An anthropological survey of the area revealed little--if any--more than what the Chem-Bio team had unraveled:  bodies everywhere, rimming each other in piles, slowly doing what bodies will do.

Agent Kimberly refused to recede into the background of the buildup of the back bio-piece that Major Tomlinson had been rigging into the machinery since earlier that misty morning.     

     "There're flies in there, too," the tech said.

     They had been watching the proceedings from across the way for some time by then, and all of them had grown distant:  distant from each other, from their own normal bodily functions, from... "without."  Yes, somehow, all of them knew a "disturbance" was... ebbing... toward them.  What had been a simple glance at a watch, for instance, had grown into something much more:  something... surreptitious.  Just about when the finger-drumming crescendoed, the major's unit beeped.

     "Well, at least they're finally letting us head in," the tech said to no one in particular, ducking under the cordon.

     "Shut up, Judy," Kimberly mouthed, this time ever-so-audibly.

     Judy braaapt his spaghetti-spreading noodle wand, his "noodle-maker," he called it, scanning for airborne, while the others went around with clipboards.

     "Get over there in the cracks and caulking," the major ordered.  He was in no mood for horseplay... this time.  Their last mission found them hurling over waterfalls and had shrunk them--emotionally, at least--down to the size of the smallest things the luckiest lumps of carbon could ever hope to become.  Diamonds, that is.  And the ordeal had hardened them as well:  all the pushing, all the needful armpitsful of humans toppling each other, distastefully, only to get up and do it again at their next assignment involving--naturally--more bodies curled into the pretzel-shaped reminders of how much determination--how much sheer will--it must have taken to swirl them into the glumps they eventually became.  Calls for backup--and, yes, calls to authorize the use of titanium Shoehorns--were becoming the norm.  Sometimes they even went so far as WD-40.  

     "Shoulda done enough of that last week," Kimberly informed Judy, who stopped long enough with his "noodle-maker" to wave her through the porthole.  

     The agent bonked her head on the way in.  Then she saw it:  a rose and marble tilework.  She looked at her pumps, then removed the left one.  Hopping around in her azure stirrups--and, yes, she was pregnant, but only one of the others knew, surely not the type to spread it around, at least not without... and, here, she opened the kitchen sink door with the knify part of her left shoe.    

"Betsy"

     Judy reloaded "Betsy" while the major tottered around and the agent gaped under the sink.  All was silent for a moment.  They were telepathically communicating with each other.  Nerves, the message, or cleanser.

     The major blurted out:  "It's too darn quiet in here!  All you people can't be thinkin' at once.  C'mon, I need to hear somebody workin'."

     The tech, through reloading, began noodling again.  Shoehorns, later, he thought.  For sure.

     "Whaddaya think caused this one?" Kimberly, hands on hips, asked the tech in a remote, serious way.

     "Just punch in, punch out, all right?  I'm tired of getting in trouble for hypothesizing around here."  The tech returned to noodle a wall of 'em, which had slumped down to about the size of a teacupful at a rinky-dink, backwoods amusement park.  Needless to say, they did need righting and he had to start somewhere and all the other not-too-important duties had already been performed or didn't necessarily need to have anybody adhere to them in the first place.   

     "C'mon!  Get going with that thing.  Them Shoehorns could cost us."

     "Cost us plenty, I reckon.  Just like last time, when you--"

     "Not.  Again.  Please."  Agent Kimberly's hands flew off her hips and stopped at about mid-reach, hanging there, holding up the whole operation, as it were, because of the holes in her shirt and the buttons along her shoulders that just missed her head.  Oh, sure, there were others:  some on her shoes, some in her purse in case she needed to mend any along the way.  Her friends called her "a button freakin' biatch."  Others, "an all-day job."  Still, the agent kept her poise--even if it meant buttoning her lip once in a while.

     The major cleared his throat.  He usually did this eight-tenths of a second before speaking.  This time he just cleared his throat.  Then, something caught his eye.  "Hey, Harry:  get that one."

     Harry Judy aimed a Snorklenose™ at where the major pointed.  He covered it, until it began to glow.

     "Well, don't just stand there, Harry!  Pull it out," Kimberly called, leaning over Tomlinson--or, rather, leaning into his shoulder--snagging a button on his chevron, bouncing a little.

     Another agent--this one shorter than a four-day workweek--burst into, through, and beyond the roped-off area where they had gathered, stopped... and then ran back and shouted, "Don't!  Judy!  Get away from there."

     He pulled back, growing limp, craning his neck in mild disbelief.

     "Constance wants us all to clear out.  Immediately."

     "What the devil!" the major shouted, aroused and furious at this sudden departure from protocol.

     "It's still glowing.  Hey, everybody:  look!  I pulled Betsy off it, but it's still glowing.  My God, I've never seen one do that before."  

     "Let's go," the major quickly said, turning on a ripe heel.

     Hopping after the others, shodding herself along the way and fumbling with her buttons, Kimberly asked them to hold on for a second or two while she came to grips with her apparel.

 

 

     Back at HerbQuarters™, the team emerged from the still-vibrating decompression chamber, which emitted a loud, decelerating whirring noise as it shut down.  It made a ka-chunk, and then wobbled, as if it were dieseling.

     Constance greeted them with:  "We've got one in Isolation, Level 4.  Y'all can grab a snack on your way up."

     The major scowled.  He didn't like snacks.  Moreover, it'd been three weeks since he'd last seen his house on Fruitless Mulberry Lane.  Trouble was, they never could pry much outta these so-called "live" ones anyway.  They'd pump 'em chock full of caffeine--just to get 'em talking--but what they said came out slowly, too slowly, and garbled.  When will they ever learn, he thought, when will they ever learn.

     Agent Kimberly cradled pastries in one arm while she held open the pneumatic door marked "Isolation" with the other.  They padded in, and the door shhhed closed behind them.

     And then they saw her.  Yes, it was a female:  the redness around her lower torso area unmistakably feminine.  Judy's eyes widened.  Betsy sure as Shinola didn't do that, he thought; no way, no how.  "What's all that?" he asked, gesturing toward her midsection.

     "You mean those scrapes?" Constance said, sniffing in a somewhat disinterested way.

     "Yeah.  What happened to her?"

     "Shoehorn wouldn't work.  We had to use a Crowbar.  Don’t worry:  she'll heal."  

     "Yeah, but..." Judy started, but cut himself off because the woman began to move her mouth.

     "Ka... Coffee?" she asked, licking her lips.  “I taste coffee, I think."  She pinched away eyeboogers and tousled her hair.

     "Yes... something like it.  Only a little stronger," Constance said in his most reassuring tone.

     "Espresso?" 

     "You're... getting warmer.  Look, we'd like to catalogue everyone's most recent refreshments, but it seems we're running short on time.  Can you please tell us... what you've been up to lately.  What you remember."

     "What gives?" she asked.

     "Yes, what's up.  Tell us what you've done in the last, say, twenty-four hours."  Constance fixed his stare on her chin.

     "No.  Um, 'scuse me.  What I mean by 'what gives' is, like, who are you to ask me what I've been doing lately?"

     Constance, suddenly put upon, rolled his eyes and glanced at the major, who in turn deferred to the agent with a measured smile.  Kimberly stepped forward and said, "Look, we're all on the same side, here, sweetie.  We're all... human, no?"

     "Don't you people have names?  Hobbies?  Something better to do besides--"

     "Yeah, you're right!" the agent barked.  “We've got hobbies!  But at least our hobbies don't involve--"

     "Kimberly," Major Tomlinson spoke in a calming, bureaucratic manner.

     "OK."  Kimberly fingered her favorite button.  "All right.  Yes, we have names.  For instance, I'm Kimberly.  This here is the major, Major Tomlinson.  To your left, Admiral Constance.  And last but certainly not least is Harry Judy:  tech support."

     The woman started to slowly--very slowly in fact--get up from her easy chair.

     "No, no.  That's quite all right," the major said.  "Stay seated.  We'll come to you.  OK, everybody:  shake her hand.  C’mon."

     They donned rubber gloves and filed past her.  Introductions abounded.  Pleasantries offered, accepted in haste.  "Yes, yes we'll do lunch.  OK, OK," the major continued.  "Go, Kimberly, go.  While she's still with us."

     Agent Kimberly resumed her place directly in front of the woman.  "Now, where were we?"

     "I don't know where you were, but I was enjoying myself before you people came along."

     Kimberly curled her upper lip.  "You don't remember?  Is that what you're saying?"

     "Of course I remember.  Why are you so uptight?"

     "Uptight!  Why, you, little..." Kimberly edged forward another half-step, but then--hearing the major remonstratively clear his throat--stepped back, all the while shaking her head.

     "Names," Judy whispered.

     "I.  Can.  Do.  This," the agent menacingly informed the tech.  "Here, have a cupcake.  I wanna hear you eating and learning, not kibitzing, OK?"

     "You want to hear me... learning?  Really?"

     "Just..." Kimberly aimed a sharp fingernail at the technician, thought about clarifying herself and more, but instead dismissed his meddling with a flick of her wrist, then turned back to her interrogatee.  "Yes, as my co-worker has suggested, can you remember any of the names of the other victims?"

     "Victims?  What victims?" the woman scoffed.

     Agent Kimberly dejectedly shook her head.  "See?  This is the way it always goes.  They just don't... or they can't or won't acknowledge... or...."  Kimberly, somewhat exasperated, met the eyes of the major, who nodded in agreement.

     "No, you're a victim," the woman piped up.  "Look at yourself.  You're pregnant.  I can tell."

     Muffled gasps.  Shuffled Hush Puppies.  The agent quickly estimated damage control probabilities.  How in the world could she tell? she thought; I'm at least a month away from showing.

     "We, um... time," Constance tapped his watch and then jerked his head toward the big clock on the wall.  "They usually don't stay coherent this long."  

     "All right:  I'm pregnant," Kimberly exhaled in a huff.  "But at least it happened naturally.  Not like you people."

     "Naturally?" the woman said, a tinge of sarcasm in her tone.  "You call the way you do it 'natural'?"

     "Yes!  Yes, I do.  Our beakers are sterilized before we put the eggs and sperm into them.  We use clean, hygienic turkey basters.  Our Petri dishes are clean and sanitary when we go a dippin'."

     "Oh, dippin'."  She laughed.  "Dippin', you call it.  That's too funny.  That's rich.  And I suppose you think how I go about getting pregnant is not normal?"

     "Piling on top of each other?!  Going at it--en masse--so slowly you lose track of time?  Moving so snail-like, so glacially, that normal, decent people can't even tell if you're alive?  No, honey:  that's not natural.  Honestly, I don't know where you get off."

     "I... Well, actually I think you do know where I get off.  It's where you found me earlier today.  With my friends."

     The agent eyed the major, disgustedly shaking her head, thinking:  Yet another lost cause.

 

 

     The major gazed at the agent, reminiscing on their twin Petri dishes... how they put them in the refrigerator, together, on that gorgeous day last spring.  When they latched the refrigerator door, their rubber gloves touched each other tenderly under the crisp, neon lights of the laboratory.  Then they ran off to their next assignment, panting, chomping at the bit, so to speak. 

"Is that a dogpile up ahead?"

 

 

herbie@herboverstreet.com

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