Emmas Growth Spurt Ch 27

Emma had never before experienced the sensation of lightness, almost weightlessness, that was encompassing her body now. The closest thing it felt like was one of those tall roller coasters, just as she was beginning to go down over the edge of the highest hump. But her stomach never dropped, and the descent never came. It was an odd and paradoxical sensation to feel so airy when her huge body was hanging down low in the nets that were all around her. She could feel her immense weight straining the confines of her bonds, and yet at the same time, she perceived a strange sense of liberation, like she was escaping something.

One reason why, of course, was because she was literally being ferried up into the sky by a fleet of helicopters. The anesthetic had infiltrated her brain, and had apparently gone to work on her auditory nerves first -- the persistent roar of the helicopter blades echoed like fuzzy background noise in her head. Her eyesight was still quite good, and turning her head to the side, Emma could see how high up they already were. A profound soup of blackness stretched out below, and for an instant Emma felt something like fear stab into her brain.

'They're going to fly out to sea,' came the terrible thought, 'And they're going to weigh me down and drop me into the ocean...they're going to kill me.'

But almost as soon as this awful thought ran like a lava train through her brain, its molten edges cooled, and her inner demeanor seemed to hiss in relief as she dismissed her terror, forging new ground in the process.

'They're not gonna kill me!' she thought, immediately certain that she was right. 'They didn't just take all this time to capture me like this...to...just to kill me. They...they want me...they want to...study me.'

Her thoughts were becoming slower and more labored as the drug from the injection seeped further into her brain. A kind of laxity, a spiritual levity, was coming over Emma, and she felt herself relax her body into her bonds, causing the helicopters carrying her to all sink together a bit in unison as she sighed out. She wasn't giving up, or admitting defeat, or doing anything, really; she was just recognizing the situation, and realizing that she didn't really have anything to be afraid of. So this was some new adventure, some new chapter in the incredible and ridiculous story her life had become...whatever it was, it certainly beat living on that...that farm...with...with...

Emma had the emotional wherewithal to push down the pain and agony of what had happened, of what she had witnessed. She didn't understand any of it, and the mere act of acknowledging what she had seen (let alone processing it) was proving impossible right now. So she repressed it; she pushed it down deep inside of her. Emma knew she was running away from it, but for right now, that seemed like a good thing to do. She didn't have to think about it, so she wouldn't.

Far down below, Emma began to notice that the utter blackness was punctuated here and there with little lights...friendly little collections of lights...they came together in cute little clumps and clusters, and they seemed to twinkle and wink up at her through the night. Emma's thoughts were becoming undone now as she felt herself beginning to drift off, but she was able to understand that these little clumps of lights were little houses or farms, and sometimes even illuminated street corners or intersections, that shone through the rural darkness. The lights made her feel nice; somewhere far down below, a bunch of little people were sound asleep. And turning her head a little more to the East, Emma noticed that the gentle curve of the horizon was lit up by something much more luminous...was it the moon rising? It was really bright...A spaceship, maybe? Emma was aware of her thoughts becoming disordered and sluggish, but before she allowed her heavy lids to droop down over her eyes, she understood that the lights were coming from the city, far to the East. The city...where she had lived...where there were so many more people. She found herself badly wanting to see the lit-up skyscrapers from above, to see their tall, curved, vigorous towers straining high up into the night sky, setting it aglow with their arrays of colorful, flashy lights.

Whether because of the drugs or not, Emma actually felt herself smiling as she tried hard to keep her eyes open for a little while longer, so she could stare at the city glow far on the horizon. Yes, surely it was the drugs...she was feeling a little silly now, imagining those skyscrapers flashing their lights at her, rising up tall, jostling next to each other, trying to impress her with how big they were, how fancy, how flashy. Didn't they all realize that from up here, they all looked tiny?

Emma would've laughed to herself, but she only managed to retain that same smile on her face as her head dropped down heavily into her bonds, and she passed out completely. The fleet of helicopters roared on, thousands of feet in the air, bearing her unconscious body towards the undisclosed location that the government had been preparing for her for some time.

When Emma started coming to, the first sensation she experienced was the feeling of soft warmth around her torso, like she was wrapped in something heated and fluffy and pleasant. She moaned out without meaning to, and her own sound made her realize that she was awake, and that she could open her eyes if she wanted to. But a voice was echoing in her ear now, a little voice, like it was from a little man inside her ear.

"Emma...Emma...can you hear me, Emma?"

She opened her eyes. She was lying on something, with her head propped up; the room was grey, with bright lights shining on her face, and the ceiling was low, so low that it felt oppressive. Emma closed her eyes again, feeling groggy, and not really wanting to deal with her external reality for the moment. It all felt too harsh.

"Hello? Emma?" came the voice again. A soft, friendly voice...a male. "You opened your eyes just then. Can you hear my voice?"

The man's voice was pleasant, yes, but it carried an air of insistence and authority. Emma got the sense that he had been there next to her for quite some time, and would remain there for however long it took for her to communicate with him. She tried to move her arms and legs, but realized that she couldn't so much as budge. She opened her eyes again and looked down at her body. She was clothed in what looked like a big, fluffy white bathrobe that went down past her knees, halfway down her calves; she was lying on some kind of a stretcher or elevated bed, to which her arms, legs, and torso were all securely strapped. Feeling a bit nauseous, Emma set her jaw and tried once again to move, but she couldn't move her body an inch.

"There you are, you're awake!" said the man, who was somewhere slightly behind her. Emma couldn't see him. "Don't be afraid Emma -- you're still on a nerve block, so you won't be able to move for a bit. It's for your own safety...haha, well, and ours too...but mostly just yours, Emma. So please try and relax, alright?"

"Wh-where...where am I?" Emma managed to ask. Her voice seemed to shake the room, and the sound of something shattering on the floor behind her cut the air.

"Heheh...you see?" chuckled the man, apparently to someone other than Emma. "I told you, didn't I? I knew it...alright, well come in here and clean it up! You're the one who lost the bet."

Emma closed her eyes and opened them again, still adjusting to the harsh white light. She didn't at all like the fact that she was paralyzed, and that she was strapped to a stretcher in this tiny little grey room that looked like a prison cell. She could move her neck at least, and was able to turn her head around enough to see that there was a large computer monitor on a desk slightly behind her. A man in a white lab coat was sitting behind the desk, and as Emma looked at him, his face brightened and he stood up, coming around to the side of her bed. The entire wall behind him was a huge mirror, which only added to Emma's sense of disorientation.

"Good, good, you can move your head...your neck," continued the man, stopping about eight feet away from the bed as he pulled a rolling stool up and sat in it, "You can obviously talk just fine. Excellent!"

Emma opened her mouth to repeat her question, but then stopped, furrowing her brow as she studied the man, who just continued to sit there smiling pleasantly at her. He certainly didn't seem old...he was probably in his mid-thirties or so, Emma thought...and not bad-looking either, with his youthful face, short brown hair, and glasses that completed the erudite, slightly-nerdy presentation. The way he was looking at her was friendly and curious...eager, even. But even though he was smiling, Emma did not in any way feel reassured. She glanced down the side of her body, looking down her left arm, which, aside from her hand peeking out, was completely covered by the fluffy white robe. All she needed to see for reference was her hand, though, and after a few seconds of staring, she got her spatial bearings back. This "man" was absolutely tiny compared to her...a tiny blip of a person...and Emma felt in her bones the reality of the situation. If she had been able to stand up before him, his head would have only come up to the middle of her calf muscle. He was sitting too close to her...far too close...to be leaning back in his stool, smiling casually like that, like the two of them were already friends. Emma felt another wave of nausea sweep through her and she closed her eyes briefly until it passed over. She retched a little, an odd sound that echoed unpleasantly off the walls.

"Hmmmm, yeah, that spinal cocktail we gave you was pretty strong," chuckled the man, looking at her steadily as his eyes crinkled up amiably. "Course you can't really blame us...especially after what you did to those police officers last week. Heheh, you got lucky Emma, real lucky...that none of them died."

Emma opened her eyes again and stared at the man. This was all too weird...she fought through the nausea that was beginning to taper off anyway, as she once again blinked and made an effort to focus her eyes on this person. Part of her wondered if he was miniature-sized, and if this was all some kind of sick joke, but then she remembered how everyone looked this small to her...he was probably 6 feet tall. And still he just sat there, with that pleasant smile on his face, which, when Emma was able to consider what it meant, produced a chilling effect inside her. She tried to swallow, but her throat was very dry, and it took a few times to get any lubrication. Was he fucking with her!? He had to be fucking with her, smiling like that while he said all that stuff about the police officers. Emma had managed to push that ugly episode out of the forefront of her mind, but now sudden images came back. Something red streaking the barn wall, a crunching sound, dark bodies lying strewn around, stretched out across the ground...still, unmoving. The flashing lights of that ridiculous little ambulance...all those strange high-pitched yells...the burning rash on her face from those bullets...those bullets...those fuckers had shot at her...nearly taken out her eye. And for what?! Now she was being interrogated -- that's what this was, surely!

Emma set her jaw as she glared stonily at the smiling man on the stool. Obviously he was trying to provoke her, but she wasn't going to let him. She wanted to defend herself, to angrily counter that she was the one who had been attacked, but she figured that's what this guy was expecting to hear. Her throat contracted and she swallowed again, this time successfully. She was thirsty, but didn't want to ask this person for anything...not yet. She would be calm; she would be steady...take it easy...and match this little piss-ant in pleasantries, until she figured out where she was and what was going on...and until the nerve block wore off. Emma was already pleased with herself for concocting a plan to make it seem like she was still paralyzed when she really wasn't anymore. She'd take him by surprise.

"So you're, like...with the police, huh?" she asked mildly, staring up at the ceiling, and then back down at him. The man shook his head, his smile unmoving.

"Oh no...no I'm not a police officer," he replied with a kind of self-effacing, awkward humor. "No, I, uh...I wouldn't have made it through the police academy...too many push-ups, hahaha!"

Emma blinked at the man, totally thrown for a loop. Was he actually expecting her to laugh at that? He was certainly still laughing, though it gradually died down as he became a little more outwardly serious. She began feeling very uneasy.

"Heheh...no, no, anyway, haha, sorry, lame jokes, I know...hahah, anyway, no, I'm not a police officer, Emma. My name is Dr. Clinebell, and I work for the government."

Emma's unease deepened. She remembered all the drones that had been buzzing around the farm in the days leading up to...well, leading up to that night when...when they had shown up to take her away. Emma felt nausea of another kind rising up through her, but she set her teeth and shut her eyes tightly, refusing to give in to those awful memories. She had already resolved that she simply was not going to think about it...any of it. It suddenly occurred to her that her tightly-shut eyes could possibly be misconstrued as guilty anxiety, and her eyes shot open. She made a point to blink softly, almost lazily, at Dr. Clinebell.

"The government?" she asked with the same mildness as she had her first question. "So, uhh...it was you guys with all the drones and everything?"

"Oh what, you noticed?" joked Dr. Clinebell, snapping his fingers. "Damn! We were trying to be so discreet with them, especially there towards the end, haha!"

Emma was definitely not appreciating this little twerp's humor. There was something dark behind it, an unspoken implication of a threat. What did he want from her?! A confession? Or did he just want to see her suffer? How many other people were behind that mirror, peering in? Was he going to torture her!? Emma blinked slowly and made a point to take several long, deep breaths.

"That's it, take it easy, in and out, in and out," nodded Dr. Clinebell, glancing up at something past her. "Your heart rate's a little elevated, and your adrenaline is spiking a bit...I know you're anxious, Emma, but don't worry, you'll understand everything perfectly well in time. Just know that we're here to help you."

"Here to...to wait...wait, are...is there...do you have an IV in me!?" Emma asked suddenly. For the first time she had noticed a clear plastic tube winding out of the white bathrobe of her left arm, back to somewhere she couldn't see. She made an extra effort to turn her head the other way, and she saw that there was a gigantic clear bag of fluids elevated on an IV pole just behind her. A tiny figure started back and retreated, holding a little stick...Emma was a little too focused on the IV to pay too much attention, but she was able to lock onto the stumbling little figure, and she realized it was another doctor in a white coat, clutching a broom. The shiny, jagged edges of a broken glass beaker winked up at her from the floor. But Emma wasn't interested in any of that. She turned back to Dr. Clinebell, whose eyebrows had gone up.

"Mmhmm," he nodded casually. "Just some...uh, you know...vitamins and minerals...you were deficient in magnesium and folic acid upon your, uhm...admittance, so we thought it would be a nice idea to stabilize those levels. Get us all off on the right foot, you know?" He blinked and made a point of looking past Emma to the other doctor in the room. "I see you've spooked Dr. Tanner, by pulling the dreaded "looking at him" move, hahaha...come on, Tanner, are you being serious right now?"

"Just...just cleaning up, is all!" Dr. Tanner squeaked. Emma heard the frantic sounds of broken glass being swept up into a dustbin. She didn't really care to look back at that other guy -- clearly he wasn't the one in charge here. Besides, his fearful reaction was more understandable; it was Dr. Clinebell's cool, quirky ease that was really starting to get to her.

"Jesus Christ man," Dr. Clinebell laughed, shaking his head in amazement, "She had 50 milligrams...FIFTY...of a single erector spinae plane nerve block like five hours ago...AND she's got a steady drip of dexamethasone, dexmedetomidine, and lidocaine straight into her bloodstream. AND she's tied to the bed. I'm pretty sure we're gonna be ok."

"Yeah, and she weighs over 3,600 pounds," blurted out Dr. Tanner, who quickly gathered up the broom and dustbin and exited the room. Emma tried to arch her head to get a look at the room outside, but it was totally dark and she couldn't see anything.

"Wait a minute," she said suddenly, turning back to Dr. Clinebell, bemused. "I weigh over 3,600 pounds!?"

"Great job Tanner...just...well done," said Dr. Clinebell sarcastically, clapping his hands towards the monitor in the far corner of the room behind Emma. "You've got the lady all stressed about her weight now." He closed his eyes for a moment and then looked back at Emma. "Yes...that's what you weigh Emma...but you're also about 27 feet tall, so...your body-mass-index is actually right in the "normal" range, so...yeah, aside from that little mineral imbalance, you're perfectly healthy!"

"Mineral imbalance..." said Emma slowly, looking back down at the IV tube snaking out of her fluffy white robe. The doctor's words were slowly dawning on her, and she had to make another big effort not to lose her composure. "But you said...wait...were you lying to me before? You're not actually giving me...minerals, are you? Y-You're just...you're just keeping me...paralyzed."

"No, no, we're giving you minerals and nutrients," corrected Dr Clinebell matter-of-factly. "Aaaand...you know, those few other things I mentioned...heheh...of course you understand, Emma. It's just for everyone's ease and protection, until we all reach...well, a mutual understanding. A certain benchmark of trust, let's say. I want to trust you Emma. And I know you want to trust us. But we don't even really know each other yet."

Emma's eyes widened slightly and focused on the doctor. She wasn't really sure what she looked like, and at the moment she didn't really care. She was already sick of this messed-up act that these people were putting on for her. She felt like screaming, but she knew that this would be counterproductive. No...no, she had to remember her plan. She had to keep playing their little game, whatever it was, until she could move again.

"Ok, so...so fine," Emma said finally, laying her head back on her elevated bed, making it a point to keep her eyes fixed on Dr. Clinebell. "That...that sounds good. What do you know, uhm...about me?"

Dr. Clinebell leaned forward in his stool, and Emma felt another chill go through her.

"Well we know quite a bit about you, Emma," he said softly. "We've had our eye on you for quite some time...months, in fact. Ever since you took that little jaunt out of your house down the street and had that little run-in with a police officer...well, technically a bit before that, but never mind, haha. Remember that little episode?"

Emma stared at him blankly. The truth was she didn't remember it at all. She wanted to believe that the doctor was lying to her, but yet, despite her inability to remember, she acknowledged deep down that it was probably best for her to just accept the reality of the incident for the time being. The last months had been so strange, so frantically hazy and grotesquely disordered, that it made her feel considerable stress and anxiety just trying to recall specific things, especially anything that happened before they...she...went to the farm.