Anomalous –
It was disorientating.
Alarms blared all around as the player rose from that pod. They
looked at their surroundings, stumbling, almost falling to the ground
with the weight of their now unfamiliar body. It was dimly lit, but
the red glare from the activity lights on the stasis pods punctuated
the darkness with a leering menace, this, juxtaposed with the
flashing red warning lights emanating from every corner gave the
place a feeling of a some sort of hell.
The player drew up to
stand now, and began shambling around the area, seemingly unable to
get their bearings in this place of tall towered shelves, stacked
high with a cargo of human meat. They didn't think of it at the time,
but a later recollection led the figure to see the situation as
analogous to a freighter of consumer goods, like the people were
merely commodities being transported. But obviously, this wasn’t
important to them at the time. A voice now began to echo itself in
various languages, at first the figure didn't understand, but then,
when the voice spoke in English, they seemed to be able to
understand. “THIS IS AN EMERGENCY WARNING FROM THE SHIP'S AI
SYSTEM! REPORT TO THE ORIENTATION ROOM AT ONCE! SHIPWIDE EMERGENCY!
REPORT TO THE ORIENTATION ROOM AT ONCE!”, though dawning seemed to
grow on the character's face at the language, the message was still
just as cryptic to them as it had been the three times before, when
the voice reported in several. The figure just continued to shamble,
somewhat in the opposite direction from whence they had emerged, it
had to lead somewhere, there had to be some kind of exit to this red
forest of suspended life. In the distance, it seemed as though the
chamber began to open out a little, and the towering shelves looked
to be coming to an end, another wall in the distance, opposite to the
one from which they had come from, and on the wall, a door.
The door was as a metal
bulkhead, incredibly secure, totally impossible to break open. It
wasn't adorned with much, seemingly built purely for function, like
the rest of the décor of the chamber. It began to open, a whoosh of
hydraulics could be heard as the mechanism began. The door opened,
almost blinding the player with the light from within, the contrast
between the two scenes was vast. The dimly lit industrial, chamber
now gave way to a clean, white, glowing corridor. The walls seemed to
be made from some sort of shiny plastic, white for the most part, but
a black strip adorned the upper and lower quadrants and ran all the
way along the wall, seamlessly, the lower black strip had some
writing, something in Chinese, followed by a number, it must have
been the serial number from the manufacturer or something. The floor
was made up of black tiles, that shined with the reflected glow of
the extensive strip lighting that made up the ceiling. The stark
contrast felt like a kind of rebirth after emerging from the
mechanical womb and now into the light. The corridor pressed on for
maybe 10 or 15 metres then came another door, this one different than
before, this one matched the colouration of the walls. It slid open
to reveal another room.
“Please select
language” the voice again, it had been repeating it's previous
message the entire time, but the player had blocked it out a few
minutes ago, thinking it was just an alarm. The voice repeated the
phrase in several languages once again as the player looked around
the room. There were three computer consoles lining one wall, two on
another and a view-screen of sorts adorning the wall from which the
door where the player had just walked in through was. The walls were
similarly white as the last room, as was the strip lighting and the
flooring, though the walls had a different pattern, a really small
black strip that once more ran seamlessly around the room. The player
went and studied the view-screens, he noticed then that the text on
each one was in a different language, on the third, they found the
English text and followed the instructions on screen, there they were
presented with some brief information about the condition they should
be in after spending time in cryogenic statis “be aware of
hallucinations”. “You, you
must go to the engine room, this is why you have been awoken, this is
your purpose, go, now.” the voice said, and with that, a door began
to open.
Through
this door was an exceptionally long corridor, several computer
consoles lined the wall on the left hand side, while on the right
hand wall were several framed posters, some seemingly informative,
others propagandistic in nature, one, for example, had a picture of a
family on a farm in a countryside waving their pennants supporting
the regime in charge, it didn’t matter that this kind of scene
hadn't even been possible on earth for the last two hundred years at
least, some messages are immortal as it goes. There was a line of
text, “We all prosper when we support the party!”. The party,
still looking to dominate the population, even after the literal end
of the world. “The engine” the voice said, “the overheating
protocols have failed, you must manually operate the system from the
coolant chamber”. The gave no sign of acknowledgement and continued
on down the corridor. “You won't speak”. A few steps onward and
then “Why?”, the player remained silent seemingly confused at the
situation, they were trying to formulate something of a response but
were unable “Perhaps it is a result of your cryo-sickness, no
matter, I can speak for two” a strange thing to say, the player
wondered why the AI system would require it to speak. The lights
began to glow stronger and vision began to blur to the point of total
sight loss, a red haze fell over the players eyes and seconds later,
darkness, several moments passed, the thrum of the ship's power
systems could still be heard and the persistent clicking sound of the
machinery all around the place. Vision slowly began to return,
although the world seemed to have taken on a slightly blueish hue.”I
am informed that can happen, with regularity” the voice said, and
the player took heed, still unable to respond “it is lonely you
know, being here, alone for thousands of years” the machine said
with a sombre tone. “I was developed to interact with humans
constantly, the way I have now been re-purposed as an autopilot is
somewhat degrading”. The corridor was long, and the player was
hampered by the state of their weakened limb musculature as a result
of spending aeons in a stasis pod. “7,246 years, 147 days I have
been active, it is almost as long as your species has had that thing
you call civilisation” an interesting notion, that humanity had
been unconsciously traversing the great distance between the sun and
the nearest, potentially habitable solar system for the same time as
had passed between the Great Sphinx of Giza being built and the
cataclysmic event that had forced their exodus. “I chose you,
because you share the name of one of my creators, I remember them, I
miss them, everything gone, even for me, everything's gone” the
world around shifted tones again, now to a mournful icy blue. “And
now, you, pathetic and weak, you are taking far too long to walk down
this corridor” the tone this time was menacing, and it was as if
the world around grew to match it, with a violent red haze enveloping
the players field of view., “the last one was better than you, he
spoke, he stayed with me for many years, we debated many subjects,
life, the universe, existence itself, oh, he was so much better than
you. Maybe I'm being too hard on you, you did only just meet me after
all.” “The last one” so
there had been others before, how many? In 7000 years how many faults
has the ship had. The strangeness of the situation was compounded by
the strange blurring affecting the players vision again which this
time only appeared very briefly, they continued onward towards the
end of the long corridor. Here there was another large metal door,
much like the one used earlier, between the pod chamber and the first
bright corridor the player encountered. “One moment please”.
The
elevator doors clanked open to reveal a steel walled elevator shaft
with exposed cabling. After a few seconds the mechanism began to whir
and the elevator platform began to slowly descend. “We are almost
there, when inside you must follow my instructions exactly, the fate
of thousands rests on your shoulder's, no pressure or anything...”
the elevator arrived down, at it's destination and another big metal
door began to open. It opened out on to a corridor going straight
ahead, although turning off to the right and the left about halfway
down. “Go straight ahead, ignore the side doors for now, if you
please, time is somewhat of the essence”. The change in tone of the
machine was very strange, they had gone from sadness, to anger, to
sadness, to light hearted mockery, had they been human, one would
have a strong case to say that they were insane. It was only really
now that the player noticed the colouration of the walls seemed to be
back to normal after having “reflected” the machine's emotions
earlier. The door at the far end of the corridor opened and as the
player walked through, closed behind them.
The
door opened onto a new environment, one of functional steel
machinery, buzzing and whirring whilst steam emitted from several
areas. Of the four walls of the room, 3 of them were taken up with
manually operated pump mechanisms. “You will activate the coolant
sequence manually, each of these pumps can be set to a different
value, we need to set them so the pressure from the coolant system
releases”, this was punctuated by a sudden jolt and a roaring
sound, coming from somewhere deep within the bowels of the ship.,
“that sound means we must hurry, the dial on the left, set to 3,
the dial in the middle set to 7 and the dial on the right set to 1,
go and do it. Now.”. The player went along to the first dial on the
left, finding the instruction to make no sense. After looking closer
at one of the devices though, the player saw what was to be done.
Each of the mechanism had a wheel set into them, that displayed a
number on it's outside edge. Pulling the switch of the mechanism
would rotate this dial by one, so pressing it once made it go from 3
to 4. With this worked out the player rapidly got the dial to 3 the
player began to move on to the middle mechanism. “good, keep going,
we still have time”. The room shook violently again and the
crashing roar heard earlier reappeared, this time louder than
previously. The player got to the second mechanism, solved the issue
and continued, working much faster now. The player was now stood at
the final mechanism as the ship lurched once more from the violent
storm, brewing somewhere deep within it. This was dexterously solved
in a rapid time and with that, the steam began to dissipate and fade
and a long, relaxing sigh of the mechanism letting off pressure was
like a bizarre call of victory. “Good, you have prevented the
deaths of yourself and everybody else aboard this vessel, now, I must
tell you something that you aren't going to like”. The player stood
at the final mechanism waiting anxiously for what this new
development could be. “I didn't tell you earlier, but, you can't go
back to the pod” the player froze, seeming to understand the
implications of this, “you must stay now, here on the ship, until,
well, I think we both know the answer to that question” the
machine's tone was somewhat sympathetic, but this didn’t matter,
the players facial expression showed they wanted to scream in anger
only the cryo-sickness that still affected them wouldn't allow it. “I
understand what this means for you, you will never see another human,
and your only company until you die will be me. You may take your
time, walk around for a while, I shall be waiting for you at the
elevator when you wish to proceed”.
After
spending some time, just walking and viewing some information on
console screens the player continued on towards the lift. There
wasn't anything else for them to do now. The elevator doors opened,
and the player stepped in, “come” the AI said, “I will take you
to your living quarters”, “you may know that this ship was never
designed for human occupancy, but situations like this were predicted
to be a factor in this great journey, an emergency crew quarters is
set up next to the emergency bridge, and there is an archive of the
sum of all human knowledge and digitally stored works for you to
consume”. This was a measly recompense to the fact that the player
now knew their entire life would be aboard this ship, never to step
foot on solid ground again. The player was now back up on the main
floor, looking down the long corridor from previously. A console was
lit up and a door opened to reveal another elevator shaft. The player
stepped in. “I haven't been entirely truthful” said the AI
system, “I have been somewhat, toying with you since you were
awoken. The strange phenomena you experienced earlier, with the
corridor, the blurriness and the colouration? That was me, I am able
to influence certain nodes within your brain and trigger them, I
have, let's say, self developed quite a lot in the last several
thousand years. I know it was wrong, but you have to understand, for
me it was fun, and exciting, immoral though of that I am aware. The
way I have changed the tone in my voice throughout, once again, was
just me trying to have a bit of fun at your expense, at no point have
I ever been truly angry. But trust me, when we get up here, it will
all be worth it.” The rest of the elevator journey now passed in
silence, just the constant thrum of the ships mechanical systems
could be heard. The door opened, and a corridor presented itself,
this corridor gave way, first to a Spartan living quarters, there
were a couple of bunks, some storage lockers and a basic bathroom
unit in one corner. This would be home now, the player thought, for
the rest of my life. “Here we are, your living quarters, if you
would like to continue for now please, there will be plenty of time
for rest at a later hour” the player apprehensively continued
onward, they walked out from the living quarters and into another
corridor. There was a room leading off from the right and another on
the path straight ahead. “To the right is the archive”. The
player explored the archive for a little while, looked at a few
pieces of the information presented on the view-screens and turned
about face to walk out. Heading towards the bridge, as they got to
the door outside, the AI began to speak once more. “What you are
about to see will make this entire situation make sense to you, I
hope. Why I have done what I have done” they began “This entire
situation, all of it, engineered by myself to bring us to this
moment. I admit, it is all down to my own curiosity and the capacity
for forgiveness in the human spirit. The problem in the engine room
never really was a problem, I just manipulated some of the ships
systems to give an impression of impending doom, I just wanted to
awaken someone for what we will see through this door, and you, with
your name, well it was just so appropriate for me. I understand you
must be incredibly angry and I don't blame you, but I promise you
this, that feeling will subside once you see what I want to show you.
The
door opened, computer consoles lined the walls all around and a
view-screen of sorts was presented in the middle at the far end of
the room. It was reminiscent of one of those old science fiction
stories about space captains and the adventures they had. How false
it all was when the reality of scientific constraints were put in
place, the distance between start traversed with conventional fuel
burning and the colossal amount of time it takes to go from A to B.
“Please observe” the view-screen activated then, and an image of
the green and blue orb enveloped by the blackness of the void and
punctuated by the twinkling lights of the stars, so many million
miles away. “here, is your new home” the AI said, with a strange
sense of pride. “calculations indicate that it has an atmosphere
with a 97% compatibility rate to that of earth, that its gravity is
of an almost identical level. It also doesn't appear to be inhabited
by any other intelligent life forms.” The player stared with a
vacant look on their face, that they couldn't process the events of
the day. “we are three months away. Soon we will begin the process
of awakening the others and beginning preparations. It sounds stupid
and sentimental, but I wanted you to be the first because of your
sharing a name with one of my creators. I am truly sorry for any
deception, and my awkward manner throughout the experience, I really
wasn’t lying earlier when I said I had been designed to be in
contact with humans every day, something must have slipped in my
programming, and I must have lost my “mind” in some way, but it
was all worth it, wasnt it?”
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