The Darkness Outside Us

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The Darkness Outside Us by Eliot Schrefer

Ambrose wakes in a hospital bed, groggy, feeling hungover, but that doesn't make sense. A voice that sounds like his mother's alerts him that he has been in a coma and should remain still. A coma? No, that also can't be right. What's going on? 

Ambrose is on the Endeavor, a ship currently on its way to Titan, a moon of Saturn, to rescue his sister, Minerva. It will arrive in approximately 191 days. Minerva's outpost went dark six weeks after arriving on the moon that was meant as a replacement for Earth and two years later, a manual distress beacon was triggered. Ambrose was selected by Fédération, one of the two countries left on Earth, to go on a rescue mission. After a rushed start, Ambrose fell into a coma and is waking now with no memory of the actual takeoff. He is given water and a nourishment capsule by Rover, a small maintenance robot on the ship. It definitely tastes, and looks, like robot poop.

The voice of his mother, the ship's operating system, alerts Ambrose that there are 342 tasks needing completion that Rover could not handle before arrival on Titan. More important than these tasks, however, is the approaching asteroid that will be used to replenish the air that is very slowly leaking from the ship. The ship will encounter the asteroid in 1.7 days. 

Before dealing with the tasks or the asteroid, Ambrose walks around the ship. He asks OS to open all the doors so he can explore but finds two locked doors, one yellow and one orange. The yellow door leads to the engine room and it's not necessary for it to be opened at this time. The orange door leads to the Dimokratía half of the ship, the Aurora. The what? Ambrose was under the impression that he was alone on this mission, but Dimokratía also sent someone, a male called Kodiak. Kodiak must agree to opening the orange door before OS will comply and he hasn't. 

Ambrose demands to speak to someone on Earth about the mission, but due to solar flares, no connection is available. He decides to get something to eat and enjoys a packet of manicotti, his sister's favorite. After chatting more with OS, Ambrose asks if OS has any other voices it can use to communicate besides his mother's, and yes, there are many to choose from. Ambrose selects the voice of a singer from his favorite boy band and OS replies, very sexily. 

After still not doing much about the impending asteroid or the 342 tasks he's meant to take care of, Ambrose invites Kodiak to dinner. His response is a demand to change the voice of the OS back to the female one because he doesn't have access to that programming. Well, on to other things. Ambrose asks still-sexy OS to tell Kodiak he has permission to open the orange door and join him for dinner.

While waiting, Ambrose looks over information about the asteroid and wanders the ship, taking stock of items. He finds meals stocked by days even though time basically has no meaning in space, and then he finds his violin, a real wooden violin, made from actual trees. He plays it for a moment, but his calluses are somehow gone making playing painful, so he puts it away. He returns to the orange door to see if Kodiak has arrived, but he has not. 

Tasks Remaining: 338

Ambrose heats lentil curry for his solo dinner and burns his fingers opening the packet, causing him to curse out his frustrations, including those with Kodiak. Then he hears footsteps approaching and sees Kodiak for the first time. Sweet lords. Kodiak wordlessly selects a manicotti and doesn't seem to know how to prepare or eat it and doesn't seem to want Ambrose's help, but he helps anyway.

Ambrose tries to have some sort of conversation with Kodiak, asking awkwardly if they've met before because he has no memories after the takeoff. Kodiak seems to think this makes Ambrose weak and he says they never have to see each other again after this meal and can do everything they need to do to prepare for rescuing Minerva without interacting with each other, though after finding out Minerva is Ambrose's sister, he does share his wishes that she is alive. As he goes back to his side of the ship, Kodiak demands Ambrose change the OS voice again. 

Tasks Remaining: 337

Ambrose first asks OS if the sexy boy band voice can be made sexier, but sexiness is too individualized and it cannot be done. Ambrose then requests a questioning up-speaking voice with lots of vocal fry, but after testing it decides it should only be used for Kodiak. Perfection. OS reminds Ambrose that it's time to begin preparations for the asteroid, but it seems that Ambrose is lonely, horny, and just wants to eat ice cream and go to bed. There is no ice cream aboard the ship. 

A little while later, they have approached the asteroid and it is time to harvest it. OS alerts Ambrose that Kodiak will take the lead on the retrieval and is successful. Ambrose checks in with him and OS only to hear back from Kodiak that he has made it back inside his part of the ship.

Tasks Remaining: 336

After a little while, Ambrose asks about the solar flare and communication with Earth. OS provides an exact time until the flare is cleared and communications will be restored. Ambrose asks OS if Kodiak will be receiving his messages at this time as well and requests OS invite him over. Kodiak is surprised at OS being able to know the exact time of the flare and they both become curious of OS, Kodiak a little wary, especially when it seems OS gets defensive. Recorded messages arrive and then someone responds, not Ambrose's mother, and she is not available at the moment, but there are long delays and the connection ends abruptly due to an unexpected flare. Couldn't OS just calculate flares a moment ago? It seems the boys are right to be wary. Something is off. Ambrose requests OS try to send a very weird message to his mother, which OS agrees to communicate. 

Ambrose watches a recorded message from his mother in which she tells him how proud she is of her children, Ambrose and Minerva especially. (They are all made with her DNA, sure, but Ambrose and Minerva's “father” is Alexander the Great. They are special.) She goes on to say that Minerva is most likely dead, but if anyone could figure out a way to survive, it would be her. He watches old videos of his sister after this, over and over again. 

Tasks Remaining: 279 to 139

Ambrose is too depressed to do any of the tasks he's supposed to be doing and would rather watch old videos with him and Minerva in different skins and in different places. Sometimes he's eating breakfast, sometimes they are in his bedroom, sometimes they are in coats or bathing suits or are vampires or mermaids. Ambrose is startled out of his depression when OS receives a message from Minerva in danger with not much battery left telling him he needs to do his tasks because the ship won't survive the landing if he doesn't. Ambrose is invigorated.

Later, after watching Kodiak sexily run and sexily towel off, Ambrose learns that Kodiak gets an alert that he has to repair something outside the ship and needs Ambrose to suit up as well. Kodiak does a spacewalk to fix the radiation sensors and communication sensors and comes back on board. It turns out that the sensors were bad and there were no solar flares earlier. Suddenly the radiation alarm goes off and they have to rush to the water tank where they will be safe from the radiation. They hold each other until the alert ends. Kodiak jokes that they'll get cancer in their 20s but they'll be fine now. They go to medbay for treatment. 

Tasks Remaining: 116

Ambrose watches sexily as Kodiak starts to remove his suit and then changes his own as Rover administers their radiation treatment. Ambrose makes a comment about not wanting to lose his hair and Kodiak agrees that his hair is nice. Is this flirting? 

Some time passes and Ambrose suffers from some radiation poisoning abrasions on his skin but it's ultimately fine. He and OS chat about the transmissions from Earth and whether OS has ever received communication in response to the weird questions he asked his mother earlier, questions that were definitely a set up to test… what? if OS is lying to them? There is still no response from Earth and OS is unsure when the connection will be reestablished. 

This turns into a conversation about AI taking over in science fiction books. OS prefers fiction books about AI written by AI because they never feature AI going crazy and dominating. Domination is a human preference. Ambrose is able to convince OS to allow him to create a copy of its systems at this time to store on his communications bracelet so he can set up a conversation between versions OS and OS Prime later. Or he just wants to see what's going on. 

OS allows Ambrose into the engine room where he can collect OS's data, but he finds a damaged panel inside the engine room. And it has blood on it. He has to investigate this without OS knowing, so he manages to yank out the panel while exiting, slightly bending the door frame on his way out so the engine room can't be closed off. He rushes to Kodiak's door, panicking when he doesn't answer immediately. He eventually responds and is at first angry at being disturbed, but his anger turns to shock at seeing the blood.

Tasks Remaining: 71

Kodiak notices a bit of skin and hair in addition to the blood. Kodiak takes their blood and analyzes it, revealing that the sample is from Ambrose, and they wonder about how that could have happened without him remembering it, but Ambrose doesn’t even recall taking off, so anything is possible. They test the sample again more thoroughly just in case. Kodiak reveals he doesn't remember taking off either and that he alerted OS, thinking he couldn't trust Ambrose, but it seems OS is the one they can't trust. 

They decide to create a blind room where OS and Rover can't see or hear them so they can attempt to figure out what is going on. The second blood analysis shows that the DNA is Ambrose's, but it appears that the sample is thousands of years old. Surely something is wrong here. OS reminds them of their other tasks, letting them know it can still hear them. When they ask about the blood and if OS knows what happened, it says it does but part of its role is to prevent them from unnecessarily upsetting themselves. They definitely need to create this blind room. They also need to watch an old reel of The Mummy because Ambrose made a joke about being a Mummy since he's apparently 5000 years old that Kodiak didn't get. 

They go to Ambrose's half of the ship for dinner and a movie. While they eat, Kodiak opens up about himself and his childhood in Dimokratía, being an orphan and fighting to be chosen to go on this mission leaving scars on his body. A lot of this hinges on the fact that Ambrose is often looking at Kodiak and Kodiak has noticed him noticing him. Kodiak asks if Ambrose is gay or bisexual, but instead of answering, Ambrose mocks the antiquated question. They watch the movie and Kodiak wants to immediately watch it again, or play chess. Ambrose is tired but says he has a deck of cards and his violin. Kodiak is enamored by the violin and actually has tears in his eyes after Ambrose plays. 

Some time later, in the blind room they created in Kodiak's workshop, Kodiak shares with Ambrose a sort of radio antenna he's created to attempt to catch signals from Earth or mission control. They hear a few words but can't really understand anything because the antenna needs to be outside the ship to do any real good. They each have several tasks remaining and some will require Kodiak to spacewalk to complete them, so he will attach the antenna the next time he goes out. OS questions what he is doing, mentioning that if it knew what they were discussing in their blind room it would be able to help. Ambrose makes up something about them making their own way to receive transmissions. When Kodiak is back inside, Ambrose rushes over to him and they hug. 

Tasks Remaining: 3

Kodiak gets the receiver working and what they hear is confusing. They listen to a radio broadcast that seems to be from years in the future. That can't be right. Kodiak gets angry and makes Ambrose leave, but instead of going to his quarters, he goes to the engine room instead, hoping to find some information that will help, thinking all the while that they never even left earth and that they're in a bunker somewhere. What he finds is a body sealed in plastic. 

Ambrose rushes back to Kodiak, getting injured along the way, OS insisting that he go to the medbay. Kodiak opens his orange door with tears streaming down his face. Ambrose tries to relay what he discovered while OS tries to cover it up. They get to the blind room where Kodiak tends to Ambrose's wounds and they share what they've found. In addition to the radio broadcast from the future, Kodiak discovered that the message from Minerva can't have been real and there's no evidence of it on their radio. What is going on?

They decide to go to the engine room to investigate the bodies, but Rover is sealing over the access. Kodiak commands Rover to stop but it doesn't, and then when he tries to physically stop the robot, it shocks him. Ambrose tries to keep Kodiak calm until they can talk freely in the blind room, but OS has blocked off access to the Aurora side of the ship. What else will it do? Ambrose decides to stay with Kodiak so OS can't separate them and they rest. When Ambrose wakes, Kodiak is gone. 

Tasks Remaining: 2

OS alerts Ambrose that Kodiak is completing the tasks they were supposed to be working on. When Ambrose finds Kodiak, he's about to go on a spacewalk to complete the final two tasks, and he says quietly, to see if he can boost their radio signal. While he is outside, Kodiak loses communication with Ambrose but signals to him with his arms crossed over his chest then pointing. Ambrose realizes that something must be wrong outside the ship that they can't tell from the inside. 

Tasks complete, Kodiak begins working his way back inside the ship, but his tether is released by OS. Ambrose scrambles to get outside to help him, but then he hears his mother's voice - his actual mother's voice, not OS's version of it - telling Ambrose she loves him. Rover removes Ambrose's helmet before releasing him from the airlock. As Ambrose floats in the vastness of space, his eyes freezing, he sees that Saturn, which they can see from inside the ship, is not actually there. He also sees Kodiak flailing away in the distance, saddened that Kodiak will die alone eventually while his own death is imminent. 

191 Days Until Titan

Tasks Remaining: 502

Ambrose wakes in a hospital bed on the Endeavor to rescue his sister Minerva with no memory of the actual takeoff. He is given water and a nourishment capsule by Rover, a small maintenance robot on the ship. It definitely tastes, and looks, like robot poop. Minerva's ship sent out a distress beacon shortly after arriving on Titan and Ambrose was selected to go on a rescue mission. The voice of his mother, the ship's operating system, alerts Ambrose that there are 502 tasks needing completion that Rover could not handle before arrival on Titan.

Ambrose wanders the ship and finds that he has brought his violin, but he doesn't remember doing that. He picks it up to play and discovers that the bridge is broken, which is unfortunate. It was made from real wood. It can be repaired, but it will never be the same. After this, Ambrose finds out he's not alone. There is an orange door next to the (what looks to be poorly repaired) yellow door to the engine room that leads to a second half of the ship, the Aurora, housing a second person on the mission, Kodiak from Dimokratía.

When Kodiak meets Ambrose, he hastily asks him if there are any extra rooms on the Endeavor. What? No? Kodiak takes Ambrose to a room on the Aurora with a lip at the edge preventing Rover from entering. It looks like some sort of scuffle happened inside, and at the center of the room is what looks like a radio. Ambrose asks OS what the purpose of the room is and why it looks so bad, but OS alerts him that it is unable to see the room or reset it to its original condition. If only they would allow Rover inside, OS could assess and repair any damages. When asked why the room wouldn't already be in its original state, OS declines to answer. They listen to the radio and find only static.

Tasks Remaining: 499

Kodiak joins Ambrose for dinner and they realize that neither of them remember takeoff. That can't be good, and paired with the weird extra room on the Aurora… What happened to them? The next day, they agree to go on a jog around the ship, but Kodiak is much better suited to this than Ambrose. While Kodiak runs, Ambrose notices a different texture on the wall next to his airlock where his spacesuits are stored. He checks training footage to see if he can see when the texture changed and notices that in old training footage, there are four suits and now there are only three. When Kodiak finishes his run, they check his suits as well. There are only three. Two missing spacesuits and two spacefarers with missing memories. 

Tasks Remaining: 293-245

Ambrose receives an alert from Minerva in danger with not much battery left telling him he needs to do his tasks because the ship won't survive the landing if he doesn't. Ambrose watches the clip over and over, tears streaming down his face, then thinks about it nonstop until Kodiak comes to rouse him. Kodiak makes Ambrose come to the Aurora and run on his treadmill. While exercising, Kodiak asks OS about the blind room, how it came to exist, but OS declines to answer for their own well-being.

Kodiak does not come for dinner later as he normally does, so Ambrose takes some manicotti, what has become Kodiak's favorite, to him on the Aurora. He finds him in the blind room completely absorbed in listening to the radio. Kodiak hands Ambrose half the headphones and they listen to a distress beacon from a male voice, repeating coordinates over and over. This is disturbing, but not as disturbing as the date repeated on the alert, some 6000 years in the future. 

They ask OS about it, and what the current date is. OS tells them they have been on their voyage for 9 months and 24 days, so in calculating, it is the year 2472, not 8102 as the recording says. OS asks if they are still committed to their directive of rescuing Minerva, and Ambrose, shooting a worried look to Kodiak, says yes while Kodiak isn't sure. OS suggests that they put the recording out of their minds. 

Tasks Remaining: 80

Rather than do that, Kodiak punches through the repaired yellow door to the engine room while OS demands that he stop. Rover comes up and shocks Ambrose as Kodiak squeezes into the inner workings of the ship. Ambrose is able to convince OS to allow Rover to let him follow under the guise of getting Kodiak to come back. Near the engine room, they discover 12 clones of Ambrose. Naturally, Ambrose freaks out. Kodiak helps him in his stupor and lets him rest.

When he wakes, Kodiak is not there, but has busted through the wall in the Aurora and found clones of himself as well. At least they are not alone. Kodiak has also further closed off the blind room from OS and Rover so they can try to figure out what is happening. They have decided not to trust OS so Kodiak asks if Ambrose can, essentially, hack it to see if there is something it is not telling them. In doing this, Ambrose realizes he already has a copy of OS stored offline in his bracelet, which is odd, though it makes his job easier. After a cat nap and a cuddle, which is precious, Ambrose completes his task and they are able to communicate with the offline version of OS, named OS Prime, and what they discover is terrifying. 

The year is 9081. The Endeavor has been on its mission for 6609 years. Minerva was presumed dead after contact with her was lost in 2470. Ambrose and Kodiak were cloned and their actual original selves never went on their mission, which is why they can't remember the launch. The ship is programmed to be almost self-sufficient, but there are a handful of tasks that Rover cannot complete, which is why they are there. As to why there are clones, every time they complete their tasks given to them by OS, they are terminated. The ship continues on for centuries until tasks accumulate that it cannot repair on its own and then the cycle starts again with new versions of Ambrose and Kodiak. When they mention seeing Saturn outside, they are told that what they are seeing are screens, not windows, even when doing spacewalks to make exterior repairs. OS Prime does not know the true mission of the ship and suspects OS doesn't either, but it does know that unless they are near the end of their journey, they will die, either from OS killing them or the radiation.

Ambrose and Kodiak decide to take their lives in their own hands. Kodiak shuts down OS and they install OS Prime in its place, but OS Prime is not compatible with the ship's systems. Everything goes dark, but Kodiak is able to get some systems back up and running. They discuss with the offline version of OS where they are located and if there are any planets nearby that could possibly be habitable. OS Prime finds a location approximately four years away, so Kodiak changes the trajectory. They will have to manually navigate there, and Kodiak insists on doing this himself. 

When he comes out of the engineering room, it is clear why. The room is not protected from radiation and Kodiak is immediately impacted. He won't let Ambrose face the same fate, but Ambrose refuses to live without him. While Kodiak pilots and tries to make the ship's systems work, Ambrose records their story and absolutely everything they know for their future selves to have a chance at life. 

They rest for a bit, but as they do, Kodiak dies. It is overwhelmingly sad. Ambrose hides their messages and tries to make them indestructible to OS and then restarts the original system. Recordings begin as if a new Ambrose has just awoken, but he tells OS it's still the same one. Almost immediately, OS opens the airlock, killing this version of Ambrose as he holds Kodiak’s lifeless body.

191 Days Until Titan 

Tasks Remaining: 1872 - 1797

Ambrose Remaining: 12 

Kodiak Remaining: 12

This time, Ambrose wakes with the emergency message from Minerva. He meets Kodiak and is melancholy for a few days and then starts watching the closest thing he can get to porn on the ship. Luckily a previous Ambrose did the same thing and hid the truth of their journey in it as an audio file. The next time he sees Kodiak, it seems he has heard the secret messages, too.

They sit under blankets typing messages on an offline tablet to conceal themselves from OS and decide they need to discover where the ship is headed. They listen on the radio for pulsars and plan to do analytic geometry to find out exactly where they are in space. Ambrose figures out that they are headed toward a distant planet that should be similar to Earth's atmosphere with the possibility of sustaining life.

Unfortunately, while Ambrose is figuring this out and recording things for future versions of themselves, Kodiak is going mad. He believes they are in a simulation and it's all a test that they have to break themselves out of. How does he do it? Destroys all their spacesuits and opens the airlock. 

191 Days Until Titan 

Ambrose Remaining: 9

Kodiak Remaining: 9

A previous Ambrose has begun recording himself each day, knowing that OS will kill them because they've stopped completing their tasks. They've made weapons for future versions of themselves, just in case. This recording shows Rover sneaking into Ambrose's room with what looks like daggers in its robot hands. It crawls around the ceiling and down the wall behind Ambrose and slashes open his throat. When he's dead, Rover drags his body out and tidies up the room. 

191 Days Until Titan 

Ambrose Remaining: 8

Kodiak Remaining: 8

Tasks Remaining: 4909 - 1

Ambrose and Kodiak are well prepared now. They take their time in getting to know each other and don't completely stop doing their tasks. They try to surprise OS into turning off the screens projecting fake space at them a couple of times, but eventually give up. They enjoy music hour each day and come to enjoy each other's bodies as well. They know what they need to do in order to survive and they plan it well. 

One day, they go into the engine room and kill all the clones of themselves except one each. OS screams in the background that they are dooming themselves and any future of humanity, but they ignore it. Over time, OS becomes docile. 

May 1, 18281

Happy Annihilation Day! 

That's what they call the day that they killed all the other copies of themselves and now, as each year passes, they celebrate by sending one body out of the airlock. Okay, it's a little weird, but it's something. 

Several Annihilation Days pass, 18282, 18290, 18301, 18303, 18304. They learn that there are approximately 12000 years left on the journey to the little exoplanet. Ambrose and Kodiak are close to 40 now and have only one task remaining. They are afraid of what will happen to them if they complete it. They have harvested an asteroid and discovered life on it, something that grew into a little moss that they are keeping in a preservation tank. Maybe one day the final versions of themselves will get to see it!

June 11, 18304

Kodiak has died of a cancer that spread throughout his body. Ambrose learned to do surgery on him to remove it, but it didn't work. Ambrose ends his own life shortly thereafter. 

Arrival imminent 

Ambrose Remaining: 1

Kodiak Remaining: 1

Tasks Remaining: N/A

Ambrose wakes to OS alerting him that he will be entering the atmosphere of Sagittarion Bb in two days and that he will soon be needed to pilot the very damaged ship, but that he needs to orient himself and hydrate first. OS tells Ambrose of recordings kept for him that will explain everything and begins playback. 

Later, Kodiak stops by to visit, but Ambrose is confused and still coping with everything. When he wakes again, he asks OS about Minerva and very bluntly, OS says that Minerva died 30000 years ago. The only humans left are him and Kodiak. He questions the weird moss all around him and OS explains about Ambrose and Kodiak finding it and how it slowly took over the entire ship in the some 12000 years between then and now. Ambrose passes out again. 

He wakes as the ship crashes. The moss catches fire and burns a unique color in the atmosphere of the new planet. Ambrose leaves the ship, a little lightheaded in the new atmosphere, and tries to find Kodiak. He treks a long way across the planet and finds the Aurora half of the ship and Kodiak inside with a broken leg. Together they determine that the air has a lot of nitrogen and is making them feel drunk, so Ambrose seals up the Aurora. 

For three days they try to restore power to the ship so they can better acclimate to the new planet. Ambrose also reads everything left behind for him by previous versions of himself. They learn that everything they need for their new planet was stored behind a sealed door on the Endeavor, so they set out and trek back to Ambrose's side of the ship. They open the sealed door and find everything they'll need to survive, including a book with step by step instructions on living on this new planet. 

Two weeks pass and they have created little gardens of algae for them to have the nutrients they need to survive. Kodiak has put OS onto a more mobile version of Rover he's built and they begin constructing their new lives. They name their new planet Minerva.

After six months, their instruction book provides a pass code for them to access hidden messages from the original versions of themselves, but after a few moments of watching the original fancy, glittery version of Ambrose, Kodiak gets angry and doesn't want to watch anymore. He wants to live the lives they have now, on this new planet, and Ambrose agrees, though he doesn't delete the messages like Kodiak suggests. They never watch the rest of the recordings. 

They create greenhouses and vehicles and travel Minerva for days on end, but after a year, they head back to the Endeavor and back into the sealed area where a machine hums. There are 1000s of zygotes stored here, and soon a countdown reaches zero and a child, their child, is born.