Phantoms of the Moon

by Michael Ciardi

When Jack Evans finally peeled open his eyes, he felt as if the entire planet Earth had been snatched from beneath his feet. His vision initially remained hazy, forcing him to presume that he was knocked into a cataleptic state at some point after encountering the spheres. At least his memory remained intact. Adding to his confusion, however, his head throbbed as if a steel mallet had bludgeoned him into a mode of unconsciousness. Very little made sense to him in these moments, and he likened this experience to an undesired dream. But this circumstance was not anything similar to Evans’s hypnotic renderings of the truth. As his eyes came into focus, he realized the awful facts. Though the doctor’s predicament seemed unfathomable, in reality it was as tangible as the sweat upon his skin.

  Evans eyes gradually adjusted to a new area’s lighting. He steadily concluded that he had been relocated to an interior utterly absent of any semblance of human persuasion. Nothing within this backdrop’s confines held a shade of color. The walls, floor, and ceiling all appeared sterile and white. Random shafts of muted light sprayed from various points throughout the oval-shaped room, but it did not provide enough illumination for Evans to discern anything too clearly. A few objects within range of his field of vision were unrecognizable. After gathering his senses more completely, Evans realized that he had been placed in a prone position on what he gathered to be an elevated glass gurney.

  Once Evans reestablished enough strength to lift his head off the table and crane his neck, he noticed a column of gurneys similar in structure to the one he was sprawled out upon. The precise amount of platforms roving in a slow, angular motion within the room remained indeterminable, though Evans guessed that at least fifty of them flanked the interior’s dimensions. He inaccurately guessed that the gurneys were suspended from a network of invisible cables, but he soon dismissed his opinion after realizing that each bed oscillated independently from the one situated parallel to it. Another peculiarity, which defied the doctor’s comprehension, was the way in which he seemed to be strapped to the gurney’s glass surface. Although he detected no visible fetters binding his legs or arms to it, he was totally powerless to maneuver any portion of his body other than his head. It was as though a magnetized field of energy had restrained him.

  Evans struggled to break free from the gurney’s grip for several minutes. He gritted his teeth for the duration of this futile effort. At the same time, he distinguished a dull humming sound vibrating in both of his ears. He could not discern any source to this noise, but he gathered it emanated from a series of egg-shaped holes etched into the metal floor beneath the gurneys. He may have been uncertain of his precise whereabouts, but he now believed that he was being detained in a location incapable of being designed by mankind.

  Before the doctor became too absorbed in his morbid introspections, he distinguished another sound echoing within the confines—this one being unquestionably human. He immediately identified the voice as a female who was equally terrified by her present surroundings. Evans surmised that the voice belonged to the girl who accompanied Ryan tonight, but he had no way of seeing her face from his current position.

  The gurney’s rotated the room in a counterclockwise sequence. Though he attempted to see who was beside him, Evans could not lift his neck high enough off the platform. He used the only resource available to him at the moment.

  “Can you hear me?” Evans shouted in the general direction of the female’s voice, but his voice sounded muffled.

  “Help me,” the female returned. “I…I can’t move my legs.”

  “Just relax,” said Evans, suspecting that her situation was identical to his own. “I’m Doctor Evans,” he then announced. “I’m Ryan’s psychiatrist.” It seemed like an odd occasion for introductions, but Evans needed to know to whom he was speaking with before continuing.

  The girl did not respond at first, but Evans heard her sniveling as she strained to free herself from the gurney. “Please—help me,” she cried. “I can’t get away.”

  “Are you alone?” Evans asked, hoping that she saw someone who could have assisted them.

  “Yes,” she sobbed.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I’m Hailey,” she quivered. “Please—help me get out of here.”

  “Okay—listen to me, Hailey. We’re going to get out of here, but there’s no sense of exhausting yourself. We need to remain calm right now.”

  “Please—I don’t know what’s happening. You have to help me.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” Evans assured her, trying to keep his voice calm. “But you have to help me, too, Hailey. Tell me—is Ryan with you?”

  “No,” she murmured listlessly. “He’s gone. I’ve been calling his name, but he won’t answer me.”

  “Are you physically injured?”

  “I don’t think so,” Hailey replied. “I…I just can’t move my body. What’s happening here? Where are we?”

  “I don’t know,” said Evans faintheartedly. “But it’s obvious that someone wants us here for a reason.”

  “What do they want?”

  Evans had difficulty forwarding a reply to this question simply because he could not offer anything to improve Hailey’s outlook. All either of them were able to do was wait and wonder about the purpose of their confinement. Neither of them had any conception of time. It was impossible to determine if they had been retained in captivity for minutes or hours, especially after Evans realized his wristwatch had stopped ticking. They remained on their designated gurneys until each had rounded the room’s circumference one complete cycle.

  At that instance, the gurneys redirected to the room’s center, where an elevated globe of crystal whirled in the identical counterclockwise motion as the platforms. This hovering crystal reflected a silvery beam of light that increased its intensity with each successive spiral. Once the crystal automatically reduced its rotational speed, the two gurneys holding Evans and Hailey shifted to the room’s forefront and glimmered beneath the globe’s incandescent display. During this time, a pattern of softer lights cast through the room’s featureless walls. The egg-shaped portals covering most of the floor and ceiling simultaneously illuminated with an ocher-colored glow.

  The room previously revealed no visible signs of an entrance or exit, but this proved to be an optical illusion. From between the portals, two silver spheres floated through the opposite ends of the room—one from the ceiling and the other from the floor.

  The spheres flashed a sequence of lights before stationing beside the two gurneys where Evans and Hailey waited helplessly. Now laying parallel to Hailey on his gurney, Evans pivoted his head and felt sickened by the sight of the girl’s horrified expression. She appeared to be somewhat in shock, sweating profusely through the strands of her dark hair. Her body, although immobile, shook convulsively on the platform.

  “P—Please—let me go,” she cried. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Evans’s platform was now close enough to Hailey’s gurney, which enabled him to touch her hand with his own. But he still did not have the capacity to flex a muscle beyond his neck. He tried to convince Hailey to remain silent, but she continued to babble forth an arrangement of incoherent syllables. The crystal’s sudden emergence along with its accompanying spheres only deepened her anxiety. She thrashed her head from side to side, hoping such antics might dissuade her captors from being too unmerciful. Evans still pleaded with her to stop, but she did not do so until exhausting every ounce of strength from her body. Her outbursts ceased so suddenly that Evans presumed she lost consciousness. Fatigue had gotten the best of her, but Evans insisted on remaining alert in order to serve witness to whatever happened next.

  The doctor’s wait was brief. As the spheres gradually circulated around the gurneys, they transmitted strobes of light in a coded sequence that represented an advanced form of synchronized communication. Evans understood nothing from this exhibition, but the crystal globe projected a ray of energy that generated further clarity on this situation. Instead of inducin
g yet another strand of colorless light into the room’s interior, the crystal’s contribution revealed a panel in the room’s arched wall. This section subsequently recessed, creating a wedge just wide enough for an average sized person to fit through.

  Within seconds following this occurrence, Ryan Hayden entered the room on foot, ostensibly unnerved by the circumstances unfolding around him. The boy’s expression was as nondescript as anything else within the chamber, and equally as wan under the concentration of artificial light. He neither glanced at Evans nor Hailey while marching methodically toward the room’s centerpiece. Once standing beneath the globe, Ryan nodded his chin a single time. The spheres floated on both sides of the boy’s head.

  “Ryan!” Evans screamed, almost pretending not to notice the boy’s apathetic disposition. “Thank God you’re okay!”

  The doctor’s words carried audibly throughout the chamber, but Ryan did not react to them. Instead, he kept his eyes trained on the spiraling crystal, which seemed to fulfill all that Ryan craved at this hour. Before calling out the boy’s name again, Evans realized that his own words no longer appealed to the boy’s emotions. Ryan maneuvered in a robotic fashion, showing signs as if he had been hypnotized by a power unknown to mankind. As Ryan continued to stare emotionlessly into this glare of light, a wretched thought curdled Evans’s stomach.

  During these seconds, Ryan’s eyes became more distinct to the doctor. Evan had studied this boy’s face for almost a decade, but tonight he was nothing more than a stranger peering upon an abandoned soul. These eyes were not the same, and even the color suggested a drastic alteration in Ryan’s very nature. Evans discerned a deep silver coloration projecting from the core of each of Ryan’s retinas. It was nothing the doctor defined as normal. Ryan did not blink or even attempt to avert his gaze from the intense light seeping into them on all sides of the chamber. Even when the two spheres fired a laser-thin beam of light into each of the boy’s pupils, he made no reaction. These lights remained oozing into the center of Ryan’s eyes as he turned and faced the gurneys.

  “Stop it!” Evans screamed. “Don’t hurt him!” If the spheres possessed an ability to comprehend the doctor’s pleas for clemency, they simply ignored him. Contrary to Evans’s speculations, nothing within this chamber intended to harm Ryan. The beams shining into Ryan’s eyes provided another objective—one that the doctor and Hailey had yet to comprehend. For now, Evans ceased from shouting any further commands. The doctor sensed the boy was no longer a victim, for it seemed indisputable that Ryan’s purpose strayed closer to the opposite of Evans’s own fate.

  Hailey had mercifully neglected to regain consciousness. She was therefore spared the torment of what awaited Evans’s ears—at least for now. When Ryan spoke his first words since entering the chamber, the modification in his tone became evident immediately. This was no longer the voice of anything remotely human, but merely one fabricated from a complex alien dialect. As the spheres continued to reflect their lasers into the boy’s eyes, they activated a portion in his brain that permitted the alien voice to use Ryan as a transmitter. The boy whom Evans had cared for all this time was systematically reduced to a communicator between two species.

  The toneless Voice then affirmed: “I am speaking in a language decipherable to the Specimens of Project 384500. Specimens 04307 and 01707 are acknowledged.”

  Evans had structured his entire lifetime to a scientific demystification of this planet’s marvels, and logic indicated that something akin to this only occurred in the fragments of a dream. But this was not a dream, and perhaps it was even too real to be considered a nightmare. Evans thrashed upon the gurney in denial, but he no longer had the luxury to avoid the reality at hand. As much as he wished it to be otherwise, none of this could have been regarded as a prolonged hallucination. The truth, no matter how absurd it registered in his mind, was pronounced dispassionately from the Voice emanating from Ryan’s body.

  “Let me speak to Ryan!” Evans demanded. “You’ve taken over his mind. Let him speak freely to me!”

  Though Ryan’s lips moved in response to the doctor’s request, it was not the boy’s own voice. “Negative,” said the Voice. “Subject X1707 no longer responds to the name you have applied to him.”

  “I don’t know what the hell all those numbers mean!” Evans screeched. “What is Project 384500?”

  “Project 384500 denotes your planet’s distance in kilometers from its nearest orbiting satellite,” responded the Voice.

  “The Moon?”

  “Affirmative,” responded the Voice. “Our shuttle is stationed here for an undisclosed period of Earth years. Experimentation data currently reads as incomplete. Status of existing subjects cannot yet be assessed.”

  “Are you saying I’m a subject to your depraved scheme?” Evans asked, almost disbelieving the utterance of his own question.

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “Specimens are designated solely for analysis and research.”

  “Specimen? So that’s your plan—you’re going to cut us apart like animals! At least let the boy and girl leave unharmed. Take me alone if you must satisfy your lust for blood!”

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “Specimens 04307 and 01707 are scheduled for tissue and organ dissection.” When the Voice spoke these words, the gurneys to which Evans and Hailey remained fixated elevated slightly. “Procedure to commence momentarily,” said the Voice.

  “Ryan—please, you can hear me. I know you can!” Evans pleaded.

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “Subject X1707 does not share your range of human emotions.”

  “Then release him from the grip of your trance!” Evans refuted. “Let him go!”

  “Subject X1707 is not a captive of this shuttle,” responded the Voice.

  “Wait a minute,” said Evans, trying to organize his thoughts and emotions simultaneously. “You referred to me a specimen—yet you refer to Ryan as a subject.”

  “Affirmative,” responded the Voice.

  “But—why?”

  “Only Earthlings are classified as specimens.”

  Evans face turned as nearly as gray as the light pouring forth from Ryan’s eyes in these seconds. “Are you saying what I think you are?” Evans uttered. His eyes centered directly on the core of Ryan’s eyes when he continued. “Are you saying he’s not human?”

  “Affirmative,” responded the Voice. “Subject X1707’s composition was confirmed at six thousand nine hundred and two Earth days. He was designated for final processing at six thousand nine hundred and sixteen Earth days.”

  “Final processing? What does that mean?”

  “Subject’s cells are fully matured at final processing. Transformation commences from this stage.”

  Whatever explanation the Voice offered, Evans could not comprehend enough to believe it wholeheartedly. But even if a portion of what the Voice revealed was accurate, Evans would have then assumed that the boy he had known for almost ten years was in fact not a boy at all—at least not entirely.

  “He must be human! I know he must!” Evans defied the Voice’s claim. “I observed him as a child! I watched him grow into a young man!”

  “Subject X1707’s maturation complete at eighteen Earth years,” responded the Voice.

  “None of this is possible,” Evans declared, if only to preserve his own state of faltering sanity. “Ryan’s family wasn’t abducted until he was seven-years-old—”

  “Affirmative,” responded the Voice. “However, the primary abduction occurred earlier. Subject X1707 was implanted in host’s womb on initial contact.”

  “Initial contact?” Evans’s head buzzed with this statement, but he then surmised that Ryan’s mother must have been abducted twice—the first time being the most crucial. “You took the boy’s mother,” Evans uttered in disgust. “You first took her while she was still pregnant with her twins!”

  “Affirmative,” responded the Voice. “Subject X1707 was secured inside Specimen 03097. One mortal
embryo was surgically extracted from her womb and replaced with the seed of Subject X1707.”

  The disclosed event was almost too unspeakable to verbalize, but Evans needed to secure the facts in his mind. “You cut out one fetus—replacing it with…your own embryo.”

  “Affirmative.”

  “Robby was the human baby, and Ryan…he always belonged to you.”

  “Affirmative. Subject X1707 lives,” responded the Voice.

  “But you returned when the twins were seven,” Evans stated, “and you abducted the entire family—why?”

  The Voice did not hesitate when it explained, “Subject X1707’s Earth family was dissected for research purposes. Specimens included: host Female 03097, male 03597, and male 00797.”

  “You murdered them all! You bloody fiend! But you left Ryan behind—left him to live and grow, leaving him to believe that he’s a human being who belonged among us. Perhaps you murdered him in the worst of all ways!”

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “Murder is not permissible for Subjects of Project 384500. All Earth specimens are dissected and analyzed compassionately. Earthlings are the only known species who indulge in acts of murder.”

  “Call it what you want, you monster! Murder is murder—now matter how you slice up the words to fit your foul methods!”

  Evans tried in vain to free himself from the platform again, but his only real hope of escaping was to appeal to the humanity that he believed still resided within Ryan. Even if what the Voice declared was no longer refutable, at least a portion of the boy’s existence had relied on his mother’s blood for survival. In this way, nothing convinced Evans that the boy was solely an offspring of an alien being.

  While Evans brooded with this notion, the hovering spheres unleashed another sequence of lights. The walls encompassing the chamber streamed with a lavender color on all angles, completely enveloping the room’s occupants. Ryan then stepped forward, positioning himself between the two gurneys.

  “Hermetic sealing complete,” confirmed the Voice. “Proceed with compartmentalized sterilization.”

  A colorless mist seeped from the ceiling’s orifices. As the vapors expanded over their intended objects, Evans felt a slight burning sensation slinking over the length of his entire body. The mist apparently penetrated the clothing he wore. His eyes then shifted to Hailey, who still remained unconscious on the gurney beside him. Perhaps this was a preferable condition considering what awaited her upon awakening. With nowhere else to target his energy, Evans focused on Ryan’s disposition more feverishly.

  “You can fight this!” Evans bellowed, ignoring the fact that the boy seemed oblivious to any action contrary to what the aliens had programmed into his mind. “You are not one of them—you can never be one of them!”

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “You are mistaken, Specimen 04307.”

  “Don’t listen to it, Ryan! Your mother was human! You needed her to survive! Her blood courses through your veins! Nothing can ever change that fact!”

  “Final processing for Subject X1707 commences in two hundred and forty Earth hours,” responded the Voice.

  “You can’t think of yourself as a part of this madness!” Evans persisted. “You were born to Earth from a mortal’s womb—that makes you a human being.”

  A brief hesitation followed. Evans’s persistence seemed to spawn a buried memory within the boy’s mind. The silver beams of light streaming into Ryan’s eyes faltered momentarily, but then steadily intensified. Two additional orbs simultaneously spiraled into the chamber’s central area. They were both smaller than the existing spheres, and pulsated with a neon green aura. Instead of positioning next to Ryan, the orbs stationed directly across from Evans and Hailey.

  After the orbs’ positions were stabilized, the Voice continued with its directions. “Sterilization now completed. Administer organ scan on Specimen 04307.” Upon the utterance of this directive, the orb hovering beside Evans released a wand of neon light. It projected on Evans’s torso and flashed across his body. The light dissipated after a few seconds, and the Voice indicated, “Specimen 04307’s organ scan reveals no contaminants. Prepare for organ tissue dissection.”

  Whatever time Evans had left to breathe and think on his own grew precariously short. The panic in Evans’s tone was unmistakable when he screamed, “Ryan, stop this now! You can stop this thing! You must stop it!”

  In these seconds, the second orb hovered closer to Hailey and administered the identical procedure on Hailey. But the orb’s scanner did not automatically diminish its light in this instance. Instead, the scanner remained fixated on the girl’s abdomen. Another sequence of lighted signals volleyed between the smaller orbs and larger spheres. A prolonged period of silence followed. Only the sound of Evans’s erratic breathing echoed throughout the chamber in these seconds.

  “You can still save us, Ryan!” Evans yelled, his voice teeming with desperation.

  “Specimen 01707’s organ scan completed,” the Voice responded. “Specimen reveals an unexpected life form.”

  For the second time, the silver light rifling through Ryan’s eyes flickered, almost as if being interrupted by a stream of thought within the boy’s mind more potent than itself. Suddenly, Ryan’s face demonstrated an unmistakable sign of confusion—the first visible emotion since he entered the chamber. Evans realized he had a fleeting opportunity to influence the boy’s objective.

  “She’s pregnant!” Evans shouted. Based on Ryan’s delayed reaction, Evans already guessed that the boy now had more at stake than the aliens initially anticipated. “It’s your baby—isn’t it?” Evans asked Ryan. “For God’s sake, she’s carrying your child!”

  “Negative,” the Voice responded. “Subject X1707 does not acknowledge Specimen’s embryo.”

  “Maybe not,” Evans exclaimed, gritting his teeth, “but Ryan does! You can’t expect him to allow you to destroy his unborn child—can you?”

  The hesitation of Ryan’s physical gestures and the Voice coincided in these moments. The emotion pouring forth from Ryan was something the aliens could not process as a rational response.

  “I know you can hear me, Ryan!” Evans shouted again. “Fight this thing with all your strength—with all your heart! Save your child!”

  With conflicting thoughts clashing in Ryan’s head, he collapsed on the chamber’s floor. Upon hitting the metal flooring, the boy’s eyes changed from silver to blue again. Though groggy and apparently disorientated, he looked at Evans and Hailey as if he wished they were not with him tonight. When Ryan spoke again, his voice had momentarily returned to normal.

  “Why did you come here?” he asked, dishearteningly.

  “I knew you heard me,” Evans stated, still trying to wedge his body off the gurney. “Help me, Ryan—help us both.”

  The orbs and spheres circulated the platform as Ryan rose to his feet. Ryan pivoted his eyes to Hailey, whose face still appeared precious to him. He slid his fingers across her neck to check for a pulse. She was still alive. Evans studied the boy’s anguished face as he tendered to the girl’s condition.

  “You can’t let us die like this,” Evans told Ryan. “Is there a way out of here?”

  Ryan did not respond immediately. Oddly, he was not in a hurry to go anywhere other than the place he presently stood. The spheres monitored Ryan’s actions vigilantly as he peered at the doctor. In those seconds, Evans stared into the boy’s tortured eyes. He discerned silver tears forming at each corner of each eye. These tears trickled down his cheeks and dripped in heavy splashes at the boy’s feet.

  “Is it true?” Evans uttered to Ryan. “Are you really what they claimed you are?”

  “I don’t want to be,” murmured Ryan, now paralyzed by the realization of his own destiny. “But there’s something stirring inside of me—it’s always been there. I feel it becoming stronger now. I don’t know how much longer I can control it.”

  “Can you stop it? Is there any way?”

  Before Ryan o
ffered another word, the spheres lit up in sequence, followed by a series of pulsating lights emitting from the orbs. Suddenly, Ryan felt his mind submitting to the Voice again. He did not even shield his face from the spheres’ mesmerizing lasers at this point. They flooded his eyes with silver energy.

  “Fight it, Ryan! It can’t beat you unless you give up!” Evans’s command had little influence on the present circumstances. Ryan drew his hands up to his ears, trying to deflect the intolerable noise humming inside his brain. But nothing prevented the strobes of light from regaining control of his mind. The Voice returned with a more definitive purpose.

  “Subject X1707, proceed with the experimentation. Specimens are ready for dissection. Commence with Specimen 01707.”

  “Fight it, Ryan! Don’t listen to it!”

  Ryan flung himself against the adjacent wall, still gripping at his temples as if to rip the Voice from his head manually.

  “Don’t let it hurt your child!” Evans persisted.

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “The Origin of Specimen 01707’s embryo is not yet confirmed.”

  “It’s your baby, Ryan! You know in your heart it is!” Evans exclaimed.

  The orbs throbbed with colored light more rapidly now, this time a red beam of light surged from each object. “Prepare Specimen 01707 for dissection,” the Voice repeated. Ryan’s mannerisms grew rigid as he staggered next to Hailey.

  Evans pleas still had not desisted. “You can stop this, Ryan! Don’t give up!”

  Ryan’s face lacked any discernable trace of compassion as his stare fell upon Hailey. He watched her belly rise and fall, anticipating the evenness of her breathing in this state of unconsciousness. Then, in an unexpected moment, she opened her eyes. As Hailey focused on Ryan’s face, her terror temporarily subsided. It was subsequently replaced by a numbness that prevented her from uttering a scream.

  “Ryan,” Hailey mumbled softly. “You’re alive.”

  “Don’t talk to him!” Evans interjected. “You must not listen to him, Hailey.”

  “What are you saying?” Hailey asked Evans. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Hailey directed her stare deeper into Ryan’s eyes. The truth, however cleverly hidden, became evident to her now. The figure standing beside her may have adopted Ryan’s physical structure, but Hailey suspected it was not the same person she knew before.

  “What are you going to do to me?” Hailey questioned Ryan, but she no longer depleted her energy by yelling. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “Subject X1707 does not acknowledge the word ‘kill’.”

  “Why are you speaking like this?” Hailey shivered. “Your name is Ryan Hayden—don’t you remember?”

  “Negative. Subject X1707 does not acknowledge that name.”

  “You lie!” Evans ejaculated again. “Don’t listen to this voice,” he then warned Hailey. “It’s trying to take over the boy’s mind!”

  “Ryan—is it true? Please—answer me,” Hailey sobbed.

  Ryan remained expressionless as he gazed down upon the gurneys. In the meantime, the spheres and orbs had encircled them once again. “Commence dissection procedures,” the Voice commanded.

  “You may dice us into pieces if it fits your purposes,” Evans snarled, “but no matter you do, you’ll never be better than us. You lack the one thing that you can’t hack out of a human cadaver—and that is feeling. This is why even the worst of our kind will always be superior to the best of your species.”

  Evans refrained from saying anything else, and his valiant efforts did not matter as much as he wished. But this outburst cleansed his soul. He was resigned to die with whatever dignity salvageable now. He could not tolerate, however, the sight of Hailey’s terrified expression as the orb centered over her gurney. The orb exuded another sequence of flashes, indicating that it was ready to proceed with the operation. All it waited for was the Voice’s order, but Ryan conducted a battle within his mind at this point. Instead of directing the orb for the final stage of this procedure, Ryan stumbled away from the gurneys and retreated from the chamber’s center.

  In this fleeting second of defiance, Ryan freed his mind from its invader once again. This time he managed to fully separate his conscious from the Voice. “She’s pregnant,” Ryan murmured as he looked at Hailey. “The child is mine,” he declared.

  Hailey was dumbfounded by Ryan’s statement. “Pregnant?” she uttered, in disbelief. “I…I can’t be.” Although she at first believed her words, she then recalled her encounter with Ryan. She immediately clasped her hands across her stomach, and cried convulsively. “How can this be?” she wept. Her eyes then closed in defeat; she seemed prepared to endure whatever fate awaited her now.

  Meanwhile, the two larger spheres continued to transmit signals throughout the chamber. Ryan stayed out of range of these lights, thereby preserving his own sense of awareness momentarily. But his rejection of the Voice did not automatically silence the force behind it. When the Voice spoke again, it transmitted electronically from both of the spheres in unison.

  “Subject X1707, complete the final stage of processing. Return to the dissection chamber and commence the operation.”

  Ryan hesitated while trying to devise his next course of action. “I can’t do that,” he hollered into the chamber. “They must be released unharmed. I’m requesting to abort this operation now.”

  “Negative,” responded the Voice. “Procedure must be completed.”

  “It’s over,” Ryan stated uncompromisingly. “Let my friends go now.”

  “Negative. Specimens scheduled for organ tissue analysis.”

  Rather than argue a point that could not be negotiated in the aliens’ minds, Ryan decided to persuade them in a way better known to human beings. He still wore the jacket he had ventured out with on this evening, and its interior pocket held the gun he snatched from his grandfather. Without offering a further explanation for his choice, Ryan brandished the weapon and pointed it at one of the larger spheres. He squeezed the gun’s trigger once, propelling a bullet into the sphere’s metal casing. The shot deflected partially upon impact, but it sent a sizable chunk of the damaged sphere spiraling against the chamber’s wall. A lighted panel on the sphere’s surface extinguished, and the entire object eventually crashed to the flooring and remained motionless.

  An alarm simultaneously echoed throughout the chamber, but Ryan maintained his focus on the other adversaries hovering within range of his defense. The smaller orbs had already retreated into the portals, but a single target remained. The gun still contained one bullet, and Ryan planned to use it on the larger sphere. He crept forward without hesitation, angling in front of the remaining sphere. His second shot proved to be just as resourceful as the first. Consequently, the bullet exploded against the sphere. The green lights encircling the chamber’s walls flickered and vanished as the object collapsed in a heap of shredded wreckage upon the floor. At this point, Ryan dropped the weapon and immediately returned to the chamber area to free his companions.

  “We don’t have much time,” Ryan said to Evans and Hailey. They both now had the ability to shift their bodies off the gurneys. Ryan helped Hailey to her feet as Evans jumped off the platform.

  “Can you get us out of here, Ryan?” Evans questioned heatedly. Ryan seemed to have knowledge of the interior’s layout, but he had no time to devise an escape plan.

  “They’ll be back for us,” said Ryan, “and they won’t stop until you’re dead.”

  “Please—tell us what’s happening, Ryan!” Hailey demanded. “Why are they doing this to us?”

  “I don’t have time to explain it right now,” said Ryan. “We just have to concentrate on getting out of here.”

  Without another second to squander, Ryan raced forward to the chamber’s opposite corner. The wall appeared colorless and smooth at first glance, but upon closer inspection Ryan observed a triangular sequence pad mounted on the wall. Assuming that Ryan had a b
etter understanding of this domain, Evans and Hailey followed him to this location. Ryan tapped a sequence of numbers into the pad with his finger, which in turn elevated a clear panel in the chamber’s wall.

  “Come on,” Ryan directed his followers, “we must hurry!”

  Evans and Hailey did not require additional encouragement. They proceeded through a narrow opening and found themselves dashing down a circular passageway adjacent to the chamber. Ryan guided them resourcefully, but they soon confronted another obstacle at the corridor’s far end. A clear panel blocked them from making any further progress.

  “We’re trapped,” Evans declared, throwing his fists against the translucent wall in front of him. “Can we go back the other way?” he then asked. Ryan advised against this suggestion, while continuing to search the area for another sequence pad. After a few frantic seconds, he located it recessed into the panel’s lower corner. He began to punch in a series of numbers on the pad’s lighted surface. Alarms vibrated the walls and even the floor beneath their feet.

  Instead of opening the panel, strobes of white and emerald energy flashed in a synchronized manner against the tubular walls. At the far end of the passage where they initially entered, another clear panel slid down, thereby sealing them on both sides.

  “The tunnel’s blocked on both ends now,” Hailey said, panicking.

  “We’re not in a tunnel,” Ryan corrected. “It’s an elevator platform. At least it should grant us some time to figure out what to do next.”

  “You mean you don’t know?” Evans asked, despairingly.

  “It was never supposed to get this far,” Ryan declared with some reservation. “You’re not supposed to be alive right now, Doctor Evans.”

  “Please—Ryan, tell us what’s going on,” Hailey pleaded. “Who is chasing us? What do they want?”

  The truth, as Ryan and Evans understood it, was too upsetting to divulge to Hailey at this time. Rather than make the situation worse, Ryan ignored Hailey’s questions and concentrated on his next endeavor, for he knew they were still in great peril. “We can’t hold them off in here for too much longer,” Ryan informed Evans. “They’ll have access to this platform within seconds.”

  “How do you know so much information?” Evans asked Ryan. “Why did they tell you so much—and us nothing?”

  “You’re not going to like anything I reveal to you now,” Ryan remarked.

  “Nevertheless,” Evans stated, “before Hailey or I let you lead us any further, we need to know if we can trust you.”

  “Trust will come later,” replied Ryan, “if it comes at all.”

  Evans could not argue the point that whatever Ryan planned to do had to be a superior alternative to what awaited them in the dissection chamber. The doctor remained silent and focused his efforts on trying to pacify Hailey, who had nearly frightened herself into a fetal position against the platform’s floor. In the meantime, Ryan returned his attention to the sequence pad again, this time tapping in code after code in hopes of altering their circumstances. Frustration bloomed in his tired, gray eyes, hinting to the danger swarming closer to them with each ensuing second.

  “Let me help you, Ryan,” Evans implored, while placing his hand on the boy’s shoulder to attract his attention away from the blinking sequence pad. Ryan brushed the doctor’s hand away, as though he was ashamed of his own identity. Evans sensed a sort of desperation in the boy’s mannerisms. “I want to believe there’s still time to help you, Ryan,” he offered. “I think we can beat this thing if we stick together.”

  “Were not you even listening back there?” Ryan scolded the doctor. “Didn’t you hear it? It told you what I am. Now you know the truth.”

  “I guess I didn’t want to think it was possible,” Evans murmured.

  “What is he talking about?” Hailey asked Evans. She then pivoted her eyes toward Ryan and said sorrowfully, “Is it true, Ryan? Am I really…pregnant?”

  Ryan withheld his response and redirected his energy to the sequence pad. “One of these codes must work,” he thought aloud, still pressing numerous buttons on the flashing pad in front of him.

  “What are you trying to do?” Evans asked him.

  “Move the elevator’s platform.”

  “Move it? Just tell me where we are, Ryan?”

  “We’re in the processing chamber, Doctor Evans,” replied Ryan. “When they brought me in here for briefing, I tried to memorize the codes. If we can operate the platform, you’ll have a chance—”

  “I need some answers from you, Ryan!” Evans demanded, pounding his fists against the panel. “It doesn’t matter if I live or die—I just want to know what the hell is going on here.”

  “I never told you to follow me here,” Ryan told Evans. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

  “Just tell us precisely where we are,” Evans returned.

  “You’re aboard a shuttle,” Ryan indicated. “It’s a spacecraft.”

  “A spacecraft?” Evans repeated, looking around himself in wonder. “In other words, are you saying we’re being held captive aboard a UFO?”

  “This is a joke,” Hailey interjected, but she then realized that a prank of this magnitude could not have been orchestrated so convincingly. Her tone changed to near resentment when she addressed Ryan again. “How could you let this happen to us? I trusted you.”

  “I didn’t know this was going to occur, Hailey. I came here tonight searching for my parents—thinking they might still be alive.”

  “But you’ve found out otherwise,” Evans noted solemnly. “They were brought here just like us. Sadly, their fates were determined long before they died.”

  Before Ryan commented, the sequence pad flashed orange under the weight of his fingertips. This activated the platform, which immediately caused the floor to vibrate beneath their feet. The entire compartment began to ascend into an unseen shaft. “Hold on,” Ryan advised. “We’re going up.”

  “Up to where?” Hailey inquired, still shivering from her place upon the floor. “Is this the way out, Ryan?”

  “Yes—tell us, Ryan,” Evans piped in sarcastically. “Is this truly the way out—or should we expect to be greeted by more aliens?”

  “We’d be better off to avoid them now,” said Ryan.

  “Did you see them with your own eyes? Didn’t you wonder why they’re doing this to us—and others?”

  “They told me, Doctor Evans,” Ryan admitted as he braced himself against the side of the platform’s wall. “The important thing now is to get you and Hailey off this ship. These aliens don’t want to be discovered, and they’ll do anything to preserve the secrecy of this operation.”

  “How much do you know?” Evans asked fervently.

  “More than I ever wanted,” Ryan confessed. “But whatever my own fate may be, I don’t want the same for you or Hailey. If any part of me is still human, I wish to use it now to save you both.”

  As the platform elevated rapidly through a maze of whirling lights and elongated columns, Hailey’s perplexity deepened. Though she detected a distinct peculiarity in Ryan’s demeanor, she never imagined that he literally questioned his own humanity. Regardless of the feelings she now harbored for Ryan, she edged closer to Evans’s shoulder for the reassurance and safety she so desired. When the platform’s elevation stopped, another panel opened to reveal the only available exit. For Evans, the getaway seemed almost too convenient.

  “They must know we’ve escaped,” said Evans. “Why aren’t they following us?”

  “I’m not sure,” Ryan replied. “But we can’t go back.”

  “Where does this passage lead?” Evans asked, pointing to the platform’s opening.

  “We’ll have to cross through the storage facility in order to get to the exit,” Ryan indicated. “It’s the only way out.”

  “What’s in the storage facility?”

  “The reason why you’re here, Doctor Evans.”

  Ryan stepped out of the platform first. He knew Evans and
Hailey had no other choice but to follow him now. They progressed to the passageway’s end. No one in company was surprised to see another panel barricading the ship’s adjoining section. But as Ryan approached the sequence pad, he did not need to fidget with its numbers. The pad flashed orange and the panel slid open automatically.

  “They’re expecting us,” Evans proclaimed, knowingly. “Maybe we should find an alternate route.”

  “There isn’t one, Doctor Evans,” Ryan insisted. “This is our last chance.”

  “I’m not so certain—”

  “We should keep moving,” Hailey interrupted the doctor. “I don’t want to turn around.”

  “So be it,” Evans declared. He clung to his reservations steadfastly, but offered no proposal for an alternate strategy. As much as he never imagined it conceivable, his own life was now dependent upon Ryan Hayden’s guidance.