Jaycen had never been a patient man. Patient men do not do the things Jaycen has done. They are not the kind of idiots who jump on a space flight, sign an exorbitant loan with a megacorporation, start working in an entirely new profession, and confront company goons (that were actually aliens apparently) face to face. And with a lack of patience there often comes an abundance of boredom. The increasingly frustrated human finds very little to occupy himself as he sits alone in his cell. He has his book, sure, but he isn't in much of a mood for reading; he tried his best to stomach a few pages of the thing, but the overly bright and whitewashed tone of the story was significantly less funny now that he finds himself in space jail. He lasts only an hour of torturous isolation before he calls out to the ceiling in frustration.

"Hey Akhia, I think I'm ready for that interview now."

Luckily for him, Jaycen only has another few minutes to himself before the door opened again. While he had no way of actually knowing who was in the bulky spacesuit, he had to assume that it was the same mysterious scientist again, and based on the shuffling gait and the clicking noise he heard, he was probably right.

"Greetings again, Jay Sen. I apologize for the wait, I was not prepared to see you again so soon," she says as she shuffles into his room.

"No worries," he replies with a wave of his hand, "there was barely a wait at all. I can't really expect you to drop everything you're doing just because I asked."

"I appreciate your consideration. May I ask why you wished to speak with me so soon?"

Jaycen shrugs. "To be honest, I'm kind of bored. I was wondering if we could chat or something."

"Of course. I am willing to acquiesce to that request. In truth, I would enjoy an opportunity to ask you some questions about you and your people. However, in the interest of transparency, I should inform you that any conversation we have will be recorded."

He isn't that surprised. He'd already assumed he was under observation, but ultimately his desire for something to do win out over any concerns he has about his privacy. "Sure, I can live with that."

"...Your cooperation with the study is appreciated," Akhia replies as she moves over to one of those panels on the walls. She taps it in an odd sequence, as if there were some invisible keypad on the metal surface. A moment later, the panel opens up to reveal an indentation in the wall containing a simple metal object. With a quick motion, she folds the thing out and places it in the center of the room, revealing that it is some form of space age folding chair. She takes her seat, raising her tablet at the ready, and locks eyes (as much as she can with her helmet on) with Jaycen once more. "Let's begin by establishing a baseline. From our preliminary scans of radio signals from your home planet, we have made some assumptions about your species, but I would appreciate you describe yourself and your people in your own words. I will ask any clarifying questions as they come up."

Jaycen flops back onto his bed, beginning to feel like this was going to be an interrogation more than a dialog. "Oookay. Uh, what should I start with?"

"With yourself, please. What were your first memories?"

"Well, I guess to start, I was born and raised in West Virginia."

"And that is the name for your home planet?"

Jaycen couldn't suppress his urge to laugh at that. "No, god no. West Virginia is the... I guess the territory I'm from. The planet is Earth."

"So your home planet is called Dirt. I see. That makes far more logical sense."

Jaycen raises an eyebrow at that. "I think the translator's having issue with proper nouns again."

There was a pause as Akhia processed what he was saying. "I believe I see what happened, then. My apologies. But please understand, it's not that strange for a species to refer to their home planet as something like Dirt or Ground. In fact, my species' home planet, Chak, is based on an old word for soil."

Jaycen nodded. "Well… okay then, I guess that makes sense." In that moment, once again, the surrealness

"It is of no concern. Please continue."

"Oh. Right. Well, I was born in a small town in West Virginia. Rural. Dad was an asteroid miner and Mom worked shifts in a shipping warehouse."

"I see. And these are common professions for your people?"

"Common enough. I guess mining's less common nowadays, they've been moving towards heavier automation so they don't need as many warm bodies, but yeah. Anyway, between their jobs, they weren't around much. Dad'd spend most of the year off planet, and Mom usually was pulling 12 hour workdays. My big sister Saydi raised me for the most part."

"I see. Any other family in the household?"

"Nah, I mean, there was a bit where Uncle Bill slept on the couch for a few months after he lost his job, but other than that it was just us."

"Would you say that this is a normal family situation for your species?"

Jaycen winces a bit at that. "Well... yeah, I guess. We were a working class family, and that meant my parents did whatever they could to put food on the table."

"So the children essentially raise themselves then?"

"I… I guess to a certain extent, yeah.” Jaycen could feel his shoulders slump. “At least in my family, they did."

"And what about predators?"

"...I'm sorry, what?"

"Predators. Carnivorous life forms that eat live or recently killed prey. How did you protect yourselves from being devoured?"

"I... What? I guess we didn't really worry about them?"

"Are you saying they were not a threat to you?" The curious scientist asks, as her fingers dance over her datapad. Even though Jaycen had less than a day's experience with alien body language, he could sense her excitement. "Even as a child?"

"Um, well, not... exactly? Just about everyone had a hunting rifle in the house, just in case of an emergency. Some of the other families had a lot more than that, but… no, it's not really something we worried about day to day."

“I think my translator is having difficulty, so I'd like you to clarify something."

"No problem."

"You kept… weapons... in your home?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, if a bear or something came near the house, it’s better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it.”

As Akhia types away furiously, Jaycen runs through his memories of life in the Appalachian range for a moment. "Actually, there was that one time the kid that lived down the way, I think his name was Jeremy? One time when we were out in the woods, he was attacked by a cougar. They used to be extinct I think, but when I was in elementary school they started a program to reintroduce them to the area. Slashed up his back real bad, he was bleeding all over the place by the time we found him."

Akhia gives a trill of clicks as she types away before she takes a moment to calm herself. "I apologize,” she says once she’s slowed down, “that must have been quite traumatic for you to see your friend die like that."

Jaycen just chuckles at her. "Oh, he was fine, we found him pretty quick. Well, not fine, but alive. Lost a lot of blood though, needed a transfusion and a bunch of staples, but he was back in school a couple months later." Jaycen couldn't stop himself from smiling at the memory of the terrible luck of that bastard. First attack by a mountain lion in over 250 years, only six years after the program to bring them back started.

Akhia paused her typing for a moment. “How dangerous would you say this predator was? Was death a possibility for your friend?”

“Yeah, pretty dangerous I'd say. Probably the most dangerous animal you’d see around the area. And sure, he definitely could have died. If we didn’t find him fast enough he'd probably have bled out on the forest floor."

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

“And… when you say staples…”

“Oh, sorry. I guess the translator had trouble with that one too. Little bits of metal that hold the wound closed. It’s usually a lot faster than stitching the wound back together with thread.”

Akhia stops her typing and looks straight at Jaycen for a moment. Or, what he assumed was straight at her, the helmet made it hard to tell. “Your people brought back a dangerous predator, which had gone completely extinct, to a populated area? And your friend, a child mind you, survived an attack by having medical professionals put another person’s blood in him, then sealed the wound shut forcibly with metal? And this wasn’t even the only dangerous wild animal native to the area?”

“Yep, that's pretty much the long and short of it. Generally speaking, the three you wanna watch out for are bears, cougars, and copperheads.”

The scientist types vigorously while Jaycen politely looks around the room, trying to keep himself occupied. He tried not to dwell too much on the strangeness of the situation, but he couldn't help feeling like he a kid in a pediatrician’s office. When she finally slows down, she looks back up at him again and then to the wall of the room. After a moment of silence, she speaks. “Jay Sen, how old are you?”

Jaycen shrugs. “I mean, in Earth years I’m twenty three, but that probably doesn’t mean much to you. Young adult, I guess?”

“So you would be considered sexually mature for your species?”

It's a good thing Jaycen wasn't drinking anything, because if he was, he would have just spat it all over his alien captor. “Uh… well, yeah.” He knew to some extent that the Doc would start asking the invasive questions at some point, so he tried not to let his momentary embarrassment show.

“I only ask because we noted that you were living alone. Many Coalition species tend to live in larger familial groups, and outside of extraordinary circumstances, living alone is rare, especially once an individual has reached adulthood. Is this arrangement considered normal for your species?”

Oh, well that question alone wasn't too weird. “Normal enough, I suppose? It’s not... unusual or anything, but some couples might already be living together and starting a family by my age. It's a lot less common than it used to be, but it wouldn’t be out of the question either.”

Akhia taps away at her datapad. “Interesting. Do you know any reason why past generations would have reproduced earlier, and what factors could have influenced that change?"

"Well, I'd assume there's a few reasons. I mean, culturally it was expected of you back then. You raised a family as soon as you were old enough to have kids. By the time I was born, the culture where I lived had already shifted away from that. And I bet it also has something to do with modern maternal and child mortality rates."

Akhia gives another sharp trill of clicks. "Mortality rates?"

"Well, yeah. Before modern medicine, I think nearly half of all kids died before adulthood. I think I remember hearing that in school at some point? I don't know how bad it was for mothers, but I think death during childbirth was a serious risk."

Akhia once again became a flurry of fingers as she typed. "Okay, that's all... very interesting. But focusing back on you, why did you leave your home planet?"

"Well," he starts with a big intake of breath, "I guess it all started with my great-grandfather. Back before I was born, he was one of the first people to sign up to be a part of Spartoi's colonization efforts. He worked there for years, raised a family off-world, saved up enough money to afford to buy land on New Hamilton, which at the time was a newly discovered exo-planet. Didn't really live long enough to enjoy it though. Grandpa inherited the farm when he passed. My Dad took his mining job right outta high school and got a place back on Earth to raise a family. I never met grandpa in person, but he made sure to vid in to see the family every holiday, even if he had to head into town to do it. Me and my sister were honestly surprised when left the farm to me when he passed. I assume, seeing as it was his dad's farm, that he wanted to keep it in the family, but accepting ownership of it meant taking on the loan he had with Spartoi. And me, well, I had just dropped out of college. I wanted to be a teacher, but I never had the patience or focus to sit through lectures. And, hell, I already knew the basics of farm life from living out in the boonies. Most of my graduating class were the kids of farmers. So, I guess in the end, I didn't really have anything to lose by taking over the farm on New Hamilton."

Jaycen let out a sigh. He wasn't particularly fond of his family's farm, and all things considered he didn't really like working in the fields that much. But now that he was away from it all, the thought that he was leaving his inheritance behind for potentially over ten years sat heavy in his mind.

"I see." Akhia types for a moment before turning to the wall for the third time today. At this point, Jaycen was fairly certain she was cutting out the translator and speaking directly to someone in another room. So not only were they going to record him, but someone was actively watching him speak with Akhia. Probably watching him when he was alone, too. Was this little bunkroom supposed to be some sort of zoo? How many weird aliens were there behind those walls? He shuddered as he imagined their eyestalks (or possibly even weirder sensory organs) glistening in the artificial light, studying him intently.

His little horror daydream is broken when Akhia turns back to address him. "I think at this point we’ve established that you’re willing to cooperate with our mission. If we have your permission, we would like to conduct a deep scan of your physiology.”

Jaycen tries his best to hide the sudden paranoid fear that he was feeling from crossing his face. Assuming, of course, that she could read his face; who knows what weird upside down alien features she had behind that expressionless mask. “I mean," he begins, trying his damnedest not to stutter or crack his voice, "it’s not like I have anything else going on at the moment, but ah... what does that entail, exactly?”

If Akhia caught on to his sudden discomfort, she wasn't showing it. Not that her helmet would show anything regardless. "We will have to use a needle to place a small deposit of nanotransmitters into your bloodstream. These will send readings along to our onboard computer, which will hopefully provide us with a better understanding of your body. Once we have the information we require, your body will evacuate the nanotransmitters with your normal waste."

Jaycen did not like the sound of that one bit. Nanobots, In his blood. Despite all the advances of modern science, that was something way beyond what humanity was capable of. "Is that... safe?"

"Yes Jay Sen, it is quite safe. We would not attempt a procedure that would harm you."

Her words are not as comforting to Jaycen as she likely intended. The unspoken implication of you're currently more useful to us alive rings through Jaycen's mind like a gong. He tamps down the growing dread, bitterly reminding himself that he's not got much of a choice in this situation anyway. If they really wanted to they could just knock him out and autopsy his corpse before he could muster any sort of resistance. As far as he could see, for now at least, compliance was his only option.

"Fuck it," he eventually says. "Alright, go ahead and give me the shot."

Akhia looks to the wall again before turning back to him. "Again, we appreciate your cooperation. I will return in a moment, after I've had a chance to confer with my colleagues."

----------------------------------------

The three scientists stand again in the observation room adjacent to Jaycen's cell, though all of them are making a concentrated effort to not focus too hard in his direction, as if looking at him directly could draw the strange alien's ire.

"I can't possibly tell you how unnerving it was!" Akhia shouts, her secondary arms waving, her voice rising higher in a panic. "Children raising themselves on a death world! Half of them die by adulthood! It’s madness! Not to mention the wildlife!” She quickly brought up her tablet and started tapping away. “The team assigned to his home system just started sending us scans from his planet last cycle, and halfway through his story I realized I had seen one of those horrible creatures he mentioned. They're terrifying! Their claws look like they could rip a landing craft in half!"

Sheilyn lets out a low rolling growl. "You sure you're not exaggerating, Akhia?"

"Here," she said, swiping roughly on her tablet, "I'll send the images to both of you."

The other two look down expectantly at their own devices, only to cringe and wince a moment later. Kyxoro quickly swipes away the images on her tablet, her complexion already turning a bit purple. "Ugh. Disgusting. I've also seen some of the preliminary data regarding these animals. These “cougars” are dangerous creatures that regularly hunt fauna of a similar size to themselves, though these images suggest they can take down prey much more massive than that… though I can’t see how they could even force that much meat down their gullets."

Sheilyn drops her tablet on the nearby table, her expression still neutral. "There's no way a child, even a Fiver, could survive an attack by that."

Kyxoro holds up a hand. "As much as I hate to disagree, according to the scans, its heart rate was not elevated, and its brain activity stayed consistent throughout the discussion. There's not nearly enough data to know for certain until we have a better understanding of its anatomy, but we have no reason to believe the Human is lying..."

The three of them turn to look at Jaycen, who had just returned from the restroom and was in the process of adjusting his clothing. Akhia felt a shudder creep up her spine. The fact that his species had willingly put their own children in danger to reintroduce this dangerous predator was upsetting enough, but the frankness of his explanation made her believe that they simply didn't fear these powerful predators. She wonders idly how this cougar creature fared after his friend recovered from the attack. Did they hunt it down as punishment for having the temerity to damage a Human? Did they just ignore it and accept that the occasional mutilation was an acceptable risk? Or, and she dreaded this possibility, did that bleeding child tear the killer beast apart with their own bare hands?

Kyxoro waved a hand to draw her attention before her imagination could truly get away from her. "Akhia, I'm going to put two more marines outside the room with high powered subduction truncheons. If the Human does anything that makes you feel unsafe, I want you to push your panic button. If you can't reach it, you scream as loud as you can and leave the room immediately."

Akhia gives another trill of clicks before she responds. "Yes, Doctor." She takes a moment to steel herself, spine as straight as she can make it, and quickly turns on her heel and leaves the room once more.

“Doctor,” Sheilyn starts as Akhia leaves the room, “what if the Human follows Akhia out the open doorway?”

The Doctor narrows her eyes at the massive woman. “You already subdued the Human once, Sheilyn. A quartet of marines should be more than capable of the job.”

“I had the element of surprise, Doctor. The human mistook us for others of his species.” Sheilyn focuses her cat-like eyes on the human in the other room. “What do we do if they aren’t enough?”

Kyxoro gives a heavy sigh, and turns back towards the observation window. “For all we know, that door may not even be enough to hold it. It's very well possible that we only have it in captivity because it is choosing to cooperate.” She pulls a small pendant, an odd bit of chiseled stone, out of a pocket and clutches it tightly. “We will just have to hope that, for now, the Fates remain on our side.”