Dead Star Dockyards

Donovan, with his vision now restored, got a good look at the woman before him.

The Golden hair was the only thing he could make out before, but it was all the more beautiful when the strands were defined. The clothes she wore only accentuated this feature, the gold colored threading on the shirt beneath her jet-black overcoat appearing like his favorite starry sky. The silver seams of the jacket helped with this illusion.

What complimented her almost hip length hair the most was not her choice of clothing, but her natural features.

Her pale white skin made it feel like her hair shimmered brighter, her naturally rosy lips and cheeks breaking the monotony, but the eyes were the biggest factor.

A striking blue, like looking at an ancient iceberg.

"Are you done gawking yet?" Diana's cheeks had reddened slightly from Don's persistent gaze.

"Uuuuh, yeah." It took some effort to peel his eyes away from her. "Once again, Donovan, nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you as well. How are you feeling?"

"Much better, thank you. Still a little achy, and moving too fast or too far hurts, but overall very good. I can see now too!"

"I noticed that."

"Sorry." Don bit his lip and looked at his feet. She didn't think he was a perv did she?

"I didn't take it personally. Do you have any questions?"

"I have plenty, but I remember you mentioned something bad. What's the damage?"

"Extensive. I don't even know where to begin."

"How- how extensive? I remember flying through a minefield and being told my life was a lie, still haven't processed either of those things yet, but I have no clue about the rest."

"Did you really have to phrase it like that ARC?" Diana turned her eyes to the center of the ceiling. She didn't have a face to work with, so that was where she imagined ARC's face was.

"It was under the recommendation of both the Doctor and the Director. I believed that would invoke the best response as well."

"Haaa~ that's so like him. I guess I'll give it to you straight as well.

It's all gone.

Earth, Mars, the rest of the planets, even the Sun, hell, our universe, gone. And humanity, at least our version of it, is gone with it. We are all that's left."

Silence.

"I know that might be a lot to process but I can guarantee its the truth."

"No, I don't doubt you, I'm just finding I'm not as perturbed or distressed as I probably should be. This might be the concussion talking, but I'm not even surprised."

"You aren't sad?"

"I don't think so?"

"No remorse? Regrets? Anxiety? Negative thoughts?"

"No."

"How?" The foreknowledge of this event was on the verge of traumatizing for Diana, the prospect of him being practically unaffected was baffling to her.

"Umm, I don't know? Am I supposed to?"

"Don't you have attachments? Like a friend? Some object you loved? A crush?"

"Not that I recall. Most of my time and attention was focused on the academy. Sure I'll miss Thompson and Adirondack, as well as my instructors, but I never formed a real relationship to them. There were also some pretty ladies at the academy, but none I considered spending time on, and every object I attached any significance to I brought with me."

He wasn't kidding. Some of his fellow students equated his way of life to that of a monk.

"What did grandpa do to you?" The words practically fell out of Diana's mouth. "He warned me you might have some issues because of his interference, but holy shit. You don't feel anything?"

"Like I said, might be the concussion, but overall no. Also, what was that about the Doctor doing something to me?"

"Ah, right. You still think he was a Field Scientist or something like that."

"He isn't?"

"No. That was a cover. Grandpa was a psychologist. He was responsible for keeping your mental state in check as well as ensuring you were training to a satisfactory level."

Don squinted his eyes and tried to think about it. Really? It was true Doctor Helmsguard never really talked about his job too much, but he seemed to know a fair bit about the subject.

"My grandfather took a beginner level course in field mechanics to sell the illusion. ARC can probably pull up the documentation of his graduation and career if he submitted it."

"I have that information on his file. Should you request it, I can bring it up." ARC confirmed Diana's assertion. "I have a file on every individual involved in the project filled with a complete record of their educational and professional careers, including any and all top-secret projects they were ever involved in. Doctor Helmsguard's file is in the first percentile in regards to both quantity of individual entries and total volume of data contained within."

"That would be because of his age and use as a monitor."

"I came to the same conclusion."

Donovan couldn't exactly refute them, one was his granddaughter and the other had the sources to back her up.

"Oooookay. I take it this is what you meant by my life being a lie, ARC. What else should I know?"

Diana pinched the bridge of her nose. "Where to begin."

"Might I suggest he ask about an element of his life and we reveal the truth of the matter? It may prove more effective as some lies meant to keep him from a breakdown are less relevant."

"Probably a good idea. Have at it Donovan."

Don took a minute to think. "My classmates, surely they couldn't all have been operatives right?"

"Correct, most of them were not. However, for your more niche classes, such as terrestrial combat doctrine and extended logistics, you were in a room filled with plants. I should also mention that your grades were adjusted downwards in almost every class you took in order to manipulate you into working harder."

"Adjusted . . . down?"

"Yes, down. The idea was that if you got too full of yourself you would stop working quite as hard."

The next few minutes were filled with questions about his life. Some aspects, he found, lacked outside influence. These natural events were the extreme minority.

The extent of those events that lacked influence were extremely minor in regard to their effects on his life. His tastes in color, food, and fashion were the only 'pure' subjects, everything else was manipulated in some capacity to make him more effective in his role.

"What about my family?" Don wasn't particularly fond of them, and they never really contacted each other, but he wondered just how deep the manipulation went.

"There is more to it than just mental manipulation I'm afraid. Even I was implicated with that plot, and it had nothing to do with where we are currently." Despite her energy, Diana seemed to get a bit depressed at this subject.

"Are you sure it is a good idea to tell him about that experiment?"

"He needs to know."

"Know what? What do I need to know?"

"Your family was not at all related to you by blood, but that was not because of this operation. There was a separate experiment done in an attempt to solve one of the primary issues restricting our technological progression."

"That was a lot of words. What does that mean?" All this smoke and mirrors was making him a bit light headed.

"You were raised by a family that was not your own, and you - we - were the result of an experiment meant to enable our technology to progress beyond the current limits."

Donovan was still wondering what that meant. "Could you elaborate, please?"

"I'll tell you the details later, when you are in a more stable condition, but I think you could understand what I meant if I said you were a test-tube baby."

"Ah, so I was born in a lab. I had always thought my real parents died or something like that. Does that mean you were too?"

"No. The fact that I am three months younger than you has a good reason. After viability in a controlled environment was confirmed, my mother was made a surrogate. I say surrogate, but the egg given was my mother's own, just genetically modified."

"Got it. Should we move on to a debriefing then? I trust you won't renege on your promise to explain later."

"I'm fine with that." Diana started messing with her hair, it gave her something to do with her hands when she was stressed. "Let's start with what you know."

"I know we are on some monster of a ship called the Oberlux, that there is this thing called Split, and that humanity is basically gone. I think that sums it up."

"Then let's start from the beginning. Recall my grandfather was a psychologist. Roughly ten years ago, he was performing a study on psychedelics and their potential uses. He used himself as a subject wanting to test a theory, and in one of his trances he came into contact with the Captain of the Oberlux. His name is the Captain, or just Captain. You will be meeting him shortly.

Now, it took a while to verify that the Captain was indeed a real person and not just an isolated delusion through contact with different people, but once we were sure of their existence we worked under the assumption we could trust them.

This was because they taught us to make limited use of Split, atomizing a small chunk of salt. The shield and reactor aboard this ship make use of those learned principles.

Admittedly, there was a lot of apprehension over whether or not Earth would end up being destroyed, but a large scale sensor array very clearly showed that a wave of split was coming. If what little we were able to make use of could rip apart the ionic bonds of salt, that level would have no problem doing the same to Earth.

Worse news came in the form of the information that they would be late, maybe only by hours, but that was more than enough time to tear apart the weaker covalent bonds that human tissue tends to be made of.

From there it was a race, with our leadership trying to map out exactly what skills, personality traits, and capabilities would be necessary to provide the best chance of our species' continued survival. Don't take offense, but you were not the only option for the 'male' in the Designated Survivor program.

Besides the people required for this task, the tools would also be a struggle, especially constructing the shield to prevent split from killing us before our lifeboat could make it ashore. That was an extremely expensive endeavor, and as you can see it still had imperfections." Diana took a moment to tap her head, referencing Donovan's own injuries.

"ARC was the solution to the inevitable information and administration problem. Two people could only know so much, but a computer is not limited to the same degree. It can also take care of the construction of infrastructure and maintenance of necessities while we work on pressing diplomatic, military, and economic issues.

In case you were wondering, you are in control of matters related to violence and how best to apply it.

Are you keeping up with me? I'm almost done." Diana took a break from her lengthy explanation to ask if Don was retaining this information.

"For the most part."

"Good. Now, I have to warn you on a few important matters regarding diplomacy. First, while our benefactors appear very close to humans, you will understand on a subconscious level that they are not OUR definition of human.

Try to hold back any feelings or expressions of disgust, fear, and apprehension towards them. They understand that it is an instinctual reaction in us, but I would prefer it if we didn't push their goodwill and patience beyond what is needed.

Second, you will notice that you will be able to understand what they are saying, but most of them will not be able to understand you. The exceptions are the Captain and the Scholar, and their comprehension abilities in English are not the best. If you can, please keep your words and sentence structure on the simple side.

Finally, and I know you might struggle with this, try your hardest not to give away ANY information about our society and our technology. As it stands, every little bit of knowledge we have that they don't is an advantage that we can use in our favor, and we are going to need it. Everybody who has conversed with the Captain, myself included, have come to the conclusion that they are not nearly as advanced in the realm of science as we are, they haven't figured out rockets.

Can you promise me you will try to follow these rules as best you can?" Her eyes were locked with his, completely focused.

"I will try, but I have a question. How could they possibly exist in space without having figured out to use rockets?"

"I don't get it myself, but the theory is that Split or something like it enables them to do very energy intensive tasks without the use of complicated tools and machinery."