Beep. Beep. Beep. Chris opened his eyes. He was in a hospital room. It was a room with a guard. The guard was in Air Force fatigues. He was also carrying a sidearm. The guard was paying attention. The moment Chris had opened his eyes the guy got up from his chair and knocked on the door. He remained standing.

Chris rolled to his feet and then hastily reached for the strings of his fluttering hospital gown, quickly tying them off.

About thirty seconds later it opened and a uniformed officer came in. He was wearing captain's bars. They looked like an "H" with two little cross bars instead of one big one. His fake smile was thin.

"How are you feeling?" he asked. "The doctors refused to allow us to wake you up, but now...” he looked back at the closed door. “We have a few questions for you."

"Where am I?" Chris asked.

"Obviously you are in a hospital." he said condescendingly.

"Which hospital?"

"I'm not at liberty to disclose that to you at the moment." he said.

"Am I under arrest? I have rights."

"We are hoping for your cooperation. Expecting it in fact."

"I'm not feeling well." Chris said. "Let me talk to a doctor."

The captain smirked at him. He walked closer to the bed. "You listen! I lost quite a few men. I want to know what happened. You were in there with her. If I find out that you were even partially responsible...."

The door opened again. A man in a white lab coat walked in. He was wearing a stethoscope. He was also wearing gold oak leaves on his lapels.

"Are you having a discussion with my patient before you called me Captain?" he asked.

"Just introducing myself, Major." the captain replied.

"I don’t remember you giving me your name." Chris said. He looked at the guard for corroboration, but the soldier avoided his eyes.

"Get out. Fred." said the doctor. "I'll call you when I decide that it's safe to interview the patient."

The captain looked apoplectic. He spun on his heel and walked out the door. The guard remained. Chris thought that he almost smiled at him, but not quite.

The doctor reached into a drawer and pulled out a digital thermometer. Without asking he put it in Chris’s ear he held it there for a few seconds. Then he looked at it.

"How are you feeling.?" the doctor asked.

"I'm actually concerned about actually answering that question at this point." Chris said. "That other officer looked like he was going to eat me alive."

"Captain Miller can get a bit impatient. I'm your physician, Major Lewis. He paused. Stanley Lewis. I really would appreciate you telling me how you're feeling. You're a bit of a mystery. You've got my curiosity aroused."

"I can only imagine." said Chris. "Your probably going to tell me that I shouldn't be alive."

"From what we can tell from your X-rays, that's true." he said. "I've never seen someone with a history of such a destroyed skeletal system that was actually alive. And…you're not paralyzed. Do you know anything about that?"

"The helicopter crashed. That's the last thing I remember." Chris said.

"We did not find you at the crash site. We found you inside the alien craft. Do you remember anything about that?" asked the doctor.

”There was a woman. You’re probably going to laugh… I think she was an Angel.”

The doctor didn’t even smile. “That doesn’t exactly fit the current description. “Please have a seat on the bed if you don’t mind.”

”Why?”

The doctor pulled a blood pressure monitor out of a large front pocket. “Because I need to use this. The reading is best when you are not standing.”

Chris sat on the bed.

Dr. Lewis began talking his blood pressure by wrapping the inflatable grey armband around his bicep. He pulled it tight with the Velcro. The little machine began buzzing and squeezed his arm.

After he observed the reading, the doctor removed the cuff.

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“You appear to be healthy.” Mr. Spruce.

Chris nodded. "Thanks." He stood up.

The doctor reached into the pocket of his lab coat and pulled out a white square. He turned it over. Chis could see it was some type of Polaroid photograph.

"I'm not supposed to show this to you." he said. Then he handed it to Chris.

It was the Angel. But not. The image was blurry as if someone had snapped it while she was lunging at the photographer. Her basic features were still beautiful. Her face though, was a twisted into a scowl and in her partially opened mouth, Chris could see what looked like fangs. He looked into the doctor's eyes with alarm.

"She looks more like a Vampire than an Angel to me." said the doctor. Chris kept staring at the photo in disbelief. Finally the doctor reached over and plucked it from his hand, putting it back into his pocket.

"Like I said. I'm not supposed to show that to you. Or anybody for that matter." he said.

"My God!" he exclaimed. "How long have I been unconscious?"

"It's been forty days." Mr. Spruce. "We couldn't even determine why you were unresponsive. What was the really the most surprising, I mean besides your obvious miraculously healed bone fractures, was that you needed no nutritional or hydration assistance. No feeding tubes. No I.V.'s. You must be part camel Mr. Spruce.

Chris bit back a laugh. "I wonder how much I weigh?" he asked. "I have been meaning to lose a few pounds."

"You weigh 199 lbs. At least the last time we weighed you." said the doctor. "Would you mind stepping over onto the scale? It's over in the corner."

Chris saw it at once and stepped over and up. The metal plate was colder than the floor tiles on his bare feet. The doctor leaned over him and read the scale at the same time that Chris did.

"One hundred and ninety-nine." he said. The doctor nodded and pulled out a small tablet. He seemed to be writing down Chris's data.

"Are you hungry Chris?" the doctor asked. "Can I call you Chris? You don't mind if we get less formal do you?"

"Only if I can call you Stanley."

"I actually prefer Doctor." said Stanley. Then he grinned. "No, it's fine. I've decided to make you my sole patient for the time being. I'm going to be seeing quite a lot of you."

Outside shoes squeaked on tile. The door rattled and then opened. It was Captain Miller again. This time he had two additional armed airmen with him.

"I assume he's going to live." snarked Miller. "I'm requesting strongly that you release him to me.... Sir!"

"Go ahead." sighed Stanley. "But I want him back here in no later than two hours. And in one piece."

Miller nodded. He reached for a loop on his belt and pulled off a pair of handcuffs.

"You're going to cuff me!?" exclaimed Chris. He stared at him in disbelief.

"Put your hands behind your back."

Chris reluctantly did. The officer stepped behind him and Chris heard clicking and felt a pinch on his wrists. It hurt a little and he involuntarily pulled his wrists apart. He heard a snap. Both metal bracelets suddenly appeared as they traveled around his body to the front of his waist. A short broken chain was hanging from each of them.

"Well, that's new." said Chris.

One of the airmen pulled his sidearm. He didn't point it at Chris, but it looked like he was thinking about it pretty hard. His eyes were searching his commanding officer for instructions.

Miller sighed. "Ok, he's obviously like her. Put away that firearm. It probably won't do any good anyway." he said.

"He's friendly and reasonably compliant at this point." pointed out the doctor. Why don't we give him a chance?"

"Sure. Friendly and compliant." reiterated Chris.

He really didn't want them testing out that pistol on him, despite their saying it would be ineffective. He couldn't imagine a scenario in which them shooting him wouldn't at least hurt a great deal. Whatever that healing machine had done to his body, perhaps it was not limited to the time that he had spent inside it.

"Take me to your leader." Chris said, jokingly.

"That's for later." said Miller. "First I have some alien equipment I want you to take a look at. We found it in the crashed ship. Perhaps you can help us figure out what it does or how it works."

"I'll try." said Chris. "What is this place?"

"Welcome to area Fifty-One." said Miller.

"Do I even get a phone call?" he asked.

"If you cooperate, we'll see what we can do." said Miller.

"Well then, how about some actual clothes?"

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In a chamber with steel walls ten inches thick and a glass viewing port eighteen inches thick, Sarah opened her eyes. He was, at last awake. This human that had named himself Chris. After she had touched him he had crumpled to the floor. That sometimes happened but it made what occured a few minutes later much more difficult. As expected the inhibitor field around her crashed ship had failed. After a few tentative probes, the wreckage had been surrounded by heavily armed troops. Large heavy metal machines with noisy belted treads had also rolled up. These primitives seemed well equipped for conflict.

Somewhere in the middle of the conflict one of them had dragged Chris's unresponsive body outside. Once she was out of proximity to him, some of the fight had definitely gone out of her. None of the men attacking her had the internal spark that Chris had displayed, and that had motivated her to rescue him. For a while, she gave as good as she got, but eventually they had subdued her. They had used some sort of gas to knock her out and take her prisoner.

She had woken up in a cell. It had metal bars. That lasted about five minutes until she tore the bars off the wall. More gas ensued. That had gone on for a while with increasingly stronger means of containment until at last she woke up here. These walls she hadn't managed to break, although there were several deep gouges in the metal from her attempts. Several times a day a speaker grille high in the ceiling spat out some words. They all seemed to be in different languages. Then they had tried tones and sounds. She had ignored all of it. All of this activity had left her hungry and depressed. She ran her tongue along her teeth. She had to admit, her canines had grown abnormally long. They had brought various foods to her, shoving them through a small metal compartment in the door. She had eaten everything, but nothing they gave her had the tooth growing inhibitor in it. The nutrient 'Chai' was a necessary and important part of every Angel's diet. Without it she had quickly started to change.

Now she had hope again! Whatever had happened to him, she now could feel that Chris was awake. He would come to her. He had to! She rolled into a sitting position and stared at the thick glass window of the cell. She felt him moving, but what was this? He was going the wrong way! She began to thrash and scream, beating herself against the thick walls. They were taking him away!

She heard the hiss of gas and held her breath. Three minutes later she at last had to breathe, and almost immediately crumpled to the floor.

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