The History of Ex-Agent Derek Sonix

“I can’t believe this. You know what, I don’t believe this. There is no way this could be happening to me.”

“Oh, hush up, Daniel, he’s sleeping. And he is our Aishums, whether you like it or not.”

“You’re joking, Deanna. There’s only one explanation: something went horribly wrong and we ended up with a Neopian Aisha.”

“And how, may I ask, could that have possibly happened?”

“I don’t know!”

Daniel and Deanna Sonix where both sitting next to a hover-cradle, the latest product from Alien Aisha Baby Tech. Both were yellow, wore the sleek silver uniforms of master engineers, and had, naturally, six ears, being Alien Aishas themselves.

Deanna leaned over the baby Aisha. “He has your face, Daniel. How could a Neopian come even close? He’s our little Derek Sonix, and no deformity can change that. It’s not his fault he was born this way!”

You couldn’t blame Daniel for not accepting his son. In all respects, little Derek Sonix looked exactly as a Neopian Aisha should, with only two earstalks to his parents’ four.

Deanna pulled out an “A” necklace, worn by all Aishas—Neopian and Alien alike. Only the “authentic” alien necklaces had tiny I.D. chips imprinted into them. Thus, it was custom for the mother to place the necklace bearing the new kitten’s name around its neck as soon as the baby came home. She stretched her paws down to place the necklace around her baby’s neck, but Daniel stopped her.

“No. I will not have you accepting this, this, Neopian into our family!”

“Honey, be reasonable—”

“NO! I don’t care what you say, I’m having this, this imposter tested in the morning!” Daniel was getting angrier and angrier by the second, and it didn’t help poor Deanna’s feelings that this was completely unlike him.

But this was crazy. “Daniel! He’s a baby! What’s more, he’s our son! You can’t turn him into some sort of…of… lab experiment! You know what those scientists are like!”

Daniel’s yellow cheeks flushed orange in rage. “Are you questioning my authority, Deanna?! I am having that thing tested, whether you like it or not!”

“No!” Deanna cried. With the raising voices and tempers, it’s no wonder the little kitten woke up and began to cry. Her motherly instinct took over, and Deanna reached in, grabbed little Derek, and cuddled him tight.

“First thing in the morning!” commanded Daniel. “If you won’t, I will personally take that thing to the labs! Doctor Torix will be waiting for us!” Daniel Sonix turned on the heel of one of his rear, booted paws and stalked out, still mumbling angrily.

Deanna buried her face against her baby and cried until she and Derek both fell asleep.

******

Primary education AA facilities, not a good place for the self-esteem of poor Derek Sonix.

“Hey! Freak!” shouted a cute little Red Alien Aisha girl. She couldn’t have been more than seven solar years old.

Derek flinched and apprehensively glanced around. He also was about seven solar years old. Seven long, painful, humiliating, and downright degrading years. It didn’t help that everywhere he went, stares, sneers, and name-calls followed. His mom was so worried she even offered to invent some synthetic earstalks, but Derek knew those would just make it worse and rejected her kind offer. Sadly, the years had not lessened the pain of being completely rejected by nearly everyone.

It was Celia Synoptics, as usual. The Synoptics were rivals of the Sonix family, and they took every little bit of ammo they could find to put down their competition. Currently, the main source of ammo was the youngest Sonix’s irregularities.

Seeing who it was, Derek started walking even faster through the halls towards their classroom. He ran into his age group’s homeroom and dashed to his desk in the corner. Then he quickly flipped open a large book on trigonometry and tried his best to hide behind it.

The book didn’t help. In a minute, Celia sauntered into the room, followed by a group of other classmates, all giggling in the somewhat guilty way children have when they’re being mean to others who can’t defend themselves. Except Celia, who laughed loudly in outright indulgence in making Derek’s life miserable.

“Oh, you didn’t answer me, Derek! Didn’t you hear me greet you in the hall?” Her acid tone spoke of cruel laughter in store.

The small Yellow Alien Aisha didn’t respond. His earstalks drooped slightly, but he kept his nose buried obstinately behind the book.

Celia winked at her groupies and sauntered over to his desk. “Oh, Derek. You can’t possibly think I’m mean to you on purpose!”

Derek shrunk even further into his desk, knowing what was coming next. She’d pulled the exact same joke on him before.

He was right. “It’s not my fault you’re a freak!” She laughed loudly, the other Alien Aishas joining in. Derek still stubbornly ignored him, those his earstalks spoke of his true feelings by sinking lower and lower.

Celia leaned over and, noticing the title, angrily snatched his book out of his paws. “Trigonometry? You have to be kidding. No short, self-deluded, deformed, and plain stupid Sonix has the one-up on me!” she shouted, refusing to even believe the chance that Derek could actually understand what he was reading. “Where’d you get this, Neopian? Steal it from mommy’s bookshelf?” Her biting, sarcastic tone was getting the better of Derek.

“Give it back, Celia!” His face, now not hidden by a book, was flushed with embarrassment. “I need to return that to Mrs. Geiger!” As soon as he said it he regretted it.

It was Celia’s turn to flush, but her’s was in anger. Mrs. Geiger was their teacher, and she would never lend out a book to someone she felt wouldn’t understand it. So she decided to humiliate him from a different angle. “Oh, shorty! Want to try and take it back?” She smirked and dangled the book just out of Derek’s reach.

Derek’s face was turning redder by the second. That was a lower blow then making fun of his missing earstalks, making fun of his height. Celia was pretty average for a seven solar year old, but Derek’s head, not counting his earstalks, barely reached her shoulders.

Thankfully, just then Mrs. Geiger—a tall, willowy, Blue Alien Aisha—walked in through the door. “Celia, give Derek back his book and get to your chair. Right now. That goes for the rest of you too!” In a matter of seconds the whole class was seated. Mrs. Geiger couldn’t help but notice not one child had chosen to sit next to Derek Sonix. He was all alone in the corner, and again trying to hide in the Trigonometry book. Mrs. Geiger couldn’t blame him; in his place she felt she’d be doing the same.

“I have an announcement class, so pay attention.” Her calm, commanding tone immediately attracted the interest of all the youths in the classroom. “We’ve received our level scores for this class. I’m very pleased to announce we have a young Alien Aisha in here who has surpassed all levels.”

Celia smirked happily and flipped her red hair. “Yes, Mrs. Geiger! Thank you.” She took a mean glance over to Derek to see his reaction.

Mrs. Geiger resisted the strong urge to slap the sassy little kitten across that mean little mouth. She’d soon eat those words anyway, when she passed out the private scores. “I’m sorry, Celia. It was not you.”

The little Red Alien Aisha’s mouth dropped open. “Wha—what?”

Mrs. Geiger ducked her head to hide a slight smile as she walked around the room and passed out the scores. As a teacher, it was her job to be nonjudgmental and to never take sides on any student matter. But when it came to this, well… She had known Deanna for a long time, and the boy was every bit as sweet as his mother. This teacher had no doubt that Derek was a full-blooded Alien Aisha.

The small Yellow Alien Aisha in question picked up his upside-down test sheet and stared at his scores. His earstalks stood straight up and he looked up conspiratorially and in such a darling way to Mrs. Geiger that her heart went out to him. Celia, contrarily, stared at her score sheet in disbelief. Then, naturally, she glared over at Derek, whose happy face gave away his scores.

She slapped her desk hard with a paw and screamed at the teacher—classroom offense number one. “What!?! There is no way that, that lamebrain Neopian topped me!! You rigged the tests, didn’t you Mrs. Geiger?!”

As if begging to be dragged off to the detention center, she then committed classroom offense two and jumped out of her desk to snatch Derek’s score-sheet. If the poor lad just had a few more inches, maybe he could’ve stopped her. But, as it was, he was helpless when she yanked the paper out of his paws and shoved him right out of his chair and onto the floor.

“Celia!” exclaimed their teacher in genuine surprise and anger. She pushed a button on her desk to summon the detention guard. “You’re going to detention now, young lady!” The class watched in horror, not knowing what to expect next.

“NO ONE SENDS ME TO DETENTION!!” screeched Celia, who by now had read Derek’s scores and was livid in an uncontrollable fury. “AND NO STUPID DEFORMED FREAK BEATS ME AT ANYTHING!!! ESPECIALLY NOT DEREK SONIX!!!” She angrily shredded the paper, and then began taking her anger out on little Derek, kicking him and punching him viciously.

“Now you’ve crossed the line, Ms. Synoptics!” Mrs. Geiger herself dashed over and yanked Celia off of Derek, who was panting in a cross of pain and fear, and held her as securely as she could as the brat continued to screech.

The detention guard entered the room then, and immediately yanked a stunner off his utility belt. Celia had time for just one last shriek of revenge at Derek before she collapsed unconscious in Mrs. Geiger’s arms. The guard easily hefted the young kitten up and tossed her over his large shoulder.

Mrs. Geiger attended to Derek, who was still curled up on the floor. “Honey, are you—” Then she saw the blood. “Oh, somebody get Dr. Torix in here, now!” she shouted into the open hall, steadily filling with other teachers and school staff drawn by the ruckus. She gently pulled up Derek’s tunic to examine his chest, right where that brat Celia had been cruelly kicking. The fur wasn’t too bloody, but definitely enough for her to decide to make sure that evil, demented kitten got some serious punishment later.

“It… it wasn’t Celia’s fault…” whimpered Derek, clinging to Mrs. Geiger’s arms. “Doc… tested me yesterday…” Suddenly she remembered that Dr. Torix still regularly ran tests on the boy, still trying to figure out what had gone wrong with the kitten. She was filled with even more righteous anger that anyone, child or not, could bring themselves to hurt a child already going through so much.

The class stared in wonder as Mrs. Geiger carefully maneuvered Derek into a position half on her lap. Derek continued his weak mumbling, not seeming to notice what was going on around him. “Not… Celia’s fault… I’m a freak… Not… daddy’s fault…” His teacher hushed him gently by covering his lips for a second. His eyes seemed to clear just a bit and he looked up at Mrs. Geiger, though she could tell his brain must’ve been foggy from the beating. “My fault…” His eyes suddenly welled up with tears and he turned his small head toward his teacher, burying his face in her loose dress.

Despite her trying to stay rigidly in control of herself, Mrs. Geiger felt her eyes tearing up. “It’s okay, honey.” She stroked the soft fur on his head, and the little kitten gradually seemed to calm and fall asleep.

Doctor Torix, an odd looking Glowing Alien Aisha with a lab coat and a stethoscope around his neck, came charging in at a breakneck speed. His eyes looked out of a pair of huge glasses at Mrs. Geiger, and he immediately dropped to his knees beside her.

“Oh no. I just worked on him yesterday. I even gave him a pass to miss Physical Fitness this afternoon so as not to strain his chest.” Despite his couldn’t-care-less reputation, he looked over the small kitten with concern, gently lifting his tunic to examine Derek’s injured chest. “I need to take him with me, now. One good thing about his stunted growth, at least, is that I don’t have to call anyone for backup to carry him.”

He gently took Derek in his arms and swiftly dashed out the door and to his laboratory, which doubled as a medical facility.

Mrs. Geiger turned back to her class, suddenly angry at all the students for not even trying to help Derek. She would’ve lectured them there and then, except for several very specific rules governing teachers’ neutrality towards any matter. She gulped down her anger, cleaned up Derek’s shredded pieces and Celia’s still normal paper, and went to the front of the class to begin the day’s lessons, though still being sure to level out extra homework to the entire class. She didn’t want them run out and have fun after lessons while Derek lay in Dr. Torix’s lab.

******

“Derek! Wake up! Madam Commander Jierdana will be here any second!” A much older, though still very short, Derek Sonix sat up from his work desk where he had fallen asleep working the day before and rubbed the back of his stiff neck.

“Wha—huh? Madam Commander Jierdana, here? Wh—Why?” spluttered the now teenage Yellow four-eared Alien Aisha, still half-asleep. He shook his head to clear it from equations and problems so he could concentrate on the matter at hand. “C’mon Kregor! What’s going on? What’d I miss?”

Kregor Geiger, the oldest son of his seven solar years teacher, Mrs. Geiger. He was a good three solar years older than Derek, as Blue as his mother, and just as pleasant and humble. He didn’t mind rooming with a genius, and he’d already heard stories about the kitten missing ears from his mom, so it only took a few minutes for the two to become fast friends.

“I, uhh,” Kregor stuck out his tongue in embarrassment before continuing, “I was walking down the hall and overhead Professor Weinbecket and Head Professor Aurum talking about her visiting today!”

“Oh…” groaned Derek, rubbing his eyes, and finally seeming to wake up. “The Madam Commander visits here all the time. This is the Engineering University, ya know.” He yawned tiredly and straightened the slightly ruffled notes he’d fallen asleep on.

Kregor ground his teeth and grabbed his small buddy’s shoulder. “You just don’t get it, man! They were saying she wanted to talk to you!”

Derek’s mouth dropped open. “Oh, please no!” He seemed to go stiff and his notes fell onto the floor. He didn’t seem to notice. “I thought they were done with those experiments! Please, no more!”

Kregor squeezed his buddy’s shoulder, though inside he too shuddered at the thought of Derek being forced through more tests. “Snap out of it, Derek! Get with it! I doubt they want more experiments after all these years, especially since you contributed so much technology since you entered the University! I don’t think they’d do anything risky on you since your brain turned out to be on par with any previous genius in our Alien Aisha history!”

Derek blinked, seeming to recollect his current standing with the Alien Aisha hierarchy, and turned back to his only friend in the entire University. “Thanks, Kregor. So what do we do?”

The Blue Alien Aisha shook his head that his young friend turned to him for advice on anything that didn’t have to do with science or mathematics. “I think we just have to be on our typical good behavior.” He winked.

“Oh!” Derek laughed. “So no hacking in to the professor's files?"

“Yes,” replied Kregor, who was also smirking, “and no hacking through the security system either!”

“No worries,” happily declared Derek in a chatty tone. “They traced both to me in the end, and all I got were two demerits and a trip to the resident wacko Professor Eyesen for a psychological examination!” He chuckled, now much more at ease.

Kregor had to laugh at that. But he was still a bit more mature than his short friend, and continued his warning. “Nonetheless, kid, no tricks! And anyway, I have a feeling what she wants to talk to you about something has nothing to do with your behavior.”

“What do you mean, Kreg?”

“Oh,” said Kregor Geiger mysteriously, “you’ll find out. You see, the professors weren’t chatting about your demerits.”

******

And the rest is history, thought Derek Sonix, now DeSoni, a Fix-It Shop’s owner and runaway from the Alien Aishas. I fell head over toes for Madam Commander Jierdana, accepting her generous offer of becoming a research/engineering espionage agent and the responsibility that came with it. I dealt with people who actually were happy I looked like a Neopian Aisha, seeing as it helped keep their Agencies a secret. I was accepted, but I felt guilty, as the espionage agencies dealt heavily in blackmailing, black-marketing, and just plain sleazy deals with the lowest of the low among Neopians. I couldn’t bring myself to return to the Alien Aishas, and I’d already said goodbye to the incredibly few that cared about me when I became an agent for the Madam Commander.

“DeSoni! Get down here for supper!” It was appaloosa500, a.k.a. Kay, his new owner.

DeSoni put aside the folder he’d been reading from. He was less than halfway through. In big red letters across the front, it declared: Special Report of Ex-Agent Derek Sonix. Confidential. There were headings on almost every page, listing sections, sub-sections, interviews, and firsthand reports.

His new sister, the Wocky Detective Khargana, had given it to him as a gift, promising him she hadn’t read it, but that she would always be there if he had to talk about it. For supposedly the toughest female detective in these parts, she sure could be a big softy. But she had informed him that, sadly, there were undoubtedly many other copies of the same folder circulating around upper-ranking Alien Aishas. Of course, she didn’t say ‘how’ she knew all that, but that was normal.

Instead of a tunic or uniform, such as those he’d worn growing up with the Alien Aishas, he could now laze comfortably about in a T-shirt and a pair of really old jeans, so of course he did. He didn’t have an A-necklace. For one thing, his old identity was abandoned to him, and he didn’t want the Alien Aishas tracing him through the microcircuit locaters he knew were placed secretly in every necklace. For another, more practical reason, it got in his way while he worked, and was rather uncomfortable when he wore a T-shirt anyway.

I’ll get back to you later, thought DeSoni, patting the file before standing up and running downstairs to Kay, his new owner, and Khargana, his new big sister.

THE END

******

And a big thank you to everyone who loved my Mr. Fix-It series! I got so many requests for more DeSoni stories, I decided to compile this short collection! If you want more from the Secret Alien Aisha Files on Derek Sonix, let me know! I’m open to more ‘shorts’ ideas, and if you have any special part about De_Soni’s life that you want to hear more of, just let me know! Go ahead and neomail me!