//------------------------------// // Chapter 7: Terms and Conditions May Apply* // Story: Bailing Out // by PhillyCh3zSt3ak //------------------------------// Chapter 7: Terms and Conditions May Apply A few weeks have passed since Spitfire had arrived at my house. I treated her like a house guest, not much else happened between us. She made me breakfast the day after our bet. Omelets and bacon strips, simple yet delicious. She has technology nailed down, except for understanding code, which is understandable because even I don’t understand it fully. She’s a bit of a car junkie back home so I’ve let her look at my car from time to time to see how it all fits together. Needless to say that if she gets back home she’ll probably have the fastest car around. The night of our bet I had set up the guest room, so she was appreciative of that. That and I think she felt a little guilty taking my bed while I slept on my couch or recliner. It’s not that they weren’t comfy at all, but they did put a crick or two in my neck when I woke up. I managed to get an interview at the job my friend told me about. I was still waiting to hear back from the HR lady if I landed the job or not. It wasn’t anything fancy, mainly a first shift security guard gig at a construction site downtown. It paid pretty good money, but it’s only temporary since the construction would be done inside of a year. Day to day life went pretty much the same way the last few weeks. I’d wake up at seven, run a good five miles out and back, shower, cook breakfast, and then wake up Spitfire if she hadn’t gotten up already. Occasionally I’d let her sleep in, but I’d usually get back at around nine. Afternoons were spent talking about her airshows that she and her squad put on and I would talk occasionally about my tour. Usually the nights were filled with classic movies. One of the first ones that I showed her was The Wizard of Oz, after all I did reference it when we first met. Sometimes we’d watch some primetime TV, but we have differences in show preferences so I’d put things on the DVR and watch my stuff at later times. Spitfire had landed a small babysitting job with my neighbor watching her nine year-old a few nights a week. It didn’t pay a whole lot, but it was better than nothing. Today I was working on my motorcycle. I hadn’t ridden it since I was deployed and it really needed an oil change before I took it out. I don’t want a galled engine after all. “Hey Andrew?” Spitfire said from the garage door. I turned around, she was wearing a short sleeved red blouse with a pair of blue jeans. “Mrs. MacAfee wants me to go over and watch her daughter again. I’ll be back around seven.” “Sure, have fun. Text me if you’re going to be late,” I reply going back to checking the spark plug. *** Area 51 The colonel stood in his office looking at a report on the airplane that had been completely reconstructed to its original condition before it had been blown to smithereens. He looked outside his office window and saw the endless expanse of desert heading up to a mountain. Over to the side he could see dual runways for test flights of different experimental aircrafts as well as flights from Vegas’s airport bringing the contracted employees in for their projects on base. “Sir?” a male soldier said walking into his office. “We’ve found her. She’s staying with a released soldier named Andrew Briggs just outside of Phoenix.” “Good. Have a surveillance drone in the air and get me on the first jet to Luke Air Force Base.” “Yes sir, right away.” ‘Soon,’ he thought. *** Canterlot castle “Colonel Hickory Knot, do you have any news on the search?” Luna said from her throne. She was not in her sleeping attire, but in her figure hugging, yet flowing dress. Hickory Knot had gotten little sleep over the last three weeks and Luna could see it in the bags under his eyes. “No your highness, it’s the same thing it’s been for the last month. No body or wreckage have been found by us or our Mareibbean friends. I’m sorry to say this, but I think she’s gone forever,” he said bowing his head in defeat. “Very well,” she said rising from her seat. “Inform your search teams that they may return home. I will inform my sister of this development tomorrow. You are dismissed.” Luna sat down and watched Hickory leave. When he turned the corner she sighed. It was not going to be a fun time telling Spitfire’s family that they had lost a daughter to a freak storm. She rubbed her temples and levitated a mug of coffee over from the table. Her arm markings glowed a dark blue, as did the mug. She took a sip and made a mental note to compliment the castle chef, she could make one damn good cup of coffee. “Must be from Coltlumbia,” she muttered. “Luna?” came a female voice from her left. It was newly crowned princess Twilight Sparkle. “I heard what just happened.” She was wearing a white blouse and a long purple skirt. “Did you, Twilight?’ she sighed and Twilight nodded. “It will not be an easy task telling Ms. Spitfire’s parents about her unfortunate death.” ‘Damn I wish I had some Irish cream for this coffee right now,’ she thought taking another sip. “Well about that,” Twilight started taking out a spell book. “I’ve been looking into that storm that happened a month ago and I may have found something. I took a trip out with one of the search parties and did an aura scan of the place where the funnel cloud had enveloped Ms. Spitfire’s aircraft and I felt a small ping of residual magic.” “What are you saying Twilight? That the storm was man-made and went haywire?” “It seems that way, yes. And whatever charge was stored up in that cloud ripped Spitfire from our plane of existence and transported her elsewhere. Here I have a spell called ‘Bloodhound,’ it will search out any living being given a possession that the missing being owned or touched recently. I visited her quarters and borrowed an award she had gotten and used the spell on it. The spell lead me to a dead end in the middle of the air.” Luna stood up wide-eyed, “So she didn’t die.” “That seems to be the logical solution, yes,” Twilight said turning the book to another page. “I’m trying to trace it further but an immense amount of power is needed to breach our dimension. I’ll probably have to ask your sister as well, but I’d like to use the Elements to attempt to boost the spell.” Luna rubbed her forehead. “I agree whilist the Elements will boost whatever spell you’re attempting to put together, there are immense risks including magic overload which can be lethal. Ask my sister in the morning, this needs to be a decision that we all agree on.” *** Andrew’s House I finish reconstructing the bike after doing maintenance on it. I started the engine and heard the patented Harley Davidson engine sound associated with it. I unlocked my phone and went to my text messages and sent a text to Spitfire. ‘Spits, going out to test-drive my bike. If you beat me home there’s some food in the fridge. -Andrew’ I pressed send and listened for my pre-programed text sound to go off. She replied ‘K. Have fun –Spits.’ And with that I pocketed my phone and grabbed my leather jacket, because road rash sucks ass. I’ve seen enough YouTube videos to know that one. I put on my visor helmet and took a quick look at my watch: 6:30pm. A quick run down to the freeway and back should be a good enough test. I took off nice and slow, enjoying the ride. *** An inconspicuous black van drove onto the street in front of Andrew’s house. Inside the six armor clad figured checked their weapons and magazines. Each had black helmets and balaclavas over their faces to conceal their identities. “UAV is on station,” one said. “Zero heat signatures inside.” “Garage door is open,” a second chimed in. “Copy that, move in,” came a voice over the radio. The six quickly moved across the street to avoid detection and went inside the garage. Opening the door, which was unlocked, they went inside. They took up three positions, each holding two of the team members. Two at the front door, two at the back door, and two on the garage door. “Remember, tranquilizers only. We want both of them alive,” came the voice again over the radio. It was now time to wait. *** “So Elena, what did you think of dinner?” Spitfire asked the young girl. “Well Ms. Smith I thought it was awesome! You cooked that?” Elena asked. “Why thank you,” Spitfire replied taking the plate and placing it in the sink to soak. Spitfire had taken on the façade of ‘Ms. Smith’ because Spitfire wasn’t a name that many people heard of. “Girls? Are you here?” called Elena’s mother. “We’re in the kitchen,” Elena yelled back. “Well I see you’re both well and the house didn’t burn down. How did it go?” “Well we played a few board games, watched a little TV, and read a book. All in all not a bad day,” Spitfire replied. “Well that’s good then,” Elena’s mother said pulling out her wallet handing Spitfire a $100 bill. “I think this should cover today.” Spitfire took it and placed it in her pocket, “Thanks Mrs. MacAfee. Call me if you need me again.” She left and walked down to the end of the block where Andrew’s was. The walk was uneventful, the only thing that looked out of place was a Time-Warner Cable van across the street from the house. ‘Maybe the neighbor across the street is getting cable?’ she thought to herself, shrugging it off. She pulled out the house key that Andrew had made for her and unlocked the front door and walked in. “Andrew, you here?” she called out. She closed and locked the door behind her. She heard a sharp ‘pfft’ and a pinching feeling on her neck. She reached for it and pulled it out to find a needle with a patch of red fuzz on the end. “What th-” was all she managed to get out before passing out on the ground, surrendering to the blackness. *** “Target one is secure,” one soldier said taking the unconscious woman off to the hallway. “Copy that, stay on station for the homeowner. Remember we also need him alive,” the voice came over the radio. “Roger that.” *** I pulled into the garage. The ride had gone smoothly. No odd engine sounds and the acceleration was excellent as well. The only thing I had to do was stop at a gas station and re-pressurize the tires. I cut the engine and took off my helmet, placing it on one of the handlebars so that it hung there. I unzipped the leather jacket and stepped inside. “Hey Spits, you home?” I called. I heard a silenced shot and a pinch on my neck. I pulled at it and found a dart, more precisely a tranquilizer dart. “Mother fu-” I fell to the floor, fading to black. *** “Target two is secure,” a soldier said. “Copy that. Good work, bring them to the extraction site.” *** ??? Spitfire started to stir. She felt like she had been whammied by the date-rape drug, groggy mainly. As she opened her eyes she saw that she was in a confined space with a curved ceiling, and it was less than a foot in front of her. She started freaking out. Her, like many of her fellow angels, have an extreme distaste for confined spaces. AKA claustrophobia. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!” she screamed. “Ma’am, please calm down or we will be forced to sedate you,” a female dressed in white said just within her peripheral vision. “Nurse, get her under control now. We need to finish the MRI,” a male voice said coming over an intercom system. “What’s going on? Who are you? Where am I? Where’s Andrew?” she asked each in a flurry, still thrashing against the restraints that kept her in the humming contraption. “Nurse, sedate her!” the doctor said. Spitfire felt a needle jab into her leg and felt a warmth fill her from the legs up slowly pulling her back into unconsciousness again. *** I started to come to. My mind felt as if it had been binge drinking again, something that I haven’t done since my 21st birthday. My vision is fuzzy but as I reach up to wipe the ‘sandman’ from my eyes I could feel one of my wrists has been restrained. I look and see that I was indeed cuffed to an interrogation table, sitting across from me was a middle-aged Latino man with black hair, with a few bald spots on the back. “PFC Andrew Briggs?” I nodded. “Welcome back, I didn’t think you were going to wake up for a few more hours,” he said with a chuckle. I tugged again at the restraint on my wrist, “Sorry about that. Protocol and all. Why don’t you answer my questions and we’ll get you out of here, ok?” “Who are you and where am I? And can I get a drink of water here, I’m parched?” “My name is Colonel James Hernandez of the US Air Force. Welcome to Area 51,” he answered. The door to the room opened and in came a female soldier in full body armor carrying a pitcher of ice cold water and two glasses, I could tell since there was ice in it. The colonel brought a tablet to the table and pressed record. “The day is July 30, 2020, 18:45 Pacific time. Colonel James Hernandez USAF interviewing PFC Andrew Briggs US Army. Mr. Briggs, how long has the winged person been living with you?” he asked. “Her name is Spitfire and I’m not telling you any more until I know she’s safe,” I spit out. “Don’t worry, she’s in another lab having some tests done,” he said not looking up from the tablet. I start yanking on the cuff attempting to get free with zero success. “Don’t worry, just blood and bone marrow samples along with MRI’s, X-rays, and CT scans. What do you think we are, brutes? 99.999% of her is human after all.” I relaxed a little, “I want to see her.” “After we’re done here, she has been sedated for the time being, she was freaking out during a standard MRI procedure. Again, how long has she been living with you?” “About a month.” “Where is she from?” “From a country called Equestria on a planet called Equis. And before you ask I have no idea where it is.” “She has wings, can she fly?” “As far as she has told me she can, but due to sort of hiding in plain sight she hasn’t had the chance to show me.” “Is she controlling your mind?” “Really? That’s the question you ask?” I said with a raised eyebrow. “I’m kidding, can’t a guy have a sense of humor?” he said with a chuckle. “Has she told you about her people’s level of technology?” “From what she’s told me it’s similar to pre or post Second World War.” “When we examined her DNA we found recessive genes for increased strength and one unknown one that radiated an unknown form of energy, did she ever talk to you about that.” “Well she said that there are three subsections of people in her society. There are the angels, people like her. Then there are the Earthborn, those of increased strength and stamina. And then there are the mages, which are able access the mana, or magic, in the air and bend it to their whim, assuming they have gotten training. She said they tend to intermarry so sometimes you’ll have a rare occurrence where two of the same race mate but get one of the other two because of those recessive genes.” “You said magic, right?” “Yeah, I think it’s just their way of describing telekinesis, teleportation, and other science. As for mana, the power source it comes from? I honestly have no idea, she doesn’t seem to know either.” “Did she ever explain how she got here?” “She said that she was flying in their equivalent of the Bermuda triangle when a cloud swallowed her up and showed up in upstate Arizona. As for how it happened, neither of us have a clue.” He pressed stop on the recording. “I think that will do it for now. I’ll take you to go see your friend now. Just a heads up but she’ll be konked out for a good hour or so. Corporal,” he said and a solder came in and unlocked the cuff on my wrist, “please take Mr. Briggs here to the infirmary.” He turned to me, “We’ll talk later when she’s awake.” I was lead out of the room and into an elevator. A few dozen floors later the doors opened and I was lead into a pure white room with numerous beds and smelled like antiseptic. The despised hospital smell, oh how I loathe it. I saw Spitfire in one of the beds, her chest rising and falling slowly synonymous with sleep. I saw two needle holes that were covered by gauze, blood spots on them. I sat down and I took her hand. Was I falling for her? I mean we lived with each other for the last month. We talked, we laughed, and we watched classic movies as well as TV shows. We didn’t go out at all since we just didn’t. I saw it on her face whenever she watched the Travel channel from time to time, she wanted to get out and explore my world. Maybe once we got out of here we would. Assuming that they let us out at all. I pulled my chair closer to the bed and started nodding off. Today had been a long day. *** Spitfire felt groggy. Her eyesight was fuzzy as she opened her eyes. She raised a hand to rub her eyes and found that there was a warm pressure on it. She tilted her heavy feeling head and saw that Andrew was sitting next to her bed with his hand on hers. She turned her hand over so their palms touched and fit her fingers between Andrew’s. ‘Does he love me?’ she thought. ‘Do I love him? Sure I trust him to take care of me, but love? Maybe? If it’s meant to be, it’ll happen.’ She slowly started to drift back into unconsciousness, but not because of medication, but from pure exhaustion. *** I woke up groggy with a crick in my neck. Or at least I hope that it’s a crick since I fell asleep in a chair while slouched down holding Spitfire’s hand. I looked over to her and saw that she had a small smile on her face. The sedatives probably wore off and she was able to get some decent sleep, hopefully. I heard about the MRI from one of the nurses, I had attempted to explain that she was very claustrophobic and that the larger the space, the better. The nurse had said that there were people like that on base, but never had a reaction quite that severe. I heard a groan and looked over to Spitfire, she was stirring from her sleep. She turned to me with a smile, “‘Morning.” “Hey there sleepy, how are you doing?” I asked gently, my hand still holding hers. “Ok, I think. I had a dream where I was in a white tunnel and it was humming real loudly.” “Well I hate to burst your bubble, but that wasn’t a dream,” I say gripping her hand a little tighter. “We were abducted by the military and they were running tests on you. You freaked out in the middle of a MRI scan and they had to sedate you.” She let go of my hand and started inspecting herself for anything that might be missing. I grabbed her hand and gently pushed her back down. “Don’t worry, they were all non-invasive tests. Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans, Computer Tomography scans, X-rays, some drawn blood, and a little bone marrow all for testing.” “So… they didn’t cut me open?” “I don’t think anyone, unless they were utterly sick in the head, could cut open another living human in good conscience.” A nurse brought over pink scrubs and a pair of slippers, “These are for her.” Spitfire looked at herself and saw that she was naked except for a medical gown. She let go of my hand and quickly grabbed the blanket on the bed and pulled it up to her head to cover herself more than she already was. The nurse pulled privacy curtains around the bed as she left. “I’ll step just outside while you change, ok?” I said in a reassuring tone. She only nodded and I went outside the curtains. She took a few minutes but she came out wearing the scrubs. A black clad soldier with an assault rifle strode over. “The colonel wants to see you two. Follow me,” he said. He led us out of the infirmary and into another elevator. It took a minute and the doors opened again and lead us to an office. He knocked on the door and an “enter” was said from the other side. As the door opened I saw that the colonel was at a mahogany desk reading a file folder. I turned my head to see that he had an office above ground with a view. I guess power has its privileges. He looked up from the folder and when he saw us he stood up, “Ah Mr. Briggs and Miss Spitfire, is it? Please have a seat,” he said gesturing to the two leather chairs in front of his desk. “We need to discuss your futures.” We all take a seat. “What are you going to do with me?” Spitfire says with a worried tone. “Nothing,” Colonel Hernandez replied flatly. “Nothing?” I said in disbelief. “Nothing,” he repeated. “We have what we need to continue our experiments without your presence at this facility.” “Then does that mean we can go-?” Spitfire started to ask. “Not exactly,” he replied and Spitfire’s hopeful disposition fell faster than a stone down a well who's center was a black hole. “Well why not?” I asked with an aggravated undertone. “Because right now she,” he pointed to Spitfire, “is a biological asset which could bring us to the next step in human evolution. Think about it. Being able to fly to work every day instead of the monotonous drive. Being able to teleport and use telekinesis to levitate objects at your own whim. Being able to lift three to four times your own body weight. Think of not only how this could affect us militarily but sociologically. And that’s just scratching the surface of her DNA. “You’re not out of this either Mr. Briggs. You’re the only person that she trusts in this entire nation, if not the world. So as of this morning you have been re-enlisted in the Air Force. And as of now you’ve been promoted to Lieutenant, congratulations. Your first assignment will be protecting Ms. Spitfire here,” he finished. He then reached in a desk drawer and brought out a keycard and badge with my name and new rank already printed on it. “And don’t think I’ve forgotten about you,” he said to Spitfire. He pulled out of the drawer a passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, and tax returns. “As of this morning you are an American citizen, with all its perks and privileges.” Spitfire looked at him with a confused expression, “Owning property, driving cars, and able to get a job,” I said. “Precisely. Also while I know your name is Spitfire, on the birth certificate there, would you go ahead and read the name?” Spitfire picked up the heavy stock paper and read, “‘Samantha Pyre. Born August 20, 1996 at Columbia St. Mary’s Milwaukee, WI.’ What is this? That isn’t my name,” she retorted. “While that may be true, your name is abnormal in our society and would stick out more than your hair, no offense. We created this alias for you. You would not believe how hard it is to inject a new identity with extensive background history extended back to your written birth date including falsified records including a high school diploma as well as a degree in aeronautics from MIT,” he said with a straight face before cracking up. “Who am I kidding? I’m part of a secret government organization. We can do anything we want! Hell I could make you a general overnight if I wanted to.” His laughter ceased, “But seriously. You can still go by your name, but officially on the records we have you’ll still be Samantha Pyre. “The last thing that is to the terms of your release is that you will remain in the vicinity of Las Vegas for the duration of our experiments in case we need more samples or for you to either demonstrate or explain something. Your official occupation on base Miss Spitfire will be a civilian contracting consultant.” “But what about my house in Phoenix?” I asked. “All of your possessions are in the middle of being moved as we speak to the new house arranged for you two in the Vegas suburbs,” he replied. “Keep your phones on and at hand, we may need you at any time. As for restrictions, do not leave the county without forewarning. We have your numbers.” We stood up to leave. Spitfire grabbing the papers and me grabbing the keycard and clipping it on my pants. “One last thing, feel free to head down to the cafeteria for breakfast, I’m pretty sure both of you are famished. A plane leaving for Vegas will be heading out at 5pm, make sure you’re there.” We left the office, the soldier from before leading the way.