

   Carl Barry had just hung up the phone after one of his leads in the Dell
missing persons case had informed him of some lab results on some shoes. 
He typed the notes of the conversation on his computer at his desk in the
reporters pool at the weekly news magazine WorldWeek, and then looked at
the file containing a pair of photo's.  The first one was of a very
handsome dark haired man with green eyes and a flashing smile.  His good
looks matched those of any popular hunk on the cover of People magazine,
but he had chosen to make his name in Hollywood as a screenwriter.  The
picture was taken at the Chandler Pavilion after co-winning an Oscar for
best screenplay for the movie "Cushines" about Mafia life in South
Brooklyn. The second picture opposite was of a stunningly beautiful woman
with long dark hair and green eyes and a feminine version of that same
flashing smile on the screenwriter.  She was dressed only in a string
bikini top and a g-string, and had posed seductively in an arched back
stance with one hand in her hair and another on her hip.  This picture was
taken from a promotion shot for a popular "Gentleman's Club" in Santa
Monica.  The man and woman looked to a casual observer like they were
brother and sister, probably twins.  Carl had played around with some
morphing sofware and had found that all the pics between the two had
morphed seamlessly.  He only wished that the book he was writing about
these images in the two pictures would meld together as easily.  He was
almost finished with the research and interviews, and a movie deal was
being negotiated even before the book went into print.  It was a huge risk
that would most likely ruin his credibility as a journalist if it failed,
but would make him a media superstar if the book was believable enough to
overcome the sansationalism.  A friend in the Los Angeles FBI office had
tipped him off about an explanation that would be offered in a press
conference in the case when and if the book became a best-seller, but Carl
had figured that with the prevalant attitude of the American public toward
the government and their skeptasism of explanations offered by the
authorities, that his agent could use that in his favor with well
publicized claims of a government cover-up.  He had the testimony of a
California Highway Patrol officer and an LAPD homicide detective, along
with interviews with everyone he could find who knew both of the people in
these pictures.  He knew that mysterious stories like this could sell big
if it was well researched, written, and convincing in its content.  He
looked over at the TV screen in the room imagining himself in the chair
opposite Larry King, and was close to convinced himself that something had
happened during an alien abduction which had transformed the handsome
writer on the left of his screen into the beautiful dancer on the right.

  
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   FREE AT LAST!!!  Alex had almost gotten to the point where she didnt
think they were ever going to let her off that damn base, and now she was
enjoying the ride in the empty desert from Nellis Air Force Base into Las
Vegas.  She was so overjoyed at her freedom that she had gotten over the
anger she had felt when Dr Julie Levin had told her that she couldnt see
the transcripts of the hypnosis sessions.  Alex had accused Dr Levin of
using her as a guinea pig and fucking around with her mind.  How was she
ever going to know how all this had happened to Her?  She needed to know
for herself that she wasnt just some crazy woman who had finally flipped
and imagined herself to be a reincarnation of a missing writer?  Alex had
noticed Dr Levin's eyes starting to get moist and teary and then Julie
whispering that as Dr Levin her therapist she couldnt tell her anything,
but as her friend and confidant Julie Levin she could manage to recall the
important details of the abduction, they just had to do it away from the
base, and Julie had promised her that she would get the opportunity to tell
her when they got to Vegas, and that she had planned a big weekend for the
both of them.  She opened her purse and looked again at the driver license
which had been issued to her with the last name lengthened to Delahanty,
which she remembered was her grandfather's last name in Ireland, who had
shortened it to Dell when he came to America to throw off any British
investigators who might follow him to America to arrest him for IRA
activities.  She laughed at the irony of a changed identity which had come
full circle, and breathed deeply the night desert air coming in the window,
and unfastened a few buttons on her blouse enough to show her cleavage and
the top of her bra and felt the air cool her off.  She looked at Julie and
saw her starting to shift a little in the drivers seat and run her
fingernails along the steering wheel lightly, and noticed that her breasts
heaved slightly.  Julie found her excitement growing as they approached the
outskirts of Las Vegas, and recalled to herself that the last time she had
felt this way was when she had fallen head over heels in love in college
with an Italian guy she was convinced she would marry, but her mother had
constantly found fault with him and the relationship eventually fell apart.
Ever since then it seemed that her mother was trying to fix her up with
every Jewish professional from Boston to Miami, but with none of them had
excited her and she had made excuses to her mother about concentrating on
her career.  Julie knew that she wasnt a lesbian and would hopefully find a
man to excite her, but Alex's beauty, intelligence,humor, and magnetism
were so overwhelming her that she felt like she was falling deeply in love
with Alex.  Her psychology studies had taught her that women could feel a
deep love for each other and even experiment sexually and still be
heterosexual.  But for this weekend at least, she would treat herself to 3
days of joy and ecstacy and companionship she had missed for so long with
the beautiful result of experiments those alien medical scientists had done
to the person in the passenger seat of her car.

  
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