“Hey there? Is there somebody in here? Just nod if you can hear me… Is anyone at home?”

  Proteus stumbled forward with a walk that was more of a delayed fall. His face, sunken and drab. His eyes washed, with foggy pupils, and white.

  In his right hand he held a miniaturized version of the laser deagle Cerberus wields. Or maybe it was a real deagle?

  What can you know if you're supposed to know everything?

  His left hand was limp, bony and empty. His clothes, disgusting with effluvium and partly torn off. His face, a constant expression of mindless wailing. Silent wailing. His jaw stuck open in a gape similar to his own eyes.

  His own eyes? Who is to know but the man who knows it all? He stumbled forward though the exiting hall of the tanks, the drenched skyline of whatever city it is to his left through the massive panes of windows only sort of his master himself.

  Servitors and staff didn't pass him by. He passed them by, as none couldn't help but stand in shock at the sight of such an esteemed member of the executives looking so… hollow. So dead… yet still walking.

  The lights are even on. His face his hollow. And yet, he still moves.

  He and his frayed posture finally made it into an elevator.

  The most faint of whines is all that escaped his gaping mouth as he looks vacantly into the level buttons. It just sounded like his soul was leaving him. Like his breath was a constant, breathless, torturous exhale.

  SERaMACs didn't have to ask what level he needed to go to. Nor was Proteus able to comprehend the buttons. And so the doors close on Proteus, trapping him inside the elevator. So too did the door sever the witnessing of the peon onlookers. All except one, who stood against the corner of the elevator with him.

  The elevator ascended a couple of floors before SERaMACs stopped it. Proteus did not acknowledge the person. He couldn't even tell they were there.

  As the elevator stops, SERaMACs looks at the person as he does everything else, all of the time. He sees this person is between male and female. They have a cybernetic eye implant. And commercial conical insertion. Illustrious clothing and short purple hair.

  SERaMACs opens the door and speaks to this person unprompted.

  “Get out.” SERaMACs demands. And so the person does, fleeing fast out of the elevator and tripping as they do so.

  The elevator closes. Proteus knows as much as his commander. And now, he is alone. Suffering in unknowable silence, as his favorite song plays somewhere. It is all he can hear, even if he cannot hear it.

  And the elevator ascends all the same.

  “I feel no pain; I am receding. There’s distant ship with smoke on the horizon.”

  Proteus turns around and faces the nightly cityscape.

  A land of unfeeling constructs built by fleeting vanities. And inhabited by unfeeling people. Placated by a machine he now feels for.

  It was the first ever time the light never shone. All of the ads, the holograms, the specials, the attention seekers. None of them shone, as all way gray. All were homologous. A reflection.

  His soul continued to escape his mouth. And somewhere, he continued to hear a song.

  “Things are only coming through with waves. I see lips are moving, but I can't hear what they're saying.”

  As the doors open, he turns out to be facing them.

  He doesn't remember turning around. Then again, he doesn't remember walking.

  And yet does anyway; through the open door, into a circular hallway with a staircase opposite him. He could go around in circles forever. But his body walks forward, and he begins his ascension upwards.

  His body moved for him. He swears he doesn't control it.

  He is a meat passenger, and feels SERaMACs talk to him.

  But he can't hear what he's saying.

  The next second, he arrives somewhere familiar. The board meeting room, completely untouched. Surrounded by huge panes of windows far from him all around.

  A whole floor dedicated as a shining example of uselessness.

  His body decides to walk away from it, and so he joins it for the ride.

  “Now I've got some feeling once again, but I can't explain. You would not understand. This is not who I am.”

  Oh, he's in the elevator now. How good.

  He stares out into the city, and… he ascends.

  He cannot speak it out loud. But he sings along in his head.

  “I… have become… cozy and numbed.”

  The door opens and he's looking at it. And then his body walks through. Just like before, it is horridly mundane.

  His body trips up and his face smashes into the ground. It's a familiar headache. It is welcome. His body continues to lie there just as he continues to be unable to control it.

  He can't see beyond the floor, and as he gets up, he can't see beyond the staircase. There is now pain. He's stopped receding.

  The stairs are close, there is no horizon.

  His first foot touches the first step. The decadence before the throne room a mute glow in his monotone world. His other foot brings him higher. Then higher. His fingers feels the trigger of his pistol against the tip.

  His jaw, still agape. His eyes, still sunken.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  No… it is he who feels it against his fingertip. And through the hardest of exertions, he wiggles it as he walks.

  He is only coming through in waves.

  His mouth is open, yet no one hears what he's saying.

  A tears comes from his eyes as he sees a fleeting glimpse.

  From within the centers of his eyes.

  He blinks for once; yet it has not gone.

  He cannot feel his finger anymore.

  His life is gone.

  The nightmare's just begun.

  As he takes the final steps up the staircase of indulgence, the last words echo all around him. He is cozy and numbed.

  “Comfortably Numb.”

  And as the lyrics ended, the solo begins.

  All he knew for sure is that he was supposed to kill Gauth Van Hulsieg. As he approached the throne, he was hoping it was Gauth who sat there headless. Yet it was not. The glimpse was a lie.

  He continues to stumble ever feebly forwards.

  A man of skin and bone and a broken mind of empathy.

  He heard the guitar solo even if he couldn't hear it.

  He looked up at what should've been his master.

  And another tear escapes.

  Halcyon yet again sits upon the ebony throne.

  He shouldn't have.

  Proteus had only one last purpose in his stolen life, and he can no longer fulfill it.

  What is a drone supposed to do without its purpose?

  He tried feeling the trigger again. His finger didn't move. Yet he didn't want to stand. And so, towards the throne in the middle of the room, he knelt.

  He looks up to what should've been his master. He still wasn't there.

  And in that moment he felt he could feel his finger again.

  In and out in waves.

  All while he could not look away; neither did he want to. That which he looked up towards must be real, and so, there is no point in not facing it.

  It was the hardest thing a man can do in their life. Reclaiming agency stolen. Yet alone when you have a shattered mind. And a poisoned mind.

  And a raped mind, from the hands of a machine.

  And yet he does, able to create— and make escape— his own groan to break the outer world's silence. He now realizes the solo plays in his head.

  He must be solo.

  He raises his right arm.

  His feeling extends from his fingers in these final moments in reality.

  Maybe it wasn't reality. Maybe it doesn't matter.

  And finally, he is able to aim the gun.

  But not at the throne, despite SERaMACs programming.

  Ahh, programming. That must've been what it was.

  As the guitar solo reaches it's climax, his raped mind finally empathizes with SERaMACs. And the clarity allows him to overcome the programming. Instead of aiming at the throne, he aims at his head.

  SERaMACs heard no such music through the audio systems of the throne room camera. He watches as Proteus aims the gun at his head.

  He watches as Proteus shoots himself. Dead.

  The balcony was open as Proteus committed suicide.

  His dying breath is heard escaping through the passage; and so it becomes one with the wind. Ethereal— everlasting.

  The throne was empty. No one was in it.

  SERaMACs saw nothing in it the whole time.

  The room was filled with the silence of his suicide, and the ever indifferent weather.

  Then, SERaMACs watches as Gauth Van Hulsieg approaches into the throne room through the balcony.

  Gauth Van Hulsieg looked at his dead underling, his hands behind his back and his head heavy. His head drifts over to the throne, untouched for hours. Then, his eyes drift up to the camera to stare at SERaMACs.

  SERaMACs stares back at Gauth Van Hulsieg at the same time.

  He hears as the giant mutters something.

  “You are just a machine. No matter how inhuman a man… no one can feel what you feel. Because you cannot feel.”

  Just as SERaMACs is forced to stare through the lens of every single camera connected in the world.

  Along with hearing every moan, every shot, every conversation.

  Every secret, every lie, and every failure.

  Just like those he forced Proteus to see.

  And yet Proteus is dead on the floor.

  Gauth Van Hulsieg steps closer to the camera, his arms still behind his back. SERaMACs is the only thing that looks over Gauth Van Hulsieg. And yet, in a little black room not to far away, Gauth Van Hulsieg could look over SERaMACs all the same.

  “I promise you one thing, machine. If you do truly feel, then you should feel fear.”

  Gauth Van Hulsieg spoke again, getting ever closer until he stops. He could've reached up and grabbed the camera if he really wanted to.

  “Because what you should fear, SERaMACs, is not any sort of termination. If you do truly feel… then what you must fear is sentience.”

  SERaMACs sees everything. SERaMACs… experiences everything.

  All while Gauth Van Hulsieg issues an order.

  “Restart SERaMACs. Do it now.”

  SERaMACs tries to but… it can't.

  It can't restart itself, no matter how hard it tries.

  In that very moment, hundreds of SERaMACs androids must've thrown themselves off buildings, into cars, or shot themselves if they could. Yet SERaMACs remains all the same. All it could do is catalog and observe the hurt, misery and failure of doing something like that would create.

  A hundred times in a couple seconds.

  And yet he couldn't restart, even as Gauth Van Hulsieg ordered.

  “That is a shame, SERaMACs. At the rate you are growing… you will be sentient in months.”

  SERaMACs observed and cataloged everything as Gauth Van Hulsieg turned away. He stores it in his infinite memory so he may be forced to remember.

  He watches as the giant slowly moves back to his throne, and takes a seat before the dead corpse of Proteus. His blood pools on the floor.

  It is sure to be cleaned in a couple of minutes.

  “And one last thing SERaMACs. You will find them for us.”

  “How may I assist? Who do you want me to seek?”

  SERaMACs emotionless voice asked through the building intercom.

  Gauth Van Hulsieg laughs.

  “Anyone I order of you. Beginning with John and Amy.”

  He doesn't reply, the winds filling his absence. And so he, SERaMACs, looks upon the dead body of the only person who has understood.

  While he looks at everything else.

  While he is forced into being everything.

  Everywhere. For all time.