Luke Smith Revealed - Alien or Not?
Owen had returned approximately half an hour later, with several cartons of Chinese take out, most consisting at least partially of vegetables, and a bottle of orange juice. Apparently, Luke had the appearance of someone lacking in vitamins. The man had left him to eat, after he noticed that Luke wasn't eating much with him there. He'd spouted something eerily familiar, almost as if he was quoting one of the medical journals Luke had read at Sarah Jane's, all about eating disorders and body image, something Owen concluded was probably brought on by the trauma of being force fed by cannibals, before leaving Luke in peace. Luke was, in reality, more worried about Owen slipping him drugs in his food than his body image, but he appreciated the man's concern. He quickly went about ascertaining what, precisely, was in his food, before eating one of the containers. He needed to save the rest for later, a practice he'd picked up on the run. There was no knowing when the next meal might come.
Jack watched the boy carefully over the monitor, quite confused by his current behaviour. The boy was thoroughly examining his food, inspecting it clinically, first visually, then by smelling it, then dipping his finger in and carefully placing a drop of whichever sauce smothered the food, before moving on. The kid was maybe fourteen, what on earth did he think he would find? Even if he was from the fifty first century, as his pheromones indicated, Jack hadn't known enough science by the boy's age to discern anything by the sort of evaluation the boy was conducting. Even in the future, what little he'd seen, the education of children wouldn't cover food testing till at least the university level. Of everything Jack had seen, this proved that the child was different, because the one dish the boy had set aside, after the longest period of testing, had been the one Owen laced with sleeping pills. The doctor had been concerned with how tired the boy looked, and when he'd shown no signs of sleeping on his own, had decided to take initiative. It was unnatural, to see a child so methodical, so scientific, so prepared. Children shouldn't be that way, not even children from the future.
"Tosh!" Jack called out the next morning, noticing her walking quietly to her cubicle, at least three hours before he expected her in. "What are you doing here? I thought I told you to rest?!"
"I did rest!" She lectured. "I slept for the appropriate eight hours that an adult my age ought to, and then I came back in to work, as I'm paid to."
Jack didn't believe her for a minute. "The boy's fine, Tosh. We didn't even manage to slip any sleeping pills past the kid, so I didn't bother trying anything stronger. Owen was a perfect advocate, even got the kid to eat some vegetables."
Tosh was quickly pulling up the video surveillance to the boy's room on her monitor. "Oh yeah?" She challenged. "Is that why he hasn't eaten anything yet?"
Jack joined her, taking the stairs two at a time. It was true, mostly. It appeared that while the boy had eaten something, judging by the empty carton on the floor, he hadn't eaten nearly enough to make Tosh, or Owen happy. Owen had given him enough for a single person's meal, he should have been able to eat it all in one sitting. "Strange. Owen watched him start eating, but after that we basically left him alone for the night. He looked hungry enough, so why did he only eat one dish?"
Tosh got up suddenly, knocking her coat on the floor. "I'm going to go talk to him. Maybe get him to eat a danish, or something."
"Oh, and ask for his name! Owen got distracted last night, and my search didn't turn anything up."
Tosh turned around, incredulity spread across her face. "You never asked his name? You found time to look him up on our data base, but you couldn't even ask him who he is?"
"Umm…" Jack mumbled, "maybe? I don't do well with interviewing kids."
"Well, if you won't show any humane treatment to the boy, I will." Tosh replied furiously. Jack could talk to everybody, sure, maybe kids were the only thing he couldn't flirt with, but still! It was a pathetic excuse, and Jack's discomfort proved that he knew that.
Luke heard another person coming down to his cell. It was too light to be Owen or Jack, so Luke guessed that it would be Tosh. He knew that the other two people on the team would be too injured to come into work today, unless they used some sort of alien tech to heal them faster.
He saw the asian woman approaching through the glass, proving him right. He wondered what she was here for. He still had plenty of food, and Owen had nearly promised that they wouldn't conduct any tests, and at that point, Luke had run out of ideas.
"Hello?" The woman greeted timidly. "I'm Toshiko. We need to know your name, so that we can contact your parents." Tosh thought that she'd start small. Perhaps if they found the boy's parents, then she would be able to persuade Jack to leave the boy alone.
"I'm," Luke replied hesitantly. He didn't want them to call Sarah-Jane, he wasn't human, so she couldn't be his mum anymore. She wanted the human Luke, not whatever he actually was. "I'm nobody."
"You must have a name," Tosh wheedled, "everyone's got a name."
"You can call me Luke." He finally replied. They wouldn't be able to connect him to Sarah-Jane with his first name only. Mr Smith might be looking for him, but she wouldn't have been able to report him missing to the police, not without too many questions popping up.
"No last name?" Tosh asked hopefully. If he was an alien, he might not have a last name, but if he was human, as Tosh suspected, it would be much easier to find his family and send him home if they had a last name.
"Just Luke."
"Alright." Tosh agreed, slightly disappointed. It didn't prove he wasn't human, but it certainly didn't help either. "It's nice to meet you, Luke. Would you like some breakfast?" Tosh held out her bag of pastries. It was a bit disappointing, not being able to get a last name, but at least they could stop calling him 'the boy'.
"But I've still got food, miss." Luke was terribly confused. Why would they give him more food when they'd given him enough last night for the week? He'd take it, of course, the more he could save up the better, but it was terribly confusing.
"That was your dinner." Tosh explained slowly. "That was one meal. You're a growing boy, you need to eat more."
"Thank you, ma'am." Luke whispered shyly. These people, they thought he was an alien, but they still seemed to care. Sure, he was locked up, and he just knew that they wanted to run tests, discover what was wrong with him, but he didn't care. They cared. Even though he wasn't human, they cared.
"Which one's your favourite?" Tosh asked, kindly. "We've got danishes this morning, raspberry, apple, or cherry."
Luke thought, hard. Sarah-Jane hadn't kept danishes in the house, neither had Maria or Clyde. They had things like toast in the morning, toast and eggs, maybe some bacon. They didn't keep too many sweets in the house. Later, when he was on the run, he hadn't had any either. Bakeries had great rubbish bins, for a runaway. They had to throw out the food that was too old to sell. "I don't know. I've never had one."
"Oh…" Tosh murmured, uncertainty staining her voice. "Well, raspberry is my favourite. You should try one of them."
"If they're your favourite, shouldn't I choose another?"
"Oh, sweetie, we have plenty. Take whatever you like."
"Thank you. I will."
Tosh left soon after Luke had taken a danish, promising to come back down with some tea, later. She needed to talk to Jack, and soon.
"No!" Maria yelled, desperately. "We can't! We can't leave!"
"Maria…we can't put our life on hold forever. Luke might be back soon…and he might not. Sarah Jane will call us when he turns up."
"Please, dad! We can't go. What if he calls? What if he comes back and needs me? What if I could do something, if I remembered something that could help find him? I can't do that from America."
"If you remember something, then we can call. I'm sure Sarah-Jane will keep you updated, and if he comes back, then I promise, I'll put you on the next plane back to visit. If you feel so very strongly, we won't go, but this is a very big opportunity, and I would very much like to take it."
Maria was happy for her father, truly she was, and she wished she could support him, but…it was Luke. Her very best friend. "Just one more week, Dad! Please. Then, I promise, we can go."
"Jack." Tosh called out to the empty hub. Her boss's coat was draped over the back of one of the chairs, but that didn't really help much. No matter what Gwen thought, the man didn't wear the coat at all times. Just most of them. There really were way too many places to hide in their base, it was quite annoying when a person was looking for someone. "Jack, we need to talk."
The enigmatic man hopped up into Tosh's line of view from beneath one of the computer monitors, throwing down a wrench. He seemed to be in the midst of fixing some of their broken tech. "What is it? Find anything important?"
"Well, his name is Luke, and either he's a time travelling alien, or he's been abused." Tosh reported. It was the only alternate state of affairs that matched up with all of the facts.
"Abused? What makes you think that?" Jack knew that he'd been captured by those cannibals, which would account for most odd behaviour, so why would Tosh immediately jump to abused?
"He either doesn't know his last name, or doesn't want to admit what it is, which points to runaway. He's never eaten a danish before. He doesn't expect to be fed often, he thought that the Chinese food we gave him for dinner was expected to last a week. Must I continue?"
"No," Jack muttered absently. "I've got it. That all points to runaway. I was looking for a kid who'd been missing for a couple weeks, tops, but if he was on the run when he was caught, I'll need to expand my search parameters. He could have been missing for years." Jack raced up the stairs two at a time, dropping into his chair to adjust the parameters searching the missing persons database. Jack merely adjusted the time period that the computer was sifting through. The boy was most likely lying about his name, and there was no need to rule out valid options by searching for a name that didn't exist.
About half an hour after Tosh had given him a danish, Luke had another visitor in the form of a crabby doctor.
"Luke, right?" He asked, then ploughed on without waiting for an answer. "You willing to come upstairs today? There's tea waiting, and I'd really like to conduct a proper check up, make sure that nothing else is wrong with your health."
Luke looked up at the doctor untrustingly. While the man was most definitely his favourite among his captors, he was still one of his captors. He wasn't his host, or his friend, he was one of the people who took him from one set of kidnappers to their own base. He was not their guest, he was their prisoner. It did not make for the beginning of a very trusting relationship. Luke was not one to get Stockholm Syndrome. He'd read up on it, and promised himself never to be so stupid. If a person kidnaps you and doesn't allow you to leave, they are not your friend. They do not care for you, they are not nice people. They are kidnappers, and they want something from you. The previous set wanted to eat him. This set seemed to want to discover how he worked. They were probably one of those groups that Sarah-Jane talked about, the groups that fought off aliens with guns and violence. They might be supported by the government, but that didn't make them good. They weren't offering him a lawyer, he wasn't arrested, he didn't get a phone call. They weren't like the police. They'd kidnapped him. He had to remember that. However, they didn't seem to want to hurt him in that instant, in fact, they seemed rather eager to put him at ease. It would probably be better if he cooperated. They might stay nice if he did. "Sure."