The Time of Change

Vital Signs

"Don't you come near me with that!" I manage to choke out at last as the creepy lizard-like alien gets to me. It pauses for a moment and pulls out what looks like an audio-recorder. It clicks a button on the side, and in a man's voice, it notes, "From the upper body's clothing, the human female seems more resistant to the cold than the male."

"Not that it's any of your business, but I was wearing a hoodie," I defend irritably.

"Leave her alone," says the man beside me. "You've got me." I feel a rush of affection for him and his bravery. Still, the creature appears not to hear him, or it ignores him. It uses a remote with the number twelve pasted on it to clamp my wrists down tighter on the table, then deposits the remote in its pocket. I let out something somewhere between a groan and a growl. Whatever the sound, the creature looks interested.

"Decontamination complete," it says. "Commencing dissection."

He holds the scalpel up to about where my diaphragm is, but a simulated voice interrupts him by saying calmly, "Area seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested. Area seventeen incursion. Species diagnostic requested." The lizard-biped-thing leans its head back almost in irritation and lets out a sigh. He's extremely close to me, uncomfortably close. I can feel a boxlike object in his pocket. If I could just reach my hand out far enough...

Rather unexpectedly, he turns and jogs from the room. At my guess he's headed to section seventeen, which I hope is far away from here. "Yeah, and stay out!" I scream after him. The man beside me gives me an amused-yet-scared chuckle. He receives a bright grin from me because clasped in my hand is the restraints control.

I press the big red button on it, and all the ropes holding me in place fall limply away. I let out a shriek of laughter, jumping off the table unsteadily but with confidence. Now I turn to the man and attempt to use the remote to free him, but the table that held me simply shakes with no one upon it to restrain. I blink, throw the remote to the ground, and start tearing at his binds. Within the minute the frayed remains of them slink off, and he gives me a look of utter gratitude.

"How did you get that?" he asks incredulously, nodding down at the remote, now smashed on the floor.

"What, you never picked a lizard man's pocket?" I reply with fake-surprise, and he smiles at me again. I take his hand. "Come on, before he comes back."

We sprint out of the laboratory and into a dim tunnel made entirely of mud and clay. I skim my hand over one of the walls as I pass, and some pieces crumble off at my touch. "That creature," begins the man uncertainly as he moves alongside me, "do you think it was an alien? Any more of them, do you think? Do you think the Earth's being invaded?"

I look at him. "What's your name?"

"Mo."

"Well, Mo, I'm Annie. And I can't be certain, but I know someone who will have some answers. We need to get back to the surface and find him." We come to a forked tunnel, and out of instinct I pull toward the right branch. About thirty seconds of anxious walking later, we come to a metal door in the side of the wall. "I wonder where this leads," I muse aloud.

"Maybe it's a way out of here," Mo suggests.

I run my hand along the wall, and my fingers come into contact with something cold. After feeling around at the buttons and knobs on it, I resolve that it's a panel of some sort. One button is bigger than the rest. My fingers fumbling in fear, I press it. A window directly beside the door lights up brightly, revealing a child strapped to a table just like we were. He looks to be thirteen at the most. Even his freckles are pale in the harsh light.

"Oh, my—" gasps Mo. "No."

"What is it?"

"That's my son. It's Elliot. What've they done to him? He is in there! Elliot? Elliot, it's Dad!" The desperation in his voice hurts my heart. The more selfish part of me is a little jealous that this child has a father who loves him so much, but I quickly stifle the nagging voice. I watch on helplessly as he searches the perimeter of the window. He notices a handprint-shaped scanner on the same panel I found and presses his palm to it. A female computer voice says shrewdly, "Access denied. Unauthorized genetic imprint."

"Stop," I say, holding his arm back before he punches the wall. "Seriously. We can't get in right now."

Mo points at the window with a shaking hand. "That is my boy in there."

"I know," I tell him soothingly. My eyebrows pull together in concentration as I stare at Elliot in the chamber. There are machines positioned all around him, and electrodes are hooked up to his head, chest, and arms. A television-like screen rests near the edge of the room with something similar to a hospital heart monitor beeping on its face. There is a line that runs across it, peaking sharply near the middle of its second-long journey. "These screens, they're monitoring something," I observe. "I think they're vital signs. Heartbeats. Pulses. Why else would he be wired up?" Mo looks at me uncomprehendingly. "He's still alive," I clarify.

The worried father breathes deeply. "Alright," he says, calming. "We find weapons, get that creature from the lab, and force it to release Elliot, yeah?"

I nod once, though the thought of armed battery makes me queasy, no matter how frightening these aliens are. "Trust me," I tell Mo. "We'll get him out."