From Leo's diary
Claire: What are you writing, exactly? You always seem so busy!
Luke: (vague) A little bit of this, a little bit of that...
Luke is spending so much time at his computer recently, from what we could see peaking to his screen it's some very long text document, presumably something he wrote by himself, judging from the attention with which he's always revising it. I and Claire would be very curious to understand what's about, but he seems very good at avoiding all our questions on the matter. Not that changing the subject is so much better, on the contrary.
Claire: Wouldn't you like to go have a walk instead, for example? When I was at your age I was always hanging out with the scout group, and...
Luke: What, the scouts? Those are losers, everyone knows!
Claire: ...
Claire didn't say anything, but in she was quite disappointed to hear this. These are clearly those comments that make us realize we're not young anymore...
Meanwhile, upstairs...
Lyra: Ta dan! Look what a beautiful costume, Apple!
Apple: Meow!
Leo: L-Lyra? What are you wearing?
Lyra: It's a costume, for Hallowe'en! Let's go trick or treat! Come on come on come on!
Leo: ... uh, ok ...
So we found ourselves wandering all over Windenburg wearing weird costumes, knocking on our neighbours' doors to ask for sweets. Lyra seemed to have a lot of fun and I suspect Luke liked it too, despite his continuous grumbling.
Back home it was already time to go to bed, but Lyra refused to do so unless we chased an elusive monster from under her bed.
Luke: Come on, is little Yoda really afraid of this?
Luke: Well, take this then!
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Meanwhile, at work, we're working overtime trying to catch the drug dealers gang, now more dangerous than ever as their drug containing the Strangerville toxic spores seems to be dominating the local illegal market.
Most of the users presenting symptoms of intoxication were spotted inside the nightclubs, so we started patrolling them. We decided to wear civilian clothes, to avoid getting noticed.
How could it be so complicated? It feels like we looked under every stone in town already!
We know the culprits are likely changing their appearance every day by disguising themselves, but with all the efforts we have put into this investigation we should have caught them much sooner.
How do they manage to always be a step ahead of us?
And there they are...
Leo: Miss, pull yourself together, come on!
Miss: ... what ...?
Leo: I have to ask you to follow us to the police station, you will have to be questioned.
Intoxicated customers like her usually don't have much to tell us, apparently the members of the gang are not very chatty with them. But piece by piece, even those little pieces of evidence can help us in our investigation.
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Claire is working even harder than me at the moment, the elections are approaching and she is trying her best to get elected. She is spending hours upon hours in front of the mirror rehearsing her official speeches...
... and she is also continuing her election campaign among the locals, trying to hear everyone's voice. Although not everyone seems willing to listen to her.
Citizen: Come on, Mrs S., show the others that we aliens have rights too!
Claire: (through gritted teeth) Oh, thanks! But there is no need to call me Mrs S., really!
Many nicknamed her "Mrs S.", recalling her father's political career, but she hates that nickname for a number of reasons I can't even list. But, unfortunately, her electoral campaign has much more worrisome problems to overcome...
TV: Now let's move to the political page. Our first report is an excerpt from the speech made today by Mr M., who we remind you of being a candidate for the presidency in the next elections.
Leo: Sounds bad...
Claire: (frustrated) Oh, you have no idea of how bad it is...
Meanwhile the TV program went on, and at that point it was showing someone looking just like a very average man. The first impression was of a quite respectable person, but in the very moment he started speaking it was clear that first impressions can be very, very wrong.
Mr M.: (on TV) In short, would you really want to have any alien into our respectable government? Yet we all know that their main achievement so far has been to bring a laboratory with dubious purposes from their planet here to our Country, from which the very dangerous herbaceous species caused a serious accident, and which apparently is also linked to the new drug causing those atrocious health consequences we are hearing every day on the news. As if that weren't enough, even those who are selling that drug appear to be aliens exploiting their ability to change their appearance to get away with their crimes! They came here with their spaceships kidnapping people and now are just pretending to be normal people just like us, expecting us to forget, but isn't it clear the threat they pose to the stability of our whole society? This is just unacceptable, if I get elected my first action will be aimed to...
Claire: (angry) He is exploiting the situation to his advantage, it really pisses me off! All he wants is to throw the public opinion against us, but he never proposes any constructive solution to this Country's issues, that idiot!
Leo: ... I know.
Claire: ... as if he didn't know that that laboratory is considered strategic by the Ministries of Defense, Economy and Health! Other countries are doing the same too, closing us off completely to alien technology would put us at a huge disadvantage in no time!
It is frustrating even for me, I can't imagine how bad can it be for her... Just the other day, Orion told us that the medicine they extracted from that huge Sixam plant has just entered the local hospitals, and that they are starting to work together with some airlines to discuss the implementation of teleport in moving people and goods. These things are going to help a lot of people, while Mr M. is apparently winning his electoral campaign using a few local news to make people fear and hate us even more than they did before.
Claire: This is so unfair!
Actually there could be another reason why I'm feeling so bad about this situation: basically, that guy is using the case we can't solve against Claire. It makes me feel guilty, that's it.
Well, just another reason for trying to solve the case as soon as possible, I guess...
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A few nights ago Ariana and Camille came to our house. They started high school recently, I almost didn't recognize them!
Lyra: Wow Ari, you joined the Cheerleader group!
Ariana: It's so cool, isn't it?
Lyra: Come in, I want to ask you a lot of things!
Lyra: As soon as I get to high school I want to join the Cheerleader too, it looks so cool!
Ariana: I'm sure you'll get in right away!
Lyra: And I want hair like yours too! My parents always say "when you get older", but if I join the cheerleaders they couldn't say no anymore!
Ariana: Yeah!
Luke: Don't tell me you want to join the "pretty-hair" club too!
Lyra: Why not? They are cool!
Luke: Because they have more hair than brain cells!
Lyra: (mockingly) You're sooooo boring, nerd!
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Soon after, Lyra's birthday also arrived.
Apart from the green complexion she looks so much like Claire, don't you agree, dear diary?
Even her resemblance to her cousin Ariana is less and less evident. To me they never seemed so alike, but now I think that no one would mistake them for one another anymore.
Orion: Try to win those elections, okay?
Claire: (tired) We are doing our best.
Orion: The atmosphere at the lab is quite tense right now, that Mr M. apparently is trying to use us as a scapegoat. He says that if he were to be elected, he would have us all arrested first.
From the point of view of the law, the position of Orion and the other rebels had always been extremely precarious, technically by going to Sixam to learn how to use alien technology they had broken a lot of laws in force. Their criminal record had been cleaned up when the Strangerville laboratory was opened only because the government in charge at that time, pushed by Claire's group, had focused on the strategic importance of their work. However, in the same way a political choice cleared their files, another politician could put them in a lot of troubles.
Claire: Try not to do dangerous things, rather.
Orion: Well...
Orion: ... actually, we had a half mind of pulling Mr M. on a spaceship to modify his memories appropriately, but we voted and decided to choose a more peaceful path. Unfortunately.
Claire: You what? Resuming kidnapping people would certainly not help us!
Orion: That's why we had to make a plan B.
Claire: Which is?
Orion: If things get really bad, we have enough provisions on Sixam to stay there for another couple of years. Surely no one would come looking for us up there... However, frankly, we would all be glad to avoid this solution as long as possible...
Orion said it in his usual exuberant tone, but it was clear the possibility really worries him. I mean, I would be surprised if he wasn't, after all he has just started to lead a normal life. Him returning back on Sixam, I can't even think about this possibility...
Just another reason for trying to close our case, and take from Mr M. his favourite topic for his political speeches.
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In the following days, all the agents of the Police Station were more concentrated than ever on looking for clues and witnesses. We checked any single street in town, questioned people, looked for evidence...
Until when we managed to find the person who, apparently, was one of the direct subordinates to the leader of that gang.
I had permission from my superiors to use mind reading during interrogation. The lady didn't expect it in the least, so it wasn't difficult to get all the information she knew.
And, among these, there also seemed to be the identity of their elusive leader. Finally everything was clear to me, we had followed the wrong track from the beginning!
Prisoner: The boss will blame me for everything, it's over for me!
Leo: Nobody here will get hurt by anyone else in here, don't worry about it.
So we ended in front of a small house on the outskirts of Windenburg, just below the town walls. They had to be really confident of their hideout and of their security systems, because we didn't meet anyone along the way.
According to our clues, that ugly building on the left which seemed to have been built in a hurry was...
Bingo, the greenhouse for those horrible plants! The first team of agents hurried to take those plants under custody, as soon as possible they would have been destroyed. The second team had instead surrounded the house, where by now the owner was looking at them from the window with terribly stern expression on her face.
Boss: What do you want? What are you doing in my house? Do you have a warrant, at least?
Leo: We obviously have a warrant. Do you, on the other hand, have any way of justifying the contents of your greenhouse?
Boss: ...
Leo: You are under arrest for drug production, detention and sale! You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be and will be used against you in court. You have the right...
That woman somehow learned how to disguise herself with a different alien appearance, I didn't even know it was really possible. One day she was green with upturned ears and a bald head, the other blue with indigo curls. So she had managed to fool everyone, for all this time we were looking for aliens disguised as humans.
She had really fooled us for good. But, finally, we had managed to find her, and with all the clues we had collected she had no way to avoid several years of prison.
This is the first good news after so many months, and an epochal success for our police station, we finally made it!
