Chapter Text
Simon felt cold.
It was… annoying more than anything. Slightly strange, too. Some part of him felt strongly that it should have been very very warm, and the cool air around him was strange and disconcerting. It felt bad. He needed more heat. Why couldn’t he get more heat?
He floated in that half-aware and vaguely disgruntled headspace for a little bit, both wishing to feel warmer and extremely reluctant to do anything about it. His body tried to curl up on itself, but could not, and that only added to the misery.
The world was clearly a terrible place to be in.
Despite how hard he fought to stay asleep, consciousness crept up on him and grazed against his still-sluggish mind. Something was making a dull, repetitive beeping noise. He felt cold. Heavy. Nauseous. And very, very numb. Which was also distantly surprising, for some reason.
He did not like consciousness. He wanted to go back to sleep. Sleep was better.
Something chirped and whistled softly to the right of him — a piece of machinery, perhaps? — but Simon stubbornly turned his head away from it and slipped back into the pleasant darkness. The floaty sensation flowed into unconsciousness so softly that he barely registered it. The water rushed in to tug him deep below, where nothing hurt, where nothing was. He questioned nothing and resisted nothing. For another blissful moment, he was asleep. It lasted no time at all. It lasted forever.
Then back it went.
Beeping. Cold. Nausea. Oh, the nausea, and his head was stuffed with rugs, and his mouth had been turned into a compost bin. And worst of all, someone was grabbing at his still numb body and… moving it this way and that. Simon was too far gone to tell more. He still did not have to like it.
“Fugoff,” he grunted, trying to fight it. The unwanted grasp was unyielding and cold. Why did everything have to be cold?
Something clicked and whistled to the right of him again. He thought he heard a voice. Multiple. He could not understand it. His head was both too empty and too full and his limbs were putty and he was not even fully sure he had a body at all, with how numb it felt. But it was a point of stubbornness and pride.
The strange hold did not relent. He was manhandled thoroughly, all over, like an unwieldy sack of gravel, and then, adding insult to injury, he was flopped over onto his side and then stabbed with something sharp straight into the tender buttock.
Sure. Right. Whatever.
Simon gave up. He was way too out of it, way too tired, and after the sting his body quickly grew even number than it was. He allowed his body to be repositioned as much as they wanted to. After some time they laid him out on his back again. Something pressed on his chest. He grumbled, but did not fight it. Just let him sleep. Or let him wake up proper. Something, anything, instead of letting him stew in this exhausting, feverish state.
Then he heard it again. A deep, rumbling hum. Much quieter than before, higher in tone, but so very similar to the sound that had lulled him for so long. It lulled him once more. He relaxed, his head rolling to a side.
He sank back.
The next time he came close to waking up, it was much harder to fight off. His body must have decided that it was done resting, or at least that it was done letting him rest, and as a miserable result he shivered awake. It was still cold. Everything felt strange and achy. It smelled weird. His head was unsure whether to swim or pound. Nausea had built up to a dangerous level, his throat was parched, and the taste in his mouth… well… he was not a stranger to throwing up or to tasting blood, and the implication made him grunt and shudder.
His thoughts started and chugged along like a heavy freighter overcoming inertia. Thinking was rotten work. At first all he got were random bits and pieces, a mishmash of ideas as his brain did its best to put itself together. But he clawed and grabbed at thoughts until he could hold a line of them together without dropping them all around. He remembered — felt on a distant level — that he had to be cautious. The smells, the sounds, the sensations… He must have been in the medbay. If he opened his eyes and moved, others (because of course he’d be observed) would know he was awake, and then—
He did not move. He did not open his eyes. Though admittedly, he did not really feel like doing either.
He was alive. He was being tended to. Both were good, but both came with clauses. He could not quite recall what had happened to put him in the medbay, but getting hurt was par for the course in prison. It was more of a piece of news that they decided to patch him up…
Simon frowned slightly, trying to take a deeper breath. He couldn’t. Something was holding his chest in one place. Restraints? Panic grabbed at his lungs, ever-enthusiastic. Of course he’d be restrained, being who he was, but— okay. Breathe, Simon. You need to survive this. You have to keep a level head. You’ve survived—
Oh God.
He remembered.
The sub. The moon. The blood. Camera flashes. The taste of rubbing alcohol. The black box. The Eel, and the Eye, and the Light— PAIN. Heat. His arm was being torn off— His eyes burned, he could not open them, and— his lungs were flooded and he could not breathe, he could not breathe, he was burning and boiling alive and his skin was peeling off, he could feel every muscle, every bone, he could feel everything—
Simon could barely turn his head to the side before he weakly threw up bile. Everything was too much, yet at the same time he was not getting any input whatsoever. His ears were ringing and his body was not all there. He was not there. He was nowhere and nobody and nothing.
He dry-heaved again, panting. Something was shoved into his mouth and drained the bile and saliva as he coughed up the last remains of it. He did not really understand what was happening and he could not even fight it. He did not want to be awake anymore.
He did not have a choice.
Throwing up weirdly made him feel better. The dizzy feeling slowly receded, leaving him light and empty. His mind shut the door on the memories again, instead lunging desperately towards the known, familiar practicality of immediate survival. He still had to get his bearings and see where he ended up. That task was much more pressing, and would not change no matter if he thought about his past or didn’t.
Better if he didn’t.
There was no point in pretending to be asleep anymore, so he slowly opened his eyes — and hissed, throwing his right arm up to hide himself from the light. It was much too bright and too sudden.
Wait. He could move his arm?
Wasn’t he restrained? Did they just… forget to tie it down? Or did it go loose?
Simon blinked away tears, slowly trying to adjust his vision. The blurry shapes solidified into objects, at least in one of his eyes — the other remained blurry and painful, nearly non-functional. His arm was indeed right in front of his face, free. There was a plastic thingy, bright yellow, stuck uncomfortably into his elbow and wrapped in gauze — a catheter, presumably. A clear line ran from it. Simon’s eyes followed it to an IV bag hanging from a hook above him. It was almost empty. No label.
He blinked again and put his arm down. His other arm—
His other arm.
Simon did not want to look down. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned his head away as if it changed something. Of course he could feel it — the lack of response when his brain fired off commands, the lack of sensation past a certain point. But he was not ready to see it. God, he was not ready. If he just did not look for a bit, he could pretend his arm was still there and just very numb.
Simon took a few short breaths and opened his eyes with the adrenaline surge of a man jumping off a cliff.
There was an empty space by his side. He stared at it, at the inherent wrongness of it. His shoulder went for several inches past the socket and then ended in a stump, and when Simon jerked in disgust, he could feel his muscles moving in all the wrong ways — could feel the desire to grab onto something with fingers that no longer were.
He blinked back whatever idiocy that made his eyes ache. He could not afford self-pity. There was that. It could be worse. He needed to swallow it down and keep going. Nothing more.
…Simon frowned.
The stump was bare — clear of bandages and… strangely well-healed. The scarring was vast, and, now that he was looking, all of his skin was… rough and bumpy (he refused to think why). But the scarring was also weirdly not bad enough. It looked… old. Smooth. Polished by years and years of healing. Almost more like a strangely discolored patch he was born with, and not something that he had acquired a mere… how long ago could it be?
Simon fought back the nauseating desire to touch the stump — he could tell that he wouldn’t be able to handle that. Instead, he busied himself with the rest of himself. There was a bunch of what he assumed were sensors on his chest, and a simple buckle across his pecs, strapping him down to the bed. He also was not wearing anything but a single (eerily white) sheet for cover, which explained why he still had goosebumps from the chill. Simon undid the buckle and breathed deeper, but left the sensors in place. No need to antagonize the Base people. Not like these were hurting him any.
All he wanted was to pull the sheet up, curl up underneath, and try to shiver up enough warmth to stop feeling like a body dumped out of the airlock, but he needed to survey the rest of the damage. With a grunt and a shudder, Simon pulled the sheet aside.
First order of business: yep, he was fully in the nude. He cringed at the thought of who-knows-how-many people swarming around him, touching him and seeing his every angle, but that thought, while also nauseating, paled before literally every other one. At least the rest of him seemed more or less in one piece, save for the weird skin. It looked a little like he sustained third-degree burns, and then got a nice sensual sandpapering back to mostly normal. He poked at his stomach: it did not feel any number, thankfully, but the texture was really off. Could be worse.
He tried to sit up, and then he felt… something… on his back right above his ass. The sensation was sharp and weird. His brain refused to tell him what was happening, but there was definitely an extra something there now.
He made the mistake to roll over and look.
He immediately yelped, tried to escape his own skin and fell off the bed. The sensors were ripped off, the catheter tore away, and somewhere a warning blared, but right now he could not care about his standing with the Base.
He had a tail.
It was a weird, unnatural appendage. It went about to his shins, wrapped in the same bumpy skin as his entire body, almost rat-like if it was not flatter and meatier than a rat tail, with bulges and ridges all along its length. He refused to think what other creature he saw that had a similar appendage. He was panting as it was.
The tail lay there, nauseatingly physical. Simon also lay now, sprawled on the floor, naked, staring numbly at it. He reached out with a shaky hand and pressed his fingers to the tail, and then yelped again when his brain had no idea how to sort the new sensory input. He was not supposed to have a tail. His body did not know how to have one. And given he was naked, the others now knew what a mutated freak he was, and—
Okay. Okay. He grabbed at his left shoulder, curled up, and squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the wave to be over. He needed to keep a level head. It was the only small power he still had in his possession.
He was not dissected and put into jars immediately. They even patched him up. He must have had some use to them, then, even being a— even being him. Did he get them the black box? The thought made something inside of him unclench. That would explain it, being looked after. Perhaps he did manage to do one good thing in his entire useless life.
Well, they should not count on there ever being a repeat.
Simon grunted, pulling himself up to at least sit on the floor instead of being stuck in the space between his cot (…bed?) and the wall. His elbow was now bleeding, the loose catheter hanging from the line and dripping fluid, but there was nothing to be done about it other than keeping his arm bent to stop the blood flow. He glanced up.
…Huh. They must have felt really grateful about the black box.
The more he looked, the less he could fight his barely swallowed confusion. From his position he could only see a bit of the elongated room he was in, and he did not recognize it. It was quiet. The lamps did not flicker. There was some strange robotic contraption on the wall, currently unmoving, looking brand new. No dust. No yellowing. No grime or residue. Had his stint landed him in Ava’s private compartment or something? This was ridiculous.
He was not about to complain, though. You’d think getting an answer to Everything would earn you at least some niceties.
The wall before him was covered with plastic sheets, and on top of these someone had taped several papers. One of them read ‘CAUTION: DO NOT DAMAGE PLASTIC PLEASE!!!’, another warned of ‘QUARANTINE, PLEASE STAY PUT’. A third one was adored with a rather sudden ‘Get well soon!!!’ and several smiley faces drawn in black marker. Simon blinked at it, trying to make any sense of it. Perhaps one of the scientists had a sense of humor? Or it was addressed to someone else?
He pulled himself up, grabbing onto the bed, looked at the rest of the room and froze.
There was a transparent angular structure set up on the other half of the room, built without a clear purpose and covering nearly a third of the space, together with one of the other two empty beds. There, inside that structure, resting casually, was… a pile of rocks.
A pile of rocks. In medbay. On the Base. Belonging to the Consolidation.
Simon stared. The whole situation was made even worse by the fact that, next to it, on top of the plastic or whatever it was, someone had put yet another paper. It said, ‘Rocky’ with an arrow pointing to the pile of rocks on the other side, and below, an added ‘Friend — ask him anything :)‘.
Someone here had a pile of rocks for a friend. Simon buried his face in his hand as much as he could.
It was alright. It was — He was — It was fine. Sure. Whatever. He was alive and real and everything around him was definitely real and he was not going to lose it just because there was a madman running around with a rock pile for a friend. He’d seen worse.
Okay, so overall, things were… alright. He was alive, clearly tended to, left alone, and not even properly restrained. It was good. He’d have to shove that idea down until it stuck, and then throw out every memory of the last who-knows-how-long, and he’d have to really sell it to himself that things were fine, but he was resilient. He could do this, carve out parts of himself that made him sick and weak. Like a good little rat who’d gnaw half of its limbs off to escape a trap. Simon was exceptional at survival. He knew it came at a price. He was more than willing to pay it. No matter what it was.
Well, sans one thing that he was currently making sure to not remember.
He looked up at the rock pile again. Its color reminded him of the half-forgotten reddish soil of the lost Mars colony. Perhaps there was a fellow ex-Martian here on the ship, clinging to the last bits of the planet now gone. Hell, he could get behind it. If that was really Ava’s room, perhaps she had been once his neighbor? The thought made him wince, but it was what it was.
And apparently she named it Rocky. Bless her soul, wherever it was now.
“Well, Rocky,” he muttered, “looks like it’s just you and me for now on.”
The pile of rocks moved.
Simon froze up entirely. He could only stare, powerless, not comprehending, as he watched the rocks sort themselves into limbs, a body — as he saw the enormous rock spider climb up to its legs and lift a limb. It opened a three-point claw.
It shook it.
Simon finally screamed.
…Apparently all humans were extremely loud on first contact.
Rocky let out a puff of steam and put his arm back down. He listened to the new human screech and scramble around like a freshly hatched baby trying out its unsteady legs, and whistled to himself with gentle exasperation. Really, he was not even shaped that weird! He had much more of a reason to be freaked out, humans could not even sense his insides and he was the only one stuck with the knowledge of just how unnerving their own contents were, and he was not running around screeching about it—
Ah, the human threw a pillow at him. Still screaming.
…If they really were a murderer, goodness, they were an inefficient one.
They were not even saying anything of meaning, just… noises. Could they even talk? Or understand? Rocky knew that Earth had several languages, and presumably all humans had at least originated there, so there was a high chance this person would need another translator and another learning curve. A little cumbersome, but he could whip the clock out again if needed. He could make it work.
This one had been through much trouble, he conceded, clacking his two back claws in deep thought. Minus one limb out of the measly four they had, no doubt disoriented after being transported in their sleep, and after a dangerous mission on a strange space object. Not to mention that humans were basically upwards puddles, all but screaming ‘eat me’ with every barely-concealed shift and gurgle of their innards. It was no wonder the human was so… twitchy. But really, Rocky would much prefer if they would — argh, they were really welcome to stop making noise at any time. There was no need to jam up his sensors like that, it was bordering on rude.
Well then. There was one handy trick Rocky knew that had done wonders on Grace. Perhaps it would work here as well, with this new human?
Sure, he had a sample size of one so far. But he felt good about it.
Simon was certain he was going to die.
He had met one other monster so far and— he knew how fast it could happen. The teeth. The chase. The cruel, predatory games it played with him. This one was nothing like the Eel, but if it was another twisted creation of the Moon then it was the same in every way that he cared about. It followed him out. It was all over. He was either not breathing or breathing too much, he could not tell, and he’d nearly damaged his throat screaming, and the walls were closing in, and the only way out — a round closed door — was right by that thing. The thin transparent plastic between them would not stop something like this. Something born out of the blood ocean, undoubtedly with the sole reason of punishing him for survival.
He threw a pillow at it, trying to either scare it off or distract it, but the thing did not react at all. Smart. Probably fully aware that Simon was alone and helpless. It was not like anyone would risk their lives for him — no one came to his help, no matter how much he wailed for rescue. Had this thing emptied the entire base? Or had the others decided to feed him to it?
He ripped the catheter off the tube. It was small and stupid but it was sharp and perhaps he could get an eye or something. Maybe stick it in the thing’s joint. Something. If he was dying, he wanted to go down as loudly and painfully for his killer as possible.
Forgive him, Father, he was a bad believer, and at times he was barely a believer at all, and he’d done few right things and lots of bad things believing they were right. He was small and stupid even when he tried to be strong. He did not grow anything and killed much. And after the ocean, after everything, he was not sure he even counted as a human. But please, Father, have mercy on him when he enters the great beyond. Let it be green. Let the world be green when he opens his eyes.
Simon braced himself, and then slowly clambered to his feet. He closed the bad eye, squinted the healthy one. And glared at the thing behind the plastic. Come get him. He was ready.
The monster was still standing there, waiting. It tilted its body to a side. Then suddenly it made a weirdly melodic, high-pitched chirp at him, tilted back, leaned onto three of its five legs, lifted the remaining two up and started… doing… something.
…Huh?
Simon was so confused that his panic crashed to a stop. He felt like his mind was not computing. He just couldn’t, for some reason, recognize what he saw. It was not a vision issue. His eye was fine. It was just the why where it all fell apart.
The rock spider monster whistled and did jazz hands before resuming its weird little dance. Because it surely really looked like a dance. There was just no chance in hell that an alien monstrosity would clamber out of the blood ocean and chase him all the way here only to… what, show off its dancing skills? Was it a hallucination? Was he still dreaming of things in the sinking sub?
Okay, maybe those… rhythmic movements and limb waving left and right were some kind of an aggressive display. Maybe the rock was taunting him. Or showing off its guns.
The rock proceeded to… gyrate its hips at him, which, well, alright. Probably taunting.
Simon took a big breath in and let a big breath out. Then he dropped the catheter and slowly tumbled back onto the floor, unable to stay upright a moment longer.
Okay, he might be a loony bin, but he could be quite sure that this was not the Eel’s work. He’d be suspicious if he saw Ava promising him freedom, or anyone from Eden, or his mother. He’d clock it as unreal if he saw a tree. But he knew for sure that never, not in a single one of its machinations, would the Eel ever think to summon a dancing rock.
Somehow that did not make things better.
The rock kept dancing.
“You can… You can stop,” Simon croaked out, defeated. “I — That’s enough.”
The rock stopped.
Simon pressed his hand to his face and breathed. He did not know where he was. He had no idea what was going on. He felt tiny, helpless, lost — and the sheer absurdity of everything, of crouching there behind the bed with his ass naked and looking at a living boulder busting some moves — it just crushed into him more, for some reason. The familiar, known world, as bleak as it could be, was nowhere to be found. All he had now was this senseless new reality that seemed happy to mock him.
His eyes tingled. Simon squeezed his teeth together and tore at his thigh until his nails became red-rimmed. Keep it together, Butcher, come on, you have just gone through worse, will you really let that be your last straw? Focus!
Okay. Okay. Okay. He breathed and pulled himself up again, leaning over the bed. Now that the adrenaline was gone, he felt like he could barely make his limbs move. He carefully, cautiously glanced over.
The rock was still there. It had lay down again, curling its legs close to its body. When it noticed Simon look at it, it chirped again, lifted its limb and waved it.
…Simon knew what that looked like. It was just— It couldn’t be—
The rock waved at him harder.
Feeling incredibly stupid, Simon slowly raised his own hand. Then, awkwardly, he waved back.
He immediately felt the acute need to find a compost bin and let the ground swallow him whole.
However, to the rock it must have been the correct response. It exploded with more chitters, did jazz hands again and twirled around. And then just… plopped back down again. And back to being still it went once more.
…Huh.
Simon slowly caught his breath. …Okay. Maybe no imminent death was coming for him yet. Then again, he had no idea how long he slept and how long this weird rock spider kept watch over his body. It could strike at any moment, and it had not. Did he dare hope for the better?
Wait. Wait a moment.
“Can you understand me?” he tried, cautious.
The rock chirped again and tilted forward.
“Is that a yes?”
Another tilt. Okay.
He tried something else. “…Are you going to hurt me?”
That prompted a frantic limb waving and then an equally frantic pointing to the sign taped to the plastic. Simon’s eyes slid to the paper once again. ‘Friend’, huh.
“Are you… Rocky?”
One more tilt-nod. First name basis established, it seemed.
Simon rested his forehead against the bed for a moment. Alright. Assuming things were real… he suddenly had doubts he was still with the COI. They would have made a much bigger deal out of having whatever Rocky was on their base. But it was unlikely to be with Eden either, for the same reason. Where the hell was he?
Okay. One thing at a time. The paper instructed him on where to address his questions. It was a stupid address, but it was all he had. Simon swallowed, staring at the rock-spider-monster-alien-thing.
“Can you… talk?”
He was not sure what he’d get as a response. Maybe more chirps. Or something beastly, unnatural. He was all the more startled to hear a clearly automatic but nonetheless completely normal human voice reply, “Yes, Rocky can talk.”
“What— oh— what the— what the hell.” Simon squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. The voice did not come from the spider itself, and rather from a point to the side and below it. He pointed a terrified and accusatory finger at it. “What is there. Why do you talk from there.”
“Rocky cannot speak human.” Somehow the robotic voice managed to sound incredibly condescending. “Humans cannot understand Rocky. So Rocky need translator. There, human machine.” It pointed one of its legs down. Simon cautiously peeked from behind the bed and saw another small transparent box sitting on the ground. It hosted what looked to be a laptop assembly. “Machine hear Rocky speak, translate to human speak, human can understand.”
…Alright. Simon slowly exhaled. He needed to keep interacting with the whole thing as if it was real, or else he was going to lose his mind. Which meant more talking to the… it must have been an alien, right? “What… what are you?”
The rock pointed to somewhere away. “Rocky is from Erid, planet Erid, star system eighty-two Eridani. Nineteen point seven light years away from Earth.”
That told him jack diddly, except for the fact that there was one more dead star and another planet gone. And that, apparently, he was on an alien ship. Or at least on a ship housing aliens. “Are there any other…” He pointed at the rock and then mimicked spider-like scuttering with his fingers.
The rock’s song dropped down a few pitches. “Eridians. No. Only me.” Then, after a moment, it lifted a claw and flicked it around, seeming to copy Simon’s movements for no visible reason.
So no more aliens. Or no more these specific… rock spider aliens. Though that was probably nothing. Really, what were the chances that there would be several alien types in the same space, all of them somehow entirely unnoticed by everyone else in the universe?
Close to zero, but he had seen an alien shake its hips at him. He would not rule anything out as impossible just yet. “Are there any other… aliens?”
“Nooo.” Rocky paused, chirped. “Have astrophage. Have Taumeba. But thinking person, only Rocky.”
Simon knew of the first one, had never heard of the second, and he was not entirely sure why either would be added to the alien list if they were similar — as far as he knew, astrophage was just a fancy name for fuel — but he nodded along anyway. Maybe Rocky did not understand him fully, after all.
So it was one more Rapture survivor — it was a bit unfair to learn that aliens existed only for most of them to be gone, he figured. It mattered little, of course. That information did not make him any better or worse for the wear. Though it did come with some certain sting of emotion that he ignored. “…Long way from home, eh.”
“Yes.” The rock slumped a little.
Simon shook his head and got back on track. Alright, so… this alien. It seemed to know English, or at least to know someone who knew English and could provide laptops. “You… this — machine. It was set up by someone, who? Was it a human?”
“Yes. Grace. Friend Grace human.”
That was better. There were humans around, that was encouraging. “Right. Yes. Where is Grace?”
The rock pointed with his entire body to a side. “Grace is in quarantine.”
“Quarantine?!”
“To not spread possible disease from new human and new human ship.”
“Oh.” Simon glanced at the plastic around himself and winced. Yeah, with the blood ocean… It made sense for them to play safe. If Grace was the one tasked with fishing him out, they certainly needed a good long stay in a medbay compartment. They were lucky to still be alive, all things considered. “I… were they the one who got me out?”
“Yes. Grace Rocky got the diving sub ship.” The rock did jazz hands again. “Rocky made chain, made claw for grab, made another claw, made ball, made everything. Grace helped too.” Then after a particularly high-pitched series of chirps, “Okay, Grace full helper, full party, piloted, did good half. With Rocky tools.”
Simon paused. The idea of an alien being so personally invested in his retrieval was… weird, but perhaps somewhere in the realm of good weird. There weren’t too many living beings caring about his survival, so he’d take what he got. If anything, it gave him tentative hope of short term survival — if it took them so much work to save his life, they would not squander it too easily. “I… uh… thank… you.”
Rocky perked up. “Welcome.” This time the tone was almost sunny. That must have been a really good translator thing. “Work hard to get human, keep human alive. Happy happy new human live. Was hard work. Human, not very cooperative. Asleep six days. Rocky glad to meet human awake.”
Oh. Simon caught himself almost letting his shoulders slump a little and immediately tensed back up. He had to stay on track. “…Right. Are there other humans around?”
“Here, no. Only Grace.”
Damn. It must be a small place, or perhaps a section of a station, closed off for containment. “Right. Okay. So it is just the two of you. What… is this station?”
“Not station. Ship. Mary. Grace ship.”
“Mary.” He nodded again, though that also told him nothing. They could be independents, there should still be a few of those scattered around. A stray alien hiding in one of the smaller vessels was more likely than some bigger fraction concealing its existence for years. “Where is Mary from? Which sector?”
“Mary is from Earth.”
“What— Huh?” The ship was from the Earth sector? That was quite a ways away from here, and, from what little he knew about sectors and light years, it must have been even further from Eridani. Then again, light speed travel muddled up distance and time, so it was not too out of question. Who was in charge there, he wondered? Still Eden? Or did it change hands? “How long since it came here?”
“Mary spent traveling thirteen Earth years, arrived not long ago. Rocky went to Mary…” It clicks to itself, apparently calculating. “Two Earth months ago. Was on own ship before.”
That explained the sudden alien. Again, nothing about this screamed Eden despite the ship’s point of origin, and the Consolidation would not let it too close by if it was, anyway… Simon bit his lip and winced. “Are you with the COI?”
“See-Oh-Eye, mean moon base?”
That made Simon jump. “Yes. Yes, those. Are you with them?”
Rocky made a whole bunch of noises. “Nooo. Yes? Have radio talk. Work together to solve problem. But not Rocky Grace boss, no no no. Solve Simon problem together. Base human engineer Ava tell things. Tell where to find sub, where to find pilot Simon, tell about Simon, ask to find get sub.” And then, before Simon had the chance to properly feel the cold sweat at that news, Rocky added, robotic voice going strangely softer, “Human Ava say, Simon got the black box. Did good. Good job. Good good good.”
Simon froze.
…Oh. So… he really did it.
He would probably feel about it some way, later, when the rest of everything got sorted out in his brain. Ava had done good on her word, it seemed. And she survived as well. And he did get it, the answer, the solution, or what they thought to be one. He was going to feel really strongly about all of this, he could tell. But now he could only nod and sink down, trying to swallow down the stupidity rising inside, wave after wave. He suddenly felt the weight of the ocean press into him again, memories splashing right under the dark surface. God, he was tired. Asleep for six days? Might as well take another.
Rocky click-clacked, without translation. Then it crawled closer to the barrier and put one claw to it with a quiet whistle. “Simon good, question?” It stomped one of the legs twice.
Simon winced a little. The voice did not sound angry, but the stomp could be frustration. He was not sure he wanted to make an alien spider frustrated with him. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m good. Do you… need… me to do anything?”
Rocky tilted. “…Need Simon to be good. Healthy.” The robotic voice turned strangely soft again. “Rocky knows, Simon was in danger. Did big dangerous mission. Alone. But now ship safe, Mary safe, Rocky Grace very safe. All good. Simon get better and live long long time.”
Oh.
…It was so stupid. It should not have gotten to Simon. He thought he was too old and jaded to be tricked into thinking that his captors could care about his wellbeing. This was not the first time. There were interrogators, back at the Base when they first got him, who pretended to be good and promised him all the right things. Better cell, better bed, better rations. They said the right things too. Promised that they understood, that they did not blame him. They had the gentlest voices and the kindest eyes. In the end, though, they were the same COI fucks who needed the same information from him, and they had no incentive to keep their lofty promises even if he cracked. And even before that, in Eden — kindness and generosity came with the understanding that they were meant to be repaid at some point. Simon knew that. He was not stupid nor a child.
But all that got him was that, when he looked up at that stupid alien rock with a miserable tremble in his chest, he was acutely aware that it was a terrible, terrible idea. And still, he could not help it. It was all too much: the ocean, the Eel, the Eye and the Light, the voices in the radio, the blood all over his body, and then this — waking up in this strange, cold ship, with a tail and one arm and with an alien — holy shit — for a companion. And now he was told that someone else wanted him to live. He was promised safety. All the things he knew he could not get.
He was falling for it hook, line and sinker, and for all that it was worth, he did not want to wonder if it was a trick or a trap or an elaborate hallucination sent by the Eel. He just wanted for someone, anyone to give a damn about him. Even if it was a rock. God, he’d take a rock.
He could pretend. For a little bit.
“Simon tired. Scared. Rocky understand,” the rock chirped at him, seeing that he failed to answer. It moved a bit, stepping along the tunnel, and pressed its claws to the barrier again. “Simon was in big big danger, bad bad bad. Then moved while sleep, scary. Wake up in new place, scary, confusing. See Rocky, new life, alien, very scary! Rocky, scary space spider. Rocky understand. Rocky was scared too. When meet Grace, meet human for the first time, Rocky freak out real bad. What if human predator, question? What if attack hit kill eat Rocky, question, eat Rocky plural, question?” It tapped again for the last two phrases, lighter. Might be a tic, then, or some other purpose. It did not seem mad. More like… sympathetic. “But no one kill, no one eat. Learn instead. Learn to talk, to understand, to work together. Now Rocky Grace big friends, do big science together, solve problem together. Rocky friend to all humans. Can be friend to Simon.”
Simon just nodded, numbly, mutely. He could not speak. He was much too exhausted with emotion.
His head was pounding and his body ached. He still had a lot of ground to cover, so much yet to learn. He needed to ascertain his standing. His permissions. His future, short and long term. He needed to keep going, keep learning… but… the suddenness, the confusion, the whiplash of it all, the heaviness still hitting him, it was just too much. He went from almost-functional to ready-to-die to confused-as-fuck to whatever-the-hell-he-was-even-feeling-at-the-moment, and his body was no more equipped to deal with that kind of acceleration than to handle having a tail.
(His eye was still blurry and barely working, and his cheek throbbed in the weirdest of ways, but oh boy, he was not going to even go there yet.)
Rocky watched him for a bit. It turned around, pressed to the barrier again with another pair of limbs. “…Simon need rest. Need sleep. Then wake up healthy, can help, can do big things together. Solve all problems together. Grace Rocky Simon. Deal, question?” Two more taps.
It was textbook good interrogator scenario, and yet. And yet.
Simon, the Butcher, the one who crossed the wires on the Filament, the one who traversed the blood ocean and broke the Eel’s teeth as the last thing he’d ever do, the jaded and cold and hardened Simon nodded again like a good little lamb. It was a complete and certain defeat.
But at least, he told himself, at least for now he had a soft bed and a room all to himself and a soft robotic voice telling him all the things he wanted to hear, and he was done. The ocean broke him. He was past proud defiance. He’d take what he got while he got it, and if that meant playing nice for a little while, so be it. He’d done worse for less.
“Good. Good good good. Simon need help to get back in bed?”
Okay, he was mostly past proud defiance. Simon scrunched his face and stubbornly grabbed onto the edge. He realized his mistake on the second minute of helpless panting and grunting, and around the fifth minute he almost decided to call it quits. He looked up, trying to blow his hair away from his sweaty forehead.
Rocky jazz-handed at him again. “Words of great encouragement.”
That settled the deal. It took him a while more, but eventually he did manage to pull himself up and roll over. He immediately wrapped himself in the sheet, shivering, and groaned with relief. Sleep was already creeping up on him again.
Rocky made a bunch of cheerful noise. “Good good good job. Big good. Now rest. Sleep. Rocky watch.”
Oh, so Rocky was his warden. Honestly, Simon almost did not mind by now. If all wardens were that nice, he would not mind it one bit. He nodded, closing his eyes. “Alright.”
There was a pause. Then he heard scuttling, clicks of claws over the hard material. Then softer, quieter clicks, almost like knitting needles.
Then the hum came back. Deep and low, resonating a little in his ribcage. It washed away some of the heavy worry still nestled within, and he gasped a little.
Oh. So that was Rocky. He was hearing Rocky this entire time.
Simon melted a little more into the bed. His mind slowly drifted. Things were weird, he was still confused, there was so much more to learn yet… but… maybe, just maybe, this time… this time…
He dared to dream. For once in a long time, he dared to think that life could be kind to him for once. It was a painful hope, a painful dream, but a sweet one. It enveloped his tired, restless mind and lulled him like nothing else while the low hum bathed his ears.
He breathed out.
He sank once more.
They were pack-bonding!
Rocky was very pleased with himself and the initial results. He dragged his work to the dormitory tunnel and settled down to put it together while the new human settled down. ‘Simon’ seemed to be asleep. Their heartbeat was slow, a little weak, but regular. But they were resting, they were recovering, and they were acting as best as they could. That was enough.
And Grace had been worried about it! All ruffled up about Simon meeting Rocky. Well, look at that, Grace! They were getting along just fine! Sure, Simon threw stuff at Rocky, but so did Grace, and who was to say if Simon would not throw something at Grace as well.
Rocky habitually extended his focus to the lab — Grace had actually been throwing things too. Science was not going the way it had to, it seemed. Oh, there it was, again! Rocky snickered, careful to keep it outside of human-accessible frequencies to not wake Simon up. By the sound of it, it was a tube. Those made a nice and satisfying clang on the metal tables. Rocky had been hearing them chime for a little bit now. It had been a very productive day in the realm of making bad guesses, and not very good in terms of workable theories.
He was going to go check on Grace later and talk science to him. Rocky was an engineer through and through, and a lot of the more complicated stuff was lost on him, but Grace had a knack of dressing difficult concepts down and slicing them into neat digestible bits. But sometimes he still needed a different, more pragmatic mind, one that would look at the parts of the problem and add some grease to make them move better. And oh my, that problem needed disassembling. Rocky already knew bits about the strange, life-filled liquid they sampled — Grace had ranted plenty about them. They really needed to science it up if they wanted to get out of this jam.
But that would be later. Rocky had to watch Simon now. He was tearing himself in two between the two humans with sleep schedules unfortunately out of sync, but he was making do. At the very least he had to stay for the first 420 human seconds. Most humans took as much to fall asleep proper, he had learned. And then maybe for another couple hundred seconds more. Just to make sure they were still moving their bodies optimally in their sleep. Just in case.
Rocky started his count and then began his deep, rumbling song. Simon seemed to react to it, their heartbeat grew steadier when Rocky sang, so a song it was — an Eridian rest song, low, almost all vibration, so that even the youngest children could hear it before their sensors properly develop. He did not have the best tone for that — listening to the bigger Eridians rumble was much more satisfying — but he always thought he was good enough, and hey, Adrian liked it too.
He could hear it immediately, a reaction: Simon’s heart slowing and body curling up. There you go.
Honestly, Simon was… alright enough. They reacted positively to reassurance, behaved, said thank you, and cooperated! It was a very good start, and Rocky felt optimistic. His crew was—
Well, Simon was not his crew. They were just a human they were ‘dropping by’, Rocky reminded himself curtly, clicking in dissatisfaction. Then he rushed away from that mistake, putting it out of his mind. Crew or not, it would be nice if his two housemates got along. And treated him well, too. And did not blow their ship. Please and thank you.
…Goodness, and once he had thought a pet was too much hassle.