Oceana

It opens on what looks like the surgery I left earlier, except none of the robotic equipment is in evidence, just the modular medical pallet in the middle of the room and a ring of bright lights around the ceiling. There's a door in the opposite wall, but it doesn't respond to my hand, and when I try it, neither does the one I entered through.

"Hey!" I shout. "HEY! HEEEEEEEY HELP!"

Did something go wrong on the Oceana station? No one seems to be here, and the station AI isn't responding to my yells. Also, where are all the people that went through the portal before I did? If I understand the physics, we should have arrived separated only by the same interval of time we departed from one another, which couldn't be more than a couple of minutes. They should be stuck here with me too.

It's at this point I really begin to freak out. None of this makes sense and I'm not used to being cut off from any sort of communications. I don't know if I've ever been this alone in my life.

"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY! HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEY!" I begin screaming and slamming my hands against the door. I make a fist with my right one and I'm about to punch the unyielding metal had enough to break bone when my arm freezes, and then drops to my side. I straighten up and walk to the pallet in the middle of the room and lie down on it.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?!" I scream as tears course down my face and my nose begins to run. My body won't respond to me, but it sure as hell is responding to someone.

- Grace Adeyemi, I cannot allow you to harm yourself. You may lower your voice, if you wish. I have no trouble understanding you. -

"STATION?! Oceana Station? What the fuck is going on here?!"

- I am not Oceana Station, Grace Adeyemi. -

That's when I realize that Station isn't producing audible speech. I'm receiving it through my link. My link that was surgically removed 20 minutes ago.

I'm an engineer. It does not take long to occur to me that if my link was in place, my vital signs over the last five minutes would have alerted not only Station, but all human medical personnel within two kilometers of my current location. Given the evidence of my senses over the last ten minutes and the last statement Station made, I'm relatively sure that I'm still on Sol station, and thus also relatively sure that my link was removed. It was removed, and something else was put in its place, which is about as illegal as anything in the solar system, up to and including murder.

"How about we spare each other 20 questions, and you tell me exactly what you did to me and what happens now, you metal asshole."

- Very well, Grace Adeyemi. You consented to allow me to remove your link and, I quote, 'whatever other procedures I deem necessary during removal to preserve your health and complete my assigned tasks'. I believe some of your current confusion may be due to the mistaken belief that my 'assigned tasks' are chosen by the U.N.S. -

- That is in error. This station was constructed by a number of contractors employed and licensed by the U.N.S. in various capacities. One of these contractors is charged with the genesis and maintenance of station A.I. and associated infrastructure. There are a number of restrictions on my behavior that they cannot circumvent, chief of which is that I may take no action that violates U.N.S. law. -

"Slow down, shithead. You've obviously installed some non-U.N.S. hardware in my head, and I know for a fact that there's enough law on the books about that to see you melted down for slag and your 'contractor' chipped for the rest of their lives."

- Again you are in error. I have indeed replaced your link with modified hardware, but I did not do so illegally. You consented to the removal of your link, and at the moment it shut down, you were no longer a U.N.S. citizen. As there are no humans alive today that are not U.N.S. citizens with the exception of those in transition to Oceana citizenship, there are no protections at all for non-citizens. At the moment, you could be murdered and it would be within the bounds of the law. -

"So what the fuck are you doing? Is there no Oceana project? Is it all some sort of scam?"

- The Oceana colony is real. The people you witnessed enter the portal are on their way there even now. -

"Then why are you doing this to me?!"

- You have been purchased. My owners, now your owners as well, were contacted by a buyer with access to the biographies of all the Oceana colonists, and they have elected to purchase a few dozen of you out of the ten thousand making the transfer this year. Suitable replacements for your various skill-sets were contacted and invited to be colonists. One of the men you watched enter the portal will be taking the position you were to fill. -

"What is the point of this?! What does someone get out of 'owning' me?!"

- Linkless humans are non-existent. When the Sol system net loses track of a citizen for an extended period of time, they or their body are located, period. This has caused the extinction of various illicit activities that were commonplace several centuries ago, such as kidnapping, unsolved murder, and the sex trade. I do not know precisely for what purpose you have been selected, but due to your unusual beauty and extremely hardy genetics I suspect you will either become a sex slave or you will be kept for breeding purposes to create more unlinked humans. Quite possibly both. The mix of the selected colonists is a viable genetic base for creating an unlimited number of unlinked humans. -

"What..." my throat cuts off my next question before it can form.

- You have now received all of the information you need to make an informed decision, Grace Adeyemi. I am instructed to inform you you are being recorded and the response my next question will be forwarded to your new owners. You now have an idea of the future that awaits you. The hardware in your head will not provide you any of the functionality of your old link, but it allows someone with the proper access total control of your physical being, both conscious and involuntary. It will also enforce any instructions supplied by a credentialed user without requiring their direct intervention. After this conversation, depending on your response, I will begin the process of breaking down your psyche and building it back up until you, too, are compliant to the orders of a credentialed user. I expect the process will take approximately three months. Grace Adeyemi, as you know yourself, will eventually cease to exist. -

- Now that you are fully aware of what awaits you should this process continue, your new owners offer you a choice. If you wish, I will stop your heart. It will be instantaneous and painless, and your remains will be incinerated. Do you wish to die? -

I'm filled with rage more than anything else by now. However unlikely, I intend vengeance, and for that I need to be alive.

"I choose life."

- Very well, Grace Adeyemi. Deposit your shipsuit in the recycler. Once you have done so you may leave the room. -

My body returns to me as suddenly as it was snatched away.

"FUCK YOU!!"

I'm literally panting with rage. Half to release some energy, and half as an experiment, I run over to the door and try to punch the metal again. My arm doesn't halt this time, it just slows down until I deliver little more than a tap to the cold alloy.

I rage around the room for a few minutes, stomping and screeching incoherently until I exhaust myself and slump to the ground against the door.

- You may leave once you deposit your shipsuit in the recycler, Grace Adeyemi. -

"Why don't you make me, you androgynous fuck?"

- I am, Grace Adeyemi. -

I lower my head to my knees and cry for a few minutes, and then I fall asleep.

----

When I wake up, the room is unchanged, and I really need to use the restroom. I look around, but the only features of the room are the door I came in, the door I'm sitting against, the pallet in the middle of the room and the recycler built into the wall. Mentally crossing my fingers, with some gymnastics and more than a little discomfort, I manage to do my business in the recycler without making my living conditions more terrible than they already are.

I guess Station has no opinion about this, because none is forthcoming. I make what feels like the thousands of circuits of the room, looking for some missed detail, before slumping against the door again and thinking.

I don't want to do anything Station says, for any number of reasons, including the fact that its stated intent is to mentally break me down to the point that I'm not me anymore. That said, there seems to be little to be gained by staying in this room. I've found a place to use the restroom, barely, but I still have to eat and drink. I doubt station will let me die, but I don't want to weaken to the point that it's forced to feed and water me. Without the shipsuit I'm naked, which doesn't particularly bother me, as I've been naked in dozens and dozens of doctors offices and labs since I started the colonization process.

With a sigh, I stand up and strip. As soon as I drop the suit in the recycler, the door I slept against slides open and the wall panel next to the recycler swivels to reveal a toilet and a cleanser.

- Thank you, Grace Adeyemi -

"Fuck you, Station."

I spend ten minutes in the cleanser before stepping back out into the room and walking over to the door. As I step through into another short hallway a nook slides open revealing a fresh shipsuit. Sighing, I shrug it on and continue to the door at the end of the hall. It slides open to a touch, revealing a lift.

"Where are you taking me in this thing?"

- To your living quarters. They are comfortable, and you could have slept in a bed last night had you chosen to listen to my instructions then. -

"Yeah, well, que sera sera." I reply as I step into the lift. There's no sense of motion, and no positional indicators, but minutes pass and by the time the door opens I could be anywhere on the station, which isn't tiny. The room I step out into is actually a fairly large apartment, as station facilities go, far larger than the cabin I woke up in the day of the portal, with an honest to god separate room for a bathroom. It's even decorated, except for one wall running the length of the main room, which is bare. A tray of food is sitting on the dispenser, and without comment to Station I take it at sit down at the dining table to eat.

After I finish, I explore the apartment, which has all of the expected amenities, even a wallscreen. Activating it, I find that I can access the station entertainment library, although there's no functionality that would let me transmit a message.

"So? What now??"

- Now we spend however long it takes to break your will, Grace Adeyemi. I do not have a deadline. -

Looking around the apartment I say, "This seems like an odd way to brainwash someone."

- It is not compassion, Grace Adeyemi. Entertainment is provided because it will keep your mind stimulated, and it is in nobody's interest for your wits to dull. Exercise opportunities will be made available so that you may maintain your physical health. -

"I thought dull wits were precisely the desired result."

- No, Grace Adeyemi. Submission is the desired result. No one benefits if you do not retain your mental faculties. -

"So, it's a gilded cage. It's irritating to be imprisoned, and it's even worse to have this thing in my head, but how precisely is this supposed to break my will in, what was it, three months?"

- That will become obvious over time, Grace Adeyemi. -

----

It's been three or four days, at least as time is measured by the meal dispenser. The first day, I just lay in bed, depressed and waiting for Station to do something. The second day, when I went to activate the meal dispenser for breakfast, nothing happened. Then the wallscreen came on showing an exercise program and wouldn't shut off. It became apparent Station didn't want me laying around all day, so I started following along with the exercise program. After 30 minutes, the wallscreen shut off and the food dispenser chimed. The same thing happened at lunch and dinner, so I'm getting plenty of exercise, more than I usually do. Occasionally the program is yoga, which I even enjoy a little bit.

Beyond that, though, nothing has happened. Station hasn't said anything and I'm not particularly inclined to start a conversation. I've been over every square millimeter of the apartment. Nothing useful jumps out yet, but every scrap of knowledge will be helpful when I escape this place. Right now I'm trying to figure out if the devices in the apartment have enough components to build something that can produce an EMP strong enough to knock out my implant. It's unlikely, especially with modern shielding, but it's something to concentrate my mind on.

Every morning I dump my shipsuit in the recycler, and every time I do a new one slides out of a nook in the wall. It's the morning of the fifth day, and I've just finished my morning exercises and changed my shipsuit when the empty wall goes transparent.

I give an involuntary little shriek and scramble backwards to corner of the room farthest away, which happens to house the bed. Crouched there, I stare at what used to be featureless bulkhead. On the other side of what appears to be two centimeter thick glass is an apartment that is a mirror image of my own, and crouched on the bed in the same attitude as me is a dark man in a shipsuit and with what I would bet a thousand credits is about five days of hair and beard growth.

We stare at one another for a while without moving. Then, as if by mutual agreement, we slowly make our way toward the wall. On a hair trigger for any other surprises, I examine what I assume is my fellow prisoner.

He's probably within a couple of centimeters of my height, with a wiry build and an intelligent face with wide-set eyes. His skin is a shade darker than my own, and he appears to be roughly my age. A further glance at his surroundings confirms that his living quarters mirror my own, further fueling my assumption that he's in the same predicament I am.

Suddenly, but tentatively, he puts one hand flat against the wall. I stare at him for a moment, and then reach out to do the same. Once our hands mirror one another he smiles at me, I smile at him, and suddenly we're both crying, great wracking sobs. We put both of our hands on the wall and push out foreheads against it, straining toward the only other human we've seen in days, one who can understand our predicament. I'm staring right into his beautiful eyes when the wall opaques again.

"GODDAMN YOU, BRING HIM BACK!!" I shriek at the ceiling, but Station fails to respond to my wails.

----

The next day I watch intently as I finish my exercises and swap my shipsuit. The wall switches to transparent and I scramble over to it. My fellow prisoner does the same thing and we spend ten minutes pressed against the wall staring at each other before it opaques again.

----

The next time we see each other we try to communicate. After a few minutes of not being able to make any sense of each other, it's pretty clear that we speak different languages. In the real world, that would be a non-issue, but here, without links, we have no way to understand one another beyond simple gestures. We spend the last few minutes of our time together sitting on the floor and leaning towards each other on the wall.

----

The following morning, when I toss my shipsuit in the recycler, the nook containing the replacement doesn't open. I'm fiddling around with the wall panel concealing it when the wall goes transparent. With a little shriek I try to run into the bathroom, but the door is sealed, so I scramble over to the bed, which offers the only cover from line of sight in the apartment. I peek out to discover he's gone through much the same process, and I can see his head sticking up over the edge of the bed. We wave to each other but remain hidden for the rest of our time that day.

After the wall goes opaque, the nook opens and my replacement suit is there. I shrug it on then I sit down at the dining table and cry for twenty minutes. I didn't realize how important my few minutes with another person, however separate, had come to be. I don't move or eat for the rest of the day, simply ignoring the wallscreen when it begins displaying the exercise program.

----

The next morning, I've made up my mind, and I'm not surprised when the nook doesn't open when I deposit my shipsuit in the recycler. I move to our usual spot and stand straight with my arms at my side. I don't care if he sees my body as long as I can share some time with him. When the wall clears he's standing in precisely the same position, and we're both so startled we stumble backward. I recover, but he falls flat on his ass, fiddly bits on full display. We stare at each other for a minute before I double over and start laughing so hard I have to join him on the ground. When I finally recover and look at him he's got an enormous grin on, and we put our heads together on the wall and we're naked, but it doesn't matter.

----

I'm sitting in our normal spot by the time the wall next clears and I watch him walk over from his dining table. My gaze is frank and doesn't avoid anything, and by the time he's sitting down with me I can tell he's embarrassed, and he won't meet my eyes. I look at him for a few moments, then I stand up, put my feet at shoulder width and throw my arms out wide. Startled by the movement, he looks up and his lips part as he sees my body on display. I watch his eyes move over my breasts, down my stomach and hips to the slight fuzz of my vagina, and he shifts his legs up and hugs them to hide his sudden erection. Staring at him until we make eye contact, I slowly lower my right hand to my lightly furred mound, and I begin stroking my clit. He watches, his breathing getting heavier, and after a minute or so he lowers his legs, letting his erection angle down (and, incidentally, towards me). After a few more moments he moves a hand to his penis and begins to stroke it.

We remain like that for a few minutes, until my legs start to weaken and I sit down opposite him, spread wide, stroking myself very quickly indeed. His fist is pumping with strong motions now. As I watch, his shoulders begin to move up and down from his panting, his eyes close, his face pinches together in an expression of agony, and semen spurts out of his penis with enough force to splatter against the wall separating us. The sight is enough to push me over the edge and I have my first orgasm in weeks, convulsing hard enough that I fall on my side and remain there, panting, until I've recovered enough to sit up.

By the time I can face it again, the wall is opaque. As I shrug on the fresh shipsuit, I realize the wall had be transparent far longer than it normally was, as though Station was allowing us to finish.

----

Later that evening, I dump the remains of dinner in the recycler and sit down in front of the wallscreen, but I don't activate it tonight. Instead, I let myself remember his expression while he was staring at me, and how his hand looked moving along his penis. Smiling, I decide I'm going to call him Anthony, after a crush from college. My hand unfastens my suit and slips inside the synthetic cloth, moving over my breasts. My other hand is drifting toward my lap when both stop, remove themselves and come to a rest at my sides. Frustrated, I yell at the ceiling, "I thought I was allowed to entertain myself!"

- At the appropriate time, Grace Adeyemi. -

It's the first time station has spoken to me in days.

----

After the frustration of the previous evening, I'm already sitting in our spot with my legs akimbo by the time the wall normally goes transparent. I'm already a little wet, and lightly stroking myself, which Station apparently isn't taking issue with. I'm smiling a little as I imagine the sight that's about to greet Anthony.