Reece sits down. "It bothers me that I am willing to accept 'robots from outer space' as an explanation at this point," he sighs. "Like, I look at this message, and I think 'Oh yeah, that makes perfect sense,' and that in and of itself is too damn weird. It's like, meta-weird. Weird because it is not weird." He scrutinizes the image. "Except, if the Pemalites went extinct, then who or... what exactly are we negotiating with?"
"Yeah." Torrence frowned, staring at the image. "All we have here is a big image of Earth. So did they like, crash here and were buried here? It's sad that they were destroyed by these Howlers. Really. But... I'm confused too."
Alice:
I was mildly surprised that Jenny had given so much away, that she'd told so much truth already, what else was she going to reveal?
"There is more to come. I'll press 'next', shall I?" I asked, rhetorically, reaching out to 'touch' the on-screen command.
"I wonder... some alien race crashes here and dies in ancient times. Could they have left anything behind we'd know about? Fossils, or cities or something?" He pauses. "We should definitely see what's next."
The chip:
Jenny continued as Alice pressed 'next'.
"The Pemalites had already created someone to be their friends and companions, someone just as peaceful as they were. These friends took the Permalites to Earth and agonized as their dear friends, the peaceful ones, died one by one.
These friends decided to try and keep a bit of their friend with them. They bound their friends with a breed of animals found on Earth, wolves."
The image became a wolf, which slowly changed into a dog.
"This is why the wolves decedents are so important to the Permalite's friends, as a reminder of their peaceful creators.
These friends of the Permalites are called the Chee. They have all of the technology that the Permalites left behind..."
Jenny trailed off.
Suddenly, the image blipped. Then it blipped again. It looked as though something had been written over the end of Jenny's message.
A new image- of a young woman in her twenties and two young men in thier twenties. The woman is pale white with freckles and dirty blond hair. One man with slightly slanted eyes that belies that he has some Asian heritage and his hair is very light, almost white. The other man dark and with black hair- came into view. The scene was the compound they'd visited.
They watched as the woman held up some sort of scanner and negotiated her way to the tree Jenny had showed them- and picked up the blue box that had given them thier powers.
The disk stopped, finished.
Reece stands up and pops his back, looking off into the distance before turning his gaze towards Alice. "Jenny said this message would reveal the true identity of her people. I'm guessing she doesn't mean the whole dogs-are-secretly-aliens thing, as weird as that is..." He looks to the floor, thinking. "The Pemalites are dead, and so all that leaves is the Chee. The... robots, I guess?" He looks back to Alice, eyes narrowed with curiosity rather than suspicion. "Alice, you're close to these people. Are you...?"
Alice:
"The Chee are my friends." I answered Reece, bluntly. "I'm quite surprised Jenny revealed so much, given how little time she's had to get to know everyone... But what is most troubling is what was on the end of the recording: That bit with the two men and one woman, taking the Escafil Device - The Blue Box, or Morphing Cube, it has many names in many languages, but that's not important right now. What is important is that we now have a big clue who took it!" I frowned a second, then added: "I wonder what Jenny was going to say at the end of the recording; The bit that was over-written, I mean."
Christina:
"Yeah, the spy people- the Chee? Is that right?- asked us to find the cube. Maybe if we find it, they'll stop treating us like we're ten!"
Reece's eyes linger on Alice a moment, and then he nods. "Right. And how did they manage to record over whatever hi-tech gadgetry it is the Chee wrote this with? Unless Jenny chose to cut herself off, or another Chee put that footage there. There've got to be some very capable people involved with this." He frowns. "Christina's right, too. It the Chee can't handle this, we've got a good opportunity to prove our worth to them."
Torrence:
"It's almost as if someone realized that something was wrong and overwrote what Jenny meant to say. But yeah, we do know what the people look like now, the thieves that took the morphing cube."
"So you've known about the fact that they're Chee all along?" Torrence asked, giving Alice a long look.
She doesn't say anything for a long minute, staring at Alice.
"Quite... loyal of you."
Loyalty to the Chee was admirable- although she hadn't said anything, even when Kasey said she knew something was wrong. Torrence glanced away from Alice, giving Reece a questioning look.
Reece raises his eyebrows at Torrence briefly, acknowledging her concern but trying not to seem too hostile. He paces. "Trouble is, even if we know what these folk look like, finding them is going to be like finding a needle in a haystack if we can't figure out where they might have gone." He turns back to Alice. "Clearly, you guys have had some troubles with information security. Any idea who might have found out you had this thing, let alone known how to get in?"
