Following Sarah, Alan barely suppressed a snicker as the thought hit him "At least my sister had the sense to pass out in a hospital and not somewhere on the road."
Little more than a half minute after her eyes had rolled back, a nurse had come and given her a quick examination. Shortly afterwards a doctor had given her a somewhat more thorough examination. When she was finished, she told them that she had not found any signs of a serious condition, such as a heart attack. The doctor was positive that Sarah had just passed out from the shock and was not in immediate danger.
But when Sarah had not yet waken up after a few minutes, two male nurses put her on a gurney and transferred her to a hospital bed.
The doctor, a mixed breed female, examined her once more, a little more carefully this time. Then she stood up and turned to Alan and Penny.
"Is she going to be alright?" Penny asked.
"I think so." The doctor answered "Her heart is beating and she is breathing just fine. Her blood pressure is quite low, but not dangerously so. I can't see any sign that she had a stroke. But if she does not wake up on her own in a minute or so, I'll try to wake her."
Alan and Penny watched her anxiously, but soon Sarah began to stir. Her eyes flew open and she asked "Chris?" and looked around. When she did not see him, she turned to Alan and asked "What happened? Why am I in a hospital? And where is Chris?"
"You fainted, Sarah." Alan said "Are you feeling ok?"
She stared at him for a moment and said in a quite voice "Yes, I feel fine."
"Don't you remember what happened? Why we are here in a hospital?"
"No..." But then her eyes widened as the memory returned "No! Chris! What happened to him?"
Penny took Sarah's paw and squeezed it "I fear... we think that he has been abducted."
"No!" Sarah wailed and tears soaked the fur on her muzzle. For a minute Penny just held her paw as she cried, and then dried off her face when the tears finally stopped and she asked "What am I going to do now?"
"I'm sure we will find him again, Sarah."
"Do you really think so?"
"Yes." Penny answered with a confidence she did not feel.
"Miss?"
Sarah turned to the canine "Yes."
"Call me Lydia, I'm your doctor. You seem to have recovered nicely, but I'd like to make sure that you are really all right. I could not find any sign that you had a heart attack or a stroke, but you were out for an unusually long time. I'd like to run some tests on you to make sure. If you agree, that is."
"What kinds of tests?"
"Well, I'd like to do an EKG, take a few blood samples and test your reactions. Things like that, nothing too exotic."
"Is this necessary?"
"Maybe, maybe not." The doctor answered "Most likely you just fainted because of extreme agitation. I think the probability that you have a serious problem is not very high, but do you really want to take the chance?"
"What serious problems could there have been?"
"Some problem with your heart or you could have had a very mild stroke."
"All right, let's make sure." Sarah answered after a minute.
"Do you feel up to walking a bit or would you prefer to be transported."
Sarah said "I'm fine, I can walk on my own." and sat up in the bed. She waited a bit and stood up. The others watched her, ready to catch her should she fall, but she smiled and said "I feel fine. I'm not dizzy or anything."
"Then let's get started. If you would come with me..."
"Sarah?" Alan asked "I think we should call the police and tell them about Chris. Is it ok if I call them?"
"Yes, please. I want my Chris back." She sobbed once, then she turned to the doctor and they left the room.
"What now?" Penny asked as she and Alan left the sickroom.
"It will take some time until my parents come here. Let's go back to the supervisor."
"Ok."
Alan knocked on the office door and then they went in.
The female hare asked "Hello. How is your sister, Alan?"
"Probably fine. She went with the doctor to have some tests done to be sure."
"Good." She considered Alan for a moment and went on "I called the police. A detective should be here in a few minutes. I hope you don't object..."
"Not at all. I was just about to ask you to call them anyway."
# # # # #
"Please sit here, Miss..."
"Just Sarah."
"Sit here, Sarah. First I'm going to draw some blood and send it to the lab to be analyzed." They were silent for a few minutes as she drew the blood samples. Then she pawed the filled test tubes to a nurse "Take them to the lab. I want the results as soon as possible."
"Yes, doctor." The nurse answered and left the examination room.
When the doctor turned back to Sarah, she said "There is one particular test I'd like to have done, doctor."
# # # # #
Penny nearly dropped the cup of coffee she was holding when someone suddenly knocked on the door.
Petra got up and opened the door.
"Miss Schafer?" A male badger asked "I'm detective Crowley. You called me."
"Yes, I did. Please come in and have a seat." She waved at a free chair and closed the door after he had entered. Then she sat down again.
The badger showed them his badge and asked "All right, you called me about some missing person, tell me again what happened."
There was silence for several seconds, then Alan spoke up "My name is Alan Carolinae and it is my sister Sarah's boyfriend who is missing." He looked at his watch and went on "I'll just give you a quick rundown, we can go into the details later. Not quite two hours ago we came home after visiting some friends. We, that is the two of us, my sister Sarah and her friend Chris. Chris and Sarah were walking from the car to my parent's house when he collapsed suddenly. A couple of passing furs helped us, the femme told us that she was a nurse and examined Chris while her companion called an ambulance. The ambulance came a few minutes later and the paramedics put him on a stretcher and drove off to take him to a hospital. We drove to the hospital they had said they would take him to, but he was not there. The furs there said that they had several emergency cases and the ambulance might have been diverted to this hospital. So we came here, but he was not here as well."
Petra spoke up "I checked with the 911 dispatch center and they did not get any call from the Swansville area during the time in question."
"And there were some discrepancies, details that should have clued me in that these were not real paramedics, but I did not notice them right away. So we believe that he has been abducted."
"Hmmm, if it was an abduction, then that was a professional job. At least it sounds like one." The badger mused "Do you know anyone who might have a reason to abduct this fur."
"I don't exactly know anyone who would, but I can see that there might be furs who would have a special interest in him. Mainly because he is an alien, a human to be exact."
The detective stared at Alan "He is a what?!?"
"A human."
Penny rummaged around in Sarah's purse and produced the pictures "Here, have a look at those, so you don't think we are complete loonies."
The badger took the pictures and looked at them. He mumbled something and shook his head, then he examined them again. Finally he looked up and said "All right. Let's assume that these are genuine. So you have been hiding a potentially dangerous alien. For how long?"
"I don't think he is dangerous. Not any more than any random fur, at any rate. But as for how long, he has been together with my sister for nearly two weeks. I'll tell you what I know, but you'll have to talk to my sister to get all the details. After the doctor is finished with her, that is."
"What happened to her?"
"When she realized that he had been abducted, she fainted. She came to a few minutes ago and one of the doctors here is now examining her to make sure that there is nothing seriously wrong with her."
"Tell me more about the alien."
"His name is Christoph Saepin. It seems that he is from another planet. Maybe more like a parallel dimension. From what he told us, the world he came from seems to mirror this one very closely. He speaks perfectly understandable English. Maybe with a slight accent. My sister was on a holiday in the mountains south of here. He sought shelter during the big storm the weekend before last and then he stayed with her. I guess one could call him her boyfriend now. We were actually trying to figure out how to best go about informing the authorities." Alan told the detective some more about Chris.
When he was finished, the badger leaned back and considered them for a while. Then he said "That's a fantastic story. Well, normally I would find it very hard to believe you, but we got a request from the FBI a few days ago. That we should be on the lookout for any unusual furs in the area. If this is genuine, then he definitely counts as 'unusual'. Maybe they were even looking for him specifically. I'll have to inform them. Let me call the fur I was supposed to call." With that he stood up and left the room.
The three looked at each other. Finally Petra said "So it seems that the FBI knew that your 'alien' was here. I wonder how?"
"That is a good question."
Penny said "An even better question is, what happens to him now? Will we find him again? And if we find him, what will the FBI do about him? Will they help us find him?"
Alan considered this "Or will they try to cover up his existence?"
Penny shuddered "And disappear us?"
"I think we may find out if the 'Men in Black' are real. At least until they wipe our memory."
"I hope not."
There was a knock on the door and Sarah's parents came in. "Hello, I'm Sarah's mother. How is she?"
Petra stood up and shook their paws "The doctor thinks that she is going to be all right. I'm Petra Schafer."
"Harold Carolinae, and this is my wife Jane."
"Sarah woke up right after I called you. The doctor thinks she just fainted, but she is giving her a complete check-up to make sure."
Petra asked "It's getting a little tight in here, my room was not really designed for so many furs. Why don't we move to the conference room next door?"
They moved to the other room and Petra called for drinks and snacks, which arrived shortly. She and Alan told Sarah's parents about what had happened.
# # # # #
The fox considered the house at the address he had been given. It looked like a regular family home and the nametag matched the name he had been given as well, so he was at the correct address. When he tried the doorbell, it was not answered. He tried it once more, then he tried the door, but it was locked. He walked around the house and concluded that the inhabitants were out at the moment. He considered breaking in when his phone rang "Moulder."
"Detective Crowley, am I speaking to Agent Moulder?"
"Yes."
"You asked us to contact you if we had any reports about 'unusual' furs in our area."
"Yes, I did. Do you have anything?"
"Yes. I'm at the City General hospital right now, and I just got a missing person case that might be interesting to you. The missing 'fur' is described as looking like... a 'human'. Like those that appear in some of the science fiction films. His friends even showed me photographs. I'm not an expert on forgery, but to me they look genuine. If they were faked, then by a real professional."
"Yes!" The fox exclaimed "Exactly what I'm looking for. Any more details?"
"The fur I talked to was a certain Alan Carolinae. He told me that the human was abducted right in front of his parent's house in Swansville. I could not yet talk to his sister because she passed out a short while ago. Apparently she was a very close friend of the missing fur... human."
"Do you have the address?"
"Oakhill road 15."
"Interesting. This is exactly where I am right now. So we have really been tailing the human for a day now. So, exactly what happened?"
"This is what they told us: He was walking from their car to the house when he suddenly fell and passed out. Two furs helped them and called an ambulance. The ambulance came a few minutes later and took the human away. He has not been seen since and the 911 dispatcher did not record a call from that area."
"Hmmm, ok. Thank you for the information, Detective Crowley. I'll meet you at the hospital as soon as I get there. Don't let any of the furs involved leave before I have had a chance to talk to them. In the meantime, start debriefing them. Bye."
"Yes, sir."
"Smith! Get all our forensic furs here. The human was abducted from here, somewhere on the driveway. Search the whole area for clues. I'll head to the City General hospital."
# # # # #
"That's it, Sarah. We are all done. Unless one of the blood tests turns up anything, I'd say you are perfectly fine." She considered another piece of information that popped up on her screen "Hmmm, I believe your hormones were 'acting up' and then the stress and fear just overwhelmed you."
"My hormones acting up? Is that dangerous?"
"Not really." The doctor grinned at her "It's perfectly understandable, given the situation."
"Why?"
"The results of the test you requested me to perform just came in."
"And?"
"Positive. It's not 100% certain, but it would be very unusual for your PCG levels to be that high if you were not pregnant."
"Really? Well, I could not have been pregnant for more than 10 days or so, if it is any help."
"Yes, that would be consistent with the PCG level we have measured. Hmmm, still some of the other readings are kind of strange. Did anything unusual happen to you in the last few days? Anything you don't mind telling me about..."
Sarah stared at the doctor for a long moment before she answered "I guess there is not much of a point to try to keep things hidden... I have been taking heat control pills for the last few years. I just wasn't ready for kits yet. Saturday before last and the next two days I forgot to take them. For various reasons. And then I met the most marvelous male." For a moment Sarah fell silent a goofy smile on her muzzle as she remembered her meeting with Chris. Suddenly it faded and her eyes filled with tears.
"Here." Lydia pawed her a tissue.
"Thank you." Sarah said and dabbed at her eyes. Then she blew her nose and went on. "Anyway, I think I went into heat and... well, the usual happened. I did not realize at the time that I had forgotten to take my pills, I just thought I had fallen in love really hard. Then I began to take my pills again. Until today, that is. When I woke up today, my stomach went into rebellion. And then I realized that there were more pills in the package than there should have been... Things suddenly fell into place and I realized that I could well be pregnant..."
"So you did not take your pill today?"
"Yes."
"All right. That certainly explains why your hormones are acting up. It also means that the pregnancy test is not quite as certain as I originally thought it was."
"Why?"
"As I said, it would be unusual for your PCG levels to be that high. But stopping to take your heat control pills, starting again and stopping once more definitely falls under the heading of 'unusual'. I would have said that it was 99% certain that you were pregnant, with this new information I'll say it's more like 90% or so."
"Ok..."
"If you want to be really certain, we can repeat the test in a few days. If your PCG levels continue to rise, then you are pregnant. You should definitely stop taking your pills for at least a month to let your body settle down. Better two months. If you are pregnant, then you have to stop taking them anyway."
"I will. Thank you." Suddenly she sobbed.
# # # # #
When Sarah and Lydia came to Petra Schafer's room, they found it locked, but there was a small sign next to the nameplate that said 'Room 23B', so they went there.
"Sarah!" Her mother jumped up and hugged her daughter "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, mum."
Jane considered her daughter's face "You have been crying."
"I miss Chris..." She sobbed and buried her face in her paws.
"We will find him. Trust me." She hugged Sarah some more, then she led her to a chair and sat her down. "The police is already looking for him, they have even involved the FBI. They will find him, I'm sure."
"I need him, mum..."
"Is she is really alright, doctor?" Sarah's father asked.
Lydia thought for a moment before she answered "Yes, I have given her a thorough examination and found nothing physically wrong with her. It will take a few days for all results from the lab to come in, though, but I think it is rather unlikely that they will turn up anything significant."
Harold stared at her and stated "There is something more. Something you aren't telling us."
"Possibly. But the details of her examination are confidential. Sarah will have to tell you herself, or at least give her assent for me to tell them." She crossed her arms.
Harold turned to his daughter and asked "Well?"
"Leave her. She needs time to recover." Jane looked at him briefly before turning back to her daughter.
Breathing deeply, Sarah calmed down slowly. Finally she looked up and faced her parents "I'm pregnant."
They both stared at her, as did her brother and the others. Alan asked "By Chris?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure?" Her mother asked.
Sarah looked at Lydia, who answered for her "Not 100%, it is too early to be absolutely sure, if she is pregnant, but the test is positive."
"You are sure it was not George?"
"Yes. We were not ready for a kit, so I was taking my pills. And it has been quite a long time since we last slept together, nearly two months. If I had been pregnant for that long, I would have known before now."
"After the examination I can be sure that she has not been pregnant for that long. If she is pregnant, she the conception was less than two weeks ago. Three at the most."
"But he is so different... What are the chances of an alien and Sarah being compatible..."
"Ridiculously small, I would think." Lydia answered "But apparently he is compatible. Unless the test gave a false positive, which is possible, given the situation, but unlikely."
"How so?"
Sarah explained "I had morning sickness today and then I found out this morning, that I had forgotten to take my pills three days in a row. The day I met Chris and the two following days. And then we... fell in love..." She fell silent.
"That alone would throw her hormones into enough turmoil to explain a false positive test result. Of course it would also make her particularly receptive, especially since this also happened at the most fertile time of her cycle."
Harold shook his head "I have been waiting for grandchildren for a while now, but this... I just don't know what to think..."
The door opened and Detective Crowley came back in. He looked over the assembled furs and turned to Sarah "I see that you are well enough to join us. An agent from the FBI will be here shortly, they are taking over the case. I'm sure that will find your friend." He paused for a moment "Please don't talk about the abduction among yourselves before we have had a chance to interview each of you separately. We want to get the impressions each one of you had. All right?"
"Ok, Detective." Harold said "I don't quite understand why, I'd really like to hear what happened, but I'll try to restrain myself from asking about it."
"Why? If you talk about it too much, then we'll get only one story from you and there is a good chance some detail that could be important later gets lost because someone decided she must have been mistaken when she hears the story from one of the other witnesses and does not tell us. Ok?"
"Yes, I think I understand."
He turned to Petra "Where can I find a room for a private interview, Miss?"
"Try the room next door. If it is in use, you can use my office."
"Thank you. Alan, would you come with me? If you don't want to, you don't have to tell me anything without a lawyer present, but I hope that you don't insist on this. The sooner we get detailed information, the sooner we can start searching for your sister's friend."
"No problem. Can my father be present?"
"Yes, as long as he does not interrupt us."
"Ok." The three left the room.
# # # # #
My head banged against whatever I was lying on. Everything was shaking and vibrating. I tried to make sense of things, but my brain was not working too well. Trying to move, I found that I could not, that I was strapped down. I could not see anything either. And my mouth was dry. Struggling against the bounds, I made some croaking noises.
An unknown voice said "I think he is waking up."
Someone else answered "We can't have that. Do you think he can take another dose?"
"As far as I can tell, his heart rate is normal. I think so."
"Do it, then."
Thinking about my situation, I realized that I was traveling, probably in a car and on a bad road. Something brushed against my left arm and then something stung me.
Then blackness.
# # # # #
Document Authorization Error !
System Administrator intervention requested.
Document: IDRA [Inter Departmental Request for Assistance] 2003-06-16-ZQ2174h "Locating a possible alien"
From: Whitelow
To: Fox Moulder, FBI
Security level: 7C
Authorization code: 75XD5-765cF-8d34K-8Ql9b-62w3m
Primary check: Passed.
Secondary check: Passed.
Tertiary consistency check: Failed!
Documents and references follow:
...
End of Chapter 1