The Erotic Mind-Control Story Archive

PART ONE – 6:23 PM, April 13, 2003

END PART ONE

INTERLUDE 1—July 6, 1957 – Pocono Mountains, Pennsylvania

“So how do the drones know who the queen is?” asked the 4-H camp counselor?

Helena Carteris quickly raised her hand. “She smells different!”

“That’s right, Helena. And what do we call these scents?”

“Fear…fear….”

“No, Helena. Pheromones.” The instructor addressed the rest of the girls gathered round the table. “A pheromone is a scent which attracts animals. It can be used in some cases to attract different members of the same species for mating purposes. It some other cases, such as the Venus Fly-Trap, it can be used to lure animals into the plant’s cistern, where they die and are then used for food. In the case of the queen bee, it’s her pheromones that set her apart from the rest of the bees in the hive, causing the others to follow her lead. Now, if you’ll move over to the next table you’ll see that a spider doesn’t need pheromones to attract its prey….”

Helena remained near the plastic replica of the beehive, tapping the side to see if she could attract the attention of the insects inside. ‘What a perfect little world,’ she thought to herself. ‘So orderly, yet pretty. I wish I was a bee. I wish I was the queen of the bees!’

Reluctantly, she dragged herself away from the bee display and caught up with the rest of her campmates as the nature counselor began taking about natural camouflage.

PART TWO—10:00 PM, April 13, 2003

END PART TWO

INTERLUDE – September 9, 1965 – USDA Bee Lab, Beltsville, Maryland

“Welcome to the wonderful world of bee research, Helena!” Dr. Paul Sawyers, who for the last two years had been Helena Carteris’ mentor in the bee research program at Penn State, opened the passenger door and helped Helena out of the car.

The girl who had wished that she could be a bee eight years earlier was now 22, and a freshly minted college graduate. Having interned with the USDA at their facilities in Louisiana and Texas over the past two summers, and with highest recommendations for her work in hand, she had been offered an open post at the Beltsville bee lab before it had even been advertised.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that Paul Sawyers had accepted another open position at the Beltsville lab – director of research. Helena had grown very close to her mentor over the past two years, and even though he was 10 years her senior, she could sense that he was starting to return some of her own amorous feelings. A touch here, a lingering glance there – Helena wondered if there would ever come a time when they could share a candlelight dinner, holding hands across the table…

“Here’s your office, Helena.” Somehow, Dr. Sawyers had managed to guide her through the front door and down hall of the main research building while she was woolgathering. Her “office” was a small room with a desk, cabinets for samples and supplies, and a small table with a microscope and various types of examination instruments. “Just check with Mary at the main desk if you need anything – notebooks, chemicals, or any other type of research materials. I’ll be by in a little while to take you on a tour of the main labs and the research farm, and to introduce you to the rest of the staff here.” He turned as if to leave, but Helena stopped him by placing her hand on his arm.

“Doctor…I mean, Paul,” she said, remembering how he had said to use his first name now that they were colleagues. “You’ve told me a little about what you hope to accomplish by taking this post. But what exactly are we going to be working on here?”

He smiled at her, and took her hand in his and gave it a squeeze. “The idea is simple, Helena. Up to now, our focus has been the study of bees for their use in pollinating flowers and crops, as well as production of honey. But, think about this…bees touch so much of what is grown on the American farm. What if we could create a chemical that was naturally occurring in bees…that was also a natural pest control for the plants they pollinate? It could take the place of pesticides, eliminate the need for crop dusting…and in places where those things don’t exist anyway, it could help prevent famine by protecting already fragile crops from being ravaged by natural enemies.

“Read this.” He handed her a thick blue binder. “This is the premise I presented to the Ag Department heads in Washington three months ago. It details how we’re going to isolate certain behaviors, and introduce others, until we produce a bee that not only helps plants reproduce…but protects them from other pests at the same time.” Paul Sawyers smiled broadly at Helena.

“We’re going to tinker with bee biology, my dear. We’re going to build a better bee!”

And with that, he walked out, leaving her alone to read.

PART THREE – 10:15 PM, April 13, 2003

Richard and Maria had watched the report on Mark Chamber’s death without speaking, holding hands tightly When the anchors had finished with the traditional “police are still investigating the cause of the crash, and expect to have more information shortly,” Richard shut off the TV. The quiet was so heavy it threatened to smother them both.

Maria kept thinking of what the one witness to the crash had said on camera. “The truck was just sittin’ there at the light, when this big black car came out of nowhere! It must’ve been doing 80 when it slammed right into the back of the TV truck! Then the car and the truck both exploded! It was awful!” The same thought kept repeating in her mind:

Black car. Black eyes.

Black car. Black eyes.

Maria’s boss often told her that there was no such thing as coincidences. When she had found out that Deborah Franks was likely covering up something in her past, and linked it to the strange behavior going on behind the scenes with the B-Grrrls, Maria had just assumed that it was another Hollywood behavioral aberration…although one that might land her a higher profile locally, or even catapult her onto the national stage.

But now, Mark was dead. Presumably, the B-Grrrls storyline was now lost in the flurry of activity that always surrounded the tragic death of another newsroom colleague.

Which would be exactly what Deborah Franks wanted, wouldn’t it?

“Richard, where’s your camera?”

“It’s right here, Mar.” He picked up the Sony DV camera from its resting place on the floor.

“Is the tape from the coliseum still in there?”

“No. Mark had it in the truck with him. He was taking it back to the station to edit.”

“All of it? Even the footage of my arm, and falling down?”

“It was all on the same tape, Mar. All of it.”

Coincidence or not, the evidence of any assault committed by Deborah Franks was now ashes…as was one of the witnesses to it.

‘One down, two to go,’ thought Maria, so lost in thought that she didn’t realize she had said the words out loud. Richard stared at her, wondering what she was thinking.

Which is why they both jumped when the silence was broken by a loud knock on the door.

END PART THREE

INTERLUDE – October 22, 1967 – Excerpt from the journal of Helena Carteris

PART FOUR – 10:25 PM, April 13, 2003

“Detective Graves, NYPD. May I come in?”

Still trying to recover from the shock they had shared at the loud knock on the hospital room door, Richard simply looked at Maria as they both took a deep breath and squeezed each other’s hands. Then, when Maria nodded that she was ready, Richard moved to the door and opened it.

The man that walked into the room seemed more likely to be playing forward for the Knicks than to be a detective. 6′ 8″ at least, he had to duck his head to walk through the doorway, and it was obvious to Maria that, even though his suit looked like any other nondescript off-the-rack choice, he likely had to have several sets of alterations done to make it look perfectly normal on his very long frame.

His eyes took in the hospital room and its two occupants quickly. “Miss Sanchez, Mr. Terry,” he said without preamble, “I’m here to ask you a few questions about the death of Mark Chambers.”

Maria felt Richard’s hand tighten around hers in warning, but she already had a bad feeling about the man in front of her. Had the detective been there to talk about what had happened to her at the coliseum, she might have felt less paranoid. But to be asking questions so quickly about Mark’s death? She’d been around reporting long enough to know that, unless it was a high-profile murder case, there was rarely any urgency to question friends and colleagues in what seemed to be a simple traffic fatality.

Maria responded “Can I see some identification please?”

With an annoyed look, the detective took his ID holder from his pocket, and handed it to Richard, who took a quick look and then passed it on to Maria.

Detective Robert Graves, NYPD, the ID said. The number on his detective shield matched the one printed on his ID. She studied it for a moment before she suddenly looked up at the man.

“Why?” Maria asked, startling both Richard and, to a lesser extent, Detective Graves.

“Excuse me?”

“Why are you here to ask us questions about the death of our friend?” A hard edge crept into Maria’s voice. “Earlier tonight I was assaulted by a woman at Nassau Coliseum. I was hurt, and didn’t regain consciousness until a little while ago. Both Richard and I just learned a few moments ago that one of our best friends was killed on his way back to the station in what seems like a senseless accident. And now, here you are, in my hospital room, saying you have questions about it.”

Unaware she was doing it, Maria had been pushing herself into an upright position with her good arm as she talked, until she was leaning forward slightly in the bed. Her eyes never left those of the police officer, and her voice rose slightly as she asked “So? Why?”

Despite his dispassionate expression, Detective Graves was more than slightly impressed. He knew about the assault on Miss Sanchez from questioning the on-duty nurse, knew she had been unconscious for several hours, and knew that Richard Terry had been with her the entire time. Yet, given the shocks of the past few hours, she still retained enough of her reporter’s instinct to know that something just wasn’t right with his appearance here so soon after Mark Chamber’s death. So, instead of stonewalling, he decided to tell her the truth.

“Because I don’t believe your friend was killed accidentally. And I think that the assault on you and his death were connected.”

Hearing someone say out loud the conclusion she had already reached, Maria let herself relax just a bit, reclining again into the bed. “Why?”

The detective remained silent for a moment. “Miss Sanchez, anything that I tell you must remain off-the-record and in strictest confidence. Is that understood?”

“Detective,” she said, holding up her left arm, “I really could care less about a story right now. Someone hurt me. Someone killed my friend. What I want is the blood who did it. Or, failing that, a very long jail term in a very ugly prison.”

“Does the name Dorothy Fields mean anything to you?”

Maria considered him carefully. “Dorothy Fields was the alleged insider who told Entertainment Weekly about Deborah Franks’ near maniacal control over the selection and, later, the activities of the B-Grrrls. But, despite my best efforts to contact her to corroborate my story, I could never find her.”

“Dorothy Fields is dead. She died eight weeks ago of unknown causes in a hotel room in Manhattan.”

“Unknown causes?”

For the first time, the detective averted his eyes. “I would say that ‘mysterious causes’ would be a better phrase, Miss Sanchez. I was part of the team that collected the forensic evidence at the scene. I saw her body.

“Her skin was puckered and brown, like something that’s been left out in the sun too long. Her entire body was shriveled, shrunken in on itself, like she hadn’t eaten in weeks.

“And her eyes…” he paused, taking a deep breath.

“Her eyes were coal black, without a hint of pupil or iris remaining.”

END PART FOUR

INTERLUDE – December 6, 1967 – Excerpt from the journal of Helena Carteris

My worst fears have been confirmed. Paul Sawyers has been experimenting on these mutated bees to an extent that even I did not comprehend until now.

Today, while working in the isolation room with our third generation of altered bees, I noticed Paul removing some of the altered bees. Curious, I followed him out of Isolation 1 and into Iso 2.

Paul has set up another hive there.

I waited until he left, then went into the room to see what he was doing. Inside the new hive were some regular honeybees from our normal stock. He apparently introduced the altered bees into this hive. As I watched, the mutated bees continued what they had apparently been doing since before I arrived – stinging the worker bees throughout the hive. The results were catastrophic.

Within moments, the worker bees that were stung were lying immobile. Moments after that, the bees seemed to shrivel, as if they were shrinking under intense heat. Soon after, there was nothing left but a desiccated husk.

I decided that I had to know more, so I reached carefully into the hive and removed one of the altered bees and one of the dead workers to take back to my office to study. Placing them in sampling containers, I left the Iso lab, slipping the sample jars into the pocket of my protective bee suit.

Just as I reached the door to Iso 1, Paul came around the corner of the hallway, whistling a happy tune. He asked me how our hives in Iso 1 were doing, and I told him things were very stable, no new developments.

He smiled and said that we should have some new developments shortly. Then he patted me on the arm and walked down the hall. Into Iso 2.

I wish I knew what he meant by that.

PART FIVE – 10:35 PM, April 13, 2003

Though her face didn’t change when Detective Graves told her about the eyes of the dead woman, Richard could tell that something about news had an impact on Maria.

She squeezed his hand so tight he nearly winced.

It was fascinating to watch the unspoken interplay between his friend and the detective. It was obvious that they were both driven professionals, used to getting their own way, or at least finding some way past the obstacles to get to the truth. It was also obvious that, in the first few minutes, the detective had set aside his natural distrust for the press and had opened up to Maria, giving her details about the Dorothy Fields case that he had not shared with anyone else. Richard couldn’t help but think that, had the circumstances been different, Maria and the detective might be attracted to each other on a much more basic level. Having seen the men Maria went out with, he was sure that Detective Robert Graves definitely fit her criteria of “tall, dark, and handsome…with a twist.”

Graves began to speak again. “All the usual analysis was done at the path lab, and it was determined that Dorothy Fields died as a result of a massive dose of a toxic chemical injected directly into her body. The lab boys couldn’t identify the chemical, so they sent around its chemical profile on the various law enforcement nets to see if anyone else could identify it.

“The FBI sent us a message about two weeks ago, saying that the chemical compound that compared most favorably to what was found in Dorothy Fields was…” again the detective paused ”…bee venom.

“I didn’t know anything about bees before this case began, but now I’ve become something of a fly-by expert. A bee’s stinger injects a fairly small amount of venom into a victim. The effects are three-fold: paralysis of the nervous system, followed by an increase in the permeability of capillary walls, which leads to hemorrhaging, followed by destruction of red blood cells. In a normal person, this is an irritant that affects a relatively minor amount of skin tissue where the stinger is lodged. In a small percentage of the population allergic to bee venom, it can lead to coma and death.

“But there are several anomalies that have become apparent in the analysis of the body of Dorothy Fields.

“First and foremost, the amount of bee venom in her body would be the equivalent of at least 100 bee stings. Yet, we can find no evidence that she was stung anywhere on her body.

“Second, while a massive dose of bee venom could produce paralysis, hemorrhage, and even severe depletion of red blood cells in the body, there’s never been a case of bee sting death before in which a body has been so…altered. There is evidence that, before death, her metabolism sped to nearly hundred times its normal level. More than that, analysis of certain parts of her body, especially her eyes, show that her cells were actually mutating at the time of death. Something in the chemical that killed her was also changing her…except her body couldn’t meet the demands of the mutation. One of our forensic guys thinks that energy demand required to mutate her cells literally sucked the life out her, resulting in the withered, wrinkled husk that we found in that hotel room.”

The detective leaned wearily against the wall of the hospital room, running his hand down his face as if to wipe something away. “I’m sorry. It all sounds like some sort of movie plot doesn’t it? And yet, now I’ve got two dead bodies, a forensic report that defies conventional logic, and a series of strange associations and parallels, all of which coincide with one person—Deborah Franks.

“A person who, as you have already pointed out Miss Sanchez, doesn’t seem to exist.”

END OF PART FIVE

INTERLUDE – December 8, 1968 – Excerpt from the journal of Helena Carteris

PART SIX – 10:47 PM, April 13, 2003

Neither Richard nor Maria said anything for a few minutes, each digesting what had been said, and turning it over and around in their minds.

While Richard was contemplating, Maria said out loud the one thought uppermost in his mind. “So where does that leave us?”

Detective Graves looked at the two of them, frowning. “You’re both in danger, of course. There are only two things that I can see happening, if Deborah Franks is behind any of this. One, she tries to discredit you, so that anything you do say is laughed away by anyone who matters. Or, two…she makes an attempt to have you killed.”

“As you think she did with Mark?”

“Yes. It was a calculated move to both get rid of evidence, and remove a witness. And it sends a message. To both of you.”

It was Richard that spoke this time. “What, don’t fuck with me or I’ll kill you?”

Looking him directly in the eye, Graves said, “Exactly.”

“What about the driver of the car that rammed our news truck?” Maria asked. “Did he live?”

“No. And there is no indication that he made any effort to remove himself from the car either before or after it collided with the truck.”

“Was there any identification? Anything to tie the driver to Deborah Franks?”

“Again, no. The body was burnt beyond recognition, and any ID went up in the explosion.”

Maria’s face was the picture of frustration. “So basically, we have nothing but rumor and speculation, and not one shred of evidence to tie any one of these suppositions together.”

“Hold on, Mar,” Richard interrupted. “We still have the tape of the live broadcast showing Deborah Franks hurting you. We have the hospital records that show that you were injured. And we have Detective Graves here, who provides us with information that we didn’t have before.”

Maria looked up at him dourly. “What we have is zero, Richard. Franks can claim she never assaulted me, and all the tape will show is her gripping my arm; I didn’t let the pain get in the way of closing out the interview, and any proof we had that she hurt my arm burned up in the explosion. She’ll just say I’m trying to pin some phony charge on her to try to help boost my career.

“As for Detective Graves over here…everything he’s said tonight is off-the-record, as far as I’m concerned, and if we even tried to use it to expose Deborah Franks…well, we’d get our asses laughed out of any newsroom, other than maybe some tabloid paper that also runs stories about the Bat Boy.

“We don’t have anything real to go on, Richard. Not if we want to continue working in television.”

Maria turned her attention back to the detective. “Thank you for telling us all of this, but…what can we do? What should we do?”

“Leave town,” Graves said quickly. “Tonight, if possible. Find someplace to stay where you can’t be traced, then contact me.” He reached into his wallet and pulled out a business card. “The longer you stay in one place, the better chance Franks has of getting to you, if she has any intention of doing so. I’d ask for some type of protection for you, but there’s little chance that it would be approved, considering that there’s no evidence to show that you’re in danger.”

Richard snatched the card from the detective’s hand before he could give it to Maria. “That’s it then? Just run away, feeling all the time like clay pigeons on a firing range?”

The detective shrugged. “Mr. Terry, my first priority is to take you out of the line of fire. Until I can build some type of concrete case against Deborah Franks, no one will believe that you are in danger. So yes, to answer your question…run away as far and as fast as you can, and find some cover for yourselves.

“Hopefully, sometime very soon, we’ll find something that ties all the pieces together, and gets Deborah Franks put away and out of your lives.”

Richard laughed bitterly. “Right. And the Nets will win the NBA Championship this year…”

Maria touched him on the arm, and Richard choked back whatever he was going to add to look down at her. She shook her head, and he closed his mouth and looked down at the floor.

Maria looked back at the tall man at the foot of her bed, and asked softly “Anything else?”

Detective Graves took a moment to mentally run through all the things he had already told them…and the things he had left out. Then he reached into the pocket of his suit jacket, holding it out to her in between his cupped fingers.

“Do you recognize this?”

Maria leaned forward and took what looked to be a pin of some type from the detective. “No, not really, other than being a bee in some type of clear plastic.”

“They were selling these at the concert earlier tonight. It’s a rather cheap souvenir plastic pin, very popular with the youngsters.

“Oddly enough, we found something exactly like it in the hotel room where Dorothy Fields died. But that pin looked as if the plastic had been melted somehow. And there was no bee inside.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to me,” Maria said, shaking her head and moving to hand the pin back to the detective.

“Keep it. I have others. Perhaps you can find some significance to it that I haven’t.” Detective Graves moved toward the door of the room, then turned back to face both Richard and Maria.

“I mean what I said. Get out of town…now, if you want. I’ll even walk you to the nearest cabstand. Just get away to a place where no one and nothing connected with Deborah Franks can get to you.”

Maria shook her head. “We’ll think about it, detective. But a friend of mine is dead, and I want answers. And running away has never been my strong suit.”

Graves nodded and, without further comment, walked out the door.

Neither reporter nor cameraman said anything for a moment. Instead, Richard eased himself back into his chair by Maria’s bed as she slowly rotated the plastic pin in her hands.

It was Richard that spoke first. “What ARE we going to do, Mar?”

She looked up from the pin and right into his eyes. “We are going to get out of this hospital and lose ourselves for a few days…without contacting Mr. NYPD. And, while we’re out of touch, I’m going to make a few phone calls to people I know. People good at turning over rocks and exposing the bugs beneath them.

“Or, in this case, the bees beneath them.”

END PART SIX

INTERLUDE – December 8, 1967, USDA Bee Lab, Beltsville, MD

Helena stood outside Isolation Lab 2, her hand on the doorknob.

She couldn’t seem to bring herself to turn it and go in.

For most of the past four days, she’d been filled with an unrelenting dread. ‘Something is going on…something strange and unprecedented,’ she thought. ‘But its more than that. Paul knows or thinks he knows something, and he’s trying to hide it. That’s why he’s warned the staff that the bees in this lab are under quarantine and shouldn’t be bothered without his supervision. He’s doing something with these altered bees. But what? And, more importantly…why?”

She knew that Paul was away for the day, taking meetings with his superiors in Washington regarding the success or failure of the pest-control experiment. Leaving out the mutations spawned by the process, the results were quite heartening. Adding them in…well, she knew that Paul wouldn’t do that, in order to make the two years of research look as good as possible so the experiment would be continued.

Meanwhile, inside Iso 2, she knew Paul had put a third-generation mutated queen inside a hive of normal bees. To what purpose, she didn’t know, but that’s why she was standing with her hand on the doorknob. Because she wanted to know. She needed to know.

She opened the door and went inside.

Donning her protective gear in the narrow entry area that bordered the actual laboratory, she wondered at the sheer ludicrousness of her position. To be suspicious of the man that had brought her into this program, who had relied on her for hard research…up until the moment a few months ago that he had gone silent and secretive, telling her he was separating a part of his research from hers. Calling it his own ‘blind study group.’ Then, taking bees from her altered hives and introducing them into regular hives, as he had done three days ago. Whatever his purpose, she didn’t like being kept outside the loop. ‘Maybe he’s trying to find some way to take all the credit, when the discovery of the mutations is announced,’ she thought. It wasn’t unprecedented, the older professor taking credit away from his younger research assistants.

But the thought of it, after two long years of research, was intolerable to her.

Which is why she slid aside the door of the inner “lock” of the isolation lab and stepped inside.

In most of the research labs, the bees would be flying around in a frenzy, necessitating a “smoke bath” in the airlock before re-entering the main building, to insure no stray bees were allowed inside. However, it was clear that the one hive located in the center of the floor was spawning no such activity. In fact, Helena thought it was strangely quiet inside the room, with no hum of wings or buzzing about that normally accompanied her visits.

Paul had apparently left in a hurry after his last visit, leaving the top of the hive leaning against the outer shell instead of replacing it. Thinking that it just made it easier to see inside, Helena walked over and peered down into…chaos.

Dead bees were everywhere in the hive, so many more than when she had visited two day’s earlier. Every worker seemed to have fallen victim to the unrelenting stingers of the mutated bees.

But she noticed that there was still life in the hive. In the midst of all the death, two queens circled. Helena immediately recognized one as the mutated queen of her third-generation hive, the one Paul had removed without asking. The other she could only assume was a normal honeybee queen, placed there for the purpose of experimentation by Paul.

Helena watched, fascinated by the intricate dances done by each queen as they each declared a case for hive dominance. She had seen this ritual done before by many a queen, who, faced with a rival, seemed to try warning the invader off before attacking. Only, it seemed that her mutated queen seemed less interested in the dance than the normal honeybee did. In fact, the invader had stopped dancing altogether, while the other queen continued the ritual…

“ZZZZzzzzzzt!” Just that quickly, the new queen attacked the other. Unprepared the normal honeybee barely had time to move before the mutated queen’s stinger was lodged in her torso, and venom was pumping into her. The victimized queen spun rapidly, like a bucking pony trying to dislodge a cowboy. Yet, within seconds, the queen was down, shaking weakly; victorious, the other queen removed herself from her rapidly weakening rival.

However, the new ruler of the hive was apparently not finished with the deposed queen bee. Using intricate movements, it communicated something to mutated workers already in place in the hive. They took the still trembling queen and pulled her over to an open cell in the honeycomb, pushing her inside. Then, they sealed the former queen inside with freshly made wax. All in all, the entire episode took less than five minutes.

‘Amazing,’ thought Helena. ‘Just like the other mutated bees, she attacked the other queen before she could defend herself. But I don’t understand why they sealed the old queen up in wax. Could it be some sort of new paradigm?’

As she watched, the mutated queen began luring drones toward her, an obvious attempt to initiate reproduction to repopulate the hive. Normal drones, the only unchanged bees left alive inside the hive, started making their way toward where the queen was waiting.

But, just as in her encounter with the normal queen, the mutated queen did not wait for the drones to reach her. She pounced quickly on the nearest, injecting him with venom from her stinger. Then another, and another. Within moments, all of the drones were lying prone, paralyzed and trembling. Moments afterward, they were scooped up by the mutated workers and sealed within their own wax-covered cells.

Helena was stunned. Only two days ago, this had been a thriving colony of normal honeybees. Now, a few mutated workers and one queen had savaged them all. And, for some unknown reason, they had sealed some of the normal bees in wax after being stung by the queen.

Standing over the hive, she shook her head inside its protective mask. ‘What exactly is happening here?’ she thought. ‘These new bees are obviously territorial and aggressive when it comes to interplay with other bees. But why kill all the workers? And what has the queen done to those other bees?’

She found herself reaching for the “smoker,” the portable device that sprayed smoke into the hive to allow researchers to remove portions of the honeycomb without being swarmed. Spraying the remaining bees with thick white smoke, she lifted the portion of the honeycomb containing the sealed-in bees and moved to a bench near the door. Once there, using a knife and a pair of tweezers, she scraped away the wax on one of the cells and removed a still trembling drone from inside. Gently placing him in a specimen dish, she returned the side of the hive, where the mutated bees were already stirring from the effects of the smoke. Deciding to be cautious, she smoked them again, and then replaced the comb inside the hive. Sealing the dish, she slid it inside her pocket and made her way into the airlock, smoking her protective suit to make sure she had no hidden passengers. Once outside, she stripped quickly and took her specimen back to her office.

She sat in her chair doing paperwork and writing in her journal until 10 PM, checking every few minutes for any sign of change in the still-quiescent bee. Only when she could no longer hold her eyes open did she lock the specimen jar in desk drawer and leave for the day.

She was so tired that she didn’t see the shadow standing in the doorway as she got into her car.

PART SEVEN – 2:00 AM, April 14, 2003

END PART SEVEN