by Tanya Allan
“I had to explain that I had been approached by someone who had been in contact with our visitors, and that she was in a position to give us valuable insight into various aspects of their strategy and intentions. I also said that she needed to be kept in the loop, and that a commission in the Air Force in her new identity was the ideal solution.”
Kyle frowned.
“And he went for it, just over the phone?”
“Not just over the phone.” said Michelle. “I had to give him a little tweak, just to clear away any reservations he may have had.”
“Shit, you can do that?” Kyle asked.
“Yes, but rather like a hypnotist, the subject has to be amenable and willing to go that way.”
“So, the General approved, you get your new identity, the Air Force gets another officer. As the boss said, where do we go from here?”
Michelle looked at these two men. Kyle was a doctor first, and an Air Force officer second. He was intelligent and determined to understand the alien physiology. It was a burning ambition, for as soon as he became aware of them, he wanted to understand them and know more.
Jim, on the other hand, wanted to understand what they wanted, and whether humans entered into their scheme of things, in what capacity. He had seen things that few other people had and, although subject of mental interference, he had a high level of resistance to their attempts to cleanse his memories of anything concerning them.
“One, you have to understand that they are not here as a militaristic or acquisitive mission. They are a very ancient race, and nearing the end of their time. They are long-lived and few in number. Their home system sun went supernova a long time ago, so they have been destined to roam the stars seeking a host planet to continue their existence.
“Earth is one of a few planets capable of sustaining them. They have numerous colonies already on this planet. All their colonies are independent and have little connection with the others. They select the more remote and less populated areas for their sites, and keep their involvement with the local area to a minimum.
“What you have to understand is that they are a dying race. Their birth rate has dropped to an alarming figure, which means that deaths occur more frequently than births. Although they might live a lot longer than us, they will only have one or two offspring in their long lives. Life is priceless, so they are respectful of life in all its forms, even nasty human lives.”
Jim watched the tall girl as she spoke. She was articulate, and spoke with no hint of her Ukrainian accent. In fact, her English was faultless, and had no accent he could discern. It was real British English, without the nasal upper-class whine.
“Just who the hell are you, Michelle?” he asked.
She smiled.
“I’m me. In fact, I can be whoever I want to be, but in time I may tell you,” she said.
Jim nodded.
“Ever been to New Mexico?” he asked.
“You mean like Roswell?” she asked, teasing him.
“No, never mind. It can wait.”
Michelle smiled, while Kyle watched the exchange with interest. He knew she was not anything to do with sergeant Dunwoody, as he had taken the DNA samples himself. What was the Colonel after?
<
<
<
<
<>
Jim watched the other two, as his own mind was clicking over. He was only too well aware that this girl was an enormous risk, but she was also the most important potential breakthrough he could have wished for.
<
He smiled. That was the third problem, as there was no hiding from her.
<>
“It would be helpful to see exactly what you are capable of,” he said.
“Okay. Physically or mentally?”
“Both.”
“Well, you know I can read minds, so that’s not a problem. I can manipulate minds to a degree, in that I can just gently suggest a particular course of thought or action, or I can eradicate memories completely. Thus I’m able to literally walk past someone, and they will never remember seeing me.”
“What about the Russian incident?” Kyle asked.
She smiled.
“Ah, that’s the other thing. You really never want to piss me off. I was able to persuade one person to shoot another, several times. Useful really, but not something I enjoyed, and neither am I particularly proud of it. But the police were hopeless, so I had to do something. After all, the bastards killed my fiancé and damn near succeeded in killing me.”
“There was one man who had no marks on him, yet his brain was severely traumatised.”
“Oh, that was the boss, Big Ivan. I was quite impressed with that. It was really quite amazing. I simply pointed my finger, like this,” she said, pointing her right index finger at Kyle, who immediately pushed it so it pointed away.
“Just point that somewhere else, if you don’t mind.”
“Sorry, Kyle, nothing personal, and this one isn’t loaded. And then I simply said, ‘bang.’, and he sort of died,” she concluded, and both men stared at her still pointing finger.
“Bang?” asked Jim.
“Bang,” she said, and grinned. “But I did focus as much mental force behind it as I could. But it seemed to do the trick.”
“Okay. We get the picture. What about physically?” Jim asked.
“Eyesight, enhanced by a factor of ten. Hearing, similar, and selective to different frequencies and levels. Smell, they kindly left alone, but strength and endurance. Put it this way, if I went in for the Olympics, I’d come away with a heck of a lot of Gold medals.”
“In what area?” asked Kyle.
“Every area, sweetheart. Is there a gym here?” she said.
Twenty minutes later, having changed into a leotard and jogging bottoms, Michelle entered the base gym. It was well equipped, and had everything one would expect in a modern gym.
Kyle and Jim appeared, still in uniform.
She smiled.
“Not joining me?” she asked, and they grinned.
There were a few servicemen working out on the apparatus.
“Okay, where would you like me to start?”
Jim looked around.
“Your choice.”
She went to the running machine.
She started it off and gradually worked it up until it was at maximum elevation, and she was running at a fast sprint. The two officers watched as she completed the first mile, up hill and in a time of 3.23 minutes. But she kept going, and clocked the second mile in 6.45 minutes.
The other men walked over and stared in awe at the female athlete. She finished three miles in 7.3 minutes.
“No way, man,” said a burly sergeant, who could not believe his eyes.
“That just ain’t possible,” another remarked.
Michelle was hardly breathing heavily, and she certainly looked as fresh as she had been at the start.
She smiled at the men, and walked over to the bench press. She set the weight at the maximum, so one of the weight lifters went to tell her that it was way too heavy for her, but Jim held his hand out.
“She knows what she’s doing.”
She bench pressed 300 pounds, and hardly looked as if it was an effort.
“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.
<> she thought, and he looked into her newly opened eyes.
<
<>
<
<
He smiled. <
<> 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.
<
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.
<
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?
<
<> he thought back, making her smile all the more.
<
“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.”
The two men stared at her.
“Why the last one?”
“If you were to have one aspect of your character enhanced, assuming the first two are already in place, what would it be?” Michelle asked Jim.
“Mine would be to save lives and to heal the sick,” said Kyle, almost without hesitation.
<> she thought, and Kyle had to smile, as she looked ha
rd at Jim all the time.
Jim almost smiled, as he thought about it.
<
<
“It would have to be to fight for openness and honesty in Government, across the world.”
Michelle looked at him, and her smile broadened.
“Here speaks the man in charge of a secret team, running out of Base X investigating the secrets of secret alien visitors, and the whole caboose would be denied by the politicians in Washington in a thrice,” she said, and even Jim smiled.
“You never answered my question,” Jim said.
“No, you are right. I didn’t. But then it was just part of who I am, or was, rather.”
Jim looked at her.
“Will you ever tell me where you originate from?”
“Probably. I have nothing to hide. But I do have others to protect, so it is not for my benefit that I keep this back,” she said.
Jim nodded, but Kyle was frowning as he went over all that she had said.
“Michelle, you said you were a partial construct. What does that mean?”
“A construct is someone who is constructed from scratch. For me, they simply improved what was already in existence.”
He was frowning. His knowledge of clone techniques was scant. Most of what he did know came from science fiction rather than medical journals.
“How much of you is actually original?” he asked.
“That, my dear, is this girl’s little secret,” she said, standing up. “Look guys, this is very interesting, but I’ve an appointment to keep, and I’m starving. Perhaps while I’m eating, you could locate a reliable guide for the area in question?”
Jim took down a map of the desert, and Michelle noticed red crosses at the location where Mike’s body had been discovered.
She jabbed her finger onto the map about seven miles away from there.
“Here, more or less,” she said.
Jim nodded.
“Okay, by tomorrow morning I’ll have someone assigned to you. Do you need a back up team?”
“No. Ideally, I should like to go on my own, but I’m not prepared to get lost, as I have no idea what will happen. Should I not return, then it would help you to know where I went so you could attempt to help me.”
