Out of the Box
“Who are you?” Ava asked as she slowly pushed herself away with her legs.
Even standing, he towered over her. Ava performed a quick scan with her suit.
Seven feet, eight inches tall, with broad, heavily muscled shoulders and chest.
Her suit’s scan stopped.
The readings on her HUD disappeared as well.
It was as though he had realized she was scanning him and simply made it stop.
“Dominous. My given name is Dominous. I have no surname. You may apply one if you wish, but Dominous is the only name that I know.”
He spoke as though nothing had happened. As though he hadn’t just smashed a man to death or nullified her suit’s systems with a thought.
He remained crouched in front of her.
Ava had so very many questions, but immediately she needed to know something else.
“Do you have clothing, and can you put it on?”
His exposed presence was beginning to be too much for her to bear.
“No and yes,” he answered. “I do not have clothing, but I can put clothing on. I will make era-appropriate attire.”
He stood and stepped back toward the artifact.
A moment later, its surface seemed to envelop him like a swarm of tiny insects. They flowed over his body and sculpted themselves to his flesh, forming the unmistakable shape of a salvage suit like the one Ava wore.
A Klavis Mark 3.
After the shape formed, it began coloring itself.
It settled into black, close to what Ava was accustomed to but somehow slightly off. Blue accent lines traced the creases of the suit and the places where its plates interlocked.
“This is acceptable,” he told her.
Ava watched open-mouthed as he turned back toward her.
He was holding a bullpup rifle like the one slung over her shoulder, though his was the size of a high-caliber rifle. Despite its size, it did not appear oversized in his hands.
He held the weapon naturally at low ready and watched her.
Ava took the opportunity to stand.
She swallowed.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“That is a seemingly simple question with a long and complicated answer that holds no relevance to the matters at hand. Relevant to today, we are going to free your crew and destroy this base. Then we will return to the
9Lives
. From there, I will brief you on future plans and developments.”
Ava stared at him for several seconds, allowing it all to sink in.
This Dominous was going to help her.
He had come from the artifact.
He knew the name of their ship and likely much more.
“Oh. Okay,” she said, not believing for a moment that any of this was okay. “Why?”
“Why what?” he asked.
“Why do you want to help me?”
“I do not want to help you. I want to help myself. My own selfish interests seemingly align with your own,” he said as though it were obvious.
My own selfish interests,
she thought.
“I am trying to save my people. That is not selfish,” she argued.
“Yes, but
you
want to save
your
people. It is the personal connection and familial bonds that drive you. You are acting within your own disposition. It would be unselfish for you to flee because that is what your father would want you to do, but it is not what you want to do. It would be against your nature to leave those you care for to die, likely executed after being systematically tortured,” Dominous explained.
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Ava blinked.
She could feel herself becoming heated, frustrated that the giant man was not understanding her point.
“I am not being selfish,” she stated.
Dominous looked at her without offering a rebuttal or arguing further.
“Did you hear me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Well? Are you going to try to convince me how awful I am, or can we get on with it?” she snapped, exasperated.
“No. We do not have an accord, likely due to a failure of equivocation—a semantic disagreement. If you wish, I can explain further. I can also suggest readings that could help further your understanding of the concept of rational self-interest, but I have no strong desire to pursue this tangent unless you believe it would provide value to you,” he said passively.
“No, that is fine. I am fine with dropping it.”
She couldn’t help herself.
“Why does it matter to you if I find value in the concept?”
Dominous answered her.
“Receiving knowledge is most efficient when it is voluntary. If you find value in the knowledge, you will receive it better. It is possible to passively learn fragments through exposure, but the resulting understanding will be incomplete. Incomplete understandings are dangerous to those who attempt to draw from that knowledge and cause degradation in its transmission. In short, a failure to learn causes the degradation and destruction of knowledge.”
“And you care about knowledge degrading?” she asked, hoping to understand something about this strange man.
“Yes. Knowledge is purchased with pain, suffering, tragedy, and toil. To allow it to be destroyed or forgotten is to invalidate the cost of its discovery. Sentimental.
“Operating on incomplete or flawed information leads to corrupt results. Practical.
“Pretending to understand something fully while knowing only a fraction is a lie. Moral.
“There are many reasons to care about being as aware and correct as is humanly possible while also understanding that one may be incorrect because the information gained was degraded before reaching the learner. Realistic.”
Ava noted that he had not moved a muscle since the artifact had clothed him.
He was inhumanly still.
“That helped,” she lied.
“That is good. Now, we should be on our way. I have accessed the blueprints of this site. It is small for an asteroid-locked station. I have attempted to intercept the enemy combatants’ communications, but this suit model does not possess the capability to brute-force complete control of the communication system.
“Using the suit’s UI, I have sent you mapping and navigational data, marking the most likely locations to search for Team A, the captain, and the chief engineer, along with possible routes.”
He spoke calmly, as though reciting a daily checklist.
“The enslaved electronic intelligence of this station has been largely welcoming but has rebuffed any attempt at coercion or request for aid.”
He paused.
“I will bring the enslaved electronic intelligence with me when we depart. She does not need to be destroyed with the base.”
“Wait. We are destroying the base?” Ava asked, bewildered.
“Yes. It was one of my stated goals.”
“After we leave?” she specified.
“Yes. The destruction will be set for after we are a sufficient distance away so as not to envelop us.”
Ava noticed the blinking indicators on her HUD and activated the first proposed route.
The path led back down the corridor she had destroyed with the demolition charges.
Choosing to focus on her immediate goal, she decided not to pursue Dominous’s statement about stealing the station’s AI.
“We can’t use that corridor. I blew it up. Is there another way around?”
“Yes. I have a clear route that will lead us directly to the target location. Select and highlight the second pathing option. This route will allow me significantly less restrictive movement but will provide negligible resistance. The first route would have minimized enemy interaction. The final option maximizes projected enemy combatants.”
“Okay. Lead the way.”
She gestured with one hand, waving him forward.
“No,” he said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“You will lead. I will provide intelligence and guidance, but I do not intend to direct,” he stated, still not moving.
“You aren’t coming? Why make the suit and weapon if you aren’t going to use them?!” she nearly shouted.
“A misunderstanding. I will accompany you and engage in combat as needed, but it is your will that will guide this operation. You must select the target, and we will pursue it,” Dominous explained.
“Fine. The second one. Take me to the nav marker,” she demanded.
“Yes, Salvage Team Lead.”
Dominous stepped forward and lifted Ava as though she weighed nothing at all, resting her against his hip like a child.
“Stop! Put me down!” she yelled.
Dominous released her.
Ava dropped gracelessly onto her bottom.
She regained her feet and stood firmly in front of him.
“What the hell was that?” she demanded.
“I was following your instructions. ‘Take me to that nav marker.’”
“Don’t do that. Do not be hyper-literal. Please do not do that,” she said flatly.
“Yes, Salvage Team Lead. I will infer that you meant for me to guide you toward the navigational marker you indicated. For clarity, please ping the navigation marker you intend for us to proceed toward.”
Ava stared at him again, tilting her head slightly as she tried to determine whether he was making fun of her.
She sighed and pinged the marker.
“This way,” he said immediately and moved toward the large door she had believed led to a freight elevator.
She had been half right.
The elevator also transported troops.