Redemption Earth

Toilette

Under the flickering of a single light bulb Alex is buried under the thin covers of the bed. She's awake watching the blank wall. Distantly she is aware of cyber security professionals and hackers attempting to access the data connected to her brain. Though they don't really know what they'll find in the hard drive she lost. Not really. Even though she senses multiple of them working on the project, roughly... seven. They are so, so slow. It was to be expected.

Her cell is sparse with nothing but a toilet, bed, a sink, and along thin shelf that she supposed was supposed to be a desk. The because of the hard light that coated every possible way in or out whole thing was overwhelmingly white. With Alex a thin orange covered figure in the midst of it all.

Major Justice's voice came from the exit, "Michelle, you have a visitor."

Alex doesn't respond.

"It's the alien girl. Your friend, I think."

Alex snaps up in bed, pushes aside the covers and stands directly in the middle of the room military style with her hands clasped behind her back. The visitors come into view.

"Hello, Irena, Delia," she says in an overly cordial voice.

"Techno Babble," Delia responds.

Alex presses her lips together. Irena quietly scrapes her gaze around Alex's person from her oppressively colored jump suit to the mustard color of her eyes.

Justice leans closer to Irena, "You should hurry up you only have 15 minutes."

"I know," she snaps a part of her natural growl seeping in to her human voice.

"Irena, I- you shouldn't have come here. They're going to deport you. You could have stayed safe where you were."

Irena's voice was dry and scraping, "They said you lied to me."

Alex squeezes her hands behind her back, "I - you should believe them. Everything they told you was true."

Irena's lip quivers but she keeps the same tone, "I want you to say the truth to my face."

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. I was afraid to lose you. Though, I guess I was destined to from the start."

"Alex, you know I lo-."

She flinches, "My name's Michelle."

"What kind of name is that," she yells her voice pitched too high.

Alex grips her jump suite.

"It's the name of a nerd from western Pennsylvania."

"I don't know what that means!"

Alex rubs the back of her neck.

"Can't you Just tell me the truth, all of it?"

"Yeah."

Alex comes to the front of the cage and sits with her legs crossed on the bare floor. Irena bends down to try to look her in the eye.

"I was a superhero named Techno Babble founding member of the group Villain Watch. When the Tanzanian government found an unknown spacecraft in the sky approaching our solar system at high speed, we were called to re direct it. The spaceship was unlike any one recorded before it. The way it had it's engine surround the entire vess- You don't care. Right."

The ship, no larger than a probe, orbited Mars a good distance away. Alex was among the team they deployed. They tried to contact it and received a garbled signal. Honest, the small creature floating on a hover pad worked at their tools for hours attempting to decipher it. However they were required to act at some point.