||Location: [CLASSIFIED]
||Time: 0800 MST

Unnatural yellow and orange light slowly crept up the walls from floor to ceiling – a simulation of the sunrise meant to wake her up as if she weren’t buried under miles of Earth. Kir’ion rolled over in the bunk and surveyed her sterile surroundings. Fifty-three years on Earth and she still hadn’t seen a real sunrise. The LED lights they’d installed a few years ago were a weak substitute for the real thing, she assumed. 

“Rise and shine,” an overly cheerful officer chirped over the speaker by the door, “Today is your big day.”

Right. They were bringing a human in with an alien device attached to him for her to identify. A mix of excitement and dread settled in her chest – this would be her first chance to meet a human not directly involved with research or the military. Sure, she had access to a steady diet of media – books, TV, movies, theatre – but that was hardly a replacement for the real thing. 

The buzz and then click of the lock on her door jarred Kir from her thoughts. It was time for morning vitals. Outside, two soldiers stood at attention while a bald man in a lab coat pushed a cart across the room. The rattle of the metal cart laden with everything from vials for a blood draw to a simple stethoscope was almost unbearable as it bounced around the chamber. Kir knew the drill well.

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Morning vitals sucked, but what came after was always a treat.
X’ondrians only occasionally need to eat – their slower metabolism was an effect of the environment on their home world, granting them a longer life. However, Kir’ion had become quite enamored with the food on Earth. In fact, the research team had managed to convince whoever held the pocketbook to employ a full-time gourmet chef. The food was entirely different and they managed to justify the expense as part of the biological research into her digestive system. According to them, learning how different foods affected her had been invaluable. As a result, Kir’ion had taken up the habit of eating small meals twice a day rather than larger ones at less frequent intervals. 

This morning, Chef – one of her favorite humans – had made her favorite: poached eggs on toast with sausage, a yogurt parfait, and a few chunks of pineapple. Pineapple was particularly destructive to her system, but she loved it more than any other fruit so they let her have it on special occasions. 

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They made her wait in her recreation room after breakfast, guards posted outside the doors in case she got any ideas in her head. There were clocks everywhere in the base and she knew exactly when everything happened. The military ran a tight ship. The hour hand was just shy of 10:00, which she’d been told was when they’d bring in Harrison. Well, not [i]in[/in] because they never brought outsiders all the way in, but at least to one of the many observation windows where they could communicate through a microphone and speaker setup. Kir stared at the clock, willing it to strike 10:00 faster. This short, and likely very closely controlled, interaction would probably be the highlight of her year. 

“What a sad thought,” she considered quietly to herself. “I may not have been free, but at least I went places and had friends before.”