Sarah turned around in her seat when she heard the door opening behind her.
In the doorway stood a male fox dressed in a dark suit. His eyes took in the furs sitting at the table, then he entered and closed the door. "Good evening, I'm Special agent Fox Moulder. You are the furs who reported the missing... person?"
"Yes." The female hare got up and extended her paw "I'm Petra Schafer, supervisor of this department." They shook paws and she went on "This is Sarah Carolinae, the girlfriend of the missing person. Next to her is her mother Jane. The mouse femme is her brother's girlfriend Penny Nibbles. Sarah's brother, her father and Detective Crowley are currently in the next room."
"Good evening, everybody. I'd just like to have a quick word with Detective Crowley, I'll be back in a few minutes." He left the room again.
"Good evening." The fox said as he entered the other room "I'm Special Agent Fox Moulder."
"Detective Crowley, pleased to see you, Sir."
"What is the situation?"
"I just sent out the description of the getaway car and the furs." The badger picked up several papers from the table and held them out "Here is a copy."
"Thank you." He quickly scanned the pages, then he looked up again.
"I'm nearly finished with my interview." He pointed at the furs sitting at the table "Alan Carolinae and his father Harold."
"Good evening."
"Anything special I should know, detective?"
"Well, I think these were professionals. I fear that we have already lost too much time to find them easily. And, of course, the fact that the missing person is apparently an alien."
"Interesting. Let's see what we can do." The fox considered him for a moment "I'll be in the next room. Good evening."
The fox sat down at the table, across from the young squirrel femme "So, you are the... girlfriend of the missing... alien?"
"Yes."
"I'm pleased to see you, even if the circumstances are not what either of us might have wanted. This is the current situation: A few minutes ago we sent out the description of the furs who took him. The FBI and State police will be on the lookout for them now. I can assure you that we will do whatever we can to find him. This case has a very high priority for us. At the moment we can't do much more than wait for results, so I'd like to hear your version of the story, ok?"
"All right." Sarah said.
He looked at the other furs "I would like to talk to Sarah in private. If you could please leave the room, I or Detective Crowley will talk to you soon and we'd like to get your version of the events with as little contamination as possible."
"Sure." Penny said and stood up. She left the room with Petra following her.
Jane pleaded "I would like to stay, Sir. I don't really have much to add as I did not see the abduction. Neither did I know Chris very well."
"Please." Sarah added.
"All right, provided you don't interrupt your daughter."
"Ok."
"So, Miss, please tell me about the alien."
"You can call me Sarah. Would you like to hear about the abduction first, or about how I met Chris?"
"Hmmm, let's start at the beginning. Call me Fox."
"All right, Fox. Let's see... how do I start. His name is Chris Saepin, he is a human." She fetched the pictures from her purse and pawed them to him "Here are a few pictures of him." She sniffed. "They are all I have of him. Almost everything."
She waited while he studied them, then she went on "The first time we met was on Saturday, June 7. There was a bad storm that day. I was staying at a lodge that belongs to friends of mine. It was rather late, close to sunset, when someone knocked on the door. It was already dark and when I turned on the outside light bulb, it burned out, so I could not see who was at the door. I had taken a gun with me and I grabbed it before I opened the door. It was Chris, of course. He was not wearing any clothes. It was rather impossible not to notice that he was male. To say that we were both a little surprised would probably be the understatement of the year. He looked so strange, all this bare skin and hardly any fur. What was even more surprising was that he spoke English. We stared at each other, then I told him to come in."
"Just like that? Weren't you afraid?"
"Yes, I was a little scared, but I did not think I had any choice. One look was enough to tell me that he was freezing. The weather was really nasty and the next shelter was at least an hour's walk away. I knew that he would almost certainly die if I kicked him out."
"I see."
"I was careful to keep enough distance between us to allow me to shoot him if he tried anything. I waved him into the bath and locked the door. While he took a hot bath, I found some clothes for him. When I realized that his footprints were bloody, I gave him the medicine kit as well. I also prepared the bed in the guest room. When he was finished, I led him to the kitchen and gave him some food."
"He did not have any problems with our food?"
"No, none at all."
"What kind of food did he eat?"
"Just about anything, his species is omnivorous, say like a raccoon. He does not like to eat raw meat, though." Sarah paused for a moment, when he did not ask any further questions, she went on "Then I got another surprise. He told me that some of the city names he had seen on the labels on the furniture were the same as cities from where he had come from. I found that pretty interesting and when he asked me, I fetched an atlas for him."
"You left him alone? Weren't you afraid he would try something?"
"I was as careful as I could be. And, maybe... the vibes I got from him... I was pretty sure that he would not try anything. And I had the gun at the ready all the time. Anyway, when he looked at the maps, he told me that the geography of his world was exactly the same as ours."
"Wow. Really? Exactly the same or just similar."
"He told me that since he had not studied geography, he was not really sure, but I think he seemed to know quite a lot anyway. As far as he could tell, everything looked the same and most of the cities had the same names as well. The cities that have different names mostly have names with 'fur' or the name of some species in it, while on his word 'man' is used in a lot of city names."
"So the world he came from is a mirror image of ours? Or a parallel dimension?"
"Yes, something like that, the only big difference was that they don't have furs there, on his world humans are the only sentient species. From what he told me, it seems that even their society and politics are similar to ours. Same with their technology. They even have the same makes of cars. The only thing that was different between my car and the equivalent make on his world was that the seats don't have a slot for the tail."
"Interesting. Did he tell you how he came here?"
"He did not know much. He told me that there was a thunderclap, he felt as if lightning had struck him or something and he passed out. When he came to he was here, on our world. He woke on a meadow a few hours walk from the lodge."
Fox was about to ask another question when his phone rang. He flipped it open and looked at the display. "Just a moment." He told the two squirrel femmes sitting across the table and accepted the call "Moulder."
"Hello."
"Data?"
"Yes. Please switch to C-3, use the earplug and make sure nobody is listening to you."
"Uh, oh. One moment." He turned to the furs at the table "Could you please leave the room for a minute, this is kind of sensitive. Top secret."
"Sure, no problem." Sarah answered, then she and her mother left the room and closed the door.
Moulder connected the earplug to the phone and activated the encryption. "Ok, I'm ready."
"All right. We have a problem. A big one."
"Like I don't. The alien has been snatched right out from under my paws. Dr. Whitelow will be furious. But I guess you have already seen the requests I sent."
"Yes, I have. But I think that your Dr. Whitelow will be much less angry than you might think. We have found very strong hints that he or furs working for him are actually responsible for the abduction of your alien."
"How? Why?"
"Well, he does not work for any governmental organization. The orders you got were forged."
"But... they checked out."
"Yes, they did. But when a further check was run on them, the codes were found to be forged."
"But... that means he must have somehow hacked our system."
"Yes. We are currently working to track down how he did it, figure out which systems he had access to, who helped him, the whole nine yards." After a short pause he went on "It is very unlikely that he will contact you again, but just in case I'll install an upgraded caller tracking program on your phone."
The phone beeped and the fox accepted the data transmission. "What now? Anything else I should know?"
"This goes all the way to the top. Just about every governmental organization with a three-letter acronym is scrambling to secure their system. We don't have much hope that he won't find out that his cover has been blown, but every minute before he realizes that we know about him helps us to track him down."
"So, if he calls, I don't know anything about all this?"
"Exactly. Tell him that you have almost found the alien and try to keep him connected as long as possible."
"Will do. Anything else?"
"All our agents in the area are looking for the alien or other clues that will help finding the doctor. And that includes the CIA, NSA and others. Now I have to get back to securing our computers. Don't call unless something extremely important comes up. Bye"
"Bye."
# # # # #
*BEEP*
"Jesus Christ."
The male wolf put the gun he had been examining back into the concealed holster and turned to the femme "What's the matter?"
"His heart rate is getting irregular." She examined the instruments connected to the unconscious alien "And the oxygen level in his blood is dropping."
"Not good. Put him on the oxygen breather, then ready the pacemaker." He studied the instruments for a few moments, then he shook his head "This does not look good. I'll call the doctor and inform him." He thought about it for a moment "We probably won't be able to transfer him to the truck the way we had planned, the medical facilities there are not good enough to keep him alive if his condition does not improve soon." He picked up the receiver and pressed a prominently marked button.
The intercom crackled "Incoming call from the ambulance, doctor!"
"Not good." The black wolf said as he dropped the pen he was holding and muttered "They should be keeping radio silence unless a major problem comes up" He pulled up his hood and hurried to the door. "Take it, I'm coming."
"Juan speaking. What is the problem?"
"Ambulance here. Our passenger is having problems. What should we do?"
"Serious problems?"
"Yes. Our guest's condition has begun deteriorating rapidly. If he gets much worse, then his life is in serious danger."
"Shit! Ok, let us have a look. Link up your equipment. The doctor should be here in a minute."
"Will do." There were several beeps as additional data connections were set up.
The doctor came in and glanced at the console "Juan, link us up, put the phone on the speaker and get all the medical specialists in here!" He walked over to one of the consoles and sat down.
"Yes, Doctor!"
A few moments later numbers began to appear on the screen, followed shortly by graphs of the patient's heart rate and other vital statistics. "Ok. What have you found out about the it?"
"Him, doctor." Flora, the nurse, answered. "He is male."
"All right, him it is."
"From the preliminary examination, it appears that his physiology is very similar to our own. He seems to have the same organs as we do. His vital parameters are similar to our own. I make out his blood group as 'A positive.'. If his blood is similar enough for the tests to have any meaning, that is. If I did not know that he was from a different dimension, I'd say that he just belongs to a new species of furs."
"Hmmm, all right. The data I can see from here supports that conclusion. So we'll treat him the way we would a normal fur until we find out differently. We'll have to be extra careful and reduce all drug dosages as much as possible until we know how he reacts to them. You've put him on oxygen?"
"Yes, doctor. A few minutes ago his blood-oxygen level dropped sharply."
"Ok. How much Xevo did you give him?"
"The initial shot to take him down was half a mill. I gave him another milligram once we had him in the ambulance. And another three when he began to stir after a little more than an hour."
"Hmmm, interesting. It seems he metabolizes it rather quickly, but at the same time he seems to react really badly to it. Very interesting. Give him half a mill of the antidote, then shave him and get him ready for the cardiac exciter, just in case."
"He has very little fur, I did not even have to shave him. The electrodes are already attached, and the capacitors charged, we could jump him at any time. I'm getting the antidote."
"Very good. Give it to him as soon as possible."
"Ok."
"I'm injecting the antidote... now."
"Let's see what it does."
There was silence for several moments, then the male wolf, Fernando, spoke up "His temperature is rising."
"Hmmm, yes. The antidote can have that effect, but it should not go up by more than one degree." He pressed a few buttons "I've put an alarm on it."
"Doctor?"
"Yes, Fernando?"
"We were supposed to transfer him to the truck. We may want to change that part of the plan. The medical equipment there is rather rudimentary and I'm not sure if we could transfer the equipment we have here, not quickly anyway. And we should not take him off the breather in his current condition. I would not want him to die because we did not use the best equipment we have."
"You are probably right." The doctor rubbed his muzzle, while still keeping it hidden under his hood "On the other paw, the FBI may start looking for the ambulance. We can't have them interfere now." He turned to the furs sitting at the other side of the room "Juan, how long will it take them to get here? Any activity from the feds?"
"A little over four hours to the lower gate. Unless there are problems on the road, of course."
One of the medical furs suggested "We could have the helicopter outfitted with full emergency equipment and ready to fly in less than half an hour, Doctor."
"Hmmm, yes, do it. I don't like to use it, it is always a risk, especially in the current situation, but we should have it ready, just in case."
"Doctor?"
"Yes, Evita?"
"There is some strange activity going on in the FBI system."
"Explain."
"I'm not quite sure..." Her console beeped and several lines of blinking red text appeared on her screen. "Christ!"
"What's the matter?"
"I think... our cover has been blown. I think they found out that we have hacked their system. And not just the FBI. I'm getting similar signs from the CIA and NSA as well. Several of our tracker programs have stopped sending."
"Find out what is going on there, we have to know."
"Yes, doctor. But..."
"Yes?" He sounded a little annoyed.
"If I don't cut our connections to their system, there is a very real chance that they could trace them back here. Every minute I stay in their system..."
"Ok, pull back on the more obvious activities, but we have to know if they start looking for the ambulance." He stared at her for a long moment, lost in thought. "All right. Evita, route all the connections through the outpost in New Brunswick." He turned to the male "Juan, contact our furs there. Tell them to inspect the defense systems and make sure they are ready. And the emergency self-destruct. Tell them to destroy all the important data and to be ready to evacuate the moment the feds show up. We can afford to sacrifice that outpost, but we need to keep on top of things, at least until our guest is here, then we can afford to lie low for a while."
"Yes, Doctor!"
"Fernando, Flora, how is our guest?"
"His heart rate has stabilized somewhat, but his temperature is still rising."
"His breathing is very weak and the oxygen level in his blood is very low." She thought for a moment "Should I switch on the pressure assist?"
"Yes, do so."
# # # # #
[The following conversation is in Spanish, but since I don't speak it (and, probably, most of the readers won't either), it has been translated to English.]
<Did you say something, Flora?>
<No.> The femme answered <Well, maybe. I was just praying for him not to die.>
<Afraid the doctor will hold you responsible.>
<A little... but that is not what I am afraid of.> She reached out and touched the alien's brow again. It was still terribly hot. Tears formed in her eyes <Not that. But how can I live knowing that I'm the one who killed him.>
<You did not kill him, he'll pull through. I know that you are doing your best to keep him alive. If he does not make it... if God does not want him to live, what can we do?>
<Fernando, I gave him the injection. I decided on the dose. If it kills him, then I am the one who is responsible.>
<Flora, you could not have known that it would kill him. The doctor selected the drug to use and made the guidelines for the dosage.>
<I decided to give him three mills. Fernando. I was wondering if I should not give him two, but then I decided on three. What if this is what kills him?> She shuddered and more tears soaked into the fur on her muzzle <How am I supposed to live with that?>
# # # # #
"All right, Miss Carolinae. So he told you that his world is practically a mirror image of our own?"
"Yes. Apart from the fact that they have only one sentient species. We found some other differences as well, but most of them seem to stem from the fact that they have only one species rather than many different ones or from the physical differences between us and them."
"Very interesting."
"What was even stranger was that he knew some things about us. Well, maybe not knew, but..."
"What do you mean?"
"Did you know that I work for ZZ-Studios?" She added "As a graphical artist, not as an actor."
"I didn't until now. And?"
"Well, it seems that people on his world write stories about it, about Zig Zag and some other furs who work there or their friends."
"What?!?"
"Yes, I found it hard to believe as well. But he told me some things about Zig Zag and Sabrina, one of my co-workers there, that he could not have known unless he had personally known her or at least talked one of her close friends. Not everything of what he knew was accurate, though. He told me that many different people write about these furs and different things happen in different stories. It seems none of them gets it completely correct, but some of them come closer to the truth than I would have imagined possible."
"Now that is really interesting."
"I bet."
"Ok, I think we'll have a few more talks about all this, but for now let's go on with your story. What happened next?"
"After I fed him, I locked him into the guest room and went to bed."
... [It does not really add anything to repeat Act I, so I'll skip most of Sarah's tale.]
"And then?"
"Well... I..." By now Sarah's ears were burning. She tried to find a way around telling the truth about the second night she had shared a bed with Chris, but there was no way she could, not without lying. And she did not want to do that. "I... wouldn't be surprised if I conceived that night."
"That quickly? You told me that you... slept with him, but less than 48 hours after your first saw him?"
"Yes, mum. What can I say? I knew I could trust him, I was attracted to him and I was in heat." She shrugged her shoulders "I'm not proud of it, but I'm not sorry I did it. He made me a very happy femme that night and almost every night since. He has not given me any reason to regret it."
Sarah looked at her mother and at the FBI agent sitting across the table. She was not ashamed any more "We made love again the next morning, then we bathed each other."
...
Sarah fell silent when the agent's phone started ringing. He answered the call "Moulder."
[]
"Find anything useful yet?"
[]
"Ok."
[]
"Interesting. I'll ask them." The fox turned to Sarah's mother "Mrs. Carolinae, several FBI agents are currently combing the area around your house for clues. One of them found signs that the lock on your house was tampered with. Normally we would wait until you are present before entering your house, but since every minute counts..."
"They want permission to break into my house?"
"Basically, yes."
"Ummm..." One look at Sarah's worried face was enough for her to make up her mind "Ok, if it helps with the search for Chris..."
"Thank you." The fox turned to the phone "Ok, go in."
[]
"Bye."
End of Chapter 2