The Lasaran (Aldebarian Alliance #1) - Dianne Duvall Page 0,15

they know that when they brought you here?

Yes.

The last thing I remember before I woke up here was being in a research institute and participating in a study. They thought I was psychic.

Then that’s why you’re here.

What kind of military base is this? she asked with a great deal of frustration.

One in which they perform what I believe are referred to as highly classified experiments and research.

Oh shit.

Fear swept through Lisa as she peered down at her belly.

A base in which they performed highly classified experiments and research? If what the man said was true…

What the hell had they done to her?

How long have you been here? she asked.

I don’t know. Sometimes I think I sleep longer than is natural.

They said I’ve been in a coma for seven months.

A coma?

She frowned. Did he not know what a coma was? A deep sleep from which I couldn’t wake.

Ah. If I had to guess, I would say I’ve been here two or three years, he responded wearily.

Years? Shit.

I must go, the man said. His voice in her head was deep and carried both caution and sympathy. The butchers have returned.

Butchers? What butchers? she asked but received no response. Hello?

Only silence.

Who was he? She had been so surprised to hear someone else’s voice in her head and so disturbed by his revelations that she had forgotten to ask. But he seemed to be a prisoner here as well.

Was the military really abducting citizens and performing experiments on them against their will? She’d read about some of the unethical experiments they’d performed in the past, exposing their own soldiers to mustard gas to study the effects, blanketing cities like San Francisco with microbes to test germ warfare, testing Agent Orange on citizens, and more. But in the Information Age, she didn’t know how the hell they would keep illegal experimentation on citizens a secret. And considering society’s extremely litigious nature, she wouldn’t think higher-ranked members of the military or government would want to take that kind of financial risk. They might not care about the people, but they did care about money, legal hassles, and weakening the chances of advancing their careers or—in the case of politicians—getting reelected. So she had assumed they no longer did that sort of thing.

The baby in her belly shifted.

Lisa drew a hand across the beach-ball-sized mound.

Could she trust the voice in her head—the mystery man who claimed to be a prisoner here, too?

He clearly hadn’t been lying when he had said he was telepathic. And hadn’t Dr. Aguera said the Anomalous Cognition Research Institute’s parent company was funded by the government when he’d checked out their website?

She eyed the locked door.

Lisa wished she could get her hands on a phone. She’d told Nurse Ninny that she wanted to contact Brad’s parents, but she actually wanted to call Dr. Aguera.

She began to pace. As unobtrusively as possible, she let her gaze travel the room as if she were bored and not really seeing it.

They like to watch, he’d warned.

Were there cameras?

She didn’t see any, but surveillance cameras could be tiny now. For all she knew, one could be attached to the television that was anchored to the ceiling. Lisa wasn’t allowed to watch the news or any satellite channels. Her captors continued to play the suicide watch card and only let her view movies chosen from a digital library they carefully tailored to her particular psychological needs.

A cramp ripped through her belly. Crying out, she reached out and braced a hand on the bed. Her fingers fisted the covers as she breathed deeply, trying to ride out the pain.

Braxton-Hicks contractions, my ass, she thought.

One of her fellow workers at the bookstore had gotten pregnant a couple of years ago. She had been very vocal about the physical changes taking place in her body, sometimes sharing things Lisa really wished she hadn’t. And when Charlotte had mentioned having Braxton-Hicks contractions, she had described them as being similar to mild menstrual cramps.

Mild menstrual cramps didn’t damn near make your legs buckle.

And Lisa didn’t remember the other woman mentioning anything about the baby moving during the Braxton-Hicks contractions. The baby in Lisa’s belly always became a lot more active during the severe cramps, almost as if the baby were in pain, too. Or maybe it just didn’t like the way her tummy clenched around it and was trying to find some extra elbow room.

Lisa didn’t know.

When the pain continued, she climbed into bed and curled up on her side. She slipped one