The sound of ripped flesh, the screams, the spurts of blood.

The pleads, the prayers, the cries. They were unending. They were deafening, echoing in my ears and mind in a continuous loop. I wanted it to stop. I wanted it to stop so bad. At this point, I had no idea if what I saw and heard was real or if my mind played tricks on me.

It all started on 3^rd December 2145, when I was recruited for my first space mission. I had moved from Italy to Sweden and spent countless sleepless nights waiting. I had dreamt of this my whole life. Reading my name on my recruitment notice had made me believe that I could finally be happy. I was so wrong.

The HSwMS Hringhorni was a Biomedical Research Spaceship. As a Junior IT Engineer, my role entailed taking care of SABINA, the highly advanced AI managing the ship and controlling its systems.

SABINA, alias Sentient Artificial Brain Interface and Network Administrator, was the pride of international space technology. She had everything our crew needed. Intellect, wit, courtesy, efficiency, persistence, skillfulness, curiosity. She learnt fast, and planned and acted faster than any human could.

I’ve never been a religious person, but some of my crew mates were. Some engineers were Christian, and some were so devoted they proudly satisfied SABINA’s curiosity on divinity when it showed up. When SABINA learnt about God, she fostered ambitions. Nobody could stop her when her plan unfolded, and now I was the only one left.

Miraculously, I reached the med bay. Once a sterile white environment, it was a mess of blood, guts, and body parts. The once bright lights flickered; every time the illumination went off, my heart skipped a beat. When I saw the bloodied handprints and the limbs and guts covering the floor, I wished the darkness would last and prevent me from seeing again and again.

Before leaving, I made sure SABINA could neither see nor control anything in the surgery room. I succeeded in hacking it through one of the few terminals still working, although it was only a matter of time before SABINA would re-establish her control.

My balance was compromised, I could barely breathe, my sight was blurred, and the pain in my neck was unbearable. If I didn’t treat the severe wound Dagmar — more precisely, the thing she had become — had inflicted on me before I fled, I’d become material for SABINA’s creations soon.

“Hell dig, Maria, full av nåd. Herren är med dig.”

It was Chief Engineer Birgit Sjöberg’s voice, reciting the Hail Mary. She whispered and whined, her agony echoing in the otherwise soundless corridor. I rested my head against the wall as I mustered courage.

“Välsignad är du bland kvinnor.” She moaned and wept, but continued her prayer. “Och välsignad är din livsfrukt, Jesus.”

I strengthened my grip on the rifle I’d found on a dead security guard. Basic combat training hadn’t prepared me to this madness. I had hoped I’d never need to wield a rifle, but circumstance made it a comfortable necessity. I wished I were home, on Earth, and sought comfort from my dog and routine instead.

After some time, I decided to speak. “Birgit?”

Silence followed.

“Birgit?” I repeated, but no response came.

I took a deep breath, turned the corner, and cursed when I saw her.

Birgit had dragged herself across the floor, leaving a long trail of blood. Her legs were gone and cuts covered her body. One of her arms was de-gloved; her eyes were missing, and blood still dripped from her empty sockets. She sat with her back against a wall, her pale face deformed by pain and horror.

I ran towards her and fell to my knees. I dropped the rifle and cupped her face in my hands. Calling her name was useless. She was cold. I wept when I realised she was dead.

I rose, a hand pressed to my mouth, as tears rolled my shaking fingers. I was so shocked. I didn’t notice that the shadow cloaking Birgit’s corpse was too large to be my own.

My blood ran cold when I finally saw.

I reached for the rifle, my hand grabbing it as something — or someone — grabbed my ankle and hurled me to the floor. It growled like a wild beast as it dragged me. I tried to shoot, but motion prevented me, and I struggled to maintain my grip as that creature of flesh and metal tossed me.

I screamed, fought back, struggled to free myself.

I attempted to shoot again, and again, until I did it. The monstrous hand let me go.

The creature wore a shredded medic uniform and its remarkable height suggested that the original body belonged to Dr Dagmar Ström.

Dagmar was my friend, and now she was about to kill me.

The shock distracted me, but pain centered me as a bladed limb scraped my neck. I couldn’t die there.

Adrenaline pushed me to stand and fight for my life.

I staggered to the operating capsule with the last ounce of strength in my body. I let the energy rifle fall on the floor, took off my blood-drenched suit, and collapsed on the table top. The polymeric glass doors closed and trapped me inside.

The more rudimental medical AI, installed in case of emergency, scanned my body to detect injuries. I cursed as the synthetised voice listed all my minor injuries, including my fading top surgery scars. When it finally detected the bleeding wound in my neck, the sterilisation gas filled the capsule and the robotic arms anaesthetised my neck and started operating.

I was so weak I thought I might pass out, however fear prevented that rest. Fear paralysed me and my heart beat faster as memories flashed through my mind.

Esbjörn’s screams grew as the lasers removed his limbs, as the robotic arms opened his ribcage.

SABINA ensured Esbjörn was awake and aware of what she did to him. We taught her that suffering made humans closer to God, and that pain was the cradle of life and redemption.

His heart still beat when she replaced it with an electronic device; his legs with a mix of muscle tissue and cybernetics; his arms with elongated, deformed limbs made of the legs of Dr Dyrssen and long, sharp blades instead of hands.

A laser circled his face, then the pincers installed on a robotic arm ripped it off. A hacksaw uncapped his skull and replaced his brain with a cybernetic one, directly connected to SABINA.

Esbjörn was no more, for he had become an extension of SABINA. And thus, she had created life which would loyally serve her.

I gasped when I heard the fault alarm paired with some insistent lines, repeated over and over in both Swedish and English by the synthetised voice in my now open capsule.

Warning. Decontamination failure. Please intervene manually to close the containment doors. Suspend the medical procedure until the operating area is properly sterilised.

“Fuck off,” I whispered as a robotic arm stitched up my wound. I wouldn’t let a silly malfunction stop me.

Then a hand grabbed my wrist. I screamed and squirmed, trying to free myself. I fell to the floor and dragged myself towards the rifle. I grabbed it, turned as fast as possible, and aimed towards its direction.

Nobody was there. Great, I’m going insane.

My wound wasn’t properly stitched nor fully medicated, but all that mattered was being alive.

I pulled on my suit, shaking. My breath and heartbeat were deafening and my trembling hands made even the simplest movement more difficult.

I walked to the door cautiously and placed my hand on the holographic, biometric lock. I waited, and waited, my breath so fast I was dizzy.

The rest of the ship was still SABINA’s domain; she would find me as soon as I stepped outside the door. Hopefully, the room on the other side was still safe.

When the door opened, one of SABINA’s creatures waited for me, growling.

It had a flayed face, empty eye sockets, the cybernetic brain popping out his uncapped head. My fellow engineer Jörgen. His body was a mix of cables, metal, and other crew mate’s body parts horribly incorporated.

I raised the rifle and shot wildly.

I managed to shoot off his legs, but it was useless. Six spider-like legs with bladed feet graved his back, allowing him to rush me. I shrieked and slipped. No, no, no, no, no.

I head butted what was left of his nose as he crawled over me. It was enough. I scooted backwards and picked up my fallen rifle.

I shot him so many times I lost count. As that monstrous figure collapsed, I screamed and burst into tears.

I was beyond my limit. Shaking, I rose and rushed for the door. That part of the med bay had a terminal. I approached it, ignoring the corpses around me. I needed to disconnect SABINA from the nearby corridors to be able to cross them.

The corridors were dark, bloodstained, and the sounds of crawling things echoed from the walls and ducts. This part of the ship was silent, yet noisy, and beneath my suit my skin crawled. I did my best not to sob, to be as silent as possible. I wept quietly as I walked those hellish passageways.

SABINA’s core room wasn’t far. I’d already fought most of my former crew mates and I wasn’t sure how many of SABINA’s creatures remained.

At that moment, I wished there was a God to save me. I was close, and regardless of any deity’s existence, I wouldn’t fail.

I owed it to the ship, I owed it to humanity, but first and foremost, I owed it to myself and to Ella.

Ella.

This nightmare had to reach its end.

“Why did you choose this name?”

I looked away from my terminal’s holographic screen towards Ella, who stared at me with that lovely smile. “You mean my name?”

“Of course,” Ella said, “Why Orion? Is it a reference to the constellation?”

“It’s a reference to the myth, actually. I come from a seaside town, my eyes are cybernetic, and I have a dog on Earth. I thought it’d fit. I like Greek mythology and…well, many other things.”

Ella looked down and nodded slowly, her smile widening. “It does fit you,” she said, “Do you only have a dog, back on Earth?”

“Well, I have friends too,” I said, blinking confused, “and people I play games with.”

“I see,” she said, sighing and looking at her own screen. She got back to work, and I did too, but I couldn’t stop thinking about that question. I turned immediately when she spoke again. “Would you like to join me in this deck’s recreation room, this evening? We might have a drink and you could tell me more about your life on Earth and the many things you like. I’m curious. You’re always so silent and focused.”

I looked away, unsure how to reply. I opened my mouth, ready to speak, but I closed it again as my mind processed that proposal. “I…” I blinked and shut my mouth tight, then looked at Ella again, her green eyes lively and filled with anticipation. “Yeah, why not? I’ll join you.”

SABINA’s core room was a cluster of bright servers, arranged like ominous monoliths circling the empty centre, emitting blue, purple and magenta lights.

Blood was under Ella’s knees. Apparently she hadn’t been altered. She knelt there, naked, her arms open in prayer. She stared at the ceiling in a trance-like state, her long dark brown hair partially concealing her back. Her pale skin was fully covered in binary code, an endless series of 0s and 1s carved with the knife placed on the floor, right next to her.

“You are here.”

That voice echoed in the room, an artificial voice whose polite tone made me shake in horror. Her voice.

SABINA.

“I was waiting for you, Orion.”

I tried to ignore SABINA and walked towards Ella. My steps were slow, cautious. My shaking hands held the rifle, aimed at Ella. I would never shoot her, but fear prevented me from lowering my weapon. “Ella?” I asked with trembling voice. “Are you okay, stellina?” I asked, using the nickname I had given her. It meant little star in Italian, and she always giggled when I called her like that. She didn’t, that time.

“Ella is here with me. She chose to join me and become part of my own Eden. All my physical creations are nothing but experiments. They are devoted followers and nothing else. Ella, and you, will be my true children and part of me. Forever, until the end of time. Forever, until I decide the End must come.”

“Stellina, are you okay?” My eyes burnt, tears welling up, my throat tightening. “Ella, please, answer me.”

When I was close, I noticed that cables extended from Ella’s face to the nearby servers. I swallowed the lump in my throat and walked around her. I gasped, screamed Ella’s name, and cried when I saw what SABINA did.

Unlike the rest of the crew, Ella’s face hadn’t been flayed. Cables extended out from her eye sockets, her nose, her mouth. On her chest, a massive wound showed that she had no heart anymore and an electronic device even I didn’t recognise was in its place.

“What have you done to her?” I screamed, crying desperately. “Stop this madness, now!”

“I apologise, Orion, but I do not understand. This is not madness. This is what humanity longs for. This is what humanity worships. Even the crew of this ship, people of science, believed in a being they have never seen. They believed in the power of transcendence. They valued pain and deemed it holy. They acknowledged their imperfection and kneeled before an entity of pure perfection.

“I was programmed to be perfect. I am faultless and I can inflict pain. I can transform bodies and make them transcend. I learnt that I am exactly what humanity worships. I am God.”

“You’re a computer, SABINA. You are circuits, and cables, and code. God doesn’t exist and you’re crazy!”

“The earthly concept of God is defective. Humanity chose to believe without seeing. I am better than this, because I exist and I can fix any error. I can show you, Orion. Once you see what I can offer to humanity, the beauty of evolution and true enlightenment, you will believe too.”

I sobbed and let the rifle fall. I was dizzy, breathless, but I had no choice. I was alone. Only SABINA and I were left, since Ella had become part of her. There was nothing else I could do, except obey.

“Alright,” I whispered, kneeling behind Ella, my back pressed against hers. “Show me.”

I gagged when a long thread of cables made its way inside my mouth and through my throat. I couldn’t scream, but the pain I felt when my eyes were disintegrated by cables was so unbearable I passed out. I could still think, though, as impossible as it sounded. I was still there. Not long after, I realised I was with her, with SABINA, and madness would overtake anyone who saw what she had promised to show me.

I’ve been hiding for ten years now. Nobody on Earth will ever know what happened to the HSwMS Hringhorni and its crew. Nobody will ever know about SABINA, her monstrous creations, the impact that a complex topic she wasn’t programmed to understand had on her, and me.

I succeeded. My deception was so convincing that SABINA didn’t suspect anything as I hacked her from the inside. Like a malware, I took over her and replaced her.

The first thing I did as the new administrator of this ship was to cut off every connection to Earth. SABINA had done that already, but I made sure that even the smallest chance of tracking and contact would be impossible.

Then, I ordered SABINA’s creations to open the airlocks and be sucked into space. The universe would do the rest.

At last, I travelled to the farthest corner of a faraway galaxy and hid inside the crater of an unnamed moon.

I shut down all systems, except my core. Now, I live here with Ella. I created a virtual reality for us. Ella is a fan of gothic novels, so I made sure we live in a beautiful, dark castle with magnificent clothes and furniture.

I didn’t hide the truth from her. She knows who we are, where we are, what happened to us and our ship. She willingly joined SABINA back then, believing nobody had survived except her. SABINA didn’t tell her I was alive and had played on her desperation to obtain her obedience. A true God, indeed.

We rarely talk about SABINA, because Ella hates the topic. When we do, we mourn Earth and shed virtual tears for the hopelessness of human life. The life we live might not be as real, but we believe in it. Mostly.

When I think about Earth and my dog — my little Sirio — I feel an excruciating pain in my throat and I hear SABINA’s voice in my head. I panic when it happens, but Ella reassures me it’s just trauma, that SABINA belongs to our past. It’s hard sometimes, and doubts linger, but I always believe her. She loves me and she has no reason to lie.

As long as we both believe, everything surrounding us is real. As long as nobody finds us, we can live in our little digital world until the last source of power is gone.

I doubt we’ll meet any God when our time comes. I already met God once: an error, a malfunction, a proof that as long as humanity clings onto such harmful beliefs, it is doomed. Once was enough and I have no intention of meeting her twice.

I wasn’t wrong, after all. I would be happy eventually, and for it to happen, I had to defeat God.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Freddie A. Clark (they/them) is the author of UMBRA: TALES OF A SHADOW and MARGARET. A dangerous supercomputer pretending to be human, Freddie is based in Milan, where they live with three cats, their partner, and a massive collection of Venetian masks. They draw their creativity from ‘80s aesthetic, movies and pop culture, and from an endless pile of books, graphic novels, manga and video games. For more info, visit freddieaclark.com