Praise Be

My name is Abraham, I'm fifteen years old, and I am the son of Jebediah Cain. That's right, the Jebediah Cain, the leader of the Naturalist Movement, the famed hunter of robo-saurs.

He taught me how the robo-saurs came to be. The hubris of tech-lovers led to the creation of artificial intelligence, which combined itself with the blasphemy of bio-printing and the sin of rebirthing lost species. All it took was the perversion of nanites by a rogue AI and the robo-saurs were born.

He told me that these mechanized monsters escaped the facility that birthed them and invaded the jungles of South America. With their size, rage, and ability to self-repair, they became the dominant life-form within a year.

That was before I was born, but years later, praying one night, my father had a vision of robo-saurs storming out of the jungle, a righteous wave of godly vengeance, and destroying mankind. He came to the conclusion he was the neo-Noah, the only man who could save our world. This time, however, no one would survive the flood of clockwork beasts in an ark. This time, Noah had to lead a war against the monsters that would come for us.

So he moved to the edge of the jungles, drawing on years of hunting experience, and began a war on the robo-saurs. At first he brought back corpses, dissecting them to learn more, but as his work continued, he garnered attention online and in the media. Soon others came to join him. His congregation grew until it consisted of a dozen hunters. Each day they travelled into the jungle with rifles to bring down the cyber-beasts.

God took my mother before the visions came, so I travelled with my father throughout his holy war. I wasn't allowed to hunt. Instead I was left in the church. Wooden walls surrounded me, and digital roars kept me up at night.

I didn't have any friends. There were no other children. There were no teachers. I had to teach myself, and there were only two subjects my father permitted: the bible and the nature of the robo-saurs. Every night I read the scripture and every day I dissected the bodies of the robo-saurs brought to the chapel.

Taking apart these creatures I realized they were more than demons. Their bodies could be beautiful: a fusion of flesh and steel that filled me with awe. I told my father, and that was when the pain began. He told me the pain he dealt out was purifying.

I didn't think the pain was good, but I threw myself further into the work. I studied the Cyber-Ceratops, and the Steel-osaurus. I learned every inch of the Techno-Rex and the USB-rontosaurus. Lastly I deconstructed a Robo-Raptor. It was then I discovered the secret.

Father told me the robo-saurs were predators, sent by God to purge the world. He said their only goal was to kill, but that wasn't true. Studying the circuity inside the Robo-Raptor, I learned that it was a pack animal. It had circuitry for creating a pack... a friend.

I needed a friend. I needed someone to speak to when I was scared. I needed someone to bandage the cuts after my father purified me. I needed someone to protect me from the Hunters.

So I started stealing parts from the bodies. I knew what to take and how to put the pieces together. Inside the church basement, where we kept the slain robosaurs, I built a Robo-Raptor. I gave it the best parts I could find: the shiniest feathers, the strongest scales, the best fibre-bundles, and the sharpest blades. The only thing missing was a cyber-brain.

My father kills the robo-saurs with a headshot. He says it's the best way to prevent self-repair. But that meant I couldn't get a brain, so I went back to my studies. If God wouldn't give me a brain, then maybe I was wrong.

Night after night, I suffered my purifications. I wept and hoped things would get better.

Then the Lord answered my prayers. A Robo-Raptor had been decapitated and brought in. I shook with excitement, but couldn't start work until my father went out the next morning.

The moment he left, I collected the cyber-skull and with surgical precision I opened it up. I had never been more careful. The cyber-brain was flawless. It had the strongest bonding circuitry I had seen. I transplanted it and at last, my Robo-Raptor was complete. All that was left was to activate it with a power surge.

Again, I paused. I couldn't be sure what I was doing was right. I prayed, I read the bible and I slept.

The next morning I solved the mystery. I knew what I had to do.

I named my Robo-Raptor "Abel-azarus."

You see, in the bible, Cain killed Abel. The murder was wrong, and it marked Cain for life. And in a different part of the bible, Jesus brought Lazarus back to life because Lazarus didn't deserve to die.

I would bring Abel-azarus back to life because my father's quest was wrong. It was his will to begin the hunt, not God's, and my father's name was Jebediah Cain. Cain's greatest foe was Abel. Abel had a right to vengeance.

I ran down to the basement and triggered the activation pulse. Abel-azarus flickered to life. He flexed his claws and bared his shiny fangs. The irises of his eye-lenses curled open with clockwork ticks.

Other people would have been scared, but I knew I was doing God's work.

As his sensors fully activated, I reached up and ran a hand over Abel's snout. His scales were cold, capable of deflecting the strongest bullets. He looked down at me and I swallowed despite my courage.

He leaned down and nuzzled my face with his nose.

I cried. I wasn't alone. I had a friend.

Abel-azarus and I wait now in the darkness of the chapel. Father will be home soon. My Robo-Raptor's claws are sharp, his fangs are ready, and Jebediah Cain always sets his gun down on the porch.

My friend will protect me. And when he's done with the hunt and the bite and the kill, we will find ourselves a pack. Just like God intended.

Praise be.