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Author's Chapter Notes:

Meet Dr. Sorren as she arrives at her new place of work, and what that work is.

 

 

The window of the car did not offer much of a view as the passengers stared at the passing scenery.  With her eyes to the horizon, Sierra watched the dust move and the air ripple from the desert heat.  The perimeter fence was there, off in the distance.  It was there to keep intruders out, but Sierra had a nagging suspicion it had other purposes as well.  Namely, she was on the inside, and she was not necessarily there willingly.  She had no idea why she was there, in fact.  Only the word of two men in black suits taking over her research and much of her whole life.  Plenty of times in her past, Sierra had applied for jobs.  This was the first she felt entirely forced to take.

    Nellis Air Force Base, not much to look at from the outside; but the stories about it were far more than enough to inspire a sense of anxiety.  In any other circumstances, she would have been ecstatic to even be setting foot on this base, but now that she was looking at the buildings pass, there was a dread.  She didn’t feel like a guest of the establishment, she felt like she had been tapped for something not entirely above board.

    The car finally came to a halt in front of a small building, and a uniformed guard opened the door.  A man was there waiting for her, another black suit.  “Dr. Sierra Sorren?  My name is William Oberlin,” he said as he extended his hand.  “Thank you for accepting our invitation, come this way.  The facility is mostly underground, and your credentials haven’t been run through the system yet, so I’ll be your escort.”

    “My credentials?”  Sierra asked as she tried to gather her wits.

    He responded quickly, a fair smile on his rather handsome face, “yes ma’am.  Your clearance was elevated to the necessary level to function here, and a lab is waiting for you,” the man then chuckled as he nodded, expressing his realization.  “Yes,   We pulled your record, saw a lot of potential and we have a project in desperate need of your expertise.”  He held the door open to the small building, and revealing a guard’s desk and an elevator.  “We called you in simply because we’ve been following your research, and the grants you’ve filed.  Honestly your work shows a great deal of promise.”

    “My work appeared on a computer-animated television documentary about a fictional alien planet, Mr. Oberlin.  Now I’m at Area 51 and about to get into an elevator with a man in black.  I’m a medical doctor, not an idiot.”  Sierra pushed her glasses back up to the ridge of her nose, and pushed her dirty blonde locks from her eyes.  She didn’t know whether to be terrified or excited.  What was she getting into?  What was waiting for her?

    “I’m not talking about your work in the public sector, Dr. Sorren.  Your grant on a stable breakdown of possible extra-terrestrial biological components had a number of our own staff jealous.  They tend to not appreciate that.”  Oberlin spoke as the elevator closed, and began to descend.  “With what we can only assume was basic means you formulated a complex gene code, and a series of possible DNA routes; and that is exactly what our new project is needing.”  He looked at her, and she stared back with a look of surprise.  “Yes, I’ve done my research, what I could understand at least.”

    “So, is the government bringing me here to over-scrutinize of my research too?  The term xenophysiologist is not exactly one that got me many peer-reviews.  I haven’t published a journal in three years.”  Sierra fidgeted as the elevator continued to drop, as it had for a rather long time.  “I theorize possible xenobiological factors because it has wider uses than just Discovery Channel time blocks.  Pushing the bar on genetic science is something we desperately need.”

    The elevator came to a halt.  The doors opened to a sort of lobby, but filled with people moving to and fro.  It reminded Sierra of a beehive.  She stepped out, and the attendant just inside the door took Oberlin’s papers and scanned his badge.  All the while, Sierra found herself mesmerized by the size of the structure.  It was wide open, had cool airflow, even windows which showed an outside panorama, obviously some sort of fake.  This was a very impressive facility.

    “You’ll need a coat, Dr. Sorren,” Oberlin said as he handed a lab overcoat to Sierra.  “Also, we need to get you to your lab right now.  Basically we are needing an overview, and we can’t wait for settling in.  It’s rather urgent.”

    “Urgent?  Ah--okay.  I still don’t understand what’s going on?”

    Oberlin nodded, as if that was a fair question but didn’t answer it.  “You’ll have everything you need to do your work.  Anything you don’t have will be provided.  Once you assess the subjects, then you can request your team, we have a number of references for you to process.”

They reached a long hallway, with three completely different sets of locked doors, each with a different mechanism.  The guards that ushered them through were armed, and Sierra suddenly felt herself becoming far more nervous.  She wasn’t large, and every guard they passed looked like he was part bull, or bear.  Her mousey features and large glasses obviously did not impress these men either, as they simply stared as she passed.  Through hallways, doors, and two entirely separate labs finally brought the pair to an airlock-like passage. There was fogged glass, and on the other side she could see moving figures.  Their shadows were long from the obvious lab coats they wore, perhaps other members of the staff she was now part of?

“This is the research and control station where you’re assigned.  The lead researcher is Dr. Beckenstein, he’s in charge of this area and the project,” Oberlin swiped his card, and his pleasant expression darkened.  “Look, I’m not supposed to do anything but bring you here… but this is not a happy project.  It’s had problems, a few people got hurt.  Honestly, you’re a last ditch effort because your history has been very promising.  You have a heart… and that stood out to the big man upstairs,” Oberlin spoke in a hushed voice at the end as the airlock began to cycle open.  “This project needs you, and from what I learned from your previous colleagues… it needs you to be you.  You are part of it, but don’t report to the research team, you’re autonomous.  It’s a lot to take in, but the shock is going to be worse.”  Oberlin’s hushed voice was sending chills through Sierra, overlapping those that were already there.  “Remember, you report to others, not anyone in here.  That’s all you need to know now.  Please… be who she needs you to be.”

“Be… who she needs me to be?  Who is she?”  Sierra asked, confused and a little frightened.  She let Oberlin usher her into the airlock, a tube that slowly spun from one doorway to the next.  “I don’t understand.”

“I know.  Be strong, be smart… I trust you.”  Oberlin ended the conversation as he hit the switch, and the aperture began to spin.

The rush of air, filling the small space with a somewhat acrid scent, blew Sierra’s hair back.  She instantly recognized antiseptic, but something else that she couldn’t place.  As the airlock spun, she waited with bated breath.  What would she find, what would she see?  A hundred thoughts running through her head.  She was a proclaimed xenophysiologist, a theoretical researcher… and she was in Area 51.  It didn’t take a genius to bring her already profound doubt into even greater question.  “I think I’m about to see an alien,” she whispered to herself.  Surprised more by the lack of shock than she was from the impact of that idea.

As the airlock smoothly slid to a halt, hissing at her one last time, Sierra stepped out into the awaiting control room.  A reddish glow filled it, only lessened by the overhead lights.  Four massive windows were in front of her that looked out on a very large enclosure.  The sight overrode whatever ideas and considerations she had been stressing over.  It was dark, and red, and gave Sierra a pit in her stomach as she looked through the windows on the far side of the room.  But, it was inside that gloomy environment that she focused on more than anything else.

Her attentive eye went to work.  In the center of the enclosure was a shape, a very big shape that had properties she recognized.  It was a creature, but far too big to be human.  Despite its size being decidedly impressive, it was a familiar body structure.  Sierra took slow steps towards the windows as she mumbled, basking in details and observations; completely caught up in wrapping her mind around what she was seeing.  The being had coal-colored skin, long protrusions that looked like ears directing upwards, and had a powerful build.  It was familiar, and yet so very alien.  On its head were what she could only describe to herself as fins, and they emitted a sort of luminescence all of their own.  Now standing only a few inches from the glass, Sierra covered her mouth with her hand.  She was overwhelmed, so taken in by the thought, the realization that what she was looking at was real.

And her eyes focused on just how real it was.  That reality coming to a very bitter realization.  Diodes, sensors, tabs of all kinds hung from the ceiling and floor to connect to the creature.  It was so big a second story catwalk was built to access its head.  There was a mask over what she imagined was an elongated snout, and it was strapped and locked on tight.  Her eyes darted down the creature’s arms, seeing locks and connectors to bindings, and heavy chains.  Her teeth clenched, there was even more but she couldn’t break her gaze from what she was seeing.  Those were chains, this creature was being restrained in a way that her very soul could only see as the most barbaric method imaginable.  “Are those… anchor chains?”  She gasped.

Her voice drew someone’s attention, and a voice rose up, “Excuse me?  Who the hell are you and how did you get in here?”

Whirling about, Sierra saw a man marching towards her with a face like she would expect to see on a police officer’s after catching her shoplifting.  He didn’t even make it halfway to her when a red-striped phone began to ring just in front of him.  The man slowed to a halt, glaring at her, but picked up the phone.  “Contact One, what is--yes sir… I wasn’t told--yes someone is here, a woman.  She’s what, sir?”  The scientist on the phone was becoming visibly unnerved the longer he spoke.  “Sir, I understand but if I may protest.  This is my project and I have used every--that was an isolated--but she is not even… yes sir.”

It was obvious from his stuttering speech the individual on the line was not only a superior, but very angry.  Sierra waited, unsure, still feeling anger of her own.  Her fingers fidgeted at her side, dealing with the anxious energy from the heat in her veins.

“Her name is what, sir?  That’s… yes sir.  I understand.  Directly to whom?  But, I picked my staff personally, sir.  She isn’t--that is true sir, but she could very well jeopardize the conditions that I have established.  Yes sir… yes sir.  I understand.  No, sir, you’ve made yourself perfectly clear.  Yes sir,” the man hung up the phone.

For that single moment, Sierra thought she saw his face look a little paler.  But it passed, and the man walked up to her, his jaw clenched tight as he raised his hand.  She took it, and the awkward silent moment dragged for a harsh few seconds.

“Dr. Gruber Beckenstein, I’m the director for Project Contact One.  You must be Sierra Sorren.”

“Yes, Dr. Beckenstein, that is me,” Sierra said in a dull tone.

“I was instructed to provide you with whatever you need, so I imagine you are finished gaping at our subject, and would like access to the notes and tests.”

“I want inside,” she said without hesitation.

    Dr. Beckenstein was taken aback, his eyes narrowing as he regained his stride.  “You want inside, as in with the subject?  Absolutely not.  We already have more than enough data to provide you, and you can start your work there.”

    Sierra was scared, nervous, but she grasped as deep inside as she could and squared herself in her mind.  “Dr. Beckenstein, I understand you are the project director and that must mean quite a lot to you but I was brought in completely in the dark and if that is how this place wants to employ me then it is going to play by my methods.  I have no idea who I report to, but I was very directly told that I have autonomy, and that I would be provided whatever I need.  I need to be provided access to this subject.”  She felt flushed, more effort used in keeping her voice from wavering than anything else.

    The expression on Dr. Beckenstein’s face was stony, but his eyes squinted behind his thick glasses.  “You understand that this subject is restrained, and for damn good reason?  It’s insanely strong and, if you hadn’t noticed, thirteen feet tall.”

“Dr. Beckenstein… please.  Let me in,” Sierra said, keeping her mind made up.

He murmured a curse but did not press further.  His displeasure was obvious as he moved to the control panel to the entranceway.  He wore it like an aura, an armored suit of disdain.  That troubled Sierra, just like everything around her was troubling.  She wasn’t even entirely sure what she was going to do, but she knew she had to do it.  There was a feeling, not just in her heart but in what Oberlin had told her.

    A click, and a hiss, and the doorway began to open.  It was another airlock, a small room and a second gate to keep the enclosure secure.  There were encounter suits inside, air supplies, and all the otherwise normal equipment for entering a dangerous or sterile environment.  Stepping inside, Sierra pressed the seal button, and the door slowly closed behind her.  She began to don the suit, something she had done enough times before that she remembered what went where.  The hiss of the final gate sounded it beginning to open, and Sierra met the noise with an anxiety she had been battling since the moment she realized what she was doing.  She was entering a room with a true, tangible, real life creature of which she had never seen its like.  A thousand theories, speculations, problems, and other thoughts burned in her mind.  As the gate began to move, she pushed them down.

    She knew, deep down, she needed to know something.  Entering the room, the reddish tint changed to a soft purple.  The lights shifted, one set going out and another turning on.  Sierra stepped into the enclosure, watching a haze begin to cover the plastic shield in front of her face.  The temperature and humidity was higher inside, just enough to cause a slight fogging.  As she stepped closer, and closer, she saw the creature in a better light, not through a window but up close and true.  She watched the chest fill, and flow.  It was breathing; stable normative breathing that showed a similar lung structure.  She recognized muscle patterns as she approached, the alien hunched down slightly and showing its impressive body.

    Her analytical side was in overdrive, even as Sierra tried to focus.  She noted the slightly reptilian appearance of the skin, but as her eyes traveled up she saw the chest was built very much like that of a mammalian female.  She had breasts… she.  Oberlin’s words came back to her, and Sierra brought her hand up and covered where her mouth was under the suit.  She was a few meters back still, watching this beautiful creature wait.  Wait for what, Sierra didn’t know.  Her eyes were darting across probes, diodes, sensing tabs, and dozens of other items scattered over her body.  It was like something from her worst nightmare, seeing a patient in such condition and ignorant disarray.  She felt bile roil in her stomach, and her hand shook as she drew it away.

    She took a step closer, and purple glowing spots opened on the creature’s face.  Her eyes, she had opened her eyes.  Sierra froze, a silent gasp frozen in her lungs.  She stared, and the creature stared back.  Neither of them moved.  The alien staring down silently at Sierra, watching her from violet pools of radiant glow.  The small doctor felt herself being lost in those eyes.  Lost in their soft light, how very beautiful they appeared.  She took a step closer as she raised her hand, holding out a hope that maybe she could see them closer.

    The creature moved back ever so slightly, and a rumbling growl shook the whole room.  It was a sound like an earthquake, a thunder that emerged deep from within the creature and shook the very air.  It froze Sierra where she was.  Fear was there, pestering and nibbling at her deepest insecurities as she saw just how powerful this being was.  She had drug the large chains on her wrists without so much as visible difficulty.

    “Please,” Sierra heard a whisper in her suit, and started when she realized she had said it.  She raised her hands, slowly taking another step forward.  She would not give in to fear.  “I’m not here to… hurt you.”  The creature growled again, and her wrist pulled against the chain with a very loud bang.  This once again froze Sierra where she was.  She was very quickly putting herself into the path of mortal danger.  That thought, and that moment to join it, gave her the will to do what she knew needed done.

    Her hands pulled up, no longer facing palms towards the subject but reaching to her containment suit and grabbed the headpiece.  She yanked, and twisted, and the hiss of her disconnected air supply sounded as she pulled it off.  The intercom immediately barked to life, a voice she didn’t recognize shouting to put her suit back on, but Sierra simply waved her hand at them.  The warmth of the room hit her skin, there was a scent to it like earth after a rainstorm.  It was a good scent.  Grabbing her gloves, Sierra pulled those off too.  The creature was watching her the entire time, silent.  It’s eyes focused on her, and the force of only her attention was fairly powerful on the small doctor.  That was a piercing stare.

    Sierra was not dissuaded.  She dropped the gloves, and took another step forward.  “Please,” she said again.  “I’m not here to hurt you.  My name is Sierra Sorren.”  She came to the barriers around the creature, a box made of a very thick, transparent material that had no roof.  It had a doorway she could step through, and she would be right next to the alien.  She did so, without a moment’s hesitation.  “I’m sorry,” she whispered, looking at the wires and cables so strewn about the being’s body.  “This is… horrible.”
    “This is what it is,”  The alien muttered, a growl hinted in her words.  Her voice was womanly, and very strong.  It was muffled by the mask, but powered through to Sierra where she stood.  That was a shock to the small doctor.  She spoke English, and well.  An accent for sure, but English.

    That simplified at least some things, Sierra thought.  As she finally came to a stop and looked up at the impressive creature, she basked a moment in the complete and utter confirmation of her entire life’s work to that point.  She did not smile, did not show anything but a reverence for the fact of what kneeled there in front of her.  Pushing her glasses higher up her nose was the action that broke her silent stand.  She walked slowly forward, aware of how close she was getting.  Fear was eating at her insides.  Real and honest fear, this creature looked immensely powerful.  It was Sierra’s experience that when something was physically imposing enough to appear as such, it was likely even more so in practice.  The thick chains alone gave heed to that.

    And the twisted feeling that was making her sick to her stomach.  She stared at the chains, feeling her jaw twitch and her teeth grind.  She had walked into a den of monsters.  A state of the art facility caging and chaining an individual such as this like they lived in the medieval ages.  She felt her hands shaking, clenching them tightly to try and get it to stop.  She looked up again, and saw the alien woman was still watching.  Sierra could hear her breathing, watching the edges of the mask fog each time.  Mask, or was it a muzzle?  Bile rose in Sierra throat, but she was not going to back down.  She focused on the sound of the breathing, that heavy and smooth sound, rising and falling with the creature’s chest.  No… the woman’s chest.

    “May I see your hand?”  Sierra asked quietly.  She looked at all the probes and wires, knowing how easy it would be to look at a screen.  How simple to just grab numbers off a chart.  How easily all these researchers had totally disconnected themselves by doing just that.  And to a small amount of surprise, Sierra watched the alien woman lower her hand.

    It was palm down, the smoky coal skin was textured, and it was warm.  With gentle and slow movements, Sierra reached up and slipped a hand under one of the fingers.  Her whole hand could not even fit around a single digit, barely even halfway.  The feeling was rough, reminding Sierra a little of her days at the Zoo.  She remembered helping to feed the elephants, remembered how they would pluck the food from her hand and she would feel their rough skin.  This was smoother, but the memory was strong.

    She softly squeezed the finger, the knuckle, following it toward the woman’s hand.  Sierra couldn’t feel to the bone, there was too much muscle and she wasn’t anywhere near strong enough to grip that hard.  That much muscle, and the tension of it Sierra could feel sent a shock of fear through her.  This being was immensely powerful.  She was so close, and the danger was real.  Still, she stayed, controlling her desire to run.  She could feel the arteries pumping beneath the skin.  It took her attention again, and she placed two fingers hard at the wrist.  Sierra counted silently, finally looking up at the creature after she pulled back her hand.  “I… didn’t think you were real.  It’s… you’re incredible.”

    “Are you done?”  The words came as a growl.

    Swallowing hard, Sierra looked back down at the arm.  She placed her hand on it, trying to understand what to do.  She heard movement coming from the airlock, guards in suits waiting to enter.  She knew they wanted her out, especially without her suit.  She didn’t really care.  There was a pain in her throat and chest as she looked at all the instruments attached to the arm.  She didn’t care at all.  She reached up, and began pulling the tabs and diodes off.  The tape tore as she snatched and ripped, angrily huffing as she let the wings swing and fall.  She ducked under the arm, pulling the cuff from around the being’s leg, her face turning pink from the exertion.

    By the time the guards reached her, Sierra had pulled off the wires and diodes from both arms, leaving only what she was unable to reach.  The loudspeaker was yammering away, but Sierra didn’t listen.  The guards yelled at her, but she didn’t listen.  She was going up the stairs to the catwalk and to the being’s head.  She leaned against the woman’s cheek, that big glowing purple eye right there.  That eye was looking right at her, right through her.  Sierra gritted her teeth, her head shaking as she stared back.  “This is wrong,” Sierra hissed.  She wasn’t even sure of what she was saying, it was bypassing every logical thought she had.  Her words came faster than her mind could follow.  “This is cruel, this isn’t right.  You don’t deserve this!  You don’t deserve any of this!”

    A guard grabbed Sierra by the arm and snarled at her to come with him.  Her small form was easily pulled away, the alien watching quietly the entire time.  Half dragged back to the airlock, Sierra pulled away from the guard and held the spot he had been holding her.  It would likely bruise, and hurt terribly.  As the airlock sealed with the guards and her inside, she already felt the emotional high coming down.  She was angry, she felt ill.  What she had just seen, and what she did filled her with a dread her mind wasn’t ready to process.

    And when the airlock opened, the rage that met her focused thoughts to a laser-fine point.  Dr. Beckenstein roared, his team in the back racing around their stations as a dozen different flashing screens screeched.  “What in the hell were you thinking, you idiot!  Are you trying to destroy this entire experiment, what were you even doing?”

    A roiling anger leapt to Sierra’s words as she shot back, “And what are you doing, doctor?  You have a living being chained and wired up like a lab rat!  Did you know that she speaks?  Is she a prisoner?  Because sapient beings are not experiments if they are chained!”

    “Do not presume to know how to do my work for me, you first year simpleton!  I know what needs to be done, and that creature in there is too dangerous!  My methods work, and that is that!  I won’t have some new blood come right in, and just because the word upon high says to defer means I will give up my work to someone who hasn’t even been here six hours yet!”

    “Actually,” a voice piped up from the observation windows.  Sierra and Beckenstein turned to see Oberlin staring out the window.  His hands were folded behind his back, and his lips were pursed.  “That was on purpose.  Dr. Sorren reacted as I suspected that she would.  I thought that throwing her into the deep end would produce a more natural response, and to better judge her character and her views pertaining to this project.  So it seems, she disapproves.  The Executive will be receiving my report to determine the following outcome.  Dr. Sorren, I must apologize for your treatment, but also ask you to leave.  We have quarters prepared for you while we make a decision.”

    “Decision?”  Sierra asked, still coming down from her emotional storm.  She stared at Oberlin with confusion, anger still flitting in her expression.  “What, was this some kind of ugly, demented job interview?”

    “Actually a test, but also an interview of sorts.  Please, Dr. Sorren… we will speak again soon,” Oberlin said with a steady, but commanding tone as he waved to a guard beside him.  “This is Sergeant Lang, he will see you to your quarters.  Dr. Beckenstein, a word.”

 

    The walk to the living quarters was a blur.  Sierra’s mind was overloaded.  She couldn’t think about any one thing.  Everything simply made her heart heavy, and her head hurt.  She had a tear coming down her face, and she wasn’t sure why.  When she went into the room she was shown to, she collapsed in the first chair she saw.

    She stared at the wall, her mind slowly going blank.  Her whole world was upside-down, but in a strange sense now it all made sense.  What had she just done?  She let every emotion totally take control of her, throwing every scientific notion out the window just because her feelings crushed her logical sense.  And, most of all, Sierra was glad it did.

    She hoped she could stay.  Hoped she could learn more.  But, most of all… hoped she could help the alien woman she had just met.  That single moment she spent lost in its gaze was enough to reach deep inside of her.  And Oberlin’s words met that there.  “She needs your heart.”

    “She’ll have it,” Sierra whispered to herself.

 

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