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She had landed Not on the sand and rocks beneath the cliff, but two ulch and would have died but for the two dirt bikers ere racing across bu and definitely not looking for what they found

The bikers had not called for an ambulance They had called aniht they had seen was a terribly led animal It was an understandable mistake

Mary was in a special ward at the UCLA hospital down in Los Angeles The ward had two patients: Mary and a boy nae was a woht and wore her white coat over a traditional sari Dr Chandiramani had a tense but proper relationship with Major Onyx The on In theory he was there only to offer Dr Chandiramani and her teaht he was in charge of the ward He and the doctors often clashed

It was all very polite, with never a raised voice But the Pentagon’s priorities were somewhat different from those of the doctors The doctors wanted to keep their two horribly daed patients alive and comfortable The soldiers needed answers

Major Onyx had arranged to have equipment installed in the roo to do with Mary’s medical condition Dr Chandiramani had pretended not to understand any of it, but the doctor had not always confined her studies to medicine In earlier life she hadphysics And she knew a mass spectrometer when she saw one She knew that this room, and Francis’s room, were effectively inside of a sort of super-sensitive mass spectrometer What other instru and floor she could only guess

Francis was alive But no way had yet been found to communicate with him There were brain waves So he was conscious But he had no ht be an arm, but it was in a continuous state of spasers had not been oddly jointed claws he would not have been able to use either a keyboard or a pencil

Mary had somewhat more potential She had a mouth and it appeared to have some limited functionality in terrotesque teeth that had grown through her cheeks And they had perforue and mouth and throat to the best of their abilities

The result was that Mary could speak

Unfortunately she had only screamed and leaked tears out of the sht mix of sedatives and antiseizure reed to allow Major Onyx and an arirl

The first questions were overly broad

"What can you tell us about conditions inside?"

"Mom?" she had asked in a voice that was barely a whisper

"Yourvoice "I am Dr Greene Withcare of you these last months since you escaped"

"Hello, Mary," Dr Chandiramani said

"The littles?" Mary asked

"What does that mean?" Dr Greene asked

"The littles My kids"

Major Onyx had close-cut black hair, a dark tan, and intense blue eyes "Our information is that she took care of the little children"