I awoke in an altogether different condition than on the previous occasions, except in that I was as nude as before. I was neither bound nor confined in a restrictive space. Instead, I was laying on a kind of padded ledge or built-in bench that was long enough to accommodate my body in a small room of perhaps 9 feet by 12 feet. It was not unlike a jail cell. I noticed the room had both a lavatory sink and a toilet of sorts. Neither fixture looked like what I was used to seeing in a bathroom, but their functions were easily enough discerned from their form. They may have copied the basic design parameters from observation of fixtures on earth. I had, after all, no reason to suspect that the devices were optimal for waste evacuation or hygiene for the aliens, if their process of waste removal was even anything like that of a human.
"Do you need to relieve yourself? If so, please do so before we begin." The voice came from a small squat robot that I had not previously noticed owing to its diminutive stature, its static position, and its position at the periphery of the little cell near the only door or portal. It was cylindrical with a pyramidal top, had wheels, and looked somehow fake despite its impressive capabilities.
"Begin what?" I said
"The tour and orientation for incoming liaisons." The robot said in a voice that was not the synthesized type that I was used to hearing in movies, but rather it sounded quite human though perhaps too perfect for an actual human.
I did in fact need to pee. And, in the context of what I had experienced so far, urinating with my back to the little droid was the least weird thing I had done since I was brought "aboard" or wherever I was.
"You are to wear these." The robot said rolling up to me with some red material clamped between the pincers of one of its short arms.
I took the pieces of cloth and unfolded them. They were a rudimentary shirt and pants like medical scrubs, but, instead of soothing pastel colors, these were a fire engine shade of red. They had a fly that was, like some pajamas, not secured by so much as a single button. Still, it was nice to leave behind the vulnerable feeling of being nude among strange beings.
I reminded myself that the clothes were unlikely to have been issued for my comfort. The alien I had seen wore no clothing, and, for all I knew, clothing was a completely foreign concept to its species. No, the clothing was meant to differentiate me from the subjects. The aliens had studied us long enough to know that in any interaction between naked and clothed humans, the one with pants (or a skirt) is invariably in charge. I could not deny that clothing injected a degree of confidence that would likely be beneficial in my role. I was beginning to suspect that the .2 in Sex Zoo 2.2 (i.e. Department 2) focused on sexual power dynamics.
When I had put on the top and bottom, the robot turned and rolled toward the door. It paused at the door for just a moment before the door opened. I wondered how the process worked. Did the robot send a wireless signal to trigger the door? If so, was it encrypted? I was thinking about how I could make a break. I didn't know what I would do once I got out, or even what "out" meant. Out of the Zoo? Off the ship? Back to earth? Was I even on a ship, or was that a fabrication?
My reverie was interrupted by a statement by the little droid as it rolled ahead of me smoothly leading the way. "I've been told to inform you about rules. You are confined to the corridors delineated by these yellow lines and all rooms immediately off them except those marked with placards indicating they are restricted areas." The machine pointed a closed pincer at a color coded line that ran along the floor about six inches from each wall.
"During your work hours you may travel freely within this space as necessary to get your work done and go about the course of living as long as you don't interrupt experiments in progress. Rooms in which experiments are being conducted are marked with a placard. In most cases there is an anteroom between the corridor and the experiment chamber that is used for observation and monitoring and doors from the anteroom to the experimentation chambers are locked except when needed for transit. So it should not be a problem. If you stray from the delineated area, you will begin to experience a pain that, if ignored, will escalate to the point of incapacitation and possibly death. When you are not performing your required tasks, you are free to entertain yourself as you see fit. Do you have any questions?" The little droid inquired as it came to a stop.
I had a million questions, but the most pressing ones I did not want to ask. At the top of the list I wanted to know whether the droid or the aliens had read my thoughts about escape and that was what triggered the lecture on my confinement area and the penalty for violating it, or whether it was a mere coincidence. That alien had clearly read my mind, but I didn't know if it had limitations.
For the time being I decided I should assume they could understand every thought that went through my mind and should be appropriately cautious. This turned out to be exceedingly challenging and mentally exhausting. I had once practiced Soto Zen meditation, and knew how maddeningly difficult it could be to clear the mind. It was even harder because an overwhelming desire to get the hell out of this place was my primary motivating force in life. How could one plot an escape without thinking about escape? On the other hand, if I played along with the aliens' game in my mind, would I eventually become brainwashed into being what they wanted me to be? The mind is complex and tricky.
I decided to ask a question to distract myself. "What kind of entertainment is there?"
"Well, most obviously, there are sexual diversions of any nature you might desire, and you are encouraged to take advantage of them. However, should you require a break from those activities, we do have probes that pick up radio signals transmitted from your planet, and we have receivers that can transform the raw signal into audio and visual output perceivable comprehensible by you. If you have any other particular desires, your hosts will consider requests. We have learned that occupying the mind is important to the well-being of members your species." The robot answered.
"If you look through these windows you will see the stasis pods in which most of the subjects are kept between experiments. As I suspect you were told, you resided in one of these pods until recently." The robot valet said.
I had been so distracted with listening to the robot and trying to censor my thought that it did not register that we had passed out of the sterile white brightly-lit arc of corridor. I did as suggested, turning and peering through the glass. From my position, one looked down as if from an observation deck to a factory floor or surgical chamber. This space was more like the former, but still more like a warehouse. Except it was an immaculately clean environment. The stasis pods were a silver-gray metallic material and were gracefully curved in the front around a large almond shaped bubbled glass that allowed one to see the occupant's upper torso and head. The pods' dimensions were similar to that of a small coffin, though they seemed to come in at least a few different sizes. These pods were suspended from gigantic racks like suits hanging in a closet. There were coiled cables that stretched from the rack and attached to the upper end of the pod.
I could see robots, stouter and taller than my little valet droid, lifting the limp form of a fellow human, a pasty thin man, out of one of the pods and onto what looked quite like a search and rescue team's basket. Another set of robots was transferring a middle-aged woman with short red-hair from another basket back into one of the pods. Both the woman and man had dark veiny tendrils running along their torsos and limbs. I remembered I had had them myself during the experiments on me, and I surmised that these must provide muscle stimulation because otherwise one would expect severe atrophy from such extended hibernations. I still felt weak and lacked energy, but I realized that my muscles must have gotten some activity. I could see at least 100 of the pods in the cavernous space below, and there may have been many more owing to my inability to see the full extent of the room's peripheral wings.
"Come along. It is time for me to take you to the Sexual Activities Workshop and Breeding Laboratory, we call it the SAW-BL." The robot said, pronouncing the acronym "sawble".
Almost every surface I had seen in the ship so far was either a glossy white plastic-looking material or one of various shades of gray metallic material that was also glossy such that it looked like the faux-metal plastics one sometimes saw in car consoles and the like. There was, of course, glass-like transparent material as well. The lack of any color or decorations to break up the wall space gave the ship, or whatever it was, a surreal and oddly disconcerting feel. And all of the white began to be punishing to the eyes after a short while. Corners and edges were also much less prevalent than in human construction. The ceilings tended to be arched or domed and spaces more often featured curved, circular, or amorphous shapes than the standard cubic Earthling room.
I was directed through a door into what they called the SAW-BL and what I almost immediately began to mentally refer to as the "2nd Circle of Hell." Its occupants did not have the good fortune to be kept unconscious, like those in the stasis pods. Instead, they were conscious and kept nude in the most terrifyingly vulnerable positions.
We entered the room shaped like half a capsule cut long ways from one end, and I could see the space was partitioned into at least five sections by partition walls that connected perpendicularly to one long wall, but with a passageway that could be transited along the nearer long wall. It reminded me of a large dairy I had visited as a child in which row after row of cows were kept with heads locked in stanchions where they could eat at food placed before them while they were milked. There were some differences. Whereas the dairy had been both quite open and ironically very smelly, this place was more closed off by solid walls but was pristinely clean and sanitary. However, the more I was shown the more the dairy analogy seemed apropos.