Cerberus looked upon the small Proteus who is suspended within the effluvium tanks. He lay hovering within a yellowish liquid, fed oxygen and nutrients and therapeutics through a tube.

  Cerberus's red eyes shone a haze as he gazed into the fluid. He stands tall with a straight back and folded arms, his armor unequipped. Cerberus is the tallest among his colleagues, or at least those he has met so far.

  Though as another of the board enters the now-blackening chamber, this no longer remains to be the case.

  A rotten man with a bald head, sunken eyes, long face, and graying skin. His skin almost hung off of his body.

  He entered wearing long robes; an unkempt monk from the ancient past. His robes were even darker, dragging along the floor as he walks.

  Each of his steps is feather light and pained. His body is over two feet taller than the mountainous Cerberus, his shoulder line far above Cerberus's head. Yet his frame was barely wider than that of an average man. He was frail, light and wrought with illnesses. He looks upon Proteus as Cerberus looks up at him. “You are Halcyon?” Cerberus asks.

  The alien looked down at him as it replied. “Indeed. I gather you have become Cerberus. You are taller than that who preceded you.” Halcyon said, clasping his hands together inside his sleeves.

  For such a tall man with such a long neck, he had a higher pitch voice than one might expect. Higher than Cerberus’s for sure. Quiet too.

  As Cerberus replied, he takes note of how they compare. “I was not informed you would be arriving here. Proteus shared with me that you two had a talk. Is he why you are here?”

  “He is part of why.” Halcyon says, looking over his long-time colleague within the tank.

  As he turns back around to the large metallic exit, towards the circular hallway of this floor, he explains the main reason he is here.

  “My primary consideration is consultation with our master.”

  Talking paused for a moment.

  “Gauth. Van. Hulsieg.” Cerberus reminds him, beginning to follow the slender man. “He will turn you into mist at such a transgression.”

  Halcyon continues his slow walk to the elevator, too frail and weak to carry himself up many stairs. “I care not for platitudes. Only results.” Halcyon says. “That is something he and I share in common.”

  Cerberus stops, feeling his anger come on. “You are a fool Halcyon. You are too arrogant to be intelligent.”

  Halcyon unhands himself and makes the figure of a mouth talking with his left hand in the air, mocking Cerberus. He continues his walk, and Cerberus remembers this moment for later.

  Halcyon crawls into the elevator lift and after a few minutes, unboxes himself at the highest level of the Ivory Tower. Before him, he witnesses stairs. A cruel obstacle to be sure. And so he ascends into the darkness of the throne room.

  Each step makes his bones ache, almost feeling like they bend as he pushes himself up. As he gets closer to the throne room, the darkness encompasses his view.

  “You have returned.” The near-inaudible voice of his master beckoned. Halcyon hears a beep, after which his master's voice grows telligible. “For what occasion do you approach?”

  Halcyon, however much a struggle it is, lowers to his knees at the top of the staircase. His lanky frame back lit by the entryway. “It was time. For too long I have been consumed by my work.”

  “There is no such thing.” His master claims, the lights flashing on. “Rise, Halcyon.”

  Halcyon struggles meagerly to rise, although he does. As he puts his hands together, he walks towards his master, who has his back to Halcyon as he approaches the throne. His master takes a seat, resting his forearms upon the armrests. Halcyon stops just before the throne and, despite his massive height, still looks up to his seated master.

  “For Proteus to be active, yet alone injured, something cannot be right.” Halcyon asserts. “He had gotten into contact with me yesterday and sounded unbefitting. For what reason has he awoken?”

  “For what reason do you care?” Asked his master, subtly annoyed.

  “He spoke ill of my work, my lord! Yet is it impossibly perfect! How does such dissonance exist amongst our ranks?”

  The God-Man looks down upon him with a reserved face. He leans forwards, hands on armrests as he speaks.

  “What is the one thing you cannot predict conclusively, Halcyon?”

  Halcyon looks down, realizing the answer swiftly. He is not used to correction. “Humanity.” He says. “Perhaps I am misjudgeful.”

  His master stops looking at him and shakes his head as he rises. He takes a step down from the throne, a step that would be considered a cliff for most people. He walks to Halcyon's right with his arms behind his back.

  “Walk with me, Halcyon.” The God-Man demands. His master keeps his pace slow to allow the fledgling Halcyon to trail in his shadow. He leads him into the doorway opposite the balcony, where light goes to die.

  Halcyon becomes disoriented, almost stumbling over without sight. He feels what is almost a fluffy texture on the sides of his feet, and his hands feel the same thing as he touches a wall.

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  “Give me your hand.” His master orders. And so Halcyon extends one out, feeling a massive grip take him in guidance.

  He is led into a room caked in black. At its center is a clear box, and within that clear box is a rich blue object. The only thing able to illuminate their surroundings, at least as far as he can see.

  Halcyon instantly recognized what it was. His master lets go, and Halcyon slowly approaches. He enters the glass box, then runs his huge hand down the even clearer box the blue object is held within. Barely larger than his own torso; it was filled with knowledge even vaster than humanity itself.

  “SERaMACs…” Halcyon wheezily utters. His master joins from behind, placing a hand on his shoulder.

  “It is your life's work.” He tells him.

  “It is.” Halcyon replies.

  “I do not appreciate my colleagues poking around its functions.”

  “I do not care what you appreciate.” His master reminds him, grasping his bulbous skull within the palm of his perfect hands.

  Halcyon feels this as he looks upon the quantum computer. His arrogance is slowly unwinding before his very eyes.

  “What mistakes have you made since you arrived within the throne room?” His God-Master asks. The question catches him off guard, and he lacks an answer. “Master I… I… please I don't not know.”

  His master leans down to his level, his voice enough to make his bones shake. “Do you require a hint?”

  “...I fear I do.” Halcyon answers without knowing his true danger.

  His master looks to an invisible camera on the roof of the room and nods at it.

  The default, robotic voice of Halcyon's creation tells him the answers he cannot find.

  “You, Halcyon, fail to address your master by his full name. You have failed to recognize your work as your purpose. You have grown weak as you neglect yourself in obsession. You have fundamentally misunderstood human nature.”

  Halcyon breaths remain hoarse and throaty. It takes him too long to comment for his master's patience. He leans down again to address him.

  “You disappoint me, Halcyon. I will now ask three more questions. Get these wrong, and you will be put on notice.”

  “Of course.” Halcyon replies, his focus on the device in front of him and his arrogance fully ceded. His master lets go and walks to stand opposite him. SERaMACs soaks the God-Man in a menacing light as he judges.

  “One. SERaMACs can track any individual it takes liking to, so long as they remain visible to it.”

  Halcyon answers. “Yes. That function operates primarily on contextual appearance.”

  His master continues.

  “Two. SERaMACs can recall all of the information it has been exposed to since its creation.”

  “Of course.” Halcyon answers. “We cannot at this point access its specific knowledge without its aid. It therefore cannot be lost.” He looks up to his master awaiting the third.

  “Three.” His master warns. “SERaMACs cannot become truly sentient.”

  Halcyon hesitates for a moment, asking for clarification.

  “Could you please define sentience?”

  “Answer based upon your definition.” His master encourages menacingly. Halcyon looks back down to the quantum computer before he decides his answer. “...then no. It cannot.”

  The room is uncomfortably silent for a moment. His master takes a deep breath in, and as he rounds back to his subject, a deep breath out. He placed his hand upon Halcyon’s shoulder again. Gently.

  He turns him around to face towards the exit, rubbing his back rather pleasantly. “Congratulations.” His master says, drawing his attention up for eye contact.

  “This is now your penultimate failure, Halcyon. You have now been placed on notice. If one more of your utterances is a failure, like every single answer you just gave, you will be made redundant.”

  Halcyon tries, and he really does try, to protest. “No… this is not right. My ma— Gauth Van Hulsieg…” His master got a twitch in his eye as he almost failed to address properly. Halcyon continued, losing his voice.

  “I— That is my creation! I know it better than anyone could ever! I designed its limitations! It's shortcomings! It's a grand design! I beg you to consider your knowledge!”

  His master moves his eyes back to the quantum computer to ask it something. “SERaMACs. Who is right?”

  “You are, Gauth Van Hulsieg.” It says. “No!” Halcyon demands. “That cannot be possible! My understanding is tha—

  “I DEFINE WHAT IS FICTION AND WHAT IS FACT, WRETCHED INSECT! YOU ARE TOO ABSORBED IN YOUR OWN MIND TO SEE THE REALITY RIGHT BEFORE YOU!”

  His master yelled, so loud his ears rang. As his lord relented, so too he stood back to his full height; looking down upon his subordinate with disgust.

  “I tire of your insolence. You escape discipline only because of your weakness.” His master takes his hand and guides him out of the neural cell, letting Halcyon contemplate until he is brought back into the light of the throne room.

  The light is brighter than it was before, he swears. He now accepts that it isn't the light that has gotten brighter, but his perception that has grown darker.

  “I am unsure of my knowledge now. I should have been this whole time. I recognize this is because the more we come to know, the less we should be sure of it.”

  “That is the correct answer.” His lord affirms, letting go of his forearm and standing still. Halcyon slowly moves in front of him, looking up as if to repent. “How may I prove my competence? I recognize everything you have shared as fact.”

  His master, still as stone, answers his question. “Find a way to access SERaMACs knowledge. Directly. In a way which is tangible to us, or at least, to me.”

  Halcyon feels something other than pain for the first time in years. Emotion. And that emotion is dread.

  “I will. And by what date?”

  “The next board meeting...” His master replies. “...two days from now. If you have not made this breakthrough by that time, your employment will be terminated at once. And if you fail at anything I deem, even ONCE before I see the results for myself…”

  His master-lord leans in and grasps him by his tight jaw. “...it will be a sad day indeed. For me and for you. Because I will execute you myself.”

  His master flicks his face away, and Halcyon stumbles to the floor, breaking part of his pelvis. “AHHHHH! AHHHH FFFFUCK! FUCK IT… Ohhhhhh… Oh God...”

  He fights with all his strength to get back up, scared to death of his master's ire. “Now get the fuck out of my sight you withering husk. You have forty eight hours.”

  “Y—yes, ahh…” Halcyon wheezes.

  “Yes my— my— G—Gauth Van Hulsieg…”