[ PROJECT: TITAN ] Chapter One
LITANY STATION ALPHA - 2210, MAR 04 ; 6:12A
She was the first to wake up. She'd always be one step ahead of me, but I don't mind. It is how she is supposed to be. At first, within the cold, suffocating darkness of her, only the faintest glimmer of orange lights dazzle, barely noticed on the always observant watchmen in her corners. Their own miniscule red lights glow dully in the shadows, but they're always alive. Always seeing things, even in the dark. Next, lines of sleepy white trail along the narrow walkways, carving a path for no one throughout her whole being. She is busily readying herself for my arrival. More and more, she illuminates; sconces on the walls, the white floors of wide open rooms, screens flickering to display their appropriate readouts.
Not just lights, anymore, but her elements awaken as she runs down her mental checklist. The faucets in the kitchen, the bathrooms, the medical bay, the showers, the drinking fountains, the sprinklers in the room with the tree. Finally, as her body completely steps out of hibernation, she takes a deep breath and exhales out cold, clean, calm air. Air for me. Her lungs are always so clean.
The hum of her mind's connection throughout is all that is left, and it fills the rooms and the hallways and the pipes and the ducts. She sits quietly, waiting. Waiting for something.
Waiting for me.
But I am asleep. I have been asleep for a long time, I think. Maybe. Maybe I have been dead. Sleeping people dream, don't they? People... Am I a people? Am I alive? I don't know. We shall wait and see. Seeing is hard, though. Everything is black in front of my eyes. But I can hear, maybe. I hear a noise, soft and comforting. It echoes gently in my ears. I hope they are ears. Ears are nice.
Thump. Thumpthump. Thumpthump. Thumpthump. Again. And again. I hear more. The low hiss that sounds along with the pressure against my inside; easing as the pressure drops, rasping as the pressure faintly builds. It makes its noise over and over, too. It is a good noise, I think. Like her noise, from the vents, but it stops and starts. Maybe I am broken. Am I supposed to sound this way?
After lazy moments pass, more sound is made. Not from me, but from around me. A bathtub spout. No. A fountain's violent pour. No. As I think of the noise, the weight of my body starts to change, and I sink. Sinking... There is cold around my head, and it spreads along my skin, down my neck and back and arms and... I'm so cold. I cannot move, but I don't think I know how to, yet. Something wet is on my skin. Wet and cold. I take another arduous breath, the noise admitted strangely. The cold reaches my feet, and I feel heavy.
Uselessly, my body leans against the warm, smooth surface of my home. Home. My home is so different, now. But it moves! The smooth pane of warmth drifts away from me with a frustrated sigh and I fall. The ground, metal and black bits of bouncing and white letters, it hurts when I land there. As I flop, my body makes a sloppy sloshing sound. The warmth that had wrapped around me is now a sticky mess on the floor, dripping slowly off my skin. As it pools and drifts through the grooves and the turns in the flooring, I grow colder. So cold that is almost hurts.
Yes, it hurts and my insides are not working like they did before. There is nothing coming into them, no pressure like before. Not like before... A different kind of pressure builds in my face and my head. I don't like it, so I try to move to feel my head. My arms slide numbly at my sides. They must still be asleep. But I cannot breathe! Something is on my face, and I cannot breathe, and it needs to not be on my face! My throat tenses, hard, as I try to make her aware of my distress. Doesn't she already know? Can't she feel me hurting?
Again, I try to move my arms. They are more awake now, and they fumble up along the strange bumps and grooves of the wet floor to my face. My face is still wet and cold. There's a tingle in my hands, but I can feel the something on my face with them. It's big and covers my mouth and the cold bit above it. It's made of bouncy stuff, too, like parts of the floor. I don't know why it's on my face, but I cannot breathe with it there, so I try to remove it. So difficult, and I have to keep pulling the edges of it away from my cold, wet skin. Stubborn. It is stubborn to leave my face, with soft barbs having pierced my lips to keep it close. More of it is in my throat and mouth. As I peel it back, pull it away from me, the barbs uncomfortably pluck themselves from my flesh, making it easier to slide its tongue from my throat. The tongue is round and hollow, like my throat. Maybe it's a throat, instead of a tongue. As it finishes leaving my mouth, my neck tightens and my mouth feels a pressure all the way to the very back.
I cough and sputter, and something spills out of my mouth. The smell is terrible, like nothing I want to smell or even taste again. Taste. It's horrible. This isn't what air tastes like, is it? Why is this happening? Why can't I go back home, where it's warm and nice and I was upright? Again, I try to let her know that I'm unhappy, but it is such a strange thing to do. My face warps and when I try to make sounds, my throat burns from what comes out of it. I am loud! Everything is so cold and painful and...
And bright. It takes my attention away from being cold. As I open my eyes, I see why it's so bright. My home is bigger now, and filled with things I never had before. There are walls of white and an above floor with lights, and a window. No. That's not a window. Windows show more things, don't they? I don't know what it is, but it's not a window, and it has more white letters across it. I look, trying to understand just what it might be. There's a color on it, but it goes away and comes back, over and over, like the sound in my ears did before the warm went away and I was on the floor. It must be important, that color. It's the only color on the screen.
Screen. Yes! Screens are important. They're like a face for walls. They tell you things and show you important places. The screen's image is a simple one, made of simple letters and a light color underneath them, but the side of it is that important color, with more of the strange text inside it. I'm unable to see it from my place on the floor, so I do my best to move closer, working with my slowly waking limbs to help move me.
At the wall, I peer curiously up at the screen. I still don't understand the shapes on it, but it doesn't matter. Before I can stop myself, I try to make my body be closer to the color. Even on my knees on the floor, which is uncomfortable and hard, I feel a sensation of unease. My body wobbles in the air, stilled only when my damp hands touch the wall. The important color stops blinking, and vanishes. But where? I didn't know what it was trying to tell me, so it shouldn't leave. I'm so confused. What was it trying to show me? Was I not supposed to look at it?
The screen interrupts my thoughts, illuminating with sights and more colors and a voice. For a moment, I panic and become small again, a hand covering half of my cold face. But the voice is nice. It's her voice, but I don't know it's her voice. Her voice is like home; warm and soft and nice. My hand lowers, resting in my lap as I listen to her speak. She must be speaking to me, because as I look back around me, I see no one else like me. My eyes return to the screen, to look at the images she shows me. That important color is there again, in a different shape. It surrounds a picture. The picture looks like what's in the room, near the other wall. There's a seat in the wall, like the image shows, but there's a thing pointing at the seat in the picture. The pointing thing isn't in the room with me, though. Again, I am confused.
The image changes slightly, replacing the pointing thing with a... me. A me, or something like me, is in the seat, sitting. Even though I can't understand her or the words on the screen, I know that she's telling me to sit in the seat on the other side of the room. I move, slowly and carefully, on hands and knees that feel hard, across the mess of warmth and gross smelling sickness on the floor, to the other wall. My hands take hold of clear things attached to the walls, like thin arms that I can use to pull myself up. It's difficult, but my legs and arms are already stronger. I can tell because of how easier it is to move them. It feels good to move, I think.
As I sit in the seat, I am faced with another, smaller screen in front of me. More of the images are displayed, in simple tones of light and dark and the important color. It flashes, trying to get my attention. Something will be doing something soon, I think, and just as I understand this, warmth falls from the above onto my skin and my head. It happens so suddenly that I cannot stop myself from making another loud, quick noise. But the warmth spreads over my skin, and it begins to make sense. This is water, and water is good. The ceiling sprinkles it over my face and the rest of my body, replacing the sticky warmth with a clean feeling. I like this. This is nice.
I spend some time on the seat, in the wall, doing what the screen tells me to. A round thing on the wall flashes the important color, so I touch it. A strange sludge comes out from a hole just beneath the round thing. I put the gel on my head, like it shows on the picture on the screen, and, with a little movement, it becomes bubbles! It's all so brilliant and exciting to be doing this, instead of sleeping. The only trouble I seem to have is when the bubbles get in my eyes and it hurts a little, but it goes away once more water runs over my face and cleans it all away. A different button flashes and a different gel is given to me. More instructions are offered on the screen and, like a good boy, I do as I'm asked.
Once the instructions are finished, and I have put bubbles all over my skin and washed it all away, the water stops. It must mean that I'm finished, I think, staring up at the holes in the above. I feel much better, with my skin softer and warmer and with less white patches on me. The air in the room is crisp, but not unbearably cold like before. I was content to sit on the seat in the wall for a while longer, but something along another wall moved. The white, misty panes of smoothness have split apart, and there is another room behind them!
Standing is not so difficult now, so I try, but I continually hold onto the clear arms on the walls for support. She's very helpful, I think, always having something to assist me. Shuffling steps take me to the new room, and there's another screen looking at me, with more images and letters on it. A strange looking chair is in the middle of the room, but it is large and makes the room feel smaller than it should be.
A simple shiny tray stands next to the chair, with odd things and strange textures on it. I slowly take a seat in the soft, comfortable chair, and let my clean hands pass inquisitive fingers over the things and textures. I like taking my time to understand them. The thin texture under the things is the most interesting to me, with its rustling noise and seemingly useless purpose. What is this even for? It's not warm, and it's too small to be used as a cover. How odd.
Again, the screen speaks to me, showing me what I need to do. Something is in the chair, but needs to be taken out of the chair. I don't understand what it means, but maybe I moved into the chair too soon. I squirm, hand thrust beneath my bare body to search for what it wants me to remove. Something rustles under my legs. It wraps around a bundle of soft things, all of it a simple light color. I take the parcel from underneath me and open it along the edge, as she tells me to. I was right! There are many soft things inside the misty wrapper. A hole in the counter by the wall lights up, asking for the wrapper, which I feed to it. The tube inside is hard and dark, like the inside of a throat. I open my mouth, wondering if I would have been able to fit the wrapper down my throat, too. The soft things in my hand aren't wrappers, so I can't put them in my mouth. Maybe I'll find something else later.
Another me flashes slowly on the screen, and each flash is different. Instead of bare, it has one of the soft things on it. First the middle part of me, near my legs, then the top part of me, and then the bottom part of me, all down my legs. These soft things are to be worn, to cover me. That's a very good idea. Soft things are good and make my skin feel warm. It's a confusing process to put the soft things on my body, but I manage to do it correctly on my second try. Already, I am feeling better than I was when I was in the other room.
At last, I get to rest again, and seat myself on the white cushions of the chair, allowing myself to settle into its contour.
"Good morning, Mister Krowe."
Her voice. I can understand that part of her voice speaking to me, and it feels wonderful in my chest. Warm and comforting, like praise. My face moves in small ways, mouth curving at the corners to make a sweet smile. Without knowing it at the time, my toes, so small and bony looking, curl and flex idly.
My throat trembles with a sound, quiet and calm. I want to tell her that I'm happy to understand her, that she's speaking to me and I know that she's speaking to me, but it's all I can make for now; that little noise.
She speaks once more, tells me to hold the odd thing on the tray in my hand, with my first long finger inside the loop near the handle. I hold the nose of the cold, shiny thing to the inside of my other arm, where the screen shows a small important colored cross mark, and I squeeze my first long finger. Suddenly, without warning, the thing in my hand hisses and bites me! I gasp, air filling my lungs in one angry little moment. Why did it do that?! Why did she tell me to do that? Why would she make me make something bite me? Perhaps it doesn't want me to hold it. I don't know why, and I am again confused.
Looking to her screen gives me no clear answer, only the illusion that this was normal and that I need to pay attention to what happens next. I set the shiny, cold, hurtful thing back on the tray with a careless toss. I don't like it and I don't want to hold it anymore. Not if it's just going to bite me. I don't like that thing. Not at all. My arm, where it was bitten, begins to ache.
Frowning up at the screen, I watch the pictures come alive with movement and color and sound, so much more complex than the simple images I had been observing prior. She speaks to me, saying my name in the constant comforting tone.
"It's nice to see you again, Mister Krowe. Thank you for initiating the reawakening process. You did a very good job. I am very proud of you."
Those words melt away the frown on my face and make me think of better things than the sting on my arm. I like it when she's proud of me.
"My name is M.O.I.R.A.," she announces plainly, spelling her name across the screen with those strange letters. "And I will be helping you during your stay, here, at the Litany Station Alpha."
Here is called what? Litany? Why is it not called 'home'? Isn't this 'home'? Was I never at 'home'? What is 'home', then? ....Where is 'home'?
"Please sit and watch our reintroduction module until it is finished, and then you may continue to the next room."
There are -more- rooms?! Oh, this place is so big already. So much bigger than ho-... Than the warm place with the darkness. As the video begins to play its strange fluid noise, I peer around me, to the small doors on the odd walls, with their clear fingers to help open them, and to the hole that I fed, and the misty panes of the other wall. Just as the sounds finish their chime, which is boring and I can barely hear, another voice speaks to me.
The screen is not just a screen, but a scene. A man in a set of strange-looking soft things is standing on the screen, looking at me. He smiles, and I can feel my face move to frown. I know this man, but he is... not how I think he is. He is supposed to be moving around very fast and... And I can't remember what else. But he stands, still and calm, and speaks to me.
"Good morning, Subject!" Doesn't he know my name? Wasn't he listening to her when she was speaking? "Welcome to the Alpha Litany Station," he smiles. He said it wrong. Those words are out of order. Already, I feel upset and restless. Frustrated. This man is obviously not as smart as she is. "Here, you will be slowly reintroduced to your training program, which will take place over the span of several weeks, so please be patient."
As the words reach my ears and fill my head, I can think of little else other than how confusing this is. Where is she? Why isn't she telling me all of this? As I sit and wonder, I start to feel a little colder, now aware of the air coming from above my head. Looking up at it, it seems so plain and boring, but I can hear her breathing. She breathes so I can breathe, so I am glad to hear her breathing.
More of what he says eludes me, and I want to leave this room and see what the next one will be like. Will it be bigger? Will there be more water in it? The water is nice. It's so difficult to pay attention to him when he talks. All I hear is nonsenseh and it does little help me focus. By the time I finally summon my eyes and ears to pay attention to him, the scene comes to a close. He claps three times, calmly, and I feel a cool rush of energy fill my spine. It's not a good or a bad feeling, but a ... a something feeling. It means... It means that it's time to do something. I can't remember what, exactly.
"So, this concludes the overview portion of the reintroduction process. For now, MOIRA will help you become familiar with your new home until you are ready to begin your training." Home. This room is my home? No. More rooms are my home. Yes. Maybe. But, I'm relieved to hear that he won't be helping me anymore. She makes a much better helper, because she's soft-sounding and makes me think of warm things.
"Thank you for your dedication to Vercer Enterprises, and welcome to Project: Titan."
Those were the last words the man speaks to me during the moving scene. His video was filled with images of many faces and places and I didn't know what was going on. Only that I wasn't part of any of the video. Its collection of pictures and sounds make me seem so small and lost. Like I didn't belong with him or those other people. That feeling only spreads deeper within me, right to my chest and causes the strangest pain inside.
That pain is so sad to me. I don't want to feel like this anymore. I just want to go back to the seat in the wall and sit under the warm water. My face changes again, bunching up near the center of it, and a gentle burning something slips from my eyes. I couldn't see very well because of it. But it was because of that pain that it was happening. Just as the feeling seemed enough to make me want to be upset, she spoke to me. Her voice is so soothing and I can think of little else.
"Thank you for watching the module, Mister Krowe. You have been very patient. Would you like to eat now?"
Eat. Eating is something nice, I can tell. She says it like it's something we should do, so I smile and make my little noise. I want to be out of this chair and away from that screen where the man was. I want to go eat with her and not be alone. Along the other wall, near the tray, the misty panes open up and, like before, a new room appears! I rise from my seat, standing with tired but confident legs, and move to enter the next room.
Yes, I didn't want to be in here anymore, with the man, and the biting thing, and the feeling of being alone. She was all I needed, all I wanted, and she was everywhere.
...MOIRA must be my home.
I like my home.