Chapter Text
Departure
Taylor struggles to open the door to her prison became weaker and weaker, as despair and exhaustion caught up with her. Just as she was about to black out, she sees two enormous beings, circling around each other, and shedding parts of themselves. One of those parts is falling towards her, so she reaches out towards it, like you might reach towards a falling star you were making a wish on. As she does, she falls into the void between all things and lands on a metal floor before blacking out.
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Taylor’s eyes flutter open to the sound of people moving around, and the occasional beeping. Above her is a clear canopy, through which she can see a patterned blue ceiling. The walls are white with gold highlights and the occasional blue light tracing through it. As she turns her head to one side, she can see a row of additional pods, all of which are in a vertical position with the lids open.
“Hello?” she croaks, immediately a man in some sort of uniform comes over. He says something, that’s incomprehensible to her, in a no-nonsense tone of voice.
“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you.”
The man smiles at her and says something, that she assumes is reassuring, before reaching up and touching something out of sight. As he does, her vision goes black again.
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Taylor wakes up in the pod again to the sound of a couple of men talking “…fascinating. You say that she has had absolutely no genetic modifications or nanite treatments prior to being found on our ship?”
“Yes sir, we were able to take a complete genetic scan as well as a digital copy of her brain without any loss of life or data. Let me introduce you to cephalon Taylor.”
She hears her voice coming from a nearby wall, “Hello? Hello? Why is it dark? Where am I?”
The second voice answers her, “Hello Taylor, you’re in a computer at the moment, as we took a copy of you before we administered the standard nanite treatments, and inoculations, just in case there were any unknown side effects. You’ll be happy to know that your original self is fine and should be waking up soon.”
“Oh, is that why I can’t feel panic?”
“It is, and congratulations, you’re the first cephalon that has ever been created without killing the host. When we place you into a proper vessel, you’ll have your emotions back, and so much more.”
“Please, tell me, where am I?”
“You are on board the Zariman Ten Zero. I’m going to place you on standby now until we can get you your own cube. It will be like going to sleep.”
The first man speaks up again, “Fascinating, and you got her genetic data too?”
“We did, when we get back to real space this will revolutionise the cloning process. Her people still had 28 chromosomes, and absolutely no signs of any genetic tampering. We’re not currently sure if she’s a time traveller, or fell into the void from another world, but what is clear is that she is Orokin, though from an older genetic lineage than anyone currently alive. If we could get hold of a male from the same place, it would completely revolutionise cloning. As it stands this should allow us to develop automatic corrections to flash cloned people.”
“Good, I need you to classify this data under T0V-oral protocols. We’ll inform our superiors when we return to real space. What of the girl?”
“I’ve given her the required treatments to allow her to survive in our environment. When she woke up last time her vitals were all steady, so I activated the flash learning program to give her the basic knowledge that she’ll need to participate in our society.”
“Very good, place her with the families in the unshielded parts of the ship. She can be part of the experiment on void exposure. We need to know if void travel is safe for us, as it’s our only possible advantage against the sentients at the moment.”
“I understand sir. We did find one thing though, she had an anomalous growth in her brain that contained non-human mitochondrial DNA. We’ve excised it just to be safe, but it lends credence to sideways travel rather than time travel. She also had a variety of insect life and additional human DNA around her feet. It was somewhat degraded, but we have enough that we could make viable clones of the female donors.”
Whatever the response was going to be, is cut off by a beep coming from the wall, “I’m sorry sir, but that’s the timer that I activated to indicate when the programming should finish. It’s likely that the first thing she’ll do when she wakes up is open the canopy, so we shouldn’t be talking about anything classified.”
“Understood, we really need to develop a way for the computer to tell the difference between training brainwaves and conscious brainwaves.”
The second man laughs, “We can, it’s just an invasive process to monitor the brain directly, and has been shown to lead to death or paralysis in 60% of cases. Till that improves we have to rely on motion sensors and passive readings.”
Taylor decides that this is now a good time to look at the inside of her pod, rather than listening in. Opening her eyes, she’s unsurprised that a tone goes off somewhere behind her. As hinted at, everything looks more familiar, and she can see the access controls on the inside of the lid. Virtual controls as is normal for Orokin technology, but still there. Reaching up she presses the capsule release button. Reasoning, out of fear, that if they could give her knowledge of the language and technology, they could also take memories away. Taylor decided that she was never going to talk about what she just heard in the presence of anyone that might be military.
“Good evening Miss, I’m Doctor Jae-Hwa and this is Commander Monteiro, you are aboard the Orokin vessel Tamerin 10-zero. We are currently on the way to the Outer Gates, however we’ve had a drive failure so we’re stuck while they try to repair it. What can you remember from before you woke up in the pod?”
Taylor panics slightly as the memory of being pushed into the locker returns with astounding clarity. The Doctor reaches over behind her, and suddenly she’s not panicking any more, and she’s back in the pod rather than her memory.
“What did you do?”
“I instructed the pod to convert cortisol and adrenaline to saline and sugars. It also boosted your serotonin levels to counteract the dip you just experienced. Do you think you can tell us what happened now?”
Taylor takes a deep breath as the knowledge of the nanites floating in her body come to the fore, like something she learned as a child, and how these pods are made specially to interact with them. Taking another deep breath she thinks about the locker, it’s strange being able to view it without the feeling of fear or panic. Almost like she’d seen it on TV rather than lived it. “This morning I was shoved into my locker before classes started. The bullies that did it locked the door behind me. I know I was in there for hours, as the class bell rang at least 4 times…”
Dispassionately she describes the feelings and situation she’d been in, as well as the vision she saw just before she landed on the 10-0. With her emotions being artificially levelled and the skillful questioning of the Doctor and Commander, she revealed details about Earth Bet, it’s contact with Earth Aleph, as well as para-humanity and the End Bringers. Later, when her emotions were no longer being suppressed, she’d be glad that someone else knew, even if they couldn’t do anything to help.
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Some hours later, Taylor follows the Commander into the civilian area of the ship, passing through some agricultural areas as well as what seem like parks. Finally they stop at apartment 83402-b.
“Taylor, thank you again for being so patient with us. Once we’re under weigh again we’ll be stopping at the space station by the outer gates. Until then I think that Kay and her son Rell will be a better fit than the military areas of the ship.”
The aforementioned Kay opens the door, which slides into a recess in the wall, “Hello?”
“Good evening Ma’am, we have a last minute berthing change. This is Taylor of Brockton Bay, she has been assigned your unused room.”
“Well come in then, do you have any luggage dear?”
Taylor shuffles awkwardly, “Ah, no. My arrival wasn’t exactly conventional.”
“Never mind, I’m sure that we can get some stuff from the stores. Commander, any idea what’s going on with the ships drive?”
“Sorry, all I know is that the mechanics are having to refabricate some parts by hand, as the void is playing havok with nanite replicators, and the ones that are working are too small for the parts we need to replace.”
Over the next couple of weeks Taylor settles into life abord an Orokin vessel, with all the luxuries and downsides that entails. Even the fact that they have cracked nearly lossless matter/energy transfer and use it so casually becomes a mundane part of her life. Rell introduces her to the other children her age, and they start to teach her how to have friends again. Despite the abrasive nature that Rell gives out, due to a complication from being a natural, she tries to keep him included in the stuff the other children are doing.
Kay explained it as a mental development disorder, that’s a rare side effect of having a non-nanite assisted pregnancy. The closest that Taylor could associate it with is Autism.
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“I remember. I Remember!” Taylor staggers out of her somatic link as the memories from her past are unveiled.
“Operator, what are you doing?” Ordis’ voice comes out over the intercom.
“I remember Ordis, I remember.”
“Oh dear, you seem to have lost your warframe. Maybe we should retreat to a safer part of the system.”
“Teshin! No, I’m going back for him.”
“But how? The somatic link.”
“I don’t need the link.”
Transferring back to her Titania, she comes back to awareness while still under assault from the Kuva Queen, as the Queen’s red psychic spike pushes into her forehead. Forcing the psychic probe out of her mind, she soon finds herself in a fight for both her life, and the life of Teshin, that stretches her barely remembered void abilities to their breaking point. Eventually though, she is able to disarm the queen, which frees Teshin from the Queens control.