Commander Cyrix looked at the timer displayed before him on a holoscreen. A map of the facility with all the soldiers’ locations took up most of the screen. A special route had been cleared from the hidden room where the frozen man was to the entrance of the facility. They’d been warned what would happen if they broke their position during the operation and not a single one wanted to be on the receiving end of such heavy-handed measures. When it hit zero, he called it in.
It was time to begin.
Irric had been in position for some time. He was the only one permitted to be present with Ava while she released her former test subject. He’d been given strict instructions to record the man’s first moments and interactions with Ava.
The Commander wanted for Adrian to translate it later. Even though it had already been four months since her arrival, he still didn’t trust Ava not to plant weird ideas in the frozen man’s head. Having a translation of their discussion was a security measure he preferred having in place.
Ava took her spot at the terminal and waited for Irric to give the signal for her to begin. His data slate gave three quiet beeps. “You can start,” he said.
With a sharp nod, she began typing on the four strange keyboards surrounding a dull glass orb on the terminal. Minutes stretched on in silence as she worked to decrypt the device. Irric waited patiently until finally she declared she was successful. Deftly, she navigated the alien systems and brought up the controls for the man’s pod. “I’m ready to release him.”
Irric got into position, facing the pod that contained the man. “Begin.” He his pounded wildly when a ripple went through the blue substance the man was frozen in. The doors to the pod opened and for a moment, nothing happened.
The portion exposed directly to the air shattered then liquefied as it fell to the floor. The man’s eyes snapped open as he fell and landed hard in front of the pod. Irric winced and hoped he was alright. The liquid dripped off his clothes as he violently coughed out a blue gel. He lay on the ground in a daze, gasping for air.
Ava walked over from the terminal while Irric remained where he was, making no move to help the man. “Subject 011, get up,” she ordered in English.
The man on the floor turned his head towards her, confusion etched into his frown. He looked around, taking stock of his surroundings for the first time. “Where am I?” He completely ignored the orders given to him.
“I’ll tell you once you get up,” Ava replied.
The man’s limbs flopped as he struggled to get them to listen. Slowly, painfully, he got on his knees and pushed himself up, wobbling as he stood. He looked between Ava and Irric and was taken aback by their colouration. “Ava, is that you? Why are you purple?” His eyes darted around, panic settling in as he tried to make sense of the situation.
Irric understood none of the conversation but didn’t dare interrupt. He wanted to see how Ava would handle the affair. “Yes, Subject 011.” She gave a tight smile. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
The man frowned. “You know my name. Why do you keep calling me ‘Subject 011’?”
“Because right now, that’s what you are and how this world sees you. I’m a different colour because we’re no longer on Earth and I need to blend in. The man next to me? He’s an alien. You were found here by his species. He’s naturally purple, by the way.”
“Aliens!?” Subject 011 said in surprise. His head swiveled to face Irric as he stared, studying him. The attention made Irric uncomfortable and he shifted in place. Disbelief covered his features the more he looked. He turned towards Ava, narrowing his eyes. “You expect me to believe that there are aliens out there who look just like us?”
“Well,” Ava paused. “Yes.”
“It still doesn’t explain why you’re purple!”
“Because I am neither human nor a’vaare.” Slowly, her lilac hair turned blonde while her eyes changed from orange back to green. Her skin faded back to the pale tan colour it had been when they’d found her. Subject 011 watched, slack-jawed. “I am Ava, a sentient android, although my ascension to sentience is rather recent and not fully accepted yet.” She cast a sidelong glance towards Irric before turning serious. “I’m sincerely sorry for what the non-sentient me did to you. I was a slave to my programming and acted within its bounds. I know that will be difficult to reconcile with what you remember me as, but I would like for us to start over.” Subject 011 was about to speak when she cut him off by raising her hand. “I understand if it’s not today. But maybe sometime in the future you will.”
“You want me to be friends with you?” Subject 011 asked, bewildered. “After everything you did and what you represent, I’m supposed to simply forget it ever happened?”
“I suppose I was being rather hopeful,” Ava said with a grimace. Subject 011 shot her a flat look. Irric let the situation play out, sensing the shift in mood between the two. The once-frozen man’s reactions to whatever Ava was saying would define how the Tribunal interacted with him in the future. He was to avoid interfering as much as possible.
“How long was I in my pod for?” Subject 011 burned with the need to know. Everything was happening too quickly for him to properly process. Waking up had been disorienting enough without the deluge of ground-breaking revelations.
“Almost seven and a half years,” Ava replied patiently.
“So long? It felt like an instant.”
“You were completely frozen. What’s surprising is that only seven years passed before you were taken out of stasis. You could have woken up hundreds, if not thousands of years in the future. Or not at all. We were quite surprised to find you here, actually.”
Subject 011 walked over to one of the many pods lined up before him. In it was a deformed a’vaarian body. One of its arms was withered and bent at an odd angle and it was missing both legs below the knees. Upon taking a closer look, he found the same withering phenomenon near the stumps of its legs.
Irric kept filming as the man silently went about his inspection of the room. One by one, he studied each pod nearby. Ava let him go about his business without interrupting, waiting to answer the questions he surely had.
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Subject 011 turned back towards her. “That was to be my fate if you hadn’t saved me,” he realized grimly. “Where am I, exactly? Whose facility is this and why was I brought here? What was going to happen to me?”
Unfortunately, neither Ava nor Irric had all the answers to his questions. Ava did her best to answer the ones she could. “You’re at a facility formerly owned and operated by my creators, an insectoid alien race completely different from you and me. I honestly have no idea what would’ve happened to you. Figuring that out is the reason any of us are here.”
“There are more aliens?” Subject 011 balked. “How many others are there?”
“That’s the last of them. There are only three organic sentient species that have achieved space travel.” Ava shrugged. “For all I know, there are others out there we simply haven’t come into contact with. It’s certainly possible.”
“And what’s your relation to all of this?”
“I was sent by my creators, the gru’ul, to manage one of their facilities on Earth.”
“They’re the reason I was experimented on to begin with?” Subject 011 narrowed his eyes.
“Yes,” Ava confirmed.
“What happened to them?”
“They were killed when the facility was taken over by the a’vaare.”
Subject 011 paused. “Good,” he said firmly. “Fuck those bastards for getting me caught up in this mess to begin with.” He quickly brought his hand to his mouth and coughed violently after speaking. His eyes flicked down towards his hand and he lowered his arm back to his side, his hand at an angle such that neither Ava nor Irric could see what was in his palm.
“Is he alright?” Irric asked Ava. “Should he be coughing that much? He had,” he gestured towards the empty pod, “whatever that stuff was inside his lungs. That can’t possibly be healthy.” Subject 011 took advantage of the distraction and discreetly wiped his hand on his pants. He let his arm hang such the spot was hidden from their sight.
When Ava asked Subject 011 if he was alright, he waved her off, not wanting to draw attention to his condition. “I probably still have some of that blue stuff in my lungs,” he said. “What language were you speaking just then? I’ve never heard it before.”
Ava quipped back to Irric that the man was fine before turning her attention back to Subject 011. “I told you we’re not on Earth anymore. I was speaking their native language.”
“I thought the alien narrative you were pushing was some kind sick joke. It’s not, is it?”
“Nope,” Ava said bluntly.
“What happens to me now?”
“Right now you’re at the mercy of a highly advanced military. Beyond anything you could imagine back on Earth. Play along if you don’t want to get shot. I can guarantee you that the people running this have already discussed the possibility.”
Subject 011 paled. His eyes flicked towards the gun attached to Irric’s hip. He swallowed hard. “There’s no way I’d be able to escape, is there?” The shift from confused to wary made Irric frown, as he was certain it was related to him. Adrian would be able to clarify later, not that either person before him would ever know.
“The facility is crawling with armed soldiers. You won’t get very far. Even if you did, we’re up in the mountains. You’d have no way of getting down.”
“Is this military friendly, at least?”
“That depends entirely on you. If you give them what they want, they’ll be very friendly. You’d better play your cards well if you hope to get anything out of it.”
“And what do they want from me? I’m guessing they didn’t free me out of the goodness of their hearts.”
“They want a sample of your blood to experiment on.”
The look on Subject 011’s face darkened. “More experimentation? You saved me from possibly being experimented on only to want to do it yourselves?”
Ava shrugged. “You’d have to take it up with them. I was told to bring it up with you. They’ll try asking directly at a later point in time. If you refuse, they won’t ask again.”
“Do you expect them to keep their word?”
“I don’t know. They know you were experimented on back on Earth. It will be up to you whether you choose to take that chance or not.”
Subject 011 remained silent for several long seconds. “Are they going to integrate me into their society after they get their sample? I can’t speak their language! Will they teach me, or do they want me to stay ignorant?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Ava grimaced. A little complicated was an understatement, but she wasn’t about to launch into the full story. She could leave that chore to someone else. “Right now, they want you to remain a secret – for how long, I don’t know. They’re going to want to hide you away from the public until they figure out what to do with you. As it stands, you’re going to be put in a cell on a ship for three weeks while you’re transported back to their home planet. I’m not entirely certain what comes next for you after that, since I’m not privy to those decisions.”
“Are you coming with me?”
“No, you’ll be on your own.” Ava launched into an explanation detailing to Subject 011 how he was to leave the facility and follow Irric onto the ship and into his cell. The consequences of disobeying were made clear as day to him. The Tribunal didn’t need him in one piece and wouldn’t care if he was missing a limb or two when they finally spoke with him.
Not knowing what was to happen to him after his supposed temporary confinement caused Subject 011 no small amount of stress. After Ava conferred with Irric, the three of the left the room, both men relieved to finally be away from all the hideously deformed bodies. Ava, for her part, was indifferent to the change in scenery.
Their footsteps echoed in the corridor as Irric led the group down a very specific path through the facility that was void of any people. Before reaching the entrance to the restricted section, he sent Ava ahead to ensure that there was nobody around on the other side. After receiving the all clear, he motioned to Subject 011 to follow him.
They continued their journey and arrived at the hangar. The scientists and engineers studying the gru’ul ships that were normally present were gone, their projects abandoned for the moment. Irric directed them towards the hover bikes that were parked near the door.
“I won’t be coming with you,” Ava said to Subject 011 as she drew to a halt before the bike Irric was mounting. “The bikes are barely big enough for two and I’m not allowed to fly one on my own. You won’t be able to understand what they’re saying, but don’t worry. Once you arrive, translating shouldn’t pose too much of an issue. If necessary, they’ll have me join the discussion to translate for you.”
“How exactly are these things supposed to bring us down the mountain? They have no wheels!”
“They’re hover bikes,” Ava explained simply. Subject 011 stared at her, dumbfounded. “I told you this society was more advanced than yours back on Earth. Maybe now you’ll believe me.”
“Ava,” Irric called out, grabbing her attention. “Tell the man that it’s time to go. The ship is ready to board.”
“Get on and hold tight,” Ava instructed. “It’s a long way down if you fall.” Subject 011 reluctantly took a seat behind Irric and wrapped his arms around him. The strangled cry he made when the bike turned on and rose in the air made Ava grin. She briefly wondered if that was how Adrian had reacted when he’d first ridden one. “Good luck,” she called out as they started to advance. “Try not to die!”
The bike exited the hangar and Subject 011 got his first look at the planet he was on. Rock formations rose in the distance beyond the small lake at the base of the mountain. He looked down and held on tighter once he realised how high up they were.
Irric descended gradually, making his way over the lake and towards the ship stationed on the other side. He spotted the open ramp that would take him onto the ship and deftly steered the vehicle inside. Subject 011 took great interest in what was around him but wasn’t given the chance to explore.
Irric ushered the man through the confines of the ship until he arrived in front of an unremarkable metal door. He opened it and pointed towards the room that lay beyond while putting his other hand on his gun. Subject 011 got the message and walked in.
The heavy door slammed shut behind him not two steps in. In the dimly lit room, Subject 011 inspected the spot he’d wiped his hand on earlier. The red stain on his clothes matched the one on his hand.
“Shit.”
