Darkworld: Earth

2.37.

Ji-eun Moon was sitting on her couch with Trevor and the kitten, whom she had named Isabelle, and reading the packet of new employee orientation material from Trefold Aeronautics. It was the standard corporate onboarding material and she probably could get by with just skimming it, but she was going through ti carefully and committing it to memory.

Trevor was reading a paperback and absently stroking her hair. It was peaceful, she was happy, and she was looking forward to her second day of work while the news played in the background.

The president had announced that she was preparing to give a speech regarding the alien infiltrator, and many of the commentators and pundits were opining on what the topics would be. From the dangers of alien technology to calling the entire thing a false flag to create tension with the Yonohoans, the men and women of the newscast had no end of opinions.

“What do you think she’s going to say?” Trevor asked a few minutes before the speech was about to begin.

“Either she’s going to tell the truth that Eodar is still alive and that we’re giving him back to the Yonohoans, or she’s going to lie and hide the fact that we’re giving them back to the Yonohoans,” Ji-eun predicted.

“You think those are the only two options?” Trevor asked.

“Unless we have some magic way of disabling his weaponry, then yes. He’s too dangerous to keep around,” the former captain explained.

“You don’t think they’re going to stash him in a lab somewhere and try to reverse engineer his weapons?”

“Not with who or what he is to the Yonohoans,” she predicted.

“Huh,” Trevor said, and they lapsed into silence again.

When the president came on, Ji-eun turned up the volume. Elizabeth – call me Beth – Walker stood at a podium with a sad expression on her face.

“My fellow Americans. Today, I am about to make what I think will either by my most controversial speech ever – and I believe that is saying something – or my most unifying one. The decision of how my actions today will be viewed is in the hands of history, but I have made my decision.

“First of all. Regarding the incident which required the Yonohoan response team to resolve. I plan to make several statements of fact.

“Fact number one: We know who the agent is, an we have for a while. It has been proposed that this is was a Yonohoan agent working for their government. This is false. The agent has been identified. They were trained circa ninety thousand years ago by a defunct military known as High-Command, or at least that’s what we’re calling them. Due to the use of either flash-cloning technology or stasis, the agent was either revived or preserved from this time with his memories intact. The Yonohoans as we know them today did not exist at that time and the current government of the Yonohoah had no involvement with the agent’s orders or mission.

“The second fact: the rumors that the agent left behind a trail of bodies is false. In fact, we know from the outlined capabilities of the agent that he constantly held himself back, using non-lethal weapons when he had access to WMDs. These weapons were given to him by High-Command as a standard protocol for a soldier of his caliber, and he chose consciously not to use them, despite the risk that it placed him into when he was confronted by our response teams.

“Fact number three: the agent did not choose a school as a target. It was the decision of the forces responsible for bringing him in to utilize the school which the agent first became known to the public.

“Fact number four: the reason that the agent was at that school was because he was enrolled as a student. The agent is a twelve year old boy. Or rather, he is a clone of a child from ninety thousand years ago with all of the memories of that violent and turbulent time intact.

“Fact number five: the agent, this child, underwent a brutal regime of training and brainwashing at the hands of High-Command for the purpose of creating supersoldiers. He was utterly dedicated to his organization and his mission. He was instructed to disregard all information that contradicted his orders from High-Command unless he received deactivation codes, which have regrettably been lost to time.

“Fact number six: according to historical records provided by the Yonohoans, the class that Eodar belonged to had a thirty percent casualty rate while in training.

“Fact number seven: This child was murdered by his organization for the purpose of using replicator technology in order to flash clone him thousands of times. The child that infiltrated Earth and caused these disturbances that have rocked our nation has a long history throughout the conflicts collectively known as the Liberation War.

“He is considered a hero by almost all sides and parties. In particular, he is a cultural hero to the Yonohoans, due in large part because although he was kidnapped from his tribe at a young age and brainwashed by High-Command, he shares their blood and their values.

“Fact number eight: Without intelligence freely given by Eolai of the Yonohoah, we would never have detected the child-soldier who had been sent to us by forces unknown for unknown reasons.”

Walker paused and took a drink of water. She collected her thoughts for a moment, then continued.

“I am sharing these facts with the public in order to try to paint a picture of the delicate situation that we are facing. I put forward, and this is my opinion and not a fact, that the agent, known as John Doe during his time on Earth and known to our allies in the stars as Eodar of the Yonohoah, is the greatest victim in this situation.

“I am not saying that we were not justified in confronting him and attempting to take him into custody. Due to his training and the technology in his possession he posed a clear and present danger to everyone around him. I stand by the decisions that were made that led to the confrontations which caused devastation – devastation but no loss of life! - to a quiet suburban community. I do not regret them and would make them again even knowing what I know now.

“That said, Eodar was born into a hunter-gatherer tribe. At three or four years of age, he watched as stars fell from the sky and struck the ground. From those fallen stars, men and women, no, boys and girls stood up. They smiled and were friendly, and they were naked and nonthreatening. Their tribe clothed these travelers from another world. They invited them into their homes and gave them food and water and taught them the ways of the Yonohoans.

“Unbeknownst to the Yonohoans, these strangers were reporting their information to their organization in order to better assess them for several factors. Factor one; the danger that they were in from their environment or non-human forces. Factor two; any significant cultural traits which would need to be observed. Factor three; any crimes against humanity that were being performed by aliens upon the people they were examining. Factor four: Combat effectiveness.

“These were the forward scouts of High-Command. That is the same organization to which Eodar AKA John Doe belonged to. And he was attempting to duplicate their actions on Earth because that is what he was trained to do.

“Eodar did not come here to cause mass destruction. He came to gather intelligence by pretending to be one of us and blending in. He believed that humanity itself was at war, and he was here to help Earth prepare to play a role in that war for survival and freedom.

“While I do not regret our actions, I cannot help but see the tragedy in Eodar’s story. It is another fact that Eodar, rather than allow himself to be taken alive, activated his decommissioning program. This program, akin to a poison pill, he believed would end his life so that he could not be utilized against High-Command.

“We drove him into a corner and he killed himself.”

Again President Walker paused. She picked up the glass of water on the podium, looked at it, then put it back down.

“Or at least he tried to. For unknown reasons he survived the decommissioning program. Eodar, AKA John Doe, is still alive and in a high security location receiving treatment as the decommissioning program runs its course. His weapons are being deactivated, the nanite systems that allow him to wreak destruction are being flushed from his body. Very soon he will be a regular Yonohoan child once more.”

She paused.

“And that brings us to where we stand now. I have discussed the matter at length with my staff. I have prayed to god. I have talked with Eolai of the Yonohoans, who hold the men who were cloned from the same child as John Doe in the absolute highest regards. And I have come to a conclusion.

“The United States of America will not be pressing charges.”

Ji-eun squeezed Trevor’s hands at the announcement.

“That said, neither will we allow Eodar to go free. Rather, he will remain in custody of a high-security facility until such time as his body returns to that of a normal child. After that, it will be the governments responsibility to see that he is treated for the trauma that he recalls from the original Eodar from whom he was cloned, and we will attempt to reintegrate him into modern society as a functional individual.

“We will be vigilant until we are certain that he is no longer a threat. We will assist him in overcoming his brainwashing. We will heal this pour soul for the damage that was done to him eons ago. And we will do it not because it is easy, but because it is the right thing to do.

“Some of you will ask why we do not simply turn him over to the Yonohoans. It’s a good question. They would take him and thank us for the privilege. We would never see him again, and he would never threaten us.

“The answer is simple.

“Because this is an opportunity to show the universe what standard the American People, no, what standard the people of Earth we hold ourselves to when it comes to the treatment of children and the most vulnerable among us.

“I do not know who sent Eodar to us. But we will take this traumatized child and we will heal him, and we will prove to the universe that nobody is beyond redemption.

“That is all for now. Thank you, and may God bless America.”

The camera changed immediately to a roomful of pundits, and Ji-eun turned the television off.

“Huh,” she said.

“Yeah,” Trevor agreed. “Think you should call Eolai and congratulate him?”

“I’m sure he already knows. I’ll send a message, but I’m not going to take up his time right now. He probably has a million things on his mind.”

~~~~

In a small room in a secure location, a boy was listening to the radio. He had just heard the president of the united states give a speech. About him. And his future.

Were her words the truth? Was he really so lost in time that everything he had been raised to believe was now a lie?

Was everything that he had done meaningless? Everything he had gone through for his people? All the sacrifices he had made? The pain of the implantation procedures. The agony of the training where he was pushed to the limit and beyond?

The bond with his classmates, which he had once believed to be utterly unshakable, meaningless?

He didn’t know.

He was terrified.

Not of the government. They had shown no interest in questioning him. If what they said was true, then he had nothing to tell them that would be of any use anyway. All of his actionable intelligence about High-Command was in its training protocols for Scout Troopers. He could teach them to recreate the training, perhaps. They could use his body as a model to duplicate the --

No, he had been decommissioned, he realized. The implanted organs would be destroying themselves. They should have already destroyed themselves in a wave of destruction that would have destroyed his body and left nothing behind. Instead, for some reason, they were slowly being dissolved.

That alone was proof that High-Command was not who had sent him to Earth. Even if his intelligence wasn’t actionable anymore, they would not have left a loose end like that behind them. Someone had modified him, somehow, for some reason he didn’t know.

He wondered if he cared. He didn’t care about much right now. He would ask Olivia tomorrow if he should care about things like this, because she seemed to know what he should be doing with his mind. All he felt since waking up was numbness.

What had it all been for? What did it mean? Why? Why why why why why?

~~~~~~

On a rooftop, in a small, quiet suburb, a device that had once been a car battery was sending out a signal based on an ancient battle code. It was a Rocktala device, created using nanotechnology and mundane materials. Its signal was in the Ku-band and limited to light speed. The message it sent was heavily encoded and encrypted, unlike normal messages sent by the Rocktalas of the planet Totola.

The device was set to repeat the signal every two minutes indefinitely until the device either ran out of power, or it received a reply.

It abruptly powered off.

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