Falling Skies Invasion Alone

Question

"Scalp was lacerated but no cranial damage. Maybe a concussion but I won't know for sure until I do some more tests." Lourdes said to us. I was leaning against the glass door in one of the hospital rooms with the rest of the Mason's, Maggie and Peralta.

Maggie questioned as to whether Lourdes had found an eye bug or something. She was praying for some evidence that Hal had been taken over. She needed for him to not be evil. She needed it to be sabotage.

"I took a full set of x-rays. There was nothing." She shook her head. I watched Maggie's reaction, saw her brow furrow more and her jaw clench.

"That doesn't mean there's nothing there." Maggie ground her teeth as she spoke and turned away

"I'm going to do a full blood panel." Lourdes promised, explaining that when there was something foreign in the body, proteins were released into the blood and that would show up in tests.

"How does this help Hal?!" Maggie snapped, turning back with a glare.

I leant up from the glass. "She can't fix what she can't see, Mags." I said softly to her.

I wanted to ease her guilt and her worry as much as anyone else, probably even more, but she couldn't take her frustrations out on Lourdes. She was the one who was trying to help.

Matt suggested that maybe it was gone, fled when we got Hal back. Everyone agreed that that may be so, but we needed more information. I kept a hand on Maggie's arm, trying to keep her calm. Ben said that the best way to get to the bottom of it was to talk to the rebel skitters. After all, who knew more about Espheni tech than them?

We met with the rebel skitters not even a half hour after we discussed it. It was just Tom, Ben and I. I wouldn't even have gone if Tom didn't ask me to. Apparently, he wanted a medical representative there, to explain to the skitters Hal's health stats. I was confused but did as I was asked.

It always kind of freaked me out when they used Ben to communicate with us. I mean, that was one of the reasons why Ben had opted to keep his spikes, but I didn't love it.

I watched as Paint Face spoke to Tom through my boyfriend about the search and recover type device they had. It was dangerous. To the point where if Hal didn't have a bug, then the device would kill him.

At this point it would be better if Hal did have a bug. I mean, that would make how he had acted okay and it would mean we could get the bug out with the device. If he didn't have a bug, that meant he had just flipped mentally and we would kill him with the device.

Ben spoke, but it didn't sound like him. His skitter voice was like an actors voice, it was definitely like he was being possessed- which I guess he was. His eyes stared, straight ahead. He was just a puppet. It freaked me out- took the humanity out of the guy I loved. I hated it.

I had snap back into motion as Ben said my name. But it was Paint Face. I hated hearing my name come from Ben's mouth so emotionlessly. He would whisper my name when we were with others and he was trying to get my attention secretly. He would shout my name when I was too far away. He would moan my name when we were kissing. And he would grumble it when he was pissed at me.

But as the skitter translator? I never wanted to hear my name like that.

I tried not to grimace as Paint Face-through Ben- gave me instructions as to use the device. It was like an egg that had this biological dust which could enter the body and search out the foreign being. I had to then relay that information to Lourdes so I listened super carefully, trying to block out the Ben in it.