Rhylaen loathed mind control.  It was a cruel thing, to turn a person against themselves, and she had helped break through a couple of the cases with her peculiar (to Earth) brand of magic.  The reports her handlers filed called it her superpower, but she knew the truth.  It was as natural for her kind as breathing.  They dismissed her terms as inaccurate, talking of pressure and kinetic force.  She just called it magic.

At least most of the "villains" had been sorted out.  This one, no one seemed to understand.  Rhylaen felt bad for him.  She knew what it meant to be a stranger in an unknown place.  How much harder would it have been for her to adjust, without her abilities?  If she could communicate with no one?  If she had been labelled a villain?

She was perched most irregularly on the back of her chair, instead of in the seat.  She'd gotten a few looks for it, but disregarded them.  Not all of the words the man of science used were ones she knew, but she understood enough to get the general idea.  The computer made a crying noise, and for a moment Rhylaen thought to take it from him, before reminding herself that it was only a machine.  The one that had made the noise was the "subject" -- such an impersonal word, she thought.  It was no wonder they could not get through, when they kept the unknown one at such a distance.

When asked what she thought, Rhylaen gave the same answer she'd tried to present more than once before.  "I go," she said, her lilting voice carrying clearly.  "Scared of humans, maybe, after what is done.  I be not human -- I be also different.  And...maybe I understand voice of head, if cannot understand voice of mouth."  They'd denied her request every time she'd made it, to her increasing frustration.  Maybe this time, with the unknown person's failing health, they would agree.