Chapter Text
It began with a simple plan.
Well, maybe not the simplest, but it was somewhat a plan.
Drop on the planet. Find out what happened. Leave.
Maybe I didn’t really think about how I’d leave it— I guess I figured future me would have that handled. And I guess I was right. Future me did, more or less, “have it handled.”
Did I expect to find sentient life? Maybe. Did I expect it to be a hyperintelligent lifeform humanity has been hunting for remnants of for years? No.
Did I expect to go home with him? Definitely not.
I’m still reeling from it. All of it. It’s such a blur now, and it practically just happened.
This “he” I spoke of.
He’s an Architect, as we call them, and one of the last few of his kind despite his insistence of their superiority over humans.
His name—derived from his “seed designation code” (whatever the fuck that is), is Al-An.
Pronounced weirdly. So I just say Alan. It’s a bit more comfortable for me to say, and admittedly less embarrassing.
Now, I’ll keep this as short as possible, how I learned he existed and much less met him.
I, Robin Ayou, crashed dropped onto 4546B’s northern polar region and went on my way collecting this and that to get along, as one does when self-stranded on an ocean planet. A frozen part of it, hurray.
(Thank god for that wetsuit. It insulates very well.)
I went there to find out for myself what happened to my older sister, Sam. She’d worked for that scumbag trans-gov Alterra, and they had the absolute nerve to say “Hey, sorry your sister died, she was a dumb bitch lmao.”
… Well, they didn’t exactly say that. But they might as well have!
While swimming around trying to keep my hair in the length my hairdresser had just trimmed it to-- not any shorter, like a lot of big stupid fish wanted— I happened upon a distress call. The classic SOS morse code, no less.
I really should ask him about how he knows that.
Bing bang boom, this aggravatingly smooth British (???) voice starts talking to me all disembodied and ethereal-like, asking for a storage medium. He thought that my cerebral cortex was counted as better than my stinkin’ PDA. So he was in my head for… a while.
I’ll admit. Despite his voice, he was annoying for a while. Maybe I had a little sass too, but he didn’t really notice, usually.
He needed a new body, and after some strangely poetic talk about his people, I caved and helped him build one. He’d grown on me.
Not that I still appreciate the extent of which he snooped into my head, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the fact that someone knew me that well after all this time. The last person I cared about that deeply died trying to save humanity from another bacterial outbreak, or whatever Alterra wanted to do with those green bastards.
Always sticking their noses where they shouldn’t. I hope they get bitten one day.
I built his body (dear lord, his body was not what I pictured it would be…) and he wanted to leave. I’d done everything I could on 4546B, so when he invited me to come along with him, I did.
I noticed something, when we were readying the ship and forward.
He’d gotten sweeter. I don’t know what that means for an Architect, the fact that we were still “connected” in some fashion (as he put it) somewhat like the Network he’s a part of; does he crave that same feeling of at least one other soul’s music? Maybe. Maybe not. For a man— or, sorry, alien— of bluntness, he sure does like clamming up.
I don’t blame him. I respect it. If he wants to wait to tell me something, I trust him to.
I digress— the thing I noticed. The sweetness.
She noticed it when he offered his magnetic robotic arms to her, to help him put the power masts into place.
Would someone who considers himself superior to a lifeform like Robin usually do that? Maybe. But logically, it was unlikely. Yet, he did it anyway. That showed her trust.
Then that recollection reminded her of something he’d said earlier— something along the lines of “it will lead us home.” What was important was the pronoun he used there, and someone so particular about his vocabulary wouldn’t slip up if he didn’t mean to imply it was both his and Robin’s home.
That showed her connection.
It just spiraled from there, honestly.
“Join me, Robin.” (attachment?)
“I’d help you to your feet…” (compassion?)
And then, the one that made her breath hitch— from the surprise, of course— “With you, I am ready to face whatever awaits.”
She doesn’t know what that last one shows her. The back of her head probably does, but it doesn’t like to tell her those sorts of things.
Who knew I’d become emotionally connected to a member of an ancient alien race?
The things that planet will do to you, I guess.
He took her to his home world.
It’s beautiful.
The architecture— no pun intended— it’s wonderful. Nothing human-like. Gravity is flipped around and everything is in sync.
They landed. He got back into his body and, lo and behold, actually walked alongside a dazzled Robin instead of blinking around, despite the fact that his body– according to her PDA– was not designed for classic quadrupedal walking. She’s thankful (and perhaps a tad flattered) nonetheless, for running after him after a month or so of constant swimming would prove a sore attempt.
“Are you scared?” she asks with a light, soft tone.
“I do not feel fear in the primitive sense you may, so I do not believe so.”
She scoffs.
“Al-An, I think I’ve demonstrated enough how humans aren’t primitive anymore.”
“Yes, but your sense of fear is for survival purposes. My life is in no danger here.”
“Not fear like that. Fear like, um… Okay, better words. Nervous anticipation?”
“I do not know,” his lights pulsate with his voice, but he continues walking— and looking— forward.
“You’re really helpful. But then again, describing emotions isn’t exactly easy, either.” She mutters the last sentence, mostly to herself.
Something in his head whirs and his coloring shifts.
“I see what you are experiencing now. That is… somewhat accurate.”
Her head whips around to look up at him.
“You— how—?!”
“I have explained this, Robin. Our minds are still connected.”
“Wh— you can still tell what I’m feeling?”
“More or less. I suppose if your feelings are stronger, it will be easier.”
She shakes her head and sighs. A moment of silence passes and Robin contents herself with staring up and around at the graceful nature of the what appears to be city she’s walking through with a local.
Al-An speaks after said moment.
“Do you like it?”
She’s, quite honestly, surprised by that remark. Expecting him to care for her opinion on something he would normally consider superficial was unexpected, to say the least.
“Um, yes, I do. Your world is… breathtaking…”
He flashes a pinkish orange— pride, one can only assume.
“I am glad to see you find it pleasant.”
Again, she can only wonder why he gives a crap. But she knows she can’t say that, even though she knows he’ll answer. I’m not sure why I’m afraid to ask, then.
“What, uh, street are we walking through?” she quietly pipes.
He thinks for a moment, probably trying to figure out what street means. Big dummy.
“These buildings contain facilities that cultivate the seeds that become our vessels.”
“So… a nursery?”
“If you would like to call it that.”
“Why did you choose to walk this way?”
“If there is life, I will sense it in dormant seeds, or perhaps even in Architects watching over them. Either is good, but the latter is ideal.”
“Ooh, smart.”
“Was that sarcasm?”
“What? No! That was smart of you to do, Al-An. Not everything I say is sarcastic.”
“I see.”
“Why did you think it was?”
He’s kept his head forward this whole time, much to Robin’s strange disliking.
“You have a significant distaste for what you deem to be stupid questions or obvious answers. My answer was obvious, therefore I could predict a sarcastic response.”
Ouch.
“I… Sorry, Al-An. I’m sorry you’ve grown to think of me like that. Most of the time, I’m not being sarcastic, okay? That was one of the times.”
“What is the purpose of it, anyway?”
“Um, to express… annoyance?”
“You have been regularly annoyed with me, then?”
A pang of hurt drops her heart into her stomach for a moment.
“No, I haven’t. Maybe sometimes when we first met, but rarely as I got to know you.”
“Noted.”
She’s not sure what the ground here is made of, but it echoes such a nice clinking sound when he walks on it. It must be its own music when there are a lot of them, but then again, they like to blink rather than walk.
That being said…
“You’re walking with me. Why?”
“Robin, that was— as you tend to put it— a dumb question.”
Shock easily strikes her face (again). She promptly stifles the following laugh.
“Really? Why don’t you tell me why it was dumb, then?”
A flash of color goes by as he thinks, but she can’t decipher what hue it is nor what it might mean in time.
“You do not know this place. My more efficient method of transportation would be too tiring for you to keep up with, and you may be lost.”
His head tilts down in her direction, but not enough to count as facing. That’s something, she supposes.
“Ignoring what I should respond to there, logically, couldn’t I just run to you each time? Wouldn’t that still be faster?”
“You are damaging my reasoning.”
“Aw, what, does someone not like being wrong?”
A quick flash of yellow. Embarrassment?
Shoot, but he’s turned his head away again.
Yes, fine. Maybe I myself do want a little human connection too, even if it’s from this towering alien without facial features.
“I do not wish to share information about this anymore.”
“C’mon, please?” Robin pleads comically, then proceeds to skip around him as he walks. The mischief in her childhood may have never left.
He shakes his head.
“You are incessant.”
The human flashes a bright smile and starts skipping ahead of him.
“I do find enjoyment in your company, Robin. It is worth taking the time to walk alongside you.”
She almost trips from the inertia left over from her bounding when she halts in unconscious response.
“Oh…” she purses her lips, then lets the hiding smile emerge. “That’s sweet of you, Al-An. Thank you,” Robin grins, turning to face him.
He looks at her and goes blue. Happy.
But then he stops in his tracks.
Before she can ask, he answers.
“I am sensing… something…”
He dips his head in concentration, then the colors on his body go haywire and all of his formality goes out the fucking window.
“Others!! Robin!! Others are here!!!”
To her utter dismay and absolute delight, the lead honorable Architect scientist Al-An begins bounding around like a foal with the zoomies. She’s never seen him this excited and has to cover her mouth to resist smiling too wide in his view. But the joy is contagious. She closes her eyes from giddy laughter, partly from the sight and partly from the discovery, and somehow while in that state she is picked up by a pair of large claws and spun around.
Robin yelps from surprise but then begins to laugh, and he starts to as well, and even though she’s spinning, everything feels amazing. His claws (or pincers?) aren’t too tight around her waist and he quickly brings her to him as a sort of embrace that she promptly meets.
He puts his companion down, though, regardless of how painfully short that hug was.
Maybe I’ll ask him how he knew what that was later.
For now, she’s forced to run after him as he gallops over to a specific forcefield-protected archway, wondering why he used his arms instead of the wildly more useful mechanical ones to pick her up.
The lasers immediately shut off and he leaps inside, tilting his head once or twice— to hone in on the signal, probably— before absolutely booking it up a nearby path.
Robin is still surprised he isn’t using the whole blink thing. Surely this merits the speed?
Regardless, she makes it upstairs behind him, ignoring the aching in almost every muscle she has from the activity. He’s stopped in front of another doorway, lights tinted green. He looks at her as she eventually meets his side.
“Yes… nervous anticipation.”
“You ready?”
“Yes.”
But he still hesitates, then shifts to look at her again.
“Will you join me?”
“Of course!” Robin exclaims, as if this was obvious, but her words aren’t riddled with sarcasm– rather, a shared exhilaration.
He flashes blue again and struts in, toward the faint voices echoing past rows of small seeds. Al-An whispers that his people will not speak audibly for her, but he will share what it is they are saying after the fact. She thanks him with a pat to his arm.
They round a corner.
There they are.
Ten more Architects, varying in base skin tint and somewhat in build. They have all been facing where they emerged. They knew the two were coming.
A few seem to stare at the small being next to their kin, so out of pure shyness she steps closer to Al-An.
They’re communicating, yes, but it’s completely silent for her. Expected, yes, but still a bit awkward for Robin.
Their colors are all flashing and rippling, that's what gives it away that they’re talking, but she does wish they could maybe—
“Hello, human.”
Robin jumps in her skin upon hearing this other voice from an Architect with a more golden hue to its usual lighting and a slightly whiter shade of tissue.
“Ah— hi,” she quickly stutters, suddenly embarrassed at her lack of professionalism. Alas, the xenobiologist had never expected such a gold mine as is meeting not just one, but multiple intelligent, spacefaring aliens.
“Al-An here has informed us of your presence in retrieving him from the storage sanctuary on planet 4546B. He has requested we speak audibly for your convenience.”
“U-uhm, thank you.”
They look back up at the Architect she’s practically, and shamelessly, hiding behind.
“This is your… pet?”
She almost kicks Al-An, but he saves his ass very quickly.
“No, do not mistake her for such. She is not a pet, although I do care for her for the sake of doing so. She is not to be researched; all needed and updated information on female humans will be shared with you.”
Still bad, but not kick worthy. She lets it slide.
“Understood,” says another.
“She has a name?”
“Yes.”
He looks at her and his lights go blue.
“Her name is Robin.”
“And we take it that she has subdued another possible outbreak of the Kahraa?”
“Yes, she has.”
“What use is she to you now, then?” Another asks.
She starts to shrink away, but a mechanical hand is gently placed on her shoulder.
“She saved me. We have interests in similar realms. She is intelligent and practical. She is, by no means, inefficient, Hect-Or,” Al-An juts his head slightly forward, accusatively, toward a greener Architect who suddenly flushes with color.
Like my face… Why’s he being so… compliment-y?
This better not be a trophy thing, I swear to God.
“It is good to see your face again, Al-An. We were concerned that all of the data collected on 4546B’s research party had been lost.”
“I am very happy to see that our species has not fallen. Are there more of us elsewhere?”
“Yes, we believe so. For now, however, we must cultivate the next generation.”
Robin places a hand on Al-An’s side and whispers to him after he, in response to her touch, cocks his head down to look at her.
“Do they know that there’s a cure now?”
It seems he doesn’t know, as he immediately asks.
“Are you still searching for a cure to the Kahraa bacterium?”
“Yes, unfortunately. We have only been able to synthesize bases that slow the progression of the disease.”
“The humans have developed a vaccine. The enzyme we were attempting to collect from the Sea Emperor was released over the planet centuries after the quarantine occurred.”
Colors rush through the other Architects. Embarrassment? Shock? Who knows.
“We do not know the exact means of how such a thing happened. I am sure it is spreading slower as a result, and Robin here can likely share the components as to its synthesis.”
She nods. The human doesn’t feel like talking, suddenly.
Strange, I know. Completely out of character for me.
“It is… quite surprising, in all honesty, that such an inadequate species managed to do such a thing.”
I take back my last thought. I have some words for that guy.
Al-An beats her to it. And says it much more politely than Robin would’ve.
“As I have said, the humans are proving themselves not as primitive as we previously believed. Although their ball-and-socket joints are still limiting, they appear to have ‘made do.’”
The group seems to contemplate things for a moment. One, with a notably more feminine voice, eventually steps forward toward the two.
“You have been disconnected from our Network for so long, Al-An, may we remedy that?”
“Please. It has been… so silent and lonely, here in my mind,” he tilts his head down again, “I am lucky to have found such companionship with Robin here.”
Now he’s making me blush. Sentimental bastard.
That same Architect comes forward enough so Robin takes it as a cue to step out of the way. She waits.
Al-An bows his head, exposing the glowing parts of the tips of his horns that the other meets with her own. Robin takes a mental note of that, her researching urge having never worn off.
Al-An seems to shiver (?) and the female shakes her head to rub some electricity off between them. Al-An freezes, but regains his composure quickly, although Robin is not entirely sure why he responded like that. More notes are scribbled down in her head.
His shoulders relax and he buzzes with a sound that she has come to recognize as the precursor equivalent to a sigh or purr.
“It is good to be fully aligned again.”
Nobody responds to him, though, and somehow Robin can sense the slight stress that suddenly hikes up from him.
“What are they doing?"
“They are analyzing my data,” Al-An mutters.
“…"
It takes her a moment to realize why he’s distressed.
“Oh. They’re…”
“They will know. Yes.”
As if to discuss, or download, or whatever it is, the group leaves the room.
“But— they’ll understand, right? Haven’t you made it better now?”
“I do not believe it is logical, Robin, to forgive someone for the deaths of hundreds upon billions of your own kind just for discovering that there is a cure floating around. Even if I had discovered said cure, they are not bound to be ‘happy’ with me.”
He makes a very foreboding point.
“It’s… it would be inefficient to punish you for that, though, right? With how little of your kind is left, every Architect counts!”
He’s quiet. His lights go dim and guilty and afraid.
“…Right?”
“They are clearly managing on their own. It is likely that I will be confiscated after all useful data is uploaded,” he almost rasps.
Those words sinking in hit her in the gut and chest like a cold laser. Al-An’s head dips.
“N… no, no. That’s stupid. They can’t—“
She starts to whisper-yell, but he suddenly turns and looks at her with piercing, bright, flashing colors of harsh fear and mumbles with force, “They will do what they deem best for the continuation of my species. The individual is less important than the community. You must understand that this is how we function.”
“But that doesn’t mean it’s right, Al-An!” She grits her teeth and sneers, “Look at yourself. Look at what you’re feeling. You don’t like this just as much as I don’t!”
“You have given me more sensitivity to the importance of oneself, yes, that is true. But I have lost my respect and dignity and I must come to terms with the simple fact that I am no longer of use to my people and they must dispose of me. I am essentially useless.”
He gets out of her face and resumes his usual stance, polite and proper. Robin simply can’t believe this.
“This is ridiculous, Al-An! You can’t just accept you’re going to die just yet. And you are certainly not useless! What’s all that talk about humans being inferior about, then, huh?”
“I was referring to our species as a whole, Robin. Not solely myself. And I can fully accept that if I deem it logical to do so.”
“Will my opinion mean anything to any of you?!”
“It matters to me, but that is not going to serve either of us any better.”
She huffs.
It’s easier, nowadays, to mask her sadness with anger than it used to be. Sam’s situation gave her a lot of practice.
“You’re no better than us for doing this,” she mumbles with her teeth bared. He doesn’t respond, as the group promptly reenters the room.
“Al-An, you must come with us.”
He nods and slowly walks away from me. They all turn and the lump in her throat expands and it feels like barbed wire is tightening around it.
One Architect stays.
“You will follow me, if you please.”
She can’t speak.
She doesn’t want to move, or listen, or do anything.
So much for hiding it.
But she follows anyway. She doesn’t care enough to object now.
They bring Robin to a room near a collection of growing seeds. She is instructed to wait.
For what? For them to tell me he’s dead and I’m a data slave now?
She doesn’t want to wait. She wants to leave. But she can’t stop thinking of him and that little stupid bird on her heart keeps telling her that maybe he’ll be okay.
So she waits. She waits to hear it. It’ll help me grieve properly, I guess…
This is all just too similar to what happened before. Too soon.
Suddenly Robin doesn’t have any shred of a plan left.
She just waits there, in the cold facility, not even bothering to get up and look at the seeds growing nearby. Although she’s sure it would distract her.
But then again, she doesn’t know anything at this point. It wouldn’t matter.
…
Every person I care about.
Every single one.
They always end up dead.
And I’m just cursed to be here and miss them until I feel like tearing myself apart.