Chapter 2

Rebecca wheeled Samantha down the hall into another room with three nurses.

Alien vertical eyes stared at her.

Samantha wriggled in her bonds, while begging, “Please don’t do this!”

“Don’t worry,” one nurse informed her. “You’ll be just fine after you’ve joined the Hive.”

There was a sharp sting as the nurse injected her with some sort of drug. A few moments later Samantha couldn’t move or speak.

Afterwards, her clothes were quickly stripped away before they moved her unresisting body to place her on another gurney with a mesh like material on it.

Samantha winced internally as a Devian nurse inserted a catheter and a butt plug into her.

As the same time, another nurse was placing electrodes at various places on Samantha’s body while the third nurse pulled her hair back and tied it into a tight bun before what looked like electrode connections were fixed on to her head.

Once the electrodes were in place, the first two nurses wrapped the mesh around her body several times, covering her from shoulders to toes. The third wrapped her head in the same mesh. Then she swabbed Samantha’s neck, sterilizing the skin before inserting a needle into the vein.

Once a port had been installed in her neck, the third nurse gathered the tubes and wires together. As she did that the first nurse slid her arm under Samantha’s knees and lifted her legs. The second nurse then slid a bag made of a silvery material over her feet and up her legs. They continued to work the silvery bag up Samantha’s body until it covered her shoulders.

Then they sealed it.

The third nurse then connected a hose to the bag and pushed a button on a computer. A hiss filled the room as the bag contracted around her, stopping just short of making it difficult to breathe. Even if the drugs were to wear off, she was effectively immobilized, trapped inside the bag.

A second hiss then filled the room as the bag around her head contracted, framing her face.

While all this was going on, Samantha kept asking, “What are you doing? What’s going to happen next?” as well as pleading for them to stop.

But the words never made it to her lips.

Thanks to the drugs, she remained silent, the words trapped in her head.

The first nurse leaned over her and put a couple drops in her eyes. Samantha was actually grateful for that since she wasn’t able to blink and her eyes were dry and burning.

The Devian nurse loomed over her. “There we go,” the alien woman smirked. “You look lovely and you’re all ready for the Questioner now.”

The nurse then turned and called, “Rebecca...”

Rebecca stepped into Samantha’s vision, “Yes, Nurse?”

“You may take our guest to Questioning now.”

“Yes, Nurse.” Rebecca replied and began to push Samantha’s gurney out of the room.

A short time later, Samantha was wheeled into another room, and parked next to a bank of machines. After locking the wheels, Rebecca raised the back of the gurney to a sitting position. As she was sat up, Samantha saw another white haired, purple irised Devian.

The woman looked at Samantha. “I am the Questioner,” she simply said. “You will tell me everything.”

“Fat chance of that!” thought Samantha determinedly. “I’ll never tell you anything. Not that your drugs would let me,” she added to herself with a mental chuckle.

Unnoticed by Samantha, Rebecca had picked up the end of the cable that was attached to the electrodes and plugged it into a device above her head. As she did that, the Questioner approached Samantha with a syringe of purple liquid.

“Wait! What is that stuff?” Samantha’s mind cried out desperately.

“Don’t do that!” she screamed to herself in silence as the Questioner injected the liquid into her venous port.

The Questioner then returned to her desk and adjusted her computer screen before pushing a button. As she did, a buzzing started above Samantha as her head began to swim and her vision took on a reddish tinge.

“Now,” the Questioner began, “tell me about your preparations for our boarding.”

“No way!” Samantha replied in her mind but she couldn’t help thinking about it.

Unknown to her, as Samantha responded to the alien interrogation, her thoughts were projected upon a monitor above her head. Question after question was asked. Each time Samantha remained silent but her thoughts were revealed on the screen.

Finally, the Questioner smiled.

“Very good, my dear,” the Devian soothed. “We will talk again later. There is much of interest in your mind but first, you will visit the Implanter.”

“You may take her now,” the Questioner instructed Rebecca.

“Yes, Questioner,” the Hived woman replied eagerly before unplugging Samantha from the machine.

Samantha felt exhausted but was glad her head was no longer swimming.

Rebecca wheeled her, still sitting upright, out into the hall and down the corridor to another room.

Another Devian greeted her as she was wheeled inside.

“Welcome to Implantation. I am the Implanter,” the purple eyed alien introduced herself. “When you leave here you will be a part of the Hive.”

“NO!!!” Samantha screamed silently in her mind, “Not that!”

Continuing on as if she hadn’t heard Samantha’s scream, which she hadn’t, the Implanter turned to the Hived woman who had accompanied her throughout.

“Rebecca, you may proceed to observation for your reward,” the Devian indulged. “You are fortunate to be allowed to watch the implantation. Few are allowed to do so.”

The former Communications Officer smiled and nodded her head. “Yes, Implanter,” she breathed.

Just before leaving, Rebecca leaned down and kissed Samantha’s cheek. “The next time we meet, you’ll be one of us,” she said tenderly before straightening up and leaving.

As Rebecca left, the Implanter looked at Samantha. “You too will be allowed to watch the Implantation,” she smirked before turning to a couple of alien nurses. “Prepare her,” she ordered.

“Yes, Implanter,” the assistants replied in unison.

The alien women moved the gurney to what appeared to be an open cocoon coming out of the wall. As she was wheeled closer, Samantha could see the imprint of a humanoid form in it, with the feet pointed towards the wall.

The Devian nurses adjusted the gurney so that Samantha was lying down again, before lifting her off the trolley and settling her into the imprinted form. One nurse hooked the hoses and cables of Samantha’s bag into ports on the cocoon. The other lifted and closed a lid over Samantha’s body, leaving her face free. When the lid was latched, Samantha heard a hiss and felt further pressure against her body as the form swelled to press against her.

If she’d been capable of moving before, she couldn’t now.

As the cocoon began to hum, Samantha grew cold.

One of the nurses approached, smiling mirthlessly. “I know you’re scared but don’t worry,” she said, putting more drops into Samantha’s eyes. “You’ll feel so much better once you’ve been implanted and become a part of the Hive.”

Then the Devian medic pushed a button out Samantha’s sight.

With that, a panel in the wall, at Samantha’s feet opened. The room filled with purple light.

Slowly, Samantha’s cocoon began to retract into the wall, taking her deeper inside this strange apparatus.

Her vision went purple as her head entered, blinding her.

When she could see again, Samantha found herself in another room. The cocoon she was trapped within was upright now.

From what little she could see, it looked like she was in some kind of assembly line filled with cocooned people jist like her.

Suddenly the cocoon in front of her rotated 90 degrees to face her.

Samantha mentally screamed as her sister face came into view.

Fear filled Sarah’s eyes.

She felt the same terror coursing through her. Hard as they both tried, neither of them could move or say anything.

Terrified Samantha watched as a multi-armed ball lowered down from the ceiling and stopped in front of Sarah, just above her head.

Her sister’s forehead was illuminated by several small spotlights on the ball. Slowly, one of the thin mechanical arms lowered and sprayed Sarah’s head with something before raising back up.

Another arm descended. This moved forward to press something circular against Sarah’s forehead.

Then an attachment on the side of the arm pressed against Sarah’s head and began to spin.

The arm then lifted away. If she could, Samantha would have screamed at the sight of the circular hole in the flesh over Sarah’s forehead.

The ball rotated again and another arm descended. Sarah’s face glowed green as the arm fired a laser beam towards her skull. Samantha could see the smoke rising from her sister’s forehead as the beam burned the bone away.

The fear in her sister’s eyes had turned to sheer terror.

When the laser arm moved, Samantha would have wretched if she could have at the sight of Sarah’s brain now visible through the hole burned through her skull.

Another arm lowered and some kind of probe was carefully inserted into Sarah’s brain.

A few moments later two more arms were lowered from the ceiling and something was sprayed on to Sarah’s temples. After that, a laser quickly flashed on both sides of Sarah’s head.

Temporarily blinded, Samantha missed some kind of wires being inserted into her sister’s temples. When she could see again, the mechanical arms at the side of Sarah’s head had lifted up and the probe in the middle of Sarah’s forehead was withdrawing. This time the arm lifted up to pull something out of a compartment before carefully positioning it before the hole in Sarah’s forehead. It like some kind of metalic hairy ball.

It was the implant.

“No! No, no, no, no!” Samantha screamed in horrified silence.

“Stop! Please, stop!” she yelled to herself as the probe pushed the metalic ball through the hole and into her sister’s brain. “Don’t do this! No!!!”

The probe withdrew and was replaced with another arm ending in multiple smaller arms. These were inserted into the hole in Sarah’s forehead where it seemed to make multiple adjustments.

Once more, Samantha cried and screamed internally as she visibly saw the light in her sister’s eyes grow dim. The light faded more and more as the machines set to work.

Then it was gone.

Its work done the multi-armed probes withdrew.

Where they’d recently been so full of fear, her sister’s eyes were now blank and lifeless.

The arms rotated again and the new arm pressed something against Sarah’s forehead. When it lifted away, a circular metal patch covered the hole in her skull. The flap of skin was replaced next followed by another spray arm. After spraying Sarah’s forehead the arm with drew and the entire mechanism raised back up.

Samantha sobbed at the sight of her sister’s lifeless eyes and the circular scar in her forehead.

Her sister’s cocoon then rotated another 90 degrees to the right and continued along the track. Another cocoon took its place.

Samantha’s breaking heart shattered as she mentally screamed as she saw her lover’s fear filled eyes.

“NO! NO! PLEASE STOP!” she screamed within her mind, over and over again as she was forced to watch Cassie undergo the implantation procedure. Samantha tried as hard as she could to do something, anything that would stop it. But she was trapped. She couldn’t move. She couldn’t even cry as the light in Cassie’s eyes faded, just like Sarah’s.

Finished, the arms rose up as Cassie’s cocoon rotated and moved out of the way for the next one.

This time Samantha’s cocoon rotated as well and began to move on its journey towards the implantation device.

Even though her eyes were stuck open Samantha was so distraught that she wasn’t able to pay any attention to what was happening. Suddenly there was a bright light in front of her followed by a shadow that passed through the light. The cool spray against her forehead shook her out of her grief and back to awareness.

“What the...?” she staggered as a second shadow passed through the light and pressed against her forehead. Then she felt something sharp begin to bite into her flesh. Awareness rushed through her and she screamed mentally as she realized that the implantation device was slicing a hole in her forehead.

“No, no, no!” she cried unheard. “Stop! Please, stop!” as the laser began to burn a hole through her skull.

Samantha wanted to throw up as the smell reached her nose. Panic consumed her. She wanted to run screaming from the room.

But she could do neither.

Another arm began to slowly slide a probe into her brain.

“No!!!!!” Samantha’s mind recoiled, unheard. “Noooooo ... get that thing out of my head!”

Even if she could move though, at this point she was terrified of doing so.

Then she felt a cool spray on her temples followed by a warm sensation as green light filled her peripheral vision.

“Stop! Please stop!”

Even if the machine could have heard her it wouldn’t have stopped. Tears flowed down her cheeks as Samantha felt something sliding into her brain from the sides.

After what felt like an eternity, the arm removed the probe from her brain.

But Samantha’s relief was brief as, horrified, she saw another arm approaching her holding the hairy metal sphere.

If she could have her eyes would have crossed as she followed the implant as it disappeared from view and began to slide through the hole in her skull and into her brain.

“Ohmygod!” she chanted, hyperventilating with terror, still not able to believe what was being done to her

“Ohmygod! Ohmygod!!!!!!!!”

The arm withdrew, leaving the implant embedded in her brain.