"Rollie!" she cried out, finding her voice weak and hoarse.

"He’s not here," came the voice beyond the light, "save your breath."

"Where am I? What happened?" she asked, pleading with the voice, "please turn out that light!"

"It’s pretty bad, isn’t it? Well, I guess we are about through anyway. Uri, get the light."

Angie then remembered the voice. Of course, it was Ursula- but what were they up to now? The light was removed. She felt fingers on her eyelids then, jumping at the touch as drops of some sort of liquid were placed in each eye. The burning from the light and the gas dissipated. She swallowed hard, as a straw was placed in her mouth and Ursula ordered; "drink".

Without question, she did for her throat was parched. It was icewater and it was wonderful. She ran her tongue over her parched and dried out lips. Slowly, she opened her eyes and could see she was in a small room on a gurney. Above her, dangled a light that once had been on- a surgical light system and she squinted and it became clearer. There was a florescent light coming from a desk or table about fifteen feet away and sitting at the table was Uri Loubar. He was busy doing something, with his back to her.

"Where’s Rollie? What have you done to me?" she asked, her mind still foggy.

"You should rest and SHUT UP!" Ursula told her, losing her patience as she stepped over to where Uri was working. Angie looked down at her strapped body and realized that she was covered with a sheet. She felt naked beneath that sheet and she realized something else. She had quite a nagging, sharp little pain right at her navel and one lower.

She put her head back down; taking a deep breath as she tried to fathom what was going on. She heard another voice in the background then and she saw an older man with what looked like microscopic lenses on his glasses step up beside Uri. They were all looking at something in front of Uri.

The older man smiled and touched Uri on the back, " There he is…all 4 cells! This is wonderful! You will of course, allow me to proceed with the insemination."

"Of course, Doctor," Ursula answered, stroking her brother’s hair and smiling, "we are all aglow with anticipation."

Angie could not understand all of their conversation but she had a horrible feeling that they had done something to her and that it wasn’t over yet. Her pulse was racing as she longed for darkness again as an escape.

Before long, Ursula was back by her side and frowning.

"Doctor, do we have to put her asleep for this?"

"No, it’s better that she stay awake so that we can monitor the tubal and uterine contractions. Her sense of pain will let us know how that progresses…"

"But her mouth! She is such a screamer and fighter!" Uri said, turning around himself now. Angie could see now that on the table was a microscope and there was a collection of containers and a long syringe with a long, white piece of tubing attached.

"Well, sedate her but only to keep her from thrashing about," he told them, matter-of-factly. Ursula smiled then and came over to Angie, a syringe of something clear in her hand. She took the needle and injected it into a rubber hub of an IV that was attached to Angie’s arm.

"What are you doing?" Angie said, with a hiss, the unthinkable invasion of her body was more than she could stand.

"Let’s just say, you’re going to be a receptacle of some highly classified international weaponry. You might as well lay back and enjoy it. Oh, and do relax there, dear," Ursula said, grinning as Angie felt the taste of garlic in her throat and then the dizzying spin of the sedation. She was watching them in some sort of twilight sleep mode. She could see what they were doing but was unable to stop them or control her body. Her legs were lifted up and placed in stirrups and the Doctor was stepping forward and taking the syringe and NO! She screamed in her mind.

She woke, fuzzy, groggy, and dry-mouthed. She was lying on her back with her knees bent and propped with pillows. There was also a pillow under her back that was elevating her pelvis.

"Where am I?" she called out, her mind a jumble of images and horrors.

"Ange? Oh God, you’re awake!"

It was Rollie’s voice and she turned and saw him sitting on the floor across the room from her. He was handcuffed and haggard looking, a 2-day beard darkening his face.

"Rollie! They did something to me…" Angie cried out, gasping as she remembered the Doctor.

"I know, Ange. I don’t know what they did! They have kept me here all the time you were gone and told me nothing! Bastards!" Rollie replied, pulling on the cuffs and wanting to get to her for all the world and hold her.

"I can’t believe this!" She moaned.

"I know, love. They got the PDA, I imagine as well. They keep coming in here and checking on you and your lower self, there. They don’t look at me; they don’t talk to me, even when I scream at them. Oh Ange, I’m useless and have been all along here," Rollie cried out, his anger and hurt only making her cry now.

The door opened, and Ursula Loubar, along with Uri and the Doctor entered. Ursula looked over at Rollie and smiled, her sarcastic lips peaked as she then turned her attention to Angie. Angie wiped away a stray tear and tried to sit up only to be restrained by Uri and the Doctor.

"Now, don’t go and ruin everything!" Uri told her, his sardonic expression nauseating Angie as she heard Rollie’s frustrating movement from the other side of the room.

"What have you done to me, you bastards!" Angie asked, her voice strained and fearful.

"Well, the progress of the blastocyst should be complete. I believe the Trophoblastic stage is about to occur. She can sit up and move about for the next two hours so that the cells begin to proliferate from the surface of the blastocyst. At that time, we will remove it and place our trophoblastic friend into the artificial womb," the Doctor told Ursula and Uri.

"You got some sort of thing growing in ME?" Angie screamed at them.

"Would you please stop that screaming!" Ursula shouted back at her, starting to slap her when the Doctor grabbed her hand.

"No! Any physical trauma right now could be detrimental. She needs to be calm. But no more sedation, and I would suggest letting her up, and letting that man over there calm her down. It will be no good to keep her adrenaline at this level," the Doctor exclaimed.

Ursula froze in mid strike, "you’re right, of course, Doctor."

"Very well, I will release her restraints and Uri will get Mr. Tyler removed from his and we will let the little love birds nest awhile. Good for all, right Doctor?" Ursula asked, but there was an ugly set to her mouth as she bent over and undid Angie’s restraints.

Uri had gone over to Rollie, a gun in his hand as he undid the cuffs. Rollie stood up slowly, rubbing the flesh that had been scraped and looked over to Angie who had sat up, hovering over the edge of the bed . The Loubars and the Doctor stepped away, backing out the door as they waited for their caged experimental test subjects to react.

Rollie was over to her side the moment the door shut and locked. He didn’t care if they watched or heard or what as he took her in his arms and held her like a broken doll.

"They did something horrible, Rollie," Angie told him, her eyes strangely focused on the floor, not looking up at him.

"Angie…what kind of twisted, sick game is this?"

"They put something in me, in my …"

"Oh God," he said, his eyes tearing as he held her, rocking her but Angie was stiff and almost devoid of emotion.

For the next several hours, he laid beside her, quietly as he listened to her breathe in and out and watched her every move. His overwhelming rage was like a timebomb ticking away as he held her, snuffing out his cry into her shoulder as the lump in his throat burned and ached.

The three came back, the Doctor requesting Rollie removed and placed back in restraints. Angie laid still, on her side. She looked almost catatonic as they talked for a moment among themselves. Uri then, picked her up like a baby and put her on the gurney that had brought inside. As she left the room with them, Rollie could only make a guttural sound project from his throat as the door slammed shut and his life was taken out of his sight.

She was returned an hour later. She was sleeping again on her side and he watched her through what could have been day or night. He was remembering her sleeping like this in the car when Mannie and he had driven somewhere on location once- the desert as he recalled, in New Mexico. She was fast asleep on the back seat of the old station wagon that Mannie loved so much. She was wearing only one sneaker, the other having fallen off into the floor of the car. Her face was completely innocent and lovely, even at 12 years old. Rollie had told Mannie that she looked like a little angel. Mannie had looked at him strangely then and then sighed deeply. Rollie had thought he was worried about her missing her mother so much. Mannie’s face was again looking at him in his mind now as he looked at his little girl.

Angie woke up with a start, feeling some discomfort from her pelvic area as she tried to sit up, and gingerly teeter on the bed. Rollie’s head jerked up as he woke too, seeing that she had stirred.

"Ange?"

"Yeah?"

"You okay?"

"Um, it hurts, you know…I think I want to throw up," she told him as she started to weave around on the side of the bed.

"HEY!" Rollie cried out, to the monitors and intercom above them, "she needs some help here!"

The Doctor was in the room, with Ursula following within seconds. The doctor shoved an emesis basin at Angie who promptly threw-up with Ursula retreating to behind the Doctor.

"It’s the carbon dioxide gas we inflated you with, it does make most woman sick…" he said, explaining her condition.

"What did you do to me?" she asked, her voice low and hoarse.

"I guess it is time we gave her the news," Ursula said, stepping back beside the Doctor now that Angie’s stomach had settled down.

Rollie’s ears perked up, straining at his cuffs. Uri joined them in the room then, his face lit up and he disrupted the conversation with an announcement: "We have an amniotic sac developed and the embryo can be seen!"