Dav’s eyes adjusted to the light in the room, then his eyebrows shot up and his heart began pumping again, old stories he read now vivid in his panicking brain.
The room into which he was hauled like mere cargo by the black giant was, without a doubt, a medical room.
Considering the bed-like surface at the center, the banks of lights set into the ceiling and illuminating it, and the stark white walls, he could tell. The real kicker was the set of eight robotic arms, a set of four set in the base of the bed-table thing and another set in the ceiling, right above the bed.
Dav also remembered stories his dad told him about the early humans before the times of spaceflight, and how they would often sight what they called “UFO”s in the skies of old Terra.
According to dad, those were aliens who would abduct cows and farmers to probe their anal cavities – why? Dav didn’t know – but he did know that he was decidedly NOT going to have ANYTHING put up his rear-end outside of a seedy club and without a high-enough blood alcohol level.
As the black giant brought the hovering cage near the table, Dav prepared – he would wait until the field dropped, then would make a run for it.
Unfortunately, once the force field keeping him in his awkward sitting position on the hovering plate-cage device went down, he immediately shot up – and straight into the waiting metal grip of the black giant, who picked up the desperately struggling spaceman like a mewling kitten, and laid him back-first on the table. The four lower arms immediately took hold of Dav’s four limbs, their grip not painful but firm, locking him in place in an X-shape.
As he saw in terror the four hanging arms descend, he felt a sharp prick in the back of his neck, spreading warmth and the marching of ants on his skin, and then blacked out.
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IT was asleep – for how long? Only dating the carbon atoms on its skin would show.
IT was the guardian, the custodian entrusted with the Task, the greatest one and the last one.
IT failed.
The Core became unstable, the dimensional rift lost harmony with the wavelength of this reality, resulting in what was almost a Hypernova-sized explosion that would’ve wiped his charge from existence – and while the Ward was safe, almost all power was lost. Only a rudimentary backup generator was left inside the Workshop, a pet project of one of the engineers, and it was failing.
In a few dozen rotations of the nearest star, all power would be lost, and the Ward would be gone with it.
And then, from absolutely nowhere, a spatial anomaly associated with rudimentary and inefficient jump drives had appeared within IT’s scanner range.
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Considering data from the passive scans it could still perform, it seemed that a small vessel had made its way into the Zone of Denial by sheer cosmic coincidence – and moreover, it had on board an impressive energy reading.
IT saw the hand of hope, reaching from the stars.
IT would NOT be denied.
The Ward must be secured.
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IT was befuddled.
On board the vessel was a sentient life-form.
It was busy repairing what appeared to be battle damage on its vessel. Once it was done, it used a crude sensor array to scan the nearby space.
IT immediately disabled the passive nullification on ITs skin, the ancient form emerging once more into the visible spectrum. IT felt shame over the condition of ITs being, the lack of maintenance leaving room for dilapidation – it, however, had been a necessity.
Maintenance of non-critical elements was a frivolity in the eyes of the Task.
The sentient detected IT, as planned, and began heading toward IT. Obviously, the being was desperate to seek direct contact with IT. Only a fool would not.
As it came into range of the tractor beam, IT opened the main entrance to the Hangar, frustrated at the fact that only a fraction could be fully opened. Things have fallen to greater disrepair than IT had known.
Upon successful capture of the vessel, IT had a dilemma.
The Rules were clear on this.
There MUST be consent, mutual and indisputable.
The sentient, already in the hangar deck, crudely damaged its vessel – IT was in awe of the disrespect! The sheer audacity! How DARE the puny organic being treat his vessel as such! Surviving such hardship and yet still ferrying over to relative safety, and this was its reward?
For shame!
Upon closer consideration, it seemed the vessel was completely dead.
ITs indignant rage subsided. While it was not operational anymore, IT would recover and curate the data on-board. IT was in awe of the barbarity the universe had fallen into after so long.
A service and security unit closed in on the sentient and secured it, transporting it to a medical chamber for processing and decontamination – who know where it’d been before entering IT? At the very least, it was vacuum-sealed. Thank the stars for small mercies.
A Nano-machine swarm descended on the damaged vessel and consumed the electronics, instantly transmitting the data on-board.
IT now knew the sentient being’s language. This would be helpful in the following endeavors.
Focusing back on the being, IT had ordered the operation theater to restrain the being.
Rudimentary scans showed what biometric data from the craft indicated to be severe damage from drug abuse, injury, and even crude alterations to its body using grotesque implants.
Apparently this race took pleasure in self-mutilation.
IT ordered the Process of Implantation to begin – soon, a needle implanted itself at the base of the creature’s main biological Central Processing Unit, spreading the Nano-machines throughout it and the rest of the body. A quick reading of the biological data capsule from a few thousand cells, called DNA in their simple language, allowed it to begin the restoration and improvement of the body – IT was in shock that so much junk data was present on the DNA strands! So much room for improvement!
As they coursed through the creature’s body, the machines consumed the crude implants – those basic things seemed to produce certain chemicals near its waste-disposal and water reclamation organs, as well as allow its biological CPU – its brain – to conduct rudimentary interaction with biological-synthetic interfaces.
IT was in awe – did the thing actually crack open its head for those things to be put in there?
This species were barbarians, indeed.
As the Procedure concluded, a few upgrades added along the way, IT was satisfied.
This creature was now, at the very least, suitable.
Disposing of the rags it came in, IT had proper attire placed in a nearby sleeping space, and had the Candidate delivered and placed on top of the bed.
Once it woke up, IT would have words with the creature.