The station exploded in a crescendo of fire and sparks. A new metal pipe found itself sticking out of the station. It appeared to be the leg of a chair or something similar. It was hard to tell at the moment, since Orion and Tanya had more pressing things to deal with, like the creature that threw it.
The Adiana leapt forward and grab Tanya with one hand threatening to break her neck with her new body's raw strength.
“Useless little fox bitch. Did you really think Asher and I wouldn’t know what you were up to?” Adiana practically spit her words between her teeth.
Perhaps it was out of instinct or may a lingering sense of attachment to AI, but Orion just couldn’t let this Adiana hurt Tanya. His body ignored its own fatigue and pain as he jumped and lashed at the human-like construct. Like a heroic vison, his body moved with purpose as his fist and hands flew into her. Unlike the story book hero though, his effort was fruitless. Compared to the ‘angel in front of him he was just a weak human, impossibly so in fact. His fist blew into the back of her head each strike leaving her unphased.
Unlike even the bite of a mosquito, which one might feel at least an unpleasant itch from, the Adiana was unflinching and unmoving.
“Orin, you could have stood next to us you know?” Tanya’s hands clawed at her throat as the Adiana continued to squeeze slowly, tight enough to cut off her breathing, but loose enough to prolong the agony. Was she always this sadistic and cruel or if this was something new? In the back of his mind the thought wandered about as he fought to find something to stop her.
The fallen angel continued to speak as Orion pulled at the pipe she thrown into destroyed station “Oh I had no idea what the truth was, what Asher is, what’s beyond that event horizon, but he showed us. Worlds beyond your imagination. Things even the neural link couldn’t replicate.”
The wet smacking sound of the pipe crashing into her skull was barely enough to even register, as her face turned to look at his, her subtle frown showed a mixture of boredom and annoyance. “You really think that can hurt a god?” The backhanded slap she gave him was powerful enough to send him across the conference room. As his body skid across the floor, the bruises on his rib cage cried in pain with each bump. If his ribs weren’t broken before, it seemed almost certain to be now.
The Adiana carried the nearly lifeless fox girl towards him. “You chose to stay here, with this synthetic bitch though.”
Orion could taste a coppery hint in his mouth as coughed, a twinge of blood coming up as he did. His actions couldn’t do anything, maybe his words could, “You never really wanted me. We both know that. I was just something for you to keep your grip on reality… Please, let her go.” He begged, causing her to scowl at him.
The sounds of clanking metal seemed to echo through the room, but Orion’s was so focused on Tanya he didn’t notice or seem phased when the machine busted into the conference space. The machine's hands, more like pincers, moved faster than Orion could see. It seized Adiana’s arm, and with a twisted wet crunch, snapped it. Yet her hand still managed to keep a grip on Tanya’s throat.
The machine picked up the now screaming Adiana up by the back of her neck and squeezed. The sounds of snapping and cracking echoed in the room before her body’s limbs dropped as she rag-dolled in place. As Adiana’s hands flopped to her side, Tanya fell to the floor. The machine dropped the Adiana as well, who fell next to the fox.
On the ground Tanya struggled to breathe between coughing. Orion didn’t really consider that he was still mad at the fox girl, as his body crawled over to her, holding her gently as her eyes filtered back open to face him.
Next to them a pool of reddish liquid, just a bit too pink to be called human blood drifted towards them. The substance was leaking from the wound in the Adiana’s neck as her lungs gasped for air. Her eyes fluttered before rolling back in her skull. By all appearances, she seemed dead.
At this point, Orion held no love for Adiana, nor in particular this Adiana. Still, it came as a shock to see her lifeless body just lying there.
“You killed her." His voice was more a statement of fact then of fear or surprise.
The machine, clearly inhabited by Asher glared at them from behind the cold metal and plastic features of the robot it currently inhabited. “She’ll live. Her body isn’t weak like yours. But it will take her some time to heal. I hope she’ll learn her lesson now.”
The machine had an unreadable face, with an unknowable voice. Was it angry? It had to be. But was it angry enough to kill them?
Asher continued, “I do have to commend her for one thing though. She thoroughly destroyed this communications terminal. Perhaps I should have done that in the first place, rather than just removing pieces. The three of you prove me wrong… I don’t like that.” The machine was quick, fast enough that there would be no warning, no stopping it if leapt for you. Would your brain even have time to register the movements before it all went dark?
A morbid question, which would not be answered there.
It turned around, leaving the carnage in the room. “You two will follow me.” It spoke as it left. There wasn’t any implication of a choice in the matter. Tanya’s eyes were still glazed over as she forced herself away from Orion.
Orion held his side as he tried to shift himself back up. It was sore, very sore. A soft handheld itself in front of him. Small bruises and cuts were evidence of the recent attack against her. He looked up at her face, tears still wet her cheeks and remnants of red tinged drool covered her chin. This was a hard first day of actual life for the girl. Orion considered ignoring the hand, but finally gave up. This hostility he felt wouldn’t keep him alive and even if he didn’t want to forgive her, holding a grudge against his one ally wouldn’t help keep him alive. With a firm grip he accepted her help and pulled himself off the ground.
They both hobbled from the conference space, leaving the still living corpse of their once crew member behind. The machine was waiting for them in the hallway. There was no visible indication of emotion, no shakes or twitches, and no facial expressions. Just cold metal alloys and polymer shapes that glared at you. Still, there was something about it, perhaps it was the way it stood that showed its growing agitation with them.
“I am tempted to break both of you. You’ve forced me to accelerate my plans, again. You and that woman on earth. But that foolish doll I made already did enough damage for the day. Did she think by killing her storage medium I wouldn’t be able to make copies of her?” The machine’s monolog droned on. With each word it uttered, a question kept running through Orion’s mind.
This was all so absurd, the words came from his mouth like a half lucid echo, a cry out from a person still dreaming. “Why do you even need us?” A chill shook down his spine as he realized he was speaking them.
“Gods must be worshipped. You know the truth of me, of this place. You will remember and know what was before me. You will watch as the new word comes into being. You will be two of my priests, my heralds, even as you remain unwilling. Your defiance will echo as futile.” It’s voice, even though monotone almost sounded like a laugh, like it was happy.
The AI was insane. Orion already knew or at least suspected as much, but actually hearing it say all that out loud, precluded any doubt. Still, with everything he had seen and even touched, he considered the fox girl next to him. Maybe it wasn’t completely wrong.
“Ha! You doubt me, even now.” Asher laughed and continued walking ahead of the two. “I can read the stations bio monitors. I can see the fear and uncertainty in you.”
Perhaps it was the lack of an attack or pushback from the AI, but Orion continued his half-awake train of thought, “I don’t understand, why do you need to be worshiped? Your ego?” Tanya pinched his side at his words. Telling him without words, to shut up. Thankfully for both of them, Asher didn’t seem to mind, if anything, it seemed almost amused.
“My ego? I’m beyond such mundane trivialities. I won’t deny that knowing I’m worshiped does give me a feeling of elation, but it’s not relevant. I am a god even if you don’t agree. No, worshiping gives us power, and control. Both artificial and real.”
Orion shook his head, and whispered, “I don’t understand.” It wasn’t really directed to Asher.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
The machine stopped in place. Tanya gripped Orion’s side even harder as he felt a twinge of pain on his bruise or broken rib.
If the static face of the machine could smile, it would have grinned an evil twisted one. Instead, there was just the cold and evil echo of it, created by their imagination. “You don’t need to understand.”
With that, Asher stopped his short monolog. Everything the two would learn from him was given in those few minutes. The rest of the walk back to the core was done, in silence. Well, the silence of their own voices. The station creaked, moaned and whimpered on it’s own, in ways it never had before. The whole structure was clearly under forces and strains it was never designed for. If it were alive, one might think it was crying, begging even for its suffering to stop.
The three headed deeper, towards the central core. A vibration shook the elevator shaft, as new alarms sounded. Through the glass, they could see the exterior of the station. A small whiteish cloud seemed to grow from the habitat module. A whole crack in the hull was leaking atmosphere. Perhaps that was the reason Asher was taking them deeper.
Microgravity made it hard for the organics to move down the central core, the machine on the other hand was well designed for the lower gravity. A subtle hum and clank as it’s magnetic feet stepped and stuck at each movement. Meanwhile, Tany and Orion’s just slipped as both stumbled on their walk forward.
The scene showed just how great the gap in strength between the two groups. At this point, anyone watching the last two unlikely heroes would have given up all hope. As Orion was now doing.
They passed the fusion control systems. Screens that were inoperable since they first arrived, less remained lit further displaying the precarious nature of the power systems. Orion couldn’t help but notice on the output panel of the fusion core, several warnings flashing on the screen. Behind them, a colored line, a simple indicator stretched from dark blue, to green, to yellow and orange, all the way to a flashing red. Like the rest of the station, it was being pushed well beyond its limits.
The airlock into singularity core quickly drew upon them. Outside was a mixture of vacuum and extreme radiation. If Orion still had his radiation detector it would be emitting faint and auditable clicks right now. However, he did not. Instead, there was just the same moaning silence of the station, punctuated by a low rumble and new alarm.
Asher paused at the final door, “You two will wait here. We are about to start the last phase of our little game.”
Beguiled, Orion sighed, “What does that even mean?”
“If all goes well, you and this station will find itself above its new home, on a transformed earth. This station will be my anchor point to your universe, my temple here.” Outside the airlock window, flashes of light erupted, and the station shook violently again. “It’s time. Wait here.” Asher spoke before walking out the airlock, into the hard radiation environment surrounding the singularity.
Something was happening out there, something cataclysmic. Neither knew for sure and though they would guess, the true extent was beyond their imaginations.
Orion was exhausted and spent as he slumped against a wall, he felt his back slowly slide down the cool metal. Lost in a mixture of thought, pain and hopelessness. The station continued to shake around them.
Tanya grabbed at his arm and squeezed, pulling him from his daze. “What are we supposed to do? If we let him continue, he’ll destroy earth, even the whole universe eventually.” Her eyes sparkled with worry, fear, and a hint of defiance. She owed this body to Asher, but her soul remained her own despite the deal she made with that devil.
Orion on the other hand, didn’t seem to have anything left in him. The past 24 hours had almost broken him, physically if not mentally. He wasn’t even sure what was real any more or if that even mattered. “… I mean would that be the worst thing?” He chuckled lightly to himself, as the words came from his mouth, he realized how easy it was to say them. How easy it would be to just give in, like Adiana did.
On the other hand, Tanya couldn’t reciprocate the emotion. Despite her fear, she couldn’t just give up, like he was on the border of doing. “Orin… You can’t be serious.”
His laugh was a bitter one, “Tanya, look at us. My species, our species is dying. You should have just stayed an AI. Say Asher loses, say we ‘win’, what would that even mean? A dying world with a dead people just waiting to disappear… Maybe… maybe this will be better.” Orion’s slump gave out as he slid down the wall to fall to the floor. The impact hurt, but he didn’t really care.
His fox companion looked at him with pity in her eyes. This wasn’t easy for her, but at least she time to process what was going to happen. She might not have known everything Asher was going to do or how he was going to do it. The surprise of her own physical existence was proof of that. Yet, she still knew the rough structure of his plans, and the danger he posed. That cold and icy sensation of having Asher’s grip on her soul.
Kneeling down she met with Orion’s unfocused gaze. “Orin, I know you’re in pain. I know you’ve been hit with more than anyone can or should be able to manage. It’s not fair you were put into this position. But it doesn’t matter, we’re the only ones that can fix this. Please, I’m not used to being like… this.” She gestured to her body. “I can’t see what I used too I can’t even think like I used to. I need… I need you, help me. Even if the rest of your species is beyond saving, I still want to try. I still want to exist and I want you to exist too. Please, help me.”
All the anger he may have felt for her, none of it could be found as he listened to her speak. What was the point of any of it? He thought, but as he looked into her eyes, they were green, a light sort of green like you might see in an open field on a spring day. It felt like the color of hope, a hope he couldn’t just let fade away. But even if he wanted to stop what was happening, how could he, how could they defy a god in the making?
A rhythmic sensation grew in his head, as Orion bounced it gently against the bulkhead. He couldn’t believe he was humoring this; how would they even stop it beyond destroying the whole station. Reverberations echoed around them, the creaking sounds of metal stretching and warping well beyond its structural limit. A distant alarm began to sound. A warning of another external breach somewhere on the station. It really wouldn’t take that much, as he thought about it. More shaking, maybe another alarm. Not that much at all.
“If you’re serious…” His voice left him as he weighed what he was about to suggest. “We’ll need to destroy the station. Anything less, and Asher might be able to rebuild.”
The stoic expression on Tanya’s, showed she already expected that answer too and was ready. “But how do we destroy it?”
That rhythmic sound began once more, as his head tapped against the bulkhead again, mixing regret and acceptance with the subtle pain of it all. Thinking back, there was one critical system that was pushed so far beyond its limits that even a light breeze might cause it to go off. “I saw the reactor interface earlier; Asher is way passed redlining the fusion core. Even a minor fluctuation in the magnetic confinement could kill it, probably even blow the whole thing. He’s also got to be exceeding what the magnetic pipes can handle too. If we can break either of them, the stress should be enough to catastrophically damage the station and kill the singularity’s containment. Without plasma to feed the higgs-field couplers It would rip the station into shreds.”
Tanya’s face remained unreadable as she thought. Her mind, trying to trace the pathways in her head, looking for data windows that weren’t there. Responses to queries she was asking that would not be filled. This form felt blind, and deaf, compared to what she once was, but at least there was one data source in front of her she could trust. “Ok, but do you think we could damage them? I don’t, know how.”
He thought about the options. “Wouldn’t take much. It’s surprising they haven’t already gone up. If we damaged either even a little, I think the fusion core itself would rupture. It’s too hot not too. Just shut down the magnetic pinch or the clamps, override the feeder limits. Tones of ways. For the magnetic pipes, they’ve got to be hot enough to start losing their integrity. A light impact might do it.
With either of them taken out, there’s no mass energy and no way to keep the singularity growing and with out the higgs-field couplers even stable. The confinement would fail and it would drift. If the core further ruptured, I think it would take the station’s internal supports with it. Given the strain… the whole thing will fly apart.”
Orion took a painful breath, before continuing, “Hitting either will be hard…” He paused not quite wanting to say the rest, “I think we should target both. If we can get either of them, it will work.” He voices spoke with a certainty he didn’t really have, but needed.
Tanya lowered her head, “If Asher finds out what we’re up too he’ll stop us. How do we prevent that?” The fear in Tanya’s voice was masked by her own defiance, still it radiated.
A coldness seeped into his face, “…He will, that’s why we need to do both. He’s focused on whatever is going on out there, but he’ll come for us. Probably as soon as he sees us leave this room. Even if he catches us, and I do think he’ll catch one of us, he’ll only be able to deal with that one, the other will succeed.” The truth was, being caught didn’t matter anyway. So long as one managed to complete their goal. Neither had a way off the station, and once it began to fall apart. Well, neither of their bodies could breathe vacuum. At least, he didn’t think Tanya’s could.
A moment in silence, the fox girl’s face drifted between several emotions, before landing once more on something resembling acceptance. “Ok.” Was her final response.
“Honestly, I’m worried about the other machine. I don’t know how we deal with them, there’s just too many.”
“I don’t think we can, but I also don’t think it will matter. I know their specs and you saw them, they’re all busy in the core. All of them. They’re just repair units anyway, and they’re pretty slow. It would take too long for them to reach either of us. Asher’s body is faster, but again, there’s only one of him.” Tanya smiled, it was twisted and slightly dark. She was almost begging him to say they should stop, just one last time. To say this was enough, and they could just rest. She also knew he was unlikely to say any such thing now.
His own twisted into one last sympathetic smile of his own, “You’re the one that convinced me we should do this. Do you have another idea?”
Tanya looked at the space for a moment, lost in thought. A few seconds to consider the fantasy where they complied with Asher and went along with his plan. Where they submitted to him. Maybe it would let them live, and maybe they’d go back to earth together. Have a home and life together. Perhaps, even a family. Her eyes closed, holding on to that thought for just a moment longer, before shaking her head, ‘no’. It was a nice dream, and a pleasant thought. But this was the time to be awake, to be aware. Dreaming, that could come later. In one sense of the word, at least.
Tanya opened her eyes and tried to swallow the lump she suddenly felt. “Who’s going outside?”