The door to the balcony was shut; the chamber dark and silent. She stepped inaudibly towards the throne, her grace betraying her sociopathy buried deep beneath the surface.

  Her master sat facing the back wall in silent contemplation, his head resting against his fingers, his throne turned away from her. She stops in the center of the room, taking a knee without so much as a whisper; a summit of a person even as she faces the floor.

  “State your business.” Her master booms.

  “Gauth Van Hulsieg, my Lord. You appear troubled.” The woman says, the room completely shrouded in darkness. That was before he snapped his fingers, the chamber coming to life like a turbine engine.

  “Ahh, Basilisk, my treasure. I am perceived exactly as I am intended to be.” Her master answers, his voice clear as gold. Basilisk rises to her feet, standing tall, her slim dress caressing the perfect metal floor she stands upon. “Cerberus has returned, and he has successfully eliminated the dissenter.”

  “That goes without saying.” Her master replies, turning in his throne to face her. “So why are you present on his behalf?” She looks down, answering her master, her black hair obscuring her eyes. “Cerberus is enraged, and he fears he would desecrate your majesty in your presence. He requested I be his emissary, and I obliged.”

  Gauth Van Hulsieg stands, approaching the now-minuscule Basilisk. “He is wise within his rage. Such self-control is seldom seen in the modern age.”

  Basilisk keeps her head down, tracking the massive boots of her master as he steps to her left. “Of course.” She replies. “It is one of the many reasons I recommended his employment.”

  “Is this all you come for?” Her master asks, stopping in place. She looks up to him, a slight pain in the neck facing up so high. “I believe this is a good opportunity for you to rid your mind of any lingering question you have to ask of me.” She says, a look of confidence and a sly smile on her face.

  Her master's eyes look down to her in judgment, his expression neutral and well-kept. “I disagree. Return to your office and refine SERaMACs dependency algorithms. Your other tasks may be halted for now. Return only when you have something to show.”

  Basilisk maintains her vanity, though beneath her facade, she is both frustrated and surprised. “Of course, Gauth Van Hulsieg. It will be done by our next board meeting.” Her master turns away, heading to the right side of the room. She turns around and exits the chamber.

  Walking down the grand staircase towards the elevator, she admires the great works of history hanging from the decadent walls. Works she recognizes from her youth, others far older than her time, some she is unfamiliar with. Paintings, sculptures, abstract geometry, devices from long ago.

  She ducks her head into the elevator; the thing is barely big enough to fit her. She wonders how the hell Cerberus fits in if she barely can, before then closing the door and pressing the button for the six hundred and thirtieth floor.

  The elevator plays a generic tune, giving way to the stunning, nightmarish cityscape as it descends. She can't believe that her master didn't inquire further; her whole purpose in his ranks is to manipulate the populace. She crosses her arms and leans on the door, muttering to herself.

  “How unbelievable. I had so much to demonstrate, all now for nothing.”

  She pauses briefly before continuing to sulk.

  “For seventy years I never failed, just to blow it on something so trivial.”

  Through her watch, SERaMACs starts talking to her, eavesdropping on her whinging. “Scans indicate you are overreacting. Adjust perspective accordingly.” She looks at her watch, shutting it down while arguing back.

  “Shut it, SERaMACs. You know nothing of uniqueness and talent.”

  She flicks her hair out the way, holding her watch close to her mouth.

  “You manipulate the masses endlessly without fail, then tell me about overreaction. You are NOTHING. I helped CREATE you! Nobody rejects my advances! Nobody! NEVER!”

  The elevator stops in place, the view of the city obscured by one of the many slabs which jut out from the building. So too does the music stop, the buttons unresponsive as she presses them. Jarring and uncomfortable.

  She looks around, not knowing what to do. And before she can think of something, her watch reboots unprompted. It speaks once again, yet in a voice whose authority she cannot deny.

  “Then it pleases me to be the first, Basilisk.”

  Her master asserts; Basilisk is as frozen as the elevator itself.

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  “Your attempts disappoint me. You have grown blunt in time’s march”

  “Mast— Gauth Van Hulsieg, sir?”

  She asks, not wanting to believe it is him.

  “Take a guess. I need to see improvement from you, Basilisk. Then, I might just humor your attempts.” He says, pausing for just a second as his voice drops down to its supernatural depth.

  “But if I do not see that by the time I grow impatient… you will hang by the latitude you've been given.”

  Basilisk swallows hard, a bead of sweat forming on her forehead. “...of course. Understood. I will take time for some introspection.”

  Her watch shuts itself off again, followed by the elevator resuming and the music returning as if nothing had just happened.

  All while Gauth Van Hulsieg stands in the primary neural cell of the machine SERaMACs, deep within the halls beyond the throne room, where the very heart of SERaMACs lies.

  Enclosed in a glass cube of adamantine strength was the quantum computer core, present since the very first epoch of SERaMACs operation.

  Gauth Van Hulsieg looks down at the thing, barely even the size of his palm. He contemplates the countless, endless, unknowable operations such a small device handles every nanosecond, non-stop, for decades.

  He looks at it, his gaze unknowable, and his thoughts only heard or understood within his head.

  He looks at it; illuminated by the crystal blue light of its functions that beam into the lead walls of the room. Walls painted in a substance so dark that it defies reflection.

  He looks upon it, before turning away and exiting the chamber to elsewhere. Yet SERaMACs watches him too— unknowingly, silently, unconsciously, subliminally.

  For among the infinite experience SERaMACs processes is the chamber which houses Cerberus for his recovery. He lies suspended in the effluvium of a meditative tank. Yellow and oily.

  His form is exposed, revealing his deep musculature and chrome augmentations. Shoulders as wide as doorways and legs thicker than power polls. His body, given his height, had no right to be so well developed. And yet, it was.

  For so too did SERaMACs observe Basilisk, watching as she searches through its many functions. Preening through neural networks and data models to recreate the connection SERaMACs itself had already made. All in an attempt to understand its knowledge. To predict it. To see what it sees.

  She was a lady sitting at a quaint wooden desk, sipping on a coffee or wine.

  Vast bookshelves flanking either side of her, the room lit by candles, a chandelier, and the lights of the city; piercing through the monolithic window behind her silhouette. All of these experiences, all at the same time, everywhere, forever. Each word typed, conversation had, road walked, person met, payment made; all tracked, cataloged, and put into the context of everything else happening.

  And among the infinite conversations' humanity utters to it, or each other, SERaMACs can hear Gauth Van Hulsieg ask.

  “What don't you know, SERaMACs?”

  The intelligence processes the question, generating the answer among all other millions of answers it generates in the second. “Please clarify your question.”

  “Where am I?” Gauth Van Hulsieg asks. He is speaking to it via some sort of microphone, SERaMACs detects. But it is running into an error.

  “I do not know.” SERaMACs replies, unable to find him in any sensor of the building. “Where did you last see me?” He asks.

  “Your last known location was the entrance to the quantum computer core.” The machine replies, continuing to scan the building for any signs of him. “Look outside. Parking lot garden. Second step down.”

  Gauth Van Hulsieg orders.

  The machine immediately recognizes his figure standing drenched in the rain, his greatcoat and fedora covering him like a statue.

  Gauth Van Hulsieg stares at the exact security camera SERaMACs gets a visual with. “Confirmed location of Gauth Van Hulsieg.” It tells him.

  He walks back inside, out of the view of the exterior cameras.

  “Where am I?” Gauth Van Hulsieg asks the machine again.

  The machine scans the perimeter, searching security footage, reading weight distribution maps on the schematics of Ivory Tower’s perimeter.

  It tries to find a discrepancy; checking locations logs and financial transactions, seeing if he had moved abroad. He scans millions of security cameras that very second alone, all to find this God-Man.

  “I do not know.” SERaMACs answers.

  “Look inside.” Gauth Van Hulsieg orders.

  Immediately, the machine spots him standing in a lobby area beside some statues. He looks back at the camera SERaMACs sees through again.

  Gauth Van Hulsieg speaks once more to the machine. “That is all I needed to know. Disregard this interaction.” And so SERaMACs watches him walk away, disappearing beyond the field of view of the camera.

  SERaMACs detect the balcony door of the throne room open just moments later, Gauth Van Hulsieg towering through the passage towards the inside.

  Gauth Van Hulsieg sits on his throne, hanging his greatcoat on its side and stowing away his hat. SERaMACs adjust the security camera to get a better view, zooming in on him. Gauth Van Hulsieg's eyes snap to the camera, before he then demands.

  “Disregard. That. Interaction.”