{April 3rd, 2015, United States of America, 11:25am}
Twilight watched as most of the creatures left, and she began to worry that they may not understand her message. Oh, what if they don’t have books! Wait, they have written symbols and paper, they have got to have books… What if their books don’t look like ours though! She shook her head and regained her focus, and looked at the room she was now in. There was a simple bed made of towels, though she would have preferred a construction of books, she couldn’t understand their language so it made sense not to waste them. She turned to the bowl of apples, and snickered.
“At this rate I’ll be a relative of Applejack’s by the time I get back home” She said as she picked one up, and grabbed a paper and layed down to figure out what to do next. Should she try to understand her “dream”... no, she thought nervously, It was just a nightmare. She started to sketch out a set of blocks on her paper, and took some of the symbols from the bag of apples and placed them on the blocks.
She then walked over to the door, and knocked on it with her hoof, which seemed to startle the creatures outside. Laying the paper on the glass window, she stepped back and waited for their response. It was to open the door, causing the paper to fall down, and then reclose it. A bit rude, she thought, until she saw a small paper get placed on the other side with a pen drawn on it. Twilight shrugged and drew another vegetable, a carrot this time, and held it up to the door for a bit, before removing it. The creatures outside then placed a paper with six symbols on it, and she noticed that one of them was from their symbol for apple. She repeated it onto the paper, and showed it to the creatures, who responded with a thumbs up, like the humans and dragons do, an odd coincidence.
She continued to do this with other simple items, though some of them, like a carrot dog and hay fries, they didn’t seem to know. She also began to realize how many of the symbols are repeating in different “words”, and she drew all of them onto a different paper for later reference. One of the creatures seemed to notice, and wrote down 26 symbols, most of which she had already seen. That must be a list of all the symbols in their language, she thought as she finished up her list, and noticed the different order that their list had. She then copied the paper entirely, not wanting to have something ordered out of place.
One of the creatures, the one with burned wood skin, then pushed another out of the way, and began waving its arms around.
“Um, what are you doing?” Twilight asked, as the thing began to nod its head, then it SLAMMED a paper onto the window! Twilight jumped and her heart began to race as the creature began to nod rapidly. Twilight hesitantly wrote the symbols on the paper down, and nodded back at the creature, which smiled in response. It then shook its head at her, and slammed another paper onto the window. Twilight copied the 2 symbols again and showed it to them, shaking a bit from how aggressive that one seemed as it was doing it. It then smiled, and Twilight took a sigh of relief. It then pointed at Twilight, almost accusatory, and she became stiff, as it slammed another paper onto the window.
“What? What does that mean?” Twilight asked worriedly as it continued to point at her, and slammed the paper against the window again. Twilight didn’t know what they meant, but she wrote them down like the rest. The creature then tossed the paper, and began to rub it’s stomach.
“O-oh, that must m-mean hungr-” Twilight said as the creature slammed the paper against the window in a way that caused her to actually jump! She rushed over and drew the symbols down, and showed it to the creature, even her magic shaking as she held it aloft. It smiled, and got up.
---
“There we go! That’s the way to teach it!” Salanda said proudly as Bens watched the creature still shaking from her “Lesson”
He glared at her, “Bloody hell Salanda! Are you trying to give the thing a bloody heart attack?”
“It’s fine. Plus, I taught it a bunch of different concepts quickly! It now knows yes, no, you, and finally, hungry!” Salanda said proudly, as Bens still glared.
“Maybe we should try... a different approach. Don't want to overwhelm it.”
“Well, we were doing your approach, but it only was learning what it wanted to know, not what we need it to know! If it knows yes or no, maybe we can ask it questions. Speed this all up a bit, you know”
“Assuming it even understands us.” Jerry said, which stopped the three in their tracks.
“... What do you mean Jerry?” Bens asked, glancing back at the still frighted alien.
“It might not understand yes or no or even what you two are saying.” Jerry said, which caused the two to go quiet, and try to figure out how to handle that issue.
Vahlen then walked into the area, with a cup of coffee in her hands, and very quickly a confused look on her face seeing three adult soldiers surrounded by sticky notes and sitting on the floor.
“Um,” Bens said, trying to come up with a good explanation, “hi Doctor Vahlen… we were just… doing some testing.”
“Oh?” Vahlen said with “tired of this” tone, “Then which researcher asked you to do this exactly?”
Jerry had a very dumb smile as he said, “Doctor Pepper”, as everyone stared at him.
“Well, unfortunately he was disgraced five years ago, so he wasn’t chosen for the staff here.” Vahlen said with an annoyed sarcastic tone, before continuing, “So, you all have been doing unauthorized “testing” without anyone’s knowledge. I’m sure that can be used to court martial you three somehow.”
“...Shen did some unauthorized testing too” Bens said apprehensively.
“And he got away with it because he was the head engineer. But, I might as well see what you have managed to do. Xcom is not a petting zoo so you either have to produce meaningful results or we can use more direct methods.” Vahlen said calmly, as Bens gulped.
“Well, it has already doubled it's vocabulary, not counting the word xcom”
“A whopping four words. What purpose does teaching it English accomplish?” Vahlen said, hoping to see if they have any good reasons. She knew something like this could be useful, but she wanted to make sure they weren’t doing it to train it like a pet.
“A way of gaining information that doesn't cause the creatures death, and an understanding on how brainwashed the alien soldiers and/or civilians are into obeying who ever is in control of them”
“Hmm, even if you do understand them I don't think that will stop the alien invasion. If they are brainwashed then I doubt your words will reach them.”
“Also, they could, in turn, help us understand the alien language, so that is a massive improvement to our tactics against the aliens”
“True. But have you considered that you are helping a possible Alien infiltrator?”
“Jerry said a thin man swore at him in English and Russian, I'm pretty sure the aliens can normally pull off translating our communications.”
“Other than the fact I haven’t had a chance to check that information, you are not getting the point. It could be a sleeper agent. It has already shown it has destructive capabilities.”
“We aren't going to teach it anything that can be important to the alien forces or our own. And why would they make a sleeper agent like this? For all we know it could be a civilian or something.”
“Then explain why it can tear apart several inches of titanium? It can play dumb until the right moment to strike or is activated by a code word or certain condition. Perhaps it’s brainwashing didn't take and the thin man was supposed to destroy it but failed.”
“If it's the second, then we have an alien super agent that is friendly to us, and that the aliens are willing to take out, on our planet, meaning, for all we know, if it freaks out, it could be like a nuke. The point is that it is better to try to communicate with it, and figure out what we can, as carefully as we can. and teaching it the word for bread is the next step to that. If you want to argue about this, then we can have a meeting with the Commander to explain our points. I don't want that thing to have a "Parents are fighting" like image in their head if they aren't acting, Thank you very much.” Jerry interjected, though Vahlen had no idea what he meant by the last part.
Before Vahlen could continue, the group turned to the door and sullenly observing as he let himself in. They then placed down a laptop, and opened it up. It instantly boots up to the silhouette of the Spokesman.
“I feel that that statement alone is worth stopping whatever you are doing, considering you are housing said possible nuke in the same base where you live. Please tell me what you think would happen to Xcom if it goes off? You are putting a lot of faith on gambit that may bring the catastrophic end of Xcom and possibly mankind. It's not a guarantee even if you could speak to it, what are the chances of it wanting to fight for a different species.” The Spokesmen said, in a worryingly flat tone.
“...How did they hear that?” Both Vahlen and Jerry asked at the same time.
“You really don't think we didn't get the alarm you activated when that alien broke containment, do you?” He asked as the Commander ran in, slightly out of breath, and his eyes went wide.
“...shit” He said quietly as he noticed the Spokesman there. He had hoped this was only some random guy sneaking in, like one of his soldiers suggested.
“Commander, I would like an explanation for this incident.”
“We captured an alien that we have not encountered more than one of, and brought it in for an interrogation. It revealed a massive amount of power as it damaged the Interrogation Chamber, and somehow "Teleported" out of it. The situation is being handled, though it is still unprecedented.” The Commander said, catching his breath between sentences, trying to hide the fact that he was entirely unprepared for this today.
“Let me get this straight.You have a live alien running around the base and have done little to recontain or eliminate such a threat.”
“Incorrect. It is in a contained room, as we figure out how to keep it contained permanently. It is under constant guard, which will soon be handled by absolute professionals that will attempt to recontain it if it gets free somehow, and if that isn't possible, to eliminate it. The previous containment wasn't strong enough, so we are attempting basic forms of keeping it pacified, which is showing signs of working. We believe we also have a way to keep it in it's containment through the material meld, though it isn't at the point where it can be tested on the creature itself.”
“Hmm, I see.” The Spokesman said, “It's ability to "teleport" makes me less than confident on how secure the specimen is but it will have to do for now. The council hasn’t been able to conven yet, so I will allow you to keep doing your testing as you see fit for now. However, if this project doesn't yield any useful results soon, then it is to be terminated, along with the alien.”
“... I understand. The time the results must be shown is by the next scheduled council report, am I correct on that fact?” The Commander asked hesitantly.
“Correct Commander. By the next council report we will reevaluate the progress of Project Sunset Glimmer and whether it has a future. We will be in touch, Commander.”