Sable's Experiences

[Toaster]

//No longer canon.

June 21, 828 A.S.

Olivia's eyes fluttered open. Wiping the sleep from them, she groggily glanced around herself. Her hands froze near her face and she furrowed her brows in confusion as she noticed that she was in her ship's cockpit, sitting in the pilot's seat. Through the canopy, she could make out the bustling activity of a commercial hangar bay. With a start, she straightened up, any remaining slivers of tiredness swept away by alarm and bewilderment.

Where the f*ck am I, she thought as she overlooked the bay. It looked familiar to her, the rusted and smog stained deck and walls indicating that it was not a well-maintained station in house space. Searching for clues as to where she was, she looked over to the far end and found what she needed. Five words, printed in enormous, black letters across the steel wall, the paint chipping off in places but still clearly legible.

Welcome to Ames Research Station.

She slumped back into her seat, no less confused than before. Reaching up again to rub her temples, she wracked her brain for memories of how she had gotten to the Zoner freeport in Kepler and - more importantly - why she was here. But, instead of clear images or any usable hints at all, she drew only blanks. The last thing she could remember was her maneuvering her ship through the gentle traffic of Stanton's outskirts, climbing further and further in altitude on her way to the planetary docking rings. A simple trip around New York was all she had intended. How had she ended up out here?

No answers came to mind.

A flashing screen and a quiet chime tore Olivia away from her mental detective work. A message from the station's dock control appeared on the communications display; an automated reminder to pay her docking fee. Three identical messages had apparently already been left unread by her, the first dating three hours ago. Reflexively, she pressed the small confirmation button, authorizing the transfer of funds from her neural net account.

Why was she here? To meet someone? She had docked three hours ago and not been disturbed while apparently happily sleeping in her cockpit. Surely, anyone waiting for her would have come to check. Had she just needed a place to relax? She couldn't come up with any reason why - she couldn't remember anything of what must have been the past half day. Besides, if she wanted to come to a quiet, comfortable place, a busy freeport in the midst of a cosmic storm would not have been her choice.

No. It must have been something else. Something she just could not remember. In frustration, she hit a clenched fist against the canopy. First, ever more frequent and ever more painful migraines, now a complete blackout? The doctor on Denver had insisted that she would get better with time, that her issues were only caused by stress. Instead, everything was getting worse, day by day.

She clenched her fist tighter, her knuckles turning white. Something was wrong with her. And she had no idea what.

// ›› Read Somnambulance! ‹‹

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Olivia Sable