As the rain came again and began to refill the puddle that lay outside his office. Colonel George Bevan stared
out of the wooden-framed window into the New Mexico evening and pondered what the scientist was saying.
The security lights along the facility fences blinked on just as they had the previous night and the forty-three year
old Commander of the base sighed softly to himself and turned away from the late-November scenery.
Professor Levinson, sitting on the other side of his desk looked gaunt, the thin-framed man hadn't slept since
he came up this crazy idea and now, his tired, paper-white features were evidence that his theory was having
an effect on him.
"Then you do it..." Levinson said quietly, taking off his spectacles to clean them "...you tell me what you did last
week"
Colonel Bevan raised an eyebrow and offered a dubious look over his shoulder, "I think you and your people
may have been working too hard" he said and settled himself into his own chair. To the Colonel, Levinson's
theory wasn't has crazy as it sounded, he had heard such things before. The only disappointment for the
clipped-moustached military-career man was that the boffin in the white coat before him hadn't arrived at
the obvious conclusion by himself.
"Back in Saipan, we had guys who fought for eight days straight and during our push to a place called
'Hell's Pockets' we had a whole battalion come down with the same ailment you're dealing with, Proff..."
Bevan held out both hands to show he was accommodating. "...it's called fatigue"
There was a slight dimming of the lights for a moment and after the bulb above them went back to it's full
incandescence, Bevan spoke again.
"I've got people up at Los Alamos screaming for your 'pet' for their own experiments and frankly, I'm running
out of excuses to keep it here. They want me to hand it over"
The skinny man in the weave-faded lab coat sighed and decided to try once more.
"I can understand your impatience Colonel, but it's just that within the last two months, we've noticed this
phenomena and we're at a loss at what is causing it. All the readings, the data... all of it seems to be... to be,
well... fading away!"
Colonel Bevan offered a comical look of 'Oh My, what are we to do?' and then quickly changed his features
to show his true emotion, anger. "This facility is for war-time training..." he hissed "...and you've spent thousands
of dollars on machinery and God-knows-what, money that could've gone on helping our guys overseas"
Professor Albert Levinson frowned and began to rise from the hard-backed seat, but the man who had been
in forces for all of his adult life stopped him in his tracks. "Sit down" Colonel Bevan said easily, but the tone
of command that lay just beneath the surface of the request didn't go unnoticed by the scientist.
"Look, it's almost 1945 and the Germans are beat..." the man in the dark-blue uniform said with a fake-tone
of understanding. "...Roosevelt is back in for another term and he's looking for a way to end this damned-thing
in the Pacific once and for all"
A pregnant pause of five seconds sat between them.
"Whatever you have there in that room you've had for two years now..." Bevan continued and smiled in the way
a person does when they have another person over a barrel. Most carnivores can do it. "...You prodded it, poked
it and now you have it wearing a dress!" he snapped and for some unknown emphasis, moved his pen from one
side of the desk to the other.
"Find out how it works, replicate the evidence and maybe we can finish the war" he growled and opened the file
on his desk.
The documents were stamped 'Classified' and were about the other experiments going on up at Los Alamos.
"Get some rest and for God's sake, stop calling it Boy In A Dress" Bevan said with an exasperated tone and
quickly closed the brown-paper binder.
Albert looked up at the large map of New Mexico that covered most of the office wall next to the window and
wondered if he would go through all of this again tomorrow night. He was sure he'd done it before.
.....................................
"Time is a funny thing..." Boy In A Dress said to the nice lady who had provided him with the red dress two years
ago. Mrs. Coleman was the only female allowed on the base due to her husband's position and the fact that she
could make really scrumptious muffins.
Every Tuesday morning, the slightly overweight woman with the nice smile and the tight-curled hair would make
sure that the sentry at the Main Gate and the any lucky serviceman that happened to cross her route to the hanger
that her husband called 'The Lab' -were kitted out with a delicious cake.
"...We hold so-much store in it and yet, it doesn't love us back" BIAD mumbled and went back to focusing on the
sweet-tasting paper-cupped food. The glass walls of the Man-Girl's confines had only one door and a small
two-way drawer made of plastic. It was this that the muffin had come through on.
As the two miliary guards standing either-side of the main doors of the warehouse tucked into their own individually
scrounged goodie and ignored the busy woman wiping down the tables near where the weird prisoner was being
contained, Edith Coleman asked the question she'd been dying to ask since being allowed onto the facility.
Professor Levinson and three other academics were over on the far-side of the hanger going over paperwork and
only occasionally, sipping the coffee she had made for them. There was another guard who was standing a few yards
from the grumbling scientists that looked bored with assignment and seemed to find a great interest in something
lodged in his left nostril.
Edith's husband was away visiting a fellow-scientist that had just moved into the State and was heavily involved in
something called 'DNA' If the ever-optimistic woman's memory was correct, his name was Shaw and he lived near
Corona.
"Mr. Dress...?" Edith whispered without looking at the strange being with the long fringe, the table was clean but she
kept on wiping it. Without lessening his attention on the muffin, that long-haired prisoner sitting on the floor of the glass
cell whispered back "call me BIAD"
Edith smiled at the damp cloth in her hand and asked her query.
"Who are you?"
(To be Continued)
out of the wooden-framed window into the New Mexico evening and pondered what the scientist was saying.
The security lights along the facility fences blinked on just as they had the previous night and the forty-three year
old Commander of the base sighed softly to himself and turned away from the late-November scenery.
Professor Levinson, sitting on the other side of his desk looked gaunt, the thin-framed man hadn't slept since
he came up this crazy idea and now, his tired, paper-white features were evidence that his theory was having
an effect on him.
"Then you do it..." Levinson said quietly, taking off his spectacles to clean them "...you tell me what you did last
week"
Colonel Bevan raised an eyebrow and offered a dubious look over his shoulder, "I think you and your people
may have been working too hard" he said and settled himself into his own chair. To the Colonel, Levinson's
theory wasn't has crazy as it sounded, he had heard such things before. The only disappointment for the
clipped-moustached military-career man was that the boffin in the white coat before him hadn't arrived at
the obvious conclusion by himself.
"Back in Saipan, we had guys who fought for eight days straight and during our push to a place called
'Hell's Pockets' we had a whole battalion come down with the same ailment you're dealing with, Proff..."
Bevan held out both hands to show he was accommodating. "...it's called fatigue"
There was a slight dimming of the lights for a moment and after the bulb above them went back to it's full
incandescence, Bevan spoke again.
"I've got people up at Los Alamos screaming for your 'pet' for their own experiments and frankly, I'm running
out of excuses to keep it here. They want me to hand it over"
The skinny man in the weave-faded lab coat sighed and decided to try once more.
"I can understand your impatience Colonel, but it's just that within the last two months, we've noticed this
phenomena and we're at a loss at what is causing it. All the readings, the data... all of it seems to be... to be,
well... fading away!"
Colonel Bevan offered a comical look of 'Oh My, what are we to do?' and then quickly changed his features
to show his true emotion, anger. "This facility is for war-time training..." he hissed "...and you've spent thousands
of dollars on machinery and God-knows-what, money that could've gone on helping our guys overseas"
Professor Albert Levinson frowned and began to rise from the hard-backed seat, but the man who had been
in forces for all of his adult life stopped him in his tracks. "Sit down" Colonel Bevan said easily, but the tone
of command that lay just beneath the surface of the request didn't go unnoticed by the scientist.
"Look, it's almost 1945 and the Germans are beat..." the man in the dark-blue uniform said with a fake-tone
of understanding. "...Roosevelt is back in for another term and he's looking for a way to end this damned-thing
in the Pacific once and for all"
A pregnant pause of five seconds sat between them.
"Whatever you have there in that room you've had for two years now..." Bevan continued and smiled in the way
a person does when they have another person over a barrel. Most carnivores can do it. "...You prodded it, poked
it and now you have it wearing a dress!" he snapped and for some unknown emphasis, moved his pen from one
side of the desk to the other.
"Find out how it works, replicate the evidence and maybe we can finish the war" he growled and opened the file
on his desk.
The documents were stamped 'Classified' and were about the other experiments going on up at Los Alamos.
"Get some rest and for God's sake, stop calling it Boy In A Dress" Bevan said with an exasperated tone and
quickly closed the brown-paper binder.
Albert looked up at the large map of New Mexico that covered most of the office wall next to the window and
wondered if he would go through all of this again tomorrow night. He was sure he'd done it before.
.....................................
"Time is a funny thing..." Boy In A Dress said to the nice lady who had provided him with the red dress two years
ago. Mrs. Coleman was the only female allowed on the base due to her husband's position and the fact that she
could make really scrumptious muffins.
Every Tuesday morning, the slightly overweight woman with the nice smile and the tight-curled hair would make
sure that the sentry at the Main Gate and the any lucky serviceman that happened to cross her route to the hanger
that her husband called 'The Lab' -were kitted out with a delicious cake.
"...We hold so-much store in it and yet, it doesn't love us back" BIAD mumbled and went back to focusing on the
sweet-tasting paper-cupped food. The glass walls of the Man-Girl's confines had only one door and a small
two-way drawer made of plastic. It was this that the muffin had come through on.
As the two miliary guards standing either-side of the main doors of the warehouse tucked into their own individually
scrounged goodie and ignored the busy woman wiping down the tables near where the weird prisoner was being
contained, Edith Coleman asked the question she'd been dying to ask since being allowed onto the facility.
Professor Levinson and three other academics were over on the far-side of the hanger going over paperwork and
only occasionally, sipping the coffee she had made for them. There was another guard who was standing a few yards
from the grumbling scientists that looked bored with assignment and seemed to find a great interest in something
lodged in his left nostril.
Edith's husband was away visiting a fellow-scientist that had just moved into the State and was heavily involved in
something called 'DNA' If the ever-optimistic woman's memory was correct, his name was Shaw and he lived near
Corona.
"Mr. Dress...?" Edith whispered without looking at the strange being with the long fringe, the table was clean but she
kept on wiping it. Without lessening his attention on the muffin, that long-haired prisoner sitting on the floor of the glass
cell whispered back "call me BIAD"
Edith smiled at the damp cloth in her hand and asked her query.
"Who are you?"
(To be Continued)
Edith Head Gives Good Wardrobe.