“Transfer chamber?” Ellis says.
Heather shakes her head and looks down at the ground. “I’m not sure what it is exactly, just that it strips the flesh from the bones and the soul from the body… or something like that.”
“God!” Stu says.
“Anything else?” Ellis asks after a few moments of silence have passed. “Anything.”
Heather cocks her head to one side, as if trying to shake out any remaining memories that might be stubbornly clinging to her mind.
“The young women are usually small in size and frequently very fertile. The men are used for sperm, that’s it. I have no idea why they prefer small to average size men.”
“Might be for control purposes,” Stu says.
“Might be,” Heather continues. “I only mention the most common people you’ll find down there are the small, young men and the petite women.” She shakes her head and stares at Ellis. “But, let me stress that there are all types of people being held against their will in that base! There are tall, heavy men and women that are big too. There are, teenagers, elderly folks and very young girls in those cages… grade school kids.” She frowns and shakes her head. “They’re in the vats, too.”
After that last Heather buries her head in her hands and starts to cry. Ellis looks at Stu guiltily, as if he were the cause of this, while Stu just rushes forward to put his hands on Heather’s shoulders to comfort her.
“I’m… sorry,” Heather says through her tears, trying to look up at Ellis and Stu again.
“No, no!” both men say at the same time, their hands out in front of them in placating gestures. It doesn’t work and the tears continue. Ellis finally finishes with a, “Maybe we should—”
“Heather!”
The shout comes from behind them, and both Ellis and Stu turn.
“Mark!” Heather shouts out from behind them, and just as both men’s eyes focus on Ellis’s son. Neither are able to say anything, for Heather jumps from the exam table and nearly knocks them over as she begins rushing across the room.
“Oh, Heather!” Mark says when the two of them meet in the middle of the room and embrace. They look into each other’s eyes, and Mark begins to wipe away her tears. “I never thought I’d see you again,” he says. “Thank God I was wrong!”
Heather just looks up at him, smiling, with a fresh round of tears coming… though tears of happiness this time.
“Um…” Stu says, looking from Ellis to Mark and back again, while Ellis gives an audible clearing of his throat. Neither Mark nor Heather look over at them.
“Do you two know each other?” Ellis asks a moment later. That finally elicits a response from Mark.
“Yeah, dad, we do. And I’ll tell you what, I think we’ll be leaving.” He says that last looking from Heather to his father. “It’s been a long day — for all of us — but for the abductees like Heather here the most. She needs rest, and I’ll walk her back to her room and make sure she gets it.”
Both men nod to that, though Mark doesn’t notice. He’s already helping Heather to her feet, his arm around her shoulders and a concerned look on his face. He gives a nod to both men as he passes them, then gets the door open. A moment later they’re out in the hallway and Ellis and Stu are alone once again.
6 — Abductions
Ellis watches them go. When they’re gone, however, he stops forcing himself to smile and lets his frown come out. He lets out a sigh and shakes his head while putting hands on his hips. He’s just about to say what’s on his mind when he happens to glance up. The expression on Stu’s face stops all thoughts cold.
“What are you lookin’ at me like that for, Stu?” he says with a laugh, though a nervous one at that.
Stu immediately straightens up and looks away, stopping the intent staring he was giving Ellis’s way. “Uh… it’s nothing. Nothing! Just had my mind wander off there for a sec.”
Ellis narrows his eyes at Stu, as if he’s not sure he’s getting the full story. For his part, Stu just hopes what he was told in his room after the debriefing isn’t true. If it is, well… he knows this could very well be the last time he talks to Ellis.
“Been a long night, I know,” Ellis says a moment later, then focuses back on the matter at hand. “How much of what she says is true?”
“Heather?” Stu says, relieved that Ellis has changed the subject. “From what we’re getting or from the other reports?” Stu asks the question then scoffs. “Why, all of it!”
“All of it?” Ellis says, turning to look back at him with his face screwed up in disbelief.
Stu nods. “Over 90 % of the female abductees report being inseminated by aliens… and the other 10 % probably were but can’t remember.”
“Are they trying to hybridize our species?”
“Yes,” Stu says without pause. “They’re breeding slave-warriors for the upcoming war with the other alien races.”
“The Pleiadians?”
Stu nods again. “Them, as well as the Sirians. The Grays will have help from the serpentine races in orbit around Earth, Venus and Mars.”
Ellis sighs, looking very much his 65 years. He glances around, sees the table that Heather was just sitting on, and gets up on it himself. He begins to slowly kick his feet back and forth as they hang down from the table and above the floor, much as a child would as they waited for the doctor to come and see them. The only sucker that’ll be seen at the end of this examination, Ellis thought to himself, will be me.
“How could we have been so dumb,” he says after a few moments of sitting there, his legs swaying.
Stu scoffs. “What’s ‘dumb,’ exactly? Making what we thought was a good decision twenty-five years ago only to find out it was shit?” He scoffs again, shakes his head. “And much of what’s taking place was set in stone long before Ike made that deal back in the 50s. Hell, remember what your own son said back at the briefing last night before we even went into Dulce?”
Mark narrows his eyes at Stu as if he’s not quite sure, but says nothing.
“The first Gray motherships came over a three year period,” Stu continues, using that near-photographic memory of his to recall exactly what Mark had said just hours before, “from 1787 to 1789… right as the French Revolution was getting underway. He talked of probe ships that they’d sent way back in 1645.” He scoffed again as he said that last, drawing Ellis’s eyes. “Can you believe that? My God, 300 years ago! And they kept comin’ — another mothership behind the sun in 1859 and then one behind Mars fifty years after that.”
“Don’t forget the one behind Pluto, either,” Ellis says, “the one that looks like a moon.”
“The moon we haven’t discovered… yet.”
Ellis looks up at Stu. “You know that Mark has spent a great deal of time off-world, and you know that he’s served with the 177th.”
Stu nods. “I know.”
“Ellis, you know how I feel about time travel. If we can—”
Ellis holds up his hands, stopping Stu’s words. “Stu, you know how I feel about this, and you know how General Anderholt feels about this.”
Stu’s face screws up in exasperation. “I know, but—”