She was stripped and then tossed an ill fitting set of prison clothes and slippers. They were thrown in two separate jail cells. The walls were two foot thick reinforced concrete. The door was inches thick alloy steel. There was no window or ventilation, just a bare bulb, a toilet, a sink, a bunk and a door with huge bars in both directions. Two men in civilian clothes sat outside with shotguns pointed right at her.

Molly sat for what seemed like days, rocking back and forth to calm herself. She could hear Sean moaning in the other cell but he barely answered her. Were they torturing him? She couldn't hear anybody interrogating him but it sounded like people were going in and out of his cell.

Finally a different face appeared at the door. He looked to be about her age or not much older but his hair was grey. He wore a good blue suit, a good shirt and a quality silk tie. "Dr. Caffrey, we got some questions for you."

"Anything. Stop torturing Sean and I'll tell you anything."

"We're not torturing him. He's sick. We know the cure, but he is in danger. The faster you answer our questions, the faster he gets the medical care he needs."

"Anything. Do you have anything to eat? Nobody has fed me once. I'm starving."

He tossed in a sausage. It bounced and rolled on the dirty floor. She dove on it, chased the roaches away and began devouring it.

"Now, what do you know of Operation Flood."

"Just what the minister said in church."

Sean moaned again and made a strange sound, not coughing and not laughing, almost choking.

The man outside shook his head "You're lying, and he's dying."

"Please. It's the truth. I don't know. We never heard of it." She finished the sausage.

"Why did you come here?"

"Arthur Ramsey is running data mining on computer records of food purchases. Your town was a huge hit. So we came to investigate. Could I have another sausage?"

He rolled another along the floor. She swept off the cockroaches and began eating it.

"This is good. Thanks. Now please help Sean. I'm trying to help."

"We intercepted a message. Decrypt it."

Her mouth full of sausage, she shook her head. "I can't."

"Then he dies."

"It's a one way cipher. I can tell you what the message was and encrypt to the code. The two encrypted messages will match. But I can't decrypt it."

"What was the message?"

She thought. "Town alien. In OK. Hold. Rep 24."

Sean coughed and gasped again. It sounded like he was dying.

"Hold? Rep 24?"

"Hold sending in anyone else. We will report in 24 hours." She took another bite of the sausage. "I'm telling the truth. I can show you the function on my blackberry. Just help Sean."

"How do we get the Allenville prisoners out?"

"They're in the inner facility in Guantanamo Bay. I can give you the exact location but … " she shook her head, finishing the sausage. "I don't know. If I tried to get to them they'd think you've made me an alien." Her stomach was no longer paining but the horror of listening to Sean's moans and gasps were terrible. "Please give him the medicine."

"How do we keep Threshold away?"

"They'll come, but you can probably keep them away for a week if you just send them false reports. They know about your stockpiling arms. When they come they'll come for a battle. Give Sean the medicine. The Blackberry was in my purse. I'll show you how."

"Don't you feel guilty for sending hundreds of innocent Americans to Guantanamo?"

Her head trembled. She began sobbing again. "I don't know what I feel any more. I just want to save Sean and my baby. Give him the medicine."

"We already did." It was a familiar voice, off to the side, one she had not heard in a long time. She went to the bars. It was James Hogan. "The sickness is called underimprovement. The body isn't used to receiving enough of the right nutrients to improve on and starves violently. Sometimes it turns cannibalistic on itself and very weird things happen. We are having to force feed him."

"We're aliens now?"

"Either that or they are. It depends on your perspective."

"How? When?"

The Mexican cook from Bandino's stepped over, toting an AK-47 and smiling. "The lunch you enjoyed so much. My homemade catsup has an added ingredient. So do the lemons from my tree and his extra pickles and the marinade I used for your chicken. You see! It really was so good and so good for you. Now you are both improving."

Hogan stepped back. "Do you know how close you came to dying? There are standing shoot to kill orders for you."

"You would be killing your niece. And your brother. He would have jumped when I was shot. A sniper would have hit him in the head."

"How do you know?"

"I saw us dead, today."

"You really are pregnant? It's his?"

She nodded.

He shook his head. "Saved by a sob story. I guess welcome to the family."

"Thanks. What is going to happen to us?"

"If all goes according to plan, you two will get to live your lives." He walked away.