"We wanted to burn your body at the scene, but Alexander wouldn't allow it and became unruly. When we finally got you onto a stretcher to load you into our laboratory truck, he followed you inside.

"The whole time we worked on you, he settled close to you like a dog waiting for its master, and when we got here, we had to put this display of you in his enclosure. If he can't see you, Alexander goes ballistic.

"His awareness of you is so acute that he knows when something is wrong even before our machines pick up on it, and the moment you became aware, he started fussing," Strickland said, and Christen had the hardest time digesting these strange words that made no sense to her.

"We learned a few things since we created him, and we didn't want you to revert into something else, so we structured what his DNA did to your body. Although we tried it before it, and it didn't work, his DNA matched yours in an extraordinary way that we haven't been able to repeat.

"Human trials failed or left us with marginal success. Getting you to where you are today took an extraordinary amount of patience and money," the doctor glanced at the beeping heart rate monitor and turned the volume down.

"We kept you comatose for three years while we worked on you, but when we were finally ready to wake you, you wouldn't respond. Even though many of us were prepared to chalk it off as a loss, the way Alexander kept patiently waiting, not agitated as he became when you are hurt, we thought maybe you were just not ready to become conscious.

"None of us expected that you would sleep for two years," Strickland continued, and Christen reacted to the math in her head just as a calming dose of sedative hit her veins.

Her parents were dead. The world thought she was dead. A monster put some alien DNA in her, and doctors experimented on her for five years.

Christen's world exploded into fragments and realigned into a new dimension.

"Well, I hope you got some good data from messing with me because what is the point? I can't even move!" she yelled as her calm gave way to anger.

A monitor blinked to life and showed a creature storming the walls of his enclosure, and she knew him as if she always knew him.

"Alexander," she breathed, and he looked up at the monitor as if he could see and hear her.

Christen inexplicably calmed down. In that instant, she realized she could sense him too, and it was the most extraordinary sensation as if part of her was in another room like a... twin.

When she calmed, so did he, and the monitor turned blank again, but the awareness remained, and she found it comforting being connected to him.

"Now that you two are calm again, you are not paralyzed, Christen. There's a biometric chip in your head that allows us to control you if necessary, and we've not yet activated it."

"What?" That had her attention. As if all of this was not bad enough, they could control her!

The blank screen activated again, but she didn't turn her head toward it.

"Be reasonable, Christen, you are not human, and we have no idea what you are capable of, nor do we know you as a person. You've been altered on a level beyond the realm of pure science. What do you expect us to do? Hope for the best?"

The fact that it was reasonable angered Christen, but most of all, she just wanted to be alone to deal with her grief and the sensation that she had died and the person in this bed was and wasn't her.

"Although we assume we can predict what you are capable of, Alexander and his companions have proven that we know Jack. For now, you're dangerous, and after the money we spent on you, we don't want to put you to sleep," Strickland said, and Christen froze.

"Like a dog? So, I'm just an experiment you couldn't get rid of and spent money on that revolutionized your understanding of your subject matter. Do I understand you correctly?" she bit out.

"With my records in hand, you should know I'm not stupid. Even if I turned out to be a vegetable, the science paid for itself and will probably make you billions in some way. The fact that I live and remember is a bonus because now you can advance your science to the next level," Christen's anger lessened even as she spoke as Alexander somehow calmed her down.

Strickland smirked.

"Glad to see you aren't cowed by your ordeal, and now we can start the real work."

"I want no part of this," Christen hissed.

"Do you want to move? Then I have to turn on some of the functions of that chip in your head. The choice is yours. Whether you lie here like a beached whale or we get you back on your feet, we get our money's worth," Strickland said.

Christen stared at her for the longest time, and it was almost as if Alexander wanted her to say yes, so she nodded. The screen darkened again as she nodded.

Strickland picked up an iPad from a table and messed with it.

"Ready?"

She wasn't but nodded, and Strickland typed in some kind of security code.

Christen bowed off the bed as the chip stopped blocking her senses. The world exploded into color and sound, but then Strickland turned something down, but it was Alexander who seemed to regulate the settings until Christen figured out to do it herself.

She shook as if she were being electrocuted, biting on her teeth so hard she heard them grind while her insides spasmed, and then it stopped, leaving her exhausted.

Sweat beaded on her brow, her body was no longer a wooden block, and never had her skin been so sensitive, her sight so sharp, or her hearing so acute.

Briefly, her brain struggled to compute the massive input of information it didn't know how to translate, and then, like magic, she adjusted.

"Remarkable," Strickland breathed as her heartbeat and blood pressure returned to normal, or at least normal for her.

"So you can turn me on and off like an appliance if I don't do what you tell me to do?" Christen asked, out of breath, and Strickland stared her down.

"Yes."

The doctor didn't even wince at the question.

"I lost my family, and it may have happened five years ago in your head, but it was yesterday to me. More than that, I watched them die," her heart twisted in her chest, and her gut turned hollow as tears nearly choked her.

"I lost my twin sister and will never get to ask her why she hated me." She struggled to continue, but the doctor did not interrupt her.

"When this happened, I was sixteen, and now I'm physically a grown woman, yet in my head, I'm still a kid. You took everything from me, made me into something even you can't predict, and I'm linked to some strange creature."

Again emotions crowded her, but Alexander toned it down just enough that she could speak without taking anything from her.

Even so, he didn't like her calling him a strange creature, and it was odd to understand that the bond between them was almost tangible now that the chip worked and she wasn't boxed into a space in her mind.

"Alexander is the only reason I'm not freaking out because he keeps calming me down. He feels guilty for killing my parents, but it isn't his fault; it's yours. You created him, messing with things you didn't understand, and now you put that inside of me, and you don't know what will happen."

This time, not even Alexander could tone down her agitation.

"Yes, it happened, and it can't be undone. Fortunately, I understand your loss, Christen, because I have also lost my family. I know you need time to grieve, but keeping you busy will occupy your thoughts," Strictland took a deep breath and put the pad away, looking her right in the eyes.

"The last thing you need is too much time to think. Unfortunately, the powers that be have also decided that if we can't show them any positive results with you within the next two weeks, they're shutting down the project, which would be you," Strickland said, and Christen frowned at her.

Fear skittered down her spine with a healthy dose of dread, and although she'd been numb to her existence when she woke, she was not ready to die, not after all this.

Life was precious and easily lost.

"Wait, you mean they'll kill me?" The edges of both anger and fear tinted her voice.