“But—” Brian began to interject.
“Not now,” Malcolm stopped him. “Like I said, we got caught. I can tell you everything when we get a chance. Right now, you just need to know that when we were released, it was the first time I’d seen Dee since the day we tried to escape. She’s … had a rough time.”
“What does that mean?” Melissa asked in a distressed whisper.
“It’s complicated—even more now,” he added, looking at her. “Let’s just say that if I had my way, we wouldn’t be meeting right now—not like this, anyway, with you being pregnant.”
“Why not?” Melissa demanded, barely maintaining her hushed tone.
Their attention was diverted by office door opened again. Neff and Malone appeared first, then Dee, followed by President Fitzgerald. Dee broke into a relieved smile when she saw Brian but immediately froze at the sight of Melissa.
“Oh, my God!” Dee gasped.
Melissa cupped her mouth with her hand in stunned disbelief.
Dee was pregnant.
19
If you’re going through hell, keep going.
—Sir Winston Churchill
“I’m sorry about how things went down back there,” Dee apologized, relaxing in a chair in Melissa’s office.
“Don’t say another word about it,” Melissa reassured her, patting her knee. She walked around behind her desk and sat down. “The fact that you’re here is all that matters. And if you and Malcolm want to stay with us, you’re certainly welcome.”
“I appreciate that, but I owe you an explanation—at least what I can give you.”
The black woman’s drawn face betrayed her condition. The mischievous eyes and sassy air Melissa had come to enjoy last summer had been dimmed and subdued by whatever events had assaulted Dee’s spirit. Still, Melissa could see that the fight hadn’t entirely departed.
“Dee, please don’t take this the wrong way, but it looks like you’ve been through hell,” Melissa said.
“I have. The last couple weeks back in the free world have helped clear my head, but I never expected to see you—especially pregnant. And I know the feeling is mutual.”
Melissa nodded. “I was—oh, looks like they’re back.” The door to Melissa’s office swung open. Brian and Malcolm carried two extra chairs and some pizza inside. Malcolm closed the door with a bony elbow.
“It’s the only thing we could find open on campus,” Malcolm said as Melissa cleared room on her desk for the food. “Everything’s shutting down for Thanksgiving break.”
“Malcolm and I were speculating about what Malone and Neff must be thinking,” Brian said, shutting the door. “You could tell they didn’t like being excluded.”
“And we didn’t exactly conceal the fact that we all had a history together,” Melissa lamented, stating the obvious.
“They’re just going to have to deal with it,” Dee stated in the matter-of-fact manner Brian remembered of her.
“There’s no way any of us were leaving campus without some time to talk,” Malcolm observed.
“Yeah, it’s not like we’re going anywhere,” Dee smirked. “A black couple isn’t exactly gonna blend in and disappear in these parts.”
“Do you two trust them?” Melissa asked. Brian carried a chair and set it down next to Melissa.
Malcolm shrugged. “All I can say is that we’ve been treated well. I’m not sure what they did to get us away from the Colonel, but it worked.”
“I can’t believe Ferguson would ever let it happen,” Brian said, handing Melissa a paper plate. “Neff and his friends have to be extremely well connected to pull that off.”
“They’re really tight-lipped about who they are and what they do,” noted Dee. “And from what we’ve seen so far, they have serious money.”
“Dee’s right,” Malcolm said. “I don’t know where the cash is coming from, but they’ve got planes, boats, weapons, communications, food storage, all sorts of gadgets you could only get from the military—it’s amazing. The safe house they took us to was well stocked. Whatever they’re up to, they’ll be ready for it and then some.”
“Interesting,” Melissa said thoughtfully. “I’ve been studying fringe apocalyptic groups for years. Let’s hope we’re not going to get a closer view of one than we’d like. They don’t act like they’re in some survivalist cult, but that’s no guarantee.”
“When we were back at the base,” Dee said, looking at Brian, “Malcolm told me how Father Benedict planned to get you two off the base. But what about the situation now? Melissa told me what’s happened in the last couple of weeks while we were waiting.”
“I think Neff and Malone are being honest with us,” Brian answered, “at least about not having any attachment to anyone who’d be tracking us down for the government. But like Melissa said, we really don’t know what to think about them. The coffee-shop thing was just so random, but I can’t shake the feeling it’s related.”
“What was the girl’s name again?” Dee asked.
“Becky.”
“We’ll have to trust that our little threat about destroying the fragment copies is enough motivation for her to keep quiet,” Melissa said. “She has no reason to want us in harm’s way, and plenty of reasons to want to see the government embarrassed.”
“So tell us what happened back at Area 51 with you guys,” said Brian. “How did you get out?”
“Well,” Malcolm began, “while you two and Andrew were doing your thing with the Colonel, I went and got Dee out of her room and told her what was happening. I had two override cards and uniforms for us to wear—we even had helmets with reflectors and weapons to avoid facial recognition. The plan was to follow you topside and blend into the action, then take a jeep off the base, assuming the jeep was where Andrew said it would be.
“We took the elevator about twenty minutes after you guys took off with Andrew, but as soon as we used the override cards, it shut down. The Colonel had already changed the code. The cards essentially told security where we were. We didn’t get far at all.”
“What did Ferguson do when he found you?” Melissa asked.
“He was pretty cocky—acted like he knew what was going on. It really unnerved me, to be honest. I wasn’t sure what had happened to you two, or Andrew, and he wasn’t about to put my mind at ease. We all know he likes playin’ with people.”
“He has a superiority complex,” Dee broke in. “And put that down as a professional opinion.”
“The Colonel split us up after we got caught,” Malcolm went on. “We were both in solitary. I’ll let Dee tell you her story,” he finished, eyeing her sympathetically.
All eyes turned toward Dee, who took a deep breath. She choked up before she could begin.
“She doesn’t need to do this now,” Melissa objected.
“I’ll be okay,” Dee sniffed, wiping a tear. “I’m the psychologist, remember?” She sniffed, trying to smile. “It’s good for me to talk it out.”
The three of them waited for her to collect herself.
“After the Colonel separated us,” Dee began, “I spent a couple days in a cell, and then some MPs and a doctor paid me a visit. The doctor wanted urine and blood samples—gave me some bull about why. I knew the MPs were there in case I wasn’t cooperative, so I gave him what he wanted. I saw him only once more.”
“How strange.”
“Oh, it gets weirder. After that visit, everything was normal, even tolerable. They moved me back to my old room, brought me menus to order meals, gave me research to do—mostly light busywork, nothing challenging or important. I did it to beat the boredom. The only thing new was that they installed video cameras in every room of my living space—and I was never allowed out of it.”
“They did the same busywork thing to me, eventually,” added Malcolm. “Piddly stuff—things that any grad student could have done. I’m not sure what the point was.”
“I demanded to speak to the Colonel,” Dee continued, “but that never happened
. They wouldn’t tell me what they’d done with Malcolm. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive.”
“What happened next?” Brian asked.
Melissa saw the apprehensive look on Malcolm’s face as he watched Dee. “Well, I’m guessing I was in my cell for a few weeks when I began to suspect I was pregnant.”
Brian and Melissa exchanged anxious glances. The time frame approximated Melissa’s own circumstance.
“I’d missed my period the previous month, but I attributed that to the stress of our last month at the base. When I missed again, I was scared—really scared. I thought maybe they put something in my food that was causing problems internally. There was no way it was pregnancy. I hadn’t been with a man for over a year. But when I started to show, there was no denying it. Whatever the creeps did to me, they did it while we were all there. I don’t know how,” Dee struggled to compose herself, “but there I was, pregnant. When I saw you … it just freaked me out.”
“Pretty understandable,” Brian offered.
“I guess so. I know you two have sort of started a new life here, but I’m just not … I don’t know what to think. My head’s just not right.”
“Malcolm …”
“I haven’t had a chance to tell her,” Malcolm stopped Melissa, anticipating what was coming.
“Tell me what?”
Melissa looked at Brian, then turned to Dee. “I don’t know how I’m pregnant, either,” Melissa replied.
“What?”
“Brian and I haven’t been intimate. We’re pretending to be married here. No one knows otherwise—not even President Fitzgerald, Andrew’s contact. He just assumed we were a married couple when Andrew gave us the same last names for my position here at the college.”
“Good God, girl!” Dee said, exasperated. “Why didn’t you get an abortion?”
“Well, for starters, I’m on faculty at a Catholic college.”
“That wouldn’t stop me. When I found out, that was the first thing I tried to do—and I’m still planning on it.”
“And that’s why they had you out like a light the rest of the time you were at the base,” Malcolm interrupted.
“Well, they aren’t clueless. I’d have tried again.” She looked at Melissa. “I hit myself in the abdomen a few times after I was sure I was pregnant, but that wasn’t going to work. It had to come out. The only thing I had in my room were coat hangers. I was desperate. But I forgot they’d turned my room into a film set. Security busted in before I could go through with it. They must have sent the guards as soon I started pounding myself. That doctor who’d visited me earlier came in a few minutes later and gave me a shot. That was the last thing I remember clearly until I woke up in Maine.”
“They kept you sedated for almost three months?”
“We think it was probably some sort of induced coma,” Malcolm suggested. “Given their concern over protecting the child Dee was carrying, drugs in the blood stream would seem too risky. I’m sure that bunch had other ways to put her out. Once we were stateside, Neff’s people took good care of her. She was underweight, but otherwise healthy. The Colonel obviously wanted the baby safe, and he wasn’t trusting Dee.”
“What was in Maine?” Brian asked.
“Our first stop—after Tel Aviv, anyway. A safe house.”
“Tel Aviv?”
“We’re getting a little ahead of ourselves. We need to back up.”
“Before you do that,” Melissa interjected, steered the conversation back to their earlier topic, “why haven’t you had the abortion yet, Dee?”
“Father Bradley here has done everything he can think of to prevent it,” Dee answered with a smirk.
“You told her you were a priest?” Brian asked Malcolm.
“Yeah, at the safe house. I thought it was time to put everything on the table.”
“Neff’s doctor wouldn’t do it, either,” Dee replied with irritation. “I’m too far along to do anything myself. Too risky. I don’t have access to any services yet, and I can’t go anywhere by myself. It’s like I’m still under house arrest.”
“That’s a little over the top,” Malcolm protested.
“Is it?”
“I’d say so. You’ve got no place to go, to be honest. And I’m in the same boat.”
“Take a good look at me and say that again,” she quipped.
“So you think you’d be safer out on your own? We need to lie low, and you know it.”
“Bottom line—once I’m on my own again, it’s comin’ out.”
“All the tests Neff’s people ran say the baby is normal,” Malcolm said, avoiding Dee’s gaze. “No surprise that I’m opposed to the abortion. If it wasn’t human, then—”
“It isn’t mine!” Dee protested, raising her voice. There was an awkward silence. She looked at Melissa for support. “You’re crazy if you have that baby, Melissa. I don’t care what the tests say. There’s no telling what it is. You saw the unholy crap they have on that base—you know what they’re capable of.”
Melissa closed her eyes, trying to stay calm. Brian could see her fear returning. “I know you mean well,” he said to Dee, “but we’ve had Melissa and the babies tested several times, including ultrasound. Everything’s normal.”
“Except how it got there,” Dee retorted.
“ ‘Babies’?” Malcolm interjected.
“Twin girls.”
“I thought about abortion,” Melissa explained to Dee, now looking more calm, “but aside from my status at the college, one is enough for me. As Brian knows, I had an abortion in my first year at college. I didn’t think it was right even back then, but I was forced to do it. This time we decided that was only an option if there was something … abnormal.”
“Just say it,” Dee said bluntly. “You mean if it was alien. Let’s not mince any words.”
“Okay, it would be an option if they weren’t human, but they are. I can’t explain how, but every test we’ve done says I’m carrying normal girls. There’s nothing amiss. I’m going to give them up for adoption, but I don’t want to go through with another abortion. I don’t want to relive that part of my past.”
As he listened to Melissa, Brian’s mind drifted back to the first time he’d heard her story and felt her pain and rage. He couldn’t explain it, but knowing her at such a level was what had captured his heart. He’d wanted to heal her pain, to restore her lost faith, to fill the breach of her betrayal. He remembered her brokenness; it was the moment their bond had been formed.
“You’re doing the right thing,” Malcolm assured her.
“But they can’t be normal,” Dee insisted.
“They actually can—artificial reproduction is routine. I think it’s obvious the Colonel had us implanted,” Melissa retorted. “The only question is why. Maybe he did it for the same reason he used the nanotechnology back at the base to create fake bodies in our beds, or inject Brian’s arm—just to show us what he could do. It suits the arrogant creep.”
“I don’t know …” Dee wasn’t persuaded.
“It could be that simple,” Brian said. “You two weren’t there, but just before Andrew came to us with his escape plan, we were being held at gunpoint in my room by a mole in the Group—a Major Sheppard. He told us in no uncertain terms that the Group made Gray aliens using nanotechnology. He said the episode where Melissa and I both woke up on the same morning with each other—the artificial bodies in our respective beds—was a demonstration of that technology.”
“That’s right,” Melissa recalled. “Sheppard said the Colonel and the Group could fake Armageddon if they wanted to. But I also remember he wasn’t sure about Adam.”
“I think we can conclude that Sheppard wasn’t privy to that particular experiment, not that he thought Adam was a real alien.”
“I don’t know about that. What spooked him was the mind scans,” Melissa reminded Brian. “And I know you remember his theory for that.”
“Yeah.”
“What was that?” D
ee asked.
“Sheppard said he’d seen … an entity—some creature—that was very tall and not human. He told us he saw it kill Kevin back on the base.”
“But I thought—”
“The Colonel’s explanation for Kevin’s death was a lie. Sheppard didn’t know what killed him, but it wasn’t a Gray. Without going into the details, his description sounded to me like what some ancient Jewish texts call a Watcher.”
“I remember you using that term back at the base. What is it again?”
“In simplest terms, it’s sort of an evil spirit that can take physical form, but not an extraterrestrial in the literal, scientific sense. Andrew said he’d seen one once. Sheppard speculated it might have made Adam and given him the power to read minds since the Group’s technology couldn’t pull that off. He didn’t have any proof, though—and I think he’d have laid it out if he had it. He knew he wasn’t going to see the next day.”
“So you believe him?”
“I believe that an evil intelligence is behind what’s been passed off as an extraterrestrial mythology, or religion, and that there are divine beings who can interact with us in physical form. That’s a pretty straightforward point in biblical theology. But I have no idea if Sheppard was anywhere close to being right about Adam. In one sense it doesn’t matter.”
“Why?” Dee asked, surprised. “Adam was inside my head—you were there.”
“Was he?”
“Hell yeah.”
“I mean, was it him … or something else? Remember, I thought Adam healed my arm—and that happened right in front of us. But it turned out to be nanobots that had been injected into my arm a little before the event. They’re still in my bloodstream. So, if Adam’s power in my case was faked, there may be some other explanation for your experience.”
“And more importantly,” Melissa followed, “if Adam was a real extraterrestrial with genuine powers, there’d be no need to fake the healing.”
“So Sheppard’s idea of an evil entity is more plausible, but not certain,” Brian reasoned.
“Great,” Dee said, her voice rising. “That’s comforting. Six months ago I’d have said you needed therapy if you believed stuff like that. Now I’m hoping the priest in the room is a frickin’ exorcist.”
The Portent Page 8