Strange Happenings

Over the course of the next couple of weeks Lex had the feeling that something wasn't quite right. She would regularly find herself spacing out at odd times throughout the day, and no one either seemed to notice, or care. At first she thought it wasn't much, just chalked it up to exhaustion after the crunch time she had been putting in to getting the quantum computers operational and the construction of the facilities.

But it started to create problems for her, and she felt like she couldn't talk to anyone about them. A dream that she kept having started to become a bit more prevalent, always the same thing. A dark void and she couldn't think clearly, couldn't talk, couldn't feel anything but would start to hear things, and before she could figure out what was going on, the dream ended.

These events started to no longer be relegated to the times when she was asleep, but also when she would be awake. During a meeting, while researching, in the middle of a conversation. Progress on her research was progressing at lightning paces now, With the advent of the quantum computers, communication devices and such, they were now beginning to grasp concepts of new methods of transporting goods.

Humanity truly was in a revolutionary period, with every day more advanced understandings of these new scientific concepts. The brightest minds directed the information that kept coming out, It truly was remarkable. The world would think it a matter of theory and science fiction if it weren't for the fact that with each new revelations, new technology was being presented that would go to show that the hypotheses presented weren't just that, but full on scientific theories.

Some new space observation facilities were launched with some of the new technology on them, which brought a revolution to the world, that the theorized capabilities of the communications equipment functioned exactly as it was supposed to. In that there was no time lag at all between the planet and the satellite. One of the satellites went into a parking orbit at one of the Lagrange points, which was just under five light seconds away from the planet.

five seconds is not a lot of time, but when testing the communications, that distance and time delay was dropped to effectively zero seconds, which proved just one more world breaking achievement. Even if it was only in communications, Humanity had managed to break the light speed barrier. So people began to theorize how this communications technology could be harnessed for space travel.

The brilliant minds realized that the concepts behind the communications devices rewrote all the current understanding of physics, and once and for all proved that the speed of light is not an insurmountable barrier. Now the only question came down to, how would they use it for space travel. Scientists of all walks were enraptured by this information.

But with all this going on, Lex was growing increasingly and ever more displeased. That dream kept bugging her, It hinted at something, and she just could not get it out of her head. Something just did not feel right, and she couldn't place what it was. By all accounts she should be happy, and objectively she was, but she just had the nagging feeling of things being off.

She would get home every night since her birthday, events that transpired that night, well they happened multiple times since, with the intimacy between her and Ash, and even periodically with Amanda joining in. Though the more she thought about it, the more it seemed strange. Some of the times, she could remember the events of the night, but most of the time it was either a blur or she had no recollection of it at all.

One morning she woke up feeling sick, and at the urgings of both Amanda and Ash she went to the doctor, the results were not all that shocking when one thinks about her daily routine since her birthday. The doctor ran tests, and they came back that she was at least four weeks pregnant at that time.

She thought that perhaps the strange dreams and spacing out was most likely in regards to this. It would make some sense, her mind rationalized it. The change in body chemistry, the odd mood's, yes a pregnancy would certainly explain why she felt she had been acting off. So she put the strangeness of the situation out of her mind.

After the doctors visit she decided to drive around for a bit then head home. She called up Amanda and told her to cancel all her remaining appointments for the day and tomorrow, and she went home. She decided to spend the rest of the day alone until Ash returned from work. Amanda was going to handle all the business stuff for the next two days, so she had at least a good eight hours alone before Ash would be back.

Getting back to the house, she started to make an early lunch then sit down in front of the television, She browsed through the shows on but nothing really catching her interest. So she decided to grab a book and read, and after a few minutes into the book she dozed off on the couch.

*drip* *drip* *drip*

A slow monotonous dripping sound of water droplets dripping in a sink. 'did I leave the sink running?' thought Lex, slowly she opened her eyes and everything was blurry, as if completely out of focus. She tried to wipe her eyes but the moment she moved her arm, she felt it was restrained by something.

She then realized that she felt not just her arms restrained but also the rest of her body, strapped down on a cold metal table, She couldn't make out the room with her vision unable to focus on anything. there was a bright light shining down on her which was painful on her eyes but she couldn't blink. It was at this moment that the light turned off.

A cold voice was heard in the room "Subject 427 shows signs of visual damage from long exposure to light, take the samples now. We will have to record the time for regeneration." A figure moves to stand over her, She cant focus on the person looking down on her, it just is a blob of a person. With her eyes the way they are right now, there would be no way to make out any details.

The voices were all muffled, and had a cold tone. Much like the way she would end up talking when she was doing research and listing off observations to other researchers in the lab. That's when it hit her, she was strapped down to a table, and having all sorts of experiments having been run on her. but for what? and how did she get there?" slowly her vision began to clear up as the person standing over her spoke up in that same tone

"Subject is showing signs of awareness, eye flicking." The person steps back and Lex tries to follow them but her head is strapped down and she cant move it at all. The voice speaks back up "The subject is conscious, Have it taken back to the room and cleaned up." She felt the table she was on move and her vision started to go dark.

"Sir, the research is almost complete, what should we do with the unnecessary materials?" Another voice asked, this one had a seeming female tone to it, the other voice responds "What's the point of keeping clutter? just di..." the voice trails off mid sentence.

Lex startles awake, and a hand leaves her head, "I'm sorry, did I startle you? you looked rather peaceful while you were napping, I didn't want to bother you." Lex calmed down and laid back down on the couch, and realized that Ash was siting on the couch, and was where her pillow she was using was before.

"Sorry, no just a dream." she stretched and rubbed her eyes, "I didn't think you would be back so early, wait what time is it?" she looked up at the clock and realized that she hadn't taken a short nap but had been asleep the whole time. Ash just chuckled "Its almost 10, I've been home for about two hours now. You didn't wake when I walked in, or shook you so I figured I would just let you sleep and I would join you on the couch."

He slowly strokes Lex's head and idly goes back to watching television. "Amanda told me that you canceled all appointments for today and tomorrow after your doctors visit, is everything alright?"

Lex just plops her head back down on Ash's lap and sighs a bit "yea, They just recommended that I take it easy for the next day or two, The amount of work I had been doing up until recently was a bit on the extreme side I guess. So that mixed with pregnancy hormones, There's not much of a surprise as to why I've been so exhausted of late."

"Ah I see, I had been telling you to take it eas... wait...what?" Ash paused "pregnancy?" he looks down at Lex

"ohhhh right," Lex looked up at Ash and smiled awkwardly and shook her hands after a brief pause "Surprise"