Waltz of Shadows
By Nathaniel Schrader
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Year 1992 | CE a
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Act 1: Chapter 1
Zion Station
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There is great discomfort in waking up with the feeling that you are supposed to be dead. My eyes received black void and my body ached with newfound realization of existence. As if to greet me from a disturbed birth my lungs burned with settled fluids, my limbs unable to adjust my position as my chest heaved. With a globule of gestation water ejected from my mouth the first breath of air brought a vivid array of agony into my mind. Each nerve burst and my body quaked with automatic panic, the cold metal of the table under me rebutting each movement with a sharp retort of pain. A wordless gurgle sputtered from my throat with another spray of fluids. The warm gel sloppily stuck to the inside of my trachea as I lurched upwards, heaving again. I bent my head in mind splitting pain to the spot between my legs, a hurl of bile and gel slapping against the table in a gross echo of wet slop.
"Hhaaa…!" A sustaining amount of air slipped into my lungs, pushing another wet mess of fluid out from them. I stayed put with another torrent of gestation fluid leaking from my gaping and pained mouth. I could feel life spreading through each inch of my body like a fire, burning along each neuron and muscle. Each puddle's worth of removed fluid from my lungs brought each aspect of reality into sharper and sharper focus until my vision finally came to me, dull and blurry but still identifiable as functional.
"Aaaaa… Haah…" My voice was ragged to both hear and to feel passing through my tortured throat, but the need to cough lessoned slowly as I wheezed out my breath. A little tickle in my throat provoked another coughing fit, though considerably less than before. My chest ached, my bones shook, each breath was like razors running around under my ribs; yet here I was, alive. Each small glob of waste I expelled from my sopping wet mouth allowed a new array of sensory to be given to me.
I breathed, wholly and fully. I clutched the draping over me, a heavy cloth I couldn't see the details off in the absolute darkness. The feel of chains running through my fur along my neck noted a set of dog tags, mildly sheen in the dim light. Through only a few minutes of startled realization, I was aware that I was alive for the first time, soaked to the bone and alone in the shadows of a silent room. Surrounded by tiny lights, I saw, my conclusion was that I was very alone. I ventured to speak but hesitated, listening. Only the whirring of old computers kept the room company. There were no windows or other lights on besides those of consoles and panels, not enough for me to see anything at all. My vision still swayed in blurring silhouettes with parting outlines wavering in and out. I looked behind me slowly, each moving muscle hesitant to continue onward as I searched around me. There was a large tube behind me, dripping wet and plated with white on the inside. It was lit up, providing a generous amount of lighting. I realized that that is where I had come from and my hand clutched the blanket on top of me more tightly.
My ears perked as a little noise came from the shadows, a sort of electrical shift in the wiring of the room.
"Project Ether, please speak first objective assigned to you," a voice called forth, a woman's tone, fair and soft. I stared into the dark emptiness. There was nobody to be seen as my eyes adjusted further. I could make out the more definitive details like a door and the shapes around me, though I still wasn't sure what was what.
"Project Ether, please speak first objective assigned to you," the woman spoke again with the same tone and level of patience.
"First objective: confirm status of Zion Station." The voice was new and haunting, my own tongue moving on its own. I was taken back, not sure why I had said that.
"Objective clear. Happy birthday, Ether. You are Ether Xaily, fifth model organic construct of project Ether." I wasn't sure how to respond, an iron vice of pain lingering in my body. "I understand that it is your first day being alive. I am sorry that you had to awaken in such an unpleasant state. Your pod has seemed to have malfunctioned without my knowing and began the awakening procedure. I was hoping to have held you in stasis until the return of authorized personnel." The woman's voice was like a cloud of déjà vu surging inside my head. I still wasn't sure what was happening. "Please take this moment to recall your tutor programs." I gripped my head, sitting in a great deal of grief. "Think about the meadows you grew up upon within the program while I tutored you."
"Oh!" Like a spit of lightning I remembered the voice; she was Mary, the onboard DI of the station I was on, the digital intelligence. I blinked heavily, squinting my eyes as I recalled what I could.
"Do you remember me?"
"Yes… you're Mary, and I'm Ether. You taught me while I slept." I barely remembered any of it, but there was a distinct connection now to a time before, a life sealed away inside a digital mainframe. The names of certain places and people started to seep back into my head, but not enough for me to make a clear history. I recalled my first objective, the one I had spoken: affirm status of Zion Station. That was where I was now. Judging by the deathly hollow surroundings and stink of musty air there was something very wrong. I could see a blueprint of the station coming together inside my head, piece by piece.
"Zion Station was home to over three-hundred personnel. Standard protocol dictates that I was to be awoken-." I stopped, the next data structure of speech lacking. "What is today's date?" I asked.
"The current year is universal standard 1992 of the Compliant Era. From this date you are off schedule by nearly four years. You are five years old currently; you were originally appointed to be woken up on your first birthday, pending status," Mary explained with a somewhat upbeat stoicism.
"Right, right- where is the faculty then?" I asked. There was a pause before the door to the lab opened with a series of beeping unlocks. A dingy light hung outside, leading into a main corridor.
"It will be a long explanation. Please proceed out into the corridor and I will find you some clothes while I debrief you." I hadn't realized I was naked until she mentioned it, but the cold of the room was nothing unbearable to me. I wasn't in a rush I guessed, so I set the blanket that had been on top of me aside and carefully felt for the floor below the table. My toes tapped on the black grating and the distinct soreness of never used muscles made itself apparent. I could hardly see, but I took the blanket with me and draped it around as I started towards the doorway. The blanket dragged on behind me for several feet, but the heavy heat it provided was comforting. Bleached tones of color misted from the light above, dimly colored starkness washing out the colors of the hallway as I stepped out into it. A left and right path greeted me, the rounded metal walls providing little light from inactive panels and features.
"If I remember correctly… my room was going to be down here?" I asked, looking down the right corridor.
"Correct, although we will not be stopping there immediately. Further down is a storage room with a synthesizer terminal. There are not clothes in your current size on the station and we will need to make new ones. Please proceed." I took a short glimpse down the barren hall again. I couldn't even see a next door. As far as I could see there was nothing but a circular hole of pitch black unknown with a gray outline.
"Are there no lights?" I asked. I wasn't afraid of the dark; Mary had been here for several years and would know of anything. Even so, I didn't like the idea of getting lost in a cold space station.
"Power levels have been managed on critical levels for the last three years. There was not enough power to keep you in stasis and to keep the main systems running on the station, so all systems besides those related to you and the station's shields were cut. Stand by." A low groan rumbled under my feet and faint murmurs of distant mechanisms hummed just barely inside my range of hearing. A flicker above me flashed to life, then another. Rectangular lines on the ceiling filled up with a pale light from my position to down the hall one by one. Each light stuttered reluctantly until the darkness was vanquished, a metallic white hall replacing the unending dark. Already, it seemed, the station seemed alive. The air was stale, though, as if it had just been resumed.
"Oxygen is still being cycled, but all life support systems are operating fully. The station is once again within sustainable power patterns." If memory served, a steady supply of gelatonium was used to cleanly fuel the station's overdrawing systems, such as the experimentation labs, so as to leave a smaller energy signature around the entire station. Gelatonium lasted a long time, but even a ton's tank of it couldn't run a large station for much more than a year even if it was operating at its lowest capacity. Even so, it seemed Mary had managed for at least two years without a new shipment of fuel.
"So… what's the status of things? Where is everyone?" I asked and pulled the black blanket tighter around me. My feet were bare, soft and uncalloused, stung with frigid cold by each step on the dusty floors; I didn't realized how cold it was until my feet had begun to cramp and my breath become visible.
"I cannot relay that information. Station has undergone Exodus Alpha procedure." A fuzzy sense of dismay crept in around me. I couldn't remember what that meant.
"What does that mean exactly? I'm sorry but I don't remember."
"Exodus Alpha is a procedure in which all personnel are evacuated, all data is purged, and any virtual caretakers are relieved of any information relating to Lombax Shadow Works, including files on faculty, project information, and coordinates of property associated with LSW. Every piece of information regarding LSW is wiped from all digital storages, including my own. If you asked me to recall an employee, I would be unable to even guess their name." That made sense- the entire station was barren enough to warrant something like that. "Exodus Alpha was issued approximately five years ago, a few months after your embryo was developed. This station has no long range communication capabilities, so the order was issued by the chief scientist here on the station or someone of a higher rank, more than likely. I do not know who. I purged my internal systems as ordered, though there may have been a backup made and taken with the highest ranking individual on the station. I cannot say for certain. Besides information for taking care of you, there is nothing substantial left to appropriate an approximation of events." Mary seemed earnest; I had no reason to suspect her of treachery anyway since she had kept me alive this entire time.
"Alright. Where does that leave me? Do you have any instructions for my next course of action?" The hallways echoed each word from both of us, resounding deep into the pockets and dusty nooks. I stopped besides a large observation window that reached to the top of the corridor some ten feet or so, a bloom of green hue radiating from outside. It took me a moment to remember, putting my hand up against the hardened glass, but I had the name of the planet right on my tongue before Mary spoke.
"We are on the innermost layer of debris surrounding Torren IV, the inner ring," she informed. The snotty green colors of Torren IV weren't especially scenic to see, but the violent dust storms and visible crevices on the planet's surface were at least interesting. This planet was run mostly by the Vullards, a new civilization firmly based upon the ruins of the Fongoids come and past. The history of the planet was rich, though the abandoned and lackluster nature of it attracted LSW's attention as a highly investable location for a research facility.
"Do we have an arrangement with the Vullards for the confidentiality of this station's whereabouts?" I asked in honest curiosity. The finer details escaped me.
"That is correct. The Vullards here are sanctioned to operate as an administrative branch of the Vullard Unified Conglomerate. We are acting as a partner in trade, as established in 1896 CE." I took my hand from the window, looking down still upon the planet.
"Now how do you know that? I thought you had wiped archives?"
"I retain treaty based information strictly for the legacy and protection of any LSW assets, if found or mentioned. Any information regarding specifics of LSW operations and onward has been erased."
"Ah… Do you think there will be anybody coming back here?" I stepped away from the window, proceeding back on track.
"I am uncertain. Exodus Alpha is not a typical procedure. It is normally associated with planetary disaster or invaluable experiment failure. In the latter case, the facility in question is shut down in quarantine and a special operations unit is sent in to retrieve data. I have no record on previous occurrences in which Exodus Alpha is used so I cannot provide further examples." I listened to her words, binding the blanket around me more closely as I pulled the excess length of it up. My body felt stronger with each passing minute, but the station certainly wasn't warming up.
"If I'm right, there's an Exodus Omega, too. Isn't that correct?" I asked openly. "That's where the entire facility is removed from its location by use of singularity explosives, right?"
"That is correct," Mary answered.
"Then the personnel here may come back?" I passed a door and my eye caught on the silver plate next to it. "Ether 5" was written plainly on the flat plaque, along with something else written beneath it in small print. "Operations Manager: Luke Xaily."
"That is possible, though I cannot say with certainty," Mary informed flaccidly. The name "Luke" was familiar to me, but I could not place its previous occurrence in my life.
"You wouldn't happen to know who Luke Xaily is, would you? He has my surname."
"Luke Xaily was your genetic donor. Besides that I do not know any information regarding his obligations aboard the station. This room you are standing in front of is your designated personal quarters. I have to say…" her voice lulled for a moment, pausing. "I cannot say I approve of the title of his position posted so blatantly under your name." I glanced upwards, seeing a camera right above the door staring down at the plate. "That is hypocritical to this entire procedure. You will notice that each name plate in this station has been removed from the fronts of personal quarters," Mary spoke somewhat indignantly.
"Did you do that?" I didn't think we had passed any other personal quarters, but maybe the lack of name plates had been why I hadn't noticed them.
"I did. However, this one was spared for whatever reason. I assume it was part of a final order from the lead director of the station. Besides the fact that Luke was your donor I cannot verify any other information, that and he was your Operations Manager. I assume that is a more clever way of saying 'caretaker.'" For a DI Mary seemed awfully opinionated. "Please continue along the hall. The storage room is six rooms down." I hauled my warm wrapping up from the floor again and took another glance at the name plate before leaving it.
"Is the ship armed?" The question wasn't in regard to anything urgent, but I wanted to know if the stores had been emptied before Exodus Alpha had been carried out. At least that way I could take a guess as to what happened.
"The only defenses are the debris repulsers. There are three dozen arranged along the hull of the station. They are not suitable for warding off ships bigger than scout class vessels."
"How about personal munitions?" A creak in the hull made me jump as I passed another door. The echoes carried far too well for my taste.
"There are no firearms onboard. The armory is empty, though I know it was stocked prior to this station's abandonment. Shall I list off what was taken by classification?"
"That's not necessary. I think it's pretty clear that whoever left the station was armed to the teeth. Although… how many heavy weapons were once stored? Automatic rifles and up."
"Approximately three-hundred and twenty, twenty of which were space-grade heavy caliber rifles suited for zero atmosphere combat. I do not have serial codes but these rifles were developed by The Center for Advanced Lombax Research. They are the primary weapons of the Praetorian Sentinels."
"CALR? Why did we have their weapons onboard?" I asked out of surprise. LSW and CALR generally disassociated each other at every occasion, from what I could remember of my virtual education.
"According to non-critical ledgers, the Z-A rifles onboard were a part of a special group assigned to this station. No names are mentioned, although by classification I can say assuredly that the rifles were not new."
"Maybe they were old enough models to be used commonly by both the Lombax Armada and governmental associations…" The idea wasn't surprising, but Z-A grade rifles didn't sound like a standard outfit of armaments for a mere research station, not to me. Admittedly I was a five year old creation of science with little more than a half hour of life under his belt, but even with my limited situational knowledge I could tell that that seemed off. It was a gut instinct at the very least, logical only in parts.
I could feel a sort of grime on my feet that I wasn't very happy about, something coming from the musty floor no doubt. In fact the idea of actual clothes was becoming more and more lucrative of a thought with each press of my feet into the cold ground. I looked behind me at the sound of a loud moan from the hull. There wasn't anything different behind me, but I noticed that not unlike a slug I had left a large clean trail behind me where there had been at least a half-centimeter of dust. The thought of being dirty with decrepit filth struck an unpleasant cord at my core, and I grimaced at the idea of even touching anything with my bare hands, or even a fine coating of this ancient grime in my fur. A shiver ran along my back.
"Stop here." Mary's voice pulled my attention away from the uncleanliness of my surroundings and I halted, looking to the door next to me. On the door itself in large lettering was "Personnel Storage" with "Class-A Synth Terminal" under it in slightly small print. Along the right hand side of the door was a myriad of warning labels including one that read: "WARNING: Any use of Class-A Synthesizer Terminal requires prior authorization by division head." Before I could crack a joke about the obvious placement of the terminal inside the door whizzed open, heavily clunking into its frame in the wall as the darkness of the room was shown.
"Proceed. The terminal is just to your right along the back corner. Personal storage space of this floor's tenants will be to your left." With that the lights above spread across in a flourish from the center outwards. I wasn't sure what to say, only looking inwards. I could see an assortment of furniture and other items, ranging from stacks of cages to boxes and crates. There were a few large bags of dry food labeled for various animal types as well; apparently pets weren't an issue on the station, although the fact that they were in storage made me think they were perhaps for experiments instead.
"Is anything alive in here?" I asked, feeling more than hesitant to enter a room full of empty animal cages.
"There is nothing according to bio-scans. This room has not been opened since the evacuation and the life support has been disabled since then; life is unlikely." Pulling my blanket forward, I took a step closer, looking around the corners. Besides some chairs and a heap of trunks there was nothing else.
"So- what's up with all the personal stuff left behind? Know anything about that?" I asked, continuing my progress. The room seemed divided between two sides from the entrance inwards, a section for large storage items that was caged off from the rest right at the middle of the chamber. I was somewhat grateful for the somewhat soft, dark gray carpet on the floor.
"I do not know. I cannot process information about personal files. Exodus Alpha is an immediate response, however. Judging by the amount left behind this supply of cargo was either not important enough to take or not able to be retrieved in time." I assumed that, walking around a toppled over chair. There were no gates connected to the chain fence, so the area wasn't off limits by my guess. Looking around the chain fence to the left there was a long row of thick, black lockers. There were at least a dozen, each opened and left with scattered messes of papers and other personal items on the floor. The rush of the Exodus was made apparent.
"Must have been pretty bad…" I thought out loud. An electronic beep caught my ears and I looked at the other side of the room. Affixed to the wall and surrounded by a thick border of steel was a single screen, and just to its left was a large, circular pedestal on the floor with a clear blue center of glass. Just above it was an identical object, merely inverted.
"Please stand on the pedestal. I will run the terminal myself to make some clothes for you." I watched the matching platforms illuminate in lines of holographic flurry, settling into hovering rings of red light between both projectors. The room dimmed to a dingy level of lighting, leaving the platform as the only major source of light. "Leave your cloak off please." I nodded slowly, eying the platform. The black, heavy fabric fell from my shoulders and onto the floor as I let it loose, though I still hesitated. If it meant clothes, however, and protection from the filth of the station, any fear was worth letting go off. I wasn't even sure what I was afraid of as I lifted a foot up onto the platform. The rings moved down as I lifted my entire self onto it. I flinched, a beam of red coming from above and scanning down along my ears and head. It felt warmer on this platform than the rest of the room, even without the blanket around me.
"What do I do?" I questioned, awaiting another command.
"You are fine as is. Please stand and be relaxed. This scan is only physical." I winced as a laser shone into my eye, trying to hold still. Several more rings had formed around me at anatomic intervals along my person, each one with periodic lines drawn to my person. "Please lift your arms flat, pointing away from your body horizontally." I did so and found more rings forming, several forming around each joint and azimuth of my form. "It is almost done," Mary assured. "I will be making hydrophobic clothes for you, including under-clothes, a long sleeved shirt, pants and ergonomic foot sleeves. The blueprint for their construction was made specifically for you before your embryo was developed."
"Hydrophobic?" I questioned, not being able to help wincing with another laser grazing my eye.
"In the use of clothes, hydrophobic materials are purely nonabsorbent. Liquids slide off of this sort of material without so much as setting in. I am following critical command to assure that you will not easily become wet." I lifted a brow at that remark.
"What, am I water soluble?" I satirically stated.
"No. I do not know why it is important. I just know it is that you do not endure damp conditions for prolonged periods. Keep that in mind for your own safety." I wasn't sure how to respond to that. "Scan complete," Mary said as each holographic projection shut off, the platforms and room returning to standard illumination. I stepped off, smoothing the fur on my arms with my hands hurriedly. That thing gave me the jeebies something fierce.
"How about this cloak then?" I leaned down, hoisting the heavy black cloak up again and wrapping it around me, noticing that there was a yellow outline around its outer edges. I was left in silence for a minute, hearing the terminal chirring and beeping on the wall.
"I do not know." I looked towards the camera in the corner besides the lockers.
"How don't you know?" Hadn't she put this on me when I woke up?
"I do not know. Before your pod malfunctioned there was a power fluctuation. My abilities to observe both the inside and outside of the station went offline for approximately fifty seven seconds. When system functionality was restored you were outside of your tube after a malfunction induced release procedure. That cloak was on top of you when I could see again. I have no means to determine where it came from, so I put it aside as part of the release procedure on a separate, automated sub-system. However, I had not seen it before then. I am blaming a corrupted part of my memory or a file system error." I couldn't help but feel a sting of discomfort in the air, like I wasn't as alone as I had been lead to believe.
"Are you sure there is nobody else onboard?"
"Certain, unless there is a system of mine not functioning that I am unaware of. The probability of that is literally zero percent, just so you are aware."
"Smart ass response duly noted…" I mumbled back. I wondered as I looked over towards the lockers again: was Luke's locker here too? Shuffling with the cloak, I stepped over the amassed piles of papers and discarded rubbish. I walked to the end closest to me, examining the name on each one. Some doors reluctantly opened with creaking hinges as I closed them to uncover the next, although most seemed pretty well lubricated. I crinkled my nose and exhaled at the smell coming from one. Standing on my toes I could see a bag with mold growing in it. I didn't know what it was, but I was in no hurry to find out. I closed it and went onto the next, about to close a door when I found Luke's right beside. The papers under my feet crunched as I stood back on my toes, looking at the top shelf inside my donor's locker. It seemed empty besides a few scraps of paper.
"Hm." I looked to the synthesizer terminal again, nothing changing on the screen besides a "please wait" notice. I had a minute at the least it seemed. Looking up to the shelf again, I climbed up onto the bottom shelf and scraped around inside slowly, feeling along the inside corners. A tiny sharp object caught my hand though I couldn't place the shape, only knowing that it was on a loop attached to the inside. I lifted it up carefully and fell back on the heels of my feet, looking to see what I found. It was a slender piece of silver metal with seemingly random bits sticking out along a smooth extension. It honestly looked like a piece of scrap metal, but it had a loop and seemed specifically designed to be carried around. I had no idea what it was. I turned it over, looking towards the camera and holding it up for Mary.
"What's this?" Mary seemed to think for a minute.
"I assume that is a manual type of key, an object designed to enter a mechanical lock generally without electronic recognition. The sharp pieces along the shaft are called teeth and fit into a specifically coded lock of the same pattern. The pattern cannot be seen on the lock from the outside, so one can only know what key goes to what lock by memory or label. To my knowledge, there are no manual locks on the station, though a member of the crew may have had a personal lockbox or safe designed in such a fashion." I twiddled the key between my two index fingers; nothing had been labeled on it, but maybe it belonged to something in Luke's room?
"What does a lock look like?"
"It it generally a small slit on a surface, something round in shape most often being the case. The slit will look like a small rectangle, according to the size of the key."
"That sounds out of place enough to be noticeable on most containers," I said frankly. Without warning the lights flickered heavily, the room dipping in and out of shadow in flashes. I stayed put, frozen stiff as the terminal opposite of me refused a steady glow.
"Hold on, rotating power," Mary notified. I stayed perfectly still until the lights ebbed back into a steady pulse of light, wavering constantly as the synthesizer's screen almost faded entirely into hollow blackness. "There is not enough power to synthesize effectively, but I have finished your clothes at the least." As she spoke a semi large panel next to the terminal opened downwards, revealing a vast array of lights and pulsing arrays inside as a glass sheet extended outwards with a pile of white fabric on top. "Proceed." I hesitated to approach as volatile crackling came from the chamber. Maintaining that staving the filth from my person was more crucial than a mere electrocution I crossed the field of discarded trash. I couldn't tell if my eyes were bugging out or the lights were still flickering a little bit, but it had seemed to stop once I got within reach of the assortment of white clothes. I ran my hand along the folds of the biggest piece, what I assumed to be the shirt Mary had planned for me; the material was smoother to the touch than glass yet supple as my cloak was. There was a single piece of clothing that wasn't white: an under-clothes top and bottom, both long enough to reach my wrists and ankles respectively.
"So how does this material work exactly?" I asked, pulling my cloak off and setting it on the floor and the key I had found on top of it.
"It is a polymer mixture of synthetic materials woven together by nano grade sized fibers. The material is not cut resistant but liquids will be repelled to the point of sliding off as a whole, such as the reaction between oil and water. The fabric is made entirely of synthesized materials and should retain most of its potency for several years. I cannot promise full efficiency after five years due to endurance failings." Mary listed things very well, though it wasn't as if I had asked anything much more than: "how does this work?"
"Ah… I see," I responded. Though, it would be good to know how long these clothes would last. Five years… that was a long time given they could survive that long. I pulled the long necked and sleeved under-clothes over my head, grunting as the neck hole finally gave way for my ears. The feeling of a proper covering was comforting to say the least, I thought. I breathed easy as I took the bottom portion of the under-clothes and stuck a foot through, wobbling a bit on one leg. I dittoed the motion for my other leg and held the waist up as I settled the base of my tail into the flat of the back. I could feel my fur stick up on my ears at the feeling around my tail as I belted the strap just above it, securing the article on me. It would take getting used to, but at least it wasn't as bad as strutting through the layers of dirt on this derelict dust bowl.
"Euf… I can't imagine what normal clothes must be like for Lombaxes if these are uncomfortable as they are. That is… I'm assuming these are abnormal dressings?" I thought aloud, adjusting myself and pulling at the nearly skin-tight clothing. I started with the covering clothing, picking up the long white pants and putting them on.
"Somewhat, though these are what were starting to trend amongst the nobles. Most tail-slots on pants were elastic holes designed to comfortably stretch and accommodate a large array of sizes, each able to be slimmed down or reinforced at a tailor. The 'belt over, tail under' style had made waves of attention at least thirteen years ago. It is generally seen as both more functional and comfortable by public opinion in circles of fashion critiques." I listened to Mary inform me with the same patient, ineffable tone as she did with everything else. I had a feeling she could list off even the most morbid and gruesome of activities with the appeal of an enthusiastic schoolteacher.
"How- interesting," I spoke, pausing as I slipped the white, long sleeved top over me. Truth be told I appreciated the information, but there seemed to be a far more dire set of questions to address before any of this frivolous lore. "I have to ask… how do you know that? It seems like at the least that you have a great understanding of Lombax culture," I noted to her.
"You know a great deal of things, too, though I suspect some of it was lost after several years of stasis stagnation. Properly speaking, you should know quite a lot more than you do now, though I do find your ability to communicate and perform critical thinking to be remarkable for a five year old youth," Mary spoke, not answering my question.
"That's fair enough… but how much do you know? Like- how much do you know about this section of space, if there has been any news of anything else? You know more than enough about fashion and other tidbits. I want to know how Fastoon is doing," I asked once more, pressing the sense of frustration with my situation as I took the foot coverings from the glass tray.
"As I stated earlier I cannot receive or send long distance messages, though I have intercepted a few interesting side conversations from vagrant ships passing through this system, mostly from the Vullards and their clients." I listened intently as I slipped the white foot wraps on. My claws stuck out from them, encircled by a band of black on each toe; the ankle end was similar in design.
"What kind of information?" I shifted my weight around as I asked, feeling a conforming shape of cushion under each foot. I likened to them instantly over treading the repulsive carpet.
"I am wary to tell you, Ether. It is not good news." I furrowed my brow and rolled my eyes.
"I'm abandoned on a space station after being left for dead for five years; I'm pretty sure there's not much that'll shake me," I assured with a very apparent frustration. I waited for a reply, only getting the constant dot of red from the camera above.
"Logically and forthright speaking, Ether, Fastoon has fallen. The Lombaxes have been exterminated." I hadn't felt cold until she spoke that unto me. My breath was held, though I could process the statement well enough; all and all, it made sense. However, I wasn't sure what to say, not coming even remotely close to an appropriate response. She seemed to wait for me to speak, though I wasn't sure on what to ask further. "My information has been refreshed for accuracy from a number of passing sources and signals from the planet below. I have been listening for five years and the information has had little change. Fastoon is abandoned and there have been extremely few sightings of Lombaxes since the Exodus Alpha procedure, facts withstanding."
"I- what happened? How could the Lombaxes just be gone?" I demanded, becoming more pressured than ever to understand what had transpired while I had been locked in sleep.
"If my intercepted information is to be trusted, there was a resurgence of the Cragmites. Do you know who they were?" Mary asked.
"Yes, I do… but weren't they removed from the galaxy?"
"To what is known as the Lombaxes as The Great Purge, yes. A device developed by the Advanced Center for Lombax Research titled as the 'Dimensionator' was used to relocate each active individual of the Cragmite species to a distant and benign distance of unmeasured size. Apparently, this was not accomplished thoroughly enough. One Cragmite has imbedded itself into the Polaris Galaxy as self proclaimed, and accomplished through violent dispute, Percival Tachyon, Emperor of the Cragmites. We are currently located in the Breegus system; according to what I've heard and analyzed, the Emperor was never in this district or could not obtain a political ruling here. Understand that I have limited information."
I thought carefully about that fact, rubbing my middle and thumb claws together on my right hand; Mary had no way to confirm or deny this information, so maybe there was a lot more to it. Judging by the five years that had passed and no grounded information it was impossible to find out by staying here.
"Is there anything else?" I asked impatiently. For the first time I heard Mary sigh, rather defiantly if I had to assign an emotion to it.
"Very little. I have been starved of information just as you have, I'm afraid. In addition, this 'emperor' is short, shrill of voice, and has an army of Drophyds as his personal legion. That is the end of my understanding." I wanted to get upset with her, but I couldn't do so rightfully. I began to understand exactly how limited Mary was for ability to intercept data streams and transmissions. I looked to the cloak on the floor, waiting for something to say to her "I am sorry, truly. I can't understand your feelings right now," Mary continued from the quiet lull of conversation. I glanced back to her camera, a little surprised by her attempt to level with me.
"It's not your fault. You can't help it; I know you're not really able to risk this station's location, right?"
"I'm afraid that's correct."
"Yeah," I replied halfheartedly. I kneeled and lifted the cloak up, looking around it for a latch of some kind to secure around my neck or something, just so I wouldn't have to haul it around. It was obviously designed for someone about two and a half times my size.
"Put the cloak on the analysis pedestal. I might be able to help with that." I looked at the camera then to the pedestal. It was worth a shot at the least. I didn't have anything better to do. I followed Mary's advice, setting the cloak down on the platform and nudging the fabric to fit onto the scanner center. The red laser halos that had encircled me before came from the top scanner as the room fell dark again, nearly touching the cloak as it ran through the motions of scanning. The cloak's black features were hardly illuminated as it was scanned through and through, but the yellow portions hardly seemed to have a change of color as well.
"So what are you going to do?" I asked quietly, trying not to interrupt. I got no response for several seconds before the process stopped entirely, the pedestals becoming still and dark and the room brightening.
"Nothing. I cannot scan it." I looked at the terminal's screen in disbelief. Sure enough there was an error screen.
"Object void…? What does that mean?"
"It means that this method of scanning will not yield results. The atomic structure is not recognized, nor the material's method of construction." I turned my head towards the cloak again. It hadn't seemed like a strange material to me, but for its entire molecular construction to be unknown by a science station's scanners? That wasn't normal even in comparison to my short list of experiences. I approached the cloak and let my hand fall upon it; it felt pretty mundane, smooth and ordinary.
"Hm…" The cloak's design was hardly ornate, only bordered by a gold trim as far as I could see. I shuffled around the folds, not seeing any change. It was bordered on both sides, indicating that it was reversible at the least.
"The cloak may be part of another experiment on the station, designed to work in tangent with you," Mary suggested. What would I need a cloak for I wondered, if that was the case? I spotted the key I had found from Luke's locker hiding in a fold of the cloak, picking it up and pocketing it. I debated about just leaving the cloak. It was too huge for me to wear, but I didn't want to leave it if it was important in some way…
I decided to leave it, adjusting my shirt a little.
"I'm going to go to my room and see if there's anything useful in there if that's all the same to you," I informed Mary, nodding towards the camera.
"Do me a favor, Ether?" Mary stopped me in mid-step. "Remove the cloak from the scanner for now, if you would," Mary spoke further. "I don't like loose ends distracting my already limited sensors." I didn't disagree with the sensation of "untidy" things distracting one's senses; I understood where she was coming from and hauled the cloak up onto my shoulders, draping it around my neck. "Thank you," Mary spoke with a warm, relieved voice. I nodded again towards her, smiling as I could given the circumstance. I wasn't afraid to admit that I felt a little sour. Barely twenty minutes awake for the first time in my life and I was already dealing with the crisis of extinction. My views were already tinted such a hue of jaded that I was practically seeing green.
I heard the synthesis chamber door click and whirr behind me as it closed and the door to leave the room whooshed open. I noticed that it was substantially slower than before, barely half the speed of its former agility. The power flickered a little bit as it closed again behind me, almost grinding along the floor at its current speed. I grimaced and tried to ignore the station's failing power supply. I was starting to suspect that Mary's reserves for the stations were getting dangerously low. She would have to warn me about life support failing, though… at least I hoped.
"Is the station's power supply doing alright?" I inquired as the door simply stopped behind me.
"There are several failures of battery reserves. There is not enough solar radiation to recharge most of the station's primary functions. Life support is currently running at full capacity only through a siphon of all other primary systems and secondary systems. The repulser cannons are also part of this siphon and maintaining sixty-eight percent functionality and rising. You will be fine," Mary spoke plainly, though I could swear that the intercom volume was starting to fade.
"Alright- as long as everything is uh… okay." The last things I needed, though in no specific order, were masses of space debris smashing into the station or the air running out. It was already cold enough, though the heavy cloak made my neck and back very warm to my great gratitude. I was put off immensely by the fact that I could trace a thick, clean path from my prior walk down the hall in the thick dust sediment. I could almost credit the thick layers as geologic phenomena. Tracing my path full circle I came to my door again, though in much dimmer light than the last visit. I pressed my hand into it when it wouldn't open.
"Hold on," Mary spoke up with a static troubled voice. "There is a shortage of power. I will divert a minimum of life support's heating subsystem to open it." The lights all but turned off as she finished the sentence and the door reluctantly opened. I cringed at the noise of grinding power conduits, but the door was at least open.
"Don't uh… bother closing it. No need to waste power," I suggested.
"I was going to advise that, actually," Mary agreed with a half laugh. The lights in the room came on slowly as I entered, my surroundings vague for a good few seconds until I could see clearly that I was in a somewhat large, rectangular room. It was more deep than wide with a wide boon of comforts. From my point and as I entered I found a large circular table to my left at the entrance with several comfortable looking chairs, all white, and along the same wall was an entrance into a small galley. A small fridge, stove and set of cabinets were all neatly in the corner. I turned to my right; a very large, widescreen monitor and set of bookcases occupied a nicely arranged corner. The bookcases were empty as far as I could see, though even from my height I doubted anything occupied the top shelves besides dust. As I looked around my room, though, I was honestly surprised by the lack of dust. The age of this room wasn't nearly as apparent as the other chambers I had visited.
In the very back left corner was a standing floor screen, white as the rest of the furniture was. I wasn't sure what the white theme was all about but decided I didn't need an hour of explanation from Mary. I ventured further inwards towards the screen and observing the details around me. Against the right wall was a little path past the screen and I found my bed accompanied by a small side table, dresser and wardrobe. It was a little too claustrophobic for my taste, but I suspected that the room had rested in this state since before I had been "conceived." The bed's cover was white, the mattress supported by a modern, white bed frame with no empty space available underneath. It was shaped a lot like a snail, honestly, though I found that rather cute. The comforter was neatly and evenly tucked in. Even though I had just woken up not long beforehand I found myself yearning to take a quick lie down on it.
"I kept your room as clean as I could," Mary spoke up, her voice more normalized due to the lack of an echo in the room. I raised my head in a sense of surprise.
"Really? I mean, I've noticed very much so. How did you do that?"
"I have kept this room cut off from the rest of the life support systems, isolating the air flow. Until a few minutes ago I have kept this room depressurized. When you awoke I started to slowly normalize the air pressure inside here with the outside pressure of the hallway. I am glad that my power supply was able to handle that task," she explained pleasantly.
"Ah… that is good then," I concurred. Knowing that, the idea that the power levels had been fluctuating so badly was because of her trying to slowly re-pressurize the room became a very likely theory. I felt the plush comforter over as I set the cloak onto it and opened the only drawer in the end table. There was nothing inside, though it wasn't very big anyway. I took my hand off the bed and stuck it in my pocket, pulling the key out. There didn't seem to be much for this thing to go to.
I kneeled down and opened the bottom drawer of the dresser, working up to the second and third going upwards; there was nothing. I reached out and took the indented handles of the wardrobe, looking down to its bottom as I opened up the white doors. I grinned; at the very bottom and severely out of place was a solid metal case larger than my fist, a square of sheen, black metal. I cracked a grin for only a second before bending down and trying to lift it, realizing it weighed more than the cloak did. I hoisted and heaved at it, getting nowhere quickly.
"What pray tell is in this thing?"
"What is in what?" Mary inquired. Still knelt on the floor I tried pulling the box out to no avail.
"This box in here… There's an attaché case or something at the bottom of this wardrobe. It weighs a ton, but it's not even a half meter across- do you know anything about it?"
"There are no cameras in your room so I cannot see it, nor have I ever seen it. It is not part of any record that I am aware of and could have been discharged information." My knowledge thus far supplied no reason to doubt her. So far I could just very vaguely identify whatever relationship I once had with her while I was in stasis. I could distinctly recall a makeshift digital reality that I had lived in slumbering, a fast paced world of information and education. There was a certain staleness to the memories that I couldn't account for, gaps in information that had once supplied me a purpose for existing. Even as I tried to move the box there was an uncomfortable void in my head, a black spot that eclipsed over a plot I had missed. This enigma of a container only deepened that feeling- though I chanced upon a glimmer of direction as a flickering light above me pointed out a small slot, barely thicker than my nail, upon the box's front face.
I sighed anxiously, unable to help the heavy gravity of destiny's force from pulling on me hidden within the sealed capsule. I pushed into the slot with my thumb's claw, the tiny inner face plate giving way just slightly. By reflex I searched around my pockets and found the key I had lifted from Luke's locker; the sliver of metal was exactly the right size to be worked into it. My lungs held each breath for a second longer than normal and my hands kept deathly still, lifting the key to the lock's mouth. I matched up the larger top of the key to the mechanism, though I wasn't sure if it mattered. I could feel an older personage behind the key's form that didn't fit in a station like this, but I didn't think this box did, either. Perhaps it was because it was black instead of white, opposing the entire theme of the station's furniture thus far, but I felt there was a different agenda behind this box than every piece of lore I had learned. The key slid inwards, smoothly and almost perfectly straight.
I couldn't think as I turned the key, overwhelmed with a sudden feeling that I had no prior knowledge of owning. It was bliss, purely so. I felt warm, awake, though my logical reasoning was not able to comprehend why. I thought I could hear Mary speaking but focused only on the box, opening the obstinate lid up more easily with each crawling second.
"Ether-." I heard my name more clearly, the feeling shrinking away as fog on a warm window. "Ether Xaily, what has happened?" I blinked repeatedly, shaking the sweltering haze away from me as the world sharpened. I looked down, once again aware of where I was. There was a golden, circular plate in the box surrounded by plush black velvet. The disc was outlined with a ridged edge and decorated with a hollow, five pointed star composed of equal angles. I could feel my heart racing and body heating up as I realized I couldn't remember looking down and already seeing this.
"I-I don't know. Things got a little weird there for a minute… why?" I replied with a tremor in my throat.
"There was a severe electrical output from this room for approximately five minutes. I could not reach you." I sat, not moving as the warmth drained from my fingertips. Five minutes? No, that couldn't have been right. I just opened the box not more than a minute ago at the least. I wasn't used to how time worked outside of stasis, but I knew well enough that five minutes had not passed.
"Ether?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Are you sure five minutes passed?"
"That is what the onboard clock says. It is separate from my systems. Approximately six minutes ago there was a power surge in your room measured at approximately three-point-five kilovolts. It lasted for five minutes and then ceased, just as I could reach you," Mary explained with some aggression. "I do not know if it is a malfunction in the transformers on the station, but if there had been it would have spread into the other conduits inside the maintenance tubes. Did you break something?" Mary demanded quietly behind a flustered tone. I looked around rather shakily; there didn't seem to be anything out of place.
"N-No… I don't think so. I just opened this box up and… felt really good. I thought I heard you talking but I… can't remember. I can't remember what happened," I muttered mostly to myself. I honestly couldn't remember much of anything besides feeling really, really good, like I was in a cloud of warmth and… contentment. I couldn't even place the feelings but they had left in as just of a rush as they had came; only left now was a gold disc in a black box, shone to a mirroring polish. I hesitated to take it and with good reason. Who knew if that was what had caused my lapse in memory. Mary seemed distressed enough; whatever had happened in those five minutes must have disturbed her greatly.
I stood with a clearer head than I had knelt down with, however. There was still a lingering tingle that I was tempted to shake loose, though I didn't want to make my memory even worse. It was then that I caught a whiff of something very different from the stale air and dust. I didn't know the name, but the room I had woken up in at the start of this mess reeked of it. It was… electrical, something I had noticed strongly around the synthesizer scanners.
"Mary, do you have any sensors in this room at all? Anything that can be used to indentify smells?" I asked quickly, not wanting the smell to fade.
"I have several olfactory nodes in the room for carbon monoxide, radon, and other dangerous airborne materials. Why?"
"What's the smell in here right now, the one that's just shown up?" The light above my bed flickered lightly as I waited for a response; as I looked up I noted that my eyebrows seemed a little thicker than normal. I wondered if they had always been that fluffy, though it was hardly pressing to me.
"There is a mild concentration of ozone in the room. Judging by location it originated where you are standing. Is there an open circuit nearby or a loose panel in the wall or floor?"
"No… everything looks fine." The gold pentagram disc glimmered under the light with a haunting glow in my eyes. Quietly, I bent down and reached towards it with my right hand. Within a few centimeters of it the lights suddenly dimmed above me in a violent flicker, stopping my approach.
"There is another surge in the room happening. What is going on?" Mary demanded.
"Nothing as far as I know of," I played. I rubbed the bottom of my thumb against my index and middle fingers slowly, swallowing excess saliva nervously. A buzzing noise rummaged through my ears like an itch. Before I could pull back an arc of electricity broke from the disc and shot across my fingers, zapping my something fierce.
"Ah! Holy-!" I held my voice, realizing the mistake.
"What? Are you dismantling something? This is really unfair, Ether Xaily. Either remove yourself from the room or spare the hardware of whatever destruction you have in mind!" That was the first time I had really heard Mary "yell" and even then is was just another level of elevation above her informative, characteristic robot tone.
"No! It's quite alright thank you!" In truth, it was. The arc of electricity, though loud and bright, had not hurt. I wasn't sure what that meant, considering the generally infallible laws of physics. I was fairly certain that I wasn't electrically grounded… And if I had been, there wouldn't have been a power surge in the very same room! Either the whole room was grounded or wasn't- there wasn't really an in-between on the matter. Willfully I reached outwards again, the lights sharply breaking their illuminating glow.
All I could feel was a warm, racing heart in my chest. My fingers approached the same point again as a buzzing filled my ears, yet only to fade as an arc jumped from the pentacle. A connection was made, arcs of electricity surging between my fingertips and the golden disc. I felt nothing, the room was silent besides the crackling heartbeat reaching out towards me and coursing through my head. I couldn't hear Mary, nor see anything else besides what the pure electricity lit up in furious flashes that were nearly constant. The gap closed slowly and the smears of white and blue light in the rigid sharp lines of arcs started to turn a different hue altogether, a faintly purple intensity. I could feel my eyes widen; it was beautiful in a way I couldn't understand, alone in the world with only a network of ever-changing rivers connecting me to a disc, the center of a golden universe. My senses were only of the disc and the light arcing to my hand and around my arm. I could see into an eternity that ended all too abruptly.
The disc touched my fingers in a silent room, not a snip of electricity present. My memory stood as governing tribunal to logic, each aspect of what had just happened slowly mortalizing. Even my breath was still, my heartbeat absent. A panic rushed over me; had I died? Was this how I was to end, so close to a choreographed birth, alone?
The question snapped back to me as the lights in the room flashed online and the heart in my chest beat again, racing fast and then slowing within instants. I sat still, petrified though completely surrounded by an ineffable air of safety. The crackling of an intercom awoke my hearing, Mary's voice murkily breaking through.
"Ether! Ether Five please respond!" As if it were magic the room was exactly as it was before, the only difference being the golden plate resting under my fingers, resting seemingly frozen in both space and time, belonging not to this world. "Ether!" she called again, urgently and loudly.
"I'm here!" I called back to her. "I'm right here, I promise," I added. I slipped the pentacle into my hand, taking it from its home. It had been resting apparently upon a plate of almost laminate looking, gray metal. If the box had been that heavy, then the idea that it was a battery-rigged death trap wasn't far off.
"What happened? Are you alright? The power to the room cut very abruptly. My sensory data was off the charts. The electromagnetic radiation from the room alone broke through the magneto shields on the station and ionized most of the maintenance tubes on your floor. If there had been people onboard without proper grounding there would be a one-hundred percent chance of fatal exposure to electrical currents!" Mary bothered feverishly.
"This room must have some uh…" I flipped the disc around in my hand, examining the blank back. "Good grounding." I stuffed the disc into my pocket quickly. There was some extremely interesting research going on at this station. Whatever this disc was, I had a feeling it was a central part of the research here.
"According to blueprints this is one of several rooms with reinforced grounding plates. However, the electrical discharge from this room was so great that it has leaked from the station at a rate I did not expect it to handle. However the expelled radiation has caused an environmental change nearby; there are now several large spans of debris from Torren IV's ring now with inverted polar fields. Most of the debris in this area of the ring is iron based. There are several readings of clumping materials in nearby regions."
"Are they dangerous?" Another second of pause from Mary.
"Not currently. The repulsers on this station would be able to deflect them. The magnetic field here, too, is able to avert most collisions through managing polarizations. You should be fine." The smell of ozone in the room was fairly severe at this point, though I didn't seem to have much issue breathing. "This room should be vented according to Lombax anatomical standard. It is not clean enough," Mary informed. "What happened in this room? Or do you not remember? You may be relapsing from stasis sickness. The intensity of the electromagnetic radiation may have inadvertently caused nervous system stress in your body. Are you feeling woozy, light headed or airy?"
"No… I feel pretty nice actually," I answered honestly.
"Mm. Yet you are suffering from moderate memory loss?"
"I-I wouldn't say moderate… maybe just above average." Granted, I had no basis for what that really meant at all or how to measure short term memory loss. I really wanted to find out more about what was happening in the galaxy.
"Very well," Mary murmured, seeming to think in the background. She went silent, leaving me to my own as the ventilation became louder. A clean, filtered smell wafted around my nose and into my head, clearing the ozone's scent away. I waited for her to follow up with something else but received nothing more, at least for the time being. I grinned, my mouth moving of its own accord. I wasn't sure why I was smiling, but I felt like being happy about something. I moved myself onto the bed, falling prey to the plush cushion under the thick white comforter. Removing the disc and crossing my legs, I examined the disc as well as I was able. There didn't seem to be much on the outside worth nothing besides the design on the front. I shook it, smelled it, even tasted it; there was nothing unusual about it now. It was substantial in weight, that was certain, but even so that seemed to be the only strange concept of it.
There was something arcane about this disc that drove me with a new goal besides discovering whatever had happened to this station, to the Lombaxes, if they were truly gone as Mary said. Maybe the station was just forgotten over time after a panic, or maybe funds simply ran out for whatever the project on this station was. Even if I had been important in research I couldn't decide if me being left in stasis was a sign of importance or lack thereof.
Of all the things certain and sure, I was glad to finally be breathing and alive.