The Exchange,

Chapter 13
The exchange part 13

Chapter Description: This bit made me cry as I typed it. I hate it. It's made me feel really frustrated, anxious and angry, I must write the next bit and try and sort the situation out. Not a mature warning as such, but this is not a happy chapter.

Chapter 13

She could hear shouting, a man and a woman arguing heatedly. It drifted over to her like it was being carried on the wind and she opened her eyes groggily. She felt cold and achey as she sat up from her desk. She hated when she accidentally fell asleep at her work, she really shouldn’t study so much, but there was still so much in genetics she didn’t understand, still so much left to be discovered, she was insatiable.

Sandra looked around her study. Something wasn’t right, perhaps she had yet to wake up properly but it looked like the room was toned down, like the colour had been sapped from the room. She rubbed at her eyes sleepily and looked down at her slender adult hands Her eyes suddenly widened as everything came into perspective. She stood up sharply, knocking her chair to the floor. She wasn’t a baby? Where? How? Had it really all just been a dream? Experimentally she ran her fingers across the cool oak desk, then rapped her knuckles against the wood. It felt solid enough. Was she really here?

She could hear voices, they were distorted and the more she tried to concentrate on them the harder they became to decipher. The study seemed to grow colder, more of the colour seemed to drain from the room. She crossed her arms and rubbed at her shoulders the cold making her shiver. She felt scared here. She wanted her mummy. She closed her eyes and sighed feeling stupid. It had all been just a dream. Anya didn’t exist. Sandra surmised that she would really have to go book herself into a dream therapy session, she was curious to know what the dream had meant. It had all been so vivid.

Those voices again. Shouting. Sandra looked up towards the ceiling, trying to catch the words. The male sounded agitated.

"....She used the Wardens Call for goodness sake, how can you ignore that?"

Sandra tilted her head to one side, she couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation. Perhaps it was coming from out in the hall. Turning she put the chair back on its feet, then headed for the door, she reached for the door knob.

"...You are chief lab physician, you’re forgetting your role..."

Sandra paused for a second as she caught another snippet of the conversation, then taking hold of the knob she pulled. The door wouldn’t budge. Confused she tugged at it again. She never locked herself inside her room. Back on her desk the door key suddenly began to shine. Sandra stood at the door looking back at her desk and the glowing key. She rubbed at her eyes and when she looked again, the key had stopped glowing. Something was really not right here. Was she dreaming? Fear knotted her stomach. She was confused. What the hell was going on?

She caught the woman’s voice.

"...if you take her, we are through. You promised she’d be safe. I promised her nothing would happen to her."

No, it wasn’t any woman she recognised the soft eastern European lilt to the voice. "Mu...Mummy?" Sandra called out to the empty room. Feeling foolish that a grown woman was muttering such stupid things, thankful that at least none of her work colleagues had burst in uninvited, although she would welcome the intrusion right about now. She needed someone to explain just what the hell was going on around here. Sandra strained to hear the voices. They seemed to have stopped.

Cautiously she walked across the room, not really wanting to stray from the door. It felt like something angry and evil was waiting to jump out at her. The air felt electrified, as if the very essence of life was holding its breath, watching, waiting. Sandra realised she was holding her breath too and feeling angry at herself she let out her breath. Chiding herself for getting so worked up. The dream had really messed with her head. Striding the last few steps, she grabbed the key and walked back over to the door and slotted the key into the keyhole. She had turned the key a quarter to the right when the voices started up again, it was the man although he sounded sad rather than angry now..

"Okay, keep her here. Its probably best for her anyway. I promise I wont do anything without your consent. You’re her mother after all."

Sandra paused. She was listening to Blake and Anya. They must be on the other side of the door, but how did she end up an adult again? She turned the key completely and the study door swung outwards the coldness of the room dropped to extremities and Sandra took three steps backwards. The fear rose in her so suddenly and so unexpectedly that she almost vomited. Beyond the door was nothing. Just black, impenetrable black. She collapsed to her knees and involuntarily wet herself, She could feel the hot wetness trickle down in between her legs and pool around her slumped form soaking into her business suit skirt and penetrating her tights. She began to sob, unable to tear her eyes away from the blackness, knowing there was something there, just waiting to pull her in. She could feel its hatred for her, could feel its hunger for her. She held her breath, but she was sure she could hear breathing. From her sitting position she scrambled backwards, back towards the table, where her research lay scattered across the desktop. She ignored the pool of urine that she half dragged across the room with her. She just wanted to get away from the darkness. She climbed under her desk, feeling like a foolish child but just every instinct in her screamed to run, to hide, to escape. She scrunched up her eyes, trembling, crying, muttering prayers under her breath.

Then she felt it. She felt it hovering over her, she was so petrified she couldn’t bring herself to open her eyes. A Hand clasped her shoulder and she screamed, her eyes shot open and...

She was staring up at Blake. He lifted her up by the armpits and out of her pink barred cot. The room was dark, her plain little round night light shone like a beacon in the corner of the room. Light filtered from under the doorway of the nursery, she was safe. She was back in her room, she clung to her daddy, feeling light headed and sick, almost as if she had a hangover. Her daddy paced the room holding her tight and shushing her, patting her back.

"It’s okay pipsqueak, it was only a nightmare. you’ll be alright. Daddy’s here no need to fear" Sandra guessed it must be late due to the darkness, but she had no idea how long she had been out, She wore only a pink t-shirt and terry nappy with plastic pants. She racked her brain for her last memories before she had fallen asleep. Nothing was coming to her, then slowly as if a mist lifting from her brain she began remembering. Her daddy had put her down on the changing table and popped her binkie into her mouth she sucked on it, calming down as he left her on the table for a second and went off to fetch a few things.

She remembered playing with Lyce, then falling asleep, when she had woken up she had had a nightmare, just like tonight’s one although tonight’s one was much worse. Lyce had already been taken home when she had woken up.....

When her daddy returned he had the baby harness on and he threaded Sandra into it, snapping her out of her memories. She didn’t bother speaking to him because she knew he couldn’t understand but she was curious what he was doing. Were they going somewhere? Wasn’t it the middle of the night? She was barely dressed for an outing. He stroked her hair reassuringly, but he kept shooting nervous glances towards the nursery door. Sandra looked towards the door too, wondering what it was he was worried about.

He grabbed up her changing bag and walked towards the nursery door, as an after thought he turned round went back to the crib and picked up her dragon toy, Pea. Then he headed out the nursery, through the house and towards the front door. Sandra couldn’t help but feel agitated. Where was her mummy, where were they going?

"MUMMY!" She called out, feeling like something bad was going on.

"MUMMY! MUMMY!" She yelled as they got closer to the front door. Her dummy fell to the floor and Blake stooped to pick it up, he tried to put it back in Sandras mouth but she didn’t want it, so he pocketed it instead.

"Shout all you want kiddo, you’re mummy is fast asleep."

Sandra didn’t believe him, her mummy had woken up pretty quickly this morning after Sandra had had that first nightmare and she had made much less noise that time round, this time she was practically screaming.

"MUMMY!"

Blake chuckled. "Your mummy paced this house for two days waiting for you to wake up, she was running herself ragged, we thought you’d reverted back to being unaware. She was making herself sick with worry so I slipped her some sleeping tablets so she could get some proper rest. Who’d have thought you would wake up three hours after your mummy went out like a light. That’s very fortuitous for me, perhaps we can get you there and back to the lab before your mum is any the wiser."

Sandra stiffened in the baby harness. The Lab? They were going to the lab? What for? Why? Had she really been unconscious for two whole days? Her memories started coming back again, the lush forest smell of the Clearing, Daniel and Eliza and her mummy chatting, the outfit she was wearing was short, she remembered feeling bad about that. Then the Gliph...fondly remembering the large dog like bird suddenly felt as if her heart was being torn in two as she remembered the flight and then the attack, the taste of the Gliphs blood in her mouth as the exit wound had splattered her , the look of sadness and surprise on its face as it had crumpled to the ground. She had tried to stop the attack, she had tried to help. her head began to throb as tears welled up in her eyes and she let out a long forlorn wail. Blake didn’t consol her though, he simply chuckled and left the apartment.

"Is it coming back to you yet? What you did? Sandra, you continue to amaze us all and we really need to understand what is making you tick at the moment. Your mummy refused to let us take a look, she really cares about you. I..really care about you too, but you have to understand, this isnt some fanciful jaunt across the cosmos just to pick up some orphans, we’re here in the name of research. My race is dying pipsqueak, and you might finally be the key to helping us pinpoint the problem."

He stopped at an elevator and pressed a button, waiting for the lift to arrive he whistled cheerfully, occasionally stroking Sandras hair. She struggled and kicked and cried, but she was stuck and completely at the mercy of this man. Blake continued to talk once he had stepped inside the lift.

"Whether you’re aware of it or not, two days ago you used a technique called the Wardens Call. You managed to penetrate the mind of every creature in a vicinity of 100 meters. Its a ranger ability, so it looks like you’re going to be a ranger when you grow up, but more importantly, that particular technique has not been used in almost 2 millennia, back in the last war it was a useful technique to pass orders to large amounts of troops. Only select few rangers could possess the strength to use the technique, it often resulted in brain seizures and untimely death for the wielder of the gift You see every member of my race has a natural barrier stopping people randomly accessing their thoughts, you can mentally request permission to listen to and converse with some ones thought wave, , its not dissimilar to your telephone system, but the wardens call technique just ploughs right on through, invading peoples personal thoughts and overlaying it with what you are saying. You cant control people as such, but its good if you want to be heard. It takes years of training and yet, two days on board this ship and you just throw it out there without a care. 2 millennia was the last time we saw that ability. TWO MILLENIA." Blake paused as he realised he was getting agitated and probably scaring the baby. He hadn’t really taken notice of her thrashing around and trying to escape.

"Your mother wants to keep you safe. She’s one of the head lab physicians on this ship you know. She seemed perfect for the job of looking after you. If you did display interesting abilities or anything out of the norm, we thought she’d be the first one to ship you on over to the lab. But it seems that sharing your DNA has made her a bit soft. She loves you a little too much I think."

Blake chatted casually as if discussing the weather. It chilled Sandra and she wished she was facing towards him instead of away from him, because she would have a go at scratching his eyes out. Blake walked a little further then placing his palm on a small white pad recessed into a nearby wall a door opened and despite Sandras fear she gasped in awe.

The lab was spotless, pure white, everything was designed with curves in it. It looked more like a futuristic cafe than a lab. Upon the door opening the two nearest scientists turned round to look at who was entering, both broke out into large grins as they realised who had just arrived. A woman in a lab coat approached as Blake dropped the changing bag to the floor and settled Sandys dragon on top. He then pulled Sandra from the baby carrier and held her out to the woman approaching. She had short blonde hair and brown eyes. She looked friendly enough but Sandy just wanted her mummy and she just started crying helplessly, feeling very vulnerable and very frightened. The woman took the baby from Blake.

"Thank you Doctor Garson. You’ve been most helpful" The woman smiled warmly at the man.

"Please, call me Blake. It was nothing really. I’m hoping this’ll all be over before Anya wakes up."

The woman looked momentarily confused but the expression vanished before Blake had really noticed it. Sandra had noticed it though. She didn’t want to be here.

"I want my mummy!" She wailed sadly, she knew she wasn’t going to like it here,

Blake scratched the back of his head awkwardly and pointed down at her stuff, ignoring the baby babble her heard from his daughter, he could hear her distress but this really was for the good of his kind. He was doing this for everyone.

"Thats her toys and clothes and stuff and...oh.." he dug around in his pocket and produced the pacifier he had picked up earlier and settled that down on top of the changing bag.

"..Thats her binkie. let me know when she’s ready to be collected and i’ll come and get her."

The woman shook her head.

"This isn’t something that’s going to take a couple of hours, we’ll need to thoroughly examine her, run her through some tests. It’s going to take at least a couple of days."

Blake visibly blanched at the womans statement.

"But Anya will be awake in about 12 hours, can we not do the testing in instalments?"

The woman shook her head sadly, although her eyes sparkled with excitement.

"Afraid no can do. it really would be best for all concerned if we finish up the testing before letting her back into Anyas custody. We also plan on neutralising the subject probably later tonight and then once again after the tests are over." Sandra couldn’t help but notice Blake break out into a sweat.

"Neutralise? But i’m sure that’s a little extreme is it not. I mean Anya is very adamant that no Syrup is used on Sandra. To neutralise Sandy would be going back on Anya’s wishes. She likes Sandy the way she is, she doesn’t want to erase Sandys memories or personality."

The woman simply nodded clinically, keeping a calm expression on her face.

"What you have to understand is, the Exchange council has already decided on this course of action. We can’t have pre-teens using their job abilities, life on board would just descend into chaos."

Blakes mouth was dry and he ran a shaky hand through his hair, well he guessed at least Sandra wouldn’t remember that it was him who had brought her here. Or the cruel lab experiments she was about to go through. That was a blessing he guessed.

"Okay, well then let me know when we can collect her and i’ll come get her."

He backed away towards the door. Sandra panicked, he couldn’t leave her here, if he left she would be at the mercy of these people.

"Please dont go, please, please don’t leave me here. Daddy! Daddy! DON’T"

The sliding door whooshed open behind him and he backed out of the door, the last she saw of him his eyes were locked to hers, he looked pleadingly at her, as if begging for forgiveness, he looked completely haunted by what he had just done.

The door whooshed closed , she knew she was now officially the lab rat that her mummy had promised her she would never be.