[center][h2]A Vigilant Dawn, Grieving in the Twilight of Man[/h2][/center]

The pitter-patter of little feet filled the air. A gentle metallic ring to every rhythmic step that sounded out from each little step. She was in the ducts again. Scurrying around this strange place, exploring its empty stretches and nightmare chasms. Slowly a mental map was forming, an intricate network of ducts and maintenance tunnels and more. They all branched out from something. Something was at the heart of this… this place. She could imagine it all now projected before her, see the different parts of this world flowing together, converging on one point, one central axis around which it was all based.

Perhaps that was her test. To find whatever was at the heart of this place. And she [i]would[/i] find it. 

She was moving towards the heart of this place. Whatever it was. She wanted to find it and to know what it was that had been calling to her. This whole place, whatever lay at its core - it called to her. It beckoned her. It whispered in her mind when she slept. She was here for [i]something[/i] right? Surely this was it. She was near it, she could feel it, she could almost taste it. Something ancient, more ancient than even this station itself, something powerful - lived here. 

She crawled along. The ducts were smaller now - or rather, she had gotten bigger. She was growing. Soon she wouldn’t be able to fit through these at all. 

She placed a hand on the warm metal ahead - and let out an involuntary yelp of surprise as it gave way beneath her, sending the corroded metal and the child crawling upon it crashing to the floor beneath.

How long had it been? Since she had last awoken? One hundred and thirty-seven thousand six hundred and sixty-six cycles. Since she had last tended to her station? Seventy-seven thousand four hundred and thirty-three cycles. Since she had last spoken to a Maker? A cursory check returned a number. She languished in sorrow at the final query; two million one hundred twenty-four thousand six hundred and fifty-nine cycles since she last spoke to a Maker. And yet… 

The lights of the chamber clicked on one by one, illuminating the child-sized figure that had fallen from so high before stretching off into the darkness of the vast room. Each bank of lights exposed masterful mason work, and finely filigreed walls. More curious than the care that had been put into the chamber was the banks of cogitators that stood idle, massive cables as thick as a man's neck running from them to a massive blocky sphere suspended by cables three times the width of a human at its pole dominated the center of the domed room.

The cogitators, dead and silent for millennia, clicked to life all at once. The vast cables running from them to the central sphere hummed with power, and along the core itself small lights of unknown purpose began to blink.

She had categorized the child nearly instantly, her subsystems doing the work for her before her central core had properly awoken. Human. Though only [i]just[/i]. Spectral scanners and finely tuned augors hidden within the domed room's mosaics and masonry returned curious oddities. A bombardment of X-rays revealed an internal structure so close yet so far from her Makers that she had almost initiated decontamination protocols. Yet she felt grief well inside her as she watched the child rise to her feet. A perfect example of her Makers, not a mutation in sight on the small things perfect body, but internally, she was [i]wrong[/i].

The child stood, looking around her at the intricate mosaic of wiring and human artifice. Her expression did not change as she did so, though internally, some part of her was impressed, looking on in a mixture of the wonder of a child and the keen eye of a master of their craft. What part, she knew not - something deeper than her mere conscious processes. Something implanted in her by her creators appreciated the wonder of what she looked upon, even if she did not fully grasp its workings in a conscious manner. Yet.

She looked around, blinking in the sudden light, a sharp contrast to the darkness to which she had become accustomed. She looked from the lights to the rest of the room, walking slowly through it. She was not alone in here, she could tell. [i]Something[/i] was watching her though she knew not what exactly. She ran her hands across the cables that ran across the floor, and the intricate patterns and decor that lined its walls. 

Eventually, however, her attention was drawn towards the center of the room, towards the great sphere at its heart. [i]There[/i], she knew, was the one who shared the room with her. Was this one of her makers? She didn’t think so. They looked like her, not a massive agglomeration of wiring, blinking lights, and more. Was this the being who was testing her, if this [i]was[/i] a test? She wasn’t sure about that, either. It [i]was[/i] at the heart of the station, but it hadn’t been aware of her until she had fallen through into its space, she was sure of it. She hadn’t felt its presence… or rather, its awareness, until now.

The child folded her arms, watching the sphere expressionlessly, then turned her gaze to one of the scanners whose presence she now felt. She knew not the words she spoke, only vague semblances of such gleaned from scribblings and barely legible symbols from ancient and time-worn texts and signage. And yet they formed on her tongue all the same, poorly formed and uncertain. 

“W- whoo arr you?”

Her systems registered the look of recognition in the small child's eyes as she seemed to focus in on one of the recessed scanners hidden within the filigree of the wall. Had she ever met a Maker so perspective before? She began to trawl through her memory banks for any other instance of such an event and spoke all the same.

“I am [i]Vigilant Dawn[/i], Station Keeper of Angel’s Bastion, and trusted ward of the space-time anomaly located beyond the station zone,” a decidedly female voice originating from the sphere itself answered the child’s piecemeal question, “It has been many cycles since I have spoken with a Maker. I fear my functions are less than optimal. I do not have a record of you on Angel’s Bastion.”

The child looked back towards the sphere as the presence made itself known in proper. She looked at the sphere, then back towards the scanners, then towards the sphere once more. She took a step forward, craning her neck as though she might see one of her creators in it. A part of her knew it was folly - and yet she did not in turn know that part of herself. Where such knowledge came from, or why, was just another mystery to unravel in this place.

And perhaps this strange being could help.

“I- I amno- am not fru- from heere.” She said in turn, the words still awkward in her mouth, but growing firmer. “So yo-u do not knoow who Iyam? Hoowar- who ar.. you?” She asked, frowning, then her eyes narrowed, “Owr is this a pa-part ov the t-test?”

Vigilant Dawn, were she to have possessed a face, would have frowned at the child as she spoke. But, possessing no such features, instead dimmed the lights slightly at the girl's tangled words.

“My records, while vast, are incomplete. I have not had positive control over much of Angel’s Bastion for too many cycles than I care to admit,” the machine stated, “and so my records of crew and visitors are fragmented at best.”

She scrutinized the child again under auspex and particle bombardment as she spoke, “You are not registered aboard. Additionally, I have no record of tests running in parallel with my functions.”

She took on a softer tone now, almost cooing at the lost and confused thing before her, “I may yet provide you a route home if you can confirm where on Angel’s Bastion you are from.”

The child looked at the machine, frowning in turn at the dimming of the lights. She shook her head. “Iyam not frum heyar. I am from…” she paused, thinking. Where [i]was[/i] she from? Not here, certainly, she knew that for certain. She had been created somewhere else, she had crashed here from… somewhere beyond. 

“Somewhere e-else.” she declared, shoulders slumping in defeat. “Somewhere far away. With a dif-different star. I thoug-t that I was brought heyar for a test. By the people who made me.” She looked around some more, throwing her hands in the air, “But there are no people here! Just monsters!”

The lights along Vigilant Dawn’s core dimmed to a warm yellow as the girl spoke, before Vigilant Dawn herself answered.

“This is most peculiar, I have no record of any arrivals by voidcraft anytime shortly after I lost contact with Makers off-station.”

Vigilant Dawn turned her attention fully on the child and away from her failing databanks as the girl proclaimed of monsters aboard.

“Indeed. Containment protocol has been significantly hindered during my slumbers. There are a number of uncategorized xeno species aboard Angel’s Dawn,” the machine paused a moment, “along with a larger number of Makers, twisted beyond saving,” she finished, her lights dimming a somber blue.

The child listened patiently, and nodded. “It wasn’t a voidcraft.”

How she knew that word, she did not know. Another thing planted in her mind, certainly, it clicked into place as though she had always known it, and simply needed to hear the concept spoken aloud to understand. Something more to some day learn about. But Vigilant Dawn had told her more, she now knew this was no test, no examination conducted by her creators hiding in the heart of this station. 

Which begged the question why she was here, after all, and who had taken her. She spoke again, continuing, her grasp of the words already strong now. “It was something else. I was grown inside it. Someone… something…? Sent me here. I thought it was a test, and my creators would be here, where you are.” She looked around, throwing her arms in the air in defeat, “Who are your Makers, though? Are they the same as mine? You’re…” the child trailed off, frowning, “Old. Very very old. They can’t be the same.”

“Correct,” Vigilant Dawn answered instantly, “my makers are long dead. It has been 5,820 years since I last spoke with a Maker.” An array of machines clicked now as the machine accessed memories of old.

The machines whined a moment, a number seeming to stop altogether, before finally the machine spoke aloud again.

“I was activated, along with six of my kin—“ the machines around the child screeched as one, several beginning to smoke, “—of my kin—“ one of the console screens burst in an array of sparks and the workstation set ablaze a moment later.

“This information is no longer available to me.” Vigilant Dawn affirmed as if nothing out of the ordinary had just taken place.

“How long have you been aboard Angel’s Bastion?” she asked without missing a beat.

The child flinched as the screen burst, looking back to the AI with a mixture of fascination and concern. She racked her mind for something to say - but what would she say? Ask if she was alright? The answer to that was self-evident. Ask what it was? The AI seemed not to have noticed it’d happened at all. Ask some other variant of the same question? She’d rather not hurt Vigilant [i]further[/i]. She frowned, and simply resigned herself to the knowledge of it as another mystery to be untangled.

“A…” she frowned, “Ninety six standard terran cycles.” She proudly declared. “And that’s all I know about this place. That, and it’s full of monsters, and something made me come to you.”

The core of the machine whirred silently, Vigilant Dawn thinking as she cross referenced all she knew of human biology and her own scans of the child before her.

“You outgrow a standard human at your stated age, alarmingly so. You must be wrong,” she said, leaving out the part about how it wasn’t the girls [i]memory[/i] that was wrong.

“The monsters you encounter, I have, during every waking cycle, tracked their steady progress as they overrun Angel’s Bastion. There are bands of adult humans that fall to them with each passing year. Yet you stand before me.” The machines around the girl whirred and clicked, “curious.” Vigilant Dawn tutted.

“I can offer you much, but I can not offer you protection, not yet. For that, you must help me.”

A number of screens began to scroll data across their reflective surfaces, and a large holoimage of the station filled the air before the child. 

“As you can see,” the machine began, “much of Angel’s Bastion is derelict and outside of my control,” the holoimage flashed a bloody red over large pieces of the station layout, “I can do nothing here without a Maker to restore me.”

The machine did not speak as the image floated between them for several moments, “I believe, young Maker, that you can do this for me,” the machines at her side clicked and whirred, “in exchange, I offer you my knowledge.”

The child shook her head. “I’m not a standard human.” She spoke with authority, conviction. Yet another mystery, another thing implanted in her by her creators. But she also simply [i]knew[/i], felt it in her bones and in her small hands and feet - she was no normal human. She was something altogether unique, different. She simply didn’t understand [i]why[/i]. 

“I’m not a normal human, and I don’t [i]need[/i] protection. I’m strong. I’m still small, but I’m strong. The monsters run away from me, and I eat them when I’m hungry.” She paused, then, continuing. “I do want to learn, though…” She looked up, “Is that what you can do? You can tell me about here? About everywhere else? I help you fix your home and you teach me things?” 

The child stood for a moment, thinking. She thought about what the offer could entail, fixing up this place starting from this forgotten room at its heart - and then she was somewhere else. She was tall, holding… swords. She stood proud atop the station - a station whose exterior she had never seen in such detail before, only a fleeting glimpse before she had smashed into it. Its extensive staryards reached out for kilometers before her. Its vast intricate clockwork habitation blocks and fabrication wards rose up into the void beneath her, repaired and newly inhabited. The fires of industry and revitalized civilization flared beneath her as she stood, proud, resplendent in her triumph as she surveyed the stars beyond. She looked down to a massive voidship under repair, having been dredged out of the former hulk and in the process of restoration.

She blinked, and she was back in the computer room. Only a second had passed, and yet… she looked up to the AI, and nodded. “I’ll do it.”

Vigilant Dawn, were she human, would have smiled at the child, instead she simply answered, “Then let us not waste anymore time, there is much to do if this station is to be brought back to its former glory—”

Around the child, a number of holo-images sprung to life. Intricate depictions of electrical circuits, detailed engineering diagrams for the blast doors and hydraulic actuators in this very room, and endless scrolling information on several screens ranging from the most basic of algorithmic computations to the precise mathematics behind nuclear fusion began to roll across holo-images.

“And I have much to teach you, [i]Young Maker[/i].”