When we found Marina, the BPRD, that is, she was fighting tooth and claw to get out of a tank at an illegal research branch of St-Trinians. She had no memory of them, but recognizes her own style of writing.

Case File X1294

AWSSAS

Incident Report-Marina Connery. Icthyo Sapien #9. These are documents recovered from the patient's quarters. The names of other students have been changed for their protection.

Documents Recovered;

The first thing I ever noticed was the absences. They had the whole charade of normality working almost perfectly, but there was one thing they couldn't help. Every class, every day, another person would be missing. They gave hundreds of plausible excuses, about how girls at this age were badly behaved, and about bad winter colds going around, and how these things were even worse in a boarding school because we all lived so close together, but they couldn't explain it all away.

I never noticed, of course. I followed blindly where my teachers led me, and never perceived the patterns. I wasn't nearly smart enough for that. No, to notice that, to put the pieces together and realize that every student was absent on the same two days of every month, that took a mind like Jenna's. I was a telepath for Chrissake, and I didn't notice.

She first told me about this rhythm on the sixteenth of April. She trusted me more than the rest of the school, because she was one of only a few Icthyo Sapiens in the building. There were other non-humans of course, but we understood eachother just a little bit better. We were going to lunch, right after math class, when I met her in the hall. She was sitting on a bench, the watery sunlight streaming through the window in front of her. It highlighted her blue stripes, and somehow seemed her look frail, her shadow stretching out longer than seemed possible for the angle of the sun.

"Hi Jenna" I greeted her. She looked up and smiled her distracted smile that meant she was thinking. I knew her well enough to let her finish her thoughts, and I was right to.

"Marina, I just noticed something. I want to talk to you about it."

She looked genuinely puzzled, and it isn't often Jenna ask for help, so I answered. "Sure, what is it?"

"Have you noticed that everyone misses a few classes a month?"

"Yah, but that's normal, isn't it"

I sat down next to her. I folded my webbed fingers on my lap, and looked across at her.

"Two days a month, every student?"

"I guess so, but, I mean, people do get sick."

"What if I was to tell you that they were the same two days?"

I turned to look at her.

"You mean the exact same date?"

She nodded.

"Every month"

Another nod.

"Every student?"

She gave me another, deeper nod, followed by a sardonic smile as I began to pay attention.

I laughed lightly, trying to brush it off. "Oh, Jenna, it's probably just the wrong time of the month for their cycle… You know how it can be."

Jenna smiled at me. "Yes, Marina, that's a very reasonable explanation, and I would totally agree with you if t wasn't for one thing."

"What?"

"Those two days, they aren't together. They come exactly nine days apart."

And that was the first time I ever began to doubt the manipulative tool that was my school. I had been in this lovely rickety old building, living all year round, not counting two weeks of March break and a three week end of year vacation, for four years. In all that time I had never found so much as a crack in the protective padding they smothered us in 'for our own good.' I didn't even think too much of it then. I was so trusting that it took several more incidents like this before I even began to realize that something was very wrong. That is as close to the true conversation as I can remember it, I didn't think to write it until a few days ago.