Secret of the Facility

Though I want nothing more than to turn and run back to Taymur's arms, (he is standing a few steps back, with the village chief)instead I step in between the two groups, hoping that the sight of an unarmed, pregnant woman interjected into their midst is enough to give them pause. In the local tongue, I ask the villagers to lower their weapons. After a moment's hesitation, they do so.

I then turn to the six women. "Please, lower your guns. I'd like to help you, if I can."

Reluctantly, they lower their weapons. "The villagers said you came from the facility, too?" the apparent leader of the group says. "I was at that place over a year, and I don't remember ever seeing you there."

"I escaped almost immediately. It was about seven months ago, I remember some sort of... portal, maybe...at the supermarket I was shopping at. [3] I found myself in a strange building, and there were men with guns, and a line of women who apparently had been brought there to be slaves. Some of us attempted to run, and there was shooting. I know a few women behind me got hit, but I managed to get away. Outside I found a small plane. I'm a novice pilot, so I comandeered it to escape. Unfortunately it was damaged and I crashed in the desert. I might have died, had men from this village not found me."

"I remember that day..." one of the other women says. "They showed us the bodies afterwards as a warning to keep us in line."

"That's horrible!" I say. "What are they doing there, anyway? What were they holding you for?"

The lead girl speaks up again. "The facility, as far as we can tell, sits at a nexus between parallell dimensions. Our own, and this one. During the early days of the Cold War, a group of scientists working for a joint agency of the U.S. and British governments were experimenting with particle accelerators. Trying to build a better bomb, I guess. Through their work, they tore a rift in dimensional space. The portals, in our dimension at least, open up at random, although there is a stable one at the former site of the experiment in Gloucester. At any rate, they all lead to the same spot in this alternate dimension, where the facility now sits. The agency built it to prevent other people from our dimension from finding out about this one. Anyone who stumbles upon one of the portals ends up captured."

"That's an incredible story. How did you learn about all this? What else are they doing there? Were you really kept as slaves?"

"I'll tell you more, but we're exhausted, and really need some food and rest. We stole a dune buggy from the facility, but it ran out of fuel a few miles back, so we've had to walk. Can't you convince the villagers to let us stay?"

1. I manage to convince the chief to let them rest here for the night, as long as they leave first thing in the morning.
2. The chief is steadfast in his refusal to let the women enter the village. They are understandably upset.

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