The woman leaning forward and sitting on an overturned crate was looking off into the distance thinking about what she could have done different, what she should have done different. As she contemplated these things in her scattered mind, she began to think of the children clinging to her, begging for her help.

“If only I hadn't taken on that job,” she thought.


If only she had just dismissed it and went on with her usual biological works. Things would be much easier for her. She could be home, sitting in her comfortable faded-out blue recliner, reading one of her favorite Stephen King books, and drinking out of her favorite mug with a picture of a cute, little kitten stretching its body while saying “Why get up today? Sleeping in sounds Purr-fect to me.” That's where she should be, and that's what she should be doing instead of being right here, trying to be the hero she didn't have the strength to be. No, she couldn't think of going back now. These children needed her more than ever now that she has taken them away from those monsters. The woman was both physically and mentally withered, tired, and weak at this point, but she still had to try to get these children somewhere safe. They depended on her.



One of the children, named Amelia, leaned her fragile nine-year-old body up against the woman's left side. Her arms were propped up on the woman's shoulder, and her hands were balled into fists as she cried silently. Her head was turned behind the woman's back and into her arms. The woman's heart ached and throbbed in pain at the sound of each sob. Amelia was wearing an old raggedy dress that had small holes here and there.

“I'm hungry, Mommy,” Amelia slowly chocked out between sobs.


The woman took a deep breath and shifted the baby in her thinning arms. Holding the small child, she carefully leaned over to the suitcase in front of her. The woman unclasped the latch, flipped open the top, and pulled out a bag of chips. It wasn't the healthiest thing, of course, but it would do for now.

“Share with your brother, Amelia,” the woman whispered in her now rough voice as she handed the child the bag of chips for her to eat.


Amelia took it with excited dirty hands and looked at her brother expectantly.


To the woman's right was Amelia's brother, a six and a half year old boy. His name was Sampton, but he preferred Sam. His back was turned as he leaned against her. He had on a bulky coat that wrinkled around his small sides and under his arms that were folded against his chest. Like his sister was before, his head was turned behind the woman's back. His little head was bent down toward to sand covered ground. He looked up with hopeless eyes when he heard “chips”, turned toward his sister, and then held out his own bony, dirty hands.


As the woman watched Sam and Amelia sit down off to the left beside her, she began to ponder upon their past. They had always looked similar to one another. Even now with their sunken-in faces, sad bulging eyes, bowl cut hair, and fragile, dirty bodies, they looked just as similar as they did when they were “born”. The woman reflected on how they were created. Amelia, Sam, and the baby were artificially created in a laboratory that was specifically designed by the government to perform special tasks that it was assigned. It was top secret. It was more secretive than Area 51. The children were a part of a project called BiologicalWDR, case 7. There were six of these experiments before, all of which were noted as failures. The cases always included three children (or in most cases, babies). Case 7 was the success they were looking for, and the woman was a part of it. When they presented the job to her, they told her it was a top secret, recent development that was going to be used to give men or woman a chance to have a baby if they could not produce one themselves, but did not wish for their spouse to impregnate a woman or to be impregnated by other means. She believed them, despite her “womanly intuitions” telling her otherwise.

“I was such a blind fool!” Her mind screamed at her.


They were using these poor innocent children (artificially created or not) were going to be used for testing out the government's latest biological warfare experiments. It was a sickening thought that the woman could not bear.


The woman's thoughts were disrupted by the sound of wailing. The sleeping baby was awakening. Amelia and Sam looked up from their diminishing bag of chips to the baby. Amelia got up quickly and demanded that she be “the one to feed her darling brother.” The woman sighed and carefully handed the baby over after Amelia and her changed positions. The woman went to turn around to get the bottle, powdered milk, and water, but was surprised by Sam holding them out to her.

“Here you go, Dr. Jinks,” he said.


He had never called her “mom” or “mommy” or anything that wasn't a form of her last name, Jenkins. She smiled a small, wrinkly smile at him before grabbing the bottle and placing it between her now hairy legs. Then, she opened the powdered milk and water bottle, poured the powdered milk in first, and, afterward, the water. Dr. Jenkins shook the bottle up in her rough, bony hand, which used to be soft and delicate, until the components were mixed together well and handed the bottle to Amelia, who was rocking the baby with shushing sounds.

“Dr. Jinks, where are we going again?” Sam asked with exasperation.

Dr. Jenkins turned toward him on her knobby knees, placed her withered hands on his small shoulders, looked in his eyes, and said, “Honey, we're going to a small village called Mimili. When we get there, we will meet Dr. Winters. Do you remember him? The man who helped us escape?”

Sam nodded, “He was read-headed and super-duper tall!”

“That's right, sweetie. When we meet him, we're going to go on a long trip; then, we'll be free,” Dr. Jenkins said with a smile.
“Really?!?!” Sam exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Really, Sam. I promise,” Dr. Jenkins said sympathetically and a bit thrilled herself.

Dr. Jenkins turned toward Amelia holding and looking at the now peaceful baby in her arms. The
child looked as if he was about to go to sleep again.

Dr. Jenkins looked at Amelia and said softly, “How about we lay him down for a nap?”


Amelia looked up from the small child toward Dr. Jenkins and nodded her head. Dr. Jenkins took the baby cautiously from Amelia.

“I’ll get the bed ready!” Amelia whispered eagerly.


As Amelia readied the baby’s “bed,” Dr. Jenkins rocked the baby in a soothing motion.


When Amelia finished fixing the bed of blankets and clothing, Dr. Jenkins laid the baby's tiny head on a pillow-like bundle, covered him up, and gave him his pacifier. She smiled a small, sad smile and thought of how wonderful it was to at least save such a beautiful baby. Even thought he had sand, mud, dirt, and snot mixed together all about his face, hadn't been properly bathed in five days, and was either fussy or sleeping through everything, he was a beautiful child, like the others, that deserved a chance to live and explore the world instead of having to live his whole life in a white room so people can poke and prod at him while he cries out of fear. She was delighted that she had the chance to save these children, but she wished she had planed things out better. If only she had more time or even more people that could help her, things would have gone a lot smoother. However, they didn't have time nor the people they needed, which is why they are now left to scrounge for food and supplies.


When they had left that awful underground building, Dr. Jenkins had grabbed what she could, which included of the following: numerous blankets and coats, water bottles, a small portable skillet that ran off of U.V. Rays, various snacks, two books, a watch, the baby's bottle and formula, and a number of other random objects she thought they may need or use in the future. She had also brought a universal phone with her, but only in case of an extreme emergency. She kept reminding herself that if there was no real emergency, there was no need to attract more unwanted attention from the few people in this deserted land.


They were currently in the middle of the Great Victorian Desert, which had an area of 424,400 squared kilometers, which is approximately 26,863,210,000 miles big. It is the third largest desert in the world. The Great Victoria Desert is surrounded by more deserts and has over 70 localities. The environment consists of sand, shrubs, fields of wildflowers, other vegetation, hills, small mountains, and various animals. It is considered a desert because of it's low annual count of rainfall it receives. This, of course, is something that Dr. Jenkins and the children were having the hardest time with. They need proper nourishment, especially in a desert such as this, but they were very close to the village of Mimili. All they had to do was travel for a few hours today and they would be there soon enough. The whole reason that Dr. Jenkins and Dr. Winters agreed on this location is its increasing amount of tourists, and they did not want to attract attention by going to a more or less populated spot on the globe.


Dr. Jenkins stood up tall with her straight back and her five-foot-eight stature. She took one of her hands and ran it along her face that was full of worry, wrinkles, doubt, and hope, hope for a better future, hope for things to not go horribly wrong. She took her hand and brushed back a few strands that had fallen out of her messy bun at the back of her head. When she felt her hair, it was like touching a patch of oily straw that had been left out in the rain and then dried in the sun before dirty animals had laid themselves onto it. A few places of her hair were knotted and caked with clumps of mud. Her hand travel to her forehead, which was creased with her thoughts of worry. Then, her hand traveled to her strong nose that ended with a rounded snub down the faint wrinkle of her long-faded, beautiful smiles to her lips that had become thin and less defined; then, she came to her chin, which had two moles under her lips to the right. Her face had taken on that of an old veteran from a terrible war. It the past four years it had become old and less vibrant, and recently, it had become more manly and rough. Her top shirt was cut off and tattered at the sleeves, and her under shirt was checkered with a collar. She hand on thin brown pants with a purple, skirt-like blanket tied around her hips. She looked down at herself and sighed. She wasn't the most gorgeous woman out there, but before this, she could have at least turned some heads. Now she would be lucky if a lizard would find her attractive.

“Should we start packing things, Mom?” Amelia asked while tugging on her shirt.

“Yes. We need to get going soon,” Dr. Jenkins replied distantly.


Amelia nodded, even though Dr. Jenkins was too busy thinking about the past to noticed. She bounded over to the small clutter of their things and started putting things together, packing things away, and whatever else was needed to be done. After a few minutes, Sam start to help her with some things, and when Dr. Jenkins was done accepting what was and what was not, she helped the children put things away. It didn't take them long to roll up the sleeping bags, gather the blankets, lantern, and wrappers from snacks they had eaten. Once everything was all together, Dr. Jenkins went over to the peacefully sleeping baby, pacifier hanging out of his mouth along with a dribble of saliva. She carefully wrapped the blankets tightly around him, but not too tightly, and placed the pacifier inside of it. Then, she handed him over to Amelia silently as she untied the blanket around here waist, wrapped around her torso so the baby could fit, tight it securely, and carefully placed him in the blanket against her chest with the help of Amelia and Sam. After that task was accomplished, she walked over to the leather suitcase that was falling apart and picked it up.
“Are we ready to go, children?” Dr. Jenkins asked.

They both nodded and shifted the small bags on their shoulders to a more comfortable position and started slowly walking toward Dr. Jenkins.
“Alrighty then. Let's get to it,” she said.

As they walked across the desert, they each thought about the past and the brand-new future that they were going to have and how wonderful it was going to be. Dr. Jenkins thought about how she could ever repay Dr. Winters and what she would do for the children. Amelia began to think about the new toys she would be allowed to have without having to do something she would not like to do at all, like dissecting an animal or enhancing her brain waves in the lab. Sam thought of being allowed to play games on a PSII or a Game-boy without it resulting in the creepy scientists saying things like “Oh, this is good, very good accuracy and adaptation.” The baby dreamt of crawling around in luscious flowers and Dr. Jenkins being there to take care of him, along with Amelia and Sam. In what seemed like a short amount of time, they saw Mimili lights about three and half hours later. Less than an hour later, they were all in a comfortable little house that Dr. Winters had bought a year earlier.

As Amelia and Sam were taking a bath, Dr. Jenkins laid the now squeaky-clean, fruit-smelling baby in a crib in a room that was to be the children's. It was fairly big with light blue walls and white puffy clouds painted at the top of the walls and on the blue ceiling. Near the floor, the wall had grass painted on along with flowers, bees, butterflies, and some small animals here and there. It was a magnificent art piece. There were two twin beds and two night stands with lamps on them. A ceiling fan that hung over the free space of the floor. It had flowers and planes painted on and looked secure enough for Dr. Jenkins to not worry over it falling. There was a small TV in front of the beds so the children could watch some cartoons or movies. Dr. Jenkins closed her eyes, smiled a real smile for the first time in months, turned on the night light beside the TV, and walked out the open door after turning out the bedroom light.
“How did you do it?” Dr. Jenkins asked Dr. Winter with her hand on her hip as she came into the little living room.
“Do what?” He answered nonchalantly without looking up from the paper on the small coffee table in front of him.
“Afford all of this. How did you pull all of this off?” She said bemused at his carefree ways.
“I had money saved up. Don't make it such a big deal, Phoebe. It was nothing,” he said finally looking up to her from the newspaper that gets delivered to him from the States.

Phoebe Jenkins sat down beside of him on his quaint, red couch, took his hands, and looked him in the eye.
“It's a very big deal, Axel. Everything you've done for us is something that I can never repay,” she said sincerely before hugging him.
Before Axel Winters could charmingly pull out the small, velvety black box and say those eight precious words he had always wanted to say to her, their were multiple crashing sounds around the house. The children in the bathtub started screaming, and the baby in the crib started to cry uncontrollably. All of a sudden, men in black suits with guns crashed through the windows in front of the living room. They pinned the stunned doctors to the floor as more of these unknown men came flooding into the house. Once they were hand cuffed, they were both picked up by two men. Dr. Winters was fighting to get out of the grips of the two men that were holding him, while Dr. Jenkins was still stunned. A man in a black and white suit walked before them, smoking a cigar that smelled like cherries.
“Sir, I think this one's going to be a problem,” said one of the men holding Dr. Winters.

The man waved his hand as if to dismiss it, and the other man holding Dr. Winters hit him in the heading with the back of his gun. Dr. Winters wen limp.
“No!” Dr. Jenkins yelled, trying to reach him, but the two men holding her were much stronger than her.
“Now. Now, Phoebe. There's no need to act so,” the man in the suit paused, trying to think of the right word, “uncivil. It's not very becoming of you.”
“Why you-” Dr. Jenkins was cut off by the children's cries getting closer.
“Mommy!” Amelia yelled disturbed.

A man held her back easily with one hand.
“Let go of her!” Dr. Jenkins screamed as she kicked one of the men holding her.

“Ms. Jenkins, please calm down before a put a bullet between your eyes. Then, you will have no idea what y proposition is to you,” the man with the suit on said putting out his cigar on the coffee table.

He sat down in a chair across the room and waved his hand at the men holding the children and Dr. Winters. The two men holding Dr. Jenkins forced her to sit down on the couch in front of the man as the other were carried out of the room. The two men that were holding here stood at opposite ends of the couch just in case she tried to run away.
“What do you want, Mr. Spiel?” Dr. Jenkins said with venom dripping from her voice.
“I have a proposition for you, if you will,” Mr. Spiel said in an even tone.
“Go on, then,” she said glaring at Mr. Spiel, “but will you please remove these handcuffs,” she added with more of a statement than a question.
“Very well,” Mr. Spiel said.

He gave a look to one of the men, and he uncuffed her hands from behind her back. The man went back to his side of the couch, and Dr. Jenkins rubbed her wrists aggravated at the whole mess.
“I'm listening,” Dr. Jenkins said coldly.
“I've been thinking about all of this, and I have come to several conclusions. I have one, in mind, however, that I think will benefit mostly everyone,” he started.
“Mostly everyone?” Dr. Jenkins asked.

Mr. Spiel ignored the question and continued, “Since those children are technically ours, I think it would be very inhuman to just destroy them or put them under any form of experiments that would further be used for destructive purposes. I think it would be best if we all just forget about it.”
“What do you mean?” Dr. Jenkins asked confused.
“Well, I believe it would be best if you let the children go into an adoption home and allow them to get adopted by a nice family that can give them what they need and want, while you stay with the agency,” said Mr. Spiel with a sly smile playing upon his lips.
“You can't just expect everyone to forget about this. The children, they'll remember, and this town won't just forget this stunt you've pulled,” Dr. Jenkins stated exasperated.

“And that is why we have new advances in technology. No one will remember a thing- not even you and I,” Mr. Spiel said with a pleased composure.