Alexander allowed himself a moment of indulgence the next morning. For a few very long hours, Corda had been out of reach, locked away from him by enemies. He was well aware of the fact that she could take of herself. She would never have been the first officer of the Congeria if she couldn't. But that didn't mean that he didn't worry when she was in danger, just as she worried when he was in danger. You pushed the worry down and focused on the task in front of you, then when the danger had past, you reassure yourself they're alright. He'd spent a considerable amount of time last night making sure she had no injuries, a very pleasant endeavor, now it was time to just hold her and soak in the simple and profound fact that she existed at all, let alone loved him back.
"Hmm." Corda sighed, she loved quiet moments like this with Alexander. Bickering was fun, as she'd pointed out a number of times, but feeling her love for Alexander and his for her, though the heart beating beneath her ear was a wonder and a joy, she hoped never to take for granted.
"First thing I'm going to do is head over to the hospital and check on those people, see what's going on with them." He murmured softly. "I'll call Willow's parents later, I want to be sure I don't make things bad by losing my temper. Those people bother me as much as Xander's do."
"I know. Cordelia's parents at least care, even if I rarely ever see them because they're constantly traveling for work and pleasure, it's made it easy to hide this merger of her and me. And her father is proud of her starting a business, he'll be home in a couple of days and I'll tell him about the Altimah Project's new status as defense contractors, that'll make him proud too. If he and Cordelia had been closer, I would never have been able to hide this from him and probably would have just told him, if he didn't figure out something had happened himself. He's just never here enough to notice and she was never close to her stepmother."
"Are you going to try for a meeting with Mayor Jacobson today?"
"I don't know if he'll be able to see me today, but I'm certainly going to try."
"I suppose we should get up and get started on our day."
"I don't wanna, but you're right, we should."
About an hour later, Alexander headed over to the hospital, while Corda went to City Hall. After he scanned several people in the hospital's psych ward and asked some questions and got some troubling answers, he headed over to the High School, where Giles and Jenny still worked.
"Giles." He said, as he came into the library. "I went to the hospital and did a scan of those people, like you asked. I did find something. They've all been depleted of neurotransmitters. Nearly completely. Also I'm seeing evidence of the molecules of the skulls being forced apart, as though something approximately four centimeters wide was shoved into both side of their heads."
"Four centimeters?" Giles held up his hand and looked at his fingers resting side by side. "That's about the average of four fingers lying side by side. Someone or something may have stuck their fingers, literally, into these people's brains. I've never heard of any demon that feeds on neurotransmitters."
"You may not have heard about it in those terms, Giles. Magic uses different terms to describe things then science does, but they're still talking about the same thing."
"That's true. I will consult my books and see if I can find any references that include insanity, that may give us another direction of investigation."
"It's also possible this is an alien, a brand new one. I asked some questions while I was there. Whatever happened to these people happened fast. Some were fine then just a few minutes later, someone would find them and they wouldn't be. No one seems to have seen anything and they were often only alone for a few minutes. Also, a few of them mentioned something very concerning. The Key. None of the people at the hospital know what to make of it, but over half of them came in talking about the Key."
"It seems Gunn may have been correct in his concern that just removing that energy from Hope was not enough to eliminate the threat."
"I was also wondering if this has happened anywhere else. When you see Jenny, could you see if she can run a search? I'm going to call Jack and let him know. If this is alien related, his people need to know about it."
"Very well. We can meet after classes are done for the day and compare notes."
"See you later, I need to call Willow's parents, then Jack."
"Good luck."
"With which one, the parents or Jack?"
"Willow's parents, of course. Jack cares, Willow's parents do not seem to. They'll probably agree very quickly and you will struggle not to reach through the phone and shake them."
"Good thing I can't actually reach though the phone."
They did agree very quickly to allowing Willow's friend Xander to take over the expenses of her care. They willing offered to sign over power of attorney to him. Alexander supposed it was a good thing he couldn't reach through the phone and shake them, he didn't need to add legal trouble to everything he was currently dealing with.
Jack was easier to deal with. He immediately put Carter on their own search for potential other victims and told Alexander to keep him in the loop.