He was escorted by automatons that answered none of his questions. A long, pristine white corridor followed, ending in front of a door marked with an ominous number thirteen.
[Please, step in,] the drone leading the escort said. [Thank you for your cooperation.]
"You're treating me quite well for someone you accused of something horrible five minutes ago," Alan said before the door closed behind him.
He was still calm.
At least for now.
Confident it was all a mistake, he started inspecting the room—quickly realizing it was not built for confinement. Sure, the only exit was locked, but this looked like an ordinary dorm.
Alan found a bed with clean sheets, a small bathroom and shower area, a desk with a white keyboard, and a monitor embedded in the wall he expected would switch on at any moment and explain to him what the hell was going on.
But nothing.
After waiting impatiently in front of the monitor for half an hour, he sat at the edge of the bed for twenty minutes. Then paced in circles for the next hour before finally dropping to the floor, back against the wall, staring at the immaculate ceiling.
Nothing about any of this made sense.
"That I was plotting against the Santa María?" he snickered bitterly. "Yeah, right."
That thought was quickly followed by one of Astrid's quickbits.
"Did you know the outside world can't access The Novus remotely—or even know what's happening inside? They can't observe it, can't send messages. And it works the same in reverse. We can't reach them either." She'd let out a grim little laugh, a smirk forming on her lips. "The only way the Santa María would ever receive any kind of signal from us is if The Novus was literally on fire. Can you imagine?"
"So what gives?" he asked aloud, covering his eyes with the back of his hand.
I've done nothing but fool around with Astrid inside The Novus for the past week. When did I find time to plot anything?
A persistent thought kept nagging at him. Another piece of trivia about the inner workings of the Virtual Reality that he knew.
Eight hours have passed since I left.
People inside the cryo-pods have their consciousness directly linked to a collective neural network, where the system processes thoughts faster than humanly possible. Time inside The Novus moves much quicker.
So for Astrid, it's been almost two days since I disappeared.
He formed fists.
There better be a good explanation for this, or I'll—
A chime from the doorbell cut his train of thought.
He was on his feet immediately as an automaton entered carrying dinner on a plastic tray. Its tracking sensor checked that Alan was in front of it for exactly one second before its head turned away.
Alan watched the servant set the tray on the table.
"Any news for me?" he asked, but the robot left as quietly as it came.
Does that mean I'm going to be here for a while?
Inspecting the meal only deepened his unease.
A hard, salty protein tablet. A pair of crackers. A thermos of plain water. A small envelope containing two citrus-smelling pills—probably vitamin C.
Rations, he thought, alarmed, wondering if this was standard for prisoners, or if the ship was in worse shape than he knew.
Wait? Why would it be?
The worst-case scenarios played through his head as he ate—and even without proof of an emergency, the complete absence of other humans since they had woken him, combined with that accusation, was more than enough to send his thoughts spiraling.
"Suspected of conspiracy… Against the ship and humankind," he repeated the last part.
Something raw surged up from his gut as he hurled the food and thermos across the room.
"YOU HAVE TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME!"
Exhausted for the first time since stepping out of the cryo-pod, he went to bed, curled on his side with his back to the door, and attempted the impossible task of sleep.
It took a while. But eventually, his eyes closed and his frown finally let go.
— 2.1 —
The sound of movement jolted him awake. Rolling over, he found the same automaton from earlier, crouching and cleaning up his mess.
Alan was on his feet immediately.
"I-I'm sorry. I didn't mean to…"
The automaton said nothing. Normally it would have responded with some scripted politeness, but this one did not.
Alan exhaled, crouched, and picked up the thrown thermos before the servant could reach it, which extended an arm toward it a beat too late.
Alan inspected it, opened it, and took a long sip.
[The lid is broken. Let me replace it,] the automaton said in a female voice—slightly too high-pitched for Alan's taste.
"It still works. I'll be careful."
Alan studied the robot's face: a black display that usually showed simple, pixelated eyes.
The unit seemed almost uncomfortably human in the way it looked away.
[I'll bring you breakfast in half an hour. Please wait.]
"Breakfast already? How long have I been sleeping?"
[Ten hours,] the servant said, rising to its feet. [Excuse me.]
Unable to let go of the only thing resembling communication he had in a while, Alan caught the robot by the shoulder.
"Don't go just yet. If you know anything about why I'm here, please—"
The robot squealed and pulled back, catching Alan off guard.
[Sorry, but I can't!]
With that, the door slid open just long enough for it to leave, closing again before Alan could follow.
As promised, breakfast arrived on schedule, but this time delivered by a different robot. Stiffer posture, more mechanical precision.
A loaf of bread, cheese, and coffee.
Alan had no intention of throwing his food again.
He ate slowly, the constant weight of a full day lost pressing down on him.
It would be another five hours before the wall monitor finally turned on, displaying the Santa María's crest: a siren carrying a vase of pouring water, ringed by stars.
Alan came out of the bathroom as fast as he could—still pulling up his pants—and planted himself in front of the screen.
A calm, unhurried voice came through.
[Greetings, Passenger 29317, Alan Warden. Thank you for your patience. How are you today?]
An AI.
He had no doubt. And the fact that not a single human had been near him since they pulled him from The Novus only poured more fuel onto his anxiety.
"How am I? Tired, despite doing nothing but lie around. Hungry, despite eating everything you've sent me. And fairly livid, for being kept in the dark for almost forty-eight hours. That about sums it up."
[Have you not been informed why you were disconnected from the cryo-pod, Alan?]
"Yes. Although the drone skipped the details. Excuse me, who am I speaking to?"
[Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm Isabella, a Fourth Generation Advanced AI, designated to the Santa María by Alvearium Enterprises, and current Captain of this vessel.]
Her voice was mature and measured—and her last sentence could not have been more wrong.
Alan gave a slight shake of his head. He knew the Captain's real name. Captain Robert Bosniak. Everyone aboard the Santa María did.
"Wait… did something happen to Captain Bosniak?"
[I'm sorry, Alan. Due to your current status as a suspect, that information is classified.]
Hours of compressed anger cracked open.
Alan threw a hand in the air, red-faced. "Okay, enough! I'm demanding an explanation for what the hell is going on! You have no right to—!"
The monitor switched, showing a radiograph of someone's head.
Alan stopped mid-sentence, squinting at it.
[Do you recognize this, Alan?] Isabella asked, in the same calm, even tone.
A large white rectangular object stood out against the gray of the scan.
He raised his hand without thinking, pressing it to a spot just above his right ear before lowering it immediately.
"It's mine. Isn't it?"
[Do you know what that object is?]
"A synthetic plate," he replied, swallowing. "They implanted it after the accident—I had an accident. Cranioplasty, because of the brain swelling."
[Anything else you'd like to add about this plate, Alan?]
An inquisitor's question.
"What do you mean?"
The X-ray zoomed in, the plate's engraving coming into focus:
KINTECH MEDICAL
Model: CP-42N
Lot: K7-1184
SN: KT-2187-443981
BioCeram-Ti Composite
Rev: 3.2
Before Alan could ask what was wrong with it—he had seen this X-ray before, many times—the display shifted to a three-dimensional reconstruction of the plate.
[Your cranial implant isn't a standard medical prosthesis, Alan. Concealed inside it are an encrypted non-volatile memory, a KinTech proprietary Neural Trust Core, a cryptographic authentication circuit, and a dedicated microcontroller. All combined to establish a connection with the neural interface in your cryo-pod, with access to The Novus. Were you aware of this?]
Aware of it?
The question was more than offensive.
It was condescending.
Was Isabella monitoring his every reaction through a hidden camera? Reading his micro-expressions?
Would a true culprit be able to play dumb in a situation like this and walk away clean?
That doesn't matter right now.
That thought alone kept him upright.
He felt sick though.
He had known he was no longer fully human.
For two long years.
He knew there was a piece of bioceramic inside him keeping him functional—the doctors had told him explicitly he could live a normal life, grow old, and never once have a problem with it.
And now a machine was telling him it had been hiding electronics the entire time.
As if the life-saving plate had been nothing but a facade.
How—NO. Why?
He looked back at the monitor with its hellish 3D reconstruction, and the image distorted.
The sounds around him warped too. Like being submerged.
Words failed him entirely.
He fell to his knees involuntarily, caught a blurred glimpse of his own hands against the floor, and watched a dark blur of fluid spread between his palms.
— 2.2 —
Hours passed, he could feel it in his body after lying too long on his left shoulder.
Opening his eyes, he could barely make out a figure sitting beside him.
"—finally woke up. Are you—well?"
That voice was too comforting.
"Astri—" he muttered, reaching toward the figure, before realizing it was one of the ship's automatons.
[Your vitals have returned to stable. Thank goodness. Is there anything I can get you? Are you hungry? Here. Drink some water.]
"Oh. It's you. The girl-bot," Alan said, accepting the thermos.
[The what now?]
"What happened to me?"
[You fainted.]
"Seriously? But why would I—" The memory of what Isabella had revealed came flooding back. He shut his eyes and groaned. "Right. Because of that."
[Easy,] the robot said gently, holding out a pill. [Take this. A Painkiller.]
"I'm fine. Save it for someone who actually needs it." He paused to sip water and studied the robot—and for the second time, it seemed almost uncomfortable under his attention, looking away. "Hey, are you authorized to talk to me?"
[What do you mean?]
"I'm under domiciliary arrest. Are you allowed to tell me what the charges actually are?"
[Hasn't Isabella spoken to you about—]
"There's a device inside my head. Yes, we got that far. But I missed what it did." He pressed his lips together. "Please. Tell me what this thing did while I was in cryo-sleep."
[I don't think I should—]
[It uploaded a virus to the Novus mainframe,] a different voice cut in.
In the open doorway stood another automaton—the rigid, precise one—setting Alan's next meal on the desk before turning to face him.
"A virus? What kind of virus?"
The automaton held still for a moment, as if scanning Alan's face for guilt, or satisfaction.
[The S1N virus,] it said, maintaining its custodian posture. [Better known as—]
Alan did not need to hear it.
In fact, he could not.
The symptoms from before returned, threatening to take him under again, but his mind did not falter.
Nightmarish memories surged through it instead: neverending dry coasts, black skies, crumbling uninhabitable cities.
"The Singular…" he said through gritted teeth. "That thing is here?"
[Alan, please! Take this information calmly—] the other automaton reached for his arm.
"And you're telling me I… brought it? To this ship?"
A snicker escaped him after a long moment of silence.
Then laughter.
A visceral, ragged laughter.
The kind that hurt his throat.
It took two additional automatons to sedate and restrain him.