The door silently closed behind me, but I did not take another step into the room. The only way that I could think to describe it was from a movie where you walked into a room and at the center was a core… a bright blue sphere of energy going up through the ceiling and down through the floor. The rest of the room was dark, and the blue energy was the only source of light.
If I was the good guy in this movie, I would know that I would have to climb down the outside of the blue energy in order to save the day… knowing that if I touched the energy in any way I would be vaporized.
Please tell me that I have been watching too many sci-fi movies…
"You need to go around the core to the other side of the room. There, there is a thin, rectangular purple crystal. Pull that out and then hold on," said the voice, the excitement building within it. I guess going around the energy core was much better than going through it. "Hurry!" he came again, "They are trying to overtake me! If they get through, you are dead and I am back to being a prisoner! Hurry!"
Hearing the terror in his voice, I quickly ran to the other side of the room, avoiding any blue light that could kill me. Finding what looked to be a control panel, I frantically looked around, trying to see the purple crystal that he was talking about. Trying to find something purple when your only source of light was blue was next to impossible, but then my eyes landed on something…
I had found it, under a glass box that would have screamed 'Don't touch the button' on Earth.
Meh, I liked pushing buttons… I quickly lifted the glass and pulled out the crystal key. Holding it tightly in one hand, I grasped the railing that was between the energy core and the rest of the room and curled my body in as much of a ball as I could.
In less than a second, I felt gravity try to fling me around, my body jerking up, left, down, right, as the ship seemed to lose control of itself. "You better be holding on," came the voice, this time in a deep baritone. It had so much control that my suspicions had to have been right.
"I am," I said in a confident voice. My entire body was wrapped around the railing. I was not going anywhere. "Now, about my condition…" I continued, a smile forming on my face.
"What is it?" asked the voice as the ship seemed to be spinning around in circles. I closed my eyes and pretended that I was on the tilt-a-whirl at an amusement park.
"Kill them all," I replied with a snarl of my own. His laughter was the only thing I heard as the world stopped spinning and silence reigned. "Kill them all," I repeated again, still maintaining my hold.
"You're wish is my command."
You know what? I think I might like this alien abduction after all.
------
I didn't know if it had been five minutes, five seconds, or five hours, but what I did know was that I was once again in complete darkness… and the silence seemed to stretch on forever.
"You can go out now," came the voice from the other side of the earpiece. I stood up and braced myself on the railing as my legs started to shake. Going from years of not moving, to running, back to not moving, made every muscle in my body ache and strain. "You okay?" the voice came again, this time a note of concern could be heard.
"I will be," I replied as I waited for my legs to decide what they were going to do. When the trembling subsided enough for me to take a few steps forward, I asked, "Any way we can get some lights on?" As if by magic, the lighting in the room flickered on and I was able to see more than a blue energy core. "Thanks," I continued as I made my way back to the door.
When the door slid open, the body of the lizard thing guarding the door slumped into the room. Clearly dead, I raised my eyebrows. "If you think I'm going to clean up your mess, you are very much mistaken," I huffed as I stepped over the body and down the corridor. Within seconds of my statement, a bot came out of the wall and started dragging the body away.
"Sorry," came the sheepish reply. "There are a lot of bodies to deal with."
"Really? How many?" I asked surprised. As far as I was concerned there could only be about a dozen or so of them.
"Approximately 15,358 Sisaliks, 10 of the Hives, and a single Dryadalis that was a representative for the Alliance on this voyage."
"Really? There were that many on board?" I asked stunned. I was just wandering through the halls, watching robots of various sizes transporting the bodies down the hallways and out of sight. Out of pure curiosity, I followed one of the little bots and the baggage it was carrying.
"Are you upset about that? The number of beings that I killed?" came the voice, this time cautious, like I was going to be upset with him or something.
"No, why would I be?" I asked in return, confused as to why I should be upset. If I remember correctly, that was my condition for freeing him. Not to mention, as far as I was concerned, if he didn't kill everyone on board, that would have been an even bigger issue.
"I have heard from other ships… I mean… friends… that their humans got upset when their captors were killed or injured."
I had a lot to think over about that statement, but I would put it behind me for now. The bot that I was following rolled through a set of doors that slid open to a very chaotic scene. There must have been hundreds of bots carrying bodies and just dumping them into piles inside what looked to be a large room of some sort.
"Where am I?" I asked. As my voice echoed thought out the room, the bots stopped what they were doing and turned to look at me.
"You are in the docking bay," came the soft voice from one of the small bots. It kind of looked like that robot with the arms from that kids' movie. You know, where it had an actual screen for its face? That one.
"Hey, Voice in my Head," I said, hoping that the voice would answer.
"Yes?" he replied, somewhat distracted...but I supposed that that was to be expected since he just got his freedom.
"I think that introductions are in order, don't you?" I asked as I looked around the docking bay and the piles of lizards being dropped off. I was sure that there was some type of order to the chaos, I just couldn't see it.
"I told you, I am L11042," said the voice, this time seeming to pay me more attention.
"Yeah, unfortunately, there is no way I am going to remember that," I said as the door behind me opened once again and a medium-sized robot came in dragging two bodies that were not lizards. Instead, they were covered from head to toe in black with a golden type of honeycomb pattern on their face masks and armor.
Staring without really seeing anything, my eyes followed the bot to a different section of the hold and started a new pile of dead bodies. My brain not fully processing it, I was just going to have to put a pin in it until I could deal with it later.
"Then what do you want to call me? I have no other name," came the voice, sounding lost and confused.
"A number is not a name; it is a designation. If you are going to be free, you need a name," I started as once again the door opened behind me, allowing more robots and bodies to be dumped. Hopefully, he would have figured out what to do with them before they started to smell.
"Then what should my name be?"
"How about Jun Li?" I said, my eyes still on the corpses of the… species… that tortured me for years. I think that L11042 has his own brand of mercilessness to him and I was pretty sure that I liked it.
"Jun Li? Does that mean anything?" he asked, sounding more unsure than ever before.
"Back home, depending on how you wrote it, it could mean many things. But I think for you, merciless is the best definition."
"Jun Li," he said again like he was tasting the words. "It is acceptable… thanks," came the voice, still soft as if not sure how he was supposed to react, but liking the fact that he finally had a name.
"Please to meet you, Jun Li, I'm Bai Mei Xing," I said. It was weird hearing my name for the first time in so long… I almost forgot that I had it.
I shook that thought out of my head, and then asked the most important question that I could ever ask in my entire life. "I don't suppose you know a place where I might be able to get a shower and use the washroom? Do you?"
Hey, don't judge. I had a long time to get used to the idea that I was on a spaceship. I would figure all that crap out slowly, but I had my priorities. Almost three years strapped to a table? I wanted a shower and to use an actual toilet.
I would deal with other humans, other ships, and whatever else the voice could throw at me after that. Well, maybe food first, then the other shit.