As a single mother, Ada really had no choice but to return to work once her daughter, Abbra, had been born. She sent the child to a home daycare run by an older woman. Ada explained Abbra’s skin color as a rare melanin disorder. As a scientist, she was able to make her explanation believable so that the older woman accepted that while unusual, there was nothing dangerous or contagious about the condition. Thankfully, the older woman didn’t dig too deeply into Ada’s story.
At work, Ada was working on the wormhole generator. It was an on-going project for her. Zeb’s people couldn’t get it to work, and she was pretty sure that she wouldn’t be able to do it either, but still, she had to try.
Zeb left the plans with her in the hopes that she would succeed and be able to travel to Sixam. More than ever, Ada hoped that she would do so.
He had his ship’s AI teleport them to his medical bay. Before doing so, he spoke to both Ted Roswell and Sargent Demetrius determining that they were both ok.
“Ada needs medical attention,” he told them. “You will need to take care of the people here.”
It would be better if the two men handled the situation anyway. Though they knew he was an alien from Sixam, it was best if no one else did.
“Are you ready,” Zeb asked Ada. She nodded. He wrapped his arms around her and they were whisked away.
If Ada thought she’d been tired while working on the vaccine, she was doubly so now that she’d perfected the formula. So many things needed to be done before she and Zeb could finally defeat the mother plant.
First, she needed to figure out how to concentrate the vaccine formula into the weedkiller that she thought it could be. Then, once she’d done that, she’d need to make enough of it so that they could spray it all over the mother plant.
Working on this during work hours was out of the question. People were starting to question her research. Why would a geologist be working so hard on a chemical serum? In order to do what was needed, Ada had to create a small lab outside her trailer. She ordered the equipment she needed and set it up so she could work from home.
At work she focused more on creating the weapon they’d need to spray the serum. Using her knowledge of metals and crystals, Ada managed to meld the Sixam weapon schematics with the Sim Ray that the Institute had already developed.
The plant infestation of Strangerville was definitely getting worse. Since she and Zeb had discovered the mother plant alive and well in the basement of the crater lab, the number of buds and flowering plants had increased.
So, too had the number of infected roaming Strangerville increased. And what was worse, at least to Ada’s mind, was how the plant tendrils seemed to be coming up through the sewer system. The first time Ada had seen plant tendrils coming out of her toilet bowl, she nearly screamed. But now, it seemed, every time she took a shower, used her sink, or flushed the toilet, plant vines instantly grew!
It was dark when Ada woke. The instant she opened her eyes she knew she wasn’t in her own bed. In fact, she wasn’t sure she was in a bed at all. Though the surface she lay on was soft and quite comfortable like a bed, there were no equally soft and cozy blankets around her.
Realizing all of this took only an instant to register and made Ada try to sit up which resulted in her bumping her head. She reached up and her hands met a hard surface covering her.
Ada immediately panicked. Her breathing picked up and her heart rate accelerated. She banged on the cover trying to get it to lift.
“This can’t be happening,” she thought, frantic. She could only think of one place that might be this dark and have a lid closed over it. “It’s not possible. I’m not in a coffin. Not a coffin. No!”
With a heave the cover lifted and she had to immediately shut her eyes against the bright light filling the strange room.
“Wh…?” she muttered and blinked away the tears that immediately flooded her vision. “Where am I?”
He went back to the top secret lab the next day without Ada. He justified not asking her to accompany him so that he could go in without his disguise. He wanted to do some snooping around the facility, look through the discarded papers and hack into the computers for some clues. If he was able to use all of his tools, he thought he might be able to hack into the system that powered the locked door. If he could bypass the lock without a keycard, that would be ideal.
Though he didn’t want to admit it, the real reason Zeb went back alone was that he knew he couldn’t let himself get into a relationship with Ada. His desire for the sim girl was extremely inconvenient. He wasn’t ready to reveal himself to her, and he knew that if he pursued a romantic relationship with her, he would have to. He could hold his sim disguise protocol during normal interactions, but holding while in the throes of passion would be impossible. No one had that much brain power!
And besides not wanting her to know he was a Sixamian, Zeb really didn’t want to become entangled with Ada emotionally. He had enjoyed spending time with her. He liked how her mind worked. She approached problems like he did with a scientific logic and a determined curiosity. Zeb’s usual relationships with females tended to be primarily physical. With Ada, he found himself equally interested in her mind. He could see himself becoming attached to her. And that would be bad.
Someday, once he had defeated the Stra’Cinortcele mother plant, he knew he’d have to return to Sixam. It was highly unlikely that he would ever return to this backwater part of the universe and this primitive Sim Earth. He wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. His ship had gone off course (something he and the AI still hadn’t figured out!) and he’d ended up a lot farther from his home than he ever intended to go. He wanted to go home. No, he needed to go home!
So Zeb forced himself not to seek out Ada. He forced himself to go to the lab alone. He searched it and hacked the computers and attempted to hack the keycard lock on the door.
Though he wasn’t able to breach the locking mechanism, his search around the facility was a success. Digging through the abandoned papers and debris, he found evidence of the mother plant’s initial infestation, some notes about the facility’s research done on the plant, a partial memo detailing “strange behavior” and then read about “increased danger” and how the facility had to be shut down to prevent “further harm.” Over and over, Zeb also noticed one name: Dr. Everett Pries.
The mysterious doctor seemed to be the head of the facility until he began acting oddly. Then, one of the documents Zeb found mentioned that he had gone missing. Perhaps, Zeb thought, he needed to find out more about this doctor.
Would Ada know about him? Just thinking about her, Zeb felt his chest warm and his fingers tingle. Though he knew she shouldn’t, he was inordinately pleased that he now had an excuse to seek her out again.
Going with the girl Ada to the secret lab in the crater wasn’t really necessary. Zeb could have gone by himself, but he knew that if a fully grown Stra’Cinortcele mother plant was somehow located inside the lab, he’d need help to eradicate it.
Perhaps the girl wasn’t the best choice for this, he thought as he got out of his sleeping pod the next morning. But he had to admit, at least to himself, that he just wanted to spend more time with her.
And to be completely honest, Zeb missed female company in general. When he’d signed on for a solo mission, he knew being celibate would be the most challenging aspect of it. He enjoyed females…of any species. He liked their smell, their soft shapes, the feeling of their bodies rubbing against his.
Merve! He cursed, but he couldn’t stop his thoughts from turning more amorous as he imagined the girl’s body. What would she feel like? Would her pale skin be soft? Would her slim but shapely body feel good next to his? When they kissed, would her single mouth taste as good as the double-mouthed Zemorians’? Would her two soft hands feel as good wrapped around him as those of the four-armed Y’tician he still sometimes dreamed about?
He couldn’t help it. Zeb moaned as he thought of it all, and took himself in hand, giving a few good strokes. Being alone was not for him!
Leaning against the wall, he closed his eyes and pictured the girl Ada’s pale pink hand taking the place of his own. He stroked himself some more as he pictured the richer, darker pink of her mouth as well. He imagined how her body would feel around his…all wet heat, he thought, and groaned as his hand sped up. In his mind he pictured how her breasts would look. What color would her nipples be? Would they bounce as she rode him? Hels, he bet they’d be tasty little morsels that he could suck until she begged him to stop!
At that thought, Zeb came. He stroked himself a few more times more slowly and tried to catch his breath. Though his body had released, Zeb didn’t feel any better. Being solo was not nearly as satisfying as being with someone else. Zeb sighed as he walked to the cleansing stall to clean himself up.
Unfortunately, Ada’s boss, Dr. Clement wasn’t so impressed with the specimen’s she had collected from Cliffside Crest. He sent her out again the very next day for more “useful” samples.
“I don’t care about cactus spines and sand!” he practically shouted at her when she returned and offered to start analyzing them right away. “I told you to look for unusual specimens!” he said, practically spitting his S’s in her face.
“Yes sir,” she said, taking a small step out of the splash zone. “I am sorry sir!”
“Go back out tomorrow and get something different, something that isn’t obviously from the area. A meteor crashed there, so there must be something close to it or at least nearby.” Ada agreed and resigned herself to another sticky, hot day of gathering.
This time Ada went out early. It was going to be a real scorcher, so she hoped she wouldn’t get sunburned in her sundress. She just knew she’d made a poor wardrobe decision that morning!
Instead of taking cuttings and digging up samples from the area near the road, this time Ada figured she’d have to really get close to the scar, the area where the supposed meteor had smashed into the earth, dragging against the land and finally settling against a pile of rocks which seemed to have buried it.
Digging a small patch of slightly darker soil that looked burnt to Ada’s eyes (a pretty good hypothesis considering the burned trees around it), Ada took a good look at the rocks piled onto the meteor.
“Doesn’t look like any meteor I’ve ever seen,” Ada thought to herself, noting that it was an almost pure white or pearlescent silver. “I bet that’s something Dr. Clement would want a sample from.”
She inched her way into the scar and approached the rock pile. On closer inspection, Ada was sure the meteor was pure metal, not rock. It looked smooth, too, which was extremely unusual.
“I’ll just scrape off a little bit,” she thought, and raised her rock pick and beaker up to collect the shavings.
The sound of the alarm blasted Zebulon Omega right out of his sleeping pod where he’d been happily dreaming about a lovely lady from the planet Y’Ticmis. Y’tics were known the galaxy over as talented musicians, singers and artists due mainly to their four arms and long graceful fingers. In his dream the green-skinned Y’tician was showing him the other talents she possessed with her lovely hands.
WAHN-WAHN-WAHN!
The sound filled the small sleeping chamber in his ship nearly bursting his eardrums with it’s discordant wail.
“Computer, silence alarm and explain the emergency,” Zeb called out as loudly as he could while grabbing his spare uniform that he’d casually dropped on the floor next to his pod. No need to be tidy on this ship. This was a solo mission, so there was no one who’d complain.
As abruptly as the alarm had sounded jarring him from his four-armed bliss, it stopped. Zeb tapped the closure on the shoulder of his suit and felt it seal around him.
“Computer?”
“Emergency landing, sir. Collision imminent.”
What the frak? Zeb, ran from his chamber calling out for specifics as he went. “How is this possible?” he asked the AI. “This is a science vessel. It is mostly automated. Our course was carefully plotted and set before we left Xisam Prime. What happened?”
“We encountered an asteroid field, sir. A stray asteroid collided with the ship causing damage to our tertiary thrusters and the melliod stabilizers.”
“How in all Hels did we run into an asteroid field when our course was set in advance to avoid such dangers?”
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