Fabricated Chapter 15

[companionwolf]

 Teddy leads him down the halls, until they are standing outside a closed door. The bear looks up at him, little paws crossed over each other. 

“Good luck,” he says, and scampers off back down to his Owner’s room. 

PC hesitates, rubs his fingers against the phone. He can hearing talking inside the room, muffled to the point where he can’t decipher it, but loud enough that he knows someone’s there. 

His hand is shaking when he knocks. 

The dark suited man that opens the door immediately goes to tackle PC, who ducks out of the way, yelling “I need to inform the president! Something bad is coming, and they need to know!” 

The president, for what it’s worth, turns from his phone call and stares at PC silently. PC scrambles for his phone, dodging another tackle from the dark suited man, and plunks the device on the president’s desk.

“And what is this?” asks the president.

“Sir,” says PC, because some of his knowledge of human manners and some of his memories are kicking in, “Mr. President, sir, there are- I know it sounds like bullshit but there are videos and I have bodies that my friends are prepped to give you—“

The dark suited man manages to ram him now, knocking him to the floor. He hears the man on top of his exclaim something, probably about how soft PC is; he doesn’t stick around to hear it, wriggling his way out of the arms and back into his feet. The man in the dark suit yanks a walkie talkie from his belt.

PC stands panting slightly. “Look,” he says, “all I’m asking is like, two minutes. Just two. Just give me a chance here.”

The president frowns. The man in the suit has finished his call on the walkie talkie and comes at him again, is about to make impact, when the former speaks: “Let him be.”

“But sir—“

“I want to hear.”

PC thanks him profusely, before launching into his explanations- XCOM this, Elders that, and plays the videos for him. He shows the man the pictures, explains the engineers’ concerns, promises to somehow get the fragments to the government anyway. The president does not speak much this whole time, only nods here and there. 

When he’s done, slightly out of breath and shaking, PC awaits a response. After a few moments president reaches over and gently picks up the phone. “I will be keeping this,” he says.

“Of course,” says PC. “And answering the threat—“

“I will be making calls, yes,” the president says. “We are very strong, the strongest, and we have very good allies. The best allies. We thank you for bringing this to our attention. We’ll be doing our best to solve the issue. It will be solved.”

He pauses. “What did you say your name was, again?”

“Bradford, sir. John Bradford.”

“Yes, Mr. Bradford, thank you. Please excuse yourself now, there’s much to be done.”

And with that, two more men in dark suits appear in the hallway, grab PC by the arms, and pull him away.

He struggles, and in the struggle as the men try to orient their grasp on him his hat and scarf fall off- panic floods his senses at the possibility of being uncovered, and something in his stomach kicks, something in his stomach rises, rises, and the men suddenly drop him, scrambling backward, and he falls flat on his face ; the president is staring at something above him, and PC flips himself over, follows their gazes and pointing—

A soft green light hangs above him, spinning off into tendrils of arm and finger from a central human line body body. It bears no human face, rather something jellyfish like, and PC knows what this, he’s played the Buearu.

“Asaru?” he asks, warily, because this is not the right color for the Ethereal from the game. It does not answer. He tries again. “Shamash?”

“Elyion,” says a voice, echoy and melodic.

“What is that?” asks one of the suited men. 

“It’s a Ethereal,” PC says. “Like the Elders.”

“And what the hell is a Elder-“ begins the other, only to be hushed by his companion. They both stare up at Elyion, guns half drawn. 

“It’s not dangerous,” says PC. “It ... shouldn’t be. Not if it’s bonded to... me. It’s bonded to me. Shit.”

So that’s what that was, back at the crash.

The Ethereal nods. “Your collision allowed me freedom from my captors,” it says. It looks toward the men in the suits, and for a moment, glimmers red. “They wore clothing like these humans do.”

“Don’t worry,” PC says, “they won’t hurt you.” He pauses. “They shouldn’t; they’re secret service, they’re for the president.”

“Will the ... President hurt us?” 

“No,” says PC, and looks back through the doorway; the president is standing at his desk, watching- when PC meets his eyes, a feeling of dread erupts in his stomach.

“What is it?” calls the president to his service aids.

The two men falter, look at PC. 

“It’s, uh, well, a alien,” says PC. “A psionic one with no corporal form, but still a alien.”

“Like these Elders you discussed,” says the president.

“Yeah, but this one isn’t with them. I think it’s probably Earth’s seeded Ethereal,” PC says.

Elyion nods again. “I was born into this planet; its depths my nursery, until I was awakened by some of your...” He feels the alien struggling for the word, gets a image of humans in mining hats. 

“Miners,” he offers, and feels the other’s relief and thankfulness. 

“Your miners disturbed me, and then they brought in people like them-“ it points at the secret service men. “And those men forced me into a box, asked me questions and did all manner of things I now understand as cruel...”

“But not all humans are like that,” PC sys, and its half a plea. “They’re probably were just curious.”

“I understand not all behave that way,” says Elyion. “Your ... Owner does not do that. You care deeply for them. And there are others like you, so there must be others like them. And you care for the humans you have been traveling with.”

PC nods encouragingly. Elyion looks toward the president, and glimmers red again.

“I do not trust this one,” it says. “I sense a shift in preoccupation.”

It looks down at PC. “We should go.”

“You won’t be doing that,” says the president; the two men jump forward, and this time he cannot slip away unless he sheds his clothes, and so he does, squirming out as a rectangular shape.

The two men are shocked still for a moment, which gives PC time to begin to hop down the corridor as fast as a pillow can, only to have the men spurred back into action as the president yells “Don’t let it escape!”

PC feels a ripple in his stuffing, as Elyion settles back in, and finds that he can hop a little faster. He turns the corner into a closed doorway, and whaps himself against the doors to force them open open, landing face first into the White House lobby, amidst a gaggle of tourists, lobbyists, and camera touting journalists; they swarm him, taking photos, asking questions— 

PC struggles up, weaving and bobbing through the small crowd until he’s stumbling down the steps, still being dogged by a few reporters, who he yells “go bother the black suits” at.

They do turn from him and begin to pester the two men that come barreling down the stairs after him, but not enough to stop them. The men jump on him again, and despite his struggling, they’ve got a good grasp on him now.

He feels Elyion’s fear compound into his, and instinctively thrashes against the grip of the men, but it’s not much use. The taller man has a larger chunk of PC in his hands, at where the pillow ends but the former doesn’t quite, and PC curses the lack of a better fitting base. He’s swinging upside down in the man’s grip now, and moments is tossed roughly into the trunk of a car.

PC sits up, top brushing the roof of the trunk. It’s dark, and he blinks in the black, thoughts blazing in an attempt to remember everything he ever read about being kidnapped. 

There is an ache, a terrible pain, and then his astral arms are back, and PC hesitantly holds his hands in a position associated with a energy ball. He’s seen the Owner do this before, and as much as he doesn’t quite understand their witchcraft and magic and whatever else, the concept must be similar. Besides, he managed to shoot off a attack back at the hotel parking lot... 

“C’mon,” he murmurs, waiting for a spark, a glimmer, anything-

There is a crackle of green about his fingers, and a small ball of psionic energy hums in the space between, but fizzles our moments later. He can’t focus. He can’t, there’s phantom heartbeat in hell’s ears and—

PC shakes his head, and punches at the corner of the trunk instead, where a taillight should be- his hand lights up with tendrils of energy as he does and smashes through; he waves frantically. 

“You did something back when we first met,” he says out loud to the Ethereal. “Do it again. Get us out of here!”

A sense of exhaustion foreign to his being answers, and PC understands and relents in arguing that option, as much as it irritates him. 

He mentally curls in on himself, toward the core of his being, a self hot with the spark of Awakening. He prods at it, tries to nudge it into doing something, anything—

A copycat of Alice’s voice in his head, then, emitting from his center: “I wouldn’t do that if I was you.”

PC backs away, mumbling internal apologies, back to reality. 

There has to be something he can do. There has to. There has to. 

But as he feels the vehicle’s gears shift, as he feels it turn, as he feels it eat up ever more ground on the way to god knows where, there appears to be nothing else he can do. 

So PC sits, and he waits.