“Are there any heavier free weights?” she asked, so the body builders nodded numbly.
She was shown a bar with the maximum of 500 lbs on each side.
She simply lifted it above her head as if she were lifting up the trunk of a car.
“That’s 1000 pounds!” said the sergeant, utterly incredulous.
She put the weights down gently. There was total silence in the room.
Jim recovered first.
“Sergeant, tell me what you just saw?” he said to the amazed sergeant.
“Sir, even if I told anyone, who the hell would believe me? I saw absolutely nothing, sir.”
Jim smiled.
“That’is right.” he said, and then watched as each man took on a glazed expression and then shook their heads as if to clear something.
Michelle smiled.
“Too much for me. Maybe I’ll try something smaller,” she said, and the men wandered off.
“You erased their memories?” Kyle asked.
“Not really, they simply will remember me not lifting 1000 lbs, and not running in an unusual time.”
“You can do that?”
“Kyle, you’d be amazed at what I can do. Believe me, you do need to have me on your side,” she said.
They walked slowly back to Jim’s office, and Michelle picked up disquieting thoughts from both men, particularly Jim.
“Colonel, if we need to convince the powers that be, then let me find a colony. I will not endanger anyone, on either side of this, but at least we can enter dialogue. In nearly every movie, TV show and book, the USA always meets aliens with suspicion and weapons. This time, we could try something different.” she said.
Jim smiled.
“If it were up to me, things would be easy, but as soon as politicians get involved, then we are in deep shit.”
“Sir, just how have you described Michelle?”
“At her suggestion, she is an innocent member of the public who had a close encounter, and has come away with an in depth understanding of the aliens. It is as if she has been selected by the aliens to act as an emissary to open negotiations on their behalf, and to start to build bridges for generations that will follow to cross, or not.”
“They bought it?”
“Probably not, but I’m hoping they will be convinced,” Jim said as they entered his office once more.
“Not by my showing off, that’s for sure. No, we need much more that silly tricks,” Michelle said.
“Like?” asked Jim.
“Just give me a moment, I may be able to work something out,” she said, sitting in the chair with her eyes closed.
They sat in silence for minutes. The wall clock ticked steadily, but Kyle was aware of nothing save the girl seated just in front of him.
He took the opportunity to study her in greater detail than he had been able to previously.
She wore little make up, just some mascara and the faintish eye shadow. Her full lips were red, but he couldn’t tell whether it was natural or artificially coloured. Her complexion was the most perfect he had ever seen and, as a doctor, he had seen a great many. Everything about her seemed as if it was perfectly formed. Her eyes, the shape of her face, her teeth, and even her figure; although a tall woman, she was completely proportionate, and so utterly feminine.
Regardless of her femininity, there was little evidence of an unlimited hidden strength and power, and he smiled as he recalled her words, ‘You really never want to piss me off.’
The minutes dragged by and Jim began to fidget. He too had been examining the girl. His mind was not on her beauty or inner strength, but on her potential and the dangers she both posed and could be facing.
<<I pose no danger to anyone who seeks no harm of me,>> she thought, and he looked into her newly opened eyes.
<<I’m sorry, I was just thinking.>>
<<I know. No offence taken, but for those who seek to harm me or my friends, then they will regret the moment they decided that course of action.>>
<<You mean the aliens?>>
<<Not necessarily. I mean my friends.>>
He smiled. <<Am I a friend?>>
<<I don’t know yet. Are you?>> she thought, and those blue eyes of hers seemed to bore deep within his soul.
They stared at each other, and Jim made a decision.
He nodded.
<<Yes Michelle. I’m a friend.>>
She smiled at him, but it was as if a dark curtain had been drawn back. He opened his mind to her, which she declined to enter, merely touching him with her warmth.
<<Friends trust each other. I will not intrude again, unless you give me reason to.>>
He nodded and glanced at Kyle. Kyle was lost in admiration of the girl’s beauty, so he was miles away.
Michelle smiled, as his mind was an open book, one that perhaps should have been censored.
“Kyle, Honey. Hello?” Michelle said, and Kyle started and smiled with embarrassment.
“Sorry, I wasn’t with it,” he said.
Michelle gave him a knowing look and he blushed again. She didn’t need to increase his embarrassment.
Jim frowned. Michelle was capable of communicating independently with two people at once, so he was very pleased to have chosen to be her friend.
“Okay, I’ve contacted one of them. I need a good guide who knows the desert in New Mexico.”
“New Mexico. Why there?”
“There’s a new colony being planted there as we speak. Apparently, they landed there several months ago, and there was an incident. I was unable to ascertain the nature of the incident, but they moved over one hundred kilometres further away from danger, having already set up an underground colony,” she said, turning to Jim. “But then you already know about that, don’t you?”
Jim and Kyle exchanged glances.
“The incident involved a police officer. We believe he saved one of the aliens, and there was evidence that they tried to save him. His body showed signs of some form of medical intervention. Our suspicion at the time was that they somehow constructed a clone of him, in gratitude and repayment for services rendered,” Jim explained.
“You thought I was that clone?” she said. “Now that explained your confusion in London and the need to obtain my DNA. Did you get enough off my hairbrush?”
The men looked embarrassed, again.
“I think we need to be honest with each other,” Jim said, and explained everything that had happened and his rationale for pursuing her.
She sat and nodded, a small smile playing across her lips. Kyle smiled as he watched her. She already knew all this, what was her game?
<<To survive, what’s yours?>> she thought, without taking her eyes off Jim.
<<I used to think it was to learn the truth. Now I think I want to understand what truth is,>> he thought back, making her smile all the more.
<<Truth? Now there’s a thing. I think truth is like smoke, as it changes shape in the wind,>> she thought, as Jim brought his account to an end.
“Okay, now my turn. I was an abductee and, as you surmised, I am a partial construct, though entirely human, my DNA is of a peculiar nature. As you know I’m an enhanced constructee, so should the public at large get to know, they would either love me or hate and fear me. I have three overriding imbedded mental commands, somewhat like a robot, I suppose, but then those who ‘made’ me have to protect their survival.
“These have not been programmed into me, as part of any grand master-plan, but rather they are aspects of my existing character that have been enhanced in line with the rest of me to the point of becoming compunctions that are almost impossible to disobey. One, I can do nothing to harm them. Two, I will not allow anything to happen to put humans at risk of danger, unless they threaten other humans or the aliens. The third is a little obscure, and accounts for my rather weird behaviour relating to crime and criminals.
“I must fight corruption and injustice whenever I have an opportunity to do so. Hence the Avenging Angel, I guess.”