Alex heard herself whisper her daughter’s name, Kristena, as she regained consciousness. Her eyes fluttered open. A metallic headband was around her head and metallic wristbands around her wrists. They did not feel hot or cold; were lightweight. She tried to move, but was immobilized. Alex could feel fear and panic emotionally grow inside her. She could even feel the bands around her ankles preventing her legs from moving. Alex tried taking some deep cleansing breaths, mostly to keep the fear and panic she felt at bay, keeping it from overwhelming her. The room slowly came into focus as she became more aware of her surroundings. Alex instinctively screamed, realizing she was sitting in a strange contraption, similar to a dental chair with the seat part made out of a strange metallic silver fabric. Alex could not even move her head. She could not get a good look at the strange chair thing that held her immobilized by its strategically placed bands. Fear and panic won. The room’s floor was glowing in a soft yellow light. She had never seen this type of fabric on the chair before. Alex had never seen floors glow in soft yellow. She had no idea where she was, but she knew one thing, floors normally do not glow in any color. Lights normally came from ceilings or lamps, never floors. Where ever she was, Alex was no place on Earth that she knew. Fear gripped her worse. Could she be at the Moscow Research and Development Center? Could its floors glow? Could the scientists there create glowing floors? How did they get her here? One minute with her daughter and wedding guests, the next………Alex screamed her best blood curdling type of scream. She wanted to move. She wanted out of the strange contraption, and out of where ever the hell she was. Alex wanted to be back with her daughter and the wedding guests, enjoying the reception, toasting the happy couple. Alex felt sick to her stomach and her head ached. What had they done to her?

Unexpectedly a tall blond haired, slender yet medium build, man walked into her vision, startling her, causing Alex to scream louder and thrash in the chair as if trying to break the bands. The very handsome man eyed her with his seaweed green eyes compassionately with a closed lipped smile that brought the word “arrogant” to Alex’s mind. The man seemed smug and self assured. Handsome is as handsome does, Alex reminded herself continuing to scream. She would not cooperate, especially if this was some kind of trick to coerce her into becoming a dissident. Dissidents did not get to see their children, forever. “Fear not,” The man yelled above her scream and clapped his hands together loudly. “Please refrain thy caterwauling, Alexandria.” Alex stopped in mid-scream. The man’s English that he used was archaic, before the United Earth Coalition and older than the 22nd century. She had viewed movies with this English in them, depicting some time in the early twentieth or nineteenth century, or had it been supposedly earlier in the films? Her fear and panic prevented Alex from remembering exactly. It had been over nineteen years since she had seen those types of movies. Where had the time gone? “No danger shall befall you here,” the man interrupted her drifting thoughts. “Comprehend?”

Yes, Alex had understood what the man had said. No, she would not believe him. This man was her captor. This had to be a trick to lull her into complacency. No, Alex deep down inside knew that to believe one’s captor was pure folly. Alex screamed more. This man was a stranger. Had the Freedom Party decided she was a dissident? Why was she here? What did they think she knew? If it had anything to do with Stephen, her deceased husband, she would definitely never cooperate. How could she? Stephen had kept all of his dirty little secrets to himself. Alex had despised her husband for so many things, mostly the things he kept from her. Where was she? What was she attached? What was going to happen to her? What were they planning to do to her? How did she get here? She felt something stick her right arm like a needle. She screamed the best scream she could muster; the loudest, most earsplitting one. Her scream reverberated off of the walls. She heard the man say something foreign, in a language she did not recognize. The room blurred and uncomfortably spun, then darkness engulfed her as she took one last screaming gasp.