“Anita?” He realized his call sounded more a whisper. “Anita? It’s me, Omar.”

He spied a shadow move behind an overturned table. He could not tell-not at first-if that shadow belonged to his wife or one of the horrors inhabiting that vile place.

“Omar-Omar?” Her voice suggested she did not trust her ears.

He jogged to her. Anita Nehru lay with her knees pulled to her chin and propped against a side wall below a fire extinguisher. She had positioned herself just inside a rim of darkness as if hiding from all she had done.

“I’m here, Anita.”

He snuffed his cigarette on the floor and knelt. As his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he saw deep bags under her eyes and her hair bundled in tangled mess. She lazily held a pistol in one hand. In the other she clasped a bundle of notes and papers.

“It’s you. You came.”

“Of course.”

She smiled briefly then her eyes stared beyond him at some sight visible only to her eyes. He easily removed the pistol from hand and slid it out of reach.

“I want to go home, Omar. I want to leave this place.”

“Yes, of course. This we shall do. Come along, right now.”

She appeared ready to move but stopped as she remembered something. Her eyes glanced around at the now-dead containment cells. Then she became conscious of the notes in her grasp.

“Wait, Omar, listen to me. I did all this-I did it all for a reason.”

“I am sure. But let’s talk of this when we get home.”

She grabbed his arm and said, “Listen, Omar, I understand now. Do you hear me? Trevor has to know. He has to know that we never had a chance. All of the guns and the armies won’t be enough, Omar. We never had a chance!”

“Anita, come home with me.”

“All these years down here-these things have gotten inside my head. I’ve studied them under a microscope, in the lab-most of them are just animals like what we have here on Earth-just a little different in how they look. That’s not important. But the others-I have watched them one little piece at a time. It’s been like a puzzle-coming together. No-more like coming into focus. I can’t explain it, but I know now. I know why the others are so different.”