that the movements are in time with the sounds of flesh slapping against flesh, the grunts and pained whimpers adding yet more elements to the pain-filled rhythms filling your ears.

Your eyes strain in the darkness, and you see the woman trying to strike and claw at the man moving between her legs. This only makes him angry, and he hits her with multiple blows to her face with open-palmed strikes. While you don't quite understand everything you're looking at, the violence is something which swells your fear even more.

Then you hear her voice as she begs for mercy, an end to the violence. It's a familiar voice.

It's her voice.

Momma, you think to yourself as you keep on watching the scene in front of you.

At that moment, you see her eyes as she finally looks directly at you. Even in the darkness, you see them so clearly. Very blue, almost unnaturally so, much darker and a very different shade compared to yours. They are opened so widely, it seems as if they allow you a look into her soul. It's enough to make you believe you can feel everything she's feeling.

It's enough to make you gasp.

As soon as you do, though, the man at the foot of the bed stops his animal-like movements and turns his head in your direction.

Oh no. He heard you!

His eyes glow fiercely in the darkness as they lock onto yours. You cannot see his features clearly in the shadows, but you can tell that his face has suddenly twisted into a grotesque smile, assuming the look of a predator which has seen its favorite prey.

"Julie," your mother gasps. "Please," she begs the man. "Don't hurt her, please!"

The man turns slowly away from you for a moment, facing the woman trying to raise herself off of the bed. With a sudden motion he backhands her with a closed fist.

You gasp again as the blow connects. You scream. "Momma!Don't hurt my momma!"

"Julie," she starts to say. Her voice is weak and strained. Agony seems to radiate from her, and you can feel the throbs of pain that she is feeling.

The man turns to look at you again, smiling malevolently. He bends down, and with his left hand he reaches for something fastened to his ankle. In the darkness you see the glint of something long and pointed.

Then you see the man's left arm move rapidly, and the woman on the bed gasps repeatedly. She seems as if she is trying to scream, but cannot do it. You hear a horrible squishing sound with every movement the man's arm makes.

"Julie," the woman gurgles. "He's... he's stabbed me..."

"Momma! Momma, no!"

"Run," she urges you hoarsely, straining with a gigantic effort. "Run... run for your life!"

You're frozen in place, watching the horror unfolding in front of you, until the man plunges the long, pointed object into the neck of the woman on the bed.

You scream, still too frightened to do anything but watch. The woman on the bed twitches uncontrollably, then sinks into the bed with a sickening finality. The man then pulls his weapon slowly out of her neck, then turns back to look in your direction. He kicks his trousers off of his feet.

"You're the one I really want."

He starts to move towards you. You look at him, eyes wide open, paralyzed with terror.

"Aww, will you look at that," the man says as he slowly walks towards you. "The little girl pissed herself watching her mommy die before her eyes."

An intense heat fills your cheeks when you feel the warm wetness trickling down your legs. You can't keep your eyes off of the man as he keeps advancing towards you.

You take a slow step backwards, then another.

He keeps getting closer.

I don't know what to do... I don't know what to do...

You can't catch your breath. Every single one of your muscles feels like it's on fire. Your body quakes uncontrollably as fatigue and exhaustion are about to overwhelm you.

So this is what it's like to die.

Pain is all you know.

Terror is all you feel.

Nothing else exists for you.

"I don't know what to do... I don't know what to do...," you keep repeating to yourself, seeking answers to a question that ought to be so simple, even as it evades all your efforts to comprehend it.

You don't know how to think anymore, it seems.

Through the dense cacophony of shrill pulsing tones and your own echoing screams being crammed into your ears and into your mind, you hear her voice again.

Run, Julie, it tells you. Run for your life! Run faster, Julie, run faster!

You turn around and sprint, not bothering to look back at him.

You don't need to see him. You can feel him start to chase you into the gloom. His heavy footfalls make the boards beneath your feet creak in weary protest.

You almost lose your balance; your bedroom slippers don't afford you much grip on the hardwood floor. You scream as you almost fall, trying to turn the corner into the kitchen.

Then you scream again as you feel the rush of air his hand displaces as reaches out to grab you, his arm moving like a snake uncoiling and striking at its prey.

He missed, but he laughs as if this was all a game the two of you were playing.

You knock a couple of chairs down as you fly past them, hoping to obstruct him. The ploy works, as you hear him curse and you feel the thud of his body crashing onto the kitchen floor. You dare not look back, your full attention focused on the door to the backyard.

Your hand grips the doorknob, twists it, and you burst through.

And you find yourself in a hallway lit by white fluorescent lights.

VVVVV

"Heart rhythms are irregular again," Bruce cautioned as he looked at his monitor's readout.

When Diana didn't answer, he glanced over his left shoulder at her. All of her attention was fixed on the woman inside the conversion chamber.

"She's close," she said quietly to Paul. Diana then left her place at the control board, walking towards an access hatch into the conversion chamber itself.

Bruce sighed, then reached into the folds on the front of his uniform. His hand found the two-and-a-half inch long cylinder secreted inside and pressed the button on its end.

"Don't take too long, Martin," he thought to himself.

VVVVV

"Just a few minutes more, Barbara," said Martin. "We're almost done with the finishing touches."

"I know." Barbara lay still as the low-grade micro-laser traced a beam of light melting the seams between the sections of synth-skin, blending them perfectly. "It's a good thing we kept these from all those months ago," she said, running her palm down the leg of the pants she was wearing.

Martin smiled, but she couldn't miss its grim melancholy edge. "Why so glum, Martin?" She reached out for his hand, smiling as she felt him squeeze. "I volunteered to do this, remember?"

"Perhaps so," Martin said. "It doesn't mean that I personally approve of it."

"Don't move," said Lorraine, intense concentration obvious in her face. "If we're not careful with this, we may have to do the whole thing over, and we don't have time to spare."

Barbara chanced a tiny smile at Lorraine, then became still again. "Well..." Barbara sighed. "Think of the best-case scenario: We can solve our biggest problem, if everything goes according to plan."

Martin squeezed Barbara's hand tighter. "Your bravery is beyond measure. You do credit to both our movement and our race."

"Coming from you, that is probably the greatest compliment one can ever expect to receive."

"Lorraine and I, and the rest of our movement, we will be infinitely poorer without you."

Barbara closed her eyes and looked away. "We all have to play our parts, don't we? I have made sacrifices for our movement before and risked my life... I will do it again."

Martin smiled wanly and sighed. "I wish this one was unnecessary."

"As do I," Lorraine confirmed. "There. All done."

Barbara sat up and swung her legs to her right side, gracefully hopping off of the reclined chair where she had spent the better part of the last hour and a half. Lorraine offered her a mirror, which she took. She inspected the product of Lorraine's labors with a critical eye. "Looks great," she said.

A series of electronic beeps startled her. Martin took a small device from one of the compartments mounted on his belt and pressed a button, then looked at both his companions.

"It's time," he said. He handed Barbara a laser rifle, then he and Lorraine bowed slightly, a gesture of ultimate respect. "And thank you."

Barbara took the rifle, looked at both Martin and Lorraine, then hurried away and left the room.

"I hate suicide missions," Martin thought.

VVVVV

You blink several times; you can't believe what you're seeing. A long hallway stretches out ahead of you. There are doors on both sides of the hall, spaced several feet apart, and along the walls at random places are wheelchairs, carts, and other pieces of miscellaneous medical equipment.

The floor shakes beneath you, and the sounds and rhythms of boot falls shock you back into the moment. You break into a sprint down the hallway, pressing your elbows tightly against your sides and pulling on the long, flowing cape so that your gown doesn't catch on the obstacles in your path.

The never-ending chase is on yet again.

Your mind registers the fact that you're holding a Visitor laser pistol in your left hand and a Glock 17C 9mm in the other. The weapons you're carrying doesn't take the edge off of the fear, the terror, of being caught in this chase you find yourself in.

Your shoes slide on the floor as you change direction, cutting to the left into another hallway. At the end of this one is a set of double doors which swing open and shut via a pair of pneumatically-actuated springs. You push through the fatigue, the ache of your leg and core muscles and the burn of oxygen depletion in your lungs, and will yourself to sprint faster.

The elevator shaft, you think to yourself. Escape.

You burst through the double doors, then slide onto the floor as you try and stop at what greets you on the other side.

A sea of red and black uniforms. You look up at a dozen or so Visitor Shock Troopers, their faces hidden behind the ominous black face plates, standing there with their laser rifles drawn.

You feel your heart pounding hard and fast in your chest, and you feel unsure about what to do. The chase has made you dizzy, breathless, but strangely the fact that you are no longer running, no longer being pursued, gives you a bizarre feeling of peace.

The Shock Troopers move to surround you. You just raise yourself to a seated position on the floor, still holding on to the weapons in your hands, still unsure about what to make of things.

Suddenly you feel a splash of something wet and sticky on your hair, then on your face, and instinctively you close your eyes rapidly. The hallway erupts with the sounds and fury of multiple laser weapon discharges and assault rifle fire, and you feel more of the wet and sticky stuff splatter all over you like some kind of disgusting rain shower. You chance a tiny peek out of your left eye.

All around you the Shock Troopers are falling onto the floor, their bodies peppered with bloody wounds. The smell of exploded gunpowder and burnt ozone wafts into your nostrils. You glance down at your white gown, only now it isn't white; it is splattered with spots of translucent green.

You wipe at your eyes with the back of your hand, and the liquid you wipe off is green. You contain your disgust and wipe your hand on your gown, then look around, bewildered at precisely how the last few moments unfolded.

Then you see him.

Michael Donovan.

He is standing behind you, holding an M4 with its barrel smoking. "Come on," he says. "Let's go."

He takes your arm, and he pulls you up to your feet. He steps over a Shock Trooper's corpse, then helps you do the same. The green blood pooling on the floor has made the floor slick, though, and you fall into a puddle of it. The smell and the sensation of the alien blood all over you make you want to vomit, but you hold it in. Donovan drops his assault rifle, lifts you up, and carries you to the elevator.

The heavy metal doors are shut, but Donovan pulls your shoes off and tosses them at the dead Visitor soldiers, then puts you on the floor. He then pulls the doors apart. "Get in," he tells you, and you scurry into the dimly-lit shaft. As soon as you get inside, he joins you and closes the doors again, taking both guns from your hands as he encloses you in a seemingly protective embrace.

The two of you stay quiet inside the shaft on top of the deactivated elevator car, breathing heavily, but otherwise staying quiet. You stiffen when you hear the rush of rushing boots on the other side of the door. "Donovan," you whisper.

"Shh," he says, holding you tighter. "I've got you now. It's gonna be OK."

You reciprocate, tightening your arms around his back, pulling him towards you. You rest your head on his chest – he's so tall – and feel his heartbeat, so strong and steady, and his warmth.

"It's not your fault," he says. "It's not your fault, shh..."

You look up at him, bewildered, but he keeps repeating himself, never looking at you. "It's not your fault... it's not your fault..."

With a sudden, explosive violence, he pushes forward and pins you against the wall of the elevator shaft. The impact stuns you, forcing out what little breath you have left in your lungs. The sound of metal clanging on metal echoes inside the narrow shaft, and feel both the Visitor laser sidearm and the 9mm handgun by your feet. With an almost animal-like quickness he had dropped the weapons and had freed his hands up, which now grip both your wrists up against your head.

"Donovan-"

He sneers as you say his name, then mashes his lips into your mouth. You feel his tongue ram its way inside, probing around like an exploring serpent, but you clamp your jaws shut, not willing to open up to the sudden invasion. He pulls both of your arms up, then clamps them together with his left hand. You test his grip quickly, but he holds you so easily. His size and strength are far greater than yours.

After almost a full minute of the unwanted, violent kiss, he stops to look at you. Tears are falling down your cheeks. "Please," you beg, whimpering. "I don't want this!"

"Don't cry, Julie," he says, sounding to you like the love of your life would. "I would never hurt you." With his free hand, he reaches behind him and draws a foot-long dagger, its blade stained red with some unknown person's blood. The thought occurs to you that perhaps the stains are from multiple victims.

"Trust me," he says as he presses the tip of the dagger against the bottom of your jaw, then uses it to rip the side of your bodice, just under your right armpit. You press yourself harder back against the wall, if only to prevent the bodice from falling off completely.

"Stupid," he says to you, before he starts kissing your neck and the upper part of your chest. "Don't fight me. Relax. I'm not gonna hurt you." He peels off part of your bodice, then his free hand goes to work.

You start to fight, trying to raise a knee to hit his groin, but he had anticipated that move and blocked it, trapping your legs against the wall with his. You stare at the dagger, which he holds perilously close to your right eye.

"It's not your fault," he says again. "I know that's what's on your mind."

"Why do you keep saying that?"

"Because it's true, Julie." He stops his unwanted, loathsome play with his mouth on you, his face twisted in a grotesque, scornful smile. "You know it is."

With the speed of a striking mamba, he lets go of your outstretched arms, then grabs your left wrist and twists it around to your back, forcing you to bend forwards as he steps to your left side. He pushes your wrist higher up your back, and you have no choice but to fall to your knees.

You cry out in pain, but he keeps driving your wrist up inexorably towards your nape. He only lets go of your arm when you find yourself on your belly, sprawled on the elevator car's top, with him kneeling down beside you keeping a heavy hand on your back.

"It's not your fault she's dead," he says as you hear the sound of fabric ripping. "It's not your fault that, all your life, the same thing keeps happening to you."

"What? What keeps happening to me?"

"Haven't you figured it out yet? All your life, you've been running. Running, running for your life, just like she told you to." You hear more fabric tearing, then suddenly goosebumps erupt all over your skin.

"I don't want to die!" you scream.

He stops what he's doing – you're too afraid to look back at him, too afraid to move, too afraid of getting hurt more than you already have been – and lowers himself so that he's right on top of you. Your bare skin crawls as soon as you feel the fabric of his shirt and pants.

"You don't want to die? Like your mom did?" he taunts you as you feel him move one of his hands around the small of your back, then hear the muffled sound of a belt being unbuckled.

You writhe beneath his crushing weight, so much larger is he than you, despite the fact that his arms are supporting the top half of his body. Then you feel the point of the dagger's tip dig into the soft flesh in your right side, just above your hip. It doesn't break the skin, but it very quickly stops your struggles.

He leans down, his face inches away from yours, and he whispers like a lover would, "Like I've been saying, Julie: It's not your fault your mom's dead." He rips away the remnants of the tatters of your gown from you with the dagger, tossing the bodice and the cape and sleeves and the skirt into the corner of the shaft, before he dismounts and rolls you so that now you're looking up at him.

His leering grin hurts you more than anything else has ever hurt you. "You don't have to carry the guilt, that crushing guilt, you keep inside you." He strokes your cheek.

"I KILLED HER," he says tenderly. "And what did you do? YOU JUST WATCHED WHEN I DID IT."

He smiles at you, then says, "And when I'm done fucking you, I'M GOING TO KILL YOU, TOO."

So now it has come to this.

Julie.

He's going to rape you.

Listen to me.

And then he's going to kill you.

Remember what he did to me?

Like he killed your mother.

He hurt me; he killed me.

There's no doubt in your mind; you saw it happen.

You watched him do it.

And he's absolutely right, what he said.

Now he has you; he's raping you, and when he's done, he will kill you.

All your life, you've wanted run away from everything bigger than you.

There's nowhere to run now.

Sure, there have been times when you'd stand your ground, settle in for a fight. But during all those times, you were never on your own, never alone. You've always had someone there to help you carry the load, the responsibility.

Tell me, Julie, what do you want to do?

But now... Things are so different right now.

What do you have to do?

It's just you and him.

There's no one to help you.

And he's already told you what he wants to do with you, what he wants to do to you.

Tell me, Julie: Tell me what you want.

Running for your life is no longer possible.

"Momma, what do I do?"

You either let him use you, hurt you, kill you...

"I don't want to die!"

… or you fight him.

Tell me what you want, Julie!

Even if it could cost you your life.

"I don't want to die!"

So now, it has come to this.

What do you want?

What do you want?

"Stop! I want this to stop!"

You want this rape to stop. You want the pain to stop.

You want the GUILT to stop.

You know what you have to do to make him stop.

You only have to CHOOSE.

Suddenly, everything seems so obvious and clear.

His eyes are closed; from the look of his face, mere inches away from yours, he is obviously enjoying himself. He has let go of the dagger, relying purely on his weight and size advantage to pin you in place as he has his way with you. His hands are busy roaming all over your body. Despite being able to move your arms from the elbows down, you cannot make him stop hurting you.

Through the growing haze of agony and the roiling emotions comes her voice, telling you: "You know what you have to do to make him stop. You only have to CHOOSE."

Choose?

You want him to stop hurting you. You want him to stop the rape, and you want to leave this place.

You want to live.

But what can you do?

You know that you cannot reason with him; you can sense as he's using you as something to enjoy that whatever is driving him to perpetrate these unspeakable acts against you, it is animal-like and primal, raw and purely instinctual. Begging him would probably only spur him on and magnify his cruelty. Words would be utterly useless.

What can you do to make him stop?

The only way is to kill him.

"Julie," her voice says, "you have to choose. Tell me what you want to do."

So you tell her, and her only. "I want to kill him! To make it stop!"

You feel your fear and the guilt dissolve away as soon as you make the conscious choice. You suddenly realize that, all along, the fear, the terror, that terrible guilt, all these things you're experiencing have done nothing but keep you imprisoned and tortured. Your own fears, your own guilt, they fed themselves in a vicious cycle that kept you in thrall.

Now you feel a strange sensation, that of all the walls that kept all of your bitterness inside just falling away at your feet. A small corner of your mind tells you that, starting this moment, you have been reborn.

You feel FREE.

It really was so easy. All you really had to do all along was choose.

Your left eye catches the glint of the dagger's blade just by your left hand, just out of reach. You strain, trying to reach for it, to touch it, to use it. But it remains unreachable.

The sheer frustration makes your anger swell, and as your anger grows so does your desire to kill this monster. You ignore the pain, dragging your arm across the filthy, oily, rough metal surface on the top of the elevator, even as it lacerates your skin. You will yourself to not notice your blood mingling with the grease. You just use all your willpower to harness enough strength, enough flexibility, to touch the dagger and somehow put it in your left hand.

Your heart leaps when your fingertips finally manage to touch the dagger. You give a bigger effort, and you revel in the feeling of your fingers dragging the dagger's handle closer towards the palm of your hand. You think of nothing else now, and you picture the dagger in your hand.

You imagine it, then it becomes real. You are able to close your hand around the dagger's handle, and you look at him on top of you, completely oblivious to your efforts.

I thought you loved me, you think to yourself. I have to do this, even if you'd kill me if I fail.

Your left arm moves, poised to strike...

Diana stood at the foot of the raised platform inside the conversion chamber, looking up at Julie. The hallucinating young woman was completely oblivious to the presence of the person responsible for her torturous anguish.

"Julie," Diana implored, climbing slowly up the stairs at the front of the platform, "you have to choose. Tell me what you want to do."

"I want to kill him! To make it stop!"

"Then do it."

Diana watched as Julie raised her left arm, then move it as if she was stabbing something or someone just in front of her. The human screamed in horror and pain as she acted out the fantasy.

"Stop!" Julie begged. "Stop, please!"

Diana waved her hand, then watched as the conversion chamber shut off at her command. Her mind and body no longer under the machine's control, Julie collapsed onto the conversion platform, shivering in the cold air, sobbing helplessly.

You fall forward. You first feel your knees crashing onto the floor, then your hands. The pain which had been your constant companion was suddenly gone, replaced by a ringing in your ears and a tear-filled haze through which you perceive the world.

You can't control yourself, though you remain hyper-aware. You can't stop yourself from sobbing – you don't know if it's from joy or from sorrow, from terror or from elation, from regret or from relief, or all these emotions all at once – so you just let go. You want to just collapse fully and let unconsciousness claim you, but you fight the feeling and try to raise yourself up.

Then you feel her. You feel her approach, you feel her arms wrap around your shivering body, drenched in your perspiration, and you try to put your head onto her shoulder. It feels good just to touch her.

"Momma," you whisper.

Then the sounds of violence explode around you, hurting your ears. You get blinded by a couple of intense flashes of light, then you feel yourself flung to the floor. You see a figure in red leap away from you, then you hear the sound of glass shattering.

Through the haze you see the shape of a shadow. Fear again grabs you, but you watch as everything seems to happen in slow motion. The shadow coalesces into flesh tones and earthy colors, brown and tan, and then you see something black – a firearm of some sort, a rifle, a corner of your mind tells you – move and point towards you.

Mute and dumb you watch, gasping for breath, not understanding what it is you're seeing and not knowing what to do. You look at the face of what had been the shadow, and you shiver again as you recognize his face.

Mike.

You look into his eyes, greenish blue, and wonder at what you're seeing.

Then you see more intense flashes of light, and hear more sounds of violence explode around you. You watch as his face contorts in agony, then he falls backwards, slowly, slowly retreating back into the darkness of the shadow from which he had come.

You feel compelled to reach out to him, but even as you try to stand, pain seizes you until you cannot help but return its embrace and collapse into unconsciousness.