by A. D. Winch
Drips were brought into the room and positioned around his bed. The nurses pulled up the arms on the gown, slapped his skin a few times and then stabbed first one needle and then another into his veins. Eric winced. He was not fond of needles. Once the nurses had made sure that the intravenous drips were secure, they left the room. The two soldiers went with them, but Eric could see them standing outside the room guarding him.
Eric lay back and smiled. He needed to appreciate his victories if he were to survive this, and today he had had three. Firstly, he knew that Buddy Angel was responsible for his situation. This was obvious from the way that he talked to the doctors and the way the German-sounding man spoke to him. Secondly, he knew he was in Roswell. Thirdly, he was more comfortable. He tried to concentrate on these and to let Ursula know. However, there were too many distractions, and he found it hard not to think about the needles in his arms.
Two days later, he was taken off the drips and given a proper meal. It was only mashed potato and hot dog sausages, but it tasted delicious. The warm food made him feel drowsy but before he fell asleep, the two guards entered his room with sinister smiles on their faces.
“You’re going to meet someone,” said one and pulled a bag over Eric’s head.
Eric did not flinch. He remained calm and didn’t want to give either of the guards a reason to hit him. They unbound his hands and legs; dragged him into a wheelchair and instantly tied him to it.
The wheelchair was pushed out of his room and down the corridor. Eric paid careful attention to the route they were taking and focused on his other senses rather than sight. Medical smells were replaced with those of oil and machinery which were replaced by the smell of cooking food and finally sweat. The smells were accompanied by the sound of medical staff and then other people working. The room tones told him that he was travelling mostly through enclosed spaces and one vast area.
The wheelchair had no suspension. Therefore, Eric felt as it moved from the tiles of the infirmary onto rough concrete and then onto a smooth floor. After a longer journey than Eric had expected, they stopped in a small space. The temperature was much warmer here, and he could sense that the two soldiers were not as comfortable as they had been previously.
A door opened, and two people came out.
“Any problems?” asked Agent Angel.
“None, Sir,” they replied together, standing to attention.
“Good. At ease. I’ll take it from here.”
“Is that all, Agent Angel?” grovelled a female voice.
Eric could sense that the lady didn’t like Agent Angel. She stepped away from him and next to the wheelchair. When she looked at Eric, he felt her anger but couldn’t distinguish if it were directed at him or at Agent Angel or at both of them.
“For now. Dismissed,” replied Agent Angel and took hold of the wheelchair.
Eric felt that he was being wheeled into a large room. It was warmer still in here. Very faint light broke through the bag from the right side. To his left, everything was black.
He could hear the laboured, heavy breathing of someone who sounded unhealthy. It got louder as he was wheeled further into the room. Despite the sound, Eric found it difficult to sense anything else from the man. If he hadn't been breathing so heavily, Eric would not have known he was there. It was as if the man's mind was vacant.
“What…?” began the heavy breather.
“Ignore it, Hoover. Keep your eyes peeled on what’s happening in front of you,” Agent Angel told him.
The wheelchair was pushed up a ramp and away from the lights. They were behind Eric now, and all he could see was the dark inside of the bag.
Eric concentrated on his other senses. He could still hear the man called Hoover behind him. In front, he could just make out a rasping, breathing noise. It was unlike any he had ever heard before and grew louder as they moved further away from Hoover. The wheelchair slowed, and Eric guessed that he was about three metres, two metres, one metre away from the noise. It stopped. Eric knew that whatever was making the noise was directly facing him.
For a few seconds, nothing happened and then Eric felt he was losing his mind. Memories that he had no control over, and ones that he had tried to forget, flashed through his head like a strobe light. He felt dizzy, nauseous and that he was falling. Desperately, he willed it to stop. He focused on a thought he could control, a happy memory - sledging at Champex with Andrea and the Benjamins popped into his head. As he focused on this one memory, the others slowed down. It only took a few more seconds, but he had regained control.
For a while, nothing happened. Eric did not understand what he had experienced but, for a reason that he couldn’t explain, felt that he had been victorious.
Agent Angel moved in front of the wheelchair and stood there. Eric heard a thud as his knees touched the floor and then a sound like a phlegmy spit. Silence followed this.
Agent Angel got back to his feet and then Eric was wheeled away.
Outside the room, the two soldiers took hold of Eric and wheeled him back towards the infirmary. He tried to stay awake to ensure that he had memorised the route correctly, but he was completely exhausted. It wasn’t long before his head dropped, and he was sound asleep.
When Eric woke up again, he was back in the hospital bed. The experience he had gone through had upset him greatly. Memories and feeling that he had tried desperately to put to the back of his mind had come to the fore. He realised how unhappy he had been before Ursula had appeared. No one had wanted to be friends with him, and he remembered how lonely his life had been. She had tried to be his friend, but he had not really given her a chance.
Most of the memories of his parents were of them not being there or of them leaving him. Good memories of them were few and far between. It seemed that they had left all the child-rearing to Andrea. Andrea was many things, but fun was not one of them. He tried to think of fun times with his parents. Past Christmas Days were good memories; they always had good Christmas’s together. His birthdays were best forgotten. He always received any presents he desired, but he had never held parties. One year he had invited all his class to a party and not one person had turned up. This memory still hurt.
He had more good memories of living with the Benjamins. By the end of his stay with them he was going out of his mind with boredom, but this was only due to being forbidden from going outside. Both Mémé and Granddad Benjamin always gave up time to talk to him and asked him daily how he was or involved him in conversations. He missed them, but most of all he missed their granddaughter, Ursula Benjamin. At least she understood some of what he was going through.
When he saw Ursula again, he would apologise to her. He knew all too well what it was like to be on the receiving end of others' nasty comments, and he realised with dismay that he had been no better. She was the only other person on the planet who could understand what it was like to have his abilities. For months, he had felt threatened by this but now he felt reassured by it. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on Ursula.
For the next twenty-four hours, Eric was not given anything to eat or drink. This aroused his suspicions and made him tense. He became even tenser when an anesthetist entered the room.
“I’m going to send you to sleep,” was all that he said, and then he replaced one of the drips with a syringe.
There was nothing Eric could do about it and, before he could ask a question, he fell asleep. He woke again in the operating theatre. He was lying on his front with his face squashed uncomfortably into a hole in the bed. On opening his eyes, he could see cables curled on the floor and feet around the bed.
The doctor and surgeon looked down at Eric. He was covered in green surgical blankets except for his spine that was light brown after being dabbed with antiseptic.
“Shall we begin, Agent Angel?” asked the doctor, looking up at the observation room where Agent Angel was sat with Professor Schwarzkopf and Jean Kurtz.
“Yes, Doctor.”
“Are all vitals o
kay?” asked the Doctor.
A nurse replied, “The heart rate is slightly raised but otherwise fine.”
“Let’s begin then. We shall extract cerebrospinal fluid first and then the bone marrow,” said the surgeon. “Scalpel.”
The surgeon was passed a scalpel, and he cut a ‘Y’ shape into Eric’s skin near the bottom of his spine.
Eric felt the blade touch his skin. It felt like someone was drawing on his back, and he tried to shout. His lips quivered, but no sound came out. Drool fell from his mouth and globbed onto the tiles below.
The surgeon pulled back Eric’s skin and cut away the flesh underneath until he reached the spine. Blood was seeping from the wound, and the surgeon stopped until the nurses had mopped it all up.
“Inserting needle into the spinal canal,” said the Doctor.
Eric didn’t know if he was dreaming it or if he was not fully anaesthetized. It was irrelevant anyway. He was sure he could feel the needle entering and the pain accompanying it.
Samples of cerebrospinal fluid were extracted and placed in test tubes.
“Right, let’s see how strong these bones are. Drill.”
The doctor handed the surgeon a medical drill.
“Suction ready, please, for the bone splinters.
Eric heard the buzz as the surgeon switched the drill on. He felt the drill piece touch his spine, and the surgeon lean into it. The sensation was uncomfortable, but as the vibrations passed through every bone in his body, he felt physically sick.
“Nearly there,” said the surgeon. “The bone seems perfectly normal to me.”
Suddenly, Eric felt pain so excruciating that he almost blacked out. He screamed, but his mouth did not move, and he made no noise. It lasted for a few seconds and then was gone.
“We’re there,” announced the surgeon as he removed the drill. “Let’s harvest some of his bone marrow and then patch him back up.”
Eric felt them working on his back. His head was swimming; he felt on the edge of being violently sick and then passing out. All sense of time evaporated and as he started to wish for death, it was all over.
“Normally we remove five percent of the bone marrow but we’ve taken twenty-five percent as you ordered, Agent Angel,” said the Doctor. “We have also taken the other samples you requested.”
“Good,” replied Agent Angel. “This should be enough to keep everyone happy.”
Another bed was wheeled into the operating theatre and the medical staff slid Eric onto it. His head was placed to the side, so his cheek lay against the cool plastic. As the Nurse wiped the drool from around his mouth, Eric glared at her. If she saw, she did not respond. His anger was a waste of his energy, but it had not gone unnoticed in the observation room.
Professor Schwarzkopf stared intently at the boy and tried not to show his shock at what he was seeing.
Eric closed his eyes and focused on Ursula. Professor Schwarzkopf had to look away.
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Chapter 11 – An Old Friend
The first meeting in the Benjamins' apartment was packed. The police search for Ursula, the disappearance of her grandparents and then the incident with the two Americans, had really interested the residents. There were so many people that some ended up standing in the corridor outside. Consequently, Ursula stood beside the bathroom door so that everyone inside the flat, and outside, could hear her.
For fifteen minutes, she had explained what had happened to her and where her grandparents were being held. People listened attentively; some nodded their heads, and no one called her crazy. Some asked her questions about the ‘secret US’ organisation, but no one seemed to doubt her.
At the end of the meeting, she had requested ‘people power,’ a phrase that Claude had told her to use. She encouraged the crowd to spread the word about her grandparents' kidnapping and asked everyone with an email address to write it down for her. A large list was compiled and, that evening, Ursula emailed them all a summary of what she had said. She finished by imploring them to forward this on to their contacts and anyone they thought was important enough who could help.
There was a feeling of positivity, and Ursula dared to believe that she was going to change her current situation for the better.
The second meeting had significantly fewer people. This time all the attendees could fit into the Benjamins' apartment and Claude counted twenty heads. In some ways, this was better as it allowed Ursula to interact with her audience and find out what had happened since they had last met.
She discovered that ‘normal’ people had been interested in her story. They had used words such as ‘un scandale’ and ‘incroyable’, but no one felt compelled enough to go further. Maybe they already knew what Ursula then found out - media companies and politicians ignored their emails. No one in a position of power cared or was interested.
It was a negative way to finish. People left and wished her ‘courage.’ Ursula knew it was their way of saying that she was on her own.
One pale man with bad skin waited behind. When he stood up, his head was not far from the ceiling, and he approached Ursula awkwardly. He stood in front of her, looking down at her face and trying to find the words.
“Bonjour,” Ursula greeted.
“Bonjour,” replied the young man and suddenly came to life.
Ursula was amazed that she had never seen him before as he was a force of nature. His long, thin arms waved in the air as he spoke. Words spilled out of his mouth so fast that it was hard to keep up, and he spoke animatedly about how he had gone ‘ballistic on this.’ He had obviously taken ‘Ursula’s cause,’ as he called it, to heart.
After the first meeting, he had returned to his apartment and thought about all she had said before he acted.
“For a long time, I looked at my computer screen, thinking about how I could help and then I received your email,” he explained in French, his arms barely staying stationary. “I posted what you said on my website, on forums and on message boards. Five hours later they closed down my website.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Why? This is fantastic! I always knew, and now I have proof. ‘Big brother’ is watching. So, I set up a dummy email address. I sent thousands of people your email but, within one hour, they shut down my new email account too.”
Rather than appear angry at this, he appeared to enjoy it.
“This is what I’ve dreamed of. This is the most exciting thing that has ever happened to me.”
Ursula was concerned, “You have to be careful. They’ll find you.”
The man brushed her comment aside, “No, they won’t! I have a VPN and other security procedures in place.”
“What’s a VPN?”
“A virtual private network - it masks my IP address and hides where I am. There is no way they’ll find me. One hour, I am in Russia, the next I am in Nigeria, the next I am…,” he didn’t finish his sentence. “I am not scared. They are the ones who are scared. They must be - why else would they be so anxious to stop me spreading this information. I’m not going to stop.”
“Merci beaucoup. What’s your name?” she asked.
“My name’s Karim Dilem but my friends call me Jason.”
“Why?”
“Because I am the best hacker they know,” he said proudly.
Ursula did not understand and moved on.
“I’ve never seen you before,” she said. “Do you live here?”
“Yes, on the first floor, apartment three. If you want any help with computers just come down.”
“Thank you again,” she said genuinely.
Jason left, waving manically as he did so and with a huge smile on his face.
The meetings had not been the success Ursula had hoped for but Jason's comments made her feel a little better. Naively, she had wished that a media company or a newspaper or a politician would champion her cause and investigate further but this had not happened.
Madame Colbert consoled her and t
old Ursula that it was time again to contact the police about her grandparents. Ursula reluctantly agreed, but she was not going to hang around. If the police arrived they could take her away with them – either because of the OSS or for theft or just because she had no family members to look after her.
The time had come to leave. She had been home for over five weeks, but she felt that she would not be safe here for much longer. On top of that, Eric was in trouble. Since the start of March, their communications had become weaker. Whenever she focused on him, her thoughts were dominated by fear and suffering. She packed a bag of clothes and made preparations to flee Saint-Denis as soon as it got dark.
“Where will you go?” asked Madame Colbert, obviously concerned.
“I have a friend,” she replied and felt for the paper in her pocket with Captain Hudson’s number on.
Agent Hoover was sat at his desk but for once he was not looking at the bank of displays on the wall in front of him. There were more important matters to attend to, and he stared incredulously at the screen on his desk. It was connected to a powerful mainframe computer that monitored communication across the internet by scanning for keywords and phrases.
The messages that kept appearing were alarming. They had been triggered because of the mention of specific keywords in a large number of email correspondence. When these were included on emails or websites or search engines, the mainframe would log them and let him know.
These keywords included ‘OSS’ and ‘Office for Strategic Services.' The log was sent to Agent Hoover, and he would then forward it on to a team of internet specialists who would look into each case and limit any possible damage.
Most of the time, any reference to the OSS was historical as people researched or studied the organisation that had preceded the CIA. These could be ignored. However, a conspiracy theorist would occasionally get slightly too close to the truth for comfort. At these times, the specialists would just send the website’s author countless folders of made-up information. They called these the ‘wacko files.’ Inevitably these would be published on the site. From this point onwards everyone thought the author was ‘wacko,’ or crazy, and doubted the validity of any claims made by them.