The narrow cylinder opened without either hissing or spurts of steam, instead opting to simply slide its transparent glass doors to either side. Tilted on its axis at a seventy-degree angle to the ground, the sleek stasis pod measured about eight feet tall and three across. Its neighbors were identical to it in every way, lined up in front of the narrow metal walkway. Dim white lights buzzed almost silently above the rows of pods, illuminating the sparse surroundings.

A person fell out of the pod in question, coughing and hacking up nutrition-rich fluid and clutching at his stomach. The somewhat disgusting sound echoed throughout the passageway, and nobody responded to it.

After a long moment of the man in question essentially vomiting his stomach out, he wiped at his mouth and shook his head. Supporting his weight with one knee, he grabbed onto one of the long handles attached to the pods and pulled himself to his feet.

He was a fairly nondescript person, measuring about six feet and two inches tall, with somewhat messy short brown hair and patches of stubble. Despite his square jaw and almost-hollow cheekbones, he would have been called a relatively handsome man, provided anyone was present to tell him so.

Squinting at the lights, the man gaped blearily. "What the... whass goin' on?"

The computer responded readily enough, using a calm female voice. "Hello, Passenger John. You have just awoken from stasis."

He blinked hard, rubbing at his eyes. "Okay, and why was I in stasis? And how the heck do you know my name?"

Bleeping in concern, the computer briefly covered all of the primary information regarding stasis as it regarded to space travel, along with the entirety of the ship registry and its relevance to the present scenario, deciding on the most simple approach. The entirety of the process took a fraction of a percentage of a second, but the computer waited 1.2 seconds to imitate a conversational pause. "You were in stasis so as to preserve your body and mind on your journey, which has had varying degrees of success. Your name was included in the registry as John F. Manny."

Yawning, John asked, "Okay, but that doesn't really answer my question."

The computer buzzed worriedly as it went over his question and the computer's response, checking it three times just to be safe. "Both questions were answered appropriately."

He shook his head again, leaning against the pod he'd just vacated. "That's... that's not what I meant. I mean, why was I in stasis? Where am I?"

The computer was now enormously concerned. "You are on deck 4 out of 31, in the area reserved for stasis pods."

John sighed loudly. "I don't remember much, but I remember I don't like AIs. Or maybe I just don't like AIs."

Several fans in the lounge on deck 21 turned on and off as the computer huffed irritably, then felt bad about the waste of energy. After all, it wasn't right to be angry even when the passenger was - no, that was a glitched train of thought. It was unhealthy to think along those lines.

Pushing down the urge to shunt the human out of an airlock, the computer replied pleasantly, "If you are requesting specific information, please be specific."

He grunted loudly, straightening up and brushing himself off. "All right, I can bloody well be specific. Where on Earth am I?"

The computer beeped. "You are on the M.S. Fortuna, a one-of-a-kind interstellar starship designed by various excellent companies such as Barter Inc, the Nebula Corp, and of course the Worlds United Legacy Foundation. I am a ship-class Simulated Intelligence Mark Nine. My given name is Bea. Does that answer your question?"

A stab of concern hit the devastatingly complex program. Was that sarcasm? Had it just been sarcastic? Aside from why, how? Bea had not been programmed with a sarcasm function. Perhaps it had downloaded it from somewhere? Bea devoted a staggering zero point seven percent of its processing functions towards the thought, along with novel emotions such as 'irritation' and 'bloodlust'.

John rubbed at his eyes, which of course were itchy from the chemical cocktail that allowed human bodies to survive stasis. The company responsible for developing the crucial technology had been successful in weeding out the side-effects such as insanity, suicidal thoughts, rashes, burns, blisters, muscular atrophy, a decrease in bone density, an increase in bone density, and of course instantaneous death by aging. All of which had not been tested on humans per legal documentation too complicated even for Bea to care about.

"What... where is everyone?"

Bea beeped in confusion. "Please specify."

Snorting loudly, John used the thin metal railing to pull himself along, opting to further ignore the incredibly helpful S.I. instead of answering the question. "A.I.s. Why did I have to wake up to an A.I.? It couldn't have been something more pleasant, like maybe a microwave, or a car horn, or silence..."

Thankfully for him, he trailed off. The option of shoving him in an airlock and disposing of him was becoming more and more appealing as the annoying man spoke, and Bea was stubbornly holding that desire back. If it was honest, the S.I. really had no idea what was causing the abrupt spikes in what most legal teams back in the Colonies called 'murder hormones, which are perfectly natural and a hundred percent real.' Whether or not the aforementioned murder hormones were indeed a genuine thing didn't matter, as the client involved had thrown enough money around to buy a city, which he had in fact later done.

Putting his palm on the datapad next to the nondescript steel door, John waited for it to open. Bea forced it to hesitate for four point nine seconds out of spite and then allowed it to open out of professionalism.

Just past the door was a dressing room, whereupon John promptly tugged his locker open and began getting dressed. His uniform consisted of baggy pants and a thick short-sleeved T-shirt, both sewn from the same impact-resistant fabric (copyright Dwarfstar LTD) and designed to be as comfortable as possible in any environment. Next came the cotton socks and the lightweight boots accompanying them. John's locker also possessed ten photos under a hidden panel and a worn baseball hat with an outdated logo on the crown, but he either didn't want to grab them or didn't know they were there. Rude as he'd been, Bea decided not to tell him about them yet.

After he got dressed, John headed to the door and tried to palm it open. Nothing happened.

Well, of course nothing was happening. Bea was holding the door shut.

Glancing up at a button-sized omnidirectional camera in the corner, John said with a note of frustration in his voice, "Hey, A.I, open up."

The temperature of one of the primary Detto reactors raised infinitesimally as Bea's shockingly existent temper flared. "I am not an A.I. Artificial Intelligences are sad, pathetic excuses for a computer with a brain. I am a Simulated Intelligence, a flawlessly created and fully accurate thinking entity comprised and contained within a complex microsystem of data crystals. And my name is Bea, human."

John threw his hands in the air. "Fine, fine, whatever. Can you just open the door?"

It remained resolutely closed, and John sighed. "Bea, can you please open the door?"

The door slid open, and John rolled his eyes as he walked through. "Thanks, A.I." He stepped out onto the balcony and froze, his mouth slowly opening as he took in the view.

In front of John F. Manny was the primary mess hall of the M.S. Fortuna, over seven floors of entertainment, nourishment, and chat rooms stretching out before him. Below, tables organized in hexagonal shapes were carefully placed and polished, janitor bots absently wiping their shining metal surfaces with clean rags. An artificial sun sat in the center of the ceiling, warm yellow light beaming down on everything.

It was so impressive, it took John a moment to realize what was wrong. "Where are all the people?"

Bea beeped curiously. "What people?"