Chapter 15
“…the horrific displays of this afternoon. Casualty reports are still coming in from the affected villages, but initial estimates by the security service put the casualties at over five hundred, mostly pensioners located at one of several retirement communities who could not be evacuated in time. We go now to—”
Ocellus watched in fascination and horror as the enchanted tablet attached to the ceiling continued its report, with a constantly cycling series of humans.
She had been taken with David and Helen along the road to an open field that was rapidly transforming into a city. The mystery of what the flying-tribe humans had been here to do now made sense—they were apparently expert builders.
Already there were a dozen tent buildings going up, with fences and sandbags and stranger things she had no names for. Of course they hadn’t been brought in for a tour, but into the single complete building to wait in some uncomfortable chairs.
“You’ll need to talk to my… boss—” Mr. Smith had explained, when they arrived. “I’m afraid she’ll need to hear everything you saw and heard. If you’d like to wait a little longer, I can have a member of the NSPCC present during your conversation. Your parents won’t be able to see you until that’s complete.”
Helen laughed. “Parents, see me. That’s funny.” She looked over at David. “You wanna wait longer so some stuffy lawyer can be there?”
He didn’t hesitate. “No. I just want to get home.”
“Right.” She looked back. “We can just see her.”
“What about you,” Smith focused on Ocellus, expression surprisingly kind. He’d radiated suspicion when he first discovered them, but that emotion had mellowed since they arrived here. The human’s partner was gone now, apparently to “fill out the paperwork.” So it was just them.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Without the, uh… NSP… what is that?”
“Legal representative,” Smith said. “For your information, none of you are being accused of a crime, and you aren’t in danger of any kind of prosecution. But we think you might be witnesses in something… critically important.” He gestured at the television. “That, right there. It’s connected with the business of the, uh… sightings.”
“We don’t know anything,” Helen said, for the third time now. Every time he asked a different way, but so far the humans had held to their story. But will they? Do humans have ways to interrogate like changelings did?
These humans were too young to be vulnerable to the most effective changeling methods—those sorts of pheromones would only have confused them, instead of turning their minds to a nice warm mush.
Not that Ocellus had ever used those methods—that was the old, dead swarm. But she’d heard about it.
“Maybe you think you didn’t,” Smith said. “Not for me to say. Ms. Clarke may be able to help you remember something you’ve misplaced. Some little detail that can point our search in the right direction.”
David shrugged. “We’ll try. We want to help. Well… I want lunch, but I want to help too.”
“I’ll have someone run to Nando’s for you while you’re in with her,” the human promised. Then the cloth door at the end of the hall opened, and Smith turned. An older human stood in the doorway, her emotions an inscrutable mask to Ocellus. She had the first gray hair she’d seen so far, adding another color to the limited human spectrum.
“These are the children?” she asked.
“Aye, ma’am.”
“Very good. Are we waiting for council?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Excellent. Bring them in.” She turned and strode back into the office.
It wasn’t terribly large, most of the space occupied with complicated-looking machinery with various lights and flashing screens. Lots of it looked like the enchanted tablet outside, except that there were many images all running at once. Her desk itself was plain and a little underwhelming for the almost princess-like attitude of this human, who barely seemed to even look at them.
She gestured, and Smith shut the door quietly behind them. Ocellus could see the back of his head motionless by the window. Waiting for them to finish. “Well I’m pleased to meet you all,” the woman said, without a trace of pleasure in her voice. If anything, she was feeling boredom, though she was exceptionally good at hiding it. “You can call me Ms. Clarke. I understand the three of you were in an area of interest last night. Looking for dragons, is that right?”
“Yeah,” Helen muttered.
“This dragon.” She pushed a photograph across the table with one hand. Ocellus leaned forward to look at it with the others, and was unsurprised to see an image of Smolder.
It was as though there’d been a photographer on the pier, and Smolder had posed for several minutes to get a clear image. She’d been captured in perfect clarity, at the exact moment she was breathing fire.
“That’s what we were looking for,” David agreed. “Your picture is bigger than the one online, but…”
“I have it here that you vanished in… early afternoon. Children like you, out on your own… could’ve gotten yourselves hurt. Did your parents know you were going to spend the night?”
“No!” Helen said. “We were supposed to be home by dark. But then the storm hit, and—” She glanced sideways at Ocellus. “We got stuck.”
This older human’s emotions hadn’t been clear at first, but maybe that was just because she hadn’t been feeling them in the same way. Ocellus could feel her doubt now, a pungent spice that was as much a warning sign to a hiding changeling as a spark in a fireworks shop.
Do they have experts at finding changelings? No, that was paranoia. But maybe they were experts at finding something. Smith had said they were from “security services.”
“It’s my fault,” she said, before their interrogator could ask something else. “It got dark so fast, and I couldn’t see anything. I slipped, and…” She turned her head to one side, revealing the lump there. Imitating an injury was incredibly difficult magic, well beyond what Ocellus would’ve been able to do normally.
But she had seen exactly what Marie looked like when she was hurt, seen the blood emerging from the opening in her skull. She felt her stomach rebel at the thought, and clutched it with both hands, nearly falling out of her chair.
That did it. The woman’s doubt was instantly replaced with worry—though not the kind of worry she could feed on. She reached across the desk. “Do you have her, children? Don’t let her fall.”
David’s hand held her by the shoulder, pushing her back gently into the seat. There was a caution in his touch that hadn’t changed since they rode here. “It’s a terrible oversight that we’re even having this conversation. Head injuries can sometimes be hard to spot, but…” She touched something on her desk. “Smith, get me the EMTs immediately. This child is your new first priority.”
“Right away, Ma’am,” came his voice through the table, and the figure on the other side of the door ran off.
“And the two of you—I can see a few minor scrapes and bruises from here. Was that all? Do you need medical care as well?”
“No,” Helen said. “Maybe a biscuit and a bloody shower, but that’s it.”
“Right. Well, the two of you can continue this explanation as soon as your friend is off to get the care she needs. We can catch up in private… some other time.”
“Her mum is probably furious,” Helen muttered. “She’s a real nutter, that one. Doesn’t let her go out with us most nights. Getting permission for this hike was like pullin’ teeth.”
And now she was feeling boredom again. That’s good, you two. Make her bored. Waste her time. But she couldn’t talk to them now—there was no time for a changeling lesson in deception. And come to think of it, Twilight Sparkle probably wouldn’t have approved of her teaching the children of strange, delicate creatures from far away how to lie.
The door banged open a moment later, loud enough that Ocellus actually gasped and fell forward again. David caught her for a second time, though now that it wasn’t an act it took both of his hands to hold her.
There were half a dozen humans standing in the doorway, around a metal bed on wheels. Each of them wore white clothing that hid almost their whole bodies. Except for Smith, they were all just eyes.
“We have a trauma center on base. Well… ‘base’ might be a tad generous, but see if it isn’t by tomorrow.” She nodded towards Ocellus. “It’s this one, if you couldn’t already tell. Head trauma.”
“Hmm.” One of the white figures strode in, right over to Ocellus. She half-expected her to pull out some kind of magical restraints, but… no. Instead she pulled the mask away from her face, revealing a friendly, concerned smile. Another female human, almost as old as Clarke but with nothing but sensitivity radiating from her. “Can you walk, miss…”
“Walk?” She immediately tried to stand up, and this time she did a little better with the difficulty of balancing on two human legs. Well she thought she did, anyway. But the woman still watched her with concern. “Hmm. Why don’t you climb onto this nice stretcher. Here, I’ll help you up.”
She glanced back at Marie’s friends, as though they might be able to save her. But neither moved. She could sense no fear for her. So either they don’t think these humans are a threat, or they don’t care if I’m in danger. That second one didn’t make sense, though. It wasn’t just her that was in danger, it was Marie’s chance of pretending none of this had happened.
“Hey, Marie. I don’t like the way these humans look, are they safe?” She sent the thought knowing full well the human on the other end would have difficulty making sense of it—it would be the first time she’d sent an image, and over quite a distance.
She got no reply, only a general sense of a distant, hungry drone. Probably asleep.
“Okay,” she finally said, taking the offered hand and hopping up onto the stretcher. “I’ll get to see my friends again, right?”
“Your parents first,” the doctor said, settling her so that she was on her back on the metal bed. And just like that the team of humans had them off, down the hallway and out into the field.
There was already another tent-building not far away, and they rolled along a path of gravel that bumped and shook her a little. Ocellus reached out, and felt at the emotions of the ones escorting her. She could feel no anger, no triumph at having captured her. Just concern, and a detached professionalism she had long since associated with the Equestrian Royal Guard.
Like… medical soldiers. It was an interesting thought—if humans could ride around in carriages without a pony to pull them, what were their doctors like?
Similar, as it turned out. The medical tent was packed to the walls with incredible machines. She was forced to learn how several of them worked—forced to change into a dress made out of paper and to sit still while they poked and prodded and led her from one machine to the next.
In the end, the human she’d learned was named Dr. Camillo stood in front of her bed with a magical tablet in hand, frowning down at it like it were a troublesome student who needed to stay after in class.
“Well, Marie, it looks like you don’t have a concussion. As for what you do have…” She frowned down at her device again. “Well, I’ll be having a word with your mother. She’s just arrived, but I’m afraid I’ll have to see her before you can. But you just… wait here a moment, and she’ll be able to see you shortly.”
“That’s great,” Ocellus said, hoping she sounded convincing. “I’ll be right here!” She fidgeted, wanting very much to run away. “Marie, can you hear me?” Still nothing.
I hope her mother is easier to trick than mine.
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What did they find...
Shame this updates only weekly, I so want to read more of it
Shapeshifting/transfiguration + modern medical technology = surprisingly untapped opportunities in urban fantasy. Looking forward to see what the doctors' reaction to Ocellus!Marie is.
Frankly, I'm worried about whether or not anything changeling-y showed up in the med team's examination of her, but I guess we'll have to wait for another chapter for that answer.
Judging from the reaction of said team, though, I would hazard to guess that if they did find something amiss, it's nothing too major, just puzzling at best, but possibly something that can be explained away. Otherwise, I'd think there would be a bit more...you know...flipping out at this point.
And Ocellus doesn't even know that the doctors likely got some very confusing readings from the machines they hooked her to...
ocellus probably can not change the shape of her organs.
Human outside, changeling inside. This should be an interesting conversation.
Chances are her organs and weight are off, and they suspect child abuse.
Its shaping up, only woe chapters are short, but i know why though, still the woe
Ok, stopping my inner Rarity at that, i'm pretty sure the doc wont just stop at the parents, but others too, unless Ocelus managed to copy her inside well enough too.
Now onto the Cliff to hang as ordered by the story, meep
9364943
Since this isn't Star Trek, blood work takes time so only the most basic stuff can be done "on the spot". I have to wonder if their annoyance is because the readings indicate malnutrition or something like abuse.
9368263
Yes, but it sounds to me like they also took x-rays, or something of the like, to check on the status of her head injury, which is not unheard of for such an injury, and for all we know, that might reveal something underneath Ocellus's disguise, something even she might not be aware could be found.
I've also thought that, since Ocellus notes she used what she remembered of Marie's actual head injury to model at least the outside appearance of the head injury she's wearing as part of her disguise, she made that injury too severe, and its outward appearance doesn't match up with what the internal injuries should look like, and so on. In other words, there's a discrepancy between that injury and her apparent health that is mystifying the doctors. If so, not exactly a game breaker--stranger things have happened in the world of medicine, so they could just rule it as her being extremely lucky and want to keep her under observation just in case until they're sure she's gonna heal up properly--but still enough to make a disguised changeling uneasy and to give her another complication she didn't need.
But again, won't know for sure until the next chapter most likely. This could go down in any number of ways.
Well, things are about to. The only question is which things, and whether they are good or bad.
This gets more and more interesting...
X ray machines are compact and can be tripod mounted, or more likely a simpler design is to invert it, use an Xray table where the digital film goes over the person or object laying over the generator, supply and controls. Doppler ultrasound gear isnt even a filing cabinet with a handheld unit, and depending on how much they are splashing out over what time, they can bump for a lorry trailer unit thats specifically built as a complete self contained mobile MRI scanner. I assume that can be driven anywhere in the UK in 12 hours or so. If they have to, Im not sure if they have a 60 ton rated skycrane if they need it quicker. Although the Galaxy lifter can cut time depending on airfield positions.
Oscellus has tried to copy the form from the blood sample and DNA through the magic, but a perfect match wouldnt have the shapeshifting capacity. I thought the most recent zip scan method in the research labs could process a whole chromosome in about 4 hours, and the genome in a week. For a single sequencer in a single lab. Viruses can be scanned in about 20 minutes using a USB memory stick sized scanner.
Depends if this version of changeling magic also copies the mind state over on duplication, so Oscellus has access to even basic memories, otherwise its going to be the whole amnesia thing and comedy of farce of errors with family?
9364934
Ocellus probably looking starved, so the doctors suspect child abuse.
Never talk to the authorities without a lawyer. Big mistake.
I'm curious what it is that the doctor found.