Going Under

I was out of the decontamination showers, but I didn't remember being moved. My eyes were heavy and thoughts muddled, but everyone around me was still in hazmat suits.

"Oh, welcome back," said an unfamiliar voice.

A man leaned over me with a small light, shining it in my eyes. My fatigue and the morphine must have knocked me on my ass at some point. How long had it been? Had I already had my x-rays?

No, I didn't think so . . . it just seemed to be a few minutes in the time gaps, nothing more.

"We lost you for a minute, but everything's ok," he said, patting my good shoulder. "Surprised you didn't crash earlier, honestly. You're one tough lady."

"What?" It was the only thing I could say.

Was he telling me that I'd actually DIED?

The monitor I was attached to started to beep rapidly as my heartrate bumped up and the doctor was quick to comfort me.

"Careful, hey, calm down. You're alright. Nothing to worry about, yeah? Just breathe. Shallow breaths," he advised.

Somehow, I forced myself to calm down. He'd used the word 'crashed', not 'died'. Those were different things. Right? RIGHT?

The heart monitor leveled out.

"That's a brave girl. My name is Doctor Jacobs. We have a specialist coming to see you, but I'm here to do a quick exam while they get their suit. I need you to remember some colors for me, okay?"

"Yeah," I muttered, nodding.

He glanced over his clipboard and prattled them off. "White, purple, green, black."

I closed my eyes to better commit them to memory. The last thing I needed was to fail a concussion test when I didn't even have one.

Unless I did.

I'd been knocked around so many times that I shouldn't have been surprised if I did have one. I didn't feel like I had one, but I hadn't exactly sustained one before so I wouldn't know.

"Alright, I'll ask you for them in a little bit. Can you tell me your name?" he asked. He was sitting on the edge of my bed.

Somehow I managed to think through the fog of drugs, then nodded. "Nichole."

"Do you have a last name, Nichole?" he asked, taking my pulse.

That was a little harder, but I pulled it out after a deep breath. "Shain."

Jacobs turned to look at someone I couldn't see and jotted a few notes down in his clipboard. "Do you know what day it is?"

Oh jeez, I wasn't good at this on a normal day when my life wasn't in danger. What day was it? I'd been at school earlier the day before . . . had it been the weekend? I couldn't remember. I supposed I would take a wild guess.

Kristie had gone home with a friend to stay the night, I remembered that. My parents only would have let her do that if it was a weekend. I thought.

"Is it . . . Saturday?" It was more of a question than an answer.

The doctor nodded his head and smiled. At least, I thought he was. Hard to tell from the angle I was and the hazmat mask.

"Yes," he said. "Do you remember those colors I asked you about earlier?"

I pursed my lips and thought about that briefly. "White, purple, black . . . and green?"

"Very good. Another doctor will be up soon to take you for some x-rays. We'll get your ribs checked out and your legs, and maybe a few other spots just to be safe," Jacobs said.

All I could do was bob my head.

What I wanted was to be back asleep. Maybe I could sleep through the x-rays.

"I'm thirsty," I muttered.

"We've got you on fluids, but I'll have the nurse bring in a cup of crushed ice for you to chew on," Jacobs said, indicating to the IV next to my bed.

"Alright."

He stood up to leave and passed by someone else in a hazmat suit, sitting in a metal folding chair next to where two curtains met.

It seemed this room wasn't a room, just an area sectioned off by screens. When I narrowed my eyes, I could barely make out the features of Mendes behind the suit. The two nodded to each other, and then the doctor left.

Mendes stood up and walked over to my bed, sitting where the doctor had seconds before.

"What?" I rasped.

"You feeling alright?" he asked.

"No." I couldn't help but feel resentment toward him for taking me away. For his men shooting at Wolf.

And I guess Brutus. Kind of. Mostly Wolf.

Sighing, he bowed his head. "Right. Sorry. Well, don't worry. Once we get these x-rays done and do some really quick blood work, we can get you out of quarantine and into an actual room. Might be 24 hours to have the bloodwork rushed, though."

Looking away from him, I didn't answer.

"We'll call your parents soon, after the x-rays," Mendes said.

"If I pass them," I elaborated.

It was his turn to remain silent, but I didn't need him to confirm. They wouldn't call my parents until they knew what to tell them, and they wouldn't know that until they finished the x-rays.

If I was infected, they'd have to kill me and tell my parents I was dead when they found me.

Or died in the hospital.

Didn't matter which story. I opened my mouth to tell him that I wasn't infected, but knew it wouldn't matter if I did, so I just shut it again.

Shortly after, someone arrived with crushed ice in a plastic cup.

They helped me to sit up and I found that I was actually able to lift my arms high enough to sip from the cup on my own. Some of the fatigue had worn off, but only a little.

I just wished I could actually drink instead of chew ice, but it was better than nothing.

Mendes took his seat across the "room" again and said nothing else to me. That was fine, it meant I could sneak in another drug-induced nap.

However, the doctor came in shortly after for my x-rays. I didn't pay attention when a name was given, then they unlocked my bed and wheeled it out.

It only took a couple people to move me to the table, then they put the lead vests down so I wouldn't get radiation poisoning.

They checked my spine, too, and finally took off my neck brace when I threw a fit about having to wear it. It just took Mendes confirming that I had been fine when he found me.

The whole process took about forty minutes, and then I was carted back to the makeshift room they had for me. A new doctor—she introduced herself as Doctor Kendrick—took a few samples of my blood and said she'd have it rushed to a lab for priority.

Even after the x-rays came back, though, I was still confined to the screened area and the bed. I managed to sneak in some Zs between doctors and exams, but they always woke me up.

And asked me dumb questions.

Why couldn't they just let me sleep? Or at least bring me something to eat?

None of them had stopped wearing the hazmat suits, either. I couldn't say I blamed them, but it was unnerving to have them examine me and work on me with those bulky things on.

It just reminded me that I'd had an encounter with aliens. Which I had, but I didn't want to think about it for a while.

"My wrist hurts, too, but I think I just sprained it," I announced while the nice lady from before—Jaime, the nurse said her name was—stitched up the bite wound on my shoulder. They pulled out the staples Wolf had used, first.

They'd been bagged and carried off somewhere, probably for a different round of tests. I wasn't sure what they'd hope to glean from them.

"I forgot to mention it earlier, when you asked," I said in way of apology.

She glanced at me, then nodded. "That's alright, I'm sure they took an x-ray of it. If not, I'll take a look in a moment just in case."

I nodded in return and settled back into my bed, trying not to look at my legs. Even without the x-rays, it had been obvious that my left femur had broken through the skin.

They'd set it sometime while I was being cleaned, but I'd heard the word "surgery" thrown around quite a bit.

My knee had been a big, swollen mess. Now that I was clean and wearing nothing but a thin paper gown, I could easily see every bruise and cut. Every swollen joint and scabbed abrasion.

I guess it only made sense that I'd crashed. I'd hate to see what I looked like in a mirror.

Jaime was busy with the task of stitching all the deepest cuts, but anything else would have to be done by Kendrick when the blood work returned.

Why they were even bothering with the stitches were beyond me, unless they had already seen the x-rays of my chest and decided I didn't need to be put down immediately.

Jaime cut the suture and set down the equipment. "Okay, which wrist is it?"

"This one," I murmured, lifting the wrist in question. It had some discoloration, but nowhere near the amount of bruising on my legs or other parts of my body, and was only slightly swollen.

Carefully, she took it in her gloved hands and massaged it with gentle pressure, looking up from the tops of her eyes to gauge my reactions. When the pressure didn't do anything, she bent my wrist and manipulated my fingers until I winced.

"Definitely not broken, like you said probably just a bad sprain. I'll go see if I can find a brace, okay? Will you be alright on your own?" she asked, glancing pointedly at Mendes.

I glanced at him too, then smiled faintly. "Yeah, I'll be alright."

Nurse Jaime lingered a moment longer, looking torn, then nodded and left the room. The curtains swung closed behind her and Mendes unfolded his arms from over his chest and approached my bed.

My entire body tensed, making my muscles ache and stitches strain.

"They should be bringing up your x-rays, soon, to show you the extent of the damage. The results are clean, though, so we called your parents," he said.

The heart monitor gave away the apprehension I felt.

"You won't be able to see them until we get the results from your blood tests, but they know where you are and that you're safe and alive," he assured me, mistaking my distress. "Let us know if you need any more painkillers. Are you comfortable?"

"For the most part," I said with a quiet voice, staring at my hands and the IV line.

He nodded and backed up to his seat. "I know you're probably hungry, so when the nurse comes back I'll have her try to get something for you from the cafeteria."

"Not like you probably care," I sighed, more to myself than to him.

Mendes heard me, however, and replied. "Of course we care. Just because things could have, um, been bad if something was wrong with the x-rays doesn't mean we would have taken any pleasure from it. You're the only survivor, and we need to know what happened."

Of course that's what they cared about.

Figuring out what happened.

Instead of instigating an argument, however, I kept my mouth just and glowered at my lap.

For a moment longer he continued to stand, then he cleared his throat. I looked up at him, brows knit together, waiting for him to speak.

"Are you the only survivor? Is there anyone else out there we should be looking for?" he finally asked.

I turned my head so he wouldn't see my eyes water. Wouldn't see my lip quiver.

When I was certain that my voice wouldn't betray me, I said, "I don't think so. Not unless they were lost in the woods, or survived the ship falling off the side of the mountain."

Mendes shook his head. "We've already spoken to the ones who made it out of the woods, and the ship blew up."

I turned my head so fast it made me dizzy. "People got out? People escaped? How many?"

It barely registered that he'd mentioned the ship had blown up. Had Wolf and Brutus done that, it had it been a result of it sliding down the mountain.

"Half a dozen, maybe less. We're still trying to discern how many more are missing, but not everyone's noticed their kids aren't home," he said.

His smile might have meant to be comforting, but it just looked like he was trying too hard.

"We've contacted next of kin for all the IDs you managed to scavenge. Everything else will just be trying to decide who's missing, who's just wandering the town, and who . . . did not make it," he finished.

It took a couple seconds for that to sink in. Not even half a dozen had made it. That had never been grabbed or forced on that ship. They'd been the ones with a head start, or the one's fate, luck, whatever, had smiled down on.

They were living, breathing proof that the old adage was right. That there was safety in numbers.

So what was I living proof of?

"What made you start collecting that stuff?" he asked. "Did you think of that on your own?"

I shook my head and said, "No. Met a guy named Simmons. He started it. I finished. I might have dropped some when—when I was trying to escape."

He nodded. "That's understandable. You did us a service. We're very grateful."

Part of me knew what he was doing here, right now. He was warming me up, getting my gums flapping so he could ask all of the questions I hadn't been able to answer on the helicopter.

And he proved my point with his next question.

"Was it the alien you were with when we found you? Did it take all of you?"

Finally, I pried my eyes off my lap and looked up at him. "No. It was the black things. The one you were looking for inside me."

Mendes shrugged. "They didn't tell me what they were looking for. Just that you would either pass the x-rays or you wouldn't, and what to do for each situation.

"I'm on a strict need-to-know basis and I guess I didn't need to know what exactly they were looking for."

If that was the case, I wasn't going to tell him. The fewer people who had live with that image in their head, the better.

After a pause, he continued. "What was the alien doing with you, then?"

"I don't know," I muttered. It was at least sort of true. "Helped me escape, I guess."

"Why?"

Instead of answering, I deflected with my own question. "Did your men get them?"

His shoulders heaved and he shook his head. "Not sure. Last I heard, the aliens fell back and with that weird . . . invisibility thing they had, we couldn't find them. Now we're just scouring the mountain for anything salvageable."

Leaning back, I chewed on my next question for a few moments. When Mendes didn't take over, I decided to go for it. "How many did you lose."

He paused, then said, "Last I heard, seven. Then the aliens retreated. We wounded at least one, though. They found blood in that clearing and took what samples back we could. Do you know how many of those things are out there right now, stranded without a ship?"

All I could do was shake my head. It was enough that they knew there might be more than one. I didn't want to give them anything else if I didn't have to.

For Wolf, at least.

None of that information did me any good. I'd still wanted to ask. Wanted to know how deadly those two were even as beat up as they might have been.

For the most part, I was just content to know that Wolf probably wasn't dead, if maybe he'd been shot.

It would have been real shitty if he'd survived the whole thing, helped me do the same, only to be gunned down by my people.

After a moment, Mendes reached out, making me flinch in surprise.

He had second thoughts after that and pulled away again before motioning toward my wrist. It was bandaged, but apparently he'd still seen it.

"What is this mark it gave you?" he asked. "The doctor says it's like you were branded."

I glanced up at him and suddenly felt annoyed with him. I didn't want to be questioned. I wanted to eat and I wanted to sleep up until I was able to see my parents again. Which I still wasn't looking forward to.

"How would I know? He didn't exactly speak English. Maybe we're betrothed now, I don't have any idea," I said with a harrumph that made my chest ache.

The corners of his mouth twitched in what I thought was almost a smile, but he turned away and cleared his throat.

Though he opened his mouth to ask more, the screen pulled open as the nurse returned. Mendes closed his mouth and took his seat by the opening.

Jaime had come back with the brace for my wrist at just the right time.

"Alright, I found one. It wasn't very swollen, so I didn't bring you an ice pack but I can grab you one if you'd like," she said, taking a moment to set the brace for me.

"No, I'm ok. I'm hungry, though," I said before Mendes could.

She nodded and said, "I'm sure you are. I can't get you much, though. Would you prefer chicken or beef broth?"

Grimacing, I said, "I guess chicken . . ."

Jaime smiled from behind her mask. "Okay, I'll grab that. If you can keep that down, we'll get you something with more substance. I'll refill your ice cup, too."

I was feeling defeated. "Okay."

After excusing herself, Mendes seemed intent on asking me a few more questions, but I pushed the button to lean my bed back so I could lie down.

"I just want to eat and sleep," I huffed, staring at the ceiling.

He remained quiet and I was glad for it.

I wasn't looking forward to spending the next 24 hours with him hanging out until my blood tests came back, but I supposed I couldn't help it.

At least for now, I could sleep.