Every day, you must learn a new thing. You grow old when you fail to learn more. Learning keeps you young, keeps a sense of wonder about you... but some lessons age you anyway.

If I tell you the sensation I had was a headache, you will think of a migrane, a throbbing sensation localized in the head, likely to the point of incapacitating the sufferer. I felt like my nervous system was on fire. It wasn't still on fire, but every nerve wanted to let me know that they'd all felt the worst pain ever a few seconds ago.

I found out later that you can never truly remember the pain of that sort of telepathic assault. It was a feedback loop. My 'captor' had brought in a mind-reader to help sort out my language problem. He probed from outside, trying to get a sense of what he was dealing with. And evidently, not only did he feel the same pain of my bruises that I did... I could feel him... feeling my pain. It's a feedback loop. Whenever someone capable of telepathy comes across someone else, they usually need some sort of device to dull their powers. I would call this "Psion's Friction".

I opened my eyes, and walked out of the cell... again.

"Ah, you recovered! Excellent." The tech-girl spoke.

"Ah. Yes. You... figured out my language?" I asked, knowing somehow that wasn't the way I understood her.

"No. You'd only gotten as far as showing me the dictionary before you passed out and Claudia had me call her friend an ambulance."

"Claudia? The lady... with the bow?"

"Yes. I'm Lacey." It sounds like Lay-See, and I could just about see how it'd be spelled... in a language I never actually learned.

"How... okay, first, pleased to meet you, Lacey. I'm... call me John. I understand your language?"

She'd gone back to her workbench. "It would appear so, yes."

"After I passed out... I learned your language? What happened?"

"Oh! Of course you wouldn't be familiar... um, we brought in a customs agent. He's a mind-reader, and one familiar with minds that don't share a common language reference."

I can't say I was thrilled at the notion of a place where the government employed mindreaders... but it at least made sense to use them as customs agents. If you had to use them. But then, if you didn't, wouldn't someone else? I was getting sidetracked. "He taught me your language then. Not sure I like having my brain messed about that way... something could go badly. Is that why I passed out?"

She kept her eyes on... some sort of novelty arrow she was messing with. Like she was winding floss inside a thimble and occasionally tightening something with an allen wrench. "No. That sort of power is probably impossible. No, you learned his language, while he was trying to read your mind. And you both... sort of short out after a bit. pfzzt." She finished with the arrow-thing, and moved on to some other device. "Brightside, you don't short out like meltdown circuitry. Brain goes shutdown, reboots. Bit like hangover, perhaps."

"Wow. Okay, I know I got every word you said... I think I understand you, but..." How the hell do you ask someone holding a soldering gun if they're talking crazy or if it's just your new language having some growing pains? I've never seen an ettiquette guide for this. Maybe this world would have, what, a 'Miss Manners' for superheroes? Manner-Lass! Okay, not by that name, sure. "Are you understanding me clearly?"

For the first time, she paused in her work to consider what I was saying. She resumed even before answering. "Yes, as clear as anyone. Your accent is, of course, unplacable. You pause oddly, but some of that is likely the circumstances. Most people, when dealing with matters fully outside their experience are given to caution and rigorous testing of thought process. You act very human, and appear to be in lousy health. Likely some sort of desk job, by my analysis."

"Um, yes." I blinked a bit in surprise. "I do a lot with business and computers. Contract accounting, generally."

"Yes. Well, you also outran Claudia, and caught up with a man who robbed a bank with superspeed. Then countered the psionic who tried to figure out your language. This suggests you are remarkably dangerous, and likely unpredictable. To ensure you are not a threat, I have already made provisions for everything I have learned about you to be transmitted to the world at large if anything happens to me or Claudia. I will not tolerate any threat to my family," She turned around, brandishing something like a cattle prod with a pulsating glow at the end that might have looked pretty if it weren't aimed in my direction. "Do you understand me?"

"Very clearly!" I backed away. "Just don't shoot. I'll go back in the cell, whatever you want."

"Good." She put the baton away. "Oh hell. My meds." She took a pill and seemed to calm. "I get a bit... emotional off these. I... it's nothing personal. But you're clearly an alien that passes as human, likely from the rifts we've seen around town." She picked up the baton again and... sharpened a shaft with it. I'd just been threatened with an arrow sharpener. "See, I also wanted to be sure you weren't still reading minds. If you were, and were a threat, you'd know I wasn't bluffing about telling the world about you. And that I was bluffing about the 'weapon'." She smiled.

"Um. If I were a threat, and had read you properly, wouldn't I want to show fear anyway? To delay, if nothing else?"

Lacey shrugged. "There is a reason I take these pills and do not make the tough decisions. I do better with machines than politics and people. Still, you do not object to the threat of scans and tissue samples of your person being used against you?"

"Well, I wasn't planning to take over your planet. I wasn't planning on coming here either. Um, I had to trust Claudia with my life, just being... you know, not from here. This changes nothing. And if it turns out I carry some cripping disease, or if you guys have some nasty bug I can die from... medical data could save lives."