Mysterious Encounter at the Edge of Town

Ben drove them to a place at the edge of town, they got out of his car and headed for the front door. The house was dark and Jayna wondered if there was even anyone home, but when Ben knocked on the door a melodic feminine voice called out.

“Come in Ben.”

Ben opened the door, flipped the light switch and a dim light came on, he led them through the hall into another room, flipped another switch and an equally anemic light dimly showed six high-backed armchairs sitting closely together.

Ben said to them, “Have a seat, while I...”

“No need Ben, I 'm here.”

A woman appeared in the doorway, she wore a long flowing white dress and no shoes, her hair if not white was nearly so, she had the palest eyes Jayna had every seen, and she winced in the

They were there to keep her strong, but now they are gone.”

“Alecto is the strong one, I 'm weak.”

“You have fought them for two decades, two sometimes three times a month they had to bolster Alecto 's persona and force Jayna into submission, but you never gave up, you are the strong one.”

Lilith extended her now steady hand in Jayna 's direction, it stopped mere inches from her face, Jayna cried out as the memories of her indoctrinations, suppressed by the mind control techniques of her tormentors, came flooding back. Lilith pulled back her hand as Jayna fainted and slumped forward, Henry caught Jayna and scooped her up and carried her to a couch at the far end of the room, then he came back and confronted Lilith.

“What have you done to her?” He said through gritted teeth.

Lilith, her eyes now normal, grasped Henry by the wrist and ignored his question. “They have inadvertently made her stronger than she would have been otherwise, perhaps she is a match for

Henry was taken aback, did he really see what he thought he saw or had it only been his imagination? He went over to her and tried to rouse her, but she would not awaken, this was the second time he had seen her like this, and Sato had found her unconscious last night as well. After ten minutes, Ben walked back in.

“You 've got to go, but I can 't take you, Lilith needs me here, you can borrow my car.”

Henry said, “I don 't know how to operate one of your contraptions, Jayna probably could, but she 's unconscious.”

Ben moved to them and bent down to check on Jayna, he too tried to wake her, but got no better results than Henry had.

“Has she ever been like this before today?”

“She has,” Henry answered, “she was like this for several hours once before and last night a friend of mine found her unconscious, but she awoke the moment he touched her.”

“I 'm going to call an ambulance and have her taken back to the clinic.”

Henry said, “No, she wouldn 't want that.”

Henry reached in his pocket and pulled out a piece of paper.

“Otto said to call these numbers and he would come and pick us up, but I don 't know how to do that either. Would you do it for