First Contact
An Apex Short Story
-by Ninmast Nunyabiz-
The first sound was the cold hiss of air, then there was a lurching sensation and she was falling. By the time the sensation of touch returned to her, she was on hard tile.
Suddenly, her body realized that it wasn’t breathing, and with an involuntary heave, metallic air filled her lungs. The sudden motion drove her into a coughing fit as she automatically rolled onto her elbows and knees to better hack and spew. So severe was the fit that she felt as if she’d vomit, but apparently there was nothing on her stomach to eject.
Once her breathing stabilized, her body realized it was cold. And, finally, as she staggered to her feet and ran the hands of her crossed arms over her naked shoulders, she realized that she, too, was bare.
A blinking, green light caught her attention and drew her gaze ahead of her. A line of lockers were built directly into the metal wall. Each one had a name plate bolted to it. The one with the light read, “Jones, A.”
She lunged forward and gripped the handle with stiff fingers. It opened with a jerk as she yanked on it. Inside were only two items, a jumpsuit and an earpiece.
She fumbled with the suit, desperate to get some clothing on and chase the chill from her damp skin. It resisted her in her urgency, clinging to her flesh and clumping up. By the time she finished getting it and its accompanying boots into place, she slumped against the locker, panting as if she just wrestled a bear.
On the upside, the vigorous activity had finally built up body heat, and the hallway was feeling much more comfortable. She estimated the temperature to be about seventy degrees Fahrenheit, maybe a little under, just on the nippy side for being made of metal and without any windows. Especially for finding herself without anything but her birthday suit.
At the reminder, she turned her attention once more to the far wall, the one she’d started with her back toward. The one she had to have come from.
It was a blank, featureless wall, smooth and notably concave. There was no door or any other aperture that might have regurgitated her so rudely. The only hint was a rail system along the top of the wall, its thick, twin bars apparently meant for transporting something heavy. Whatever that something might have been had long departed.
With nothing else to see, she pulled herself back to her feet and, remembering the earpiece, grabbed it and hooked it to the left side of her head.
The device beeped when she tapped it, gave a short chime, and emitted the first voice she had heard in here besides her own. It was a woman’s voice, but it was clearly artificial, with a halting manner of speaking typical of generated audio.
“Connection detected. Accessing. Good morning, [Ashley]. Please proceed to the [Atrium] for [Orientation].”
Venturing to hope the machine was listening, she spoke back. “Who is this?”
“This is your Facility Management AI for [Preservation Base] [U-S-12]. It is a pleasure to meet you, [Miss] [Jones]. Please proceed to the [Atrium] for [Orientation].”
A pleasure, indeed, she thought with a scoff. The canned, automated response grounded her more than she expected. The fakeness had a sense of reality everything else happening to her was too surreal to impart.
It also gave her crucial information. She was in Preservation Base US-12. That may have seemed like an empty statement, since the AI had just said that, but far more could be inferred from that simple statement.
A preservation base was clearly some sort of emergency shelter, and there were at least twelve of them across the United States. If she was in an emergency shelter, it followed that there had been some kind of emergency. She must have been brought here with others as a result.
Try as she might, she couldn’t recall being picked up, or of any sort of imminent crisis. In fact, even the previous day was fuzzy and hard to nail down, but that may have been a result of whatever they’d done to her in transit.
What kind of crises were pending that could have triggered such a facility’s activation? This preservation base was clearly no mere storm shelter. Climate change? Too slow. What was fast? She couldn’t recall any incoming ‘roids on the news, and anyone with nukes were as chill as they always were, only trading a few meaningless barbs when they were feeling their old Cold War oats.
She walked onwards as she chased these thoughts, heading toward the only visible door, which opened at her approach. This led to another nondescript hallway with more doors. She opted to keep going straight, as it made sense that an atrium wouldn’t be a side room.
She thought she would keep walking for some time, but soon found herself in a large room, able to hold two dozen people comfortably. There were about that many chairs, all oriented toward a podium.
However, the main lights were all off, only having the dim emergency lights she’d been navigating by.
“Hey, Manager,” she tried, “no one else is here.”
“Hello, [Ashley],” it answered back through the earpiece. “I understand your statement to be requesting the location of other facility personnel. Is this correct?”
“Yes, please.”
“Remaining personnel of [Preservation Base] [U-S-12] are en route to the [Atrium] for [Orientation.] Please proceed to the [Atrium] for [Orientation].”
“I’m already here.”
“Congratulations on being the first to arrive.”
She moved over to the seats and took one in the back row, rocking back and forth for a bit in silence. It wasn’t long before she could bear the dark, empty room no longer.
“Manager, what happened that we were brought to this emergency shelter?”
“I am sorry, but I do not have any data on events outside of the facility, [Ashley]. Such questions will be answered at [Orientation].”
“If orientation is about to happen, why are the lights off?”
“Do you want the lights turned on, [Ashley]?”
“Yes, please.”
The flipping of switches sounded like breakers in the silent atrium as row after row of LED lights came on to illuminate the room.
“Why weren’t they already on,” she asked next.
“Standard operation procedure is that all nonessential systems are to remain offline to conserve resources until a ranking administrator requests otherwise.”
Ranking administrator? “Is that me?”
“[Ashley] [Jones] is currently the highest-ranking active member within this facility.”
Well, that didn’t sound good. “And what is my rank?”
“Your rank is [Resident].”
Well, crud. She was either in a horror flick, or she was the only one up and around in this place. Either way, she was probably in serious trouble.
“Manager, do I have access to the facility exit?”
“As the ranking officer, you have access to all non-classified base operations and functions. This includes the exit.”
“Guide me there.”
More walking followed, including some stairs, but she was quickly getting the idea that the preservation base wasn’t very big. It didn’t take long for her to come to a stop before an airlock, not unlike she might expect to see on a spaceship.
... There’s a possibility she hadn’t considered.
“Manager, where is Preservation Base US-12 located?”
“According to your records, [Ashley], you would recognize the location of [Preservation Base] [U-S-12] as being in [Illinois].”
“According to my records? Why? Is it called something else now?”
“I have no data on the current nomenclatural status of anything outside of the facility.”
She sighed. “Of course you don’t.”
Still, at least she now knew she wasn’t in space or underwater. In fact, she wasn’t far from home, relatively speaking.
More concerning was the language the AI kept using. Base, rank, officer, classified. It all sounded like a military operation. And not the National Guard.
“Is it safe to go outside?”
“Radiation levels [Nominal]. Weather [Cloudy]. Temperature [65-F]. Air pressure [Normal]. You will not die from exposure.”
A little chilly, then, but nothing a Chicago resident wasn’t familiar with.
“Let me out.”
“Warning. [Ashley] [Jones], leaving the facility would disconnect you from the facility management AI.”
“Would I reconnect upon returning, or is it permanent?”
“Reconnection would occur automatically so long as you are connected to your aural module.”
“So long as I’m wearing my earpiece,” she summarized.
“Correct.”
“I don’t intend to go far. I just want to see what we’re working with, check for immediate threats and resources, that kind of thing.”
“Understood. [Resident] [Ashley] [Jones] is dispatching on a [Reconnaissance] mission. Cycling airlock. Good luck, [Miss] [Jones].”
“Thank you, Manager.”
* * *
Tomb worlds. Planets that once held thriving civilizations until untold catastrophe struck. Their people extinct, their surfaces remained covered with the ruins of the cities that had gone from thriving metropolii to mass graves.
Sometimes, the death throes of an entire civilization took centuries. Other times, it was over in a relative instant. Xenoarcheologists like Weltik D’jenn always hoped for the rarer latter, as it meant a clearer glimpse into the normal daily lives of the native people.
Unfortunately, the quick route often involved mass destruction, such as from cataclysmic tectonic movements or meteor strikes. Such events left precious little to recover next to the relative whole that was lost.
It felt wrong to wish deadly plagues on an entire civilization, but it was often the best outcome for those of his occupation. Even if they were transmissable across extraplanetary species, such diseases often have long died off with their hosts by the time a tomb world is discovered, or are a miniscule challenge for modern Union medical science.
The planet filling his vision as he stood on the viewing deck was looking like one such golden find. Infrastructure was mostly intact. Scans showed roads, communication towers, even a number of massive structures that, given their far greater age, seemed to be historic monuments of their own. The only real damage was the odd power generation facility that seemed to have been left running and failed spectacularly in the intervening span of time.
The native species had actually been remarkably advanced for a tomb world. Normally, the civilizations that had been so destroyed were more primitive ones with no capacity to adapt or save themselves. Coming into the system, however, they encountered undeniable signs of space flight. Now over the planet, the science ship could pick up signs of lightspeed communication networks, subatomic power generation and a nearly global data network supplemented by low altitude laser satellites.
It was sobering to realize that this was a society that might have been joining the Galactic Union, if only they’d held out for another couple centuries. He’d have to pour one out for the friends he’d never meet. Now, they’ll only be known in a museum.
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The clanking of Defender power armor drew the doctor from his thoughts as a large biped made even larger by his metal suit came to a stop next to him.
“Time to go, Doctor,” Resh told him, his voice, like most of his race, far softer than one might expect from his size. It came from their sensitive ears, tuned to pick up subtle vibrations in the wind. They often expressed that talking to other species felt like having to shout all of the time. “If we don’t leave now, we’ll miss our drop window.”
“Straight down, right?”
“More or less.”
Weltik had the screen before him zoom in on the planet below. They were above a particularly large urban sprawl that they had picked mostly out of convenience. The next one of similar size would be nearly a decisol and a half away if they wanted to avoid changing orbit. It was the perfect place to dive head first into this alien culture.
He swept the screen away and turned from the strikingly blue sphere filling the window. After all, he’d be seeing it much closer in just a handful of minutes.
“Alright, let’s not keep the dead waiting, then.”
* * *
A Walmart! She never thought she’d be so grateful to lay eyes on one! Or something like it, she didn’t actually recognize the chain. The layout, however, was unmistakable as that of an all-in-one supercenter.
It was devoid of people. There were a few cars in the parking lot, but they’d been there long enough to look ... old. Their polished shine was gone and several were working on a patina of rust. Of course, that wasn’t much of an indicator if this really did draw the same customer base as a Walmart, but even the building seemed worn down, its colors faded.
She went straight for the clothes. The jumpsuit was fine for inside the bunker, but the air outside was colder, with a stubborn wind that seemed determined to penetrate her one layer of clothing. She worried the clothes would be moth- and rat-eaten, but if she could find anything clean and intact enough, it would be nothing but improvement. Fortunately, they largely seemed in good condition, and even if they were a little threadbare, more layers were better than less.
Once she was properly clothed, she started scouting for usable supplies. Maybe the facility had stockpiles, but there was something off about it that she didn’t quite trust. So she grabbed flashlights, batteries that didn’t seem bursted, a couple knives, an ax. She didn’t know what she might ultimately need, so she threw it all in a cart like she was going on a shopping spree.
She was navigating the canned and preserved foodstuffs when she heard a noise that wasn’t from her. It sounded like footsteps ... and talking. She couldn’t make out what they were saying, but they weren’t making any effort to be quiet. One could get the impression that they thought they had the whole world to themselves.
Oh, it wouldn’t do well if it turned out this place wasn’t closed, after all. She had no money! But no, this place was clearly abandoned. Foodstuffs were rotted away, and dust and grime coated everything. Maybe they were here for the same reason she was. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t gladly take what she had gathered.
She pulled the ax from her cart, adjusting her grip on the haft for a moment, and then made her quiet way toward the voices.
* * *
“Look at it, Resh! A centralized economy! Long-distance communication! Motorized vehicles! Though I have to admit, detonating petroleum is an odd choice, but what creativity!”
Resh wasn’t the only one that didn’t seem as enthusiastic as Doctor D’jenn. The other Defender, a medic, was of a lupine race, and looked perpetually as if she expected a ghost to jump out at her. Only his assistant, an AI student that wasn’t currently projected, took notes as enthusiastically as he made his observations.
There were others, of course, but they remained on the ship in orbit until the safety of the landing zone could be confirmed. Weltik would also be determining where best it would be to build their base camp. He was thinking the parking lot would be ideal, in fact. Right in the middle of all of these relics, while safe from trampling on them by the natives’ own design.
The lupine girl stopped short, followed by Resh a moment later. “Biosigns, Doctor,” the large, bull-like man explained while bringing a protective arm down in front of him.
“All of the dividers must have been interfering with the passive scanners,” the lupine agreed.
Weltik turned with the two of them, unfathomably curious as to what the first lifeform he’d see on this alien planet would be.
... He wasn’t prepared.
“Is that an Undpani?” Resh guessed.
“Did someone slip down from the ship with us?” the lupine tried.
It certainly looked like a female Undpani, Weltik agreed, but she had no tail and was dressed in clothing of a style he didn’t recognize. No, that wasn’t true, he did recognize it. They were the same style sold in this very store.
Also, she was carrying a two-handed ax.
Fortunately, Weltik didn’t feel threatened by her. Instead, she looked as bewildered to see them as they were to see her.
“Well, there’s an easy enough way to tell if she is or not,” he ventured, and before Resh could stop him, he took a step forward and put forth a limb in greeting. “Hello, there, Miss! You’re most certainly not one of ours, are you?”
* * *
They weren’t human. Oh, they were definitely humanoid. Two eyes, two arms, two legs. She could tell at a glance that all three were different species, however. One was a rabbit girl with a backpack of supplies, another was a cow man with long, thin, almost antenna-like ears. The last, the one talking, seemed almost the most human, but his nose was slitted, and when he removed his hat, she saw ridges on his head, like cornrows made of scales. Some sort of strong-jawed lizardman, then.
And he was talking to her. Not that it did any good. It wasn’t English, or anything else she could have possibly recognized.
Well, if he was going to try, might as well return the favor. She put on her best smile. “Sorry, Mr. Ford! Afraid I don’t know where to find that Ark you’re looking for!”
She watched on as they turned back to speak amongst each other again. After a moment, the lizard guy turned toward her again, hands held out to either side as if he wanted to avoid startling her.
He spoke in soft tones, making his voice as soothing as possible. The act made her frown.
“I’m not a stray cat, Doc.”
Of course, her words didn’t mean anything more to him than his did to her, but the rabbit chick made some sort of noise that sounded a bit like a giggle and then said something that made the lizard man frown strikingly similar to how she had. The sight made her laugh, too.
... But, wait, the rabbit didn’t sound like she was using the same language as the lizard, either, yet they could understand each other? Were they just all polyglots, or were they all running Google Translate instead of changing languages?
Languages ... Yeah, this was going nowhere unless she could get a basic language working between them.
Ah! This store would actually have just the thing! She got their attention and waved for them to follow her.
* * *
Fearless.
That was the one word that came to Weltik’s mind as they followed the native through the marketplace’s aisles. She was searching for something she wanted them to see, that much was plain, but what struck him was how fearless she was. She didn’t even balk at Resh, and the man was massive even without power armor.
On that note, she didn’t even react to the power armor. Not that armor, itself, was likely an uncommon concept, but Resh had been messing with the readout on his gauntlet, and the girl hadn’t given it more than a passing glance, like she understood what she was seeing. Fascinating.
The native made a sound when she looked down one aisle and sped up, but it only took rounding the same corner for him to understand.
“Books!” he proclaimed, and couldn’t help belting out a laugh. “You little genius!”
The young woman seemed to understand that he understood and gave an expression in response, then held out a fist with her thumb up in the air, presumably some celebratory gesture.
He turned to the other two with him to share the joy, but they just looked confused.
“What good are books if we can’t read them?”
“That’s just it,” he gushed. “I’ll bet she’s brought us to an educational section!” He began to peruse the books, to see if he could determine where to start. “We just have to find one that starts from the beginning and--”
The native said something to get their attention and pulled out a colorful book with thick, cardboard-like pages. It was grimy with age, but there was no doubting what it was. He laughed again. “One step ahead of me, aren’t you?!”
He flipped through a few of the pages. Single characters paired to simple pictures. This must have been their alphabet.
“Sinney, come out and take a look at this,” he insisted.
There was a flash of light beside him, and what appeared to be a woman of his species stood in previously open space, except she was ever so slightly translucent.
Oh, Sinney wasn’t actually there, of course. Technically, the AI was still on the ship, but that wasn’t much of a burden for her. She could transmit her likeness through his remote emitter and act as if she were actually with them.
A moment later, it occurred to him how it might startle the native, and jerked his head to check on her, afraid she might bolt, but she was just looking at Sinney as if she was trying to figure out if the hologram was really there or not.
Fearless. Truly.
“What do you need, Doc?” his assistant asked.
He held the book out toward her, flipping through the pages. “We need to reconstruct this native’s language as soon as possible. This is their alphabet.”
Sinney looked from the book to the native. “Have you tried Undpani?”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “She isn’t Undpani!” He motioned toward her irritably. “The ears are wrong and she has no tail! Also, her front teeth are for chopping. Undpa teeth are all grinders for nuts and stalks. Probably has a diverse diet. Now pay attention to this book!”
He could flip through the pages quickly for her, since she could read faster than organics, but that wouldn’t help with the phonetics.
Again, the native was ahead of him. She pointed to each letter and pronounced it clearly. She understood that Sinney didn’t need in-depth instruction, too. Then she brought over more books, each building upon the last.
It would have been extremely hard for an organic to pick up the language, especially with few common references. They understood bread and vehicles and computers, but many references were to native produce and creatures, relying on ubiquity to teach children that would have grown up surrounded by such things.
Linguistic analysis was Sinney’s forte, however. It took the better part of two decisols, but finally she announced that she was ready to attempt communication with the native girl.
* * *
She was more convinced than ever that these were aliens, not just mutant animals. Heck, they didn’t even know what a cow was, and they had one with them! At least the rabbit girl recognized the rabbit in the kids’ book.
But the holographic woman could read fast. She was pretty sure the woman was actually an AI, and way smoother and smarter than Miss Manager. The woman tore through every language resource she could find in record time.
Admittedly, that record still felt awfully slow, but it was fun to help teach her language to someone else.
Soon, the AI said something to the others, and they got quiet, focusing on the pair. So they were ready, were they? Alright. She gave the woman a patient smile and waited for her first words in English.
“Hello,” the woman started. “My name is Sinnelen. Please call me Sinney. What is your name?” It was slow, experimental, but sounded natural.
Her smile widened. “Hello, Sinney. My name is Ashley. Please call me Ash. Am I right that you are an artificial intelligence?”
Sinney’s eyes bulged quite convincingly. “You are so advanced?”
She started to shake her head, but decided to stick with words. “No. We have a basic imitation, but it can’t think for itself. It can only imitate according to its instructions.”
“Ah, yes, we call that virtual intelligence, I think is how it would translate. What happened to your planet?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I didn’t even know it was like this everywhere. I just woke up near here and it was like this.”
The back and forth continued amicably for some time. With Sinney as the translator, Ash was introduced to each of the aliens. Most notable among them was Dr. Weltik D’jenn, an introduction that did nothing to stop her making mental comparisons with a certain whip-wielding character of essentially the same profession.
Actually, Dr. D’jenn was excited at the news that her people already had a hearty appreciation for archaeology, and she fished him out a book on world history for when he had some down time.
Her guess about translators was essentially spot on, as well. They each had micro-transceivers implanted into their language centers that translated what they read and heard in real time to their own languages. It was so common a practice as to be standard across their systems, and it wasn’t even considered a surgery. A little injection into your temple, and bammo, the linguistic world was your oyster.
She very eagerly expressed a desire to go with them, and given the state of the planet, they were inclined to agree. It would fall under the definition of a mission of mercy, and would allow her to claim asylum within the Galactic Union. But first, they wanted to see where she’d woken up.
So she led the way back toward the bunker, chatting casually with Sinney all the while.
Unfortunately, when she tried the door, it refused to open. She tried several buttons on the side, but nothing responded.
“Well, this is embarrassing,” she told her new friends. “Let me see if I’m getting signal out here.”
She tapped the earpiece she still had in so she wouldn’t lose it. “Manager, are you there?”
The response was immediate, if a little staticky. “Welcome back, [Miss] [Jones]. Was your mission successful?”
“I’d say so, but the door isn’t responding.”
“I’m sorry, [Ashley], but a ranking officer ordered the exit sealed.”
“Others are awake now, after all?!” She’d half thought she’d woken up in a tomb, the only one alive.
“Yes. I regret to inform you that you have missed [Orientation].”
“That’s okay,” she insisted. “I’ve got some big news. Could you patch me through to whoever’s in charge now? Tell them it’s critical.”
“One moment. Contacting [Colonel] [Marcus] [Thomas]. Please wait.”
“Huh, two first names,” she mused. “Go figure ...”
The facility management’s voice came back a few moments later. “Apologies, [Miss] [Jones]. The recipient has declined your call. I have been directed to inform you that you have been registered as [Contaminated] and are to be quarantined from the rest of the base until further notice.”
“Quarantined?!” she raged back. “How?”
“You will not be permitted to return to the interior of the bunker. I apologize for the inconvenience. Your personal belongings will be stored pending your return.”
“How will I know when that will be?”
A hatch folded out near the main door. Inside was a rectangular box, about five inches long, four wide, and two thick. “This is a [Signal Repeater] for your aural module. The [Signal Repeater] will extend the range that your aural module will be able to receive simple messages.”
Ash turned it over in her hands. “How far?”
“The low-frequency signal used to communicate between the [Signal Repeater] and [Preservation Base] [U-S-12] has an effective range of approximately [Two Thousand] [Miles]. You will need to be within [Two Thousand] [Five Hundred] [Feet] of the [Signal Repeater] for your aural module to receive any incoming messages.”
* * *
In a depressing turn of events, their new friend, Ashley, a “human,” had been rejected from her tribe before ever even meeting them, all because she met citizens of the Galactic Union first. This behavior was troubling to Dr. D’jenn. It suggested a deep paranoia toward outsiders that contrasted directly with the open and curious nature displayed by the female they’d met.
She tried to rationalize it away, an admirable trait, but he could tell that she had been shocked, surprised, and even hurt by it. That meant that the behavior was radically unexpected from the norm for her society, and from an authority figure, no less. He worried what it would mean for the other residents under this two-named figure’s care.
Unfortunately, they could do nothing about it. How a non-Union world governed its affairs was outside of their own authority. Now truly a refugee, all they could do was take Ashley with them, and call the entire expedition off. After all, it could no longer be registered as a tomb world, which meant the locals had to sign off on any such studies. Given the response just to Ashley coming back, he didn’t see that happening.
Resh looked the signal repeater over while the ship doctor was getting Ashley her very own translator implant. Contrary to his appearance, the man was a whiz with technology, and he thought he could set up a relay of their own. They all got the impression that Ashley’s exile was permanent, but it couldn’t hurt to set up a dedicated FTL relay in case a signal ever did come through. That it only had to be one-way was a blessing, it meant they could get around some red tape.
All in all, Weltik figured there had to have been rougher first contacts than one that ended with a new acquaintance. Her intellectual performance ratings were looking excellent, too. She was already talking about getting into a Union university and studying AI. No doubt she’d have no end of questions for Sinney. At least the girl’s spirits were staying high.
With one extra crewmember than it arrived with, the science vessel dropped a small beacon into the upper atmosphere and turned away from the blue planet. It cantered out past the first asteroid belt - yes, first; the system had an unheard-of three such belts, even with so many planets - before engaging its FTL drive.
The trip back to Galactic Union space had just started. And, as Dr. D’jenn leaned back in his quarters and opened the history book Ashley had given him, he had a feeling that the open-minded human was going to make a real splash when she made her debut.