Lost

Alice felt as if her head had been filled with fog. She knew who she was -- knew her name was Alice Myers -- but that seemed to be the only thing she remembered. Everything else was just lost in a swirling mist of confusion.

"Are you all right?"

The voice was kindly and soft. Alice opened her eyes and found herself looking up at a lanky man with an over-prominent Adam's apple and glasses. His whole expression was one of concern. "Who are you...and where am I?" she asked.

"My name is Dr Louis Ferricks," he replied, "and you're in my laboratory -- I'm afraid it isn't very comfortable, but...are you all right?"

"I'm...not sure," Alice admitted. "How did I get here?"

"I brought you here after..." He trailed off, chewing his lip.

"After?" Alice prompted.

"I rescued you from them. Time Force."

Alice blinked. At the phrase Time Force a few more memories burst through the fog. Of a trio of rangers...who all had some sort of connection to her. But the rest of that memory was still shrouded. "Time Force?" she echoed.

"They're an evil organisation," Dr Ferricks responded, shaking his head sorrowfully. "I'm not sure what they were doing but...I believe it might have been some sort of experiment."

Almost as if cued, Alice started to remember a little more. She vaguely remembered a small room and a blue-green light that seemed to hurt. "W...what did they do to me?" she asked softly.

Dr Ferricks slowly shook his head again. "I don't know, I'm afraid." He paused a moment. "I took the liberty of conducting a medical scan while you were unconscious and there didn't seem to be anything medically wrong -- you appear to still be a healthy woman in your early twenties."

Every fibre of her body rejected that last comment. "But I'm not..." Another memory surfaced. "I'm sixteen!"

Dr Ferricks' expression rapidly descended into shock and horror. "Oh my..."

Alice swallowed. "Oh my?" she echoed, knowing with certainty that she wasn't going to like what was said next.

Dr Ferricks wrung his hands together in apologetic fashion. "I am afraid that Time Force has used illegal technology..."

"What do you mean?"

Dr Ferricks offered a sigh. "You've been artificially aged. It is a very illegal procedure and...quite irreversible."

~*~

Rick felt strange.

He was cold. He was lying on his right side. His head seemed to be over full with information. He could hear someone -- a male, adult someone -- groaning.

It was that last that Rick focused on. The groans sounded oddly familiar to his ears and relatively close at hand, but when he opened his eyes there was no-one there. He frowned.

It slowly trickled into his conscious mind that he was the source of the groans.

But...that wasn't possible.

He was a kid.

He forced himself to sit up. The movement felt awkward, as though he was...larger? Rick swallowed. That was impossible. And then he looked down at himself.

And screamed.

~*~

Lexia shivered as she came round.

She was cold. It felt like she was lying directly on some metal surface. Like she wasn't wearing any clothes...which was silly. She remembered getting dressed. But just to prove it to herself, she opened her eyes...

And screamed.

~*~

John lay where he was, eyes closed, taking in as many details of his surroundings as he could.

From what he could hear, he was in a small room, on his own. He was lying on his right side, on something hard and cold. His body seemed to ache, his head in particular. It wasn't precisely pain, but it wasn't comfortable, either.

Distantly, he heard a woman scream.

He frowned. It sounded like Lexia's scream -- God knew he'd heard that sound often enough! -- but there was something different about it. Something more...grown up?

But she was just a kid.

So either it wasn't Lexia's scream or something truly freaky was going on.

Given his own situation, John was inclined to believe the latter.

Deciding he'd picked up everything he could without opening his eyes, he opened his eyes. Yep, small room. Yep, tile floor -- that accounted for the cold and hard he'd already noted.

The next thing was to move into a sitting position, which he did, albeit clumsily. That was enough to set alarm bells ringing in his mind. There was something wrong. Something very wrong. His body suddenly felt bigger than he remembered.

Rather than look down at himself, John lifted a hand into his field of vision.

And nearly screamed.

The hand he was looking at -- the hand that had obeyed his command and moved into his line of sight -- wasn't his. It belonged to someone bigger. Older. A man's hand. Yet it had to be his.

Suddenly very, very scared, John looked down.

~*~

"I'm afraid," Dr Ferricks continued, "that you weren't alone."

Alice blinked, a cold trickle of fear inching its way down her spine. "What do you mean?"

Dr Ferricks sighed. "There were four of you that I rescued from Time Force's grasp."

Alice felt sick to the pit of her stomach. "Were they three kids?" she asked. "Little kids?"

Dr Ferricks shook his head. "I'm afraid not." He hesitated a beat. "But they'd all been through the same experiment as you had...more so, I think."

"More so?" Alice queried, not liking where her mind was going with that.

"You said they were little children," Dr Ferricks replied.

"If..." She swallowed. "If it's the kids I'm thinking of...two boys and a girl," at that Ferricks nodded, "one of the boys would be dark haired, the other boy and the girl would be brown haired." Again Ferricks nodded. "They were all ten and under...Lexia was only just seven."

Dr Ferricks winced. "Not any more," he said.

"H...how old?" Alice whispered.

"I'm guessing," he stressed, "but I suspect they're all ten years older."

Alice stared at Dr Ferricks. "Ten years?" she whispered. She felt physically sick. It was bad enough that she'd been robbed of what remained of her childhood but...this was infinitely worse. She found herself bursting into tears. "They were just kids!"

Dr Ferricks said nothing, instead he handed her a tissue.

For a few minutes, Alice's sobs continued, unchecked. This situation was just wrong. How could anyone do this to anyone, let alone a bunch of basically sweet-natured kids like Rick, Lexia and John? But as she wondered about that, a new memory fragment surfaced. Of parents. Rick and Lexia's; John and hers. How could they let this happen?

"How could who let this happen?" Dr Ferricks asked.

Alice flushed, not having intended to say the question aloud. "My parents. They're...protective of us...I think." She added that last because she realised that she couldn't clearly remember anyone's parents. They were just shadowy, half-formed figures in her mind.

"You don't sound sure about that," said Dr Ferricks. "Are you all right?"

Alice slowly shook her head, trying to clear her mind. "I don't know...can't seem to remember anything much. Just...fragments."

Dr Ferricks grimaced. "I'm sorry -- I should have realised sooner. Time Force must have put you through a memory adaptation, too. I have something that will help you remember -- if you want to try it?"

Alice gave a shrug. "Guess it can't make things worse." From the bench behind him, Dr Ferricks took a hypo-spray. "What is it?"

"It's a drug called Mimozin," Dr Ferricks answered. "It reverses memory adaptations."

Alice frowned. "You seem to know a lot about this."

He offered her a shrug. "I've been battling Time Force and their evil works for most of my life. Out of necessity I've had to study their methods so that I can help their victims."

Which, Alice decided, was a valid reason. "OK."

She felt a sting as he pressed the hypo-spray against her neck. The contents emptied into her bloodstream and started to work almost at once. For a few moments, she felt dizzy and then the mist started to lift, like a shroud, from her memories.

"How's that?" Dr Ferricks asked.

"Better."

"Do you remember your parents now?" he asked solicitously.

Alice frowned again. Her mother remained a misty, faint apparition, but her father...stepfather, she realised, was real, as were both of Rick and Lexia's parents. And that reality showed her something that made her stomach clench in anger and nausea. "Oh my God..."

Dr Ferricks regarded her in confusion. "What?"

Alice slowly shook her head, her sadness burning into a cold anger. "You said it was Time Force that did this to me?"

"Yes it was."

Alice felt sick. "Our own parents..."

Dr Ferricks gasped. "What are you saying?"

Alice looked up at his kindly face, misery and anger setting her expression hard. "Time Force is my parents and their friends. They did this to me...us."

~*~

Lexia hugged her legs to her chest and shivered. This couldn't be happening. This had to be some sort of weird nightmare.

She just couldn't be suddenly grown up.

And that, she realised, wasn't the strangest thing about this. Even as she sat, naked, in this little cell-like room, she realised there was all sorts of new information in her mind. It wasn't just her body that had been aged. Whoever...whatever had done this had inserted all manner of knowledge into her mind. Some of it was academic stuff -- the sort of things that she could imagine she'd have learned in school. Some of it was...different.

Lexia hiccupped with near-hysterical laughter as she realised that amongst the information that had been dumped into her mind was a recipe for making explosives out of nothing more exotic than toothpaste and a few household cleaners. Nor was that the only piece of information like that she now possessed.

Well it'll sure make for an interesting first date!

~*~

John set his jaw, anger coiling in the pit of his stomach.

Whoever had done this was going to pay.

And as he thought about that he realised that he suddenly seemed to know hundreds of different moves to kill and maim just with his bare hands. Knowledge of several different martial arts styles was instantly available to him as though he'd studied them his whole life. Information about other fighting styles too. Open hand, swordplay, quarterstaff. Details of how various weapons worked and how to use them.

They've turned me into some sort of super soldier!

~*~

Rick shivered.

It was still a shock to him to realise he was suddenly adult sized and, more, that he suddenly had all sorts of information bubbling at the back of his mind. Information about computers and communications. He'd been interested in computers, at least from a game-play standpoint. Now he knew how to practically hack into the NASA computer system.

It was frightening...and strangely cool.

The more he thought about it, the more he decided he liked the new information.

Maybe this wouldn't be quite so bad.

~*~

Alice knew what she was going to do. What they were going to do.

"You say you've been fighting Time Force," she said.

Dr Ferricks nodded. "I have but...I'm just one man. There is..." He sighed. "There is little I can truly accomplish."

Alice met his gaze. "You've got help now," she promised. "After what they've done to me...to my brother and his friends... We're gonna get them."

~*~

The sound of a door opening startled Lexia out of her introspection.

Looking up, she found herself staring at a familiar looking blonde woman.

"A...Alice?" she queried.

The woman smiled a little. "Sure am, Lexia."

She flung herself at the older woman in a tight bear hug. "Oh my God...I thought it was just me!" Lexia felt Alice's arms go around her shoulders.

"They got all four of us," Alice said softly.

"John -- and Rick too?"

Alice nodded. Gently pushing her away, she held out a robe. "Here. Best we can manage for clothes right now. Guess the bastards didn't think about what would happen..."

"Do you know what's going on?" Lexia asked, gladly wrapping herself up in the robe.

"Yeah." Alice sighed. "I know what's goin' on -- and I promise you this, Lex, we're gonna get them."

~*~

At the sound of a door opening, John sprang to his feet, instantly ready for any threat that might walk into this cell.

"Relax, Jonno, it's just me," said the blonde woman who had entered.

Without relaxing his stance, John stared at her. "Ali?"

She smiled a little. "Yeah -- it's me." She held out a robe to him.

Finally convinced it really was his sister, John gratefully accepted the robe and pulled it on. "No clothes?" he asked.

Alice shook her head. "We're working on that."

"Who's this 'we'?"

"Dr Ferricks...he's the guy that rescued us."

"Us? Us as in you and me?" But John somehow knew that wasn't going to be the case, and nor was he disappointed as Alice shook her head.

"No -- us as in Rick, Lexia, you and me."

"And you know what's going on?"

Alice nodded. "I'm gonna explain. Promise. Just lemme go get Rick 'kay?"

John nodded. "We're gonna get the bastards who did this to us?" he asked as she turned to leave.

"Oh, count on it," Alice replied.

~*~

Rick looked up as he heard the door open in time to see a gorgeous, leggy, blonde woman walk in.

To his complete embarrassment, he found himself reacting to her presence.

"Rick?" she queried. "You OK?"

"Um..."

"OK, so I should be grateful that I didn't get this off my brother. That would have just been too gross." She rolled her eyes, although she did also look slightly amused. Rick wasn't entirely sure how to take that.

"Alice?!" he finally managed.

"Last time I checked," she responded. She held out a robe. "C'mon. The others are waiting."

Rick swallowed and hastily wrapped himself in the proffered robe, wondering wildly if he could make any more of an idiot of himself. "Others?" he echoed faintly.

"John and Lexia. They got all four of us." She held out a hand and pulled him to his feet. "But we're gonna get them. Promise."

~*~

Half an hour later, Dr Ferricks had managed to conjure clothing to fit Rick, Lexia and John. For Rick, it was a red shirt and black jeans. Lexia got a pink tube-top and pale grey hipsters. John received a black shirt and blue jeans. Alice had to smile to herself. The significance of the colours wasn't lost on her, even if the triumvirate weren't aware of it.

"Ali?" John asked. "You wanna tell us what's goin' on now?"

She smiled at her brother. "Of course -- first, this is the guy that's saved our butts." She waved her hand in Dr Ferricks' direction. "Dr Ferricks."

"You may call me Frax for short," he announced. "It's what all my friends call me."

"As for what's goin' on," Alice continued. "It's like this..."

TO BE CONTINUED...