Chapter 3

Somewhere, in a secret underground government facility, a short balding man in his fifties was bending over X-Ray photography. He was wearing a white doctor's smock, with a silvery metal badge. "Dr. S. Watson", the badge read. Standing behind him were several men dressed in official black suits. Their attention was entirely focused on the doctor and the photography, their straight body posture betraying military training and discipline.

"Well… Hombres is definitely pregnant," the doctor finally muttered. "Ah… it's quite difficult to tell at such an early stage if the fetus is human or not, but considering she was impregnated while her mate wasn't even in the country, and we do have evidence that she was successfully abducted several days after their initial attempt, the one we foiled, we have to assume that it is a Sectoid fetus we are dealing here with." The doctor informed all this mechanically, while his mind was in a completely different place. Poor girl… All these nightmares and paranoia, but she was abducted anyway without even knowing it! But what he said aloud wasn't even remotely similar to his thoughts. "It simply has to be alien, because there is no other viable explanation for her pregnancy but alien fertilization. We haven't performed a psychological test yet, but it is highly improbable that Hombres would want to cheat on her boyfriend so shortly after experiencing what she has," he concluded, tapping his finger all the while on a bright shapeless spot on the photography, which represented the several-days-old embryo in Kelley's womb.

The men standing behind him exchanged glances. Only a specially trained man could ever hope of reading their seemingly emotionless expressions, which bore a slight satisfaction. One of them, a man with jet-black short hair and a small accurate moustache, asked a question.

"Is there any way of knowing for sure that this is what we are looking for? A genuine live Sectoid fetus?"

"Well, well…" replied the doctor, scratching his beard. "We can of course perform additional tests here, so we could know for sure. Of course, the tests will take several days, and in the meanwhile her disappearance from home and school will be noticed…"

"It doesn't mater" interrupted a tall red haired woman, one of the men in black. "She was absent for two days now anyway"

"Tell your men to proceed with the examination. We have to know for sure" the man with the moustache said.

The men in black waited for the nervous doctor to nod, then turned as one, and walked out of the room.

The doctor wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. He then proceeded to instruct his men on the next set of examinations.

---

Kelley Hombres was crying again.

Tears were pouring down her cheeks uncontrollably, her gentle sobs sounding very loud in the small empty cell in which she was imprisoned for days now.

There were no windows here at all – a big round lamp was casting cold white light upon her claustrophobic four on four meters (13 on 13 feet) cell. Tiny air vents delivered the oxygen she needed to the room, and similarly tiny pipes delivered her water and soup-like food – both pipes were too small for even a mouse to fit through, not to mention a human being. Escape was impossible.

A camera watched her day and night, the unblinking lens observing her from a small socket in the wall covered with bulletproof glass that protected it from harm (and Kelley had attempted to harm it during the past days).

Her only equipment here was a bowl and a glass for containing her food and water. There was nothing there that could aid her escape. She was completely stripped not only of equipment, but also of any clothes – she was naked as the day of her birth.

A toilet was installed at one corner, along with a roll of toilet paper. Her bed was a small rubber pad, which she dragged to another corner of the room, the farthest one from the door. The door could be best described as a hatch, which opened only once or twice a day. Every time it did, Kelley recoiled in fear, waiting again for the hissing sound of soporific gas to fill the room. When that happened, she always woke back in her cell, but sometimes there were strange marks left on her body, proving her that she was indeed carried out of the cell while unconscious, and delivered back before she ever had a chance to wake up.

She was very close to loosing her mind. She felt very cold and vulnerable, sitting naked under the bright light with a camera pointed straight at her. The light never dimmed, so it was impossible to know the hour of day, and even harder to fall asleep on her rough "bed" even without considering the lack of any blanket to cover herself with. She tried to estimate how long she was here by the regular feeding, but being put to sleep several times over without any ability to know how long she was unconscious had spoiled all her attempts.

She didn't had the slightest clue what was she doing here, or why was she treated like some lab animal, but she figured that her abductors were human. After all, that John (a shiver went through her body every time she remembered that creepy man) looked quite human, although he didn't act like one. After she was rendered unconscious during her attempt to escape back at the road, she woke up in this cell, and nothing changed ever since. The inability to count time and her complete lack of knowledge and understanding of what is happening to her drove her mad, along with the horrible conditions of her imprisonment. Most of the time she just cried, and tried not to think about her future.

She never dared to hope that she would get out of here some day.

But today was not going to be quite the same…

Yet again, the door to her chamber hissed open. As always, she felt dizziness and before she had a chance to move a muscle, or to notice the figures of several men wearing gas masks entering the cell, she slumped to the floor and darkness embraced her…

---

In the meanwhile, not so far away from the dormant Kelley Hombres, a tall handsome man with light brown hair unlocked the door to his house and entered the room.

"Kelley? Honey? I'm home!"

No response.

"Kell? It's me, Mat! Where are you dear?"

Everything was quiet; the only sound was that of a car passing by the house outside.

Matthew McKinley, Kelley Hombres' boyfriend for the last 4 years, took off his coat and thrown it unto a chair. Then he went on to the bedroom, but found no sign of his girlfriend. He looked at the bundle of papers he held in his left hand.

Kelley was gone and left no notes, at least not one he could easily find, and the mailbox was full of letters that must've been accumulating for something like a week. He started to read the writings on the envelope.

"Bills… bills… bills…" he muttered. There were also a couple of letters from Kelley's parents and a friend of hers, as well as one letter for him. He stood there in the living room, unsure of what to do, chewing his own nails.

Then, suddenly, he grabbed the phone and called 911.

"Uh, hello? I want to report of a missing person…"

---

In half an hour a police car was already parked near Kelley and Matthew's house. A pair of officers was asking Mat some questions.

"And when have you seen your girlfriend lately?" asked the older officer, who had streaks of grey and white in his messy hair.

"I… a couple of weeks ago, I think. I was in England, as part of my job…"

"You've already explained what you're working at, Mr. McKinley. It will be more helpful for us if you could describe what she looks like, or better yet show us a picture of hers."

"Yes, yes of course…" Matthew taken out a wallet from his pocket and started to dig through it frantically, dropping all kinds of cards in the process. "Ah, here it is!"

The officer took the picture from Mat's exited hands, and lifted it higher, so he could see it better in the dim light.

It was a picture that was obviously taken not a long time ago. There were Mat and Kelley, hugging, on a beautiful beach on a sunny day.

"It's from our vacation at Miami," explained Mat.

The officer cast a look at his younger partner, who returned the look, and then he put the picture into his pocket.

"We will need that, it will be returned to you after we'll make a copy. So you have any idea where she could be? Have you tried to call her relatives or friends? Maybe she has a cell phone?"

"No. No to all of the questions. I didn't call her relatives, and she doesn't possess a cellular phone…"

"I see… well, why won't we start from calling her closest relatives then? Do you know who are they and can you get their phone numbers?"

And so it went on and on for the most of the day. But soon enough, the police was about to realize that they had a real and serious case of a missing person on their hands…

---

"Careful with her! If we scratch her we're going to lose our necks over this!" barked the Sergeant in charge at the robust-looking soldiers who were carrying a stretcher with a real sleeping beauty strapped to it with leather belts.

"Hey, CJ, where the f*** is she going anyway?" asked one of the curious soldiers.

"Shut your hole Waller!!! I don't know who is she or where is she going, but frankly, I don't give a f***" spit was flying out of the Sarge's mouth in every direction while he shouted at the cheeky soldier. "It ain't our job to deal with this sh**! Our job is to load the girl up into that Hercules transport along with the other cargo, and let the pilot decide bout the destination! Understood?"

"Sir, yes sir!" the soldier saluted sarcastically, then burst into a loud laugher.

"F*** you Waller…" the Sergeant shook his head slowly.

Discipline among the soldiers was very loose at one of the government's most secret bases, where there was never any action and the soldiers got to know each other personally, developing close and friendly relations even between different ranks.

"CJ, check this out! Black suits at nine o' clock!" said another soldier in a lot quieter voice than that either the Sergeant or private Waller used before.

The Sergeant could see three figures approaching to the airplane in a confident stride.

"Move it soldiers, move it!" shouted the Sergeant, and immediately his soldiers hurried and started to load the stretcher onto the plane's cargo bay.

When superior officers or civilians were hanging around, none of the rank-and-file soldiers could afford to openly show affection and friendship with each other. They automatically became rough and experienced grunts, assuring the security and the smooth flow of tasks at the base.

The officially suited men approached the Sergeant, who didn't dare to look at them directly, continuing to seemingly supervise the loading process instead.

"Good evening, Sergeant Hobson. And how are we feeling today?" asked the man who apparently was the leader of the other two.

"Fine, sir…" gulped the Sergeant. He surely hoped that he did not look as nervous as he felt.

"Well, I am… glad to see that everything is proceeding according to schedule. Keep up the excellent work… Sergeant" he said, wearing the slightest of smiles on his face. He then turned to another direction and started walking away. The other two, a man and woman, stared at him for a second from behind their sunglasses, then joined the first one.

They didn't see the Sergeant's sigh of relief, nor would they care if they saw it.

The leader of the three, a young man with neatly combed hair, was satisfied so far. His and his superior's suspicions were finally confirmed – that thing in Hombre's womb was a Sectoid beyond any doubt. Now they were charged with escorting the unconscious victim to the primary research base at Area 51, where they had some of the best-equipped laboratories in the world. There they would probably study the fetus further, perhaps even raise it after its birth, eventually, gaining further data on the aliens and their bio-technology. Information… in the secret yet brutal war against the aliens, lack of information could mean disaster, and quite literally. Quite a number of lives were already lost due to the screw-ups of the Intelligence Division of the Extra-Terrestrial Combat Unit.

John, part of the forces responsible for combat with the aliens but not a part of the elite Combat Unit, was performing his duty quite adequately, and he was completely satisfied with himself. He did have some pity at the poor girl – after all, he was a human being, although he usually thought of himself only as an expensive tool rather than an individual with his own life. He wasn't interested in living on his own, struggling for promotion in his everyday life. He genuinely preferred the thrills and challenge of his job instead, so he never felt disappointed about choosing his present path.

In his field of work any feelings and emotions were only bound to interfere with his ability to perform his mission, thus delaying the fat paycheck that would add up to his small fortune at the end of every month.

For this reason, pity was not something he was very good at…

Author's Notes:

Well, how was that? I feel a slight improvement in my own writing, don't you? Well, I hope that you enjoyed my latest chapter. Be sure that more will follow soon enough. Again I implore you to review if you read this. Although I enjoy the process of writing by itself, there's nothing like a pat on the back, or a good healthy flame to motivate me.