"Talk to me?" Hannah said, as she stepped into the lab. "Did you guys do the eeg?"

Cheryl blushed. "No. We didn't get a chance. And we didn't know whether it was a good idea to try now until you got here."

"Have you tried talking to him?" she asked.

Her assistants shook their heads. She couldn't blame them for not doing anything. The situation was beyond the realm of any normal paleontology assignment. They dealt with dead fossils and other things of the like, not ones that appeared alive and moving. But she couldn't figure out how this was happening. He was definitely dead, trapped in ice for ages. For a body to come back from that should be possible.

Hannah walked over to the wall where the intercom was and pressed the bottom. "Son, can you hear me?"

His head tilted to the side and his mouth opened, but only black liquid dribbled out. They'd done a preliminary study of the surface of the body and found no injuries.No outward signs of what caused his death, so she'd begun to wonder whether he was frozen quickly and died that way. But now, he was sitting there staring at them, looking mostly alive. From what she could see his eyes were still glazed over, so he appeared to be blind.

It looked like he'd heard her, but it was hard to tell. She had to get in there and check him out. Listen to his heart, and try to communicate with him. Find out who he is, where he came from? Judging by his size, she'd say he was around five years old.

"I've gotta go in there." Hannah said, looking at Adams. "And we shouldn't expose more people than necessary. I think I should go by myself at least until we know what we're dealing with."

Xavier shook his head. "No way. That's not going to happen. A security officer should go with her. I'll go."

Adams agreed. "But it's not going to be you. I need you to get your crew together and brief them on the situation."

"But—" Xavier protested, pulling her to his side.

She squirmed out of his hold. For some reason since she slept in his bed, he seemed to think he could touch her whenever he wanted. She was glad that Adams refused to let him go in with her, because she didn't think she'd be able to concentrate if he was the one looking over her shoulder.

"They are right. You can't put yourself directly in harm's way until you have absolutely no choice."

"I'll go," Clint offered.

Hannah shook her head. "Sir, I'd like it to just be my staff. They have been trained to deal with situations like this."

"I'm sorry. If there is a chance there is any risk to my station, a guard must be present with you," Adams said, sitting down on the corner of the desk, his arms crossed over his chest.

Xavier lips were pulled together into a firm line as his brow furrowed. He wasn't happy, but that wasn't her problem. He was much too valuable to the station for her to risk him. Not that she really believed there to be any risk. He just looked like an average boy with eyesight problems. He wasn't currently freaking out or being violent. He just looked a wee bit freaky to her with the black ooze coming out of his mouth.

"Fine, Clint can go."

"I want him to stay by the door though and not interfere with us in any way," Hannah ordered. "Cheryl, prepare midazolam just incase."

"What if he's not alive?" Cheryl asked.

Hannah rolled her eyes. "We're not in the movies for goodness sake. Let's hold our judgment until after we examine him. Clint, do you have restraints?"

"You mean like handcuffs?" Clint asked.

"No, the bed straps."

"There's some in the clinic," Xavier said. "I'll go grab them. Don't go in there until I get back."

She was itching to get inside and see what they were dealing with. It couldn't be a parasite that they were dealing with. They don't usually make an entire body come back to life. Had they somehow gotten the time frame wrong at the dig site? But that still didn't explain how he could be alive. It took them a few days to unthaw the body and that's not including the time he spent in the ground. They had to be dealing with something not quite human.

Could he have been in some type of stasis chamber, like you see in futuristic movies? This excited her and freaked her out at the same time. She felt like she was almost out of her element here. She dealt with dead things, not ones that were alive.

"Director, could you get Doctor Booth down here. I've decided I want him to go in with me. I'm a paleontologist/pathologist, not a family physician."

"Dr Booth is our only official doctor on the site, so we'll have Corey go with you."

Adams stepped out of the office to contact Corey while Hannah turned back to face the boy, her hand resting by her mouth as she chewed on her thumb nail. She was genuinely puzzled. For being a child, he didn't seem at all phased by the situation. He's just sitting there like a zombie, zoned out to the world. That thought made the movie Dawn of the Dead pop into her head again. Why the heck did she watch it?

"Zombies aren't real. They aren't real," she murmured. Things don't rise from the dead. Biologically they didn't have that capability. Humans could turn vicious if exposed to certain things, but they were still alive. Now, that was real. "Flynn, I want you in there with me. Cheryl, I want you filming from this side of the window."

"Fine by me," her friend said, her shoulders drawn back and tense, her eyes borderlining on frantic. "I don't want to go in there until I know what we're dealing with."

It's always nerve-wrecking when you come up against something new for the first time. And the fact that they already uncovered an alien element, they really had no idea what was going on inside that little boy. Who he was. What he was. Was he even from earth? She had always wondered if life existed elsewhere in the galaxy. It was far too big for there not to be anything.

And if they were dealing with something new, then Flynn was the better choice. He was almost done with his Doctorate, while Cheryl had just completed her masters, but was set to go back to school next semester and continue her science journey. She was extremely proud of both of them for how far they've come. While extremely rewarding, science is a hard field to go into. Physics and organic chemistry gave most people a run for their money, and made so many students leave the field.

She was honestly glad that she'd stuck it out because she wouldn't be here otherwise. They were dealing with something undiscovered, of that she was sure. It was the find of a lifetime. The kind that would put all their names in the records book. Schools around the world would be talking about this. And to be part of that even before you finished your degrees, companies would be fighting each other to hire her assistants, just as had happened to her.

"Clemmens," Xavier said, looking over at the assistant director. "I'm not liking this. I need to go in with them."

"We need you out here."

Xavier grumbled his displeasure, and a giggle escaped Hannah's lips before she could stop it. He turned those gorgeous blue eyes her way and all she could remember was the feel of his arms wrapped around her. His fingers dangerously close to her breasts

.

At the time, she hadn't been overly observant of that fact, too lost in her own mind, but now she was keenly aware of everything. How his body had pressed up against hers. The feel of his hardened manhood touching her behind. He could have taken what she offered him, but he didn't, like many red-blooded males would have. Even though he had to have been uncomfy, he was the perfect gentleman. In a way, she wished he wouldn't have remained so and took what she offered. She wanted a reason to push him away, not a reason to want to get closer to him. He wasn't supposed to be every woman's dream. 

"You aren't on the loveboat, Hannah," she murmured to herself. She'd already been bitten once. He could very well have a family hidden at home, and she'd be none the wiser until it was too late. And she had no intention of ever putting herself in that position. Intentionally, she turned away from Xavier and put her attention on the boy inside the room.

Xavier could see the conflict in her eyes when she looked at him. He was oddly conflicted, too, in more ways than one. There was an obvious pull in her direction especially after their afternoon in bed. Protecting her was quickly becoming his top priority when it really shouldn't be. He had an entire station to protect, but it made him nauseous just thinking about her going in there without him, and having to let someone else do it. He trusted Clint. He was a good guard, but he wasn't him.

It drove him nuts because Adams was right. He had a duty to the entire station and not just her. That meant he had to be on the outside, taking care of everyone, directing his team. At times, he really hated being the supervisor because it seemed to restrict his movements more than any other position. He loved going out in the field, but he had to remain on board to run things on the security side. It almost felt like he'd been benched, taken out of the best part of the game, but it was what it was, and he couldn't do much about it.

Hannah, Clint, Flynn, and Corey suited up in their special isolation gear. "This kind of feels like overkill. He's already in an isolation pod in an isolation room," Flynn said, holding out his hands for the gloves to be taped. The lab area was quite packed with people, not leaving everyone much room to move. Clemmens and Adams were by the entrance, Corey, Hannah, Flynn and Cheryl were near the front of the room by the door that leads into the isolation chamber. Xavier and his partner Clint were standing in the middle of the room.

"You be on full alert in there, got it?" he said to Clint, who nodded in response.

Once everyone was in their gear, Hannah turned to address everyone, especially the team going in with her. "Here's the plan. I think it's in the child's best interest if only one of us engages with him, otherwise he may get overwhelmed. We also need to keep our movements calm and steady. I know it's hard to move in these outfits, but anything erratic may upset him and make him scared. He's already going to be afraid of us because we look like monsters not people in these getups. And lastly, I do not want us to surround him or he may panic."

She turns specifically to the security team. "I know you have weapons, but you will not use them in any case. No tasers or guns. We'll restrain him and subdue him if and when necessary. If we have to do that, we'll ask for your help in restraining him while we give him a sedative. That's it. Nothing else. Got it?"

Clint looked over at him, and Xavier nodded. They could do it her way unless lives were in danger, then they'd do whatever it took to keep everyone safe. But he was impressed by her take charge attitude, very much in control of the situation. Her actions told him exactly how she got into the position that she did and is already leading her own scientific discovery. That didn't normally happen until you were a lot older.

She did have a take control attitude though, which was hot, and a surprising contrast to the way she was in his bedroom earlier, aside from the initial seduction attempt. She relinquished control and allowed him to comfort her, to lead her away from the washroom and to his bedroom. Something told him that it was a rarity and she very much enjoyed leadership in the bedroom too. There was nothing hotter than a woman who knows what she wants. It took all of his strength not to go down that road when she threw herself at him. He was thankful that he hadn't had any alcohol in his system and was fully sober, or he wouldn't have managed such restraint.

"Oh and by the way, no matter what happens, if you are not geared up, you do not enter that room. Is that understood?" She glanced around at everyone and watched them nod. "Okay, let's do this.