by Enid Titan
In government work, you had to be extra careful. That was the law of the land out here, especially with rising fears of terrorism and all that jazz.
John and I split up when we got to the basement. He walked into the microbiology lab and I went down into the computer room to check on my protein analysis from the night before. I flicked the light on, thinking that I was going to be alone, and put on my headphones.
Most people would be surprised at what I listened to at the office — Young Thug’s trap music. I have no explanation. His songs just put me in the zone for protein analysis and mad science.
A hand grabbed my shoulder and I whipped around, letting out a loud scream.
“Jesus!”
“Hello, Minerva,” Dr. Trout, my boss, greeted me with a smirk on his face.
“Oh! Dr. Trout. I’m so sorry.”
I took my earbuds out, embarrassed by the loud music that blared from them. Dr. Trout sniggered as I shuffled to shut them off.
“How does the data look?”
“Good. It would help if we knew what we were studying. Some of the numbers look unusual.”
“What do you mean unusual?”
Dr. Trout stepped closer to me and I tensed up automatically. Most science guys can be weird about social cues and boundaries, and at first, I thought Dr. Trout was one of those hapless professor types. The way he leered at me through his coke-bottle glasses and breathed slow and heavy as he stared at data over my shoulders soon taught me different.
“Um,” I muttered, my mouth suddenly drying, “I mean, if these are human samples and not reptilian or something, I have no idea what any of it means. The blood samples are something like two-hundred years old and the white blood cell count is through the roof. All of this should be impossible.”
“Hm. I see.”
Dr. Trout’s eyes wandered from the paper to my chest. My cheeks went hot. I’d purposefully worn a modest dress to avoid his constantly roving eyes and the licking of his lips that soon followed. There it was. I could feel his breath on my neck.
“Well, Minerva, we’ll discuss your results later. First, I wanted to ask you something of a more, personal nature…”
I dreaded the question that would come out of his mouth next. Before I could say a word, John thrust the door open and Dr. Trout took a long step back.
“Interrupting anything?”
“No, Dr. Billings,” Dr. Trout replied, clearing his throat as his cheeks took their turn flushing, “I was simply discussing Minerva’s results with her.”
“I’m sure Dr. Hsu will be delighted to share them with all of us at the next department meeting.”
John stepped between me and Dr. Trout. He could detect that I was uncomfortable and handled it graciously by placing himself between me and Dr. Trout. I flashed John a grateful smile.
“Right. Well, since the two of you are here, find the other scientists and let’s head to the lower level.”
“Aren’t we already in the basement?” I asked, unsure if Dr. Trout was playing a weird mind game with us.
“No. There’s something you need to see in one of the top secret classified levels. Before that, the whole group of scientists must meet with the attorney. Come with me.”
I looked to John for answers but he only shrugged. None of us had heard anything about a top secret floor. We thought we already knew all the government secrets. Our workplace was already a fortress of scientific data and armed guards.
We followed Dr. Trout out of the room and he gathered up the other two scientists — Dr. Martin Lewis and Dr. Declan Chubb. Dr. Trout led us to his office at the end of the hall.
It was clear something was going on — something serious. None of us had any idea what. The lawyer started going off on a typical “non-disclosure” speech, except this one was far more detailed than any I’d ever heard. We weren’t to breathe a word of what we were working on, even details about our work hours, and coworkers, and our meeting with the lawyer to anyone under the sun. We were to agree to schedule changes that meant our next week, we’d begin work under the cover of night. After the forty-five minute speech, we lined up and quietly signed the document, promising never to breathe a word about our work to anyone.
Once we’d signed, Dr. Trout handed the four of us new metal ID cards and brought us to a closet behind the protein analysis lab that I’d never noticed before. He told us that our ID cards were bulletproof and we were about to see something that no one else in American history had seen before. I figured it was a test tube with some weird virus. Maybe we were about to witness the next plague in the flesh.
Inside the closet was another elevator with only one button.
“Crowd on in, doctors, and get ready to witness American history in the making.”
We piled into the elevator and John leaned over to whisper to me, “Any guesses where he’s taking us?”
“Not a clue,” I replied.
“Maybe it’s the new H-bomb,” he suggested.
“Or a bioweapon,” Dr. Chubb chimed in, with a suspicious glint in his eye.
I hoped that both of them were wrong.
The elevator doors opened and Dr. Trout made us line up.
“Each of you will be given a different assignment, so I will need to take you in to the room one at a time. Any questions?”
All of us shook our heads. How could we ask any questions when we had no idea where Dr. Trout would be taking us or what we were doing in the secret part of the government facility, one mile beneath Fort Meade, Maryland.
The male scientists were taken in first. As each of them exited and returned to the top floor, I studied their faces for clues as to what they’d seen in the room with the metal door at the end of the hall. I couldn’t read the expressions on any of their faces, not even John’s. By the time Dr. Trout got to me, I was still concerned about being alone with him. Of course, he’d left me for last.
“Come, Minerva. It’s time for you to see what our great nation has discovered.”
I kept up with Dr. Trout’s long stride and we both swiped our ID cards on the door before it slid open. I stepped inside of the dark, cold room. He flicked on the lights and I noticed a glass enclosure at the far end of the room, shrouded in darkness.
“Approach the glass enclosure and turn on the light using your PIN.”
“I don’t have a PIN.”
“Patience, Minerva. I’m going to give you one. It’s the first four numbers of the square root of 5.”
I punched 2236 onto the keypad and the lights flicked on. My heart jumped to my throat.
“Dr. Trout…”
“Easy, don’t react. I know what you’re seeing is unlike anything that you’ve seen before.”
Everything began to make sense all at once. The unusual samples I’d been receiving all week, the strange habit Dr. Trout had of overanalyzing my work and rushing my results. The blank expressions on the faces of my coworkers. How could someone react to this?
“Is it alive?” I breathed.
“He. Is he alive,” Dr. Trout replied.
I didn’t notice Dr. Trout cross the room and get close to me until I could feel his breath on my neck. Now, not even his creepy closeness could scare me.
The creature rose to its feet. His feet. His. He was male… But not a person. I gasped as he stood tall in his cage, all seven feet of him, covered head to toe in rippling muscles like a true beast.
“What is that thing?” I whispered, not wanting to believe my own eyes. This had to be some kind of genetic enhancement, right? It couldn’t be that this creature was…
“He’s an extraterrestrial, Minerva. He fell to Earth two weeks ago and our government captured him.”
“He’s purple…” I whispered.
But that wasn’t even the strangest thing about him. Sure, he was purple, but he was also muscular with a body like a Spartan warrior, and the height of a basketball player. He had long white hair that was cropped just above his shoulders and pointed ears like an elf.
His eyes were the scariest part of him aside from his tail…
Oh my goodness. He had a tail.
Suddenly, I felt sick to my stomach. I took a step back and my back pressed against Dr. Trout. I was too stunned to move away from my boss.
“Easy, Minerva,” he whispered into my ears.
“I’m fine…”
“I can tell. So far, you’re the only one who hasn’t vomited and cried,” he chuckled.
“I didn’t hear any of the others do that.”
“The walls are soundproof. This one’s loud when he wants to be, don’t mind him.”
“Does he understand us?”
Dr. Trout chuckled.
“Just like a woman to think of that, eh? We aren’t sure. You have the strongest background in linguistics and communication, so your job is to care for the creature, attempt communication and study the biological aftereffects of our experiments.”
“We’re going to experiment on him?”
I couldn’t disguise the horror in my voice.
“We can’t exactly have him running around the District, Minerva. Yes, we’ll be experimenting. You will be experimenting. Nod if you understand the weight of what’s going on, and then you leave, and get some rest.”
I nodded and then raced out of the lab, my face as blank as my coworkers’ faces had been.
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About the Author
Enid Titan is a Central New York based author of debut novel Devor of The Alpha Quadrant Series, Book #2, Tau, Book #3 Aries, First Contact Captives: Vidar, as well as the short story Virgin Earthling. When not hiking around Ithaca’s gorges, binging on Star Trek: Voyager re-runs and doing yoga, Enid is plotting out more juicy science fiction romance stories. You can learn more about Enid on her website: www.enidtitan.com