Chapter 1

Ring... Ring... Ring... “Hello?”

“Hi Mom! How’s it going?”

“Aha! My long-lost daughter returns. It’s been a full week! You never called, you never wrote, you never e-mailed. Three weeks away at college, and already you’re starting to forget your poor mother?”

“Ha! I love you too, Mom. It has been seven days since I called you last Friday, hasn’t it? This week has really flown by.”

“Is everything okay?”

“Everything is great! The Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins is everything I dreamed it would be, and last Friday I met a really wonderful boy at a mixer, and we’ve been spending quite a bit of time together. I’ve become very good friends with my roommate Susan and my other suitemates at Wolman, and I’ve even gotten used to the traffic on St. Paul and North Charles. I love my classes! The premed program has really turned into quite a challenge, and I love it. No one is teasing me anymore about studying too hard or calling me nicknames like The Brain. I just feel surrounded by really smart people, people with the same thirst for knowledge that I have. I feel like I’ve found a home.”

“Rebecca, are you trying to torture me? Tell me more about this boy you’re spending all this time with.”

“Oh. Well, we met just a week ago. He’s majoring in Applied Math, taking a lot of advanced classes. He spends a lot of time in Kreiger, that’s in the center of the campus by the upper quad. He’s a wonderfully gentle and talented person, super smart. He plays the guitar. We’ve talked a bit about teaming up with my violin and jamming together. He has a mixed East European ancestry, just like me. Let’s see, what else? Oh, he’s a fabulous chef, international hotel quality, no fooling. You should taste what he can do with a fresh salmon or chicken, something to die for. And he’s an alchemist with duck liver, turns it into pure gold. He’s been cooking me dinners in his apartment for most of this week. I’m up here now waiting for him. He’s out getting groceries.”

“What? You’re alone in his apartment? How did you get in?”

“Oh, he gave me a copy of his key a few days ago.”

“What!? Rebecca, this does not sound good. Is he an older man? And you haven’t even told me his name!”

“He and I are almost exactly the same age; we both turned 18 two months ago. His name is Robert.”

“Robert? Is he Jewish?”

“Well, no. Christian. But he does worship, just like me. We’ve talked about our faiths with each other. We’re actually very close to each other in spiritual beliefs...”

“Rebecca, my daughter... Wouldn’t you be better off waiting to meet some nice Jewish boy, someone like Seth?”

“Oh, Mom ... Seth was never interested in me. He was just looking for a female body to get sexy with while he was between girlfriends. My senior prom night was a disaster. I’ve never felt so embarrassed...”

“Rebecca, what I’m trying to say is that you have almost no experience with dating, and within a week of meeting some strange man, you’re living in his apartment! If this man is only 18, how come he’s not living on campus? Are his parents rich?”

“Mother, I am not living in his apartment! And Robert doesn’t have any parents. Both his parents were killed in a car crash when he was an infant.”

“Oh, I am sorry. But then I mean his adopted parents.”

“He was never adopted, I don’t think. Or if he was, it didn’t last. He’s opened up a little bit about this with me, but we probably have a whole lot more to talk about. He was bounced around in dozens of different foster homes growing up, spent the last two years in independent living before finally aging out of the system in July.”

“Yikes, worse and worse!”

“Mom, Robert is a wonderful human being and I really, really like him. It’s too bad Dad isn’t still alive; I’m sure they would have gotten along great... I’d love for you to meet him sometime. You’ll see how nice he is.”

“So I can listen to him play rock guitar?”

“Oh mother, please stop! And I never said rock guitar, though he does have a banjo and plays a little bluegrass. He’s mostly into Spanish guitar. Yesterday when I came here, he was in the middle of Sor’s Allegro from Sonata, Opus 22, just playing it from memory. For the next five minutes, I was in heaven.”

“Oh ... Well, that does sound nice ... But Rebecca, if he has no money, how does he have an apartment?”

“No money? I just said he has no parents. He has a job with the National Security Administration, and they’re paying him very well...”

“With the NSA? Are you kidding?”

“No. I was a bit doubtful myself, though I didn’t say anything. Robert noticed my skepticism and brought up his bank account for me on the web. The NSA is paying him over $4000 a month net, and he only has to be there one day a week during the school term. He drives down to D.C. and is gone all day on Saturdays. He’s been doing this for almost two years now. He has almost $50,000 saved. I saw it myself...”

“This doesn’t sound believable. What kind of a job could a teenager do for the NSA that they would pay him that kind of money?”

“I’m very curious about it too, but he is like a tomb when I ask him about it. He just says he shouldn’t talk about it. Robert’s very careful about security, saying he doesn’t even doodle about the work outside of the green-badge areas. Outside of Saturdays, the only work he does for the NSA is thinking and doing a lot of public-domain reading. The money isn’t the only payment, either. The NSA is also paying for a car lease and complete tuition and living expenses. And as you know, Johns Hopkins isn’t cheap. He can also buy any book he wants on their tab. It’s a deal any undergrad would dream about...”

“What in the world could he be doing?”

“I’ve snooped around a bit in his apartment. He has a ton of textbooks on wildly different topics. One shelf of books is on network security, encryption, and Internet packet protocols. Another shelf is on network routing theory. Another shelf is on pattern matching techniques and neural network learning. Another shelf is on quantum theory, covering everything from quantum computing to quantum entanglement to interferometer design. And then there’s the shelf of antenna books...”

“Antennas? You mean like my TV antenna?”

“As a matter of fact, yes. I thought studying this stuff would be obsolete in this digital age, but he has textbooks on analog TV single-sideband transmission, all sorts of wave-launching horn design books, book after book on various antenna capabilities ... I don’t see how all this stuff could possibly be tied together. Whatever he’s working on though, I suspect he is a wunderkind at it for the NSA to give him such a sweet deal...”

“Rebecca, all joking and Jewish mother aside, can I give you some advice?”

“Sure, Mom. I’m listening.”

“Robert sounds like a good boyfriend for you, my dear scholar child. You do have an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and it sounds like you might finally have found an equal. I’d like to meet your Robert sometime. But remember you’re both very young, with your whole adult lives in front of you. Go slowly, take your time. There’s no need to rush.”

“That’s really great advice, Mom. I understand what you’re saying, and I agree. Try to relax, Mom. I know what I’m doing. And Robert is just as shy about dating as I am. We are going very slowly. We’ve been meeting at dawn to go jogging together, and we’ve had some dinners together too. Yesterday was the first time we held hands. And if he doesn’t try to kiss me goodbye tonight after he walks me back to Wolman, I think I’m going to risk taking the lead. I know he’s attracted to me; I can see the hope in his eyes when we meet. Oh, we have a date this Sunday too, to go backpacking for the afternoon. We pick up I-83 a few blocks west of the campus and head north. The place called Prettyboy Reservoir and Gunpowder Falls State Park. Robert says it’s really nice ... Ah, I see his car pulling in outside. Do you want to say hello?”

“No, I don’t want to break into your time together, not yet. Soon, though. Take care, Rebecca. I love you.”

“I love you too, Mom. Bye!”

Chapter 2

Rebecca awoke slowly, feeling dizzy and miserable. Her head was spinning, she felt freezing cold, and her stomach was heaving. She blinked in bewilderment into the bright white light around her, trying to understand where she was while resisting an urge to vomit. She tried to make sense of her environment and failed. Her memory was an absolute blank as to how she got here. Where was she? As her mind began to clear, she realized she was lying flat on her back in a large, empty room without windows, entirely naked.

“Well, not entirely empty,” Rebecca thought, as she looked across the room. “What the hell is going on?”

Across the empty room, Robert was also lying naked on his back, appearing fast asleep. Rebecca felt too sick to be embarrassed by her nakedness. She stood up and began to pace along the blank walls, finding that the exercise helped clear her mind and calm her stomach. Along one wall was an oval projection with multi-colored buttons on it, about shoulder high, next to a large square indentation in the wall. “Some sort of door?” thought Rebecca, “How did I get in here? What is the last thing I remember?”

“It was Sunday. Is it still Sunday? A mild and pleasant sunny day. It was so nice chatting with Robert as we drove to the State Park. He was right, the park was beautiful. I was in delight! I didn’t know Robert was a bird watcher. His binoculars were great! The titmouse, the chickadees, the nuthatch, the woodpeckers, they were beautiful! And his lectures on the trees were so interesting, the holly and the red cedars and the crabapples ... He even made some fresh sassafras tea for me from the tree by the stream, getting the hot water from a vacuum thermos in his backpack. It tasted ... What, did it taste okay? I can’t remember! And then ... My memory is gone! Totally gone...”

Rebecca felt her intestines cramp and then felt an odd wetness around her anus. After reaching between her buttocks, she was horrified to find her fingers wet with a clear, odorless oil ... She suddenly looked at Robert with a look of cold fury on her face.

“You bastard! You fucking son of a bitch! You date-raped me! You fucking son of a bitch!”

Rebecca stormed over and glared at the sleeping Robert. “I trusted you and you betrayed me! In time, I would have given you my body in joy, and you stole my body from me instead, drugging me and sodomizing me! Knocked me out with a date-rape drug, didn’t you? You fucking son of a bitch! And what is this place, some dungeon of yours? You fucking son of a bitch!”

Rebecca was so furious she considered kicking Robert’s exposed testicles with all her might, but in the end, the core of her compassionate nature stopped her. She just sat down beside him and cried and waited for him to wake up.

She didn’t have long to wait. After about five minutes, Robert began to stir. As he opened his eyes, Rebecca grabbed his throat with one hand and cocked her other arm, preparing to smash her fist into his face if he got aggressive.

“Why!? I thought I was beginning to love you! Why did you have to ruin everything and rape me?! WHY?” she shouted.

“Becky, what?” Robert suddenly glanced from Rebecca’s face and saw her naked breasts. He blushed with embarrassment, his eyes wide open, and he turned his head away to give her some privacy. Rebecca was stunned and let go of his throat. Robert tried to stand, but dropped back down to his knees. Rebecca could see his face contort as his body was hit with cramps. “Wow, I feel terrible ... Feels like food poisoning, with a throbbing headache thrown in ... Are you okay? Where are we? It’s so bright in here ... Where are our clothes?”

“Let me help you stand, Robert. Try to walk. It helped me to clear the symptoms...”

Rebecca helped Robert walk around the room, her mind in turmoil. She recognized a great desire within her to trust Robert, but she could come up with no other explanation for her situation except date rape. Could he be acting, faking his illness?

“Robert, do you trust me?”

“Oh, yes! I know we haven’t known each other for long, but I think of you as kind and trustworthy, and as gentle as an angel. And two days ago, you became the first girl I’ve ever kissed. I want to trust you completely...”

“Great! Spread your legs far apart for me and bend over.”

“Huh? Okay...”

Rebecca stood behind the bent-over Robert. She reached around and laid the flat of her hand underneath him along his abdominal wall. With her other hand, she placed the tip of a finger against his anus. After a second, she pushed in, easily sliding her entire finger into his rectum while firmly squeezing his abdominal wall. She felt his sphincter grip the base of her finger as her squeeze and anal penetration caused another cramp to hit his intestines. She could feel the genuine cramp along the abdominal muscles. Robert grunted but maintained his position, accepting Rebecca’s penetration into his anus with complete trust. Rebecca withdrew her finger and examined it, realizing it was covered with the clear, odorless oil. She began to shake with embarrassment...

“I don’t know,” said Robert, “I don’t think that helped. Walking around does seem to, though. Great idea...” Robert noticed that Rebecca was crying. “Becky, are you okay?”

“Oh, forgive me, forgive me! I woke up a few minutes before you did, feeling sick just as you are now. I can’t remember how I got here! I assumed you drugged me and raped me... I’m so sorry I didn’t trust you... It was so wrong of me to play doctor with you and cause you to cramp... Please, please forgive me.”

Robert put his arms around Rebecca’s shoulders and hugged her. Rebecca hugged back fiercely, both of them standing still for a moment, neither saying anything. “Rebecca, there’s nothing to forgive. This situation is so bizarre; your guess was reasonable. It just wasn’t correct. Let me walk around for another minute... Maybe afterwards we can compare notes on what we remember.”

After a few minutes, the two sat down together near the oval keypad. Robert kept glancing away from Rebecca’s nakedness. “What, Robert, you don’t want to look at me?”

“Sigh. You’re... You’re even more beautiful than in my dreams, and over this last week, I’ve had lots of sexy dreams about you. I can feel myself getting an erection just seeing you... I don’t want to embarrass you...”

“Oh. Well ... I think it’s cute you can be aroused by me. Let your penis get erect as often as it wants to, okay? Look at me however and as often as you like. I’ll just take it as a compliment that you think I’m pretty. Okay?”

“Yes, that sounds fine. Thank you ... What in the world is going on, Becky?”

“I’m stumped, Rob. I recall being at Gunpowder Falls with you, and then my memory is gone. We’re trapped in an empty room. What do we do? I’m guessing that the indentation in the wall is a door. Should we push the buttons on the oval, to see if the door opens?”

“It’s a good guess. We’ll have to test the buttons on the oval ... Perhaps first though ... Maybe we should think about our environment a bit before we try to interact with it.”

Rebecca noticed that Robert was lightly scratching the back of his neck, looking deep in thought. “That’s a good point,” she said. “I’m not too eager to start pushing buttons quite yet either ... Boy it’s cold in here! You look at ease. Aren’t you cold?”

“It’s just me. I like cool weather. If I’m dry, I’m happy with just a light jacket on if it’s above freezing ... I would guess it’s around 65F in here. You’re right, a bit chilly to be without clothes ... Becky, can I hold you? Cuddle with you?”

“Oh yes! I’d love it!”

Robert moved over and sat by Rebecca’s side, pressing his hip against hers. He looped one arm over her shoulders and down her other arm; try to get as much skin contact as possible in order to warm her. Rebecca took his other arm and held it wrapped around her waist. She noticed his penis was quite erect in his lap and she was hit with a strong desire to hold it, and an urge to masturbate. “Wow,” she thought to herself, “This is my first time to be physically intimate with someone. I guess I’m getting aroused too. This is not the time to show it though...”

“Ah, you’re so warm Rob. This feels great...”

“For me too Becky ... I was in the Park with you. We were hiking, and then ... What happened?”

“I remember you making me the tea. I don’t remember drinking it.”

“You don’t? I do. You said you liked it. Said it was a little bit smoky, a little bit sweet, a little bit like licorice. I thought that was a good description. I remember being glad you were enjoying it...”

“Yes! Now I remember! Curious, it’s like remembering a dream. It might be totally forgotten, but if you make a note about it when you first wake, the note can help you remember later. It’s as if you’ve lost the mental pointer to the memory, and the note helps you to find the memory...”

“A few minutes later, we finished our picnic lunch and started our return hike. I remember seeing a dog coming toward us, running free. I think I turned to point the dog out to you, Becky, and then ... Then ... Then what? I have a dim memory of a vibration. My feet vibrating. Not like an earthquake, much faster, like standing on a tuning fork. And then ... Nothing ... Well, not quite nothing ... I have vague memories of clicking noises...”

“What?”

“Trying to awake. Being driven almost awake by clicking noises and not quite making it. I don’t know ... It could just be my imagination...”

“That sounds weird. Spooky. I have nothing at all like that memory.” Rebecca spent the next minute just staring about the room in silence. She idly started to caress Rob’s arm wrapped around her waist, relaxing in his warmth, and then was startled to realize how pleased she was that Robert was still showing a full erection. “I’m glad he’s circumcised,” she thought, “it’s so sexy to see the full head of his penis exposed like that ... Rebecca, stop this! Put these thoughts aside for later...”

“This room, Rob, what do you think? About 20 feet by 30 feet, with a 12-foot ceiling? Very brightly lit too.”

“Yeah, you’ve sized it just right, with the door indentation about 8 feet square. And this room is brightly lit, especially considering there are no lights.”

“What?” Rebecca looked around the room. “Oh, I see what you mean. How singular. Where’s the light coming from?”

“The walls must be glowing. Notice there are no shadows? These walls are a piece of work. Smooth like polished stone, but self-illuminating. A real piece of work. Too bright for comfort if we’re in here a long time. Perhaps while we’re here we should close our eyes occasionally, to avoid fatiguing them.”

“Ready for some analysis?”

“You bet! Want to go first, Becky?”

“Sure. I propose, until we find evidence to the contrary, that we assume all this is real, that we’re not delusional. I also propose we did not wander into here by ourselves. Thus, an individual or a group knows we’re here.”

“I agree.”

“Next, Rob, this room would take a lot of effort to make. I can’t see a lone madman making it and dragging us both here from the Park, too many miles of terrain for one person to handle. I thus propose that a group of people is behind our abduction. Group choices are our government, some foreign government, or a non-governmental group. I’d like to hope our own government isn’t doing this. Can we leave them out? What are your thoughts?”

“Well ... Perhaps we should add the possibility of alien abduction.”

“Yuck! Are you serious? I didn’t want to take this conversation into the twilight zone...”

“I do like reading science fiction, I admit. And if it weren’t for these self-illuminating walls, I don’t think I would have mentioned it. But these walls are a real piece of work, Becky, over 1000 square feet of very uniform illumination. I’ve never heard of anybody illuminating a room like this. I’d like to leave the alien possibility on the table with the other options...”

“Well, okay. Accepted. The alien option stays on the table for now. Hopefully, it’ll be a great source of amusement for me to tease you with later, when we find out this is all Earth-related ... That’s about it for my thoughts so far. How about you, Rob?”

“Well, one interesting question is how much time has elapsed between, I think, about 2:45 p.m. Sunday at Gunpowder Falls, and the time we woke up...”

“Oh ... I would guess at least a few hours...”

“Oh, at least. I’m wondering about an upper limit. A day, a week, more than a month?”

“Yuck. I see what you mean. It is possible to artificially induce a coma, isn’t it? It’s a horrible thing to consider. But you’re right, I don’t feel like I’m rested from sleep. I actually feel kind of tired and sleepy. I don’t feel hungry or thirsty, but my stomach feels very flat. I also have no desire at all to urinate, or to have a bowel movement. My cramps just produced a clear oil from my ... well, my anus. I have a horrible suspicion that my stomach and intestinal tract have been flushed completely clean by the oil. Maybe my bladder has been drained too ... Could we have been in comas and not asleep?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. My bladder and intestines feel the same, drained and empty...” Robert scratched the back of his neck again, deep in thought. “Becky, can I look at the back of your neck?”

“What? Sure, just remember to put your warm arms around me again when you’re finished.”

Becky felt Rob’s gentle fingers on her neck for several moments, and then he lightly kissed her there and said, “Thanks Becky. Take a look at the back of my neck. Tell me what you see.”

A few moments later... “Smooth skin, no hair, no sign of scarring, a bit pinkish in a large clearly defined rectangle. Interesting.”

“Yeah. The back of your neck looks the same. My muscle tone feels fine, which would suggest it had no time to atrophy. Our hair lengths look the same, and I have no beard. On the other hand, I notice that your nail polish is gone...”

“What? Oh my gosh, you’re right! I almost never wear it, so I didn’t notice it was gone. My roommate Susan suggested I try some of hers for our date and ... well, I wanted to look as attractive for you as I could...”

Robert gave Becky a quick kiss. Becky returned one of her own, and then several more.

“Dearest and sweetest Becky, I’m so happy I’ve found you ... I think you’re the most wonderful person in the world!”

“I’m feeling the same emotions. I’ve never had a serious dating relationship, too shy, but I want one with you. You’ve come through my shyness, into a wonderful, sexy whirlwind of hope and anticipation. I’ve told my mom a bit about you, how wonderful you are. She suggested we take our time. She’s right, but I also recognize that the bond growing between us is enduring. I’m going to try to do both, have us take our time, not rush things, and not hinder things either. I am sure enough about my feelings to tell you that I love you.”

“I love you back, Rebecca. You’re right, commitment needs to grow at a gentle pace, but I’m thrilled at the hope of it. You’re becoming a part of me, and a part of what I hope to become.”

The two closed their eyes and rested their heads together, not saying anything for several minutes. Then Becky said, “I’m a bit tired, but I can’t imagine trying to sleep on this hard, cold floor without being exhausted, even with you wrapped around me. How about we try the oval?”

“Sure! Want to go first?” Becky eagerly accepted the offer. On examining the oval, Becky counted 19 buttons, all with distinct colors. She pressed one at random, and was surprised to see a different button light up briefly, along with a brief burst of a tone.

“Ha, my years of violin tuning have finally proven useful! What do you think, Rob? To me, that sounded 4 to 5 Hertz flat of a 440 A.”

“Yes. I think you’re just right.”

Becky continued to experiment with the oval, with Rob quietly standing by her side observing. She quickly found there was no simple relationship between the button pushed and which button would light, or which tone would sound. Sometimes pushing a button would produce 2 or even 3 lights and a chord of tones. Often the oval would bleep a discord. When it did, there was always a 5-second delay where it would be unresponsive to anything, and then a flash of all the lights. After about 20 minutes, Becky began to grow tired of playing with it.

“This seems more like a toy, Rob, than a control to open the door. Even after the bleep, which seems to be a reset, the same button will map to different lights and notes. The notes seem to be sliding around all over the place too, no scale at all, sort of like my first year with my violin when I was three years old! Could this be a combination lock? Who would ever make a door control so complicated? Maybe this isn’t a door at all... I think I’m baffled, and my eyes are tired from the flashing lights. Would you mind if I sat down and closed my eyes to rest for a while?”

Robert gave Becky a brief hug and kiss. “Sure, rest your eyes. If you like, listen to what I do. I’ve gotten some ideas watching you play. There are several things I’m thinking of trying...”

Becky was grateful for a chance to rest her eyes. For the next 10 minutes, she just listened with her sharp musical ear to what Rob was doing. She quickly realized Rob was playing the oval’s tones much, much faster than she was, with much less repetition. He was also starting to make the reset bleep occur far less frequently than her play. She suddenly laughed at what Rob was doing.

“Ha, ha, Rob! I remember playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on a phone keypad once. It sounds like what you’re doing is sort of the same thing, but in a really drunken way. I must say, I admire you for being so playful when our situation seems so deadly to me. How can you just futz around while we’re freezing to death?”

“Becky, I can take a break to warm you. But I do believe that I’m jamming with this machine. Damn if I’m not!”

“What!?” Becky opened her eyes and stood by Rob’s left side, lightly resting her right hand affectionately on his right buttock.

“It’s improvising with me, Becky! This is so amazing. The oval and I are putting a song together. It sounds drunk because the notes are sliding all over the place, but it’s chaos, not randomness. Think of the song as mathematical chaos, as an oscillation around a strange attractor ... Can your musical ear pick out the three underlying melodies? Can you follow the phase shifts?”

“Why are you bothering to jam with the oval?”

“Well, what’s my reward for completing a song it likes?”

“Oh! Robert, that’s brilliant!”

The song suddenly did end. The oval gave a multi-tone whistle, and suddenly the lights dimmed to half power. Rob and Becky looked at each other in astonishment.

“You have to play a song to dim the lights? Rob, that’s absurd!”

“Yeah ... Bizarre ... And not just play a song, Becky, jam a song. For a while, it insisted on taking the lead, and then it insisted that I take the lead ... And then it improvised on my ideas ... All this to switch off the lights a little? It is absurd ... Well, at least I didn’t play a song that meant to increase the lights by a factor of two. Lucky! That would have been near to blinding. I’m going to try to play the same song again, or at least a close variation. See what happens.”

At the end of the second song, the oval whistled again and the lights dimmed by another factor of two. “Bravo, Robert! You’ve given us the ability to start controlling our environment. I don’t suppose you could play a request to bump up the heat a little, could you?”

“My gosh, that’s a scary thought. What if it uses the Kelvin scale from absolute zero? Doubling the heat would push us up close to 600F.”

“Shit! I didn’t think of that ... Oh, pardon my language. I usually don’t talk like this. Must be the stress.”

Rob hugged Becky for a moment, gently kissing her while returning the caress on her buttocks. “Awake enough for some more musical exploration? I can stop if you’re tired.”

“Oh, don’t stop now! You’re in the zone! Play me a lullaby!”

“Okay!” Becky couldn’t believe what she heard next. It was sort of like a lullaby. After a few false starts, she heard the wildest, craziest lullaby she could ever imagine, and then the oval whistled wildly as the door indentation began to slide to the side.

“Yes!” shouted Rob.

“No!” screamed Becky, as a mountain of high-pressure water burst around her body and quickly began to flood the room. Slamming waves of cold water filled the room in seconds. The violent churns threw Becky hard against the back wall of the room. She just managed to protect her head, but the blow drove all the air from her lungs and stunned her close to unconsciousness...

Becky felt a great urge to fall asleep, but a voice by her side kept telling her how much it loved her, and Becky’s drifting mind found the concept of being loved so interesting that she decided to open her eyes.

“Oh, thank God, thank God! Becky! Fight to stay awake, fight with all your might!” Robert had Becky in a lifesaver’s hold, treading water with the water level about two feet from the ceiling of the room.

“Okay! I think I’m okay! I think I saved my head from a concussion. I just had the wind knocked out of me. What the hell is going on!? I’m freezing to death!”

“I think the water is about 60F, a little colder than the air was. We have a little time, but you’re right, we have to get out of this.”

“There was water on the other side of the door?! This is insane!”

“No argument from me on that! Becky, we have to get out of here! Are your ears okay?”

“I felt them pop. I think they’re okay. How do we get out?”

“There was about 4 feet of room above the door opening. The air above the top of the door opening was trapped. It’s been compressed to two feet, one half the volume. I think we’re in two atmospheres of pressure now.”

“So?”

“So it tells us how high the water is on the other side of the door. Let’s see, one atmosphere is 14.7 pounds per square inch...” Rob looked thoughtful for a moment, remembering the density of water and doing the math in his head. “About 34 feet vertical, I think, from the water surface here. We have to swim down two feet to get under the top edge of the door, and then swim up 36 feet to break to the surface outside. Should be doable!”

“What about the bends, decompression sickness?”

“I think we’ll be fine. We’ve only been here a few minutes, and pearl divers go snorkeling much deeper than this. Remember to adjust the pressure in your ears as we ascend.”

“Robert, I’m pretty close to my last reserves of strength. I think I can punch through and do this, but I’m running close to exhaustion. I’m so cold! What if there’s a grate, and we can’t ascend all the way? Do we come back here?”

“A horrible thought. We’ll probably die if there is. Becky, I’ll never leave you. Never. If we die, I’ll die holding you in my arms... You ascend first, I’ll be right behind you. If you run out of energy, just try not to breathe until I can get you to the surface.”

The water was crystal clear. The door location was easily visible, and Rob and Becky swam over to it and took a few deep breaths. They dived together, and wound up swimming side by side holding hands until they broke the surface of the water. Becky looked around and then screamed in anguish.

“This is impossible! Where the hell are we!?”

Rob and Becky were floating at the center of an enormous tank of water, about 200 meters in diameter. It was a 100-meter swim in any direction to the smooth vertical walls of the tank. White light shone down from high overhead.

“There!” shouted Rob. “This way. I think I see ladder rungs this way.”

“I... I don’t think I can swim it, Rob... I’m exhausted and freezing... I’m so cold.”

“Try to swim as much as you can. It’ll keep you warmer. Let me carry you in a lifesaver hold when you have to rest. Save some energy to climb the rungs.”

It took almost ten minutes for the two to swim the 100 meters to the ladder. The ladder was not particularly easy to climb, thin horizontal circular hoops extruding from the wall about every two vertical feet.

Rebecca’s teeth were chattering uncontrollably. “Rob, my hands are so cold and stiff I can’t bend my fingers around these hoops at all. I won’t be able to climb ... Go on without me.”

“No fucking way! Here, place your hand next to the hoop. I’ll bend your fingers around the pipe and climb with you, side by side. I’ll hold your hand to the pipe. We can do this! Move! Move!”

The climb was a nightmare. Robert found that he had more strength than Becky, but less balance on the slippery pipes. He realized in horror that one fall from the pipes would probably be fatal for them both. They were running out of time. He almost slipped off twice, both times slipping with his feet on the narrow pipes and holding his full weight with one hand while the other hand desperately held Becky’s grip to the pipes.

Becky reached into her last reserves of human endurance, and kept pace with Robert up the ladder. Together they climbed 20 rungs above the water, and then collapsed exhausted and freezing onto a ledge about 9 feet wide. The ledge circled the tank, with the tank itself extending upward an additional 40 feet to a brightly lit ceiling.

“Becky, I think I see an oval and a door about 200 meters clockwise along the ledge from here. And in the other direction ... Yes! My backpack! Come on!”

Rob and Becky walked a third of the circumference of the tank along the ledge. There was no safety rail, but the 9 feet of width made it fairly easy to avoid falling off. Becky’s teeth were chattering violently. Rob’s body felt numb, and he realized he was suffering from hypothermia too. Then Becky’s teeth stopped chattering; her body had run out of energy to shiver. Robert guided and supported her as best he could as they continued to stagger around the ledge. “Please, please, dear God,” Rob thought, “Let my gear still be in my backpack.”

They finally came to the location where their clothes and backpack were lying along the wall on the ledge. Robert dove into his backpack, shouted “Yes!” and pulled out a huge white, fluffy bath towel, which he immediately handed to Becky. Becky gave him a look of pure gratitude with her eyes and then wrapped herself in the towel, starting to dry herself as Rob unrolled a single sleeping bag and began to blow up an air mattress. He finished blowing up the mattress a few minutes later just as Becky finished toweling the bulk of the water out of her hair. Rob set the sleeping bag over the mattress.

“Climb in, Becky, I’ll join you as soon as I use the towel.” Rob joined the exhausted Becky right after padding down his body with the damp towel, his stiff fingers barely able to close the bag’s main zipper. The two then cuddled naked against each other, both collapsing into sleep within minutes.

Chapter 3

Drifting ... Drifting in happiness ... Drifting in peace ... Drifting in love ... Rebecca’s mind felt totally relaxed and secure. Her body felt totally warm and safe. “More than safe,” Rebecca thought sleepily, “my body is being petted ... accepted ... cherished ... beloved ... More than my body ... Me! My hopes and fears ... My strengths and weaknesses ... My dreams ... The essence of who I am ... The innermost part of my spirit is being petted ... accepted ... cherished ... and beloved...”

Rebecca slowly opened her eyes. She was lying flat on her back, wonderfully warm within the cocoon of the sleeping bag and floating over the air mattress. A large, bulky sweater was beneath her head and neck, providing a delightful pillow. Robert was lying by her side, looking in joy into her eyes as his hand caressed her breasts. They held eye contact for a long moment, neither saying anything, and then Rebecca sighed deeply at the pleasure of the caresses and closed her eyes.

The pleasure was exquisite, both relaxing and arousing. Both of Rebecca’s nipples were fully erect, and she could feel Robert’s erect penis pushing into her thigh just below her hip. She was breathing slowly and deeply, gasping in pleasure as Robert gently pinched and released her nipples between his fingers. The playful probing of the underside of her breasts was arousing a deep need for sexual release within her. She opened her eyes and turned, reached over, and held his penis for the first time.

“Do you want to suckle? I want to give you everything that I am, including all of my sex. I’ll give you my virginity now if you want ... You are my very first boyfriend. You’ll have to teach me how to please you and excite you ... But you’ll find me a very eager pupil...”