"... there was no ship involved, though? I'd have mentioned."

"You are the ship."

She straightens up from where she was peering at the interior of the crystal, then looks down at herself, then back up at Aleks.

"... no?"

He covers his eyes with a hand and counts to ten, breathing deeply. "Never mind."

"... Okay," she agrees. "Well, I have no idea what this thing is, or how it was supposed to work, or why it's called a resonance chamber. I think I want to figure that out, it seems important." She looks at the little crystal shard still in her hands. "Probably showing a sample to people might get me on the right track. Do I have any pockets? .... Why do I not have pockets."

Because your sire doesn't care enough about you or anyone else to have left you anything before they vacated the premises, the man doesn't say. He chooses to shrug, instead.

Notably, he's wearing a long full-body coat with many, many pockets.

"Oh you meant the body!" she says, with dawning realization. "As in they were in it and then they left and now I'm here. And I'm... new and whatever was left over."

She pauses, then makes a face. "... Wow, what an asshole."

That startles a snort out of him. "You're telling me."

Asshole doesn't even begin to cover it.

"Why would they not have pockets, though!" grumbles the latest castoff, offended. She steps away from the wreckage she landed in to start investigating the rest of the dome. "Me not having pockets means they didn't have pockets either!! That's just dumb, pockets are great. If I'm whatever was left over they left important bits behind!"

"You said you were in a cocoon, did you not? Maybe the cocoon gave you the... whatever-it-is you're wearing."

Better than being naked.

"Mmmmmno it didn't have that kind of apparatus, and if it were a conscious nanobiological entity of some kind it'd have handled the fall better. Escape pod or protective capsule is more likely. I think I was already wearing this. Maybe some extra bits on top? It probably doesn't actually matter, it's just offensive."

The man snorts again. "Then be offended, for all the good that will do." The Changing God does not change.

"It's not really to do good. Just for me."

What does this device on the edge of the interior of the dome do? She's going to poke it and find out!

"What are you—don't touch things you don't know—!"

But as she approaches it, a triangle of lights on its casing blazes into life and an image unfolds in her mind.

A towering crystal, a jagged, grey landscape, dead and stifling air, and at its peak—

The image disappears as quickly as it came, and a voice comes from the device. "Command me," it says, somehow managing to sound condescending despite being completely inflectionless.

Huh. That's... interesting.

"Please display a list of commands," requests the dumb idiot who is poking strange tech that she definitely doesn't understand in the slightest. Very politely.

"You are going to get yourself killed, or worse, me."

But the machine obliges, although its lights flash in what seems to be a distinctly irritated fashion. Heated air is spat out of its vents as an enormous list of commands races through her mind, far too fast to read.

"This doesn't look like it houses a defense system, but you can wait outside of the dome if you'd feel safer!" Then, distracted, she squints at the list of commands. Scrolling rapidly past her. ".... Please display a list of commands slower."

Here's the list again! ......faster than the previous time.

"Commaaaaaand. Meeeeeeeeee," it drawls at her.

"Please be slightly less obnoxious about following my commands!" says the last castoff, brightly. "Does intelligence come with that condescension of yours, because for someone housed in a box with only the ability to say two words it seems very dumb to be rude to the people outside it! Come on, display a list of commands at a sensible, readable speed."

The machine buzzes and the lights flash in that distinctly irritated way again. Here's the list of commands! Now it merely blinks for half a second in front of her mind's eye. "Command me," it sighs for the third time, sounding resigned now.

"If that machine sprouts a gun and kills you I will laugh."

"If it had the ability to try to kill me I think it would have already been trying, clearly it started hostile. I think it's just throwing a temper tantrum with what little power it has." She hums thoughtfully. "Which is actually rather reasonable, but still very rude. Come on, thing in the box, I'm not the bad guy here. If you're intelligent and want out of it, I have to have some idea of how your box works to extract you safely and find a compatible replacement chassis that can do more than petulantly ask for commands!"

It doesn't display the commands anymore, and instead hisses once more through its vents and says, "Your command was not understood." It sounds smug enough that it probably did understand, but is choosing not to respond usefully. "Command me."

The young woman huffs.

"You are badly designed on every level, your interface is garbage, and none of it even seems to be fully under your control, or you wouldn't respond at all. If you have any level of intelligence, it is a complete waste of processing power, and I almost think you deserve to sit in there doing nothing for the next century because you don't know how to make nice."

Then she kicks it, once, and flounces away. "Enjoy however long your processors last before someone takes you apart for spare parts instead of trying to help you, asshole!" she calls over her shoulder.

The lights flutter in definitive alarm just before her foot smashes into the device's base and there is a noticeable crunch noise from the inside. "Cell-Gating damaged," says the machine as its lights' flickering gets more frantic and smoke starts coming out of it. "All prisoners lost. Shuttering Lugum Vo."

Then the lights finally flicker out.