Outsider

Part Three

The blaring ring of the hotel room's telephone startled Mindy, jolting her awake. Stirring and moaning in protest over such a rude interruption, she yawned and stretched, her hand feeling in the bed for where Mork should have been. He was gone. Wondering if the phone call was from him and it was urgent, she quickly answered it.

"Hello?" She said groggily.

"Ms. McConnell," a man said on the other end of the line.

"Who is this?"

"Dr. Feldman."

"Oh, of course. I thought I recognized your voice. What's the matter?"

She heard him sigh on the other end of the line. "I'm afraid I have some unfortunate news to share with you about Mork," he said.

Mindy glanced at the empty space beside her on the bed. She straightened and held her breath, preparing to hear the worst.

"What is it? What's happened to him?" She asked.

"One of my former colleagues has captured him. They're holding him for study at Area 51."

"How could you let this happen to him?" Mindy asked angrily, getting out of bed and pacing restlessly. "You promised me that you would leave him alone. What is the matter with you? Do you want him to get sick and almost die again?"

"Please, Ms. McConnell…this has nothing to do with me. It wasn't my decision. Dr. Phillips has gone rogue. He is acting on his own, and I'm afraid he's a dangerous man. He will not be as merciful to Mork as I was. I have to find a way to rescue him and return him to you before he's destroyed."

"I want to help you."

"I'm afraid I can't advise that. Since you're a civilian, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to smuggle you onto the base. You should never have even been able to see our operation in Boulder. I, on the other hand, am authorized personnel. I can easily gain access. You do understand, don't you? It would be much safer for you and Mork if I did this on my own."

"At least let me go with you."

"Ms. McConnell—

"I am not going to sit idly by while Mork's life is at stake," Mindy said, her pacing increasing in tempo, like an aggressive, caged tiger.

There was a pause on the other end of the line. "All right," Dr. Feldman said. "You can come with me. But once we arrive at the base, you are to wait outside the secure perimeter and allow me to enter alone. I don't want to arouse suspicion. We have to proceed with caution, or this mission will fail. Do you understand?"

"Yes," Mindy said. "The last thing I would do is take any unnecessary risks and place Mork's life in jeopardy. I just want to be there for him, so he knows he's not alone."

"I understand," Dr. Feldman said. "Wait for me outside your hotel room. I will pick you up in an unmarked van."

"Okay," Mindy said. "Dr. Feldman, how did you know Mork and I were here?"

"We always know where Mork is," he said cryptically. "Unfortunately, so does Dr. Phillips."

Mindy shuddered at the idea that she and Mork were constantly being tracked by the government. It felt like a violation, an invasion of their privacy.

"Well then, let's get him back," she said.

Mork awoke to find himself secured to a hospital bed by heavy steel bands, his wounded leg swathed in bandages. Electrodes were attached to his forehead, and various machines provided readouts of his body's activity. The soothing numbness of his medication was beginning to fade, the dull, throbbing pain in his leg returning. Groaning, he closed his eyes and swallowed, the medication making his tongue feel thick. When he reopened his eyes, he saw the man who captured him standing over him, smiling.

"How are you feeling, Mork?" He asked.

Even though his mind still felt hazy, Mork studied the man carefully. There was nothing sinister about his appearance. In fact, he was rather average looking, someone who could easily blend into a crowd and be ignored or overlooked, his features unremarkable. Yet despite his bland ordinariness, Mork remembered him.

"I…know you…" he said, struggling to speak, his throat dry, his body weakened with pain and blood loss.

"Dr. Phillips," the man said. "I used to work with Dr. Feldman."

"I remember seeing you."

Dr. Phillips bowed his head, acknowledging Mork's recognition of him. "Well then, there you go," he said. "You could say we are old acquaintances, of sorts." He looked at Mork's bandaged leg. "It is a pity my men had to shoot you. I do apologize. They were supposed to bring you in unharmed. Well, not to worry. You are being tended to by our medical staff. Your wound is not life-threatening and should heal just fine."

Mork looked around the sterile surroundings of the room. "What am I doing here?" He asked. "Dr. Feldman told me I was free to go, that he would leave me alone."

"Yes, well Dr. Feldman had a serious lapse in judgment," Dr. Phillips said. "Let's just say that he and I had a professional disagreement over what should be done with you. He thought it was fine to release you and sacrifice years of valuable scientific research, while I saw you for what you are—a threat to the national security of this country."

"No," Mork said, shaking his head, his eyes widening. "I would never hurt anyone."

"I saw you knock the weapons out of those soldier's hands using your powers. Imagine the damage you could cause if you suddenly lost control, if you became violent. I'm afraid we cannot afford to allow you to wander freely among the general population when you possess such power. You're putting people at great risk with something they can't even begin to understand yet. They just aren't ready for it. You are a security risk, and we have to keep you contained here at the base."

"But I wouldn't become violent. Violence is against my nature. I was defending myself against being attacked."

Dr. Phillips shook his head. "Oh Mork," he said. "I wish I could believe you. I wish it were only that simple." He examined him, touching different parts of his body. "You are a fascinating species," he said. "You resemble us so remarkably. You're like the next step in human evolution." He began to unwind the bandage around Mork's leg. "I wonder…do you feel pain?"

He pressed his finger into the wound. Mork grunted, biting his lip and clenching his fists to prevent himself from crying out, not wanting to give this sadistic man the pleasure. Beads of sweat formed on his forehead and tears formed in his eyes, one of them rolling down his cheek. Dr. Phillips smiled, wiping the tear away with his finger and examining it.

"Affirmative, you do," he said. "However, you appear to have a high tolerance for it. You're so strong, and yet…so vulnerable. I wonder...do you even realize what you are capable of?"

"I don't care what you do to me," Mork said. "I won't cooperate. You can't keep me here."

"I can. You see, those bands that secure you to this bed are high tensile steel. They can withstand the weight of twenty big rig trucks. Your powers would be ineffective against them. Even if you did somehow manage to free yourself, my men have been ordered to shoot you if you try to escape. And this time, I guarantee you they won't aim for your leg. They will shoot to kill."

"Why are you doing this to me?" Mork asked. "What do you want?"

"I told you, Mork. You're a risk to this nation."

"But there has to be more to it than that."

Dr. Phillips looked at him. "You're right, there is," he said. He walked around the room, checking the equipment attached to Mork's body. "You're very astute, Mork. You see, there is a lot you don't know about what happened during your previous time in captivity with Dr. Feldman. While he was whining and wringing his hands over how to save your life, I was doing the job he should have been performing. I was studying you, carefully. I learned a lot about your species, about how you function. Still, there is one aspect of you that I do not fully understand yet."

"What is that?" Mork asked.

"Your powers. I want to know how they work."

Angered over his confinement, feeling cornered and helpless like hunted prey, Mork glared intensely at the pen hooked inside the pocket of Dr. Phillips's lab coat. At his will, the pen exploded, blue ink leaking all over the doctor.

"They work like that," Mork said, grinning sarcastically, relishing his minor victory over his captor.

Enraged, Dr. Phillips slapped him. Mork recoiled, but he remained defiant, refusing to cry out in pain from the sting of the blow, his glare remaining fixed. Trembling, the doctor removed his coat and shook it, trying to remove the ink stain as best as he could before giving up, tossing the coat aside.

"Amusing," he said. "However, I am being serious. I need to know how you are able to do things like that, and you're going to tell me."

"Why?" Mork asked. "Why do you want to know so badly?"

"If I knew how to harness your powers…well, they would provide a valuable asset to the defense of this nation."

"You want to build a weapon," Mork said.

"Yes, and your powers will be the ammunition."

"But you said I was a threat to the security of this nation," Mork said. "How is using my powers as a weapon going to keep you safe?"

"They will be used in the defense of this nation," Dr. Phillips said. "Imagine what we could do if we could only concentrate your abilities and channel them. We would have a weapon twice as powerful as the nuclear bomb. No enemy nation could withstand that kind of force."

"I'm afraid I can't allow you to do that," Mork said. "I never use my powers for violent purposes, and I won't allow them to be used that way by someone else."

Dr. Phillips smirked, looking at Mork, pinned to his hospital bed like a delicate butterfly secured to an album, and equally as fragile and helpless in his wounded state. "It's not as if you are in a position to bargain," he said.

"But you don't understand. I don't know if what you want from me is even possible. I'm not even sure how my powers work. They're inborn, like your grey eyes or brown hair. If you were to extract them from me…you'd probably kill me."

Dr. Phillips shrugged. "A worthy sacrifice," he said.

"No sir, it's not. If I die, you would lose my powers, too. Then all your efforts would have been in vain. It is worth really worth killing me over something you can't have, something you admit yourself you don't fully understand?"

"That's up to you."

"No, it's up to you. If you do this to me, I promise you the level of destruction possible would be beyond your ability to control. If you thought I was a threat to the general public before, well…I would hate to see the results of what would happen if you did somehow manage to use my powers as a weapon. I don't want to see it become a reality. I care too much about humanity to see them harmed, and as a member of their race, you should care, too."

"I'm afraid you have no choice in the matter," Dr. Phillips said, unmoved by his passionate pleas. "I will learn how your powers work. Once I have obtained the knowledge I need from you, I will have no more use for you."

Mork wanted to ask him how he could be so unfeeling, but he knew it wouldn't make a difference. He had encountered many beings like him across the universe and been subjected to torture on many unpleasant occasions. Always, his captors displayed the same callous disregard, deriving pleasure from of his suffering, immune to his pleas for compassion and mercy, which for them was nonexistent. There was little he could do, except endure it as best as his strength could bear it and bide his time until he found a way to escape, detected a flaw or weakness in their security. As he became a more seasoned traveler through space, he began to rely less on Orson's help, only contacting him in dire emergencies. Instead, he began to use his own resourcefulness and advanced intelligence, and eventually he always found a way out. He knew he would in this situation, too. He would just need to be patient. As formidable as Dr. Phillips was, he knew he could find a weakness in him and find a way home to Mindy. All he needed was time, something he knew was in short supply. He would have to act quickly, before Dr. Phillips succeeded not only in destroying him, but humanity as well.