CHAPTER 14
Louise Lawson had waited until dusk before she decided to go to the resistance for help. Jeff had told her its location a while back, and while she wasn't really interested in what it stood for before, her mind was now in a different light.
She kept to the shadows and was constantly on edge as she made her way to the old sewage works. It was way past curfew and she felt a sense of guilt for even being out at this time. She had always been a law abiding citizen.
A siren wailed in the distance and a Visitor shuttle craft glided over head as she had her back up against an alleyway wall before she dodged the over flowing dumpsters towards the cracked wall with colourful graffiti tagged the length of it.
Her heart was racing as she cleared its length and then ducked under the wire fensing and slide bum side down the slope into the valley of the long abandoned water waste plant.
VVV
Jenny had heard the commotion in the main conference room of the base. Most of the underground was gathering into the room. She could see the attention was focused on Louise in the middle of a story. Juliet was clutching her hand.
"...and that's when I never saw him. He's vanished Julie...he just wouldn't go away without saying something to me or his daughter...I think he's been taken and I don't know what to do..."
A guy in a grey jumper and beard growth turned, "If he's been taken, then WE need start worrying...he knows all about us"
Juliet raised up her hand as mumours from the others piped up, "lets all just calm down for a minute...", she turned back to Louise, "...given his daughter is one of them... I assume that they hurt him, given that the case"
Louise shook her head and wiped away a tear on her cheek, "I hope so...but it has been three days already..."
Jenny turned and headed back down the gloom to the medical dorm.
VVV
Juliet watched as the crowd disbanded and Ruby was making Louise a hot drink and was going to show her where she could sleep the night. Mike stepped forward and touched her arm, she met his gaze, "I'll see if I can talk to Martin...see if he knows what's happened to him"
Julie screwed her face up, "WHY would they take him? It just doesn't make any sense...if they had been watching him then the Visitors would be crawling all over is by now"
Mike shrugged, "god knows WHY they act the way they do...but Jeff was our only contact at the hospital right?"
Juliet shook her head, "Yes...he's a DOCTOR, a REAL Doctor...not like me...I NEED him Donovan...especially...", she thought of Jenny, then looked at him, "...our medical supplies...it's too risky to try find somebody else...we need him back, I NEED him back"
Mike shook his head and rubbed the top of her arms, "I'll contact Martin as soon as it gets light..."
VVV
Jenny's cramps were keeping her awake. Without Jeff, Juliet wasn't able to get her to the hospital for a scan as what was planned. She rolled off the bed and looked into the battered and cracked wall mirror. She had bloated out - this grotesque thing inside her was changing the shape of her body too quickly, infact it was more of a swelling than a proper pregnancy bump.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror and wanted to end it all. Ruby was then at her side, "honey...why are you up and about for? Juliet says you need rest"
Jenny looked at her, "SHE doesn't know what I need...nobody does!"
The old woman tried to calm her, "she is doing her best she can for you"
Jenny shook her head and met the kindly womans eyes that reminded her of her grandma,
"I'm scared Ruby...I'm scared of what's happening to me"
Ruby sat her back down on the bed and then sat beside her with an arm rubbing her back, "these are frightening times...but it must be so much harder for you with this going on..."
Jenny bit her lip then came out with a question she had wanted to ask but kept on holding back for fearing the answer, "this other girl...like me...what did she give birth to? The look on Julie's face when she was telling me...I SAW the horror in her eyes"
Ruby swallowed and patted the pillow, "get some rest dear...and we'll have a proper talk with Juliet in the morning"
VVV
Jeff was in a daze. He was conscious in a hazy kind of way. He could see what was going on around him, but he couldn't hear. Was he now deaf? Had they done something to him?
He guessed not, his instinct told him that they had injected him something that caused the abverse effects he was now experiencing.
Diana was looking down a him, he was lying on his back upon a clinical steel trolley of sorts. Diana was smiling at him, then she glanced up at one of her scientific team. She spoke, he could see her mouth move, but there was no audio because of his deafness.
Suddenly he jolted. A sharp pain all over. Like some electric current going through the bredth and depth of his entire body. All his mustles went into spasms.
Diana folded her arms and smiled at him, she looked like she was enjoying this. She spoke again and a device was strapped to his head like a vice, the screws dug sharply into his skull...the pain...he screamed out...
...and Diana, holding her gaze, grinned...
VVV
Mike waited on the corner as the morning rush hour was starting to taper. He had contacted Martin through his contact earlier that morning and Martin had sent a message back about meeting him here at 10am.
He stood beneath a cluster of pine trees in the shade and watched as the cars buses and trucks go and up and down the freeway and down into the underpass.
It was now he squinted upwards and saw a Visitor transporter shuttle glide over and touch down not too far away from the underpass. Mike reasured himself with patting his jacket pocket for the firearm he carried just in case.
Martin was waiting in the graffiti drawn pass adjacent to the freeway. The Visitor removed his shades as they came out of the sunlight.
"Mike...what is it..."
Mike stepped forward and spoke quickly, "I know you don't like taking risks...so I thank you for meeting me at such short notice..."
The Visitor male considered him with a questioning gaze, "then this is important?"
"Well yeah...look...one of us has been taken...it looks like..."
Martin cut him off, "NO Mike...I have already informed you that I will not start rescuing everybody you deem important at your end...when would it stop?"
Mike calmed him, "No...its not like that...Jeff is very important to us...to Julie...he is our medic...our doctor...our contact at the hospital for medical supplies we need...an assett we can't do without..."
Martin shook his head, "Okay...I can see your point Mike...but this is risky...he would have been taken for a reason, I know that we have no evidence that they know the whereabouts of your underground, so it can't be that...there must be something else...", he rubbed his chin in thought, "...possibly he is a catagory 4 candidate"
"Whatever he is...can you help him?"
Martin met the Mikes gaze and held it for a second then shook his head, "I'll see if Barbara can help him, she is more likely to be able to help then I at the moment"
The Visitor turned to leave, Mike stopped him by tagging at his arm, "Martin...thanks again"
The alien nodded and departed the underpass, Mike waited a few moments, then followed to report back to Juliet.
VVV
Jeff snapped his eyes open as his hearing came back and the unnerving shrill evaded his ears. The male Visitor scientist looked down at him and spoke, his voice was deep and verbated.
"This will be most unpleasent"
And the most excruciating pain in his lower abdomen made him jump but for the straps that clamped him down and kept him in place on the trolley.
He was nausious. He wanted to be sick. And he rolled his head and vomit poured from his mouth that was congealed with blood clots and green slime.
The door glided aside and somebody else entered. It was out of Jeff's eyeline but he could now hear HER voice.
Diana.
"...have you concluded with the initial phase?"
"Yes", replied the male Visitor scientist looking across to the unseen woman.
Diana crossed to Jeff's eye line and gazed down at him, holding his eyes, "till the next session Dr Moran...I will look forward to it"
She looked towards an armed patroller that had entered with her, "take him back to his quarters..."
VVV
Jeff was back in his cell. The confine seemed his only safe place on this huge mysterious ship. He was cold and naked and he still felt nausious. He sunk to his backside on the cold floor and pulled his knees to his chest and then slumped into the faetal postition.
Voices were in his head. The cold whispers of a hundred soles of those who had been through what he had been through.
They CAME in peace! It was a lie, he had known that before today...but today...he had a real sense of how unnatural and sadistic these tyrants were...
Please...let death be quick.
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