Darkworld: Earth

2.32.

Doctor Olivia Nunes stared at the scanner results of the patient. She sighed as she realized that she couldn’t really interpret the readout at all. There were some of the usual lab results buried in there. The CBC report was calculated into the familiar order that she was used to, as where most of the chemistry and hormone results.

But there was such a thing of information overload. She didn’t really need to know how much Carbon-14 the patient had in his body.

“I have absolutely no idea how I’m supposed to interpret half of these results,” she admitted. “How is he doing, Doctor?”

The Yonohoan medical expert studied the readout for several moments longer before speaking. “The pseudo organs which were responsible for generating his weaponry have been disabled. They are presently in the process of flushing the built up nanites out of his body through normal waste mechanisms. In a few days he will be fully decommissioned. If he follows standard protocols that have been in practice for the past sixty thousand years, then he should wake up shortly after that.”

“And then he’ll be a regular boy again?” Olivia asked.

“He will retain some of his enhanced strength. The nanites have strengthened his bones and muscles to the point where he is stronger than three adult men. That strength will fade over time, and he will return to baseline,” Trenola assured her colleague. “The question is, what comes after that?”

Olivia turned back to her patient, whom she had first met as John Doe. He was restrained and clothed only in a paper gown. His hair had been shaved and was showing its white roots. The shape of his skull had changed; the systems which had disguised his appearance had reverted their work and he now once more looked Yonohoan. He had been unconscious for a week, and depended upon the IV’s in his left arm to keep him hydrated, and the feeding tube in his nostril for nutrients.

“Oh John. What is going to happen to you now?” she asked.

~~~~~

Major Mary Phillips stood in the oval office. She was not with the other generals this time, but rather she was alone with the president of the united states. While the POTUS was not her commander in chief – she answered to the ESF, which answered to all governments of Earth and none of them at the same time, she had respect for the woman and had withheld none of the secrets during her briefing of the John Doe situation.

“So that’s it. He’s been disabled, and no longer poses a threat to society?” Elizabeth – call me Beth – Walker asked.

“That is what the Yonohoans claim. They say that it seems that his original wetware received a forced update after he was cloned,” Mary explained, standing before the desk of the oval office. “They were able to download the orders that he received. He was ordered by the man he believed to be his superior officer to infiltrate planet Earth and conduct standard Forward Scout protocol. It was standard training for soldiers of his rank to receive such orders upon their graduation, and they were only to trust information which came to them containing the correct codes. Which we did not have when we tried to explain to him that the organization that he served was disbanded millennia ago.”

“Goddamn bastards. So he was following his training the entire time? Do we know who put him up to it?” President Walker asked.

“It remains a mystery. One hypothesis is that it was the same people who put the Jamming Device in the Lagrange point. Another is that it was an unknown adversary and that the Jamming Device was a response by another unknown entity attempting to counter the agency that sent John at us. We know far more about John and his past than the individuals who are truly responsible for this situation.”

“You don’t think the kid bears any blame?” Walker asked.

“He was a dog trained to bite and maul intruders, ma’am. A shotgun pointed at earth by someone who remains hiding behind the scenes. You don’t blame a weapon for doing what it’s designed to do or a dog for following its training. I believe that if we had left him alone, he would have assimilated into society as per his training, issuing regular reports to a system that doesn’t exist anymore. The truly tragic part of this was that the purpose of the Forward Scouts wasn’t to take over or attack a world. Their primary objectives were to learn the language, to identify key cultural traditions which needed to be observed by their High-Command once they arrived, and to document and record the crimes of their alien overlords. John was a spy, but he wasn’t a threat to us, ma’am. The fact is that from the beginning he was just trying to fit in. Even when we were shooting to kill, he restrained himself and used only non-lethal weapons until the Yonohoan team arrived.”

“So you’re saying that he wouldn’t have engaged in terroristic activities if we had left him alone,” Walker asked.

“No. I’m saying that if we left him alone, we might have had a superhero walking the streets of our cities,” Mary said. “A real life superman. Or Ironman, without the money or the ego.”

Walker shook her head in disbelief. “What a mess. If any of this gets out everyone involved will be crucified. The Yonohoans for letting this happen and us for how we treated him on the ground.”

“The Yonohoans are victims in this too. Their people were harvested for the gears of the war that was prosecuted by High-Command. Eodar is one of their cultural heroes because throughout his many incarnations and lifetimes he always strode for the highest ideals of what they consider righteousness and justice. Eolai had tried to explain this several times but we weren’t listening.”

“And yet he faced the boy he believed to possess the spirit of his father to mortal combat, believing that he would kill Eodar,” Walker said.

“And thus bring him peace. Yes,” Mary agreed.

Walker sighed. “So what the fuck do we do now?”

“My suggestion? We wait for the kid to wake up, and we see what he has to say.”

~~~~~~

“How are you holding up?” Diego asked Eolai. They hadn’t exercised or sparred together since the operation, and Diego was worried about Eolai’s mental state. He had been melancholy to the point where Diego was considering contacting Yonohoan medical professionals to have him evaluated.

“I am ‘in limbo,’ as you would say on Earth. I am waiting to hear of my father’s fate, and until I know what it will be I will not know what to feel except the numbness that came after the joy that his decommissioning had failed to end his life,” Eolai explained.

“Okay. I’m still somewhat angry at you for not telling me that you knew he would attempt to commit seppuku when we had him cornered,” Diego said.

Eolai’s eyes flashed as the device on his ear defined the unfamiliar cultural term, then nodded. “Of course there is a culture on Earth which would understand my father’s soul. Earth is a true cultural gem. It’s diversity fills me with wonder and joy at its existence, even now.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Diego pressed.

“So that you would not hesitate. It’s what he would have wanted, in all of his incarnations. Even this one, who was confused and frightened but still loyal to his duty. To humanity,” Eolai explained.

“I would have felt terrible knowing that I took part in killing a kid,” Diego said.

“Nobody should feel otherwise,” Eolai said. “Even when it is necessary. However, that is not how the events turned out. I would know how to feel and what to do if my father had died that night. I would fling myself into stasis. I would allow the Topokans to select the mothers of my remaining promised children on their own. I would wait in stasis until the last of them had passed from the light of this universe, and then I would have wallowed in misery until the end of my life.”

“Wow. When you grieve, you really grieve, don’t you?” Diego said.

“Yes.”

Diego studied the Yonohoan man for a few moments, and then he pulled him up from the seat he was sitting in. “Come on. Let’s go get some exercise. I’m going to kick your ass in racketball.”

“I am not in the mood for--”

“If you don’t come play racketball with me I’m going to put on my armor and rip off your other arm,” Diego said.

Eolai and Diego stared each other down for a moment. Eolai was the first to break eye contact.

“Sometimes it is the responsibility of the older brother to correct the younger’s path, and sometimes it is the reverse,” he admitted, and he followed Diego into the exercise room.

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