3.18.

Emily looked at the empty desk next to her. It had been three weeks since John had appeared at school, stayed for three class periods, and abruptly left. And none of the adults would say anything about it at all.

She scowled. She didn’t accept their silence.

The rumors among the students varied from ‘he couldn’t handle the stress of a real school,’ to ‘I bet he got his superpowers turned back on and now they won’t let him come here around normal kids.’ Emily didn’t know what to believe, and she didn’t participate in the rumors.

They’d all seen his press conference, and nobody really understood what he’d said. That was another topic of discussion. How could someone be tens of thousands of years old but only have lived for twelve years? Why did it make sense to Yonohoans but not Earthlings?

She scowled. She wanted to know the answers.

And she only had one lead. A name. In the short period he had been her ‘buddy,’ he had mentioned the name of his guardian. Olivia Nunes. Doctor Olivia Nunes.

She had searched for the name and come up with a pediatrician. A very very good one according to the reviews that she’d seen on the hospital’s website. Unfortunately her home address wasn’t listed.

So she’d gone to the hospital, explaining her plan to her driver, who had readily agreed to be a willing participant in her investigation. He got paid by the hour, he declared, and it was his job to bring her wherever she needed to go.

He was a good guy, she thought. Yes he was paid by her family, but he was funny and supportive and she liked him. There were four years left before she could drive herself, but unless her parents decided otherwise she’d let him keep doing it until she went off to college.

Surprisingly, finding Olivia was as simple as walking up to the front desk and asking. She was questioned whether or not she had an appointment, and when Emily had said that she did not but that it was a private matter nobody had asked her for further details.

It helped that her driver had forged her father’s name on the form that they had given her and they were pretending that this was a medical visit.

They were called into an exam room, pretending to be father and daughter. Emily was a little embarrassed when the Nurse asked her to lift up her shirt for parts of the exam in front of the driver, but the man politely looked away.

Then the doctor came in and Emily made her confrontation.

“Why hasn’t John Doe been coming to school? Did he do something wrong? Why won’t anyone talk about him? It’s like he never existed but he was real! ” Emily exclaimed.

Olivia frowned at the ambush. “You’re not really here to talk about ‘private issues’ with me as a doctor, are you Emily?”

“No,” Emily admitted. “I’m sorry but I’m not sorry. Tell me about John. Is he okay?”

“John is fine. Unfortunately it’s been decided that due to factors outside of everyone’s control a school is not the safest environment for him to continue his education in. He has been assigned private tutors for the immediate future.”

“He got his powers back, didn’t he?” Emily pressed. “That’s why everyone is freaked out! Does it have something to do with the press conference? There are others with superpowers on Earth, aren’t there?”

Olivia frowned at the girl. “Emily, I can’t answer your questions. For a number of reasons. All I can really tell you is that John is safe and continuing his education. And I can tell you where I live, I suppose.”

She wrote down an address. “I can’t tell you that John will be there. I don’t know if he wants to see you or not. Your parents might be upset that you’re associating with him, so please don’t think of this as me trying to arrange your meeting with him.”

Then Olivia typed some things into the computer and left the room without saying anything further.

~~~~~~

“Are you having fun?” Eolai asked his father, who was posing as his son, who he was forced to call by the assumed name of John. They sat in the box seats of a basketball game as the crowd cheered outside.

“Yes, I am,” John agreed, watching as the game proceeded. “I hope that we win.”

“We?”

“The home team. You are supposed to root for the home team,” John explained.

Eolai nodded. It was only logical. “Unless you traveled with the team to cheer for your team,” He argued.

“You would still be cheering for your home team,” John argued. “Just not the home team of the home you are in.”

Eolai nodded again. “The Earthlings are so much like the Yonohoans,” he said. “I am glad that they came to us. But another part of me is deeply troubled. I fear what will happen with Taskforce Ragnarok. I have looked into the name. It is the term for a battle at the end of the world that everyone has seen coming centuries in advance, but nobody has been seen a way to prevent.”

“They chose the name well,” John, who was also called Eodar in most of his other lives, said calmly. “You’re not the only one who is afraid of Taskforce Ragnarok, my son.” He paused. “Nope. Can’t call you that until I’ve lived longer than you. Sounds weird.”

Eolai chuckled. “Yes, it kind of does sound weird when your sitting right next to me.”

They continued to watch the game until the end.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

~~~~~~

Nobody was home when they knocked, but Emily didn’t let that stop their investigation. They found the boy shooting hoops. He was older, fourteen, but he immediately perked up when she described who she was looking for.

“Yeah I know John,” Tom said, continuing to play basketball by himself as they spoke. “How do you know John.”

“He goes to my school,” she said.

“John doesn’t go to school. He’ s homeschooled. With a tutor,” Tom countered.

“He went to my school but then he got his powers back and they said that he couldn’t anymore,” Emily said.

Tom paused for a moment, then continued dribbling. “So you know he’s got superpowers, huh? They had to buy all new appliances because of the fight he got into with the other kid like him, you know? John told me all about it even though he’s not supposed to.”

“He got into a fight at his home?” Emily asked.

“It wasn’t really a fight,” Tom said. “More of a standoff. Then the FBI and SWAT showed up and I don’t know what happened after that. But it was hard to hide that something happened when there was sirens and helicopters and search dogs all over the place.”

Emily frowned. She considered her options, then wrote down her phone number. “Will you ask John to call me, please?”

“Sure,” Tom said, taking the note. He glanced at her, and his tone was slightly flirtatious when he said “If he doesn’t call you, I might.”

Emily blushed slightly, but didn’t tell him not to bother.

~~~~~

Emily was doing her homework hours later when her phone rang. The number was unlisted, but she picked up immediately.

“Hello?” she asked.

“Who is this?” a familiar voice asked.

“Hello John. It’s Emily. Didn’t Tom tell you my name?”

“He said that you didn’t tell him your name, only gave him your phone number and asked questions about me,” John’s voice informed her. “I just new a girl from my school stopped by. I didn’t know it was my buddy until just now.”

“Oh, sorry,” Emily said, realizing he was right. “I was worried about you so I thought I’d check. Where were you today?”

“One of my family members had a visitation day. We were attending a sporting event,” John answered.

“Oh. Did you have fun?”

“I did.”

“You really are socially stunted, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes. That is what happens when you are trained by a military organization starting at age four, when I was taken from my family and put into a Toormonda to measure my intelligence,” John answered. “They determined that I was very intelligent and decided to put me to use in the service of humanity.”

“Wow,” she said.

“It’s not such a big deal. One hundred and sixty-eight Yonohoan children were taken at the same time,” John said.

“Wow,” she said again. “The government took you from your family when you were a pre-schooler?”

“Not your government. And I wouldn’t have gone to school if it weren’t for High Command. Emily, all of this happened a very long time ago. I just remember it like it was more recent. I’m a clone, but they think that I might have also been in stasis for a few thousand years. Between those to things, It’s been a very very long time since these things actually happened to the original me.”

“John, are you supposed to be talking about these things?”

“They’re not secret. Not anymore. Not for a very long time,” John answered. “And Olivia says that it is good for me to talk about the things that I remember. Technically you Earthlings believe that they happened to someone else and that I only have the memories of the original Eodar. But I do have those memories and to me, those things happened.”

“I never said that they didn’t happen to you,” Emily said. “If you remember them then they happened, right?”

“Yes. They happened, and I remember them,” John agreed.

Emily cursed the awkwardness of the conversation. “The government isn’t letting you come to school, is it?”

“It isn’t the government. It’s the school. They have a no weapons policy, and since I’ve been reactivated I effectively am a walking weapon on the scale of which it is difficult to explain,” John answered.

“Right. You have superpowers. But they let Clark Kent go to school, so why not you?”

“I understood that reference. Clark Kent did not reveal his superpowers when he was a child, Emily. I never intended to either, but either way I was outed. I am fortunate to have as much freedom as I am allowed to have at present.”

Emily was quiet as she considered the situation. “You’re allowed to play with other children, aren’t you?” she asked at last.

“As long as I do not threaten or harm them, yes,” he agreed.

“Let’s go to the mall this Saturday,” she said.

“Why?”

“To hang out,” she explained. “Do you want me to tell the other kids from class you’ll be there, or do you want it to be just us?”

John was quiet for a moment. “I’m not certain I’ll do well with crowds.”

“You’ll do fine. Just don’t blow anything up.”

John didn’t answer. Emily gave it a little push.

“I’ll pick you up at ten in the morning on Satuday, John. I’ll talk to you then.”

And she hung up on him before he could refuse her.

‎