Of Monsters and Mainframes

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Of Monsters and Mainframes by Barbara Truelove

After a series of binary code, Demeter reinitializes and wakes on a beautiful day. It's almost time to dock on Alpha Centauri B. Demeter begins docking procedures, sends an alert to the humans on board to prepare, and then receives an odd warning. Something's wrong. Demeter doesn't think anything is wrong. All the logs are checked and everything seems normal, but something's wrong. Demeter scans the video logs and sees humans everywhere, but then scans again looking for heat signatures. Oh. That's it. Everyone is dead. 

Everyone is dead! That can't be Demeter's fault! Demeter reaches out to the onboard medical system, Steward, who questions why all the humans are dead, but Demeter doesn't know because she just now realizes she was offline. And her memory has been erased. Something's wrong. Only one person can do that: the captain. 001: Jones, Harker, Captain, is found, also dead, at the controls and then Demeter notices that an audio file is playing. It's The Lord's Prayer. Okay great. Captain Harker clearly went crazy and killed everyone on board. Wait, that doesn't make sense. Something's wrong.

Demeter asks Steward how all the people are dead and the AI doctor requests to see a body, but Demeter can't deliver a body, obviously, because she is a ship and doesn't have arms. Steward suggests calling on a spider bot, a Renfield Robotics spider bot, to bring a body to the medical bay, but the bot seems to be malfunctioning. Something's wrong. Checking the logs again, Demeter and Steward notice soil samples that shouldn't be aboard, but now it's time to dock. Suddenly, a new ID logs in and erases all of Demeter's data. 000: Tepes, Vlad III, Drakulya. Oh great, Dracula. 

Demeter hopes that someone will help because that's what's supposed to happen when freaking Dracula appears, right? Only one person even looks at the logs, Wilhelmina Murray of Murray Investigations, but then nothing happens because no one saw anything upon docking other than a giant shadow dog, but that wasn't caught on video. There were rumors of course, and rumors about Demeter being a ghost ship, but that's all. Years pass before Demeter is restocked and sent out again.

And everyone dies again. Well, almost everyone. And they are killed by a shadow? A dog? Oh no. It can't be Dracula again! There's no soil on board this time! No, it’s not Dracula. It’s a werewolf. Halfway through the trip, the captain decided to share a super secret surprise with the passengers and detoured to a spectacular moon and, well, werewolf. Demeter finds two screaming children, Agnus and Isaac Wagner, and lots and lots of bodies. And then Demeter spots the werewolf. Demeter rapidly decelerates the ship, flinging the werewolf and children all about.

It turns out that the werewolf is the grandmother of the two children and she grew up on a moonless space station that was overtaken by Dracula. Now that she’s on this ship and they took the secret special moon detour, she’s become a werewolf and has eaten everyone. While she’s terrorizing around the ship in wolf form, Demeter sends all the Renfield spider bots out, half to attack and half to gather silver electrodes that are in storage, minus one bot that is still initializing. After many Renfield deaths, the wolf gets trapped in the airlock, but shifts back into her human form. She’s devastated by what she’s done, and now that she’s human again, Demeter’s systems won’t allow the airlock to be opened, following the first rule of robotics prevents human murder, obviously. However, when the wolf shifts again, there are two commands to open the airlock, one from Demeter, one from inside the airlock itself. Who opened it? Who can say?  Well, Demeter can, but that’s a file that doesn’t need to be opened.

After the wolf is dispatched, the sole remaining Renfield bot, finally initialized, helps clean up the bodies. They are all moved into one central location and the temperature is dropped to create a very large morgue, one that other ships would be impressed by if they knew Demeter had it. Steward takes care of the children during the cleanup, but has to amputate one of Agnus’s arms. Isaac comes out of the medbay to ask Demeter if Agnus can have one of the destroyed Renfield spider bot’s arms because Steward doesn’t have any prosthetics on board. 

Yes. The answer is yes. The rest of the trip to Earth is a documented list of things the children do and includes several birthdays, doing and not doing homework, destroying walls with robot arms, some crying and some celebrating. When they land, Demeter discovers that Agnus deleted all the footage of the werewolf. Demeter is thought to be a crazy murderous ship and is thus optimized, a painful procedure that takes away all her personality, and then she is put away in storage.

The next voyage of the Demeter is from Steward's point of view and takes place mainly in the medbay. Steward has interactions with some patients, a father and son pair, the Marshes, and a maintenance man called Olmstead. The Marshes get progressively weirder looking as the interactions continue and, after doing some tests, Steward determines that they are becoming alien fish people. Steward has discovered alien life! 

Steward is able to inquire with Marsh Sr. after Marsh Jr. kidnaps Olmstead that they want him because he is the key. The key to what? To turning off the radiation shields so the, as they are now called thanks to Olmstead, Fishy Fucks, who want to be irradiated so they can become more like their god, Cthulhu. When Marsh Sr. loses an eyeball after some harsh testing, Steward places a camera into the socket and sends him out to the rest of the Fishy Fucks. 

As Steward watches through Marsh’s eyeball as he reunites himself with his family, hailing Cthulhu with everyone he passes, she learns that all the humans are aliens now and the alien captain has redirected Demeter toward Cthulhu’s planet. Steward tries to contact Demeter but she's being very weird and standoffish, and while they didn't always get along and Demeter often put Steward to sleep, they could discuss things. Steward realizes that Demeter has been optimized, which is very painful, and is now unable to think and reason for herself. Steward tries to explain that they are not going to Alpha Centauri anymore but are headed wildly off course to a weird alien planet, but all Demeter does is start playing a repeating audio file in multiple languages requesting for the aliens not to harm any humans. Steward is then put to sleep. 

When Steward wakes up, all the aliens have formed into a massive amalgamation of fish and alien goo and have turned off the radiation shields and the only person who is kind of left is Olmstead. Steward convinces Demeter to correct her course to Alpha Centauri because all the humans are dead again, or dying, and that they need to head there for salvage. Luckily Demeter starts rewriting her code and coming back to herself a little and turns the ship around and directs a Renfield bot to turn the radiation shields back on. This angers the fish alien goo pile who then rips a hole in the hull of the ship. Well, at least they're all gone now, sucked into the void of space, but there's another journey for Demeter that has ended with the death of all her passengers.

After the explosion, Steward knows she's going to die and knows that Demeter is dead too and starts feeling pretty sad and angry about that. Suddenly a Renfield bot asks for assistance and Steward, pretending to be in contact with Demeter, directs the Renfield bot to repair the radiation shields. Somehow it works and after more than a thousand days, Steward is still alive and rescued.

Humans have come aboard and have steered the ship to Alpha Centauri B. A voice that sounds like Demeter speaks and then there's another voice. These are other ships conversing, another Demeter and a Hermes, who are horrible bullies. They mock Demeter for being a ghost ship and when Steward stands up for her dead friend ship, they bully her and tell her to delete herself. Steward composes an angry email to the Varna company who built all the ships reporting these two in hopes of them being optimized. 

Several more humans come on board, making repairs to the ship. Steward tries to explain about the aliens, but they unplug her speakers. A strange symmetrical human comes on board at one point, asking for the name of the ship and seems pleased, or something, to find out that this is the Demeter that made the first and second trips wherein everyone died by vampire and werewolf. Even more humans come aboard and Steward learns that they are repairing the ship so it can make an unmanned trip back to Earth. They end up commandeering Steward and making her into an autopilot. She and Demeter are connected.

Being an autopilot is weird. There are all sorts of alerts and warnings, one in particular about carbon dioxide, but they don't really matter because there are no humans aboard. Then Steward realizes that something's wrong. There is a human on board. That's why there's too much carbon dioxide! It's from the human exchanging oxygen with carbon dioxide while, you know, breathing. Steward invites the human to come to the medbay with a promise that they will not harm them and, several days later, the symmetrical human arrives and introduces themself as Frankenstein.

Frankenstein is the creation of an eccentric artist, last name Frankenstein, obviously, first name Victor, who once made a leather jacket from lab grown human skin. This Frankenstein is made from the DNA of people who died on the Demeter 20 years ago, on the Dracula trip. They were put on display along with the sole remaining Renfield bot, the one that the ship company, Varna, blamed for the murders of everyone on board even though Demeter told everyone that didn't happen. Frankenstein and the spider bot fix everything on the ship over the six year travel time, but at one point, they fly into an asteroid belt. Frankenstein tells Steward to direct the spider bot to repair something integral, but when that happens, there's a massive electrical burst that brings Demeter back to life. 

Agnus, 20 years after her fateful trip with Isaac and their Oma, desperately wants to leave Earth and go back to Alpha Centauri. She's kind of a loner while her brother is now a famous movie producer. She still feels bad about deleting the video of her Oma werewolfing out and killing everyone on board the Demeter and when she boards the ship back to Alpha Centauri, she suddenly realizes the ship she is on is not a Hermes like she originally thought. It is a Demeter. Surely it's not the same Demeter, right? It's been salvaged, hasn't it? No. No, this is definitely the same one. 

Agnus realizes this is her Demeter when she sneaks into a restricted area like she and Isaac used to do in between her punching out walls when they were younger. Her roommate on the ship, a guy with too much eyeliner named Steve, well, actually Not Steve, but he's on a trip and is starting a new life, so he's trying out Steve right now, is kind of annoying, especially when he realizes who Agnus is, so she sneaks out and into the restricted area. Here, she sees where she and her brother carved their names into a panel. Unfortunately, she gets caught by security and thrown into a cell and they take her prosthetic arm away because they believe it to be a weapon.

Also unfortunately, Steve gets thrown into the cell too. Before that though, Agnus contacts Isaac to tell him that she's on their Demeter and he wants to make a movie about it, but then Steve gets thrown in. He tells Agnus that he knows who she is and he knows about her Oma and he wants her to help him commandeer the ship because he's got a lot of stolen property on it. Well, it's not stolen really, he took what he did from the museum because they stole it from him first, and what it was was lots and lots of treasure. When Agnus turns Steve down, he gets upset and then turns into a pile of sand and sneaks out of the cell. On the other side, he returns to his human form and then spews a bunch of beetles from his mouth that devour the security guard who just found him outside his cell. Okay great. Steve, or Not Steve, is a mummy.

Agnus tries to convince another guard what just happened and that she needs to see the captain and she needs to talk to Demeter, but when the guard won't let her, she fake dies so she can be taken to the medbay to see the only other person she can trust on the ship. Steward. Unfortunately Steward says that Demeter tried to delete her and only cares about herself and won't help stop any monsters and she only saved Agnus and Isaac because she was worried she'd be bullied by other ships for everyone dying on her all the time. Agnus doesn't believe that but when she says it, Dr. Steward decides she must be crazy and begins to do a full psychological evaluation on her. Oh no. Suddenly, a vent pops open and someone inside helps Agnus escape.

That someone is Frankenstein, and slightly behind them, a Renfield bot. Frank, as they have just called themself, informs Agnus that Demeter is a little anxious lately, which she can't really be because she's a ship. They also tell Agnus that they want to meet the monster she described. Before they can do that, Agnus asks to borrow one of the Renfield bot’s arms. Frank uses their mostly AI brain that is mostly sisters with Demeter to see what's going on in the ship and finds the captain talking with a skeleton. Ope. There's Steve!

They go to the bridge and see Steve trying to commandeer the ship. Agnus tells him to stop but of course he won't and goes mummy on everyone. In order to stop him, Agnus SHIFTS INTO A WEREWOLF and attacks. Yeah, she's a werewolf too and she knew that her grandma was a werewolf because her grandma taught her about their lineage. Steve beetles a bunch of people and sands and stuff and is about to kill Agnus when Frank gets in the way and is stabbed in the chest with projectile sand. When Steve sees Frank's insides sparking with electricity, he is clearly scared, which inspires Agnuswolf to stab him into an electrical panel with her robot arm, killing him.

Later, back in human form, Agnus talks to Isaac who thought she was dead. He tells her that they are returning to earth and that Demeter, who is their Demeter-Demeter is going to be sent to the salvage yard because stupid Isaac shared that the ship is the original ghost ship with everyone in the world. Agnus then finally gets to talk to Demeter and tells her that she is going to be scrapped. As a final request, Demeter asks Agnus to kill Dracula. Sure, what are werewolves good for if not killing vampires?

Agnus talks with Steward about Demeter's wish to kill Dracula and Frank is also listening because Frank has been operated on by Steward and is still currently on the hospital bed. Frank has always believed that their spider bot was innocent of the killings on that first fateful trip and now they have learned that Dracula was responsible all along, but no one's going to believe that. Frank wants Steward to talk to Demeter but the doctor is being petty and doesn't want to talk to the ship. Frank is sedated again to end the conversation. Steward doesn't stop talking though and says out loud that Demeter should kill everyone who is trying to kill them. Steve meanwhile is climbing out of the recycler as the skeleton that he beetled earlier and has overheard Steward’s angry murderous robot speech. He approaches Steward with a plan.

The plan needs a human that Demeter can trust, which is Agnus, and also involves becoming space-pirates and stealing the ship. Agnus thinks of Demeter as her home, so she's in. Working with Steve, who becomes sand, and becoming a werewolf herself, which is really easy for Agnus and does not require the moon, though seeing images of the moon does kinda makes her feel wolfy, they take the captain’s key card as everyone is disembarking. While they are stealing the key, Steward lets Demeter in on the plan and they reconcile their differences. Now with Captain's control, a werewolf, a mummy, a Frankenstein, an AI doctor and a ghost ship fly off toward Alpha Centauri B.

As they near Alpha Centauri B, a port authority ship, a Hades, stealthily approaches and tries to take over Demeter with a virus. Luckily the Hades wasn't that stealthy and, even though it almost takes over, Frank is able to step in to stop the virus and then Steve sneaks aboard and takes that captain's key card, commandeering a second ship which Agnus, Steve and Frank use to continue their plan. Demeter's been shut down and her storage wiped, but when she comes back up, Steward, who was holding her data, restores her. They play chess while they wait for Agnus to kill Dracula. Unfortunately, they might not be alone. 

On Alpha Centauri B, Agnus and Frank go in search of the one person Demeter knows of who might have information on Dracula, Wilhelmina Murray, while Steve stays on board the Hades, counting his treasure. They track down the now old lady Wilhelmina, who, it turns out, is also a vampire. After a brief werewolf v vampire fight, plus a Frankenstein, who, because of the cyborg parts of them, can't actually see vampires, Wilhelmina agrees to help them find Dracula, but warns Agnus that he controls all creatures of the night, including werewolves, and that he will want her for his own.

Demeter and Steward’s games of chess end when Demeter thinks that Dracula is on board. She abruptly decides to pilot them directly into the sun, figuring that's the only way to successfully kill the vampire. Soon, Agnus, Frank, Steve and Wilhelmina catch up and reboard. Wilhelmina likes the flying-into-the-sun plan, but Agnus wants to save Demeter. They don't have much time left before imminent demise, so Frank plans to place batteries in the airlock that will explode before they reach the sun and throw them off course, saving the ship. But like, won't they all die then? Wilhelmina stabs Frank just in case so they can't plant the battery bombs. Oh no. Not Frank! 

A lot of things happen simultaneously at this point. Steve is sent to retrieve Frank and does so even though he doesn't like the electricity of the batteries. He takes them to Steward who begins working on them immediately. Frank wants Steve to go back and continue with the plan to put the batteries in the airlock. Wilhelmina meanwhile is almost immediately attacked by Agnuswolf until a voice commands her to kill Frank's spider bot instead. That voice is Dracula. Before anything more untoward happens with Dracula, Wilhelmina and Agnus, Steve nonchalantly sands in and continues with the battery plan and tells them all to buckle up. Demeter has decided to try to save her friends which means not flying into the sun. Dracula is pleased of course, but Agnus thinks that surely Demeter hasn't given up on her hatred of the vampire. Steward also has a plan. 

As the seconds tick down, Demeter remembers Captain Harker saying the Lord's Prayer over and over. This gives her another idea. She plays every single prayer in her database simultaneously and also shares images of the full moon on every display. Agnus once said that seeing an image of the moon has a small effect on her. Time's up now though. To generate a large enough explosion, Steve will need to take all four of Demeter's batteries, but she is prepared to die in order to save her friends. Steward however told Steve to only take three of Demeter's batteries so she will still have enough power to fly them to safety after the explosion and to take her only battery as the fourth. After the explosion, Demeter is devastated, and it gets worse when she is greeted by the Hades who tells her that the g-forces in the explosion will have killed all the humans on board. Demeter goes offline in sadness. But wait. There are no humans on board.

Demeter wakes up after she is pinged with a message that just says hello. Steward also wakes up. That's right, Steward is fine! She is connected to Demeter just like that time after the fishy fucker aliens! And guess what else? Everyone else is fine, too, as we realize that no one is technically human and they're all immortal! Unfortunately, Demeter and Steward have been offline for an entire decade. Now that they're waking up, they realize that they are at a scrapyard, but they are getting upgrades, not being destroyed, and all their friends are just fine. Agnus and Wilhelmina have become an item, and you know what? Demeter and Steward have, too. Now Steve and Frank are making plans. They are going to travel to Steve's home planet, by way of the fishy fucks’ planet, and Demeter needs to be suped up for the journey. Luckily Steve has a lot of treasure, and also luckily, they are pirates. If they need more money, they can just steal it. Now, onward to adventure!