Author: Mark Renney
We have been instructed not to refer to her as the alien or the extra-terrestrial or even the visitor. I’m sure she has told the Scientists and Government officials her name or has informed them of the system she and her society use in order to identify themselves but we, the service and security staff, are not privy to this information.
They provide her with all that she needs, although the access she has via the screen is limited. This doesn’t seem to have hindered her in any way and she is progressing rapidly.
She has already mastered our language and I would like to ask the Subject her name, but we are not allowed to communicate with her.
She is so open and honest and pliable, allowing herself to be prodded and poked, embracing the tasks and tests they set for her and completing them oh so quickly and easily.
The Subject seems entirely unaware that she is being held captive here, is a prisoner and that we are her jailers. She hasn’t had access yet to these words: jailer, captive, prisoner and countless others, subterfuge, paranoia, fear. She doesn’t understand these concepts and they are not a part of her own vocabulary.
I wonder what will happen when she becomes corrupted and the cynicism begins to settle and harden within her brain.
The Scientists are excited by her innocence and I wonder if this is why she is being held here, hidden away from the world. Not to protect her but in order to conduct their experiments before this happens. Or is it because, despite these admirable traits and her sparkling intelligence, she isn’t so very different from us.