What a View

Today I started off by spending some time practicing controlling the room with my mind. It took some time, just like learning to deal with the text of everything in my vision, but I started to get the hang of it after a few hours. I'm sure as I keep controlling things it'll come easier, but for now it still takes a bit of focus.

Once I felt I had some grasp of this I decided it was time to teach this entity something new. I began envisioning a window, the shape and materials that went into it, the view that you had when you looked out of it. I made sure to make mental images of several different kinds of windows so that the concept would be understood. During all of this I had my eyes closed, trying to maintain my focus. When I had finished trying to teach it what I wanted and opened my eyes I beheld a view I never could have imagined. It had constructed a room for me with almost an entire wall as a dome of glass for me to stand in and look out through. The view was spectacular, the way the light illuminated all the little moons and planets in this solar system made it sparkle like a cave of precious gems. I didn't recognize any of it, not a single constellation was familiar to me and I knew I wasn't in any of the solar systems I had been in before. I also knew I wasn't near Earth because I had seen pictures of that system, this was definitely far from where anyone I knew had ever been.

I'm not sure how long I stood gazing out at what was around me, but a slight chirp brought my attention back to reality. The chirp was a question, very much expected. My answer to the question was that this was very good, far greater than what I had hoped for. I no longer felt captive, but free, I had a view now of all that was around me and now knew why there was no way out of this box I had been in. I wanted to see what this little home of mine, as I was now coming to think of it, looked like from the outside. I closed my eyes and tried to form the question, but before I could finish forming the first part a vision was given me of what this structure looked like on the outside. Startled, I opened my eyes to figure out how that had happened. I saw how it was done quickly, a single probe was floating outside of the glass dome now. I closed my eyes again and looked at what the probe saw, moving it around with my thoughts. It was a strange feeling, at one point I almost felt that I was the probe, it just seemed so natural to see things this way and to control this remote object. The structure was shaped just like the rooms. A series of cubes all attached. I realized that when I arrived it must have just been one large cube floating in the middle of space, but my desires had reshaped it. The surface of the cube was very simple, a dark metal that almost blended in with the surroundings. I could not tell what it was made of. As I explored the structure it dawned on me that there were not any extra rooms, which made me wonder where my host was. Before I could form the question in my mind my host caused my vision of the ship to be highlighted so that all other surrounding objects were no longer visible. It took a moment to realize what it was telling me, but when the realization came I was awestruck. My host was the cube, it was the vessel that I was currently residing in. This entity was a construct unlike anything I had ever seen before. It was a living, adapting piece of technology that was completely isolated out in the middle of space. With this realization the vision left, the probe reabsorbed back into the ship and I was left with my thoughts.

The day was getting late and I was weary from everything that had happened. As I lay down in my bed my thoughts were flooded with so many questions that didn't have answers yet. As if sensing that these thoughts were a problem the cube put a new image in my mind and helped quiet all the thoughts so that I could rest. The image in my mind was a memory, one of the things I had seen on Calypso, in the middle of one of the forests with the sounds of birds singing and the wind gently rustling the leaves. These sounds and images made sleep come quickly.

Advancing Communications

Today I had no new ideas, all I could think about as I stirred from my slumber was that I really wanted windows in my room so I could see something different. As I stepped out of the bathroom I had constructed I noticed something on the table, it was an implant extractor. I remember I had one in my tools before they were all taken away, but this one looked different. I picked it up and examined it, distracted at least for now from my desires. What purpose would there be in giving me an extractor? Then it dawned on me. Perhaps this was the answer to our communication problems. Obviously the entity had trouble understanding human expression, so it must not be men who kept me here, and it seemed to know technology very well, so if I gave it the implant that was in my head perhaps it would learn something more of how to communicate with me. I put the device to my head and prepared myself for the pain as I pulled the trigger. A few beeps later and a slight pressure and the device had successfully extracted the implant. I was shocked, our technology couldn't painlessly remove these things and yet this device, almost the same as our own, had been modified and improved in just a few days to do it with hardly any discomfort. Once the device was out and in my hands a little opening appeared in the wall, I understood the meaning of this and placed the implant into the crevice, hoping that this would change things for the better.

I anxiously waited for something to happen, I figured it would take a little bit of time at least and had eaten breakfast and then after awhile lunch. No beeps from the PDA, no questions, just silence. I tried to move things around in the room but nothing was responding. It seemed as if the entity was completely absorbed in the study of the implant I gave it and it wasn't until nearly the time I felt would be dinner that it finally chirped at me and drew my attention to a new opening in the wall. Inside the opening was an implant chip, it looked almost exactly like the previous one, however I noticed it had a few new materials in it, minerals I had never seen before. I knew it had modified the implant, but I didn't know what it would do. Despite the hospitality I had been given thus far I was still apprehensive to put this modified device in my head. It took a lot for me to do it the first time, but this time I knew it was going to be different. Reluctantly I picked up the implant inserter and put it to my head, I took a deep breath and held it as I pulled the trigger.

I'm not sure how long I had been lying on the floor. I must have blacked out when the device was inserted because I didn't remember lying down. The implant inserter was gone, taken away again I assume so I wouldn't remove the device I had just put in my head. I felt different, I knew something was changed with this new device and I wasn't quite sure what it was. I sat on the floor for a bit, my eyes closed as I tried to figure out what this new sensation was. After a few moments I realized what it was, there was text barely visible everywhere I looked. I opened my eyes and looked around, by looking at objects and then allowing my focus to relax a bit I could see labels attached to things and other information about what the particular settings were for the pieces of furniture and rooms. I realized I was seeing things with labels that a computer would keep for knowing where things were supposed to be and what they were supposed to look like. I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do, so I spent the next hour or so learning how to handle having the additional information in my vision. After a bit of practice I learned that I could make the text become more apparent or disappear entirely with my desire for it to do so. If it weren't for the sudden growling of my stomach I would not have realized it was well past the normal time to eat, so I reached for my PDA to get some dinner on the table, but it wasn't there. I looked around, thinking I must have dropped it on the floor when I blacked out, but it was nowhere to be found. Slightly panicked I continued my frantic search until I heard a little chirp. I looked in the direction I thought I heard it come from but there was nothing there. Another chirp made me realize that it wasn't actually coming from something external, but it was a sound being played directly into my head. The implant had been modified to not only give me some additional functionality but it had also been changed to replace my PDA. I closed my eyes and focused on the chirp, an image appeared to me seeming to ask if everything was good or not. I thought it was good, but different, to my surprise an appropriate expression appeared from my thoughts, one that signified that things were good but that I was having to adjust to these changes. I opened my eyes again and focused my vision and my thoughts on the table. I recalled how the table brought forth food and thought of the things that I would like it to show me now. To my delight the table did as I desired, controlled by my thoughts to bring forth my dinner. If it hadn't been for another growl from my stomach I'm sure I would have forgotten to eat the food because I suddenly realized that I had much greater control of the things around me, I could use the thoughts and visions in my head to do what I wanted to with this room. After eating the meal I decided it would be best to get some sleep before exercising much more of my new found ability, it was draining and I needed to have a clear head before I messed with anything major. I lied down on my bed and decided to make some notes about the day, this time using a mental notepad instead of the PDA.

Turning a Cell into a Home

I woke up this morning with many things on my mind. I wanted to try more things with the application it had given me and see what else I could do with this room. After another wonderful breakfast I began playing with the application again, this time attempting to get the application to focus on the walls, an activity we had not done previously. Once I taught it what I wanted it then went back to the learning application to get some new terms for things. After it learned what it needed to I was able to open the application and manipulate the walls until I had an entirely new room. I turned this little cell into a multi-room dwelling place, removing the need for the furniture to be called forth and put away every time I wanted to do something different. I then got to work trying to teach it what a window was, my hope being that I could get it to make one and see where I was or at least maybe see who my host was.

The attempt to teach the entity that was caring for me what a window was did not go well, I tried all up until lunch and then for a few hours after but it simply did not understand what I was wanting. I tried to get it to learn what a door was, but that didn't seem to work either. Frustrated and defeated in this communication barrier I decided to give up this endevour for today and work out the next idea to try to implement with my limited controls.

Advanced Learning

This morning I woke up with a bit of a headache, I'm pretty sure what I've been eating has not been good enough nutritionally but it is what I had. As I performed my morning ritual to wake myself up I thought about what might be on the table when I pressed that button. My fear was that it would be something moldy or slimy and completely disgusting. My stomach growled as I finished cleaning myself and got dressed. I brought up the application and pressed the button that showed a picture of food.

Words cannot properly describe what the table presented me with or the aroma of the things that were laid out upon it. Most of them I did not recognize, but the smell of these things made my mouth water. The way it all appeared was a bit intesting, the table seemed to expand a bit on the surface and then open up and recede, leaving behind various plates full of fresh fruits, things that looked like eggs, and meat from some sort of beast. I sat and prepared to eat when I heard a little chirp from my PDA. Remembering what happened yesterday I decided it would be best to see what it wanted this time. The same teaching application came up again, this time displaying the different types of food on the table and once I put in the general category of food it was it would display two pictures, one of me smiling and one of me frowning. I tasted each food as I categorized them and hit the appropriate button. I have to say, most of it was better than I could have ever imagined, I think there may have only been a couple of things that were not quite something I would normally eat.

Once the meal was done and I had answered all the questions the PDA was quiet once more, in fact, even when I tried to open the teaching application it would not open for me. It appeared that the program was mostly so that whatever was keeping me here could learn more about me. It seemed to want to know what I liked and didn't like. I decided it would be a good idea to play around with it a little more if I could get it open, so I paced about the room trying to get it going again. It wasn't until I had pulled up the bed again from the floor that I could finally get it to open. The question it seemed to present to me in the form of images was what I was hoping for, it was inquiring if the bed was good or bad for me. I decided I wanted to put this little thing to the test so I pressed the button for bad and the bed quickly and quietly slid back into the floor. A few moments later a new bed came up, it was similar in look but the feel of it was quite different. It still wasn't exactly what I'd enjoy sleeping on best, so I hit that I didn't like it again and this time instead of just replacing the one bed the room was filled with many, all in different shapes, sizes and firmnesses. I checked them all out and found one that was to my liking, I pointed the PDA at it and hit the yes option, the rest of the beds vanished and I tested to see if putting the bed away and pulling it back out would give me the same one I chose, which it did. I suddenly realized that this room really wasn't intended to be a prison, but more of a room for me to live in while whoever it was that had me in here learned about me. The room was trying to make me at least somewhat comfortable during this time and so I started using the application it gave me to rearrange things and change my preferences for design, color and feel of the room. It all took awhile because I had to use images to communicate what I desired and the application had to stop me a couple times to update itself to be able to handle more complicated input. By the time I was finished it was late in the day but the interface had completely changed to allow me to select particular things in the room, zoom in on parts of it, and modify them in every tiny detail I wanted to. It was simply amazing, I wished we had this type of technology back on Calypso, it would have made living in style very easy. Hopefully tomorrow I can learn a bit more and teach it some more of what I want, but for now, I am going to get some much needed sleep on a very comfortable bed.

Learning

It was shortly after I ate lunch that the new applications finished installing on the PDA. The first one I opened gave me a command prompt but would not take any commands, so I went to the second application. The second one looked like it was an application for teaching, it presented basic images such as the fruit I had and the tools I had been carrying and presented a prompt for typing in what it was. I did this for a little while and then not knowing what it was for gave up on it. At this point, I felt a little tired, likely from boredom, and decided to take a nap.

The alarm startled me, I must have just dozed off when it started because I didn't feel rested at all. The alarm came from my PDA, I didn't even know it was capable of such a noise as the one it was making. When I looked at the screen that little teaching application was up and it had a picture of me. I attempted to exit the program but it wouldn't close, so I eventually put in my name and the sound stopped. I was a bit surprised. It then presented a few more images, this time showing me images of myself doing various gestures I had probably done at different times in the room. Not wanting to upset the application again I continued putting in the answers to the images until it finally stopped. I must have been doing this for a few hours by the time I finished because when I was done I found myself very famished and needing some nourishment. I got out the last bit of fruit that I had and ate it, I knew that tomorrow would be the day I finally had to rely on the provisions that the room provided, but for today at least I was still at least partially self sufficient. Hopefully whatever it gives me tomorrow will at least be palatable.

Could Be Worse

No brilliant ideas for escape, sleep was much easier last night though, definitely much more comfortable with a bed. I'm still hesitant to eat what the button would provide, I haven't even pressed it yet, but my fruit supply isn't very large and I know it's just a matter of time before I have to partake of what is offered. When I woke up this morning there was another update that had been pushed to my PDA, and it appears the technology of the room is tailoring itself to me because as I woke up the lights came on as well, slowly though, so it wasn't blinding.

The port on the wall for the PDA was missing this morning, but things are working remotely now, I didn't need to attach it to control what I wanted. I decided to take a shower, the water was a perfect temperature and it was a very refreshing experience, almost made me forget that I was a prisoner in this strange room. I'm guessing the updates to my PDA are going to continue, things are changing on it, there seems to be a couple of new programs on it but they don't appear to be functional yet. The furniture in the room has changed a bit today as I called it from its secret hiding place in the floor, it's more comfortable and shaped to suit my body. It feels as though I'm being treated as an honored guest more than a prisoner, but it's hard to be completely at ease when you can't leave. Hopefully these new applications show me something about my circumstances and perhaps they'll explain in some archaic way why I am here. For now I guess I will have to be content with sitting around idly waiting for something new to happen.

The Chamber

Sleep was difficult, the hard, cold floor was probably the easiest thing to deal with. It was the dark silence that bothered me the most, but eventually I did sleep. I'm not sure how long it lasted, but I eventually woke up to the sound of my PDA informing me that it had just finished updating, again. I looked to see what had changed but it revealed nothing to me. I checked again to see if it could find a position for me but that didn't work, even stranger was the fact that, despite getting updated, it still had no connection to any network. So where did the update come from? I decided to pull out the few tools I had to figure out a way to get out of this mess but as I looked through the storage application there was nothing there except the fruit I had been carrying when everything happened. I went to the logs but the last ones indicated that I had transferred data to my PDA and nothing had left. I double checked the device, but knew it wasn't going to turn up my possessions, I could feel that the device didn't have all that heavy energy it had when I first arrived in this room.

After an hour or so I ate some of the food I had, got to my feet and began exploring the room again, not that I had any hopes of escape as there was nothing to this room the previous day except for completely smooth, cold walls. As I was intently looking for a seam, crack or any flaw I suddenly came across an impression in the wall, I am pretty sure it wasn't there previously but it was certainly here now. The impression was the same size and shape as the dock on my tools for a PDA to go into, so, having nothing else to lose I plugged in the device. Suddenly the room lit up and a new application came onto the screen. My shock kept me standing there dumbly for a few minutes but as my senses slowly returned I took notice of what the screen showed me. They seemed to be controls for the room, very simple images as if it were a program for a child to understand. I saw options for food, water and various other options for keeping my room clean, even a control for turning on and off the lights. After checking this application I pulled the PDA back out of the slot, which surprisingly left the lights on for me and continued my exploration of the walls and floor in the well lit room.

Obviously, aside from the new slot in the wall, nothing else had changed, there were still no obvious exists to this room. So, using the PDA in the slot again, I pushed a button with an image of a table and chair which caused the floor to raise in the center of the room (where there had been no seam visible) into a table and chair. Having at least this amount of comfort, I sat down to contemplate my condition and how to get out of it.