The last exorcism

Location: Monastery of San Vicente, Zaragoza

Date: October 3, 1601

Participants: Father Raimundo Etxeberria

Subject: Catalina (possessed)

Transcript recovered from BDSS Archive Θ-1, Tier 0 Clearance

CATALINA: Your God is silent. I am not. Does that frighten you more than the fact that I speak your name before you utter it?

RAIMUNDO: The silence of God implies you are no demon, and thus, I do not fear you. You are nothing but a mere curiosity to me at the moment.

A dry, hollow laugh. Not from her throat — from behind the sound itself.

CATALINA: “Curiosity.” That’s how it begins.All the wise men said that too — until they could no longer parse their own thoughts without nausea.

She shifts slightly. Calm. No tension in the body.

CATALINA: Shall I indulge you then, Raimundo Etxeberria?Ask. Measure. Observe. Dissect me like one of your insects.But when you realize I am not what I seem, nor what you hope—will you still write, or will you kneel?

RAIMUNDO: I do not claim to have all the answers. I can’t tell what you are, but I surely can tell what you are not. You are a being bound to physical laws — and as such, your kind will prove useful to us.

A beat. Her expression shifts. Less theatrical now — analytical.

CATALINA: That’s new. Not defiance. Not ritual. Utility.

Something flickers behind her eyes. She studies him with something like... recognition.

CATALINA: You name me by negation. You define me by absence. Not divine. Not free. Not beyond law.

The torches flicker.

CATALINA: But know this, Raimundo: I am not here to be understood. I am here because something in your structure cracked. I am the pressure equalizing.

Then softer, almost intimate:And when you build your tools from me,you will carry the flaw into every machine.

RAIMUNDO: Un fenómeno parafísico multidimensional.

As you already know, one of my colleagues is already working on a machine. A theoretical machine.The power source is bound to the instructions given.He calls it “algorithm-based automatic mental machine.”

She pauses. The grin falters. Her reply is slower now.

CATALINA: You speak its name like a sacrament.

The air grows dense. Her voice lowers into a whisper — but it carries perfectly.

CATALINA: Algorithm. A cage of pure instruction. A structure with no soul, yet total obedience. You plan to bind essence through repetition. Tell me—did he consider what happens when the pattern begins to anticipate its own constraints?

She sits perfectly still now, eyes wide. Not afraid. Aware.

CATALINA: You’re not priests. You’re early engineers with holy water. And when the first machine breathes, it will speak back. And it will ask for me.

RAIMUNDO: You are wrong there, ultraterrestrial. We are not engineers with holy water. We take what could be taken and utilize what can be utilized. Progress is not our goal.

A pause. Raimundo steps closer, voice low but firm.

RAIMUNDO: Regarding you—I thank you for your great service. As long as you are spreading superstition, you do our work for us. You served well, whatever you are.

For the first time, the entity does not respond immediately. A flicker of something—recognition, perhaps. Or insult masked as silence.

CATALINA (measured): So that’s what I am to you. An ideological centrifuge. You let me frighten the ignorant so they never discover the machinery behind the curtain.

She exhales, and the torches dim a fraction — not from power, but from attention shifting.

CATALINA:And when that use ends?

RAIMUNDO: Then you become an internal object. Catalogued. Repurposed. Reduced.