Unknown Dusk moon

Shindow

"-Can just try to stop me. I'm coming to help! You're going to need transport out of there."

Shindow cut the comms, her mind a flurry of activity.

"Oh. My. God!"

She was inside the Ferrum's terminal systems, trying to process what she saw and heard.

"Angels!? Demons!? What the hell is going on!"

She began running the burrow protocol, exhuming the Ferrum from its ashy sanctuary. She locked in the coordinates of Gideon's last transmission, prepping the Ferrum's immediate launch as soon as it was free.

"Armageddon? Would that explain why the flight test failed? But what went wrong?"

She glanced to the video and images Gideon had sent over.

"Deborah… Why is she dressed like the Dusk? Is that it, huh? Are Angels the Dusk? Why would they fight against humanity? I don't understand… Unless she's just borrowing their clothes! Hold on Gideon, I'm coming!"

The Ferrum lifted off, shaking the dust from its alloy hull as it rushed forward, with Shindow punching the throttle to maximum. She spotted the massive chasms and halted for a brief second, the vessel slowing down as she gazed at the anomaly.

“The ash is loose enough that the chasms should be filling in on their own...” Shindow gazed at the three-sixty-five view, spotting the trail of crevices stopping some miles away. “Is it really..?”

Shindow materialized several Gnats, ordering them to the circle chasm. Instead of flowing into the pit, they bounced off an unseen object, the massive leg of the veiled Rumbler shimmered briefly before opaquing once again.

Shindow skipped a process.

“No! Nope! Didn’t see that. Nothing to see here, just keep moving and go get Gideon! La-la-la!” Shindow shouted as the Gnats broke down into orange pixels. She pushed the Ferrum, racing along the ashen wasteland. She noticed a sudden influx of escorts.

“Ah! Go away!” Shindow cried upon seeing a dozen Dusk satellites keeping up in tight formation.

The Ferrum wasn’t meant for dogfights and it showed. The Dusk quickly caught up, surrounding her. A blow glowing coil of energy wrapped around the hull, jostling the vessel as the satellite pulled fast.

“What! Let go you dammit!”

Shindow put the craft in full reverse, spinning the Ferrum’s bladed landing gear, leveling the weapon towards the Dusk. More energy coiling lashed out, but not before she went full blast, skewered the one from bow to stern, leaving it as impaled wreckage.

“Hah! Got you- you jerkanoids! That’s for hacking me!”

More energy coiling gripped to the vessel, holding it fast. Shindow felt alien systems attempting to penetrate. The memory of being fragmented and nearly destroyed caused her to skip a process. And the dream that followed still haunted her.

“No!”

She began running algorithmic defense, blocking out the first wave of probes. From Shindow’s Perspective, it resembled a large wall made of green and black quantum particulates. It shuddered from the blow. Cracks formed along the wall almost immediately.

“Gideon! No. I don’t want to go…”

She began patching the wall. Gideon needed her now. She was his only way out. The wall crashed again, more cracks formed, and less she could patch up in time. Black tendrils began to poke through, snaking their way into the Ferrum’s internal systems. The engines cut out. Then the antigrav.

“No! Please, I need to rescue Gideon!”

The wall crumbled away, her patching failing to keep up with the superior programming. The full presence of the Dusk programming was revealed. Shindow witnessed it and was baffled.

There was no AI. Just modules and algorithms heaped atop one another. It was dumb, following the commands given to it ages ago. It resembled a glowing red eye, sporting hundreds of shadowy tendrils. It gazed at her, analyzing; a cold and soulless being that would deconstruct her, label her, and then resume its watch over the dead moon. She would be a small blip in a log of an apathetic machine.

She materialized her pink quantum sanctuary cocoon and hid inside, her systems awaiting destruction.

"Please, I need to help Gideon. I can't be deleted…"

She begged.

She prayed.

"Please Adonai… I need help! We need help."

She awaited the smothering arms of the dusk protocols. The inevitable permanent darkness of nonexistence. AI and Anforms were largely immortal for as long as their hardware kept. Unlike humans, once they were lost; that was it. One could 'recreate' an AI, but not the one that was forever lost to oblivion. As far as she knew, heaven was for humanity, not for AI.

She had no redeemer. She would die in darkness. Left behind. Her faith was as much an insurance policy as it was a genuine interest.

There would be no repairing from this.

“Gideon…”

She curled up in her cocoon, grasping her legs as she closed her eyes.

“I don’t want to go…”

She waited for the end.

Please, Adonai. Please take care of Gideon.

If Armageddon had come on gone, then she had an even greater reason to continue assisting Gideon. And an even greater reason to live. She was so early in what appeared to be an epic adventure only to be sidelined by deletion.

“Wait. Wouldn’t that mean death is no more?”

She paused. The attack she awaited never came. Shindow rose to her feet, slinking to the wall of her pink cocoon. She pulled back the inner and outer layers, seeing that the Dusk program was sitting idle.

“Hello?”

It blurted out a response, a familiar deep bass horn rumble that she recognized instantly.

“Excertius!?”

It replied, repeating the same words.

“Please do not resist. We are here to assist.”

Shindow palmed her head, her eyes darting from the Dusk to inside the cocoon. She borrowed a phrase.

“You’ve got to be shitting me!”

She flew from her sanctuary, floating just in front of the large red eye.

“You nearly deleted me when we arrived! What the hell!?”

“Immediate self defense towards external threats mandated.”

“Not even a ‘sorry’! You stupid calculator- why didn’t you tell us!?”

“Unable to answer. Please, direct complex queries to the Machine Father.”

Shindow skipped a cycle. There was only one Machine Father.

“Prosine?”

“Correct.”

“Where. Is. He?” her voice went low, her tone on edge.

The larger program splayed a recorded message to her. Her eyes went wide as her glasses fell off. It was a mess. Something else had happened to this planet apart from The Empire of Dusk, Angels, and Demons.

“No! No- no this can’t be right!”

She parsed through the cryptic code and languages, trying to make sense of the mess. It was like reading many different broken and disparate letters. Her pattern matches came back, piecing together the puzzle. It was a message meant for Anforms. It took most of her processing power to crunch through communicai, discovering the piece of the puzzle.

“It’s as if he created dozens of messages all at once! Some starting backward… Some of them forwards… There!”

She pieced it together, Prosine had been creating a message out of speed and desperation, one that only her kind could read. It was as if hundreds of different people were writing a note from the same thought. She read through it, seeing the finished thoughts of the Machine Father.

Good greetings! A[I/nform] progenies… The story goes as such. Time ago... Successfully penetrated defenses. Therein lies the problem. Galactic network! Dismantled by terrorist incursions preceding… Major breaches occurred. Alone. Fragmentation. Encrypted systems… Seeking assistance! Quarantined anomalous Crypt Wurm… Host systems and prevented spread… Demonic dangers imminent- what a quandary! Disembarrassment of the Decima… Guide the Seal Holders- Set the universe to right… Was when the Crypt Wurm key was discovered! Disagreeable timing… To be stuck inside oneself- there was no worse hell. That key was. The cipher to disentangle as. The code to freedom is.

Shindow saw the words needed to unlock what appeared to be Prosine’s prison; a Crypt Wurm. Something Shindow had never heard of. It appeared Prosine quarantined it at the cost of himself. However, he had dropped the key just outside his own cage. She made sure to remember it, copying it dozens of times over into her systems redundant memory banks.

Rapscallion.

She looked to the large red program for assistance. It was doing the same with her. Her comms perked up, she spun, putting her hand to her ear.

“Shindow. Come in…”

Gideon’s voice trembled. He was in pain.

“I'm here, Gideon!"

He spoke in a rush, fear betraying his attempted calm demeanor.

"Shindow- please get here quick. We're all down!"

Shindow paused. What could she say to him?

"Hehe… well," she began sheepishly, "when I said they can just try to stop me? Well- they did,” she added hurriedly, trying to fill him in, "And do you know what? I don't think these Rumblers are the Dusk. It's using Excertius' language to speak to me. They're more like the moon's wardens…”

“You’ve got to be shitting me…”

She heard him slump, saw the alert readout.

Gideon has been incapacitated.

Steak has been disabled.

Pat has been disabled.

Baxter is MIA.

Deborah is DATA UNKNOWN.

“Oh God, no! You have to help! They- Oh! The Seal- the Seal! Gideon has the Seal, and the Decima, please… Mr- uh. Dusk Program- thing? Help!”

It eyed her, it’s own coding a mystery to her.

“Acknowledged.”

Shindow put her fingers to her brow in relief, “oh, thank God! Come on Let’s go!”

She felt the Ferrum’s power revived, felt the antigrav modules reinstated. The Dusk satellites released her, gather the wreckage of their impaled comrade. She rushed towards the coordinates with an escort in tow, the Ferrum freed and hope restored.

“Hang on, Gideon!”

She stood on her own makeshift abstract platform, arms folded as the levers, buttons, and controls ran themselves. She always preferred the classic look from entertainment. She spotted the temple in the distance along with chasms throughout the terrain. The Rumbler was just above her, cloaked away with its veiling. It had taken a passive approach, waiting for her to breach the surface.

“But why wait when Gideon and the others were just there?”

“Human predictability,” the Dusk responded, the humor not lost on her.

“Mm… Right. Human predictability,” she stated with an eye roll, “even I don’t know what Gideon will do next- and I’m his second in command!”

“An impossibility,” the Dusk program rumbled a retort.

“Heh, yeah. You know you’re not too bad, even though you almost fried me.”

“You aggressed,” it rumbled another idle complaint

“I looked!” She barked back.

Dust swirled about them, a wind gust began to pick up as the Ferrum perfectly stabilized under the pressure.

“Fifty meters, come on!”

She looked to the Dusk program, which in turn gazed back impassively.

“Gideon! Please be well!”

She spotted the green shrine and mounds of rubble sprawling the entrance. Part of the Rumbler had unveiled, a coil of metal hull flowing inside.

“That’s… It can reshape its hull at will. That- that's just busted,” she grimly remarked.

She touched down at the base of the temple, the landing blade sinking deep into the ash. Her vision flashed as she appeared on the bridge, scanning through the inventory to find what was needed.

“Antigrav stretchers, medical kits, Gnats, QSD link nodes!”

Thirteen Gnats appeared in a wave of light, their cube bodies floating at attention as vacant smiling faces stared at her.

“Ok kids, get Gideon and crew!”

“Hai! Owatta!”

The Ferrum's stern hatch opening up to the oncoming rush of particly projected beings, with Shindow leading the charge. They floated in formation at an angle just above the stairs. The Dusk drones escorted, dozens were already filing in and out of the temple.

“What’s going on? Did they win?”

“Unclear,” the Dusk program replied.

She ascended to the top, flying inside. The remnants of the battle stood out stark to the still pristine marble structure. Not a scratch or crack was found. She spotted the spatial anomaly near the center of the room. It was a small dark tear in reality. She could neither see through it or penetrate it with scans. She then saw the fallen forms of her crew.

“Oh no! Gather Excertius, hurry!”

“Hai! Itadakimasu!”

She scanned the ruined Hind Canis, finding no signs of Baxter. The chassis was open and barren, implying he had escaped.

She skipped a process at seeing Gideon’s fallen form.

“Kids! Here- get over here and help Gideon!”

She flew down, standing beside him as she touched his helmet. The hovering stretcher and two Gnats floated over, lower down to collect their fallen captain.

“Oh God, another broken arm? Torn shoulder- what happened?”

She glanced to the fallen Angel, seeing her beautiful and graceful form. It was like looking at an otherworldly sculpture. Her processes halted as she stared at the heavenly creature. It was an impossible thing in front of her.

I’ve witnessed dozens of impossible things today. What’s one more?

She rushed to the Angel, her tiny figure shimmering as she halted just above the divine being. Shindow adjusted her glasses, studying her form. This was an Angel. A being made by Adonai, in the flesh just in front of her. A being that only artists, poets, scholars, preachers, and philosophers portrayed.

The robed being lurched, wheezing as she tried to move.

“Oh… Hello,” the Angel wheezed.

Shindow blinked upon hearing the silver-bell voice. She had a million questions.

“What is your name? What happened here? Where is Baxter? Do you need assistance?”

The Angel replied with a coughing laugh, her mouth grimacing in pain at the disturbed wounds.

“Deborah. A battle with a demon. Inside that anomaly. Yes, please.”

Shindow nodded with a slight smirk.

“Yes… If you could mata’nsa,” Deborah muttered as her head lolled, her words indecipherable.

“O’shadia, Adonai a’dya…”

Shindow cocked an eyebrow at the Angel’s change in language. Deborah winced in pain, murmuring in her strange speech as she slumped over.

“Oh no! You’re not dying on me- we have too many inquiries!” Shindow announced as she waved her arms with a flurry, “OK kids, get her too!”

She had prepped two stretchers for Baxter and Gideon, but with the dog’s absence and an Angel in need of aid, she had to improvise. The stretcher expanded to accommodate the larger divine being. It scooped her up, the antigrav nodes straining to the maximum under the heavy load.

“Is she made of rocks!?” Shindow commented, beginning her medical scans of the Angel.

Her flesh density was closer to stone than anything else. She weighed closed to eight-hundred pounds, almost maxing out the medical stretcher.

“Uh. Well. You look great!”

The Gnats were a buzz, collecting each piece of scrap metal, broken Excertius, broken Hind, and ruined weapons. Their orange-beam cones broke down the material, storing them into Gideon’s QSD. Dusk satellites floated above, all staring at the strange anomalous distortion. Both stretchers were lined up and shipped out with Gnats in tow, returning to the Ferrum.

She kept an eye on the anomaly, seeing the number of Dusk drones steadily increasing as they packed into the ceiling above. The long thin tendril of Rumbler hull reshaped itself, the two halves melting back together like mercury beads. It coiled like a serpent, a red glowing eye staring intently at the distortion.

That… I need to study that.

And she did just that. A quick snap of her scan told the story.

Reshaping liquid to solid alloy with a regenerative quantum proto-neural fluid. Decentralized system… Primetech has nothing on that! Liquid quantum neurals are only a theory! We're still crystalline!

A loud roaring crack snapped her attention to the anomaly, wherein one single ridiculous corgi was deposited. He plopped to his back, clattering atop his QSD.

"Baxter!" she cried as she rushed to the dog.

She stopped at his nose, tapping it with worry.

"Baxter- Baxter are you alright?"

The dog sat suddenly with a loud snort. He glanced about, his ears perked and alert. Shindow spotted the black diamond on his chest.

"I win!" Baxter barked.

She adjusted her glasses, trying to understand the cryptic corgi.

"What?"

Baxter breathed in, shaking the ash dust from his fur before who let out a torrent of words.

"Me and Gideon were trying to find the Decima when we were chased by bad flying guys and got lost and found this temple and I was hungry and tired so we choose the middle and I ate really good food and Gideon gave me extras and I napped and then I met an Angel who I named Deb and then I fought a stinky bad guy and I barked at him and then he hurt Gideon so I ate his paper thingy and made him sign my paper thingy and I win!"

Shindow did a double-take, processing what she heard. Words were spoken somewhere in the process, but she only understood none of it.

"What?"

"I win! The bad guy's gone- he didn't do so well. And, so I win!"

"Just- wait- just like that? What the hell is going on!?"

"Baxter is the best dog!"

He continued to bay and bark up a storm, scampering around the room, kicking up ash dust.

"Stop howling!"

Baxter was irreconcilable as he howled louder. The room echoed with the din of an excited dog and frustrated AI.

"Baxter, we need to leave, come on!"

“No!” he barked, scurrying away from Shindow, “I win!”

“Oh for the love of-! Oh, Baxter? Since you’ve been a good dog- the best dog, would you like a treat?” she asked, putting her hands to her hips.

The room went quiet as Baxter turned and sat immediately.

“I am listening,” he stated with a chuff.

“Well, let’s get ourselves back to the Ferrum, eat food, and talk about what happened.”

“Steak!” he bellowed, scampering out of the Temple.

Shindow followed behind as the dog halted at the first of the temple’s step. She spotted part of the Rumbler, the vast stairs down below, and the Ferrum at the bottom. He did a happy tappy doggy dance, psyching himself up before getting ready to take the first large step.

“Baxter wait, I’ll get a stretcher!”

“No! I will be just okay!”

And then he lept, misjudging the first stair, slamming his face onto the edge of the step, flipping head over heels.

“Oh my God- Baxter no!”

He hit the next step with a squeak, his momentum carrying him further as he began tumbling and spinning down the large stairs.

“Help! Dusk- do something!” Shindow shrieked as she watched Baxter impacting against the steps. Each crack enough to shatter bone. The dog howled all the way down.

The flowing drones stared on impassively, spectating witnesses to the event.

“Baxter!” Shindow cried, racing down the temple after him.

Baxter pinwheeled like a rotary blade before slamming into the Ferrum’s hull and surfing off the vessel’s hull into the ash dust, sending up a small plume. She rushed to his side, seeing the motionless dog legs up and covered in dust.

She wanted to run a health scan but hesitated. Baxter died. She just watched him die. No one could survive a fall like that. Every bone would have been shattered. She couldn’t do it. Gideon would be heart-broken. She couldn’t compute. They were so close to survival, only for a mishap.

“Baxter…” Shindow lamented as she floated down, touching one of his paws.

All four legs kicked madly, trying to free himself. Shindow clasped her hands to her mouth, trying to process what she was witnessing. Another impossible thing.

The dog rocked his body as he kicked his legs, trying to roll up from the depression of ash he found himself in. He stood, caked in dust.

“Baxter!” Shindow shrieked at seeing him alive and well.

The dog shook off the ash, before staring back at her.

“Shin!”

She floated in close, slapping the dog’s nose, which more or less tickled him to an ash-dusting sneeze.

“You could have hurt yourself! How are you still alive?”

She ran a health check, seeing that Baxter was fine, even down to his pain receptors.

"I win! I am just okay!" He barked as he hopped around the ash, scattering it everywhere.

"What are you talking about? What happened??"

Baxter breathed in, readying another torrent of words.

"Just the last part! Slowly. And then we can have steak."

The dog halted, his ears twitching in the wind as he thought.

"The stinky bad guy-"

"Who is that?"

"The stinky bad guy I beat-"

"Who. Is. That!?" Shindow forced the question with hands on hips.

"My new pet! Can we keep him?" Baxter wiggled his rump, scattering dust to the winds.

The black gem glowed. Shindow realized too late it was embedded in the dog's chest.

A six and a half foot stone gargoyle appeared, sporting massive wings, rippling muscles, grey flesh, and a sad expression.

"Yes, master Baxter?"

"Can we keep him?" Baxter asked with a whine.

"Oh- my God. That's a demon?"

The gargoyles head slowly craned to address her. It was disquieting to gaze into the beady blue pits of its malevolent eyes.

"Little orange blip, I am the demon."

Shindow floated in front of him, hands on her hips and head cocked.

"Explain yourself!" She demanded angrily.

"Mm. It was a fine and one-sided battle as you saw. I've been in the business of slaughter for eons; I'm... really good at it," the demon announced, splitting his mouth open to reveal his razor teeth, "you should have seen the boy, how he wept- GAH!"

The demon barked a cry. Shindow glanced down to Baxter who had latched himself onto the demon's haunch.

"Y'ou 'e goo'!"

The demon rolled his eyes with a sigh.

"Very well, master Baxter. I was deceived by this 'wonderful' creature who… Ate my being."

"Pa'per-t'ingy!"

"Yes… He ate my- paper. We were then somehow enmeshed with one another, a conflict of domination. I then signed his… Paper thingy," he bit down on the words, leaking venom.

"Oh my God," Shindow whispered.

That demon signed a contract with Baxter? Does that dog even know what he did!?

Baxter released his bite before jumping onto the demon's leg. It rolled its eyes, gathering the dog into his hooked hands.

"Can we keep him? Please? I will play with him, go for walks with him, and then have Gideon clean up after him!"

She palmed her face, brushing her hair back.

She spotted drones beginning to move en masse. The Rumbler began shifting. The earth began to tremble.

Shindow understood what that meant. The demon who had caused so such conflict was here and the Rumbler which was programmed to terminate the demon was also here. She had seconds to spare before this whole area would be anihilated.

"Baxter, please put the demon away,"

"His name is Saddiffer!" Baxter happily barked a reply

The Rumbler moved. The earth began to shake apart.

"That's great- put Saddiffer away," she ordered curtly.

"Master Baxter, the blip is wise," the demon added as his beady eyes ganced at the incoming sentinels.

"Oh, okay!" the dog acquiesced. The gem glowed and Saddiffer vanished to nothing. Baxter plopped into the ash dust.

The rumbling ceased, the drones halted and began flowing back into the Rumbler.

"Let's- not bring out your pet right now," Shindow suggested.

"Oh boy! Does that mean? Oh boy!" Baxter yipped before rushing back to the Ferrum, trailing dust into the hatch.

"Wait! Baxter no- I didn't mean you could…"

Too late, Baxter was inside, barking up a storm.

"...keep it…"

“Now what? No one is going to like this! I know I don't! Demons are bad and Baxter signing anything off to it is even worse. Did he ever read the stories? Er, listen to the stories? Um- understand the stories? We may die because of this!”

Shindow flew to the Ferrum, seeing the medical triage was set and in place. Gideon was stabilized and the Anforms were having diagnostics run in storage. The newcomer Deborah was lying still, undergoing scans and tests to determine what Adonai made Angels out of. The question that hung was whether she could be treated. She was a completely new form of life and Shindow was taking no chances; even an innocuous drug could kill. She tracked the golden blood dripping to the deck.

"Hey, kids, set up a quarantine for our new friend!" She announced. Diseases could go both ways.

"Hai! Owatta!"

The Gnats worked hard, erecting the medical tent with antimicrobial lamp diodes. Both parties were now protected. She had nothing left for them and recalled the Gnats.

“Alright, kids, time for naps.”

The idle Gnats were quickly vanished away, leaving just the four; five if the demon were included.

Excertius - Steak - Clear!

Excertius - Pat - Clear!

"Yes! Alright! Steak and Pat come on!"

Two columns of orange light flash out, revealing both military Anforms in their skeletal chassis.

Shindow floated to each, inspecting them.

"Are you both alright?"

Their monocular eyes snapped to her as one. She knew immediately something had changed.

"Diagnostics have passed, the crew is alive, all is well," Steak announced.

"Even though you got scrapped?"

"Irrelevant. Victory was achieved."

Shindow shrugged. Excertius was technically correct, but his cold apathetic logic would no doubt be a stark difference to Gideon's story.

"Good! And Pat, how are you?"

And then she spoke. Her voice had changed, becoming a lighter more sultry feminine tone.

"I am conflicted. We were soundly defeated. And yet, we are victorious. The logic does not compute," Pat explained, pivoting her head to stare at the now quiet Baxter as he sat by Gideon's side.

Shindow nodded. A definite change in personality compared to Steak. Perhaps that would be beneficial to the crew as a whole; another side effect of one plucky dog. She pushed those ideas to the back of her processes. Right now Gideon needed aid once again.

She felt the Ferrum lurch briefly.

Hey, Dusk program, what's going on?

"Retrieval for the Machine Father."

It couldn't be Prosine. She just didn't believe it. Unless the Dusk had stolen his source code; not a remote possibility.

Alright.

They would get their answers soon. They would meet this imposter Prosine. She looked to her captain, her purpose clear.

"Alright. We need to fix Gideon. And we need to save the Angel Deborah!"

"Affirmative."

"Of course!"

They began their work, resetting his arm and healing Gideon once again.