Three: Nightmare

 

 

 

Poughkeepsie, New York

Saturday

The utter blackness inside the sack was overwhelming. Ellie struggled against the paralyzing effects of the gas she had been sprayed with, trying to raise her arms or kick with her legs. She was suddenly pinned down by bands across her chest and thighs. The restriction cut off what little air she was able to draw. She tried to cry out but her vocal cords wouldn't cooperate. She felt herself begin to move, rapidly and violently, swinging first to one side, then another. She then jolted to a stop. She heard elevator doors close.

"Whew," a voice said. "Jesus, what a job."

"Yeah, but did you see her knockers? I wish my girlfriend could get that kind of illness. You could use those tits for pillows."

"Can it, boys," a female voice snapped.

"Man, is she strong," another male voice said. "Did you see Cox? She tossed him fifteen feet and busted his suit. They're going to have to bag him, too."

Ellie closed her eyes and forced herself to relax, concentrating on her breathing. A tiny amount of fresh air, probably from one of those filters near her head, was coming into the bag. Feeling was returning to her limbs but cramping and queasiness put in an appearance in her midsection. She inhaled more deeply, a moan escaping her.

"Shit, she's still awake! Somebody trank her, right now!" the first male voice said. Ellie felt something pierce her leg.

"Trank in," the female voice said. Ellie felt weakness spreading around the prick in her leg. She whimpered in pain and an increasing fury, and began to strain her arms against the bonds that held her to the stretcher. She felt something give, and she was injected with another dose, then another. The new drug made her violently nauseous and she turned her head just in time. Her vomit fouled the space around her head and choked her. The voices outside the bag rose into a loud, incomprehensible babble, and another restraint was applied across her top. Ellie ceased moving to ease the cramping and nausea in her middle, not hearing the collective sigh of relief as she appeared quiescent.

Ellie felt cold touch her everywhere. She must be outside. She heard the beeping of a car horn, then a loud rattling of metal. She thought she heard a faint voice call out her name as she went up an incline and into a hollow-sounding box. More voices appeared and she heard a car or truck engine start. The cramping in her belly grew greater and Ellie struggled with the pain. She closed her eyes and tried to ignore how her own vomit was soaking into her hair, wishing she would really fall unconscious so she wouldn't hear and feel what was happening to her.

 

Steve watched with impotent rage as a gaggle of suited people hurried Ellie into the back of a truck. He pounded his fist against the cold brickwork of the hospital wall.

"Ellie!" he shouted, then restrained himself. What these people were doing to her was totally wrong. She wasn't a danger to anybody. She didn't need or deserve to be treated this way. Ever hear of asking, motherfuckers, he thought furiously. Two hundred fifty million Americans and the only ones we meet are all assholes. He made himself turn away and goaded his brain into activity. A new commotion in the hospital parking lot caught his eye. Another group of suited people were climbing all over his truck. He squinted to see against the westering sun and realized they were pulling everything from the truck and placing each item in plastic bags.

"Serious bastards, aren't you," he muttered under his breath. Somebody was watching us from the start. He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck and whipped around.

"Looking for me, are we?" he whispered. He counted eight men dressed in business suits and coats in the lobby of the hospital. Steve sauntered from the parking area, walking down the sidewalk past the front lobby, openly looking at the group of men. One had what looked like a crude drawing in his hand. They turned to look at him, then looked away, none making any move towards the doors.

Steve continued until he was around the corner. He kept walking, aiming for the pay phone down the block.

"They hire 'em smart, that's for sure," he muttered as he grabbed the receiver from its cradle with one hand while with the other he dug into a pocket, retrieving a small piece of paper. He plunked in two quarters and was rewarded with a dial tone.

"Express Taxi Service."

"I'd like a cab, please. I'm at the corner of South Avenue and Reade Place, to the Westchester County Airport."

"Five minutes."

"Thank you."

Steve replaced the receiver and looked at his watch. Four p.m. He sensed danger again and looked around. Two of the men he had seen in the hospital lobby had rounded the corner and were casually walking in his direction.

You people have half a brain after all, he thought. He turned away and walked briskly until he was near the corner. He looked back. The men were walking fast, directly for him. Steve jumped on to Lincoln Avenue, dodging honking, screeching cars and complaining drivers. The men tried to follow but were impeded by the maze of cars created by his precipitous appearance in the road. Steve reached the opposite sidewalk and ran headlong into the lobby of the nearest building. He moved as quickly as possible, dashing through into an open hallway. As expected it was a professional office, with a lobby entrance on either side of the building. Steve ran headlong onto South Street, pausing to whip his belt out of his pants. He threaded the belt through the lobby door handles and tugged the ends into a knot, then turned and walked slowly towards Reade Place. As he reached the corner, a taxi arrived.

Steve stepped in quickly and the driver accelerated away. He looked through the rear windscreen. No one was behind him. He blew his cheeks out and swallowed to moisten his mouth and throat, then dug into his coat pocket and tapped on the wire grill separating the passenger compartment from the driver.

"My friend," he said, "I've got a thousand dollars cash in my hand. It's yours if you can get me to the Westchester County airport in thirty minutes."

The taxi driver looked back. His eyes lit up at the sight of the cash in Steve's hand.

"Man, you're crazy. It's rush hour! Okay, I'm on my way."

 

Ellie was shivering, claustrophobic and starving for air when she felt the truck she was in roll up a steep incline and come to a stop. The door rolled open. Her ears were assaulted by the howl of jet engines very close by, accompanied by shouting. The din reached a crescendo, then dimmed, and she felt the bag around her head being tugged and pulled. The restraints disappeared and light suddenly flooded into the bag, dazzling her. Hands reached into the bag, grabbed her shoulders and began to pull her out of its confinement, tearing gaps in the hospital gown covering her front. Ellie looked around as best she could in her drugged state. She was being drawn onto another stretcher, one with a clear plastic envelope punctured by more glove holes, supported by an aluminum frame. Something poked her in the back and she squirmed. More hands reached into the glove holes and help pull her into the container. She felt her head press up against the plastic at the head of the stretcher.

"Holy--" a voice she had heard earlier said. "She's too big for the isolation stretcher."

"Here, help me lift her legs. You guys up there lift her head."

By dint of much pulling and pushing Ellie was shoehorned into the new container and heard it being sealed closed. A soft hiss caught her attention. Oxygen, being pumped into the envelope. She inhaled slowly, tasting the sweet, dry air. A gloved hand brought a plastic bottle to her lips.

"Here you go, soldier," a new voice said softly. "Looks like you had an accident. Have a little water. It's just water, that's all. Good. Swallow some, it'll help clean your mouth out."

Ellie took a little water, gagged, and drank some more. She looked more closely at the source of the voice. He was middle-aged, heavyset, and bespectacled. On the sleeve of his camouflage-pattern uniform was four wavy stripes meeting at a blue star symbol--some sort of sergeant, she thought. She tried to smile in gratitude but her mouth was barely able to work.

"That's good, Missy," he said. "Now, you just try to relax. Now don't be alarmed. We just want to measure you, okay?"

Five more uniformed people suddenly surrounded her, thrusting their hands into the gloves. Cloth tapes and large wooden calipers appeared in her field of view--that must have been what had stuck her in the back as she was put inside the thing--and they began to measure her. Ellie looked down at herself. God, she was half naked--the gown she had been using for a crude skirt had apparently gone with the bag they had pulled her from--and so big. Her shoulders and hips brushed against the plastic envelope encasing her. She tried to lift her head to see over her exposed breasts but could only make out her knees touching the top of the envelope.

"Knee to heel, sixty three centimeters," a voice called.

"Hip to shoulder, one hundred twelve centimeters."

"Knee to hip, seventy centimeters."

"Shoulder to crown, thirty four centimeters."

"Jesus, that's nine feet two inches!" the familiar voice said. She turned to see one of the men who had taken her from the hospital, now shorn of his anticontamination suit. He was young, with close-cropped hair and blue eyes. He leaned over her envelope and gave her a practiced smile. Ellie found herself desperately wishing she had some covering her body. He reached into one of the glove holes and stroked her shoulder. The friendly sergeant watched silently.

"There now--Eleanor, isn't it? That wasn't so bad. If you hadn't struggled we wouldn't have had to trank you so much."

Ellie managed to lift her arm in an effort to try to brush his hand away. His hand slipped down from her shoulder to touch her breast. His smile broadened. Ellie looked at the sergeant. His expression was blank but his eyes were hard. Smiley's hand slipped from her arm to her breast again.

"Now, you want to be a good girl AAAUUGGGHHH!"

Ellie's put all her focus on her hand. She reached out quickly and clamped down on his wrist, squeezing with all the strength she had. She felt something break, squeezed harder, then let go. Smiley yanked his arm out of the glove hole, stumbling backwards, grabbing at his arm.

"JESUS FUCKING CHRIST SHE BROKE MY ARM GOD IT HURTS!" he cried, staggering away from her stretcher. She heard his cries suddenly cut off.

"Trank her," the female voice ordered. "Goddamn it, trank her, now!"

"She reacted badly to the last dose, Lieutenant," the friendly sergeant said.

"Don't let me tell you again, Air Force," the female voice grated. "Knock her out. It took 30cc's of thorazine before. Make sure you use the same dose."

An animal fear gripped Ellie as she saw the sergeant turn back towards her, reaching a glove towards a metal box hanging from the stretcher frame. She instinctively tried to find purchase for her elbows to push herself away from the intruding hand, but it was useless--she already filled the isolation stretcher to capacity. The sergeant pulled out a preloaded syringe from the box and flicked off the needle's protective cap. Ellie reached out and touched his hand, gently.

"No…please," she whispered. The sergeant--she had recovered from the effects of the drug sufficiently to read the name WALLACE on his uniform--leaned closer to her and looked at her face intently. He looked over his shoulder, then at Ellie again.

"Fuck this," he growled. He stabbed the needle into the stretcher padding and pressed the plunger, then carefully maneuvered the empty syringe into a waste bag taped to the wall of the container.

"Thirty cc's of thorazine," he breathed. "Missy, you certainly are unusual. That was a dose a grizzly bear wouldn't have survived. Okay, now you've got to cooperate with me. No more trouble--even though that Army puke deserved it--and I promise I'll do everything I can to make you comfortable. Now, listen to me. That guy wasn't armed, but three of the others are, and they look like they want to use their guns. You understand? Okay?"

Ellie nodded and gripped his hand.

"Good," Wallace said softly. "First, let's get a cover over this thing so you're not on display. Okay?"

"Thank you," Ellie croaked. Wallace smiled.

"I hope my daughter is as pretty as you when she grows up--though I wouldn't want her to grow up as much as you," Wallace said.

He grabbed a sheet and draped it over the plastic coffin, shielding her from view. Ellie allowed herself one deep breath. She felt an excess of moisture forming in her eyes as the emotional rollercoaster she had experienced for the last day began to overtake her, her hands shaking from the combination of fear, adrenaline and drugs.

Steve, she thought, I'm so scared right now, so scared. I wish you were here to hold my hand. I need you to make me laugh and forget that I'm trapped inside this thing, surrounded by people who hurt me. I need you to make me forget I'm the biggest woman alive--and I'm still getting bigger--

A man's thin, sallow face suddenly thrust itself into her field of vision. Ellie nearly screamed with fright at his hard gray eyes and bitter features. A nameplate attached to his jacket read B. LANG.

"You hurt one of my men," he said, his high, scratchy voice sending shivers down her spine. He leaned closer to her, until his nose touched the plastic. "I will remember that."

 

Colonel Bartholomew Lang strode into the passenger section of the C-141 Starlifter and made his way to the communications station. The communications operator handed him a printout. Lang accepted it and left the space without a word.

In the cargo bay he paused, and allowed a satisfied look to appear on his face. So far the operation was a success, vindicating the endless hours spent arguing with Pentagon lickspittles for the creation of the Domestic Action Response Team. He looked at his watch. Just three hours from the moment word arrived of an incident to implementing a Paradigm Cordon to intern its cause. From the idiot doctor in Middleburgh to this oversexed amazon in the isolation stretcher every possible source of danger had been contained, save one. His original orders, however, were another matter. Professor Turner wanted a crack at the amazon subject and Lang had been required to accommodate him. Doctors and scientists always want to analyze, to pick apart everything, Lang thought. They conveniently forget that isolation and cauterization are the best ways to kill any danger before it spreads, whether affecting one single body or an entire population. To make things worse, the last subject, a man called Steve who had stayed with the amazon, had managed to slip from them. Well, that wouldn't last long. Lang felt confident that he would soon be ridding himself--and Earth--of this dangerous creature.

Lang opened the paper he carried and read the message. His face drained of what little color it had and his mouth tightened. "Steve" had reached the Westchester County airport and had taken off in a private plane without filing a flight plan or getting clearance, then disappeared off the airport control radars ten minutes after takeoff. It was believed he may have crashed in the Hudson river or somewhere west of the airport. Efforts to learn his identity were a failure. Even his airplane's markings matched nothing in the FAA databases and an examination of the EAA records had so far been unsuccessful. For the first time since the Paradigm Cordon began, Lang felt a real sense of concern. People and aircraft were registered somewhere. Had to be--unless, of course, they weren't native to the planet.

He could see the chief medical officer, Captain Davenport, and Sergeant Wallace conferring quietly beside the head of the isolation stretcher. Wallace had one hand inside a glove hole. He was holding the bitch's hand--fucking Air Force wimp. According to the witnesses interviewed prior to internment this "Steve" was her constant companion. Was he a willing companion, or something else? Lang had a feeling this "Steve" would be difficult. Very well--Lang could be difficult, too.

 

It seemed her bad dream would never end. Ellie could feel the first real vestiges of claustrophobia pulling at her as she contorted herself in the dwindling space of the isolation stretcher. Wallace tried to make her as comfortable as possible but his efforts were undone by her inflating body. The tough plastic of the isolation stretcher was being warped by her knees, feet and head. Her hospital gown had torn in every possible strategic place, leaving her essentially naked. She felt her breasts first brushing, then pressing against the container with every breath she took. Her chin was crowding her collarbone and her calves and shins ached from the contortions of her feet. She tried wrapping her arms under her breasts to make more room in the coffin but hands on one end of her forearms and elbows on the other pressed into the plastic too tightly for comfort. Two additional efforts to measure her body showed she was still growing at a predictable--and incredibly fast--pace. Despite the flood of oxygen coming into the stretcher the air was becoming increasingly foul--she was using it up faster than it could be pumped in. Efforts by Wallace and Davenport to raise her upper back to allow her more room only helped for a short while. Ellie began to get angry and hysterical. If this insanity didn't stop soon she would have no choice but to force her way out, the integrity of the stretcher be damned and notwithstanding her promise to Wallace not to be resistant to her captors.

Captors. The word both infuriated and frightened her. I got a news flash for you people: I didn't ASK for this to happen! They were treating her like some dangerously virulent disease. She thought again of Steve--his smile, his ready acceptance of her increasing size, his enthusiasm and optimism, and his solemn promise to her. God, Steve, I miss you. I wish I could feel your hands around--on me--right now. I wish I could see your eyes and your smile. Ellie turned her head as much as she could to one side. She could see the thin form of the man named Lang, surrounded by three others armed with assault rifles. But please don't let Lang get his hands on you. I don't think he wants either of us alive. Ellie resisted the urge to scream for release--Wallace had repeatedly told Lang's people that she was tranquilized to the max and any outburst would make him a liar and her a threat. She closed her eyes, trying to imagine that Steve was sitting beside her, holding her hand--

"Eleanor," Wallace called softly. She snapped her eyes open. She saw that Wallace was eyeing the bumps her body was making in the isolation stretcher.

"Uh, we're going to be landing in a few minutes," he continued.

"Where?"

"I'm sorry, I can't tell you. We've been ordered not to. But I know where we're going, and I think it's going to be okay for you. It's a top-flight medical facility, fully equipped. The doctors there are some of the best in the world. If anybody can find a way to stop you growing, they can."

Wallace's enthusiasm was a bit forced, Ellie thought, but anything would be better than this constricting plastic coffin she inhabited.

 

The stretcher began a jolting ride across the tarmac. Ellie observed her surroundings as best she could. It was clearly a military airport, judging from the nearby airplanes. Wherever she was, it was still near or at sundown. It was also very warm--Ellie felt herself perspiring freely in her constricting enclosure moments after leaving the coolness of the aircraft cargo bay. She was grateful that Wallace had tied down the sheet over the stretcher so that she wasn't visible to passersby but it limited her vision. She grit her teeth as the motion made her contorted body ache even more.

Ellie was thrust into a building. She rolled down a short corridor dimly lit by ultraviolet lamps, then came to a stop. A door loudly opened, then her head was thrust into a small, square opening. She saw hands sealing her isolation stretcher to the rim of the opening. Another metal thump immediately above her head made her jump. She felt the plastic over her head come loose and she stretched herself into the new space. It felt good. Then the point of her shoulders butted against the hard metal rim of a hatch.

Ellie tilted her head up and saw a crowd of people dressed in more anticontamination suits--silver colored and with larger faceplates this time--hovering at the other side of the hatch. The nearest was a woman with oriental features who was in the act of reaching out to her. When Ellie moved she jerked her hands back.

"She's too big to fit in the hatch," Ellie heard her say.

"Well, do the best you can," a man's voice replied. Hands reached in and grasped her armpits and began to tug. It was both ineffective and painful.

"Hey!" Ellie yelled. "That hurts!"

"I thought she was tranquilized," the male voice said again. Ellie felt the anger she had bottled up inside her begin to surface, and she fought to contain it.

"If you want me inside, ask," she snapped at the new gaggle of people. She carefully raised one arm through the hatch. Finding purchase around the hatch rim, she pulled herself through the opening to her shoulders. With both hands available she now shoved herself into the room. She twisted her hips and leaned until her fingers found the floor. Squirming her body and legs, she was able to force her way into her new enclosure, the hatch closing after her.

Ellie breathed deeply and stretched in sheer ecstasy at actually being able to move after so long. She opened her eyes and counted twelve people encircling her. She was almost as tall sitting down as the tallest of them standing up. Her joints throbbed as she drew her legs underneath her, then slowly stood erect. As one her newest audience all took a full step backward as she reached her full height, some pushing past their neighbors behind them. One man's legs buckled beneath him and he crashed to the floor in a heap. She groaned as circulation returned to her legs and buttocks and she twisted from side to side, her breasts bouncing on her chest as she swayed. Then she remembered her state of dishabille. The remnants of her gown fluttered from around her neck like streamers nearly to her waist, covering nothing. She felt herself flush, and sighed.

"Thank you for letting me out of that thing," she said politely. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to know where I am."

One of the suited figures moved suddenly, forcing his way to the front.

"I'm Doctor William Turner," he said, his voice distorted by his suit microphone. "Your name is Eleanor Anderson? Eleanor, I received a very unusual phone call from a Doctor Preston early this morning. He told me one of his adult patients was suddenly growing at an incredible rate of speed. You can imagine that I did not believe him until I got another call from a hospital in upstate New York--"

"Vassar Brothers," another figure said helpfully. Turner nodded, looking annoyed at being interrupted.

"Yes, that was it. Well, they told me that they had an adult female who grew visibly bigger during her stay there. Now, there is no record of any human being who suffered such a sudden growth in all medical history. In fact, just the caloric requirements alone--"

"Doctor," Ellie interrupted, "I have already been told why what's happening to me shouldn't be happening. I have also been drugged, gassed, kidnapped, stuffed into suffocating body bags and threatened." She gestured to the three bruises on her thigh from the drug injections, then pointed to the hatch. "Now, I would like to know where I am and what I am doing here."

Turner wrung his hands together, then stopped.

"Eleanor, I do not know the exact means used to bring you here. Please accept my apologies for any ill-treatment you may have received. The reason you are here is because what's happening to you is so unusual that a potential threat to the public health exists. It was decided to bring you to a facility where you can get the very best treatment while protecting the public at the same time."

Ellie closed her eyes and felt her stomach ache return. Turner was a practiced, honey-tongued speaker. She was now formally a prisoner of the federal government, sentenced to live in isolation because her body was growing.

"Eleanor, I recognize this is hard for you. Please be assured we will work around the clock to help--are you all right?"

Ellie had bent over her arms as a sharp cramp invaded her middle.

"I'm afraid that those kind people out there gave me a lot of drugs to keep me quiet," she replied. "They said it was thirty cc's worth. One of them called it 'a killing dose'."

"Thirty cc's--" another figure spoke up, his expression incredulous and outraged. Ellie looked at the latest speaker, an elderly white-haired man with a thick handlebar moustache and a marked southern accent. Another figure seized his arm to quiet him.

"I emptied my stomach in the bag they put me in," she continued. She looked carefully at Turner, noting his eyes were wide and his hands were trembling slightly. He was frightened--of her.

"Again, I am sorry," Turner replied. "I will arrange to get you something to eat."

Ellie thought of Steve and his covert foray to get her hamburgers and club sandwiches, and she felt an overwhelming sadness.

"Something to wear would be nice, too," she said softly, fixing Turner with a tired gaze. "I need a toilet, and there doesn't appear to be one here I could use. And some way to clean up would be appreciated, too."

Turner's head bobbed. He paced around her and pointed to a checkerboard of four hospital gurneys neatly put together that nearly filled one corner of the space.

"This will be your room for the time being, until we've better facilities for you," he said, his voice stronger and more assured. He pointed to what Ellie recognized as an laboratory shower. "I will arrange some necessities for you. Please understand we will make every effort to stop your growing and get you back to your former life, if you want to go back, or do something else."

Ellie nodded silently, and walked over to the makeshift oversized bed prepared for her. She slowly sat down and pulled her knees up to her chest, squeezing her bosom. It was still a little startling to feel how big her breasts had grown. Wrapping her arms around her knees she closed her eyes. She heard the sound of the fainter being picked up and dragged from the room. A door slid open, then closed, and everything about her was quiet. Ellie bent her head forward until her forehead touched her knees and let the tears fall silently down her face.

 

Doctor Turner called a meeting of the first team. He strode to the podium at the front of the conference room and rapped the platform with a water glass to gain the attention of the assemblage.

"Okay, people," he called out. "What we have in front of us is an utterly unique opportunity. The second package should be in Lab 3 by now, so we can begin looking at both subject and the extraterrestrial object she came in contact with simultaneously. You have already been briefed on your assignments, so get going. I am going to try to get a few more people in this so we can keep going twenty four hours a day. The subject is still enlarging so she can only stay here for a limited period of time before she is transferred to a bigger facility, so don't waste time. Get going."

Turner was optimistic as the people scattered. He had spent ten years formulating policy and programs to deal with any human-extraterrestrial interaction, however slight, and here he had the most overt, outrageous result of human contact with a proactive ET object he could have imagined. They needed to learn as much as possible, to discover why this young woman--such a lovely, built young woman!--was growing at such a rate, how to control it, how to duplicate it. The man who broke the code on this event would be able to write his own ticket forever, and Turner determined that he was going to be that man.

 

Ellie wiped her eyes and began to take stock of her new surroundings. She was in what appeared to be a laboratory stripped of its equipment, leaving an empty room about twenty feet square. A single bank of fluorescent lights hung amid a maze of pipes, ducts and wiring attached to an unpainted ceiling. Dirty imprints of tables and other objects decorated the floor. Everything was indicative of hurried preparations for her occupancy. The only remaining pieces of furnishing was a large stainless steel sink on one wall, the laboratory shower and the patchwork bed she sat on. Cool, plastic-smelling air entered through a small vent in the wall. The only way in or out of the room appeared to be either the tiny hatch through which she had entered and a larger, sliding door with a large glass panel in the opposite wall. A silvery convex mirror, which Ellie recognized as a cover for a security camera, hung in one corner.

Suddenly a group of suited figures reappeared. Ellie watched them as they filed into what looked like a vestibule on the opposite side of the access door. She saw the motion of another door close, then the hatch to her room slid opened. Six of her former visitors had returned, dragging in equipment with them. She could see the doors working again, bringing more people and more equipment.

The next hour found Ellie subjected to a repeat of every test she had experienced that morning in the hospital. She was inspected, prodded, drained of blood and x-rayed. The level of volume in the room rose in proportion to the number of tests performed, and Ellie tried to follow some of the technical jargon filling the air around her. The opaque condition of the x-ray films drew much attention, the operator of the machine exhibiting them over his head for the throng.

Ellie tried to accept the ministrations with as much humor and grace as she could manage but it was becoming increasingly difficult. No one in the room acknowledged her as a person, never spoke to her, never asked her how she was feeling. None of the suits had nametags to identify their occupants and with the exception of Turner no one had bothered to introduce themselves. The only words spoken to her were short orders to lie down, to sit up, to stay still. Finally, Ellie had enough.

"Where's Turner?" she asked loudly, her voice echoing in the room. The conversation in the room stilled instantly.

"Where's Turner?" she asked again. Some of the figures turned to look at one another. No one answered her.

"Okay, fine," Ellie said. "Everybody out."

The crowd stood stock-still.

"I said out!" Ellie shouted. The sheer volume of her voice in the small room hurt her own ears. She stood erect and took one step towards the assemblage. The x-ray operator was first to react, kicking at his machine to release its brakes and dragging it to the hatchway. As if his activity broke a spell all the others reacted, dragging their equipment with them. The vestibule between the two hatches was full of people and equipment as an egg was full of meat when the door on her side closed. Ellie retreated to her bed and sat down, her head bowed. Five minutes later the door opened again and Turner entered her room, an angry look on his face.

"Is there a some problem here? Eleanor, I thought we agreed to cooperate with one another to help find a cure for your problem."

"Doctor Turner, I am sorry for my outburst," Ellie replied evenly. "It has been a very long, hard day for me. I think I have been tested and punctured and violated enough for one day. I would like something to eat, and a shower, and I need to use a toilet."

Ellie stood and straightened herself as she spoke, looking down at Turner who backed up half a step. He used his gloved hands to tilt his visor sufficiently to see her face high above him.

"All right," he said after a moment's silence. "I will get you what you need--but you must help us, too. Let us make a deal here. You can eat and take care of yourself, then we will do some more tests until you are tired and wish to sleep. All right?"

Ellie nodded. She saw him smile behind his visor. His eyes slowly moved down her erect form. It was not hard to see where his gaze paused, and Ellie felt herself flush in embarrassment.

"Something to wear, too," she reminded him, loudly. He nodded and left the room.

A short time later Ellie saw movement in the hatchway. A figure stepped into the room, pausing to watch the hatch close behind him. In his arms were a bundle of towels and a small plastic bag containing soap, toothpaste, a toothbrush and a bottle of shampoo. He came towards Ellie until he was just outside her arm's length, dropped the towels and bag, and rushed back to the door.

Ellie turned her back on the visitor. Tearing the remains of her gown from around her neck she tossed the rags into a corner of the room. The closure of the plastic bag was too small for her to tease apart with her fingertips and she used a nail to rip it open. The lemon-vanilla scented soap looked like it had been rifled from a hotel and was ridiculously small in her hand. The shampoo was also toy-sized. Applying the toothbrush gave her a shock--it felt like she was trying to clean her teeth with a mascara brush. She stood up and made her way to the sink, daintily brushing using her thumb and index finger as she went, and opened the tap. She rinsed out her mouth and turned to crouch under the seven-foot high shower, working the pipe valve. A torrent of cold water splashed her. After her sweaty confinement it felt good and she was pleased to note the drain beneath the shower head did its job. She soaked her hair and used the soap and shampoo, rinsed, then stood up to towel herself off.

It was then she noticed that her visitor had not left the room. He stood beside the hatch, staring up at her, his visor fogged. She felt a sudden fury and made a quick motion in his direction. He jumped backwards, thumping himself against the hatch, and frantically worked the controls to open it.

"Little--" she muttered under her breath as he disappeared behind the door, only to reappear in the thick glass window, watching again. She finished toweling her body and began to work on her hair, which to her surprise had grown down to her mid-back, thick and lush. Ellie momentarily wished she had a comb to put her hair in order. Motion in the hatchway caught her eye and she turned to see another suited figure enter, bearing a large, black object. She saw the new visitor slap at the shoulder of the first, then work the controls to enter the room.

"Ah, here--here's something for you to wrap around yourself," the new visitor said. Ellie recognized her as the oriental woman she first saw on entering the room. Ellie sank down to her knees so she was not so towering over the woman.

"You don't have to be afraid of me, you know," she said. "I don't bite."

The woman appeared astounded by Ellie's comment, as if she was surprised Ellie was able to talk.

"Here, take my hand," Ellie offered, reaching out slowly. The woman dropped the object and nearly fell over herself trying to get away. Ellie snatched her hand back and watched the woman rush from the room. She looked down at the package the woman had brought, an oblong knapsack with carry straps. Ellie picked it up, opened its lid and grabbed a handful of its olive-drab colored contents--a parachute. The cloth smelled moldy and she wrinkled her nose at the odor. She spread the fabric across her lap and the floor and began to measure the cloth with her hands and arms.

 

Doctor Turner returned to the lab, followed by two others carrying a large wooden box between them. Under his direction they hefted the box into an unused corner of the room. Ellie noted the circular hole cut into the plywood top of the box and the large, heavy plastic sheeting beneath. It was a toilet, a giant, homemade porta-potty. She grimaced.

"There!" Turner exclaimed with the air of a man having done someone a huge favor. "Now you have everything you needed."

He eyed Ellie's new dress. She had torn a hole in the apex of the parachute and folded it into a large-paneled apron which she wrapped around her body, secured by parachute cord ties under her breasts and around her waist.

"That looks better," he said. "Now, Eleanor, there are some ground rules we need to go over with you. With your cooperation we can have a good team effort towards curing your problem."

With that he began to outline a routine that she was expected to follow during her stay. Ellie listened patiently until her meal arrived--two trays loaded with food borne by two other men. She smell reminded her of her aching belly and her hunger, and she cut off Turner with a gesture.

"Before you start poking and prodding me again," she said, "I'd like to eat, and get some privacy to use the john."

Turner acquiesced.

"Of course," he replied. "In thirty minutes, then."

"That reminds me, doctor," Ellie said. "I'd like a clock in this room."

"A clock?"

"That's right. At least I can know what time it is, even if I'm not entitled to know anything else."

"All right. A clock."

"Thank you."

 

Ellie watched as the clock was attached to the wall and the time set. The clock had a large analog dial with twenty-four numbers on its face rather than twelve. Ellie read the time: 2030.

"What time is that in english?" she asked one of the two men attaching the lock to the wall. They both stopped dead and looked at one another.

"Uh, it's eight thirty, uh, Miss," one spoke. Ellie sat on her bed and sighed. Her whole adventure had started just over one full day ago. It seemed impossible that so much could have happened in so short a time. Ellie shifted and blinked as another one of those vertigo spells hit her--she had been having them so regularly that she only felt them when she paid attention--and undid the cord under her bosom to loosen the flaps of her impromptu dress. She was still growing, growing in a regular pattern, the doctors said.

Ellie sat on her bed and watched the hands of the lock rotating on its face. Every few minutes she felt something shift around her body--her parachute-gown, the bedclothes, her bare feet on the linoleum floor. Breathing deeply she felt the nylon rub against her breasts and shoulders. She stood up and pulled her dress up a little to ease the sense of tightness around her frame. The ragged hem of her parachute was at mid-calf--it had been almost ankle-length before. Ellie felt something brush the hair on her head. She looked up and realized that she was approaching the height of the ductwork on the ceiling. Soon she would have to bend a little, then a little more, and then she would have to crouch in this room.

Ellie seated herself again and made herself look away from the clock to the linoleum floor. She tried to amuse herself by finding images in the random dots of color embedded in the flooring. For such an airtight laboratory, the mess inside the shadows of the removed equipment was surprising. She could see motes of dust, smears of grease or oil, tears in the surface of the linoleum. Ellie paused. She really could see all those tiny things--and her eyes had to be at least six feet from the floor's surface. She looked around the walls, noticing infinitesimal dents and bulges in the otherwise featureless wallboard. Ellie put her hand up to her face. She could see every line on her palm. She held her hand out at arm's length--and still could see every line on it.

Curiouser and curiouser, she thought. Ellie looked across her room to the wooden potty. Lying beside it was a pile of newspapers--her extemporaneous toilet paper. She stood, instinctively ducking as her hair brushed the ductwork again, and stepped to her toilet, trying not to sniff its contents. She looked down at the pile of papers and found she could read every tiny word on the page. It was incredible.

The arrival of the gaggle of doctors distracted her, and Ellie retreated to her bed. The testing and measuring began again. It was announced that she was now ten feet, three and one half inches tall, or, as one of the crowd announced in a voice suitable for the racetrack, two feet four and a half inches taller than the tallest human being on record. Ellie looked at the clock saw that it was now nine p.m.

"Two point four inches per hour," someone in the crowd said, echoing Ellie's thoughts. "One millimeter per minute. Amazing."

 

Ellie's promise to cooperate with Doctor Turner and his hive of examiners and researchers lasted for almost eighteen hours. She was repeatedly drained, checked, inspected and measured. Different x-ray machines were wheeled in, one after the other, with no improvement in results. After a discussion which Ellie covertly overheard but could not understand, more equipment was brought in. Fibroscopes were slipped into every one of her orifices, gagging, hurting and embarrassing her. An endless stream of questions were asked, over and over again. Did she feel any dizziness? Do her joints hurt? Any muscle spasms? Body aches? How about bowel movements? She felt no need for sleep whatsoever? Has she menstruated since she began growing? Ellie answered as best she could as she alternately dressed and undressed for each successive test, trying to ignore how the cords she used to tie her dress together were getting progressively shorter or how her skirt hem was inexorably rising up her legs past her knees.

Every hour the tests and questions were stopped, and the tapes and calipers made a reappearance. By 0800--eight o'clock to Ellie--she was twelve feet four inches tall and had to stoop when standing to avoid entangling her near-waist-length hair in the pipes and ducts over head. The level of the voice announcing her height grew louder with each passing hour and each increased measure until, at noon, she broke the thirteen-foot mark. She thought the assemblage would cheer or break into song as the stentorian announcement was made, and she grit her teeth. Turner himself appeared only once, stayed for just a moment, then rushed out of the room, looking less polished than usual. Only one doctor, the elderly white-haired man who had expressed concern over her drugging the previous evening, had gone out of his way to speak to her as a person, telling her about the weather or trying to comfort her. Breaks for meals were a relief to her, allowing her to collect her temper (about the only thing, she thought with gallows humor, that was shortening on her) and nerve herself to endure the next set of tests and questions.

Then after her three p.m. measurement--the technician almost shouted, "Thirteen feet nine point five inches!"--a new object was brought in contact with the skin on her left forearm and activated. Ellie screamed in pain as the curetter neatly scalloped a four-inch wide slice of skin from her arm. She jerked her arm away, crying in agony.

"We need a skin sample--" the technician began. Ellie reached down with her uninjured arm and grasped the technician by his suit front. The tough plastic shredded in her hand. She lifted the man into the air until his head banged off a duct on the ceiling.

"You do that again and I'll--" She was shaking badly from the rush of pain, pent-up anger and adrenaline. The technician was literally being rattled in her hand. She flung him into the crowd, knocking half of them from their feet.

"This ends now!" she shouted. "Get out of here before I throw you out!"

The crowd picked up the technician and retreated en masse, leaving Ellie crying in pain, clutching her arm. Blood dripped freely from between her fingers. Suddenly the door opened again, and she looked up, fierce anger etching her features. It was the elderly doctor and he had a first-aid kit in his hands. Despite her tears she could distinguish the trembling of his lip from twenty feet away through his visor. She put her head down again, rocking her hurt arm. She felt a gentle touch on her knee. He had come closer, and he beckoned to her with the first aid kit.

"Let me tend your arm," he said. Ellie sniffed back her tears and hesitantly extended her forearm. He clucked with concern as he saw the gaping wound. He retrieved a towel from the vestibule between the two hatches, soaked it at the sink and began to gently clean away the blood from her skin.

A repeated thudding on the other hatch brought their attention to the open vestibule. Ellie could see Turner framed by the glass in the outer door. The white-haired doctor gently placed the towel over her wound and told her to hold it there, then went to the hatchway and worked the controls.

With the inner hatch closed Turner was now able to work the outer hatch. He stomped into Ellie's room, accompanied by two men. Both men carried shotguns wrapped in clear plastic.

"What's this?" Turner said. He was visibly angry, and appeared distracted, although Ellie could not tell why. The friendly doctor returned to cleaning and dressing her wound.

"Why did you order the doctors out of your room? I thought we had an agreement to cooperate with each other."

"I didn't appreciate being dissected," Ellie replied. She thought she saw a ghost of a smile appear on the friendly doctor's face. Turner frowned even more. He was furious, Ellie thought, and not just about me. Something else has happened.

"Do you want our help or not?" Turner demanded. "Much of what we need to know to help you we can't get because we cannot see inside you with any x-ray or MRI equipment. We need samples of all your tissues to find the cause of what's making you grow--"

"Not any more, Doctor," Ellie snapped. She sucked in her breath as antiseptic cream and a bandage was applied to her arm. "I'm leaving this prison of yours."

"No, you're not." Turner gestured to the two men behind her. She could see their perspiration through their visors. One jerked up his shotgun by its pistol grip and made a show of working its action. Ellie put on the nastiest smile she could contrive and pulled her arm out the friendly doctor's grasp. She stood up until she was fully erect, bending over Turner and the two goons.

"D'you think your dinky little gun can really hurt me?" she said. To their credit neither man moved, but she could see it get damper inside their suits.

"Fine, Eleanor, fine," Turner snapped. "Do you like the idea of being locked inside this room without support, growing until you crush yourself inside it? There is nothing--nothing whatever--to stop your growing at this time."

Ellie seated herself again on her bed.

"I think," Turner continued, shaking his head to scatter the perspiration dripping into his eyes, "that we all need to take a short break. We'll be back in--" he looked at the clock-- "two hours. I suggest you reconsider while we're gone. Charlie," he said, turning to the white haired doctor fussing over her bandage, "I want to see you when you're done."

With that he strode from the room, the guards following. Ellie dropped her head. She could feel a tension headache rising from the nape of her neck to her skull. The white haired doctor, Charlie, applied one last bandage. He looked around to make sure his actions couldn't be observed by Turner, who now stood in the open vestibule, waiting impatiently. He quickly popped off one of his gloves and touched Ellie's arm with his bare hand. Ellie felt the warmth of his hand, and looked at him. Through his visor she could see his eyes, full of concern and sympathy.

"Thank you," she whispered softly. He smiled, nodded to her and slipped his glove back on, then turned to enter the vestibule. Turner began talking as soon as Charlie was close enough to hear. Ellie felt a chill run down her spine as her preternatural hearing let her hear as well.

"What we've got is going to have to do. She's getting too big to cow. I'm going to call Lang and hand her over to his people."

 

Growth Encounter part 4