Chapter Text
You are a jewel of technology. Human in origin, robotic in parts. After a terrible encounter while on exploration, your flesh eaten by some planet corruption, you had been mostly stripped of muscles and nerves, reduced to some bones and organs, still possessing your consciousness, but made of titanium and alloy. You do not breathe, you do not perceive like you once did. You are… A ghost in a machine body.
You eyed the blood ocean with your cameras as the elevator from your ship lowered you to its surface. You had no fear. You knew your mechanic body well.
You switched to echolocation as your chest emitted a constant pattern of sound, your cameras turning off. Your brain registered the environment still, but you lost a lot of details in the process.
The elevator kept lowering you, as the blood surrounded your feet, slowly dipping into a pool of opaque substance you had plenty of reports on.
The ocean was dead.
The inhabitant, or at least one inhabitant from that ocean was on land, cut open to be studied, and no other exploring drone had been damaged in their descent. You weren’t a drone per say, and you might be the only human to ever dare to dip in that slowly rotting ocean without a proper submarine to steer, but this was important to you.
The elevator kept lowering you, aiming for the bottom of the ocean. You scanned the ocean around you, there was nothing new. Nothing that hadn’t been already reported to the mothership and all the data sources of your fleet.
The reason why you were there was peculiar, in the eyes of your peers and colleagues.
Years ago, your fleet had stumbled upon the signal of crucial data, something held by a primitive human station on this planet. The retrieval of the data was the main mission, so a few of the primitive humans lost their lives trying to defend the artefact. Most surrendered when exposed to the much more advanced technology of your fleet, and they were captured awaiting a decision made by the mothership.
The artefact was found and studied thoroughly, until a weapon was constructed against the threat of the universe, an entity that had hidden itself inside of the planet with its blood ocean, the cause of the corruption covering all once inhabitable planets.
The entity was killed, or deeply weakened by the weapon, the echoing signal it once emitted now gone.
You were a researcher aboard your ship, along with your colleagues all working in the same direction, and you had helped to decipher the load of information from the blackbox. Data from the station had told you that the box came from a submarine, retrieved by the heroic action of one single human. A prisoner.
If your colleagues all agreed to consider this human somewhat of the savior of mankind, you wanted to go further. You knew the corpse of that hero was in the ocean still, as told by the members of his colony.
So, against your fellow researchers’ opinions, you went down in that ocean to retrieve a corpse from a strange place. Drones had confirmed it to be a tree sprouting from inside the torn carcass of a submarine.
Once your feet touched the floor of the ocean, you made another scan, and were right in front of the weird dead tree. With your echolocalization, you walked forward, climbing into the belly of the metal box that once could be steered, though you wondered why anyone would willingly go inside that kind of poorly made machine. Radiation covered the whole thing, so strong it messed with most of your measure systems.
And, once inside, you immediately found your… corpse. The shape of a human, mangled and torn. Almost devoured by the flesh corrosion. There was a slight miscalculation on your part, however, as your systems detected a “living” being. It could be the radiation messing with you, but your instruments were certain of brain activity. As if the entity hadn’t let this poor soul rest for years.
Pulling out a blade from your belt, you cut the mangled body free from the tree, though sampling the tree while you were there, grabbing onto a piece as you lifted the corpse into your arms, the thick ocean limiting your movements.
You walked back through the liquid to the elevator and locked your feet back into place, ascending as soon as it detected you.
You emerged from the blood ocean, eager to wipe your cameras clean to look at your prize for this treasure hunt, but had to still rely on echolocation as the elevator pulled you up in the air, to the ship.
The hero’s face was half torn, teeth sprouting from places that didn’t make sense, yet you weren’t concerned about it.
Perhaps you’d have to take a sample of his mutated tissue too, but you knew how the ocean behaved with living tissue and humans tossed into it. It fed from them, melting them into its… "conscience". But now that the entity was gone and its most frightening inhabitant was dead, the whole ocean was rotting.
You used your comms as you approached the ship.
“Diver to ship. I am approaching the airlock. I will need direct transfer to a sterilizing chamber, and a cryo chamber. I will contact the mothership for possible reconstruction.”
A voice responded immediately. “Registered. Please proceed.”
The elevator made you pass through the opening in the bottom of the airlock, the hatch sliding shut, and you unlocked your feet from the elevator, stepping away. The airlock opened another door to the decontamination station, and you walked over, the door closing behind you, dripping contaminated blood everywhere.
The room sprayed you alternatively with different solutions and products to lower your contamination possibilities near to none, washing away the blood from your system, leaving only your sleek metallic body and your prize that you could now observe with your cameras, with light and colors.
You wondered if it was the right thing, to have that image in your mind, as the mutations were nightmare fuel. Still, better than what the other researchers had found when dissecting the ocean fish made of human body parts.
“Researcher. A cryo chamber was provided for you in the next room,” said the same voice, the pilot of the ship.
You walked forward again, cleaned and ready, as another door opened. It was a storage room with different boxes and cases, but one had been left in the middle for you. It opened before you, the inside fuming from how cold it was.
You slowly deposited your strange corpse inside, like you didn’t want to hurt them, before the panels slid back into place, sealing the chamber.
Clicking a button, the chamber lifted up into a hover, and you pushed it forward.
“Researcher calling mothership,” you calmly called into your comms. Calling the mothership was always somewhat exciting. It only happened when you were doing something important.
“Mothership is hearing you,” replied someone. You didn’t recognize all their voices.
“I have a specimen I would like to bring to the reconstruction chamber,” you said as you moved your cargo in position to the airlock at the back of the ship.
“Have you found another species? How much data—”
You cut them off, a little too eager. “I’m sorry, but it’s a human.”
There was a pause in the operator’s call. “... Is it one of ours? What happened?”
“It is not one of ours. I found the one who created the blackbox for us, and wish to have his side of the story.”
Another pause. “Hang on for mothership confirmation.”
You waited, knowing if you still had a human breathing system you would’ve sighed. The mothership’s confirmation was always a good idea, but depending on the situation, the waiting could get—
“The mothership approved. Please come over to hangar 227-M.”
You sent over the information of your designated hangar space to the pilot of the ship, who wordlessly took off. There was not a single noise other than the soft electric purring of the engine in the airlock you were in.
Not a peep from another researcher, not a question from someone else, as they were mostly also curious but wary at the idea of your plan.
The ship maneuvered itself into the hangar, and you waited for the light to turn blue to use your system and have the door unlocked.
It hissed with smoke covering the floor, making way for you and your rare cargo.
There was always something about the mothership that made shivers run down your mechanic back. The space inside, the amount of people walking around, the activity, all of it made it almost impossible to imagine how big it was. But what enchanted you the most, was the daylight simulation inside.
You looked around, your cameras only perceiving a small amount of what you once could with your biological body, until you reached a certain elevator inside, using your system to command it to the right level.
It went fast, the tube conveying a frictionless space for the elevator to zip through.
The door opened and you pushed your cryo chamber through, going for the security door that opened upon detecting you, though it slowly, slowly hissed open, saving energy.
You tapped your index lightly with impatience, waiting for the signal to say that it was safe to pass.
You went past several security doors that had opened at the same time, and they closed behind you. You led your cryo chamber to the room at the end of that bunker corridor, leaving the chamber there as you moved to the commands, hidden behind a thick transparent wall protected with shields, prepping the procedure. When it was all clear, that the bunker doors were all closed, you went back to the cryo chamber and hovered a hand on it to make it open.
The panels moved one by one, and you dipped your metal hands in the cold space to retrieve your prized treasure.
You chuckled to yourself as you imagined yourself as a pirate coming back from a dangerous mission, merchandise in their arms.
Though you had something far more valuable.
You placed the body on the table in the middle and manually closed the reinforced cover around. You moved back to the spot behind the glass.
All this security was in case the subject of the reconstruction would get in a rampage from being given back life, though it felt a lot for a simple, single human.
The transparent wall became opaque as it turned into a screen, and you closely monitored the operation though you had no interference to do.
Within days, as you stayed in the room to observe, the machine cut away the mutated tissue, most of the tissue, searched for an untouched sample and built the body back from the data of the body’s DNA. The bones, in their right thickness and shape, then the organs, the muscles, the skin and hair, spending still three more days on the details like lashes and the lines in the fingernails.
When the machine deemed the body viable, it wrapped it in a simple uniform, checking over the systems, stimulating the muscles, inflating the lungs, until it validated all of its criterias, ready for reanimation.
You walked back to the door and walked into the room, cameras on the metal cover, pushing it open as you signaled the machine to start the reanimating process. You observed him close, now looking nothing like the curse meatball you had. The machine had given him shoulder-length hair, perhaps only for you to see it spread on the table like a halo. You wouldn’t have imagined that he had facial hair, though you didn’t know if he used to shave. The machine only makes with what it knows of the person’s DNA.
The table pulsated with light, slowly, at each pulse going a little brighter, a little whiter, until it lit up and breathed life back into the man’s body.
The man convulsed, arching his back off the table as he gasped for air. It made sense since he probably had drowned in the blood ocean.
He turned away from you, coughing loudly, both gasping really hard and trying to get imaginary blood out from his lungs. You said nothing, observing him closely, thinking of whatever speech you might have to say to welcome him.
Though it didn’t feel like the right moment. He sounded in pain.
He lifted his head up, startled by the room, and perhaps by the lighting, when he turned around and shouted upon seeing you.
You tried to say, “Hey, are you—” when he was screaming his head off, and crawled backward, almost toppling over the table.
You jumped up, putting a heavy metal knee on the table before catching him, both your hands on his back.
“Please, sir, calm down—” you tried to soothe him but he freaked out harder, pushing against you, despite being no match for your mechanical strength.
When he shouted out for the third time, you switched up your technique and pulled him closer, forcing him into your lap as you tucked his legs and held him in your arms just so, dimming the lights of the room.
“There there. It’s alright. You are safe.” You waited for a fourth scream, though he seemed to settle down a bit as the lights dimmed.
“What… What the fuck?” he grunted out. His voice sounded raspy.
You waited a bit in silence, letting him settle further.
He slowly pulled away, and you let him, though not letting him out of your lap just yet.
“What… Where the fuck am I?”
“In the reconstruction room,” you replied simply. You’d let him lead the pace of the discussion.
He eyed the room around him.
“... What… happened?” he mumbled, confused.
“It’s a long story. How much do you remember? Maybe we can start there.”
He kept staring around. The walls, the table, the uniform he had on him. “I… I was… on a… no, I was… I was in a submarine… I uh… I was stuck, and…”
You wondered if this could make him spiral. “Yes. Well, we…” you hesitated on which fact to start with. “We found the blackbox.”
He looked up at you with wide eyes. At this point you could safely let him go, but he didn’t seem to want to scoot away now. “The… The blackbox?”
“The data storage unit you have heroically managed to provide. We… made the planet safer, thanks to you. Safe enough for me to come retrieve you in the ocean.”
“Retrieve me…?”
You wondered how much you should say. You hadn’t planned that far ahead, and the mothership doesn’t really care for anything else you might do other than gathering more data.
“... I knew you were still down there. I didn’t expect to find you… hm. Whole, per say. Well, not that, but… well. Humans hardly survive at the bottom of the ocean…” you omitted the part where he had been there for years. And somewhat alive.
He looked down at his hands. He shakily and gingerly pulled his sleeve up, staring at his wrist, like he was expecting… It clicked. He was expecting to see some mutation.
You gently pried his hand off the sleeve, and he let you, before you rolled up his sleeve to his elbow.
“The table you are sitting on is… Like a surgical robot. Do you know those?”
He frowned slightly, still focused on his smooth, slightly hairy arm.
You tried to make an explanation clear enough for someone from a primitive colony. “You… Well, it’s a hundred different machines working together to… build your body back up. Though most citizens opt for efficient prosthesis to help their work, this machine is often used to try and understand old alien races.”
“Aliens…?”
Oh. Ah. Mmh. A discussion for another day.
“You look winded. Can I interest you in a cup of water?”
He looked at you and frowned like you had garbled out nonsense.
“Aren’t I… A prisoner here?”
If you could blink, you would have.
“Um, well technically no, you’re… a study subject in my custody.”
He slightly scooted back. “What the hell does that mean?”
“That we’re going to talk a lot, until we know what you know, and if you’re a good human you’ll just… live with us? I guess? Is that the right word?”
“Who’s ‘us?” he asked, growing nervous. “What even are you? A bot?”
You tilted. “Well. Ouch. No, I am not an android. I am a human.”
You observed the fear growing in his eyes before trying to clarify. “I’m sorry, what I mean is… we are a colony of humans. We… managed to get in contact with some people of your colony and made a simple mindmap of your beliefs and knowledge, understanding what you called the quiet rapture. We… are a colony who was built on needing to travel, to not stay in the same solar system. I guess human roots developed differently depending on the worlds they sprouted from. But I’m digressing. I am a human, yes, though I have severely suffered from some experiments we conducted, and what was left of me was barely more than what the machine had to start from to reconstruct you.”
He stared blankly at you, and you didn’t say anything more, letting him reflect on it as he pleases.
“So what now?” he mumbled, like wary of what you were going to do to him.
You shrugged. “Are you willing to promise you’re not going to try to escape? Otherwise you’d get shocked by the security systems.”
He nodded, and you got off the table, holding out a hand for him. “What’s your name?”
“Simon,” he said, eyeing the floor as he scooted closer, avoiding your hand. He set his bare feet on the floor, but almost toppled over when he tried to stand, and you catched him with ease.
“Easy there, Simon, you’re still adapting to your fresh body.”
You helped him upright, using your arm to let him grip onto it as he slowly found his balance, still swaying a little.
You signaled the room to let you out, and it seemed to await confirmation.
A call came to your comms.
“Researcher. You are going to put a stranger in the mothership’s safe haven. Are you willing to endure the consequences if anything goes awry?”
You replied, making sure you weren’t also talking out loud. “Yes. This human is harmless and I wish to show him the inside of our greatest ship. If he shows any sign of rebellion, he’ll be sedated and sent back to a cell until further notice.”
The door bleeped and hissed open, Simon’s eyes focused on it as you kept a close camera on his form, in case he’d want to collapse again.
The hall doors opened, their construction thicker than the submarine Simon was found in. Gently, with all the care you could muster, you led him outside, where the light was brighter.
“Am I dead?” he couldn’t resist asking. “There’s no way this is real.”
“I understand this is a hard concept for you. Any specimen revived is deeply confused. But, without getting too philosophical, maybe wonder about it a little later. Try to open your heart to new knowledge. You deserve a nice break after the service you did for us.”
You both got out of the corridor of the door, a few people working on their tasks, one of them lifting their head up to observe Simon. Simon noticed they looked perfectly human.
“There’s no way…”
You said nothing and walked him to the corridor, taking note that his grip didn’t loosen on you. Even if he did want to escape, he’d probably fall after making it three meters further.
You opened the elevator and led him in, the doors closing and the display showing the floors passing by.
“What… What is all this? How could you manage to build all of this?” he asked, reaching out to touch the wall of the elevator.
“We had to find a way to survive when there was no nearby planet for supplies, so we learned to extract materials from asteroids. If most planets were covered and slowly digested with corruption, the asteroids were left alone, and that’s how we managed to harvest most of our resources. The water we drink, the metals we use are all taken from small pieces of floating rock. However, with your selfless sacrifice, we might have a solution to eradicate the corruption and terraform planets again.”
He huffed, and you thought he was plainly rejecting your truth, but upon observation you realized he was tearing up. You let him be.
You still registered in your notes how he really didn’t want to be crying, something that probably had to do with wasting water, from the information you had about his colony.
The elevator opened again, and you led him out, walking over to the railing in front of the hall, where one could see the different floors, the plants growing all over, the sun simulation from the ceiling and the whole nest of people working, walking around, chatting…
It really was something, in comparison to the ship you spent most of your cycles on, and it didn’t fail to make you take another picture.
You turned to Simon and he was gripping you harder, his mouth agape and eyes wide, darting to so many things at once. He couldn’t believe it, and thinking back on it maybe this was too much for a first day.
You grabbed a canteen of water you usually kept on you for emergencies and uncapped it, handing it to him.
He was immediately wary and leaned away, so you had to reassure him.
“Fresh water is rare, you know? We get it from extracting the ice out of asteroid fields. When we get new water, it is filtered here,” you point at a large container in the bottom, “and then given to the plants. Plants make the whole city breathable, and condensation is collected all around with those vents. We then clean that condensation down and store it for consumption,” you shook the canteen slightly, the liquid sloshing around.
You saw the resignation on his face, before he held out his hand and grabbed it, putting it to his lips.
“Drink slowly, you might hurt yourself otherwise,” you warned him.
Shakily, he drank a few gulps, before pulling the canteen away and staring at it.
You closed the canteen for him, letting him see the mechanism to open and close it. “You can hold onto it. Reconstructed people tend to need more water for the first few weeks.
He stared at you again, but without defiance. Like you had gifted him something he wasn’t sure he could repay you for. As if he hadn’t already done enough.
“Let’s stay here to observe a bit longer, shall we? I’ll have a meal brought to us in a few minutes, so you can soak up some energy.”
You looked around and grabbed an empty storage unit, not needing to activate the hover to lift it and set it down next to Simon, offering with a gesture to sit down, which he did.
He stared around without a word, scrutinizing every aspect that he could see, most of which he didn’t know a thing about, but still curious about everything.
The mothership might not want him roaming free after your information collection, so you might have to keep him close and have him work beside you as a fellow researcher. If that suited him.
But there was no point in rushing things. Right now, he needed to take in his new reality and rest.
He had nothing left to prove anymore.