THE TRAP
BY THE PROFESSOR
It ripped out of hyperspace, leaving a mile wide hole in reality. Had
the most sensitive instruments on Earth been aimed directly at it, they
would not have seen it, but they would have detected that something
wasn't right. They would have, perhaps, seen a mild, blurry distortion,
which was slowly repairing itself, re- knitting reality from the edges
to the distinct center, where a star far older than the sun burned
faintly from tens of thousand of light years away.
It was invisible to the optical telescopes which, like the humans who
had created them, were blind to the part of the spectrum in which it
existed. Even if it had been in the optical spectrum, there would have
been debate among the humans who saw it as to the nature of its very
existence, for it had no discernable mass, existing as it did slightly
beyond normal space and time.
It "talked" to itself as it drifted above the surface of the Earth,
although not in the sense of a human talking to himself. "Self" was a
multiple concept to it, defining it in ways which humans could never
imagine.
...Primitive...
...Yes. Sentient?...
...Animal...
...Adaptable?...
...Perhaps...
Its autonomic systems deployed filaments of braking thought, causing it
to fall through the atmosphere at unbelievable speeds toward the dark
desert directly below. It felt nothing in the physical sense, but as it
neared the surface of the planet, it felt thousands and thousands of
primitive impulses and thoughts. Not all of them were pleasant. It
modified itself to filter what it could out the most primitive of the
impulses, leaving only the impulses emanating from four of the most
advanced entities encased in archaically refined metal not far away.
***
"Coach will kill us if he finds out about this," Lanny Wilmore said from
the back seat of the car. There was a mostly full bottle of cold beer in
his hand, growing warmer by the minute. They were parked on a little-
used dirt road ten miles from the nearest town, lights off and radio
speakers thumping to the beat of the Smashing Pumpkins.
"Football season is over, you pussy," Don Marshall said from behind the
wheel of the parked car. He had borrowed his father's Buick for the
evening. There was more room for him and his friends, and if they had
gotten lucky and picked up a couple of girls... well, there would have
been room for that, too. Unfortunately pickings had been slim in that
department. Coach Masters wouldn't have cared if they had found a little
nookie, but he would have had a cow if he had known they had split a
case of beer. Even after the season, the coach hated booze, even beer.
No luck at finding girls, they had settled for the next best thing - a
case of beer and a quiet desert road.
"Yeah," Kevin Sloan agreed. He was riding shotgun and had already
polished off three beers in short order. But then again, he was the
biggest of the four of them, so he could handle it the easiest. He had
complained that they had only bought a single case.
"Quit worrying, Wilmore," Jay Kipling said from the back seat, giving
Lanny beside him a playful punch on the arm. "I'll drink your share."
He could probably do it, Lanny mused, taking a shallow drink from his
own bottle. Jay was an offensive lineman, shifting back and forth
between tackle and guard. Jay would probably get a college football
scholarship. Texas - El Paso and Fresno State were both interested in
him, but he would probably end up at Arizona State, less than a hundred
miles to the west. Kevin, a tackle, might end up there with Jay. He was
bigger, but a little less versatile and considerably slower. Still, he
was a fine player who had helped the Desert View Junior College Raiders
come within a game of the conference finals.
Lanny envied them both. He knew he and Don had little chance of getting
picked up by a major school. Both were too small to play backfield
positions at a larger school. Oh, there had been polite inquiries from a
couple of smaller schools, but playing at one of them meant little or no
chance at the pros, especially since they would never be more than third
string at any large school. As it was, both were only second string at
Desert View.
The four would have been unlikely friends had they not all grown up
together in Desert View. Kevin and Jay looked almost like brothers. They
were related, but were only cousins. Both were tall, broad shouldered,
with short dark blonde hair. Don was a little larger than Lanny, with a
slender build and light blonde hair. Lanny, the smallest, was a shade
under six feet tall, with nondescript brown hair, blue eyes, and a fair
complexion. Neither Don nor Lanny looked hardy enough to play college
football, but what each had lacked in size, they had made up in speed
and agility. But those attributes wouldn't carry them to the next level
where all three qualities would be required.
The unexpected loss in the previous week's match-up had been
devastating. They had all planned to be spending the day in a post-
season game, but a last minute fumble in the final game of the season
had cost them the game and the championship. None of them was drinking
to celebrate. Rather, they were drowning their sorrows.
A sudden loud boom shook the car. Lanny looked out into the cloudless
sky, expecting to see a small thundercloud directly overhead, but there
was nothing but stars.
"What in hell was that?" Don asked.
Kevin was about to reply, but a sharp, high pitched sound came out of
nowhere. "Ouch!" Kevin yelled, suddenly, nearly spilling his beer.
"Watch it, man!" Don exclaimed. "This is my dad's car. If you spill,
he'll know we were drinking in it."
"But that noise," Kevin protested. "Don't you hear it?"
"Ow!" Jay yelled, covering his ears. Don was next, leaving Lanny to look
at his friends in confusion. Then he, too, felt a painful sensation in
his ears. It cascaded downward into a high-pitched whine. Then,
suddenly, all was silent.
"What the fuck was that?" Jay asked, but no one had an answer.
***
It processed the sum total of all the boys' thoughts in a fraction of a
second, reading them and compartmentalizing them with ease. They were,
after all, a primitive species.
...Is it there?... it asked itself.
...Yes...
...Sufficient?...
...Yes...
...Confirmed. Begin Phase One...
...Operation commencing...
***
All four boys piled out of the car into the cool desert evening. There
was nothing to be seen that could have made the noise. It was a moonless
night, and except for a light breeze from the west, there was no sound
or movement. For some reason, even the car radio was silent.
"I don't like this," Don said, inching back toward the car.
"Don't like what?" Kevin asked.
"There's nothing out here that could have made that noise," Don
explained. "I'm wary of something that has to be there but that I can't
see."
Lanny saw something first. It was a shadow, moving through the desert
brush. But as he watched, it began to resolve itself into... "Judy!" he
yelled. "What are you doing here?"
Judy was the girl Lanny had fallen for the previous year. She had not
felt the same way about him, however, and had transferred to Northern
Arizona her second year. Yet here she was, her long blonde hair
cascading down her back, her figure even more perfect than Lanny had
remembered. She laughed and said, "Lanny, it's good to see you. Come,
meet my friends." Lanny then realized he hadn't actually heard her say
the words. It was more as if she had thought them to him.
"Isn't that Judy Kendall?" Kevin asked. "She's a fox! Did she say she
had friends?"
"I'm not really sure she said anything," Lanny remarked cryptically.
"Let's go!" Jay shouted. "Girls!"
Don put out an arm to hold him back. "Wait a minute. What is she doing
out here in the middle of the desert? Where's her car?"
"Come on, Lanny," Judy cooed enticingly, "and bring your friends. We're
so lonely out here."
Lanny felt compelled to follow her. Concerns about something not being
right seemed to fly from his mind. He could hardly believe his good
luck. He rushed to her side and put an arm around her. She felt
wonderful. She turned and smiled at the other boys. "Are you coming or
not?" Again, it wasn't really said. It was more like a concept which his
mind gave words to.
Jay pushed Don's arm aside and followed Lanny. Kevin fell in line behind
him. He turned and looked at Don. "Are you going to stay here by
yourself?"
Don shuddered. There was something terribly wrong. Judy's voice didn't
even sound right. Voice? It was like she wasn't even speaking; it was
almost as if the voice were coming from inside his head. His first
impulse was to run to his father's car, but he knew he had to go with
his friends. Something inside told him he would never make it back to
the car on his own. Besides, if there was something out there, they
would have a better chance facing it together. The four boys walked
about twenty yards when Judy suddenly stopped. "Why did you stop?" Lanny
asked her.
She smiled and looked at him, slowly fading away. "Because we're there,
silly," she said, walking away from him.
"What the hell?" Lanny said. Then he looked up and screamed.
***
...Damn...
It didn't really say "damn," but it was the nearest equivalent.
...Analysis...
...Modifications may be required...
...Serious ones?...
...No. Very minor...
...Proceed...
***
They called us Mulder and Scully, like in "The X-Files." Andy didn't
mind it so much. He even looked a little like Agent Mulder. He was tall,
lanky, and had a boyish face and a dry sense of humor. If his hair had
been straight instead of naturally curled, he would have been a credible
Mulder.
Me? I minded. I had red hair, but that was the only thing that Agent
Scully and I had in common. I wasn't skeptical like Scully, and I wasn't
a Catholic like she was. Most importantly, I wasn't female and had no
wish to be, so I got very tired of being called Scully by the other
members of the FCT.
At least there were only twenty of us in the FCT. The First Contact Team
had been brought into existence after the rash of flying saucer
sightings in the forties and fifties. It was highly classified, since
the government didn't want to set off every flying saucer nut in the
country. The FCT would systematically investigate the most promising
sightings, but only if there was a suspected landing. All of us believed
there was something out there, and if we were just patient enough, that
something would come to us.
Now, half a century later, we were beginning to wonder. All of the
original team had retired many years before. We were just the latest
generation of men and women who joined the team in hopes of being the
first to contact an alien life form, only be to disappointed time after
time, as we traveled across the country investigating one false lead
after another. In spite of our best efforts, we were no closer to
proving the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life than our
predecessors had been half a century earlier.
Dr. Andy King had been on the team for five years. He was one of our
biologists, or I suppose xenobiologist is a better term since it was his
job to look for biological evidence of extraterrestrials. He had been
picked because he had done some advanced work at Stanford postulating
non-carbon based life forms. At thirty, he was probably second in
biological knowledge only to Dr. Widmark, the senior scientist on the
team.
Me? Dr. Tony Winter - Staff Linguistics expert. I had only been on the
team for two years, just four years after receiving my Doctorate at
Yale, but at twenty-eight, I was considered one of the top world experts
on the origins of language. A linguist who was quick on his feet was
considered essential to the First Contact Team, and although junior to
Dr. Wendy Van Buren, our senior linguist, my credentials were every bit
as impressive.
Andy and I were often teamed up. We had become good friends in the two
years I had been on the project, often arguing until late into the night
about the biological basis for language. I don't just mean the obvious
physical structure of creatures which might communicate through a true
language, but rather, how those languages would differ based upon
physical characteristics. The most obvious, of course, was a numerical
base. Base ten made sense for humans since we had ten fingers. A
creature with eight digits (such as Mickey Mouse) would probably be more
comfortable with base eight, and so on.
Andy and I had one of those arguments going on the night the call came
in from Desert View. By all rights, we should have been gone from the
project headquarters in St Louis for at least two hours. But neither of
us were married, and we had caught a late lunch, so there was nothing
pressing to leave for. I was showing him the latest computer model I had
created hypothesizing a race of beings who might communicate by touch
while Andy was arguing that such a species, unable to hear or vocalize,
would have become extinct since it could not be completely aware of its
environment.
"But what about a species which developed on an airless world?" I
argued. "No species would be able to hear, so it would be a level
playing field."
"True," Andy conceded, "but it couldn't happen. Advanced life forms
couldn't develop in a vacuum."
"Why not?"
Andy shrugged. "It's too hostile. You might find a primitive life form
which manages to adapt, but complex life forms depend upon the
development of systems which can't normally exist in a vacuum."
"Normally?" I challenged. He was hedging. I didn't hear the answer,
though. The team director, Del Winchester, interrupted us.
"We may have something of interest," he said, plopping his overweight
body into a chair at our table. Del looked like an out of shape
bureaucrat. His suit always had a disheveled look and he was balding and
seriously overweight, but he was one of the brightest men I had ever
known.
"Verified?" I asked.
"No radar verification," he replied. "No visual either."
"Then why would we be interested?" Andy wanted to know. So did I. It
wasn't like Del to bring us a case without verification.
"Take a look at this," Del suggested, placing a manila envelope on the
table, allowing its contents to spill out. There were two satellite
photos. I looked at them. They both looked as if they were pictures of
the same section of a desert. The only difference was a dark object on
the picture time stamped twenty four hours after the first one.
"It looks like a car," I ventured, squinting at the dark object.
"It is a car," Del confirmed. "A late model Buick, to be exact."
"And is this Buick carrying a middle class family of four from Deneb-4?"
Andy quipped.
"No, Andy," I told him. "This is like that old song line from Blonde.
What was it? 'And the man from Mars is eating cars'."
Del shook his head. "Widmark and Van Buren are somewhere up the Ganges
looking for a saucer supposedly sighted by ten thousand pilgrims and I
get stuck with Abbot and Costello."
Well, I suppose it was better than Mulder and Scully.
"Okay Del," I said, stifling a laugh. "What is it we're supposed to be
seeing?"
He took a pudgy finger and pointed at an indistinct line a few yards
from the car. "See this blurred area? It's on the newer photo, but not
on the older one. I just got this one," he went on, sliding a third
photo from the envelope, "just a few minutes ago. Take a look."
I squinted at the new photo. "The blurred area is gone."
Del stared at me and sighed, "Tony, don't ever go into aerial
reconnaissance. Look over here on the other side of the ridge."
I saw what he was referring to. About a hundred yards from its previous
position, there was a blurred area. I looked up. "You mean to tell me
it's moving?"
Del nodded. "It's definitely changing position. Whatever it is, we think
it caused four local boys to disappear. They were reported missing this
morning, and the car you see belonged to one of their fathers.
"Maybe it's some sort of dimensional rift," Andy suggested.
"Those exist only in theory," I pointed out.
"So do flying saucers," was his rejoinder.
"Whatever it is," Del said, breaking in before we could start another
long-winded discussion, "it's moving and it appears to be dangerous."
"Has anyone else disappeared?" I asked.
Del looked at me sharply. "Why do you ask?"
I shrugged. "Just a hunch. Have they?"
"They have. Just a little over fifteen minutes ago, I got word two
airmen from Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson disappeared. They
were part of an Air Force security team dispatched to find the boys."
I looked at Andy. He had a worried look on his face. There was something
we weren't being told. The Air Force didn't just send a security force
to hunt missing boys without a reason. They would leave that to National
Guard or Air Guard personnel. Security teams were dispatched in case of
aircraft losses where there was danger of something falling into the
wrong hands. What did they suspect was out there anyway?
To make matters worse, our job just got harder. The military seemed to
have its own agenda when it came to UFOs. There was usually a distinct
lack of cooperation from them. They refused to share satellite data with
us, forcing us to use civilian birds, primarily from Interior or
Agriculture. Most of our tracking data came from either NASA or foreign
tracking stations. With the military a sparrow flying over a popgun was
enough to rate a Top Secret clearance.
"Have they cordoned off the area yet?"
Del shook his head. "They haven't and I don't think they will. If it
were military equipment out there in the desert, they probably would.
But what we've got is four missing teenage boys and a couple of missing
airmen. At this point I think they're content to let the local sheriff
handle it, until they come up with something concrete."
"But what about this distortion?" Andy asked. "Haven't they noticed it?"
"No," Del replied. "For once, we've got them over a barrel. There aren't
any military satellites crossing over at exactly that point. They
haven't figured out that one of Interior's birds crosses right over the
area."
"I wonder what alerted them to begin with," I pondered.
"There was a sonic boom reported in the area. The Air Force sent out a
two-man team to investigate it. When they got to the area, a search was
on for the boys. They got roped into helping."
"Look, Del," Andy said slowly, "is there any chance that the distortion
is just a problem with the bird? Maybe these kids just wandered off into
the desert, and the Air Force team got lost or something."
Del shook his head. "You might have a point with the boys, but the Air
Force team disappeared less than fifty yards from the car. Nobody else
has gone in that area since."
I saw where this was going. Andy and I weren't going to learn anything
out there unless we walked into that area. Whatever caused the other six
people to disappear would cause the same thing to us. The difference, of
course, was that we were trained for extraterrestrial contact. Of
course, since we had never actually met an extraterrestrial, it was hard
to say how good our training was. Oh well, I thought. When I joined the
team, I knew there would be risks. "So when do we go in, Del?"
Del favored me with a tired smile. "A plane is fueled and ready at
Lindbergh Field right now. We even packed your bags for you." FCT Field
Teams always had a bag at headquarters for immediate departures.
I sighed. "Then what are we waiting for?"
After two years on the FCT I was used to disappointments. I had examined
data stream after data stream of impulses, looking for some sign of
intelligent life without success. I had interview countless "witnesses"
who had heard aliens speak only to determine that what they had heard,
if anything at all, was gibberish. Still, I was excited. This sighting
was unlike any other we had seen. Maybe it would be the real one.
I managed to get a little sleep on the plane, but Andy could never sleep
in the air, so he caught up on his professional reading during the
three-hour flight. The crew had also provided us with some little
sandwiches that passed for dinner. It was nearly midnight by the time we
rolled up to the service hangar at the Desert View airport.
Desert View Airport wasn't exactly Chicago O'Hare. It consisted of a
combination service hangar and office and two small open sheds which
each held half a dozen private planes. The office was closed, so only
the security lights on the hangar cut through the darkness. As the whine
of the engines on our government Lear Jet faded, I could see the runway
lights being extinguished. A man in what looked like a sheriff's uniform
had thrown the switch outside the hangar to cut the lights.
The pilot unloaded our bags for us as the man in uniform strode over to
meet us. "Winter and King?" he asked.
I extended my hand. His handshake was firm and friendly. "I'm Tony
Winter. This is Andy King."
Andy extended his hand as well.
"Bob Gates, Aztec County Sheriff," he replied. He was a big man, perhaps
six three, without an ounce of fat on him. His western hat and silver
badge on his khaki shirt made him look like my image of a Texas Ranger
out of the last century. His neatly trimmed hair and mustache gave him a
very professional air. I had the feeling Sheriff Gates was a
professional. That was a relief. In my job, I had seen enough of small
town law officers who were only competent to issue parking tickets. "Do
you fellas want to get settled in first, or go right to the site?"
With the prospect of the Air Force breathing down our necks, that was an
easy decision. We had to get out to the site before they managed to shut
it down. "If it's all the same sheriff," I told him, "let's go to the
site."
He seemed to like that. We were all business, and so was he. I could
tell he wanted this mystery solved as soon as possible. Since the boys
were all local, there was probably quite a stir in town. Incidents like
this one could cost a sheriff the next election.
"So what can you tell us?" Andy asked as the sheriff lifted our bags
into the back of his Ford Explorer.
The sheriff shrugged. "Not much to tell. I'm sure you know the basics.
We found the boys' car about noon. I sent two deputies out to look for
them, but they weren't able to find anything. Then that Air Force team
showed up. My deputies sent them out in the one direction they hadn't
checked. While they were watching, the airmen disappeared about thirty
yards from the car."
"You said the deputies had been searching for some time," I clarified,
getting into the back seat while Andy rode shotgun.
"That's right," the Sheriff said, starting the car.
"Were they out here alone?"
"Yep. What are you getting at?"
"Well," I continued, "were there any footprints or any sign of which
direction the boys had gone?"
The Sheriff thought for a minute. "Well, I guess there couldn't be. If
there were, they would have known which way to search."
That was true, I admitted to myself, but something didn't seem quite
right. "Are the deputies still out at the site?"
"I sent 'em home right a few hours ago. I told them to get some sleep
and meet us out here around midnight. They should be there now," the
Sheriff explained.
It only took about fifteen minutes to reach the site. The deputies were
there and had set up a couple of small floodlights. Bathed in the glow
of one of them was a fairly new Buick, but beyond it, the light just
faded off into the still desert. There was nothing to indicate to where
six people had disappeared.
When we got out of the car, the Sheriff performed the introductions.
"Tony Winter, Andy King, meet Rice Daniels and Tate Baxter. Folks around
here call 'em Rice n' Taters."
It was even worse than Scully and Mulder, I thought as I gripped Tate's
beefy hand. He was six four if he was an inch, and looked to be built
out of concrete blocks. Desert View might be a small town, but it had to
have a gym to produce a specimen like Tate. He gave me a big farm boy
grin. Rice was about my size, with black hair thinning on the top and
dark skin that hinted at a Mexican ancestry, in spite of his last name.
He was a little more formal than Tate, but still smiled and welcomed us
to Desert View.
"Did either of you find any footprints around the site?" I asked.
Both shook their heads. "Just around the car," Tate clarified. "It looks
like them boys was just millin' around drinkin' beer until they got
lost."
I wondered if he knew how naive that sounded. One minute they were
drinking beer, and the next minute, they were lost. I'd hate to have to
explain that to anyone. I decided to let it go for a moment, though. As
bright as the sheriff was, his deputies were proving to be a
disappointment. It didn't take much to realize they were frightened.
They hadn't really searched the area at all. Of course, given what had
happened to the two airmen, maybe not searching had been the wisest
choice after all.
"So where did the airmen disappear?" Andy asked.
"Right over there," Rice replied, pointing out into the blackness of the
desert.
I started in that direction, looking down at the ground as I walked.
"Be careful, Tony," Andy cautioned. I planned on being cautious. I had
seen the satellite photos. I knew there had to be something out there in
the desert, but I couldn't see it. Whatever the distortion we had seen
on the satellite photos was, it didn't appear when you looked straight
on at ground level. If we weren't careful, we'd walk right into it.
There were footprints around the car as the deputies had said, but they
clearly struck out into the desert. How could they have missed them?
They must have been so frightened that they hadn't even come in this
direction, I thought. I looked at Tate. "Did you know there are
footprints over here?"
Tate looked embarrassed. "Well, we did see 'em, yeah."
"Then why didn't you check them out?" I asked.
"Well, Dr. Winter," he began slowly, his head bowed, "I reckon Rice and
me ain't afraid of much of anything we can see, but whatever's out there
is like ghosts. We kinda decided between the two of us to wait for the
experts to show up."
I actually couldn't fault their reasoning. Andy and I were used to the
concept of facing the unknown. These local deputies weren't equipped to
handle much more than a traffic offense or rousting a Saturday night
drunk. If I had been in their shoes, I might have done the same thing.
My thoughts were interrupted by the approach of two large loud vehicles
with lights bright enough to light up a football stadium. They were
approaching us at high speed, throwing a dark cloud of desert dirt and
sand high into the air.
"Oh shit!" Andy exclaimed. "It's Roger Ramjet and company."
This, I knew, was Andy's shorthand expression for the Air Force. It was
indeed our boys in blue, blundering through the desert in two Humvees.
This was bad news, I thought. Standard operating procedure would require
them to lock down the site at once, and our investigation would be up in
smoke.
"We've got to go now, Andy," I yelled over the roar of the approaching
vehicles.
"Go? Go where?" he yelled back.
I pointed into the desert. "There. We have to follow the boys if we're
going to have a shot at this one." Andy couldn't believe I was saying
that, but I had a feeling this was The Big One. There was something out
there in the desert - something intelligent. It could be a sentient
species from the stars. The First Contact Team had been in existence
since before I was born, and this might be my only chance, I realized.
Suddenly Andy understood. I could see he was starting to think the same
thing. As the Humvees came to a halt, he said, "Okay, let's do it."
"Wait a minute," the Sheriff called, suddenly realizing what we were
about to do. "We don't know what's out there. Wait until we -"
"Sorry, Sheriff," I called over my shoulder. "We've got to go in now.
Stay here and coordinate with the Air Force."
"Coordinate what?"
I really just wanted him to slow them down until we had a chance to walk
out into the desert. Whatever had taken the boys and the two airmen was
bound to take us, too. I just hoped it happened before the Air Force
could stop us.
"Stop where you are!" a voice called from the direction of the Humvees.
We kept walking. What were they going to do? Shoot us? It wouldn't look
good on their reports.
A few yards away from the Sheriff things got unnaturally still. Now, the
desert can be that way, but not when you have several Air Force
personnel running through it yelling at you to stop. But we couldn't
hear them, and suddenly we couldn't see them either. We were swallowed
up by a blackness unlike anything I had ever experienced. It wasn't just
an absence of light; it was more like an absence of everything. I
couldn't see Andy, or even myself for that matter. I also couldn't feel
anything under my feet. It was like the experience you have where you
are floating in a dream, standing up and using no effort to move ahead.
The blackness didn't disappear all at once. Rather it began to fade into
a pale gray. Through the gray mist, I could see Andy just standing and
looking about. I was doing the same thing.
"Where are we?" Andy said. His voice sounded as if it were a hundred
yards away instead of the few paces away where he actually stood.
"I don't know," I replied. Even my own voice sounded muffled and
distant. It was like a landscape after a fresh snow, before the sun
comes back out, where the world is a collage of whites and grays without
a discernable sound. Even the temperature was "gray," being neither hot
nor cold, with no trace of air movement.
"Do you hear something?" Andy asked suddenly.
"No, why? Do you?" I turned to look at Andy. He was holding his ears, a
grimace of pain on his face. "What is it, Andy?" Abruptly I felt it,
too. It was a high-pitched sound, causing a sudden ache in my ears. It
was as if hot needles had been jammed into my ears, crawling into my
brain and slicing through it like some sort of ghostly knife. Oddly I
had no sense of personal danger. It was more like the painful irritation
I would have felt from an earache. It lasted perhaps thirty seconds and
then was gone.
But the silence had not returned. There was now a gentle hum coming from
an unknown source. The grayness had resolved itself into corridors and
doorways, and there was soft lighting from above which cast gentle
shadows along the walls. The floor was solid as well, and I realized it
felt good to be back on solid... something.
The most interesting sight, though, was more familiar. From one of the
rooms a girl emerged, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. She had a fair
complexion which was absolutely flawless. Her lovely face was set off by
high cheekbones and sparkling blue eyes and framed by a luxuriant mane
of shining brown hair. She wore a blue camisole whose satiny material
did nothing to hide the exiting shape of her perfect body. Her breasts
were a full C cup, proud and tipped with large nipples, which could be
seen through the thin material. Her waist and hips were a medley of
curves that moved with a fluid grace as she walked. She wore nothing on
her feet or legs, but her long legs were as smooth as silk, without a
blemish. Her makeup was subtle, understated, and very sexy. Long nails,
frosted pink capped the most graceful hands I had ever seen. I felt a
hardness in my groin straining at my pants. I hoped she didn't notice.
"Who are you?" Andy asked. I was supposed to be the language expert, but
one look at the girl and I couldn't think of anything to say.
Suddenly another girl about the same age stepped out of a further
doorway. She was blonde, wearing a red thong bikini, but she was equally
as beautiful as the brunette. Her breasts were even larger, certainly a
D cup, and as she walked toward us, her hips thrust in a motion that was
almost a dance.
I was confused. We knew of four boys and two airmen who had been trapped
by whatever this thing was, but no one had mentioned any girls
disappearing.
"Can you speak English?" I asked the brunette.
"Y.. yes," she managed. "I'm Lanny Wilcox and this is Don Marshall."
"Lanni, Donna," I acknowledged, "I'm Tony Winter and this is Andy King.
We weren't aware that you girls were taken. We had expected to find four
boys and a couple of Air Force men."
The blonde shook her head. "It isn't Donna. It's Don."
"Oh, D-a-w-n," I clarified.
"No. D-o-n. I'm a man. Or at least I was. So was Lanny."
Neither Andy nor I could say a word. We didn't know what to say. Here
were two near perfect specimens of womanhood standing before us claiming
to have been men.
"Jay and Kevin are still asleep," Don explained. "So there were four of
us. You were right. And Norm and Vicki - they're the two Air Force types
you were mentioning - are in a room down the hall."
"Vicki?" I repeated.
Don nodded, her blonde hair bouncing as she did. "That's right. She was
female when she got here, although they've enhanced her quite a bit. You
didn't know that, did you?"
I shook my head. "No, we didn't. We just had a rough idea of what had
happened, but it was enough to pique the interest of our people."
"Who are you?" Lanni, or rather Lanny, asked.
Andy and I took a few minutes to explain what the First Contact Team was
and why we had come. As we were explaining, we were joined by the Air
Force woman. She was as beautiful as Don and Lanny. Her name was Vicki
Romero. She claimed she had been very plain when she had arrived.
"But look at me now," she said, almost not believing it herself. Her
olive skin was sensational, and her large breasts were completely
uncovered, displaying large, dark nipples. Her straight black hair hung
all the way to her ass and shone with a brilliance that was almost
unnatural. She wore only a tiny pair of French cut panties and heels
which were at least four inches high. "Actually, I'm pretty happy about
this, but poor Lanny and Don really got screwed."
Lanny let out a sardonic laugh. Vicki looked at him, her large brown
eyes wide with alarm. "Oh, I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean -"
Lanny waived a delicate hand. "I know, Vicki. I realize you didn't mean
anything by it."
I looked at Lanny in puzzlement. Before I could ask, she suggested, "I'd
better start from the beginning. It's complicated, but you'll understand
better." With a look directly at me she added, "You especially need to
understand."
We were seated on comfortable couches in Lanny's room. Jay, one of the
boys, had joined us. He was a big lad, clad only in boxers. Kevin, who
looked and dressed very much like Jay, joined us as well. Finally Staff
Sergeant Norm Bennet joined us. He was a tall black man wearing a small
robe that barely fit him. When the introductions were made, Lanny began
her story.
She began by telling us about their little excursion out into the
desert. They had been drinking for only half an hour or so when they
heard the sonic boom. She told me about Judy, her old girlfriend. I
listed with rapt attention as this very sexy young lady told me about
her girlfriend. It was almost impossible to imagine such a vision of
feminine beauty talking as if she were just one of the boys. She told us
how the simulacrum of Judy had lured them out into the desert.
"Then she told us we were there," Lanny continued, "and she just sort
of... melted in front of us. I thought something terrible had happened
to her, and I screamed. She got all gray and just became part of the
landscape, her features melting like candle wax." The girl shuddered at
the thought of what she had seen. Then, with a sigh, she continued.
"Suddenly we were on a featureless plain. I imagine you saw the same
thing. Did you?"
I nodded in response.
"Well, the plain began to resolve itself into this system of rooms you
see here. Each of the spaces is like this one. The room we're in is a
living room, if you will. Food appears out of nowhere on that table
along the wall. It's pretty good, too. If you lie down on that couch or
any of the chairs, it becomes a bed. They didn't bother with much else
as you can see."
It was true. The room wasn't much for esthetics. There were no pictures
or other decorations in sight. "Then what's the other room for?" I
asked, pointing at the dark entrance which seemed to lead to a second
room.
"We call it the play room," Lanny told me, a catch in her voice. "I'll
get to that. We explored the place as best we could. It just consists of
what you see here, room after room like this. Even if you do get to the
end of the corridor, you find yourself right back where you started."
"But the corridor is straight," Andy pointed out. "How can it curve
around on itself?"
"It doesn't," Don chimed in. "As you walk down the corridor, another
room appears for every one you've passed. By the time you walk past
about a hundred rooms like this, all on the same side of the corridor,
you find yourself standing back at the point where you started. We
experimented by leaving a beer bottle right in front of this room. When
we walked past a hundred rooms, the beer bottle was in our path."
I began to wish I had a better foundation in physics. The team had put
me through a crash course on the subject, but there was nothing in the
course which would have prepared me for this.
"We were in this very room," Lanny continued, "when it began to happen.
Don and I felt an odd tingling sensation. It wasn't unpleasant, but it
felt... different. Then we began to notice changes. We became shorter at
first, and we could see our hair starting to grow longer. Our clothes
literally fell off our bodies, and we could see everything changing at
once. Our hips and breasts began thrusting outward while our waists
contracted. We didn't have to bother with makeup. It just appeared along
with earrings and the outfits you see us wearing now, or something
similar to them. The outfits keep changing. In maybe ten minutes, it was
over. Kevin and Jay were unchanged, or at least not changed much. Don
and I became the girls we are now. The next thing we knew, we were
walking into the play room."
"But this is impossible," Andy commented. "Cellular disruption and
change like that would be extremely painful. It would kill you almost
instantly."
"But we're proof that you're wrong," Lanny countered, motioning at her
feminine body. "Whatever controls this... place knows more than we can
even imagine."
"It's like a science fiction writer once said," I added. "If a highly
advanced race suddenly encountered a primitive race, their science would
appear as magic to the primitives."
"Well, this primitive certainly considers it magic," Andy replied. "I
can't even begin to imagine how they did it. For that matter, who is
'they'?"
"We don't know," Kevin answered. "We haven't seen anyone except the
people you see here now. We don't even know if there is anyone else
here. For that matter, we don't know where 'here' is."
"We're in some sort of spaceship," I told them. "We don't know what it
is, though. We've never encountered anything quite like this. We don't
know who they are or what they want."
Lanny asked hesitantly, "But can anybody get us out and change us back?"
"No," Andy replied bluntly. "Even if we managed to get out, there's
nothing in our science which could even begin to change you back. I'd
have to do genetic testing, but I'm certain your chromosomes are now XX
instead of XY. Transsexual surgery had gotten pretty good at the male-
to-female conversion, but female-to-male surgery leaves a lot to be
desired."
"I think I could stand to stay this way," Lanny said, "if I could just
get out of here. I'd rather change back to male, though."
I looked at Lanny and Don. They were embarrassed, not just about their
sex change, but something they hadn't told. They were holding something
back - something that was even worse than the physical transformation.
"Lanny, why is getting out of here more important to you than changing
back?"
Her face reddened. "I... that is, Don and I..." She broke down in tears.
"See? It's happening again. I just can't control myself. I never used to
cry. Now I cry as much as my little sister does."
Jay looked as if he wanted to put a comforting arm around her; then
looked embarrassed as he sunk back down into his chair. It was up to Don
to explain. "More than our bodies have changed, Tony. Lanny and I
have... urges now that we never had before."
"And mine have grown stronger," Vickie chimed in.
Andy scowled. "You mean sexual urges? You've developed sexual urges?"
"Uncontrollable ones," Kevin confirmed. "I mean, they made Lanny and Don
into beautiful women, but they're still our friends. Jay and I wouldn't
have, you know, taken advantage of them if we could help it. But we've
been changed, too. We're... well, bigger, and we just can't stop
ourselves."
"Neither can we," Don added, eyes downcast.
The true horror of what was happening had become apparent. Two normal
heterosexual males had been somehow changed into females, resulting in
artificially induced sexual drives too intense to control. Their still
male friends had been forced into overriding their natural inhibitions
and ignoring the fact that the available females were their once male
friends. But why was this being done? Our two Air Force members were
proof against the necessity of performing the sex change. Why not
capture only existing males and females instead of wasting energy
changing them to fit?
'Wait a minute. What had Lanny said earlier?' I thought. Something about
the fact that I would especially need to understand. Damn! I had been so
wrapped up in the stories of the other captives that I had forgotten
that Andy and I were subject to the same rules as everyone else. I
looked at Andy and he looked at me, obviously with the same thought.
"How long were you here before the transformation began?" I managed to
ask.
Lanny shook her head. "It's hard to say. All our watches stopped and are
gone now. All I can tell you is that we've had these orgy cycles four
times since the transformations. The changes seem to happen within
minutes of the next cycle."
Four times, and they had been here just a little over a day. That meant
the cycles were six hours long. We had been here - what? - an hour or
so, so in a little less than five hours, either Andy or I would be
changed. I couldn't imagine what it would be like. Andy and I had been
friends for a long time, but the thought of making love to him, either
if he was the female or I was, seemed repugnant.
"Is there any way of predicting which of us will change to female?" Andy
asked, daring to ask the dreaded question.
"We think so," Don answered. "Vicki was already female, so she's out of
the sample. Lanny and I were the two smallest males, though. Maybe it
assumes the smaller of a pair should be the female."
"That would make sense," Andy mused. "In most advanced species on Earth,
the female is the smaller of the two. It might be universally true. If
so..."
His voice trailed off, but he didn't have to finish. I was shorter than
Andy, so odds were I would be in line for the change. Oddly enough, I
wasn't frightened by the prospect. I didn't want it to happen. I was
happy the way I was, but the intellectual curiosity had surfaced. It was
a puzzle to be solved, just like a new language. First I had to
determine if there was a way to stop the transformation. If I couldn't,
I would have to figure out how to avoid becoming a slave to sexual
desire as had happened to the others. Even if I was able to do that, I
would have to solve the puzzle of how to live in a female body. Of
course there was a chance that body size wasn't the actual determinant,
but even if that were true and the process was random, there would be a
fifty percent chance of my sex being changed.
I looked at all of them. They believed size was the determinant, for
they were all looking at me with pity, even the women. "You all believe
I'll change, don't you?"
"It's not so bad," Lanny said unconvincingly. "I mean, I wouldn't have
chosen it, but..." She couldn't think of anything to add.
"Look," Vicki commented, "we're all puppets here. I've been female all
my life, and I wouldn't want it any other way. They've even enhanced me.
I was Plain Jane before, but now I'm hot and I don't mind that at all.
What I mind is that I don't have any control over what I do. I mean,
Norm here isn't such a bad lover. I just wish it had been our idea and
not some... some thing's idea."
"Me too, Babe," the big sergeant agreed.
"You mean you have no control at all?" I asked, fighting down a queasy
feeling in the pit of my stomach.
"None at all," Don confirmed. "You'll just be minding your own business
and suddenly, you'll have the urge to go into the back room of your
apartment."
"What's back there?" Andy asked, looking back at the dark room over his
shoulder.
"It seems to vary," Lanny explained. "One time it might be just an
ordinary bedroom. The next time, it might be a grassy knoll. The time
after that, it might be beside a swimming pool. The only common
denominator is that you'll be so horny you can't stand it. You won't
even be able to think. You'll just want to... make love in any way you
can think of." There were tears forming in the corners of her beautiful
eyes. "The hell of it is, you'll love every second of it. It's like
nothing I've ever known before."
"Afterwards," Don said, picking up the explanation, "you'll fall asleep.
You'll wake up back in a room like this one. You can eat, sleep,
whatever, until you're called again."
"Always with the same partner?" Andy asked.
"So far," Don replied.
Andy and I decided to make the most of our time before the next calling.
We systematically inspected every room along the corridor, finding them
to be absolutely identical. Each contained the comfortable living
quarters and each contained a darkened entrance to another room. We
tried to enter the rooms, but each was blocked by some sort of force
field. As we tried to enter the darkness, something would gently push us
away. We could see nothing in the rooms. It was as if they absorbed all
visible light.
There was nothing along the corridor except the identical rooms. We
could find no engine room or control room or any of the things that we
would have expected to find on a spaceship. Eventually, we reached the
last room. When we entered it, to our surprise, we found all of our
fellow captives.
"You went all the way to the end?" Lanny asked.
"Yes," I replied. "But let me guess. None of you have moved, right?"
"That's right," Lanny confirmed. "Look out in the corridor now."
Andy and I did, and as we had been told to expect, we were back at the
beginning again. Somehow, the interior of the ship had folded over
itself. I wished I had paid more attention in physics, but I suspected
nothing in human physics would have done much to explain the phenomenon.
"Lanny, how...?" I was not able to complete my question. Everyone in the
room except Andy and I suddenly stiffened as a glazed expression settled
over their faces. They rose as one and filed out of the room.
"Wait!" Andy called, trying to hold Kevin back, but he easily slipped
out of Andy's grip. We tried to follow, but the exit to the corridor was
suddenly impassible, hampered by the same force field we had encountered
before.
Then it began. I dropped my hands away from the door although I hadn't
willed them to drop. It was as if some agency had taken control of my
movements. My skin began to tingle, almost as it feels when a limb falls
asleep.
"Tony, are you okay?" Andy asked, a worried expression on his face.
"I don't think so," I managed to respond in a voice that didn't sound
quite right. I knew what was happening. The others had been right. I was
the one who was going to change. "What's happening to me, Andy?"
"You're changing," he confirmed. I could see that in spite of himself,
he was fascinated with what was happening to me. What biologist wouldn't
be fascinated? My DNA was being rewritten as he watched. I could feel
myself becoming shorter and weaker. Hair was tickling the back of my
neck and was becoming longer and heavier. My torso was rearranging
itself moment by moment. As I looked at Andy, I was beginning to have
strange urges, wondering what he would look like naked, what he would
feel like...
...I was suddenly aware of loud rock music with a heavy beat. I opened
my eyes and saw a dark room with flashing lights. Then I became aware
that my body was swaying to the beat of the music, and I could feel
something bouncing on my chest. I looked down at my body, illuminated by
a soft spotlight. I was nearly naked, with only a shining silver g-
string covering my swaying crotch. Long red hair draped over my
shoulders, swinging back and forth across large breasts. I was standing
in place as I gyrated, balanced on silver heeled sandals that showed the
bright silver polish on my toenails.
I licked my lips unconsciously, feeling the waxy perfumed taste of
lipstick. Fluttering long lashes, I looked out into the darkness, making
out a single table just below the runway I was standing on. There was
someone there - a man. He was dressed in only a tight-fitting pair of
briefs, outlining a very large, erect penis. It was Andy, I realized,
feeling myself getting warm and wet between my legs. I wanted him. My
God, I wanted him!
He climbed up on the stage, entranced by my movement. With a gentle
hand, he pulled away the thin material covering my new sex. Neither of
us were thinking, at least not in the normal sense of the word. I could
remember who I had been, and I could remember that Andy was my friend,
but I couldn't resist the aching need to have him in me.
I knelt on the floor which had become soft and pliant. I caressed his
manhood gently with long red nails. He lovingly pushed me down on my
back and slipped his penis into me. I gasped with pleasure as he
penetrated me. I could think of nothing but the joy of having him in me.
As a new female, perhaps I should have counted the orgasms I
experienced, but I couldn't. They came in waves, one after another,
forcing my mind into spasms of ecstasy. I wanted it to go on forever.
***
...Better...
...Yes...
...Why?...
...Unknown...
***
I awoke slowly, sensing something was wrong. Then, I remembered. I was
lying on a bed in the living quarters, my bare breasts just outside the
satin sheets. I could feel something tied around my slender waist, and
realized it was probably the g-string back in place. I turned over,
feeling my ample breasts shift uncomfortably. Long red hair fell in
front of my eyes, causing me to pull in out of the way with delicate
hands. Andy was sleeping peacefully beside me.
Now I understood why the other transformed women were so reluctant to
talk in detail about their experiences in the other room. I felt what
they had felt: extreme regret and embarrassment. I was a man on the
inside and a woman on the outside, but I had been forced to think like a
woman in that room. No, I thought to myself. I hadn't just thought like
a woman. I had thought like a bitch in heat. No woman of my acquaintance
would have thrown herself at a man as I had. It was a male fantasy, like
you would expect to see in an adult movie or read about in a skin
magazine. I had seen films like that myself, but I had never expected to
be an active participant in such an event, particularly from the female
side.
I sat up and slid out of bed, mindful of the way I was dressed. Yet,
there was nothing else for me to wear. I supposed I could wrap a sheet
around me, but none of the other new girls had done so. If they could
walk around like that, so could I.
I heard Andy stirring. He groaned softly and opened his eyes, staring at
me. "Then it wasn't a dream."
"I wish it had been," I replied softly.
"Tony, I'm so sorry," he began, looking at me with pain in his eyes. "I
just couldn't control myself. I didn't even really realize it was you at
first, although I don't think it would have made any difference. I just
had to have you. I've never felt a need that strong in my entire life."
"No apology is necessary," I assured him, sitting down on the bed next
to him as I heard my sweet alto voice clearly for the first time. "I
wanted you every bit as much as you wanted me."
He shook his head in disbelief. "What's happening to us? I just sort of
woke up, and there I was, back in that place we went into in Memphis to
interview that stripper. What was the name of it?"
"The Kitty Kat Klub," I replied. "They spelled it with K's instead of
C's."
"Sure," Andy said brightly. "That way the redneck who ran it could have
the initials KKK on everything and there was nothing anybody could do
about it."
We were rolling now, forgetting for a moment what had transpired between
us only a short time before. "And the stripper," I continued. "Her stage
name was Candi Clit, and she had those silver fingernails and..." I
suddenly looked down at my fingernails. They were silver - just like on
the stripper in Memphis.
"Whatever it is, it's picking up scenes from our memories," Andy
speculated.
"And maybe from our fantasies," I added. "Did you ever think about
making it with Candi?"
"Of course," Andy replied. "I'm a red-blooded American male just like
you. Oh, sorry, Tony. I wasn't thinking."
Very uncharacteristically, I patted his hand. It seemed right to do it
somehow. "That's okay, Andy. Inside, I'm still Tony, all evidence to the
contrary."
Lanny and Dawn came in. This time Lanny was dressed like a Dallas
Cowboys cheerleader and Don was completely nude. I guessed having just a
g-string wasn't so bad after all. Vicki was next, dressed in a short
leather skirt and halter top. The look each of them gave me was a "now
you know" look.
"Are you okay, Tony?" Vicki asked me with an arm around my bare
shoulders.
I did my best to smile. "I'll be okay. It was just a little
overwhelming."
"Damned male fantasies!" she growled. Poor Andy had to take it, being
the only male in the room.
"So you think that what it is, too?" I asked.
"What else could it be?" she replied. "Every time we go into that...
that play room, we're dressed like something out of an adult movie.
Then, we have sex every way you can imagine. You didn't have to give him
a blow job, did you, honey?"
I shook my head. I hadn't even thought about that possibility. I didn't
want to think about it either.
"The real question," Andy said as the other men came into the room, "is
why are they doing this?"
"That's easy," Vicki laughed. "They're the Perverts From Space." She
said it as if it were the tag line from a preview for a B science
fiction movie.
"No," I countered. "It's not that easy. If they were doing it for cheap
thrills, all they'd have to do is pick up some of the movies or visit a
sex club."
"Maybe they're breeding us for some zoo in space," Don suggested.
"I doubt that," Andy replied. "It would have been a lot easier to pick
up real females instead of making them. Why go to this much trouble?"
The other men joined us, and we kicked the idea around for a while but
got nowhere. It just didn't seem to make any sense. They could use real
women if they chose to do so. Vicki was proof of that. They were using
her the same way they were using the transformed males. But why? Were
they breeding us? It made sense in a way. Why else would they force us
to have sex. But if they were breeding us, why go to all the trouble
now? There were billions of people on Earth ripe for the taking. If they
could get into our minds so easily, surely they knew that it would take
nine months to see a result of the breeding. None of us thought the
spaceship was going to sit there in the middle of the desert for none
months while we produced babies.
After awhile the group split up, each couple going back to its own room
to get something to eat. I got a cheese Danish from a small silver tray
which had suddenly appeared on a counter and a cup of coffee which had
appeared with it. Both were very good. Whatever agency was doing this to
us knew human tastes. Feeling almost normal for the first time since my
transformation, I remarked on this to Andy.
"I don't think so," Andy said, munching on a cruller. "Frankly, I don't
think any of this is here."
"Then what are we eating?" I asked. "Whatever this is, it takes the
hunger away."
"True," he admitted. "But think about it. I doubt if they go down to the
local bakery for this stuff. And what about the coffee? What flavor is
yours?"
"Amaretto," I told him. "It's my favorite, too."
"Right. But There were two cups over there and you picked one at random.
It just happened to be your favorite. I hate Amaretto, but I love a good
French roast. Guess what kind of coffee I got."
"French roast," I replied without hesitation. I thought I knew where he
was going with this. "So whatever they're feeding us becomes whatever we
want it to be."
To my surprise he shook his head. "I don't think they're feeding us
anything at all. Think about it. Have you had the urge to go to the
bathroom?"
I shuddered a little at that thought. No more standing up to pee for me.
No more aiming. Now, I would just release and void. Or would I? "No, I
guess I haven't."
"And when the others were showing us around, nobody mentioned where the
bathrooms were. I don't think there are any. None of this is real."
I was suddenly hopeful. "You mean, maybe we're not really here. Maybe
this is just an elaborate dream?"
Andy sighed and dashed my hopes. "Sorry, Tony. I'm pretty sure it's not
a dream. Whatever these aliens are doing with us, they need us to be
physically here. You are as much a woman right now as you would have
been if you were born that way. In fact, just looking at you, I think
you are probably the most attractive woman your genetic history would
have allowed for."
"So if I had been born female, odds are good I wouldn't have been Miss
September here," I concluded, motioning to my feminine form.
"Exactly," Andy agreed. "You might have been this beautiful, but odds
are good you would have been at least a little less sensational."
"Okay, but we're digressing," I remarked, getting excited. This was like
old times with Andy and I working through a problem after hours at the
office. For the moment I could almost forget that I was now a beautiful
woman showing more flesh than a Baywatch episode. "How are they keeping
us alive, and why don't we need to defecate?"
"That's two questions," Andy pointed out, "but the answers are related.
I think they're infusing the energy we need to live directly into our
bodies. Then they get rid of the 'wastes' the same way. They're not real
wastes, of course, since most of the energy is directly absorbed into
our systems. What is left over probably becomes our rather limited
wardrobes. Nothing is wasted."
I was about to answer when my entire mental processes went haywire. My
mind just blanked out, and I realized as the light dimmed, then suddenly
returned, that I was back in the play room. I was on a beach, a warm
tropical sun beaming down on me. In the distance I could see a warm sea
rolling back and forth against a smooth white expanse of sand. There was
something between my toes. As I looked down, I could see that they were
now painted a delicate pink and were surrounded by fine sand that wedged
itself up between the toes.
I was actually wearing clothing, I realized with some relief, but it
wasn't like anything I had ever worn before. I was wearing a silky
blouse, torn in several strategic places, allowing my full breasts to
poke through. I seemed to be lacking a bra. A tattered short navy blue
skirt covered a little of my bare legs, and the soft tropical breeze
which flowed under it told me I was wearing nothing else. I looked like
a shipwreck survivor.
I could hear footsteps behind me muffled by the sand. I turned, feeling
the sway of my hair and the pull of large earrings as I did. It was
Andy, of course, his own clothes in tatters, displaying a manly chest
and a bulge in his torn pants. I shuddered in anticipation as we
embraced...
I woke up in our living quarters again. There wasn't the shock of being
female I had experienced before. It was becoming normal, if not natural,
to be female. Also, as a reminder, my right nipple was still a little
sore. Andy had gotten a bit exuberant and nipped at it. It felt almost
as if there was an earthquake when he had done so. I had felt the ground
move under me. That wasn't a sexual allusion. I really had felt the
ground move. Of course, when he entered me a few minutes later, the
ground moved in a sexual way as well.
I looked over at Andy as he slept peacefully. I knew we were being
forced to do this, but I thought how fortunate I was that Andy was such
a gentle lover. When he entered me, there was never any pain or
discomfort. It was as if we were a perfect fit. If I had been born a
woman, I would have wanted a lover just like Andy.
If I had been born a woman. I mulled that over in my mind. I hadn't been
born a woman, but here I was, changed into one, and a very beautiful one
at that. I giggled to the thought of walking into the First Contact Team
headquarters dressed as I was right now. At least when they joked and
called me Scully now, the name fit. Although, I thought looking down at
my new form, if anything, I was better looking than Gillian Anderson.
Things were changing in my mind. I could understand that now. No wonder
I had originally thought that Lanny and Don had always been girls. It
wasn't just the unlikelihood of the transformation they had experienced.
They were slowly but surely becoming female in mind as well as in body.
As the new hormones flowed through their bodies, they would move and
think and act more and more like natural women with each passing cycle
through the play room. So would I. Mrs. Winter's little boy Tony was
going to be sugar and spice and everything nice within days.
Unless we found a way out.
We were still on Earth, I was sure. There were many empty rooms still to
be filled. Would the ship wait patiently for more men to fall into its
trap? I suspected it would. Experience had taught it that man's natural
curiosity meant that there was always someone out there who had to
experience the unknown. I wondered who would be next, but I didn't have
long to wait.
All of us gathered in the corridor at the sound of voices. We were
greeted by the sight of two men in camouflage fatigues. Both carried
side arms at the ready. They gaped in awe at the sight of the semi-nude
captives. "Who are you people?" the shorter of the two men demanded.
We all introduced ourselves at once. The fact that the two men were
armed was hopeful. Perhaps we were about to be rescued. I'm sure all of
us who had been changed into women even had a momentary thought that
perhaps we could get changed back into men again.
"All right, people!" the officer, for we could now see he was an Air
Force captain, yelled.
We were all quiet at once.
"First," he said, "where did all you people come from?"
Andy and I waited as each of the captives told their story briefly. The
captain looked incredulous at the idea of sex changes, but he listened,
then went on to the next person. When it came to be our turn, I told the
captain, "This is Andy King and I'm Tony Winter of the First Contact
Team."
He frowned. "The FCT is Top Secret! What are you doing discussing it in
front of these civilians?"
I was reminded of a younger version of Colonel Flagg on MASH. "I don't
see any reason to keep the FCT a secret from these people," I said
dryly. "I think they know there are aliens on earth by now."
"You guys think you're so smart," he growled. "Well, it looks to me like
you weren't so smart after all. I believe I read that Tony Winter was a
male."
I blushed in embarrassment. He had me there. Of course he was a good
three inches shorter than the sergeant who was with him. I had a feeling
he wouldn't be laughing for long, unless he knew a way out of there.
He didn't. As we exchanged information, we reali