Chapter Twelve


I was surrounded by softness, at the bottom of a small depression. Beams of light were moving hurriedly about, jumping from one part of the darkness to the others. I could hear muttering whispers, snatches of tense conversation. The blinding pain in my head had been replaced by a dull roar of pain, sounding like ocean tide in the distance.

I gradually came to understand what was going on around me.

The whispered conversations were those of soldiers all around us. In the trees, surrounding us on the ground, everywhere. We were surrounded. The beams of light were the flashlights attached to their weapons, moving as they waved them around nervously, searching for an immediate threat. I hoped that the atmosphere of tension in the air came from the idea of Sarah as a threat.

I myself was in Sarah's palm, and she was staring down at me. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I will be," I answered. The throbbing in my head made it so I almost wasn't sure. What with the several varieties of drugs Sess was pumping into me, I was also feeling woozy, and my vision was slightly distorted.

"I would have taken care of all of these creeps right now, but I was worried about what would happen to you."

"I'm not sure if I should feel good or bad about that."

In the crowd of soldiers below us there was some jostling, and a man with a megaphone shouted upwards. "Ma'm, please put Eric down. We just want to talk to him."

"Should I?" Sarah asked me.

"We don't have much of a choice," I replied. "Might as well break the stalemate now."

She lowered me carefully to the ground, first giving the soldiers below an admonition. "If you kill him, there's nothing to stop me from hurting you. And I'm guessing, considering the way some of you are clustered at my feet, that I can take out at least thirty of you before you get me." I noticed some of the soldiers below quietly spread out a little more.

I got carefully off Sarah's hand, and walked into the midst of the soldiers. Two of them grabbed my arms, not as harshly as they could have. "The colonel wants to speak with you," one said solemnly.

I could see a man moving through the crowd now, the commandos before him moving aside, Moses parting the Red Sea. He came very close to me, only a foot or so, and grinned, showing large, yellowing teeth. "Well, well, if it isn't Dr. Eric Lehmann. Last time I saw you, you had a bullet in your gut and ten soldiers surrounding you. Almost similar to now, except that bullet is in your head."

"Griffin. I am amazed at your progress. You made it to Colonel, yet you still haven't learned how to shave." A couple of the soldiers chuckled. The man rubbed the graying stubble on his face and scowled.

There was a potent hatred evident in Griffin's watery blue eyes. "You're not getting away so easy this time, Lehmann. You can't do your little disappearing act this time, or you'll leave your girlfriend alone and defenseless. You wouldn't want that, now would you?"

"I wouldn't say that she's defenseless, Colonel. Regardless, I'm not going to humiliate you in front of your men a second time. Not when you've reached such a high, mighty rank as you have, Colonel, sir."

"You bastard," he muttered furiously, driving an open hand into my gut.

I was winded, but didn't yell. I merely doubled over. There was a tremendous pounding on the ground, and I looked up to see Sarah's hand slam down right next to Griffin, scattering the soldiers nearby. "I wouldn't recommend doing that. I get a little testy when people start messing with my boyfriend."

I blushed involuntarily, but at the same time I felt a strange sort of pride. Here was this huge, powerful, beautiful woman, and she was fiercely loyal to me. "So, Col.," I said, still rubbing it in. "How defenseless is she?"

Griffin snarled and grabbed the megaphone from the man nearby. "You there, girl." I thought it was a bit rich for him to refer to her as such. "You are completely surrounded. It is impossible to fight your way out."

Sarah lifted her hand so it was positioned twenty feet or so above Griffin's head. All the other soldiers backed out of its radius. "Nothing is impossible, Col. Griffin."

The colonel's voice faltered slightly when he resumed speaking. "If you make a motion against us, we will kill Dr. Lehmann. We have the necessary means."

Sarah's hand dropped back down to her sides, and the soldiers moved back into position. "So, it appears we have a stalemate. You kill him, and I kill you. I try and kill you, you kill him. What do you propose we do?"

"You are the one outnumbered, woman. It is you who shall make a concession."

Sarah looked like she was quickly getting tired of the negotiations. "Name it."

Griffin hesitated before continuing. It was clear he hadn't expected this turn of the conversation. "You will come with us to our base of operations, not far from here. You will remain within twenty meters of our convoy at all times, or we will fire on you. Any other funny business, and we will fire on you. If you attempt escape -"

"You'll fire on me. I get it. What will you do with us at this base?"

"You will be held for further questioning. We will adhere to the standards of the Geneva Convention..."

"The standards of what?"

"The Geneva Convention," I said weakly, still recovering from the blow Griffin had dealt me. "A set of laws relating to, among other things, how to treat prisoners of war." I toggled my mic and whispered into it, softly enough that the men holding me couldn't hear. "Just play along for now," I said, "We'll figure out some way out of this later."

"Okay," Sarah said to the colonel. "We agree to your terms."

The military man seemed surprised at how easily he'd won. He made a hand motion and the guards suddenly dropped me, leaving me to fall to my knees in the mud. "Take your boyfriend with you," Griffin spat as he walked away.

Sarah put down a hand and I climbed up. She placed me on her shoulder, in the crevice next to her collarbone. I attached myself with Sess and prepared myself for the jarring motions involved whenever she took a step.

The convoy set off. We walked slowly across the plains, Sarah struggling to maintain just the right distance from the rest of the troops. She was practically walking heel to toe. I wondered how difficult this would be for the soldiers below, where every time Sarah's bare foot slammed down, minor shockwaves would be created. Indeed, as I looked down, several nearby soldiers stumbled as Sarah's heel came down next to them.

Within fifteen minutes we were at the military base. I hadn't known they had encroached this far onto my territory. I knew they were aware of my general location, but this precise...

Sarah came to a stop before the facility, which was essentially a bare-bones tent set up in front of a large dome, which I recognized as portable aircraft storage.

"I hope you like the accommodations," sneered Griffin from below. "It was the best we could do on such short notice."

He motioned for the guards, who poked at me with their rifles, motioning me in. Sarah and Griffin followed.

Standing in the middle of the dome was a woman with lank blond hair, circular steel-rimmed glasses and a somewhat oval face in sharp contrast to a pointed mouth. "I see the prodigal son has returned," she said lazily but with a hidden barb in her words. "Albeit by force."

"Chloe," I murmured, my mouth suddenly dry. I clenched my teeth, balled my fists, restrained myself as much as I could. I wanted to scream at her. A wordless scream, full of the buried anger and betrayal I still felt after all these years. But I couldn't do that. It just wouldn't be right, especially not with Sarah around.

"I will be presiding over their questioning," Chloe said to Griffin, not deigning to give me a response.

"What -" Griffin began angrily but Chloe interrupted him.

"I outrank you, Griffin. Plus I have a higher authority I'm reporting to on this one. It's too serious a matter of national security to leave in your hands."

I almost smirked at the way Griffin had been outmaneuvered, but had more serious things to think about. "National security?" I cried. "Since when are we a matter of national security?"

"Dr. Lehmann," Chloe spoke in a stern formal voice. "You are a well-known enemy of the state. You are a threat to this nation, and you are on our soil. Even if you were not in the company of a gigantic woman, you would still be detained."

Sarah lifted her lower lip a little, showing displeasure. She shot Chloe a look that clearly said, "Watch it, sister."

"Now Col. Griffin, if you please, I have subjects to question. You and your men should leave the area." Chloe said peremptorily.

"That is intolerable," Griffin argued. "I need men on security detail, to thwart any attempts at escape."

"Escape, Griffin, is out of the question." She brandished a wicked looking device that was clearly a weapon. Pulses of electricity ran through its three pointed ends. "This could easily knock out any opponent, even the fifty foot woman here."

"My name," Sarah intruded loudly. "Is Sarah. And I'm not fifty feet tall from your perspective. Try three hundred."

"Yes, yes, of course," Chloe replied distractedly. "Don't make me say this once more, Griffin. Get your men out of here."

"Very well," said Griffin, obviously struggling to contain himself as motioned his men to the exit.

Once they were all gone, Chloe walked over to me. "So, Dr. Lehmann, I see you've returned to me, not of your own free will, but returned nonetheless."

"If you think I'd ever go within fifty feet of you voluntarily you've got a lot to learn, bitch." I spoke venomously, but under my breath so that Sarah wouldn't hear.

"Still sore about ten years ago, eh, Eric? You should know that I'm a different person now."

"Oh?" I said. "Do they now have reconstructive surgery for peoples' personalities?"

"Listen," she said more forcefully, speaking up so Sarah could hear. "I don't want to have to take any drastic measures. Just tell me everything I need to know, and I won't hurt you."

"Make it easy on me," I replied. "And tell me what false pretense we were brought here under. That way I can play the part you want me to."

Without another word Chloe rammed one of the tips of her vicious-looking device into my sternum, jolting me with electricity. The pain spread like fire through my joints, threading its way up each of my veins. I fell limp on the floor. "You said you wouldn't hurt me," I said weakly.

"I said I wouldn't," Chloe said, patting the top of the torture device. "I didn't say anything about THIS hurting you."

Suddenly, Chloe let out a shriek as a huge female hand came down from above and plucked her up by the top of her coat. The smaller woman tried to jab at one of the fingers with her weapon, but Sarah simply used her other hand to flick it out of her grasp. Then she held Chloe up in front of her face. Sarah was sitting down, so Chloe was roughly a hundred feet in the air, suspended by two very large fingers.

As I looked on in half-horror and half-amusement, I saw that Chloe's face had turned deathly white. She was utterly helpless at the hands of my giantess. She uselessly kicked a little, then hung limp. "What are you going to do to me?" she asked in a quavering voice.

"I don't like people hurting my little man," Sarah said slowly. "And I also don't like liars."

"What are you going to do?!" Chloe screamed, terrified. Somehow, the sheer anguished horror in her voice got to me. I felt almost sorry for her.

Sarah's hand suddenly plummeted down to the floor. She stopped just before Chloe hit the dirt. Then she spread her fingers, letting the blonde drop. "I'm going to let you go." she said softly.

Chloe lay limp in the dirt, sobbing. I saw that she had wet herself while in the air. With a woman as big as Sarah mad at me, I thought I would probably have done the same. After a few moments passed, she managed to get up and start scrambling towards the door. Sarah put a massive foot down in her path.

"I said I'd let you go," she said, cruel pleasure evident in her voice. "I didn't say without punishment."

And with that she lifted her other foot and began to bring it slowly, inexorably down on Chloe. The comparatively tiny woman screamed bloody murder, running hopelessly in circles as Sarah's immense sole tracked her motion. Finally, when Sarah's foot was only a meter above her head, the blonde woman cried out and fainted.

Sarah abruptly moved her foot out of the way, and stared down at the unconscious woman before her. I rushed to Chloe's side and checked her pulse and breathing. "She's alive," I called upwards.

"Of course she is," Sarah boomed from above. "I never actually stepped on her."

I got up from Chloe's side and looked up at the giantess. I felt like I was about to vomit. "How could you do that?"

"Huh?" Sarah looked down at me in disbelief.

"How could you do that to her? She's a human being. You treated her as much less."

"She hurt you," Sarah began. "She was torturing you..."

"So you torture her back? You sink to her level? Sarah, what you just did was downright sadistic."

Sarah looked up at the ceiling, her face slowly falling into an expression of deep sadness and regret. "I only did it because I wanted to help you." Her lower lip trembled as she spoke.

"I know that," I said, my voice sliding into a tone more reassuring. "You had good intentions to begin with... You just got carried away."

She nodded. "I've got to control myself better," she said quietly. "It's tough to avoid going on power trips when you're this big."

"You can do it," I said with confidence. "You just have to concentrate on doing what is right."

She bit her lip and shut her eyes. "Yeah. Yeah, I've just got to focus." She breathed deeply in and out, the sound loud to my ears. Then she opened her eyes. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she started to explain. "It's just -"

"You don't have to give me reasons," I said. "Just please be more careful. Now we've got to think fast. It won't be long before Griffin sends his men back in."

"Right," she said. "Got a plan?"

"None whatsoever."

"Good, because I do. I think it's time for us to bring down the house."