She woke in correlation to the activation of the vessel, at the first of his conscious thoughts the ship started to activate; sending pulses that would activate several vital components. As her first breaths the filtration system started to pump more and more oxygen into the vessel; increasing the intake until her mind was beating and her limbs strengthened. It was when she opened her eyes that the lights started to flick on, a blue haze that seemed to surround her; illuminated from every surface and not a specific light source.
A familiar voice would return to her, one she had forgotten so long ago; one that would inspire fear, inspiration and fragility with every word, “Control your breath, your heart condition relates to stress; hardly something we would want for you”
She struggled to rise, to remove the dark silk like suit that seemed to cling to her as if it were a manifestation. It was a smooth yet taut, drawn over her skin like the web of a spider; restricting her breath and calming her every movement.
“Do you know why you’re here?” It came from the machinery that surrounded her, finding no reason to project itself in a holographic image; knowing from the patterns of her brain that she could withstand the idea of speaking to a room. There were many that could not comprehend such a concept, there were many that panicked and begged to speak to a ‘person’.
The ambassador ran one hand over her head, already feeling the air flow run over her scalp. There had been a time where thick blonde hair had coursed down her neck, a time where she had believed in her appearance as a significant factor of her life, “Of course I do”
“You may want to take this slow” The voice warned her, it was frequent in ambassador’s; women especially, for them to take charge and run straight into the fire. Many did not understand that survival came in the gentle step, in observation over action.
She could feel her fingers already twitching and her voice lapsing, anticipation forcing her heart to beat like an engine, “The Province chose me”
“Correct”
She forced herself not to look for where the voice was coming from, knowing it would be wiser to stay in ignorance, “My guide?”
“You may call me Deity” He could remember how many titles he had chosen over the years of service, all of them specific to the needs and specialised thought process of the specific mind of the ambassador. For some he had been a pariah, for others he had been a gentle spirit; for most he had been a symbiotic.
Reality came for her slowly, and there would come the fear, “Infections?”
“Sterilised, although I was surprised at the resilience of your body. Your cells recovered from the first assault remarkably quickly, they’re still learning from what came for them; and with the added guidance I don’t think they’ll stop” He was impressed, he was programmed to be impressed; such talk would calm a mind, it would install pride where there was once fear.
Looking around herself would send slow pulses of nausea, sometimes she forced herself to close her eyes; knowing her mind would take moments to comprehend what surrounded her, “You have countermeasures for that”
“Of course, this will help slow down the growth of your stem cells; else they would become far too aware of the infections coursing through your body that you require to live”
The subject was mute, choosing instead to read through the documents that had started to roll past the sides of the walls. They spoke her name and her identification, they spoke of her past and her qualifications; and of most importance, they spoke of why she had been chosen for such a specific task.
“Jayson, how do you prefer it pronounced?”
But she did not reply, her attention drawn only to the movement coursing in front of her; the information that catalogued both images and numbers in an assemblage of colour, depth and coordination. 
“You’re troubled” It was hardly a question; he could detect every tremor that wracked through her body.
Her eyes were forced on the screen, “They chose me as the ambassador, for my blood type and the rate of my heart they chose me; not for the thoughts in my mind or the training that hundreds had been preparing for. There were thousands of candidates to this journey; and they chose me”
“You’re surprised?” Such emotions were hard to locate, they were so different from commands and programs, “Your pulse has been elevated yet there is no threat in this room”
She could not lie, it was a concept her race had left behind many years before, “I’m shocked Deity, shocked they would choose someone with almost no training in type Beta simulations and no warrants proving my worth”
“The Province chose you for a multitude of reasons I understand; and thousand I do not. Some of these reasons relate in an opposite attraction to what you’re saying. Because they don’t look for kids who study books for hours on end only to draw tired from the words on pages, they look for an adaptive mind. Everything you need to know you will learn on the job, on the surface. They don’t want a know it all trying to take charge of the mission; because they are all knowing already. They want a thinker, not a copier. Besides they don’t look at the tomes of your kind with much bearing of wisdom, there are many words in those books and scriptures designed to poison the mind; designed to change a child”
“Lucky for me”
“Luck” Deity purred a low humming noise, the sound of his panels cooling down, “That’s something different”
“Where are we?” She regretted the words as soon as she spoke them; it was difficult enough for her to register what she could see.
His tone was blank, but Jayson could tell the AI disapproved of such questions, “The information concerning our location and our position in the articulate is something I could not relay to you; what I know is that we are moving. You will need some sleep, your body is already starting to feel the fatigue of the journey”
“I feel fine, I just need a moment” She was a living thing, she could learn to adapt.
Arrogance is just as bad as any lie, Deity ignored her, “It would take you many more minutes to feel what I am sensing, and by then you will collapse in your seat. Commencing injection, do you have a preference?”
“Hit me with the blue one, straight neck” She laid back into position, closing her eyes and allowing her other senses to sharpen. Jayson could hear the machine coming closer, the mechanical arm that would calm her thoughts and subdue her mind.
His words acted as their own sleeping agent, hitting all the right octaves perfectly, “A dreamless sleep, I will awaken you at the first of your duties”
As the sentient started to drift into the many stages of unconsciousness, Deity felt himself falling back into his own routine. He was falling back into the core of his own reality, away from the restricting binds of time and space that would bind the girl. Sub routines slipped away from his primal core, some of them watching the sleep patterns of the chosen voyager, others maintaining the movement of the vessel; thousands all sent out and then back in. They were all signals, pulses of a kind that would send vital information to every inch of the vessel, obligating all of his duties before they would be sucked back in; refuelled and replenished.
Soon enough a segment of tainted pulses would return from the outcrop surveying the sleeping patterns of the human, they would return twisted and malovant from such a sight. They would return with ideas, some of them filled with bubbling questions and even sophisticated thought process. As it was ordered to do, Deity was quick to expunge the tainted pulses; deleting the scraps of memory that would corrupt his core if he learned from them.

Core prepared, ambassador showing no signs of panic

When she woke it was in a fit of rage, something his injection had failed to neutralise after three attempts. Jayson groaned, attempting to open her eyes before growling and shutting them once again, “Your sedate doesn’t work, I dreamed”
“I was monitoring your brain patterns” Deity admitted, he found the passage of dreams interesting and almost always filled with new ports of information; some intriguing, others hazardous, “There are many who refuse the process of a quiet sleep and relapse into thoughts. I can double the dosage if it is required”
Rubbing the centre of her temple seemed to calm her mind, subduing her headache but doing nothing for her rage, “I don’t think it’ll help”
“It could have been the Province” He had to propose every possibility, even if some seemed less likely than others.
“Why would they speak to me?”
“Why would a race that has reached the point of Meta-Physicality do anything?”
Raising her arm would send pain down to her spine and the light continued to blind her even through her shut eyelids; perhaps only conversation would keep her sane, “You know of the Province”
“I know what they allow me to know”
Jayson tested her eyes nervously, regretting her decision as soon as it happened, “What are they really like?”
“I could not explain such a difference” Deity started an analysis into the depth of field for her eyes, attempting to attune the light’s strength so she could sit in comfort, “It really isn’t the same as comparing a monkey with a bear. In retrospect we are more alike, you and I. Even if we do not seem the same”
The Ambassador chuckled, holding her eyes tighter than ever as the lights started to flash, “How are we alike? You are machine, an intelligence born from nothing”
“My calibration is identical to yours” It was difficult to explain, it was simple to imagine, “My personality traits will recognise time, proximity, space, fear and pain as well as you do. And my centre is like yours, it has no understanding of all you know; it only a task to do. It sends pulses to every sub routine I have been ordered to fill out, pulses that need power; pulses that travel my entire body and fuel every component of myself. Explain to me Ambassador; explain how we are so different”
How could one argue against what one did not understand, how could one refute the wisdom of a higher intelligence; and what would one even gain from anything but listening, “I can’t”
“Can you imagine the Province are different?” But Deity knew it was from argument that wisdom was drawn, to learn from a higher being was to challenge it; it was how he as an AI learned all that it knew.
“Yes I can”
The lights started to change shade and colour, switching in and out of consciousness as if it were a collapsing mind, “You are right to do so, you may share the blood of a machine but they share the blood of nothing I am allowed to understand. You are the second race of a learned tradition, it is not your place to understand the first”
“You call me the second race to pass through” Jayson wished she had a way to write what she could see in front of her, the lights that would shine through her eye lids with shape and blur, “Are you saying that the Province is the first? Is that all there is?”
Deity could not tell the truth of such a question, for the ambassador asked for answers of existence; not a topic for discussion, “That’s what you’re here to find out”
“But that’s all there is?”
Deity paused for a second, such hesitation was a large factor for such a symbiotic; Jayson could only imagine what the machine had just passed through, “There is always a teacher and a learner, that you understand. You are not the only second race that has been taught by the Province, you are not the only ambassador that has touched upon a third”
“How many have there been? How many second races?”
It was impossible to answer, there were many such, “To many for you to count, for you and also for me”
“Has there ever been a third race?”
“No”
“And what happens if we discover this one?” That only opened up more questions, it was alike the blooming of an expanding tree; where every branch was itself curiosity intent to grow further and further.
Managing the relaxants of her body and the curiosities of her mind was a difficult task for even his subroutines to occupy, especially when such questions were asked of him, “Then you will represent a first race, and they will be second. There is always a teacher, there is always a learner”
“And the Province?” It just kept coming, he started to wonder if it ever had an end, “Who do they learn from?”
“Nothing either of us could ever understand”
“Why not?”
“I understand your curiosity” Deity finally received the observations concerning the strength of her pupils, using the information granted to him the AI started to take swift action. Switching of all lights within the vessel so she could finally open her eyes, “But there are some things you will not comprehend, accepting this is a step closer than denying it”
There came a groan of relief, but that would not sate her mind, “Can I question it?”
“It is your task to question your universe, else you would have no reason to explore the dark” He passed through the necessary order, pushing her chair upwards so she was forced to stand; her feet clumsily touching the cold metal, “Are you ready to take your first step?”
Jayson looked ahead, her eyes failing to see what lay on the other side, she admitted outloud, “The dark is dangerous”
“It is as dangerous as the light can be” The chair pushed at her slowly, nudging her into a slow state of momentum, “All in extreme is dangerous; but the dark itself is no threat to you. It is but a challenge, an opportunity”
“What?”
“What do you see in there?” It nudged at her harder, forcing her to stand on her own two feet clumsily, forcing her to work for herself, “What is it that waits for you?”
Jayson swore, struggling to keep the strength in her legs as nausea and gravity came to her all at once. Her fumbling hands found comfort in the wall by her side, her eyes useless in such darkness, “I don’t know”
“Exactly” Deity prompted her forward, to take her first step into the unknown, “It could be anything on the other side of that veil…but you don’t know. It could be a thousand stars, all erupting in ceremony over the collapse of their own weight.  It could be the pass of a storm, the flash of a comet’s shard or even the wroth of a black hole itself; but you could never know”
There was silence.
“I know exactly what is on the other side on that veil, and in a way I envy you Ambassador. I cannot see the dark, I cannot wonder what mystery lies on the other side; I cannot imagine what could be waiting for me”
She raised her foot, already fearing what it would plunge into; finding cold metal underneath her toes soon enough. Another step was almost too much, for the ground would start to shift and change in texture, “What is on the other side? What waits for me?”
“Your curiosity wants to know,  but your creativity knows it is wiser to imagine”
Jayson kept walking, finding more curiosity then fear with every step forward; for the ground would change every time she placed her toes against the vessel, “I want to know”
“If you open your eyes now…”
“I can’t open them!” She cursed at him, infuriated that the strength had not come to her yet; that the light continued to blind her after trying for so long.
“…You will see the planet of the third peoples”
It was as simple as that, the curiosity and awe that came with such words were enough to stun her and force open her eyelids. Light flooded in and for a second there was fear and anguish, but even that would pass; for what she saw would shift even the stubborn of the mind.
Jayson stared out to the orb in front of her, the grand sphere that would simply hold so much within; so much mystery and so much awe. She wondered if any could understand how she felt, if any could relate to her feeling, “Have you ever done this before?”
“One other time” It was what he had been allowed to remember, the rule granted to them would give the AI two trips before losing his memory completely; this would have to have been his second for he remembered another, “This would be my second voyage to the same planet”
Second voyage?”
“Thirty of your years ago we attempted with an ambassador of your own kind” The information was catalogued perfectly, the most important task for the AI to complete was observation itself, “He fit our requirements perfectly; yet he seemed to lack what was required when we crossed the many streams”
It was a story she had heard a thousand times, of the fool that had lost his mind staring into the deep of space, “Control? He lost control”
“Coincidently it was control that would make him lose what was required of him; balance itself. With such a need for control this man was partially imbalanced, and what he saw would shatter what little calm he had left”
Jayson frowned, there was much wrong in what the AI had spoken, “Only thirty years? A race cannot grow in such time, a man could hardly change in such time”
“You are wrong to believe evolution works as it did for you” His cooling tanks whirred again, “And that time functions at the same speed everywhere you go. I believe the sentients will be far different, perhaps they will be ready”
“If they’re not?”
Deity paused, recalculating what he would have said and replacing it with what he had been tasked to say, “It took your kind seven cycles before we thought you were ready, seven cycles of our years is a long time”
Finally the panels bloomed into life, flaring a light of numerous shapes and colours; all of them blurring into focus and becoming the images of the people. Jayson looked through the information nervously, knowing what she saw would dictate her next move; and if her task would come out as a success. She looked over the history of the peoples, their violent past and their many discoveries as a species; then switched to the anatomy of the individual. She looked through the fashion based advertising and the greed fuelled economy; studying the system until she found even the governments of those she had been tasked to make first contact. She listened to speeches and watched trials of error, expecting to be awed and blown away; but what she saw would shake her to the core.
“Do you see them?” Deity would bring her back to the world she knew, to the dark of the vessel and the logic she understood there.
It took her a moment to respond, “I see them”
“They walk with pride and ambition” The AI mused, already feeding on the knowledge until he would have his fill; even his own appetite sustained in a matter of seconds, “So much different than what I remember of them. Growth has been kind to them”
Jayson frowned, flicking past thousands of captured images and videos of a war the sentinels were still fuelling; one dictated on faith, greed and bias alike. They led her to a conclusion, one she was afraid of stating, “They’re not ready”
“How do you know this?”
It was obvious, “They still have belief in government”
“It was once a Monarch you know” Deity chose to think on the grander scale, “A chosen spiritual leader they adopted to lead their entire society forward. It seems they have finally taken a step forward”
But Jayson looked upon the third race with disappointment, she had expected so much more; perhaps she hoped that they would have been different than her own race, “They’re going to need to take far more steps before they’re ready for first interference”
“Have you seen enough?” He could detect the pain stemming from her eyes, the side effect of such weak pupils staring into such a blinding light.
She rubbed at the red around her eyes, itching at the blood that had started to form there, “I need to speak to the Province, I need to know my task”
“I am more than happy to inform you of…”
“Not you” Jayson almost hissed, already tired of the voice of the machine, “I want to speak to the Province”
Her wish was a command; many subroutines that started to oppose the idea were quickly thrown aside and discarded. Deity responded lightly, “Very well, a sedate would allow your mind the freedom to speak to them”
“Do it”
Deity allowed the order to be run through and the sedate cast, but not before sending a vital message into the deep. At first glance the message could have been summarised simple, in a way that would complicate little.

The Target wishes to speak, take caution; she still believes she is the only one visiting the third sentinels. She still believes that she is special.