As you may imagine, although nicely furnished, my room lacked a `doggy door.' As much as they seemed to trust me, I did not have free reign of the place.

For this reason, I remained trapped inside the silo. Ironic when you consider how this meant having two human girls imprisoned with a dangerous creature.

When I heard the screams, therefore, I couldn't do much about it, only stand on my hind legs and stare out the reinforced glass.

The girls were safer in the cage.

Five of my brethren roved around outside the door, sniffing the latch, destroying lab equipment, soiling the floor. I'd met all of them once, during Doug's failed but mercifully short social experiments.

Sanchirck, a Ss'sik'chtokiwij with a ridge of spines running down her head like a mohawk, played with my cell's security panel, attempting to get the children.

A sister with tentacles dangling down the sides of her head like dreadlocks peered at objects through a magnifying lamp while one with a smashed in pug-like face used surgical tubing to slingshot test tubes and vials across the room.

A Ss'sik'chtokiwij with an exoskeleton pebbled and rough like lizard skin, and Hissandra, now dark and speckled like a black palomino, dug around in the mini refrigerators, generally making a mess.

A dark shape thundered against the door, driving me back with a start.

Sarah rushed to my side. "What's out there? What did you see?"

When she tried to look out, I pulled her back. "No!"

She gave me a hurt look. "There's five of us out there. My kind. Not safe. Back away from the door."

Wide eyed, she did what I asked.

Bang! A claw scratched across the glass. I thought for sure they'd find the children.

Rebecca opened her mouth to scream, but Sarah covered her mouth, and the two silently wept.

I knew, with outbursts like these, the girls wouldn't stand a chance out there, but I also felt certain they didn't want to spend another minute in my prison, either. Even if I gave them Marvin's Gardens and Reading Railroad. I had to get them to safety somehow.

But what could I do? Other than the main door, we didn't have much of any means of escape, except maybe through the toilet, and I could already tell by the corroded grating that it would be injurious to the children's soft and pliable flesh.

That scream I heard...It sounded like Kurt. If I didn't act fast, it would soon be the girls.

Despite being the more grown up of the two girls, Sarah stood weeping and quivering like a helpless baby.

I crept closer, gently placed a claw on her shoulder, speaking in soothing tones. "Honey, please. Calm down. Breathe."

I know it sounds weird for me to be saying `honey', but I liked the intimacy of the expression, and the girls didn't mind me practicing it on them. I've even used it to comfort them a few times when they skinned their knees and such. I borrowed the breathing thing from her father. "You're going to have to pull it together. I need you to take a deep breath and tell me everything you can about this lab."

Since Sarah had the age advantage, I could only assume that she knew something about the lab's security. Otherwise, we were nothing but canned meat.

Well, excluding me.

Sniffing, Sarah gave me a nod, taking out a small phone.

Colonists generally used phones of this type like radios, since the nearest cel phone tower stood more than ninety million light years away. They contained `apps' of various kinds, from useless stuff like Tetris, Angry Birds and Solitaire to programs of the scientific sort, but nothing that required `real time updates.'

The device came with a long USB charging cable, which, to my alarm, she plugged into a slot below the security door's locking controls.

"You're not going to hack the door, are you?" I hissed. "They'll kill you for sure!"

"No, dummy. I'm accessing the blueprints."

We had progressed far enough in our relationship that I could ignore such insults without being tempted to eat her. Plus, due to the tense situation, I understood completely.

With a few button clicks, Sarah pulled up a schematic of our cell, and a map of the surrounding area.

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While we didn't find much in the way of exits at ground level, a controlled air system ran along the top of my prison. Too small for me, but perfect for a pair of adolescent girls.

Spitting on a small locked box released a row of ladder rungs from the wall, and additional burning sputum knocked the register off.

We urged Rebecca to go first due to her smaller size.

"No one's going to find her up there," Sarah muttered. "She's the hide and seek champion. She's like a newt that hides under rocks. It took me an hour to find her last time. She'd sneaked into Mineralogy and hidden inside a hollowed out core sample."

"I hope you're right," I said. "Ss'sik'chtokiwij have a highly developed sense of smell."

Anxiously, I watched as Rebecca climbed the rungs.

"I need you to hide up there for a long time, honey!" I called. "Be a good newt for me and stay away from openings where they can smell you!"

As the bigger, more responsible kid, Sarah had been allowed a blue security key. I'd seen it used, and, regardless of whether Kurt and Doug wanted me to, I had memorized the key code, a rather unimaginative simple combination going in a straight vertical line.

I gestured to Sarah's card. "Honey, I need you to give me that and go up the ladder."

"Newt" had already reached the opening, waving to her friend.

Sarah frowned. "You don't even know the code."

"Don't I?"

"It's 2-5-" she began with an exasperated tone.

"8-0," I finished.

Her eyes widened. "You could have gotten out any time you wanted!"

"Not without the key."

She handed me her lab lanyard, creeping backwards to the ladder.

I inserted the card, typed in the code, and the door whooshed open.

Outside, I saw only a row of dark metal silos, two with their doors open.

I glanced back into my cell. A plump face peered at me from the vent.

"Stay!" I hissed, creeping out into the passageway.

I stood in a corridor between rows of silos. Hallways and security doors lay at either end.

The bloody remains of my human friend lay in a heap on the floor, the sound from his blue rubber earbuds rippling the pool of crimson growing around his lab coat.

"No..." I moaned, padding closer.

I stared at the long nosed face, frozen in an expression of terror, the blonde hair with ends stuck in the platelets and hemoglobin like a brush in a jar of drying paint.

"No no no no!"

Doug, the man who led me to the Lord and done so much to help me be a good Ss'sik'chtokiwij, had been ripped open like a side of beef.

"Doug!" I wailed, clutching his body against mine. "Doug! No!"

I coughed and sneezed in sorrow, gently closed his eyes.

I heard that when humans see a dead body, they throw up. I, on the other claw, found myself nibbling him a little bit before I stopped myself and cried some more. "Doug..."

A mocking voice interrupted my grieving. "Didn't mother ever tell you not to play with your food?"

A spotty black Ss'sik'chtokiwij chuckled.

Hissandra.

The scent on the corpse had been distinctly hers.

A pair of pores flared on my dome, our approximation of a glare. "You killed Dug!"

"It was a good kill," she purred. "The meat was tender. It slipped right off the bone. You're welcome to the leftovers."

I let out an angry shriek, my heart burning with hatred and bitterness.

Dug had led me to a close relationship with the offspring of the great creator Ss'sik'chtokiwij. Despite the damage to my brain, he deserved a reward for that, not to be murdered in cold blood! He had saved me! With him dead, how could I possibly return the favor?

An opportunity stolen.

I could see only red.

I crouched and extended my claws, preparing to rip my sister's speckled face off like a piece of bread.

But then I remembered all those things I'd been reading in the bible.

I relaxed my claws, pushing my hatred aside. "Father, forgive her. For she knows not what she does."

"You've been brainwashed. You've forgotten that these creatures are livestock. You've absorbed so much of their backwards ways that you're practically one of them." Hissandra waved a claw at the corpse. "Are you going to finish that, or can I have it?"

That really made my blood boil.

Yes, yes. It melts steel even when I'm calm, but you get the idea.

"The Lord rebuke you!" I yelled. "This man was a lost sheep that I intended to save! Thanks to you, he is lost forever!"

I said a prayer for Doug's soul.

Despite the fact he led me to the Lord, I felt uncertain of his eternal destiny. For this reason, I made my prayers extra fervent, ignoring my sister's presence.

"Depart from me," I at last growled to my sister. "And do not stretch the limits of my forgiveness, for the Spirit is willing, but my flesh is weak."

Hissandra backed away with an expression like I had contracted a dangerous disease, disappearing down a passageway.

I folded my claws again for another heartfelt plea, but noticed movement out of the corner of my eye.

I whirled just in time to see a dreadlocked head poking through the door to my cell.

My sister Kiarsshkoy.

"No!"

Shrieking in outrage, I leapt at her thick body, knocking it against the doorway.

Newt screamed, but Sarah silenced her.

Kiarsshkoy bolted into the silo, scattering my game all over the place as she made a beeline for the ladder.

"Go, children!" I shouted. "Get away from here! Hurry!"

I tackled Kiarsshkoy to the floor just moments before she got to the top of the ladder.

I didn't want to kill Kiarsshkoy. Forgiving was my thing, but the holy Ss'sik'chtokiwij above also called me to save lives. I felt torn between the two.

I beat Kiarsshkoy's head against the wall, hoping to merely knock her unconscious.

Shrieking in protest, Kiarsshkoy elbowed me, and you know we have sharp pointy elbows.

She grabbed me, slammed a fist into my dome.

Sadly, the blow landed right on a brain probe.

I saw psychedelic colors, lost control of my legs, my bladder. I soaked my half finished quilt.

Goodnight, sweetheart, I heard a woman's voice singing. It's time to go...

The golden oldie echoed through my body in stereo, as if the band from that bygone era stood inside the silo, playing for my benefit.

The room spun around me. The walls seemed to melt, forming half mouths that sang.

I hate to leave you, but I really must say...

I fell to the the floor, and the world went black.

Goodnight, sweetheart, goodnight.

Emily Dickinson once wrote, "Hope is the thing with feathers."

I read that from a book just hours before Doug died.

Ironic.

It appeared I had some of this `feathered' thing when the lights of my world slowly came back on, aswim with brilliant golden flecks generated by my brain.

The lights snapped to full intensity when I heard scratching noises, and Sarah screaming.

Fear gripped my heart. I had to do something!

"Sarah!" I cried.

Only a thought impulse. It failed to create sound.

I would have given anything to be able to jump to my feet and rush to her rescue, but my body refused to respond.

I appeared to be paralyzed.

With a sigh, I helplessly stared at the wall, unable to do so much as change the view.

How far had this probe been driven? Had it pierced the brain stem? It sure felt like it.

Alone.

My dreadlocked assailant had abandoned the silo, possibly due to the girls escaping...or one being eaten.

I felt ready to die.

In my current state, I would not be able to feed myself, urine would likely pool around my body and stagnate, creating an intolerable environment for my olfactory receptors.

But what could I really do? Suicide required the use of motor functions.

Sarah stopped screaming. I moaned with sorrow as I imagined her half eaten corpse sprawled on the concrete flooring, another `gift' left by Hissandra for my benefit.

Would Hissandra remember me at all? Maybe feed bits of the little girl to me, as some misguided act of so-called `compassion?' Or would I be left for dead?

It did me no good to think about these things in my current state. I put them out of mind.

I had read The Butterfly and the Diving Bell, a book about a paralyzed Frenchman who wrote an entire book by blinking yes or no. Stephen Hawking composed scientific literature. These humans were an inspiration, but they depended on people to stay by their side and take care of them.

I had nobody, with the exception of Jesus.

I've read that sometimes, no matter how hard you pray about certain things, the answer is no, because God's grace is sufficient and His strength is perfect in your weakness.

Still, I did pray, with a desperation I had never before known.

I closed my eyes, (well, in the fashion of my kind), and thought about the good times in my life.

The sound of claws clicking on metal snapped me back to consciousness.

Which of my sisters was it? Kiarsshkoy? Sydjea? Hissandra?

"Whatever you're going to do," I tried to say, but really didn't verbalize. "Do it quickly."

No answer. Whoever it was only clicked closer.

"Please. End my life. I beg you."

The dark shape settled in front of me.

"I am a burden to the tribe. I doubt you will treat me like a human and assist my eating and waste elimination, so I'm begging you. End my life."

A needle nosed face silently lowered itself into my field of vision.

My sight organs widened in shock. "Gretchen Goose?"

The creature gave me an affectionate nuzzle. "You have grown much, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. It is like you have become a different Ss'sik'chtokiwij."

"Please, Gretchen," I whimpered. "Help me. The girls are in trouble and I can't move. Please! I need your help!"

Gretchen Goose's butt plopped on the floor. "Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik, we're going to play a little game."

I gave her an expression like this were the last thing I wanted to do, but let her speak.

"This is a very important game. A game where you can't make even one mistake. But if you do it right..." She left the sentence hanging, filling my head with hopes of being able to move and everything going back to normal.

"Okay, Gretchen. I want to try."

Gretchen Goose stood up, making a slightly musical trilling sound as he danced back and forth in front of me.

"One of these things does not belong here..." she sang, pointing to her dome, voice echoing weirdly in the small chamber. "One of these things is kinda the same. Can you move the one that doesn't belong here? Now it's time to save your brain..."

"But I can't save my brain! I can't even move!"

She leaned close to me. "But you can. Use your imagination."

"This is stupid."

The creature offered her claw. "Don't think about it. Just reach out and give me your hand."

Having nothing better to do, I tried to obey.

To my surprise, a brightly colored cartoon limb extended from my body, rising up and touching Gretchen Goose's outstretched digits.

"See! You can do it! Now get that probe!"

Not sure how it was possible, but somehow I reached clear over on the left side of my head and stuck my claw into the hole created by the impacted device.

"This is just like that Operation board game. Remember what happened when you grabbed the funny bone and touched the sides?"

"Yes, Gretchen Goose."

The analogy made me even more afraid. I took several deep breaths, recalling that game, how I succeeded in getting things out.

Don't touch the sides.

Doug described the game as an oversimplification of real surgery, but I couldn't actually stand up and sterilize the area and clean up the debris with a forceps. I shouldn't even be able to reach in the hole.

Operation...

"Would you like me to sing you a song?" Gretchen asked.

I said yes, and he sang Fly Me to the Moon. Sinatra's slow, excruciatingly long notes turned out to be just what I needed in such a slow, tedious operation, though the theme song to Rawhide, which she sang next, felt appropriate too, as long as the object went `rolling, rolling, rolling' out of my head.

For what seemed like an eternity, I fought the probe, gently tugging it through bleeding openings in my brain tissue. Impossible, yes, but I did it somehow.

During my beginning attempts, the probe kept slipping into recesses in the green matter, and the whole room suddenly took on the appearance of a cartoon, or a watercolor sketch, but then I managed to tug it upwards.

At long last, it neared the surface of my dome, and the shock of my mental faculties snapping back together struck me so powerfully that I almost let the thing slip back down.

The `cartoon arm' I had been using to free the probe from my brain actually happened to be my tail, and later my left claw, for I somehow regained their usage during the operation without realizing it.

I think, to a certain extent, I even managed to flex my brain tissue, and used that to push the probe. None of this would have worked in a human body. It shouldn't have even worked in mine.

Obviously, Gretchen Goose had never been with me. My brain had just manufactured her out of memories.

Perhaps she had merely been a part of myself, instructing the other part I needed to save my life.

Regaining my sanity, moving one tug at a time, I gingerly pulled the probe out the rest of the way, threw it to the floor, the clank deafening in the sound distorting environment of my chamber (18).

Doug and Kurt had shown me mirrors a few times, so I had seen the probes before.

Never up close, never outside my body.

White, cylindrical, the size of a bullet or a AA battery, banded with blue stripes, with a large needle-like extension coming out the bottom. It reminded me of a capacitor on a circuit board, but a lot nastier.

I shuddered when I thought about the insertion of cruel implement. One thing about Doug I wouldn't miss.

Not wanting to fall victim of another sucker punch, I carefully removed the other two probes as well.

I must have done something wrong, for after I had removed the second, I felt shooting pains around my heart, and I suddenly stopped breathing.

A couple minutes before I hit the floor, I got struck by the erroneous notion that I understood algebra, and could move the universe if I could find a specific decimal point.

It turned out I cared more about breathing.

I am an alien with simple dreams.

I didn't want that much out of life, other than to have plenty of cruelty free food, a safe place to rest, and things to learn.

My highest ambition was to figure out a way to reproduce without killing someone.

But I did have one dream: A wild, impossible dream that would never ever become true: I wanted to see a major league baseball game.

Doug had shown me recordings, but I wanted to see it live.

To walk alongside Doug, Sarah and Rebecca as they handed tickets to the people at the gate, and ride an escalator, staring down from dizzying heights at a parking lot as the smells of popcorn and grilled treats wafted through my olfactory receptors.

We'd climb up in the `nosebleed' section, whatever that was, or even up next to the field, situating ourselves in those narrow plastic chairs...I'd fit myself in however I could, and then I'd watch the Angels beat Detroit, or whatever events that actually transpire.

I'd hear men shouting about hot dogs and beer as Ricardo Mendez or some other current MVP knocks a cowhide ball into the air with a satisfying crack of his wooden bat.

Sarah would hand me a hot dog, and I'd be hard pressed to think of a single thing to top this paradise experience, except maybe season tickets, or a trip to the museum, to see the art of ancient Egypt.

As I lay on the floor of my cell, slowly dying of asphyxiation, I wondered if the Lord would take me to that stadium, and if I'd see Doug there.

A strong involuntary gasp told me I'd have to take a `rain check' on that ball game.

My vision became a field of reds and sparkling light. It cleared, and I could stand again.

Sarah, I thought.

Rebecca.

I did not sense them in my silo.

Kiarsshkoy had disappeared.

Was I too late? Hard to tell.

I'd been given a second chance, but if they'd killed the girls, it was all for nothing. I would have been better off starving to death and meeting them at Busch Stadium...Or whatever heaven humans go to when they die.

No, I kept telling myself. They're not dead.

Although weak and dizzy, I moved my legs. If the girls lived, they'd need all the help they could get.

The mouth of the vent system had been widened by Ss'sik'chtokiwij saliva. Not a good sign.

Hoping to hear some sign of life, I climbed the ladder, nearly falling off before I reached the top.

Upon closer examination of the hole, I saw that Kiarsshkoy hadn't crawled inside. The connector shaft looked like Swiss cheese, but the girls, if smart, would only have been driven further into the air system.

I stuck my head through the opening.

"Sarah!" I hissed.

No answer.

"Sarah! Rebecca!"

Silence.

I raised my voice and called again.

"Sarah!"

Nothing.

I laid my head against the hole, coughing in anguish.

"Ernie?" a faint voice called as I stepped down the ladder.

I felt like the green creature on that Christmas cartoon, his heart growing ten sizes and bursting the picture frame. "Sarah!"

She shushed me.

"Where are you?" I cried in a stage whisper.

Her response, barely audible: "I don't know. I'm up against an air conditioner. I'm scared!"

Though I'd seen the blueprints, I didn't remember exactly where that particular bit of machinery lay. "Honey, what's the map on your phone say?"

"I don't know. The screen won't come on."

I sighed. "Are you safe?"

"I...guess."

"What about Rebecca, honey? Is she okay?"

"She's fine. How are you?"

I breathed a sigh of relief. "Don't worry about me, honey. Just stay..." Where they were? Was that really such a good idea? I didn't even know where they were. They could be dangling over Hissandra's open mouth! "Just...stay safe, okay? I'll try to get you out of there!"

No answer.

A loud banging noise, followed by muffled sobbing.

Determined to find them, I sniffed the dusty vent, attempting to pick up the smells of soap, sweat, children's rations, anything that would indicate their location, but found the traces hours old.

I crept outside my cell, widening my olfactory ports as I sought hidden scent trails wafting from above.

Great idea, but the others had thought of it first.

At the end of the aisle, five Ss'sik'chtokiwij circled a section of ventilation piping like a swarm of hungry sharks. The moment I spotted them, I ducked behind a security door that had been left partially open, listening in.

"I almost made it!" Kiarsshkoy said. "If only I could jump a couple feet higher!"

"Maybe you should get a running start," the pug faced one suggested.

The pebble faced Ss'sik'chtokiwij let out a dismissive growl. "How do you even know it's up there, Sydjea?"

"It's up there, Ahxalybij! I smell the meat and the chemicals. It makes my stomach growl just thinking about it."

Ahxalybij stared at the ceiling with frustrated body language. "How would you even get up there?"

"I know!" Pug Face exclaimed. "How about we form a pyramid? We'll all stand on each other's backs, and the one on top can shuvzotax (19) the metal."

"And who would be on top?"

Sydjea straightened, raising her head proudly. "Me, of course."

"What!" Ahxalybij cried. "So you can have it all to yourself?"

"Kiarsshkoy said there were two of them!"

"I did say there were two," Dreadlocks agreed. "Though the second one may not have as much meat on it."

"Right! Let's get this pyramid started. Who wants to form the bottom part?"

Without a word, Hissandra licked her claws, climbing up the nearest silo on acid etched clawholds.

Before I understood the situation, she drove her claws into the duct running along the top of the silo, swinging down its length like a strange monkey.

That's when I heard the screams.

"No!" I yelled, racing to stop my bloodthirsty kin.

Reaching the top, I stuck my claws in Hissandra's claw holes, mimicking her ape-like movements until I caught up with her.

I pounced, but her claws were lodged in the aluminum ventilation piece, and our combined weight proved to be too much for the flimsy supports.

The metal box groaned, bolts snapped off their fixtures, and the whole section of ductwork thundered to the floor with us underneath.

Their cover now gone, the two girls screamed as they stared out a diagonally slanting duct that threatened to follow us to the floor.

Hissandra threw the fallen metal box aside. "Thank you, Sh'kassk'dwuissueblik. I thought I'd never get that can opened."

I tackled her to the floor, striking her in the face. "You leave my friends alone!"

Hissandra responded by raking me across the dome with her claws with such force that smoking blood dripped in front of my eyes.

I raised my fist again, but a heavy dreadlocked body tackled me to the concrete. "I see you haven't learned your lesson. Maybe it's time for me to teach you again."

[0000]

(18) Doing a version of the story without the brain probes wouldn't nearly be as much fun as this one. It would be boring without all the brain science and the magical mystery tour of Ernie's brain. There's tons of stories about trying to help aliens not be dissected (like ET for example), but few about them actually getting captured and cut open. If I did it the other way, Ernie wouldn't be nearly as unique.

(19) See xenomorph lexicon in `Dream Neighborhood' chapter.