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Chapter 3. Help Wanted

Sarah stood there trembling, staring at those two creatures who were looking back at her. They moved very little, looking at her from top to bottom and glancing at each other. Neither one had any look of aggression on their faces, but more a look of curiosity and concern. As she looked silently at them she took in more details of their bodies. Each one was wearing a protective suit that covered the body except for head, hands, and feet. Each one was covered with fur on those parts that were not covered by their suits. They stood on canine-like feet with only their toes touching the floor. Their hands were shaped like hers, but covered with fur as well. As they slightly moved she could see each one had a tail. They had large soft eyes, and pointed furry ears on the top corners of their heads. The one who looked like a wolf had light gray fur mixed with white. The one who looked like a fox had red-orange fur, almost golden. Yet despite those traits, the rest of their bodies were shaped like a human.

"Hello," said the wolf creature. Sarah stood there silently, unable to move or speak.

The wolf spoke again. "Hello, do you understand me?.....Do you understand what I am saying?" Sarah remained silent, shaking, mouth partly open, trying to breathe.

"Can you hear us?" said the fox creature. Again, nothing from Sarah. "Can you hear us?" the fox said again, slightly louder. Turning to the wolf the fox said, "I do not think it is working."

"It should be working. Everything is set properly and it indicates a successful transfer," said the wolf. "Perhaps she transferred back."

"Try adjusting the transfer system," replied the fox. The two continued to talk back and forth. Sarah heard them say something about a translator not functioning, regaining her wits.

"I....I hear you," she said quietly. "I...understand your words."

The fox and wolf looked back toward her, glanced at each other approvingly with what appeared to be a smile, and turned back to her. "I hope we did not frighten you," said the wolf. "We intend no harm." The creature paused so she could absorb what was going on.

Sarah could barely believe her senses. While she knew she was at home, laying on her couch, her eyes and ears told her a very different story. She didn't know where the place was that she saw or who she was speaking to. By the sounds of their voices she felt the wolf and fox were male, if their species had the same gender types as Earth creatures. "Who...are you?"

Again, the wolf spoke first. "My name is Ajagi." After a moment the fox spoke. "My name is," he said, followed by several syllables Sarah could not understand or pronounce. The fox continued, "What is your name?"

Sarah was still in shock and had difficulty putting the sounds together in her mouth to speak her own name. "S....s.....Sarah," she said with slight relief to get the words out as she continued to wrap her mind around the situation. "Sarah Shepherd."

The fox spoke again. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Sah-rah," he said, speaking her name with difficulty as he learned to pronounce her language. "We would approach you for a proper greeting but we do not want to cause fright."

"We have brought you here because we need your help," said Ajagi.

Sarah looked around the room slightly and turned back to the pair. "Where am I? Where is 'here'," she asked.

The fox tried his best to answer her question. "You are in one of our space travel vehicles..." He paused. "Our fleet of vehicles is a great distance from our home planet on a mission of limitless importance."

With more clarity of mind Sarah spoke again before he could continue. "How did I get here? I was at home, I laid down and closed my eyes, and suddenly I'm here. How can that be?"

The wolf and fox listened carefully to her question to understand her meaning. "You are not completely here," Ajagi said. "Your physical body is at your home and has never left there. Only the consciousness of your mind has been brought here."

Sarah was completely puzzled. "That's impossible. I can feel myself lying on my couch in my home," she said barely above a whisper, but continued as she thought about where her senses were telling her she was. "I can still hear the music."

Ajagi answered her confusion. "Your body is there. You are still detecting the sensory information your body is collecting."

"But I feel myself here, too," she said as she started to look at herself. She held her hands up in front of her face, looking at them and then down her arms. Quickly she looked down at the rest of her body and realized she was completely nude. Instinctively she covered herself with her arms and hands, looking back with embarrassment toward the male figures in the room with her.

The fox and wolf were puzzled by her behavior. "Are you cold?" asked the fox. "The temperature should be adequate. But you have very little fur..."

Sarah interrupted him. "No...no, it's just that..." She struggled to find an explanation for what she was doing, but was then interrupted by the wolf.

"We do not yet have a protection cover for you. You have many questions, as do we," he said. "But our mission is of greatest importance. Will you help us?"

"Why me? What do you need me to do?" asked Sarah.

The fox answered. "You have the knowledge and intelligence we need. Our people are in infinite danger if we do not create a weapon to defeat the invaders. They are creating their own weapon, one with a power we can not stop. Instead, we must stop them."

"Will you help us?" pleaded Ajagi.

Sarah's eyes quickly shifted between the two, unable to fully comprehend the situation. "Me? Yes...I will...but I, it's that..." she stammered. "I have to work tomorrow, and I need to get some sleep tonight and....I'm so swamped with work, but I guess I can help you, the weekend is coming up..."

Ajagi and the fox were having difficulty interpreting everything she said but heard her affirmative response. "Thank you," the fox said with a smile, slowly taking a step toward her. "We will explain our project the next time we meet."

Ajagi also smiled and stepped forward slowly. "I thank you as well. We understand you have obligations and need rest. After you return home the transfer connection will be stopped so you may rest without interruption. We will connect with you again in another day...I believe I understand your daily time period. When you open your eyes, and you will be returned home."

As the two moved closer to Sarah, she felt a wave of anxiety despite their friendly demeanor. Before they could contact her she opened her eyes and found herself in her home, lying on her couch in her fuzzy pink bathrobe, just after dark. As she looked around the dark room slowly she patted her body softly to reassure herself where she was. She laid there for several more minutes trying to gather her thoughts and determine if what she had just experienced was real.

Sarah got up from the couch and walked out of the living room on legs that could barely support her. Her entire body was shaking as she made her way to the bathroom to get ready for bed. Her blank stare off into space never faded as she could barely function in the task of brushing her teeth. On her way out of the bathroom she took off her robe and reached to hang it on the bathroom door hook, dropping it to the floor but never noticing.

Once she was in bed Sarah just laid there looking off into the darkness, her mind complete chaos as she tried to remember and comprehend everything she saw and heard, who the two beings were, whether or not any of it was real, and whether or not she was losing her mind as she had thought earlier. She was too afraid to close her eyes or even blink in case she would find herself back on a space ship somewhere.

After a long period of time passed Sarah finally blinked her eyes, and then closed them briefly, to make sure she would remain at home. When she saw that inside her eyes was nothing but empty darkness she felt more at ease but continued to think uncontrollably about what she had experienced. Several hours passed until she finally fell asleep shortly before 4:00, driven by complete exhaustion.

Chapter 4. Ill-gotten Gains

When Sarah awoke to her alarm she discovered that her fearful confusion of the night before had been replaced with weary, tired confusion. Immediately she began thinking about what had happened the previous evening, such thoughts dominating her mind as she got ready for work and ate her morning toast and fruit. She paid no attention to her drive to the university and followed most of her usual morning routine automatically as the astonishing memories kept hold of her thoughts. Throughout the morning Sarah stared blankly at her computer screen. She barely typed three sentences into her ongoing research project, and every time she regained her senses to get back to work she had to read over what she had already done to get her mind caught back up with the present.

As the day progressed Sarah felt more and more exhausted. She had less than half the usual amount of sleep the previous night and was starting to feel it. Every once in a while she would close her eyes to make sure she would remain right where she was. At one point she fell asleep while still holding her head upright but was quickly awakened by the sound of people talking in the hall outside her office. When lunch time arrived she went to the break room with all the enthusiasm of a funeral.

Sarah unloaded her lunch and started to slowly eat, supporting her head with one hand while she ate with the other. Her flurry of thoughts was beginning to calm down as a sense of acceptance of the event, whether real or imagined, took control.

"Hi Sarah," said Phil as he entered the break room and headed for the refrigerator. "How's it...oh man, you look like crap. What happened to you?"

Several seconds passed before Sarah gained the awareness to respond. Blinking her tired eyes she sat up and could only respond, "Huh?"

"You look like a train wreck!" said Phil. "Party last night or something?"

"No....I'm fine, just tired. I...didn't get much sleep last night," replied Sarah.

As her friend, Phil was curious. "I thought you'd be free as a bird this morning. Your project is done, Berglund isn't here...you could have had the party here for that fact alone. What happened to the bundle of energy that ran past the lab yesterday?"

Sarah still struggled to form her sentences. "I...it's just that...it's personal."

Phil retrieved his lunch from the microwave and sat down across the table from her. "Something you want to talk about?" he asked in a concerned voice.

Sarah looked up at him with weary eyes. "No...thanks. It's...it's something I'll have to work out on my own. You wouldn't believe me anyway," she replied. Just as Phil was beginning to reassure her that he would always be willing to listen, she interrupted him. "Do you believe in life on other planets?"

Phil stopped in the middle of his sentence with his mouth still open and maintained that expression as he thought of his answer. "Yes...I would have to say yes, but not the UFO kind of junk." He took a bite of his lunch and continued, "Scientifically I'd say there's a very good chance of life everywhere. With something like a hundred billion galaxies and each with hundreds of billions of stars, and each one could have planets, the odds are in favor of life."

Sarah listened with half open eyes as Phil went on, reaching his specialty. "Plus the chemistry of life is everywhere. All the same elements are everywhere, our planet was made from dust and rocks floating out in space, and life sprang out of that. The laws of nature and chemistry are universal, so I'd have to be pretty stupid to say there are no other planets with life out there...Why do you ask? Were you up late watching a show about it?"

"No...no reason," Sarah said. Trying to change the subject and pull her thoughts away from the previous night she asked, "How are things going for you? You've been pulling some long hours in the lab."

Finishing another bite of food Phil responded, "I'm working on safety tests for a prescription drug." He followed the transition of conversation easily because he loved talking about chemistry. "It's 'trineprisol' a sleep aid drug, and on the surface it seems to work very well. In truth, it works too well. I'm trying to prove how dangerous it is."

Now Sarah became curious. "I don't understand. If it's a prescription drug, that means it's already on the market. If it was unsafe it wouldn't have gotten that far because it wouldn't have passed the FDA, would it?" She was beginning to enjoy the conversation which helped her mind think of different things for a while.

"You'd think," Phil said sarcastically. He then looked down at his lunch with a sigh, then began to speak as if admitting he committed a crime. "You remember when I told you how I got laid off from the last company I worked for?" Sarah nodded as she ate a bite.

"It's Apex Apothecary, the company that makes this drug. I was one of the lead chemists who formulated it. It took close to three years to get it through development and testing, and it cost close to a billion dollars in research and development. It was supposed to be their next 'big thing' to hit the market."

Phil ate another bite and continued. "Once it's absorbed it attaches to the blood cells as strongly as carbon monoxide, but without causing the histotoxic hypoxia of CO because it doesn't prevent oxygen from being carried. That strong attachment makes it hard for the liver to clean it out of the blood stream so the effects last a long time. It works by interfering with the neurotransmitters in the brain, stimulating the ones that promote sleep and suppressing the ones that promote wakefulness. It went through clinical trials just fine, at a normal low dose. But, as I said, it works too well."

Without showing much response Sarah listened as Phil went on. "At a single strength dose the subjects could not be forcibly awakened by the staff for the first six hours, and even after that they were extremely groggy. They woke up looking and acting like zombies....yeah, kinda like that," he said, pointing to Sarah with a sly grin.

After a moment Sarah realized what he inferred, looked up at him and said, "Oh, fun-nee."

Phil smiled and went on. "Later in the studies, one part of it is to test reactions to increased dosage. At a double dose, it put the test subjects out for close to 24 hours. Again, they couldn't be awakened. Imagine if there was an emergency like a fire alarm or something."

Sarah nodded again as she continued to eat. Phil resumed his story, no longer paying attention to his lunch. "A triple dose was tested on two volunteers in the study. Nobody else felt comfortable trying it. At that strength they both were put unconscious, one for a full week and the other close to two weeks. Since everybody was so unresponsive to stimuli even at the single dose it technically classifies as a coma, but at a week or two I would say it was definitely a coma.

"We never tried it at a stronger dose in the study. Anyway, when I was preparing the study report I included the coma evidence and used that exact term. I submitted it to the supervisors and it made its way up to the executives. When I saw the final draft that was going to be presented to the FDA, nowhere did I see any use of the word 'coma' and the data taken from the two subjects at the triple-strength dose had been stripped from the report."

Sarah shook her head. "Why did they take it out?"

"Profits," Phil quickly replied. "They wanted to make back the money they invested in it. I talked to my supervisor about it and he said to leave it alone. So, I said to him I was taking it to the executive of the department, who was on the board. When I got near his office I was met by security, and they escorted me to my car. I was fired, Sarah."

Sarah shook her head again. "I'm so sorry, Phil. Isn't there anything you could have done?"

With a sigh Phil took a couple more bites of his lunch as it got cold before continuing. "Sure. I could have kept my mouth shut, but then I have more of a sense of responsibility than that. Instead, I tried to do the right thing and screwed my career." His voice had transitioned to a tone of resignation. "I wasn't protected under any whistleblower laws because, really, I had not blown the whistle yet. Everybody I worked with on the drug kept their mouths shut because they didn't want to get fired like I did. The company has deep pockets and so do their lobbyists at the FDA. The drug was approved in short time and was put on the market as planned.

"Since then there have been a few cases I've heard about where somebody took more than the prescribed dose and ended up in a coma for weeks. I don't know if they took three or four times the dose. I've even read anecdotal stories of doctors using it to put patients into a chemically induced coma to relieve brain trauma complications before surgery.

"As these stories surface, the company keeps feeding money to the feds to keep the drug from being pulled off the shelves. They are making huge profits as people overdose on something I created. Yay, me." Phil finished his story with another sigh, and finished his lunch.

Sarah was astounded by the story. "Is that why you're doing the study in your lab?"

"Yeah," said Phil. "I'm trying to, I guess, undo the problem I created...or had a hand in creating. Because of the coma complications and unknown risks of brain damage at higher doses, there's no way I can get actual human studies at those higher doses to prove the danger. Nobody wants to take that risk, and I don't really blame them. All I can do is come up with lab tests to see how the stuff interacts with synthetic neurotransmitter chemicals. I know the chemistry of the drug inside and out but comparing test tube studies with synthetics to real interaction with natural brain chemistry is proving to be very difficult. I also can't use animal testing because their brain chemistry is slightly too different to make a good enough correlation.

"If there was a way to guarantee people couldn't take a strong dose, it would be safe, more or less. But they are humans, and humans are idiots, so they play doctor on themselves and take more than is necessary to help their insomnia. At a low dose it works great for getting sleep. They have no choice but to sleep." Phil finished his drink while glancing at Sarah's tired bloodshot eyes. "It looks like you could use something like that."

Sarah continued picking at her lunch as she spoke. "No, I'll be fine. The weekend is coming up...I'll take a nap or something, and just take it easy."

Phil got up and tossed his trash out. "Alright. Just take care of yourself or we'll have to send you over to Professor Thompson's lecture hall to get some real sleep. See ya' later, Sarah."

"Yeah, see ya', Phil," Sarah responded after a moment's delay.

As Phil left the break room he called out to the nonexistent people beyond the door, "Somebody want to get this cadaver back to the morgue?"

After a few seconds Sarah realized what he said. "Oh, ha-ha, wise guy!" she yelled back with a grin. All she heard was a distant laugh.

Sarah returned to her office and resumed the work she so struggled with that morning. The conversation over lunch had refreshed her energy and helped clear her mind of thoughts about Ajagi and the fox.

She worked into the afternoon, studying data from observations of the sun by satellite and ground based observatories, in hopes of correlating solar flare events with gravity waves that emanated from the sun. Her work was still labored because of how tired she was but she was driven by a sense of responsibility to her work. It always bothered her when she had projects that went unfinished.

A few hours after lunch Sarah decided to take a break from her work. She poured another cup of coffee with the same half of a sugar packet she always used. Just as she turned away from the counter to return to her office, Berglund came around the corner at a rapid pace, almost running right into her.

"Good afternoon, Miss Shepherd," Berglund said with a smile and a happy tone. Sarah began to reply, "Good after...," but he had already rounded the next corner and was gone before she could finish her response. Shortly thereafter, Berglund's secretary Kacy followed, weighted down with a stack of paperwork and pamphlets from the conference. Sarah turned to her.

"He's happy, so why does that scare me?" she said.

Kacy stopped, hesitated, and replied, "The conference went well, and the presentation was well received. There were some bigwigs from DARPA and the defense department there who were impressed with what they saw in the energy theory." She hesitated again. "They must have thought developments like that could help them, so they offered him a grant to research new energy-based weaponry."

Sarah's eyes perked up. "We got a grant? That's incredible! We..."

Kacy interrupted her. "No, Sarah...I'm sorry. Not we. He did. I'm sorry..."

Sarah stopped and looked at Kacy, mouth agape, as Kacy continued.

"He changed the title slide of the presentation. Only his name was on it. He removed the top page of the copy of the presentation that he gave to them...must have done it when I was in the restroom. Your name wasn't on it...the grant has his name alone on it." Kacy paused again with remorseful eyes. "There was nothing I could do. If I corrected him in front of the Pentagon officials or even if I said something to him in private...Sarah, I can't afford to lose my job. I need this job."

Sarah looked at the ceiling and then the floor, gritting her teeth. "That son of a bitch," she muttered. "All that work, all that time I put into it...he couldn't even mention my name? He barely put any of his own research into it at all, and he's the one with the degree in energy physics," she said with fiery anger. As much as she wanted to scream, she couldn't. Sarah was too docile to let her rage flow freely. She looked back up at Kacy. "I'm not mad at you. I understand the situation you were in...I'm going home. I can't be here now."

As she dumped her coffee and turned to go back to her office, Kacy asked her, "What should I tell him?"

Sarah continued walking as she replied, "Tell him I had a migraine or something, I don't care." When she got to her office all she grabbed was her car keys and purse. She left her project notes and attaché behind. She was resolved not to do any work for her job, or for Berglund, the entire weekend. Closing her office door she marched through the halls with the determination of a boxer strutting to the ring to defend his title. Luckily for her career, Berglund never crossed her path; she would have won the bout but lost her job.

She continued fuming as she drove home, bordering on reckless but never compromising her safety. When she arrived home she slammed the car door and bellowed out a scream of angry frustration. No neighbors were around to take notice of the explosive sound but she would not have cared if they were. Sarah opened the door to her house, slammed it as she got inside, then slumped to the floor, leaned against the door, and cried. Her anger turning into disappointment, all she could think about was how she put so much effort into her project yet had never received any recognition for it. She never received any gratitude. That was not what she expected her career to turn into. Her feelings of uselessness outweighed her feelings of accomplishment.

After several minutes Sarah picked herself up off the floor and went to her bedroom. Her body ached, she felt so tired. Her only desire at that time was to take the nap she'd been desiring all day. She undressed and went into the bathroom to splash some cold water on her face in hopes of washing away her tears. Closing the drapes to darken the room from the mid afternoon sun, she slid between the comforter and satin sheets, feeling relieved to finally be back in bed. As she was easing her head down on the pillow she started thinking once again about the instantaneous journey she took the previous evening. She thought she may experience that again if she tried going to sleep, but remembered that she saw nothing but darkness inside her eyelids when they were clenched shut as she cried, and when she shut them to splash her face.

Not wanting to waste any more time not sleeping, she decided to check and was happy to find nothing but darkness when she closed her eyes. Doing all she could to keep her mind blank and drive away thoughts about the fur covered beings, she quickly fell into a deep, comforting sleep that absorbed her body and all its fatigue.

Several hours later, shortly after 8:00, Sarah awoke feeling delightfully refreshed. She felt better than she did after finishing her project Thursday, knowing that she had the weekend ahead of her to do anything that had nothing to do with work. She got up and put on her fuzzy bathrobe, then headed to the kitchen for some dinner. Along the way she began thinking again about her close-eyed travels, Ajagi, and the strangely named fox. Sarah reheated the last of her casserole and ate it while sitting on the stool next to her counter.

As she ate she talked to herself, "What do they want from me? What kind of plan do they have...I mean, they were on a space ship billions of miles away. What could I know that they don't?" She was very puzzled about what they wanted, a little fearful to go see, yet curious to learn the circumstances of the astonishing meeting they had in store for her. As she thought about the two individuals she met, she realized that never once did they seem aggressive or threatening. Actually, she thought to herself, they were quite pleasant. Without fear at the forefront of her mind she was now able to more accurately analyze what happened before.

"Well," she said aloud as she rinsed off her dishes and headed to the living room, "there's only one way to find out."