Landtetten, Alpine Europa, 12/6/11243
The landing hall was home to a swarm of displaced people, busily crowding around each other for as far as Ivo could see; a thousand pairs of eyes any of whom could be watching him at any moment.
Ivo lightly stroked his brown satchel as he looked shiftily in all directions, clutching it to his chest free from harm's way.
The family from the museum sat just a couple of rows away from Ivo, gathered together with a fragment of his tour guests.
"Where are we going now?" Evaristo asked, his eyes as large as ever.
"I don't know," Evaristo's father muttered.
"When are they going to tell us?"
"Don't know for certain." Evaristo's father wrapped an arm around his boy. "When they've told all these people."
"Stop whining…" Marisa protested, stubbornly. "We're just going to have to wait and hope they don't destroy our home."
Evaristo whimpered.
"Marisa!" their mother exclaimed. "Stop that! They're not going to destroy our home!"
"Excuse me." Asianah emerged, and took a seat beside Evaristo on the bench. "Sorry… I couldn't help overhear you. I've been asking around and I've been told that we shouldn't be kept waiting any longer than an hour now."
"Ooh, excellent," the mother said. "Thank you so much."
"Thank you," Evaristo added.
"You're welcome." Asianah smiled a bright, toothy smile. "I'll be just over here. Come find me or my colleague if you need anything."
"Thanks," the family muttered. Asianah rose from her seat. Ivo detected her walking towards him, and clutched his satchel more tightly as Asianah sat down in front of him.
"It's in there, isn't it?" Asianah said, accusatively.
"What is?" Ivo responded, dismissively.
"That weapon from the mus…"
"Keep your voice down," Ivo exclaimed in a hushed voice.
Asianah leaned a little closer to Ivo so he could hear her whispers. "Why did you bring it?" she asked, quietly.
"What business is it of yours?"
"Have you read the news?"
"News? What news? That Belermo is being evacuated because of an invasion? Yeah, I figured that."
Asianah rolled her eyes, before showing Ivo a hologram from her watch. Ivo scanned his way through the text displayed in front of him. Slowly, he let out a grin, cackling wickedly to himself.
"I knew they'd be back," Ivo chuckled, opening the brown satchel and examining the bomb manufactured by the very same race which had come to invade.
"What are you finding so amusing?" Asianah asked.
"Years ago, Clom sent one of their own to murder some of our kind including my wife in aid of the development of this very tablet. The bastard rots in our prison, but those who sent him are yet to pay."
"Pay? How?"
"With their lives. If we can find a way to send this thing up to meet their ships, we could…"
"Start an interplanetary war?"
"…stop the invasion."
"You're a nutjob." Asianah placed a hand upon Ivo's brown satchel. Ivo tugged it towards him, holding the bag tightly in his arms.
"What else would you have me do?" Ivo asked. "Let the aliens invade our world?"
"I don't know, any solution other than rampant destruction? What if the government is making peace talks with Clom? Maybe this could be important…"
"I don't think so," Ivo sneered.
"Really?"
"If we get the government involved how long is it going to take for them to act? They're going to have to consult every expert imaginable, discuss it, bicker over it…"
"And come to a rational decision…"
"By which time they might already have landed. But we have an opportunity now, Asianah. We can stop this invasion before it begins."
Asianah straightened in her seat. "And remove the possibility of a peaceful solution," she said, sternly.
"If they wanted peace they should never have come to Earth in the first place," Ivo retorted. "They belong out among the stars, and it's much better for everyone if things stay that way."
Asianah sighed. "You wouldn't be saying that if you spent more time closer to other species."
"Umm, remind me, where do I work again? Oh right, yes, a prison for aliens. I might as well be out among the stars."
Asianah sneered. "When was the last time you went upstairs and came into contact with an actual alien creature, Ivo? You pretty much live in your vault. You're about as far from the stars as you can get."
"Enlighten me, what am I missing?"
"I think if it were your job not to pick apart their belongings, but actually care for them after our colleagues have performed their… ahem… experiments on them, then you might have a little bit more compassion for the other-worldly."
Ivo scowled. "Who the fuck even are you?" he asked.
"I'm an alien doctor," Asianah answered.
'Doctor… Time Lord…'
Ivo buried his head in his hands.
"Does that not compute, Ivo?" Asianah pressed.
"Of course it does," Ivo replied, through subdued laughter. "Of course you're the way you are, if you only ever see aliens at their most vulnerable. I bet you've never once stopped to ask what kinds of destruction your patients have caused."
"Most of them were kidnapped and put in cells just for being here!" Asianah's voice began to crack. "You don't have half an idea of what these citizens of other worlds are put through here. I do what I can to heal the damage, but I look into their alien eyes and I see the same pain that we humans recognise every single time."
"The same pain that my wife endured by their hands?" Ivo cried. "The same pain that I had to deal with when one of them murdered her? The same pain that continues to haunt me every time I think about how, if we had kept away from them, she would still be alive? Don't try to tell me that I haven't seen anything. I have seen far more of the universe and of what's out there than you ever will!"
Asianah looked at Ivo silently, her face stunned. Her hand reached out towards the satchel and placed a hand upon the handle. Ivo grabbed her wrist. Heads began to turn.
"The world is a safer place if you don't have that device," Asianah said, decisively. "Give it to me. Now."
"No!" Ivo insisted, hugging the bag tightly.
Asianah spoke in a whisper. "Hand me the tablet or I am going to march straight to the security desk and report it to them right now," tapping against her wrist as she spoke. An address buzzed onto Ivo's watch. "My brother is on his way to take me to his home in Amazonas. If the tablet turns out to be important for something, you know where to find me."
Ivo looked across the crowd. A few people looked blankly at him. Reluctantly, Ivo handed the brown satchel over.
Asianah rose to her feet, clutching the bag tightly in her hand. "I hope you'll come to understand why I have to do this," she said. A nervous chatter flowed through the surrounding crowd.
"Istituto di Acqua Fredda," Asianah said to the surrounding crowd, flashing up her credentials from her watch for all to see. "Government business." The hubbub calmed down. Swiftly, Asianah disappeared into the crowds, brown satchel in hand. Ivo returned alone to his seat, staring at the address as he counted down the minutes until someone would find him a refuge.
"Bartolo Toscani," Ivo's watch beeped. "Bartolo Toscani."
"Hello, Barti," Ivo muttered into his watch.
"Ivo, m'boy!" Barti's voice chimed through the device. "How's the evacuation? Are you keeping safe?"
"I'm in Landtetten," Ivo replied. "I was giving a tour of the vault at the time. Everybody got away safely."
"Good, good," Barti replied. "Listen, I've been in a meeting wit' some pretty important people. The Emperor himself, t' name one o' them. And some Esteemed Lords and Ladies."
"Wow…" Ivo gasped. "How did you end up with company like that?"
"Because we 'ave one of them invaders in our prison," Barti replied. "And those critters comin' to Earth want 'im back, along with something that we might 'ave."
"The Tablet of Fortitude," Ivo said.
"Y'know it. Do you have it? Is it in the vault?"
Ivo sighed. "I took it with me when I left," he said. "But it was confiscated. It's on its way to what looks like a small Amazonian village as we speak."
"Amazonas?" Barti muttered. "What's it doin' going to Amazonas?"
'Someone from the prison confiscated it from me because I was going to use it to destroy the Clombite ships and potentially interfere with fragile government plans.'
"It doesn't matter," Ivo said.
"D' you know who has it and where it is being kept?" Barti asked.
"Yes, it's…"
"Is it safe?"
"She's never going to let it go."
"Can we trust her?"
"She's an alien doctor. At the prison."
"Then we let 'er keep it until we need it."
"But…"
"Think about it, Ivo, whose goin' to think to look in some remote village in Amazonas for a weapon of mass destruction? We can't afford such a powerful device to end up in t' wrong hands, no. D'you think you could make your way over to Shakin?"
Ivo sighed. "Should be a straightforward journey," he said reluctantly.
"Come to Shakin, Ivo," Barti instructed. "We'll recover the tablet after the aliens land."
"But…"
"See you soon, Ivo. Have a safe flight."
The watch screen faded to black.
"Aahh!" Ivo squealed, his foot aching after kicking it against the solid steel chair leg, a hundred people turning their heads as they heard him.
"Ow," Ivo uttered quietly, meekly sitting down to investigate flights to Shakin.