Agent Belmondo kept me in the left inside pocket of her DEA windbreaker while Officer Crabtree recruited some other police matrons to help her finish dressing Carmen and Miranda in the orange jumpsuits their little assault had earned them.
When she returned, I was taken back out and asked the inevitable questions about how I had gotten this way. I gave them the same edited story I had given my former captors. Then, it was my turn to ask a question.
"Could one of you ladies please call Cape Canaveral, and explain to them that I've been rescued? Albeit, with some 'unusual injuries?' I don't know if there was something in those micrometeors that's responsible for this. But, if there's anyone who can figure that out, it's the eggheads at NASA.
Officer Crabtree volunteered to make the call, and I had her write down my Air Force serial number, to insure that she was believed. After she left, I got better acquainted with Agent Belmondo (who also had an ID badge on her right lapel pocket).
She would have been about my height, at normal size. With bluish-green eyes and the shade of reddish-brown hair once called "auburn." She was a year or two younger than me. And, she preferred to be called "Melissa" by her friends. Including new ones, like me.
"I was born and raised at the Guantanamo Bay Marine Base, Cuba. I learned French and Spanish from my naturalized Basque grandfather. I'm a regular Annie Oakley with several black belts in various martial arts. And, the Suarez bust was the first major narcotics interdiction I've been involved with, since joining the DEA five years earlier. What about you?"
"Not much to tell," I said, with a shrug: "I AFROTC'd at the University of Connecticut. I fell so in love with flying, I decided to go career. And, prior to being recruited by NASA in 2001, I was a 'hurricane hunter' out of Biloxi, Mississippi."
It was about this time that a knock came at the door. Melissa asked who it was, and Officer Crabtree replied. She slipped back inside, as stealthily as possible, and half-whispered that she had gotten through.
"Someone will be here to pick you up, by chopper, inside half an hour."
Sure enough, that's exactly what happened. A portly white guy, in a mustard-brown suit (and about ten years older than me, with a brown-and-gray buzz cut), came into that backroom escorted by four Air Force SP's.*
"Well, now!" he exclaimed: "I see Officer Crabtree wasn't exaggerating. Ladies? I must ask that you accompany us, in order to lend your viewpoints to the official debriefing. Agent Belmondo, if you would be so kind as to put Captain Stone back inside your windbreaker? Thank you."
Within five minutes, we were aboard a helicopter that I sensed was heading north and west (my astronautical sense of direction). That was when Portly said it was okay for Melissa to take me out of the jacket. The moment she did so, I could see something was wrong.
The helicopter we were in looked to be a U.S. Army Iroquois, rather than a "Jolly Green Giant." And, all the flanking windows were blacked out. Just like the ones aboard the Lockheed Jetstar that had shuttled me and my fellow astronaut-candidates to and from Area 51, during the early days of Project: Silenus!
After nearly half an hour, we touched down. This was followed by the sound of a massive elevator that (according to the momentary pressure on my ears) took us beneath something. Chopper and all!
Finally, we were allowed to disembark. The SP's guided the four of us through a bunch of gray-painted corridors to a conference room, with the word "private" indelibly painted in black letters over it. Two of them then saluted and left, while the other two commenced to flank the door, before closing it.
"Why don't we all sit down, and get comfortable?" asked Portly: "Capt. Stone? You can rest on the table top. Here! Use this customized handkerchief to restore your dignity."
At my current size, that handkerchief looked more like a Greek toga. But, at least I was no longer naked. So, I thanked him. Then, I got right to the point.
"You're not from NASA. Are you? What branch of the spook alphabet do you represent?''
Portly chuckled: "Very good, captain! Very astute of you. My name is Myron Meriwether. I'm the Director of Operations for M.A.C.H.O. The Multi-Agency Counter-Homunculist Organization. And, I wish to offer you a job."
tbc
Giantess World
