A Time of Useful Consciousness

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My helmet was gone. For a brief moment I gasped needlessly for air, panicking that I would find none. Instead the air was warm, plentiful and smelling faintly of cigarette smoke. My next realisation was the fact we, Anna was beside me, were sitting inside a vast pale blue sphere.

The walls rose up around us and pinned like grotesque butterflies were the creatures. In their hundreds they snarled and flailed against some unseen restraint. Most were whole but many had not fared well in the destruction of the ring. Limbs floated free beside them and a few were little more than a cloud of bloodless body parts.

"Where... wait are you ok? You were floating and I -"

"I'm fine. I woke up seconds before you." she said distractedly while turning slowly in a circle taking in our audience. "They were already here when I woke up."

Noiselessly a section of the floor rose up before us into a waist high square pillar. After it finished extruding from the floor it sat motionless until we approached it at which point text appeared in crisp black lettering.

Deactivate apparatus.

We both stood simply staring at the writing, hoping for more information. The silence was only broken by the creatures who still writhed wordlessly around us. Seeing no other options I motioned to touch it when Anna grabbed my hand.

"Not yet."

"It's not some kind of button?"

"It reads more like a command. Does it mean my suit? What apparatus exactly?"

"Also it's in english, I feel like I should be surprised but it's reassuring in a way. Should we empty out our bags and see what it might be?"

In response one of the creatures was lowered from the wall, we could see now what held them in place. Piercing its chest was a thin blue barb which like the pillar was extruded seamlessly from the wall. The creature came to rest above our heads, hanging like a fish on a hook, still impaled and flailing. We looked at each other in panicked confusion.

"That's not our- we don't own these things!"

They are your creation.

"We know nothing about them, we can't deactivate them but I'll gladly help you destroy them."

With your consent I can learn more.

"Consent given" we chimed in unison.

The creature went limp and all the others followed one by one. Slowly their bodies were drawn into the walls with a jerking crunching motion as if pulled into a shredder. Each creature was destroyed one by one until only the one suspended above us remained. It hung limp from its hook above the pillar.

"Shit, my network connection is live, they're sending me a... some kind of report, hold on." Anna kneeled down and assumed the distant look whenever she was reading something in her contact lenses. I went over to the pillar which had started to fill with text in the same black lettering as before.

Designation: Shareholder Reclamation Unit

Created: January 2437

Purpose: Rescue high net worth individuals

Estimated reclaimable assets: $3.02 x 109

Adjusted for inflation, share splits, acquisitions and crypto forks:$1.07 x 1019

Of 6000 passengers:

107 killed during process

5891 killed during scan into simulated consciousness