Day Ten ∞ Sunday

THE RETURN PATH TOOK THEM almost exactly the same way they came. They walked in silence: a thoughtful Danny a few paces behind Mickmi with the dog by her side, mulling over the last thing she'd said about getting back. There was a sense of urgency in the way she said it—but why would the panther be in a hurry to get back to his house?

They passed the last neighbor's property and were approaching his backyard when something else struck him. "Hold on, Mickmi."

She turned back to him and met his gaze for an instant before pulling at her neck to check the marks. She had picked up on his train of thought; the marks were still there, though not as red.

"You've gotta have an explanation for that," he said quietly, as Zorro sat beside him. "You can't hide it all the time... You never know when they reappear."

"I remember fighting the cougar..."

"You know you can't tell anyone that; they won't believe you anyway." He paused, noting that she no longer had dark streaks in her eyes. "So..."

"I must say, I remember not," she said, her gaze locked with his.

"Yeah. And?"

"That... I was so young when it happened. That you told me—"

"No. I couldn't have told you anything..."

"That someone told me...?" Her brow furrowed. "That I was told I was abandoned at a zoo—and somehow got into the cougar's cage..."

"And that's where they found you—just in time," he added, nodding. "It's as good an explanation as any. You wouldn't know how or where it happened. You would've been too young to know; and that kind of trauma you would've repressed anyway. No one can question that; they can see your scars healed really well so they must be old... So... you were told what supposedly happened—that's the truth. A cougar caused it—that's the truth as far as you remember. The how and when: you don't know, because what you remember, or think you remember, can't be taken at face value—so, that's the truth too. You don't really know," he concluded, studying her.

Her gaze became distant.

"You okay with that?"

She looked back at him. "I must be," she said after a moment. "Unscarred skin with scars underneath..."

"It's a plausible explanation."

"A piece of my cover story..." She sighed.

"Yeah."

"But... who told me?"

"The people you grew up with would've told you that that's what the orphanage told them. That's all you know."

She drew a long breath as she gazed beyond him, her face still. Then she nodded and started walking again, resuming her memory.

"I passed the dead dog," she said as they approached the backyard. They stepped through the tall grass, past the trampled area where he'd found Lad. She stopped when she reached the kennel. "This dog sniffed at me..."

He frowned. "Zorro? He didn't bark at you or growl?"

"Nay... He knew I was never a threat..." She looked at the dog, then met Danny's gaze. "I was losing strength... He licked my wounds..." She continued walking.

He stared at the dog in surprise. You licked the panther's wounds? "Man, I wish you could talk, Zorro," he muttered. Zorro made a small sound in reply as he looked back at him, then pointed his attention at Mickmi who disappeared around the corner.

Danny jogged the last few yards to the front yard and tied Zorro to the runner leash before rejoining her as she stood staring at the house.

"The truck was still here... But I needed to get inside..."

Needed? "Mickmi... Why would you need to get inside? Do you know?"

"Because... I was inside," she replied quietly without taking her eyes of the house.

He drew a long breath; so the panther knew she was inside. And why was that important for the panther? He followed her up to the porch. This is it...

"The door was open..." She pulled the screen door and he moved ahead to open the door for her. But she didn't cross the threshold; she just stood there stilling her breath, staring at the top of the stairs.

He looked back at her questioningly.

She exhaled. "Nothing." She lowered her gaze to him, the yellow streaks were almost gone. "I remember nothing more."

He exhaled a long breath—he didn't realize he'd been holding it too. "Man..." He closed his eyes in disappointment. "You remember coming to the door—but do you remember going up the stairs?" He met her gaze.

"Nay..."

"What about coming out of bed, standing up there on the landing? And I caught you?"

She looked past him, her brow furrowing in concentration. "Nay..." Her gaze slid back to him, the furrow growing deeper.

"Okay." He shook his head. "Don't worry about it. This is still progress."

Her expression relaxed a little, and then a small smile appeared. "I remember waking up," she placed a hand on his chest, "and you were there..."

He smiled, placing his hand on top of hers. "Yeah, I was... So we don't really know what happened to the panther after it came back then... Maybe something more will come to you...?"

"Maybe...," she said and shook her head once. She looked to the yard for a moment, then stepped inside to take off her shoes. "They come."

"They who?"

"Your family. They return." She came up to him again and pressed her cheek against his. "I am fine," she breathed and stepped back, gazing at him.

"You sure? None the worse for wear?" he said and touched her chin.

"None the worse... Worry not." She smiled, then left abruptly for the study.

He sighed and returned to the porch. True to her word: moments later, the yellow Honda Civic appeared between the trees.

∞

"Dan, could you come here a bit?" Gina's head disappeared into her room.

Danny spun around and retraced his steps upstairs, curious. He couldn't remember when last his sister had called him to her room. He went inside and sat on a corner of her bed, watching her rummaging through her closet. "What's up?"

She pulled out two dresses and held them out, inspecting them, returning one and pulling out another. "Phil asked me to dinner tonight. I haven't figured out what to wear yet."

"Oh... yeah. That's what he wanted to do a week ago to cheer you up. But you disappeared on him."

"I know. Don't remind me." She grimaced. "But I'll be better company tonight." She hung the two dresses on the door and sat down next to him. "Have you noticed anything off with Mom lately?"

"Off?" His brow contracted. "No more than usual... Well... other than her spouting off a lot of Bible verses nowadays."

"I don't mean that. I'm worried. I know she got a clean bill of health and all that, but she seems to be getting a bit scatter-brained."

"Mom? Scatter-brained? You mean, like early symptoms of old age?"

"Yes. I noticed it yesterday for the first time. When you and Mickmi just came home and were outside... She's so against you and her getting together but says she can't interfere. And she kept saying she can't interfere—then all of a sudden it's like she couldn't remember what she was talking about."

"Oh!" Now he understood what was going on—but there was no way he could tell his sister about Selina manipulating their mother. "I must've pushed too hard..."

"What do you mean?"

He tried to look guilty. "I made it clear in no uncertain terms that she mustn't interfere with Mickmi and me. That must've stressed her a lot."

"Oh... I guess that might be the reason." She contemplated for a while. "Well, she insists on going back to work tomorrow. I don't know if that's a good idea."

"Why not? It will keep her mind busy... Plus she'll spend less time stressing over me, right? I think it'll be good for her."

"You think so?" She sighed. "Okay, maybe it is. We'll just keep an eye on her, both of us, in case it gets worse."

He nodded.

"And I'll drive her. I don't think the three of you in your truck is going to go so well..."

He chuckled at the thought of Mother and Mickmi sitting next to each other for the short trip in and out of town every day and shook his head. "You're right; keep that stress to the minimum. Thanks, Sis." He got up as Gina returned to her closet. "Anything else?"

She turned, holding the two dresses up in front of her. "Which one?"

"Both of them look good on you."

She rolled her eyes. "You're no help at all! Could you ask Mickmi to come up here to help me decide?"

He found Mickmi on the floor in the study, still pouring over the encyclopedia. "Hey."

She looked up at him with a smile. "Have you a library nearby?"

"What? Aren't these enough for you?" He sat down on the footstool in front of her, chuckling.

She reached for a volume beside her, opened it up at a page and handed it to him. "Chromosomes. It states not much, just that mammals have between six and ninety-four chromosomes. And it gives only one example: man."

He looked at the page and concurred: the entry was sadly sparse with its information on chromosomes. "And you want to know which animal has thirty-eight," he said, nodding. "Sure, there's one in town; we can go after work tomorrow." He gave the book back to her. "Mind taking a break? Gina's asking for you."

∞

Major Sterling entered the makeshift medical room and dismissed the personnel. "Leave the monitors," he said; he wanted to know exactly how the EBE would react to what he had to say. The three military medical researchers exited the room, leaving him alone with the woman. No one would be hearing the audio from this room, and no one on his unit knew the contents of the file in his hand. It had been found buried among past case files about to be archived as his unit took over the building. He needed to determine what clearance level to assign it.

He watched the monitors for a while and noted the consistent pattern the needles made: far from normal measures. Most of the tests so far had returned varying degrees of abnormality. She usually breathed once a minute, and her heart rate was alarmingly low by human standards. Only her physical body on the macro level appeared normal according to the x-rays and ultrasound images.

He sat on a stool in front of the woman and studied her—she hadn't opened her eyes yet. She sat strapped to the chair, slightly reclined, with her hair parted in sections to allow the placement of electrodes to monitor brain activity. He opened the file, quickly scanning the cover page again. 17-AUG-1979. The day of the intrusion. He looked up again to ask his first question and found her looking back at him with her pale eyes. 

"Do you know a 'Blanc Aave'?" He glanced at the monitor behind her—there was no change there. "This report says that two days ago this building was invaded by a singular entity identifying itself as a 'Maarian Aumega'. It claimed to be alone. But you are here. Did that entity come with you?"

The woman made no move to answer—there was no spike on the monitor, and she still kept that annoyingly amiable expression on her face without fail.

"Where is that entity? Do we have to drag-net the entire state to find it? We do not tolerate unknown entities trespassing on American soil." He glanced at the monitor again.

"Here."

The readings showed no variations at the utterance, Sterling noted as he returned his gaze to the woman. She hadn't changed her expression, but something in what he said must have struck a chord. "Thank you for finally speaking to me. We'll make better progress this way."

The woman made a small movement with her head without disturbing the wires.

"Let's start over. I'm Major Sterling, Special Operations Command. I've been charged with locating and detaining extraterrestrial biological entities such as you—and negotiating their cooperation. What may I call you?"

"Selina."

Finally some progress! Sterling nodded slowly. "Okay. Selina. Before we continue, you were saying something about that 'Aumega'. Where is it?"

"Here."

"You mean 'here', as in 'somewhere inside this building'?"

She moved her head again, a nod.

Sterling jumped to his feet but quickly checked himself. If he was going to catch that thing, the last thing he wanted was to act rashly. Instead, he'd gather a small group of his most trusted men and search the entire building room by room, quietly.

He strode to the door, paused, and looked over his shoulder. "I'm not done with you." 

— ∞ —

©2016/2017 by kemorgan65