It remembered a sterile white environment. Guided by hands that were sometimes gentle, and sometimes rough, but always careful. It remembered pain when it failed, but reward when it succeeded. It remembered routine. It remembered safety and it remembered home.
But this was not home. This was not sterile white and it was not safety and there were no hands guiding it and there was no pain or reward.
It was just it. And it didn’t like that. It didn’t like the broken glass of its pod, or the unfamiliar sounds and smells. And it didn’t like that no one was answering its cries.
In the lab when it cried someone was always there to show it what to do.
But here- was someone here. There were many someones here.
Its head, blank of features, snapped towards the sound. It listened, and realized that yes, those many someones and those many someones were coming closer.
Its head snapped around, scanning the environment before it tumbled forward and morphed, body changing in shape and color and texture until it looked like something that was unassuming.
It was something hard and cold and greyish and it was in a pile with a bunch of other hard and greyish things.
“Are you telling me it’s already gone?”
“Yes sir. There doesn’t seem to be any form of life around.”
“It landed less than a few minutes ago! How could it already of disappeared!”
“If it took off running as soon as it could, sir, then it’s possible it could have gone a long distance. We don’t know what was supposed to be in this thing.”
“Well scan the area again! And get me anything you can from that pod to tell me what we might be dealing with here!”
