By David C. Daoust
Dakota had pulled the panicked boy out of the oversized spacesuit. He was remarkably light. She bounced him around a bit and patted his back ‘til he calmed down. She told him he would be okay, or at least that’s what she tried to tell him. The language was easier to decipher than to speak, but he did seem to calm a bit as she held him. He was probably a bit old for such treatment, but the emotion on his face was very real, and he did not seem to put up much resistance. Though when she tried to stand him up on the counter across from the now open spacesuit, his legs bowed, and he got a perplexed look on his face. He rolled back into a seated position, and one bare foot came up oddly to dry his unnaturally black eyes. The toes were a lot longer than they should be, they were like fingers. When not in use, they curled under his heel, like a closed fist, minus the opposable thumb.
It was not hard to fathom that the child had never used those legs for walking, nor, Dakota hypothesized, had any of his ancestors. Studying the inside of the suit revealed two strange levers in the lower region of the contraption. She imagined he would sit in their controlling the legs with those curled feet… and the arms with his hands.
“It’s a big old walking machine,” Dakota announced as she pulled at a lever, the corresponding leg jiggled a bit, probably a bit more effective when it was powered up, but the jiggle showed the mechanisms were connected. “Astounding.”
“But why?” A lab assistant queried.
Dakota did not have an answer.
“Why what? Have a walking machine?” Dakota answered the question with more questions, “Or why such a small child gallivanting through space, with such high-tech machinery, purportedly able to pass through walls, vanish from one place to appear instantaneously in another, and drain energy cells…” Dakota stopped for a tick, “All in the hands of an emotionally unstable child, completely dependent on nannies? What nannies?” Dakota had been informed of the three spheres that were normally with the Wraiths whenever they had been spotted. She had to assume since they were missing… and the ‘nannies’ were missing… “The hovering spheres that followed him around? Commanded or obeyed? And why in all the worlds would he speak Old Martian?”
The lab assistant, feeling a bit berated, nodded silently as Dakota continued to think out loud.
“We know it’s human.” Dakota stated as she studied the boy, “A human that had to adapt to an environment completely unlike our own… But where could this environment be… how did they split off from us? There’s a clear lineage to us, if only through the Martian language.”
“You know what this reminds me of?” the lab assistant asked with a quirky smile, “remember those old horror movies, with the Lost Ark? ‘Crazed Martians looking for revenge…”
“Based on an old myth…” Dakota whispered, sometimes there was truth in old myths. A fourth Ark Ship though? Somehow didn’t make the journey…? Dakota was very well read, and had never once found anything suggesting those stories were anything other than amusing tales, though she wasn’t quite ready to dismiss it as absurd.
The ship suddenly shook, and Dakota had to catch herself from falling. She was too preoccupied with her current project to pay it any mind though. Nor even realize that many of the soldiers, that had accompanied the Wraith into the lab, were rushing out of the room. Dakota returned to a terminal and began punching buttons.
The scanners suddenly launched up from their pads again. Each in turn swiped at the small boy, hovering around him. He smacked one with his ‘foot’ as it passed, and Dakota believed what followed was a playful laugh.
“Well, he’s cheered up a bit at least,” the assistant noted.
“Okay so,” Dakota announced after reading the blank results of the scanners, ignoring the assistant as she then spun about in the chair haphazardly before continuing, “I have no idea why these computers still can’t detect the very real child, sitting there, right before our eyes. Uncanny really.”
This time the quake got her attention, mainly because the boy almost rolled right off the countertop.
“What the heck was that?” the lab assistant asked, alarmed, as she steadied the strange boy.
Dakota, once again, did not have an answer.
The good doctor glanced over at Sims who seemed to be preoccupied with a series of surveillance monitors near the entrance of the Lab. The small form of Vincent was also lost in whatever the monitors were, in fact, monitoring. Dakota just now realized the soldiers had cleared out… she heard Sims talking to himself. He seemed to be worked up about something.
“Can we not…” Sims growled haltingly at the monitor, “Shoot our guns… near the shield gen…. Idiot.”
“Priceless.” Vincent commented, shaking his little girl head.
Suddenly the lab was filled with flashing red lights! Dakota wasn’t sure what that meant, it didn’t seem good. And the boy began to panic again, which just made her panic even more… she looked back to Sims as he suddenly drew a weapon from a holster at his side, which really didn’t help her panic level either…
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