Saturday, November 5th, 11:00 a.m.

Idiotic fucking humans.

These words played on repeat in Blujh's mind as he sat in the backseat of the cumbersome human vehicle headed to Ceph knows where. He thought about all the ways he could kill these lesser life forms, but these thoughts terminated before they could gain any traction. It may lift a load from his shoulders, but loathe as he was to admit it, these humans were necessary for his survival, his fate inextricably intertwined with theirs.

Blujh had been counting on the soft brain, Vyth's transponder to work and take them both off this blasted rock. When Blujh's superiors tapped him to head the mission to Earth, he had appreciated the trust the Miasma placed in him, but all this science bullshit soared over his head. His area of expertise had and always would be as a tool of destruction; The simplicity of following orders and completing the task before him had always been a source of comfort. Thinking is where Podans got themselves in trouble. Wearing the armor of "just following orders" absolved him of the responsibilities of his actions, but the Miasma had seen something more in him. The ability to go places no other Podan had gone before, with the aid of all the Soft Brain's fancy scientific theories and innovative technology.

Then the fucker had to go and get himself killed.

Blujh noticed the human called Michelle had now lost the dangerous edge she possessed in the heat of combat. Of the humans, he respected this one the most. She carried the strength and resilience of a true warrior. When she informed the group, they must sync up with the human authorities called "The Police," Blujh obliged without complaint.

Blujh did not have a knack for reading the gamut of human emotions and facial expressions, but if he had to guess, Michelle and he were two of the same mind. He maintained perfect control of his facial musculature, but inside, Blujh felt exhaustion, not just of this assignment, but at always being the last man standing.

Usually, Blujh would have been annoyed at their archaic mode of transportation. It was purely ground-based and was reliant on an inefficient petroleum-based fuel, but Blujh was captivated by the majesty of the scenery passing by. The high-speeds he was accustomed to did not allow one to slow down and appreciate the world around them, not that there was much to see anymore.

Firm up, man. You're starting to sound like a Soft Brain.

Blujh pondered what a human security organization would be like, but he was confident that no group of these primitive lifeforms could contain him for any length of time. If anything, they would probably worship Blujh as some kind of deific figure, a conquering hero that saved their universe from almost certain destruction. While this particular group of humans had been instrumental in saving the day, they surely could not have persevered without the strong hand of Blujh. It was a pity that Vergil had been lost; he was an exception among the other humans. Beneath the man's pathetic exterior, he had shown a determination and ingenuity even to get the better of Vyth and Blujh, beings that were the man's vast superiors.

On the other hand, maybe Blujh had been lucky that Vergil had perished. The man would surely have tried to paint Blujh as one of the villains of the day. The remainder of the humans did not know the extent of Blujh's involvement in the events that had transpired this night, and any evidence of Vyth's technology had been left behind in the wreckage. As far as any human organizations would be concerned, Blujh was another dogged survivor of the evening. Blujh lamented the loss of his Oscillator, the weapon had been assigned to him in the early days of the Miasma, but it would not have been of use even if he had kept it. That last confrontation had fully drained it of its lithium stores.

The car ride to The Police passed by in relative silence. From his interactions with Vergil, Blujh would have thought humans were a loquacious lot. The man had been an endless litany of banalities with very little substance. This group proved to be the exact opposite. Not one of them felt the need to express every little feeling. In fact, the collective emotion in the car ride felt akin to the pall that descended over his crew after they had to get their hands dirty.

Do these creatures feel complex emotions like Podans do? Doubtful. Their world is far too primitive.

This silence spurred on a thoughtfulness that Blujh was unaccustomed to. He started to muse on the discrepancies in human's passage of time. Earth time was calculated by tracking the cycle of the sun. To Blujh, the continuous change of light and climate was nothing more than an unpleasant environment condition, hardly anything to allot time increments. It was far inferior to the Podan system of tracking time based on the degradation of the body.

He did not know how much time had elapsed, but it felt like three skin cycles before they arrived at their destination. It looked like a metropolitan area compared to Lancet Falls. Blujh could not believe the little town had had enough workers to sustain basic sustenance. This new town, Burley, seemed large enough to support an entire mass of Podans.

Barely.

However, that is where all similarities ended. The slow, plodding pace of humans would have infuriated the Podans. It seemed like they would not have enough time to accomplish they would need to in such a short period while the Sun was in the sky.

They continuously sapped the water out of their skins, and it reminded Blujh of the Scar in the Wastes. Life could not possibly flourish in such an environment, and yet it did. Blujh wished that Vyth was there to explain it all to him, and he didn't know how he would survive an extended period on this blasted rock.

Paved stretches of rock with painted lines demarcating sides directed cars where they were allowed to go, but there seemed to be few of them on the streets. He wondered if they were still sleeping. Lethargic creatures would not last days on Occan.

Their new vehicle lurched to a stop in front of a spartan building, and Blujh appreciated its workmanship. It seemed like a sensible addition to the landscape. It would offer protection against the harsh environment as well as not wasting materials on cosmetics. Blujh did not understand the human's paper currency, but he knew a lot of it was spent on materials that had nothing to do with sustenance.

Blujh departed the vehicle and expended flexed his muscles to shape himself into a humanoid form strong enough to withstand the force of the Earth's gravity. Another aspect of the Waste that Blujh did not care for. Most Podans could not hold that form for extended periods due to the strength it took to keep it. Vyth had been an anomaly as far as scientists go; he took immaculate care of his body.

An admirable man.

Michelle took the lead of the humans. The tall human named Ron and Christopher took positions behind her. Christopher had been muttering a litany of numbers under his breath during the journey, but Blujh didn't much mind. He expected that type of behavior from humans, the stress of the situation had likely broken the man. A little girl accompanied them and tailed behind the others with a blank in her eye. This one did not even hold a glimmer of intelligence compared to the other humans.

Maybe the young ones are mute until their minds have a chance to develop?

Although the other small ones seemed able to talk, maybe the mutation had advanced their brains to a state beyond that of a typical human. Blujh didn't know why they complained. Vyth had elevated them to a state closer to that of the Podans, but they seemed ungrateful for the collateral damage it caused. They didn't understand that weaker life forms should be deemed a lack of resources.

Their group entered the building with Blujh trailing behind. He contemplated leaving the group and chancing the wilds of this world, but his chances of survival would have turned into an impossibility. These humans may be inferior, but he may be able to learn enough from them to survive in this world before the Miasma came to rescue him. There was a good chance they would retrieve him to silence him, but it beat living on this version of the Trench.

Inside, there was a room with a myriad of different chairs to sit in. The officer ushered Michelle through a glass door where she disappeared into a separate entrance down a hallway. No one addressed Blujh, so he took a seat in one of the chairs. The room had no smell and no discernible features that gave any indication as to its purpose.

Utilitarianism at its finest.

The chairs were arrayed out in rows, but Blujh took one in a corner that gave him a good view of the room as well as either entrance. He was not about to let any humans sneak up behind him.

He hadn't been worried before their arrival, but Blujh thought they would be a united front and standing behind their shared experience, but the humans appeared to be dividing to conquer. One by one, they would cull the group, asking them penetrating questions to make them contradict one another.

Something the Miasma would do.

If this were his world, Blujh knew this process could prove fatal if any of them were caught lying. The other humans insisted that their lives would be over if they revealed Blujh's origins and the human's newfound abilities. The American justice system would punish them for their differences and lock them up and throw away the key. Michelle said that it didn't matter how justified their actions were. The mass murder of infected human beings would land them in just as much trouble as if it weren't in self-defense.

Blujh shook his head at the complexity they placed on the value of human life. If a Podan proved they were not useful or dangerous, it was well within a citizen's right to cull the individual. The individual was well within his or her rights to defend themselves with lethal force if necessary. Even if it weren't needed, many Podans would kill simply to limit their numbers. One less mouth to feed directly benefited their overall survival.

In this room devoid of windows, Blujh found it even harder to tell time. This world and the form he had taken disrupted the attunement that Blujh felt with his own body. He had no idea how long the humans were making him sit there. It was a common Miasma tactic to make Podans sit for a muscle cycle or two before they finally questioned the individual in question. By the time the subject was released from their position, they were in a far more sharing mood—anything to keep them from going back to their timeless isolation. Blujh didn't care how long they made him wait. He had endured worse.

Ron tried to initiate a conversation with each of them, but none of his words had any particular amount of substance. Veritable gallons of sweat gave the man's skin a sheen that reflected the room's artificial light. It implied that he was nervous, so the talking was an effort to forget the stress.

Didn't the humans have any control over their bodies or hormones?

Blujh couldn't imagine not having complete control of his emotions or his body.

After an interminable amount of time, the officer returned to Michelle. She appeared unharmed, and Blujh looked for scars in her vicinity to see if they used more nefarious means to acquire their answers. None were present.

The officer looked between Ron, Christopher, the little girl, and he.

"You," he said, pointing at Blujh and curling his fingers in a gesture that implied Blujh should follow the man.

Blujh followed him past several doors before he stopped in front of a door the color of dull, metallic gray. He opened the door and let Blujh walk through first. It was a move to assert his dominance in the situation, and Blujh acquiesced without a struggle. The last thing he needed was to act on the affront the man exacted upon him. Something that would have given Blujh grounds to defend his dignity, but he didn't feel full of pride lately.

Two metal chairs separated by a metal table were situated in the middle of the room. The officer sat in one chair and waited for Blujh to sit opposite him. Two metal circles were on Blujh's side of the table. He figured they were for restraining cowardly humans, but they didn't pose a threat; he could slip out of them with minimal effort.

When Blujh slumped into the chair, he longed to let go of this form. Straining his muscles, this long was starting to make his body shake like a frond of algae in wave tide.

The officer watched Blujh. The man was the one who needed to converse with Blujh, but instead, he watched Blujh without a word. He didn't like the look on the man's face, like he was sizing Blujh up and was immediately suspicious without any provocation.

Blujh returned the stare and did not take the bait and be the first to speak and break the stalemate. More windowless human increments of time passed before the man decided to speak.

"That was quite a yarn that reporter friend of yours was spinning," the officer said. Blujh's human word processing software that had been installed in his eyes told that the strip of metal on his chest said "Young."

Blujh sniffed in distaste. He did not understand. He thought the human youths were small pitiful creatures, but this one carried itself in a position of authority. It appeared to be that there were different subspecies of humans, and this one was born to command authority and respect. He also seemed more physically hale than the humans Blujh had interacted with so far.

It wasn't until this moment he understood the gravity of his situation. This human could make Blujh's existence on this Earth far more unpleasant than he had previously gathered.

Blujh didn't know what yarn meant, but he extrapolated that it must be a tale of some sort. He chose to maintain his silence. In interrogations, silence tended to loosen the lips of the interrogator. They felt as if they were in a position of power, so they did not need to be careful with their words. Besides, he was looking to divide and conquer, find weaknesses in Blujh's statement, and pick apart his and Michelle's description of events.

"The way she said it, you got nothing to worry about. There was nothing ya'll could've done, but you have to admit, the story sounds a bit... far-fetched," the officer said.

He had leaned towards Blujh with his elbow on the table and a conspiratorial look on his face that seemed to communicate, "I'm on your side, buddy."

Nobody is on my side.

Blujh remained silent.

"Listen, buddy; you're not under arrest or nothing like that. I'm just trying to dot my I's and cross my t's. The Sarge is gonna have a hard time believing this, and the last thing I want is for him to think you folks are responsible for mass murder."

Could this man be any more transparent?

Blujh would not be lured into a false sense of security, and any words he spoke would inevitably lead to his incriminating himself. He deigned not to speak.

The smile faded from the man's face as he looked in Blujh's eyes, "You think you're one tough customer, don't ya? No matter, the kid'll break. It wouldn't have hurt to have your testimony, but I'll do without. All it means for you is you'll be tried for obstruction of justice. Not that that matters either, cuz, either way, you're going away for life, you cold fuck."

At that, Blujh smiled. This officer was an amateur. He'd broke without Blujh having to utter a word.

The man named Young scowled the skin of his forehead creased over itself, and his frown deepened, "Get out of my sight."

Young got up and opened the door, letting Blujh walk through before he left.

He led Blujh back to the sitting room and called for Christopher to follow him.

As Christopher descended into the depths of the police station, Officer Young left parting words, "Don't go anywhere, fella. We ain't done with you yet, not by a long shot."

Blujh sat down with a groan, knowing that he would be maintaining this form for a lot longer.

He stared at the monochromatic walls waiting for humans to decide his fate.