Chapter 10

The timeline portal was a week late, with nothing happening. Ralph was getting anxious.

While waiting, he assisted with communications with a new alien race requesting to stop off on Earth for two days while their ship was being overhauled on the Moon's dark side. C insisted Ralph wear one of the MIB black suits over the red super suit.

She said, "You will be representing the MIB, and all MIB agents wear the black suit."

Ralph said, "But I must have Suit exposed for the telepathy to work. Here, how about this." He put the black suit on but left the tie off with the white shirt unbuttoned and open, exposing the red suit's shirt and symbol underneath.

C looked at it and thought it did look good that way, but she couldn't say that openly. She said, "Okay, I guess I will have to live with that, but you are Agent H to everyone when you wear the black suit."

Ralph asked, "Is the H for Hero or Hinkley?"

C said, "Whatever you like." Ralph smiled.

M said, "It really does look good like that, but you'll never hear that out of her mouth." Ralph chuckled softly.

When the new aliens came off the transport shuttle, Ralph was there to greet them with a big smile and introduced himself telepathically as Agent H. They were short, four-foot-tall bipedal creatures with two arms and three fingers. Their skin was a mottled beige and brown with a crest of sharp spikes on their head. They called themselves Zerpods, as close as Ralph could understand from their spoken language. They seemed like friendly creatures and were interested in human culture. They were shown videos of various aspects of human civilization, and Ralph would translate for them. When they left, they invited Ralph to visit them on their planet.

Ralph telepathically told them, 'I would love to see your planet, but I must go home soon. My wife is expecting our first child, and I must be there.' They congratulated him on the impending birth.

Two days after his work with the Zerpods, Ralph fell ill. He woke later in the night, aching with a high fever, and felt so weak he couldn't get out of bed. He called out, hoping someone was still watching him, but no one came. He lay in bed, going in and out of strange fever dreams that were so real he thought he was actually in the body of the person he was dreaming of. From the picture M showed him, he dreamed of the magician Merlin. He tossed and turned and moaned in his bed.

When he didn't appear for the usual breakfast meeting with M in the cafeteria, she became worried and went to his room. She knocked on the door and got no response. She opened the door and saw Ralph still in bed. M called his name, "Ralph, Ralph, are you okay?" and got no response.

She walked over to his bed and saw him tossing, turning, and moaning. She felt his head and could tell he had a high fever. M immediately called for medical assistance. The med techs arrived and rushed him to the infirmary. The doctors examined him, took blood samples, and determined that he had Xenomonic flu. All the MIB agents were inoculated against it, but not Ralph.

One of the med techs said, "I remember when I first started with MIB and got it. Man, I had some weird dreams that were so real I thought I was the person I was dreaming of."

One of the doctors said, "That is one of the symptoms, incredibly lucid dreams in humans. He'll be out of it for at least the rest of this day. We aren't sure how the alien DNA he has will react to this flu. He probably picked it up from the Zerpods he was escorting around."

After a while, Ralph stopped tossing and turning and lay without moving a muscle. The doctor said, "This is unusual; no humans have done this before with the flu. He opened Ralph's eyes, and they remained open and staring. The doctor checked the brainwave patterns and was shocked. The wave patterns were at the lowest levels he had ever seen. He told M, "I've never seen this before."

M replied, "I wonder if this could be one of the out-of-body excursions Ralph mentioned during one of the debriefings?"

After a day and a half, the fever finally broke, and Ralph moved, shaking all over with his eyes at the top of his head. He stopped shaking, blinked his eyes several times, and awoke, having difficulty remembering where he was. He asked, "What happened? I remember waking up and feeling terrible, and then I was in, believe it or not, Merlin's body for weeks."

M explained, "You had Xenomonic flu, which you probably got from the Zerpods. All the MIB agents are inoculated against it. Lucid dreams are one of the symptoms in humans."

"Can I take it back to my timeline?" Ralph asked.

"No, it is no longer communicable once it runs its course. Ralph, while you had the flu, you did something we had never seen with a human; you didn't move a muscle and stared. Your brainwave patterns were at the lowest levels the doctors have ever seen. Were you having one of the out-of-body excursions you mentioned?" M asked. She showed him the brainwave patterns on the screen.

"Yep, that looks like an out-of-body episode. That must be why I was in Merlin's body for weeks."

Later that day, Ralph felt better. He sat and thought about everything that seemed to happen to him as Merlin. It seemed to last so long when he only had the flu for two days. He felt sad for Merlin, thinking he died as Ralph left his body.

(Find out what happened to Ralph when he was in Merlin's body in Greatest American Hero: (Hero League 9.1) A California Hero in King Arthur's Court

Two days later, a pinpoint portal opened, and a telepathic message from Eric came through. In two days, the portal would be open. Ralph told C and M about the portal schedule. They decided Ralph would go through and tell Eric about the trade agreement.

Ralph told them, "The Hero scientists must figure out how to get Pam back before they can start regular traffic between the two timelines. I don't know how long that will take. What is a radio frequency you use here? We could send a message via a radio signal and let you know when to expect trade to start."

C liked the idea and had her tech people give Ralph a radio to use when they were ready to begin trade. Ralph put the radio in his pouch behind his cape.

The day the portal was to open for his return to the Hero timeline, Ralph waited impatiently all day. Finally, the portal appeared late afternoon, making loud crackling noises. The portal opened and focused to where Ralph could see the anxious faces of the scientists behind the control panels. Ralph walked forward and felt his body stretching and being pulled toward the portal, then stretching in the opposite direction away from the portal, and the snap and pop back to three dimensions. Ralph fell to the floor unconscious back in the Hero timeline. The portal closed.

C, M, and several other MIB agents were watching Ralph's progress through the portal and landing on the other side before the portal closed. M asked, "Do you think they will find Ralph's wife, Pam?"

C replied, "I don't know … let's hope so. I want to get some of those telepaths over here."