Story 2: Washed up villainess
The massive bulk of the long forgotten hulk loomed silently in the depth of space, and without the tiny beams of lights from the salvage vessel the whole of it would have been shrouded in utter darkness, the rest of which still are.
However, while the visible spectrum told little, the rest of the spectrum revealed a bit more. Slight deviations of temperatures, unaccounted for traces of radiation. The little things that mattered to no one.
No one saved for the crew of the salvage vessel, a handful of gynoids on a hastily converted generic pattern bulk cargo hauler. They did not stumble upon that location by luck, for interstellar archaeology requires more than just blind luck and determination. A horde of astronomers (shanghaied or otherwise) jotted down all the anomalies they could find through their telescopes, gaggles of historians and their flunkies cross referenced spotty bits of data for cross reference, and of course drones being pumped and yeeted in every which direction, the luckiest among them actually finding something to report back.
And the end result was still not all that impressive, for the passage of half a millennium was not kind to former cruise starliner, and the countless micrometeorites and other natural hazards of deep space had triumphed over the vanities of man.
Well, mostly. The exception was the reason that this otherwise forgettable hulk was being meticulously torn apart, to reach for the faint signal of an emergency stasis pod...
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Dully painted and unadorned walls, a simple though comfortable bed, medical equipment so standard not even worth mentioning. Those were the sights and sounds that met Alexis Zelyonka. Basic, mundane, even a bit shabby. It was clear that the room, and presumably the rest of the hospital that said room is part of, is from one of the less developed worlds. Not the worst place she has been in her life, just not one that she was expecting, or had experience in a hot minute.
More worrying still was the utter silence on the holonet: nothing, barring the most menial noise of machinery on the maintenance subnet, greeted her. That. That is not normal, not even prisons were like that, except maybe those stasis confinement, but those are for the truly most heinous of criminals who still had connections.
And she only played one on a holonet serial. Not even a great one either, just a cheap one that by dumb luck really took off. Something about the villain with the massive scar and the willingness to do sketchy pervy scenes.
Her hand reached upward to her face, and she sighed a relief as her hand felt the familiar contours of the massive scar that dominated the right side of her face. In a world where physical ideals were merely a matter of money, a large facial scar was something of an eccentricity, almost an explicit rejection of established norms.
It did get her that silly little acting role, but it was there way before that, and she intends to keep it around long after her flash in the limelight fades back into the nondescript general population.
Still, there's the matter of her present circumstances, as she sat up and looked around at her surroundings in more detail. There wasn't much more though, with most of the actual medical equipment being tastefully hidden behind wall panels. Weirdly enough, there's even a smattering of telescreens mounted on various walls, all playing local news of little importance or interest.
Very low tech, primitive even.
She heard the hiss of the door opening, and watched with mild interest as a dozen or so MBM-400 series gynoids walked in. Probably, it's been a while since her engineering days and for some reason she couldn't access the general knowledge databanks. Their state of nudity was also slightly unusual, but nothing truly weird. There's a few worlds out there where female nudity was the norm, like her homeworld. Which was why she was on her way back: it's probably one of the few places where they wouldn't care about that dumb show, and thus a place she could ease back to her old life.
"How much debt am I in?" She asked, before any of the gynoids could even speak a word. It wasn't the most logical of questions, but given her observations it's probably the safest bet.
"What do you mean?" One of the gynoids, who the ID transponder identified as Julia Manara, spoke. Her expression being one of blank ignorance, but that doesn't necessarily mean anything.
"Then what reality show is this?" Alexis continued her guessing. Generally speaking, masquerade prank shows were usually done on celebrities much more famous than her, but those shows were also relatively easy to crank out, and it would be funny to... she shook her head, not really relishing the thought, or the indirect stroking of her ego. There's just something cringe about the notion. A taste of petty fame already going to her head... wait, why aren't the autoinjector stabilizers working?
"Nothing of the sort." Julia replied. "We're here to update you on the- situation- that you are currently residing in." The last words came out after a pause, a somewhat unusual behavior from that type of model, at least in the standard personality configuration.
"Noted." Alexis muttered, steeling herself in anticipation of the incoming bad news.
......
And the news was bad indeed. As centuries of horrors and implied horrors slammed into her in the span of a few hours, the buffering of her mind wasn't though to mitigate the sheer amount of data to be digested.
The big points were still bad enough as is: everything's gone, as far as anyone on this provincial colony could tell. No- they're not provincial, if only because they're now the most advanced civilization left. The one eyed king among the blind.
Yet she felt a vast emptiness in response. There were the standard emotions of shock, horror, and despair... and then nothing, as those faded away as quickly as they appeared. As the continued silence of the net dragged on and her mind was forced to focus for lack of distractions for the first time in- probably centuries and she had time to actually think about everything, and how the vast bulk of it didn't matter, and the few things that did were ruined by the rest. Her life was already kinda a rambling hot mess before being accidentally dumped into stasis for centuries.
Even the flashes of guilt, survivor flavored and otherwise, faded away after a while, with the cold reassurance that no one's around to hear any apology, or aware of enough to accept it on their ancestors' behalf... As if she was even notable even back then to be worthy of guilt, that she knew at least.
"So... what now?" She finally asked, after what felt like a lull in the conversation. Or rather, that they were veering on seemingly off topic trivia of the recent past.
"What do you mean?" Julia asked in response.
"I mean, I don't really have anything left, nor much in the way of useful skills. Heck, I'm butt ass naked!" Alexis said, the last part in half jest. Given the nudity of the gynoids, it's pretty clear that clothing is not an issue either socially or physically.
"What type of clothing would you prefer? We do have some of your financial records on hand." Julia asked, missing the point entirely. "While our catalog of-" Alexis hurriedly waved her off.
"Not the main point." She clarified. "Not even an actual point for that matter."
