Darkworld: Earth

2.19.

Major Mary Phillips felt better than she had in weeks, and it was mostly due to a good night’s sleep. The alien drugs she was taking might have something to do with it as well, she wasn’t certain what they all did.

She had expressed her exhaustion to one of her Yonohoan contacts during a call, literally falling asleep mid-sentence. When she had awoken, she had seen the alien’s concern. After that, the calls for her attention had abruptly stopped. Her superior had called her into her office and explained the situation.

The Yonohoans were worried about her health. She had shown that she was willing to sacrifice her health for her job, and while they respected her dedication they would not be party to her self-destruction. So they were presenting her with an option.

She could either submit to their medical care, or she could have her duties assigned to other officers.

She had chosen the alien medicine.

The scanner was in a secure facility beneath eight stories of concrete, and the room had been filled with people who were there to observe the examination and display of the alien technology. To everyone’s surprise, all it had involved was standing on what looked like a giant scale. Mary hadn’t been expecting it to produce a hologram of her nude body, but both she and the others in the room had handled it with professionalism.

The aliens had proscribed a number of medications for her, as well as an official bedtime. Two days into her treatment and she felt much, much better. She had lost time, but she made up for it in her ability to focus like she hadn’t been able to for weeks.

She closed the door to the communication room. In the center of the table was a small egg which, quite frankly, nobody knew how it worked. Every government had been given thousands of the devices, but although they were convenient, earthlings continued to trust in their own networks and devices for secure purposes.

Right now, however, she was on the clock.

“Please put me in contact with anyone who is currently waiting to speak with me,” she asked the device.

“There are six Yonohoans in stasis waiting for your availability,” the device informed her. “Is there any which has priority?”

“Let’s sort by priority level of the communication request and then the length of time in which they have been in stasis,” Mary suggested.

A moment later, the alien PDA flickered and a hologram of Tilandrous appeared.

“Hello Mary. You are looking much better than the last time we spoke. I hope your health has improved?” the senatorial aide inquired.

“I believe it has, my friend,” she said. “I must thank you for your insistence upon seeing to it that my superiors took my health into account. I must admit that I’m a little surprised that you did not simply allow them to replace me.”

“After we have spent weeks attempting to build our relationship with you, personally? We would have understood if you had needed to step aside for health reasons, Mary. But we see your dedication to your role as an important and desirable attribute. We had not realized how many of us had selected you as a point person, and when the realization that you had been handling almost three dozen of us was made, we were forced to re-prioritize our own staff. A few of your friends were reluctantly informed of the value of your undivided attention and may begin relaying less critical information to your staff and aides.”

“I thank you for your consideration. Is my health the only reason you were waiting to speak with me?” Mary asked.

“No. We have received in excess of ten thousand requests from members of your citizenry from a certain region of North America. We believe it is due to the actions of one of our irresponsible researchers. However, approximately sixty percent of the requests have been approved and we wish to begin establishing the protocol for delivering gifts to your people who have requested them.”

Mary’s good mood took a sudden hit as the impact of Tilandrous’s words hit her. “I’m sorry, I’m going to need a lot more detail than that, Tilandrous. What sort of requests are being filed, where are they coming from, and who authorized them?”

Tilandrous cheerfully answered the questions, completely unaware of just how pissed off her superiors were going to be when they discovered the leak.

~~~~~

“How exactly can I help the FBI?” Olivia asked once the agents had finished showing her their ID’s.

“May we speak somewhere private?” Agent Morrison asked.

“My office is right this way, but I’d like to ask you to give me a moment to tidy it first. I may have left some patient information out in the open,” she explained.

“While you are going through your files, it might be best to pull out case number 20495,” the other agent, Agent Osterham, said. “We have a warrant for a copy the files and wish to discuss the matter with you, his attending physician.”

“Of course,” she said. “I can see a number of factors in this case which might flag it for your attention. Let’s wait for some privacy before we discuss the matter further. And, of course, I will need the hospital lawyers to look at the warrant.”

“Of course. We sent it ahead of time for their approval,” Morrison said. “If you’ll give them a call, they should inform you that it’s valid and cover the scope of the investigation.”

They waited at the door while she quickly cleaned her office and called the hospital’s legal team. She listened carefully to the lawyer as she was told that, effectively, everything was on the table. Treatment notes, progress reports, everything.

She was a little surprised that the usual materials that were kept confidential were to be disclosed this time. She didn’t see how some of the information was relevant to finding any potential abusers in John’s past.

It was difficult for her, not knowing what had happened to John to make him run away. She took pride in her part of his treatment and reintegration into society. If someone had hurt John in the past, she desperately wished that the FBI would help him get justice against his abusers.

She pulled the manila envelope that contained the paper records of his stay, as well as bringing up his electronic chart. Since the agents were cleared for everything, she would be fully compliant with their requests.

It was the least that she could do to play her part in the investigation into John’s origins.

She returned to usher the agents into her office and offer them seats. Once everyone was comfortable, she folded her hands and gave them a confident smile. “So, you’re looking into John’s past. I can’t say that I’m entirely surprised, the story of how he appeared in the forest is very concerning from a law enforcement perspective. We were all expecting far more signs of abuse than we found.”

“But you did find evidence of abuse?” Osterham inquired.

“Not exactly. At first John displayed some signs of a developmental or neurological condition, which might account for the circumstances if he were to have been abandoned by his primary caretaker. He initially repeated every word that was spoken to him, and then as soon as he sensed our concern with that behavior he became nonverbal. He continued to make his needs known as best he could and was cooperative with the instructions that he understood. It became apparent, however, that he did not understand English.”

“What language did he speak?” Morrison asked.

“That’s just it, I have no idea. I can’t place his accent. After a week of being nonverbal he abruptly began speaking to select caretakers. I was honored to be one of them. He refuses to speak his native tongue, but he learned English rapidly and is currently quite proficient,” she explained. “He has spoken only a very few words in his native tongue, which I’ve written in his file, but I couldn’t find any common language between them.”

“What words were they?”

“Mostly the names of monsters, so probably just made up words,” she said. “He explained once that he knows how to fight Topoka, Kortoko, and Requeti. He’s very insistent that he’s a superhero who fights against monsters to protect people.”

Olivia expected a polite smile from the agents at the imagination of the youth, but instead they exchanged serious expressions.

“You’re certain he said the word ‘Topoka,’ and that he called it a monster?” Morrison asked.

“Yes. I wrote the words down immediately after the interview to research them,” Olivia said. She cocked her head. “It might have been aliens instead of monsters, I’m not sure. He used them interchangeably, but he also listened to the radio a lot. With the whole Yonohoan delegation going on it might have been related to that.”

“It is possible that he heard of them that way,” Osterham pointed out. “Did he draw any images of them?”

“No. John never showed any interest in taking part in arts and crafts,” she explained. “He didn’t even doodle on the papers we gave him while he was learning to write. Why, you’re not going to tell me that Topoka are real, are you?”

“Yes ma’am. They are an alien race allied with the Yonohoans. They’re apparently afraid of us so they’re not involved in the delegation,” Morrison explained. “However, I’m not certain that they’ve been made public. They’re not classified, but everyone is pretty focused on the Yonohoans and not their allies.”

Olivia frowned at the news. “Well, knowing John, he would have only needed to hear the name once. He’s highly intelligent.”

“Yes ma’am, we can imagine. We’d like to examine his hospital stay from the beginning, going day by day,” Morrison said. “We’re looking for any little detail that might bring out his origins. He might have said or done something strange that you dismissed as being a childish behavior or personal tick but would actually help us locate his parents.”

“Of course. To be honest, I’m just glad that John’s case is getting so much attention. I was worried that he might slip through the cracks,” Olivia agreed.

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