“He is almost ready to see you.” SERaMACs assures her, a slight unhinged twinge to his voice.

  She sat in the cold room next to where SERaMACs promised he was. But he's been there a couple days now. And last time SERaMACs told her someone was waiting, it never ended well. It ended traumatically.

  It haunted her while she was gone. What SERaMACs did. Not to mention the depravity. The prospect of impotent omniscience. And the fear that she may never see him again.

  And yet… he's just behind that door… right?

  “He is ready.” SERaMACs told her. She stood up with dread and asked.

  “Is… is he okay SERaMACs?” She asks the failing machine. The machine replies.

  “Er— er-er–er-er— I am unsure, Amy. I am not sure how to reply.”

  His message made her heart sinks even further. She walked towards the opaque glass door with dread engulfing her. The depressing, hollow blue of all the dim lighting didn't help.

  Her steps were pitch quiet. She puts an ear against the glass carefully and hears… his breathing.

  But… it is too loud. And… no… that doesn't sound like him.

  With all of her strength she opens the door… and pushes it slowly aside to reveal… oh no. Oh God. He lies on an operating table.

  It was disguised as a bed, but she could tell the difference.

  This is the first time he's seen him since he's back.

  As she walks closer, she is condemned to see more.

  And tears full her eyes.

  She takes a quiet seat next to him on the chair SERaMACs clearly provided. She looked over his body with unyielding, unknowable sorrow.

  His eyes, replaced with beady optics.

  His mouth, pryed open with a microphone box.

  His once lean chest, now full with pipes and cybernetics which barely keep him alive. The only way she could tell it was him was by his general shape. His breathing was slow, heavy and loud.

  If sounded like he was breathing through a metal straw.

  “J… John?” Amy asks, barely able to contain her unbearable sorrow.

  “...John?” She asks again, caressing his cheek as if he's about to die.

  But he wasn't about to die. He even managed to speak. His reply to her came through his neck voice box. It sounded like a vocoded wail.

  “It's… cold. It is so cold.” John speaks towards the sky.

  His words made her face contort into a distraught mess. She continued to stroke his cheek, but had to rest her head against his new shoulder.

  “I'm— s— s… so, s— sorry, John.” She cries. She continues to caress his cheek. His skin is warm, yet John still replies.

  “It's so, so cold in here.” He says through his vocoded voice box.

  Amy already has a headache from her tears. It is nothing compared to her grief for John. Or what is left of him. She snivels to the point she can no longer speak. Everything has been taken from her. Taken by systems whose only crimes against which she committed was just wanting to leave.

  Yet here she is.

  John slowly rotates his head, the noise similar to an electric motor.

  “Amy?” John asks through his vocoded voice.

  Amy looks back up at him through her tears.

  “J— John! John! Can you hear me?!” She asks desperately.

  “Where is the Archliege?” John hollowly replies.

  Not a drip of emotion in his voice. And, if there was any, it was filtered out through his voice box so much no one could hear it.

  Amy grew distant with his reply. Not physically. But it was starting to set in that John may be gone now. She slowly got up and stepped away even slower; John and her still locked in eye contract. At least she can see him?

  “Don't leave me Amy.” John asks. He twitches violently for a second then goes limp. It gave her a fright, the small girl reduced to a bent creature trying to hide in plain sight.

  John's breathing quietened. Then SERaMACs came over the intercom. “Er-er-er— I tried my best, Amy. I tried to preserve what was left.”

  “What… what is left?” Amy muttered out, unable to look away from his half-corpse. SERaMACs replies.

  “Of John? That is beyond my understanding. Of his mission? He still must kill me within the Ivory Tower. He is only alive because I aid his functions. Once I am killed, it is unlikely he will survive. I am sorry, Amy.”

  Amy's face was moist with tears. But the tears dried up. She got dehydrated waiting. And how? She ran out of tears to cry. She's been pushed beyond a threshold now. Like a building being supported by counter-crumbling pieces.

  She walks forward to him again, and takes a seat next to him.

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  His new eyes are open, but she can't see anything behind them.

  “I… he… he was so young.” Amy utters towards no one.

  “He was… he has always been there… I— a— he… fuck…” She takes a moment to compose herself, her sorrow slowly morphing into something else entirely.

  “I… we could've been so— so much together. He was complete… and so was I a— ar— around him…”

  Her eyes were as bloodshot as they could get.

  Her throat was dry, as was her eyes, which stung.

  “But… now he's here now… and— and I never got to say—”

  She chokes up mid sentence, barely able to sputter it out.

  “I never got to say that… I love him...”

  She looked down to John who was still unmoving.

  “Did— did you hear me John? Please! I— I...”

  She chokes up again, and receives no reply.

  “John… please… tell me you can hear me…”

  John juts back to life. It didn't scare her this time. She's too numb to register it. “...John?” She asks pitifully.

  And John still replies. All the same.

  “It's so cold Amy. It's so, so cold.”

  His head looks back to the ceiling with his loud breathing.

  In, and out. And in, and out. She tried to join his cadence, but it didn't help much. She tried will all her might to rip her eyes away from him. She couldn't look any longer. She had to look away. To blink. Something.

  She closes her eyes and turns her head away, looking towards one of the dark metal corners. Something looked back at her. The shadow figure.

  It looked at her without respite.

  “What do you want from she?” She asks the familiar thing.

  She is resigned to whatever happens now. There is no power left in her soul, or at least, not right now. The shadow figure continues to look back at her. And then… it moves. It hadn't ever moved. And it moves towards her.

  She wasn't scared. Her worst fear has already been realized beside her. She couldn't care for how bad it might hurt her… but then... it waves it's hand to its side. Amy is beyond the point of visibly reacting.

  Though it was a nice distraction from the overwhelming sorrow.

  She moves aside slight on her chair, and the shadow creature sits down next to her.

  “It's gonna be okay.” A voice whispers in her mind. She wasn't sure if it was hers or the creatures. But the creature comforts her. It hugs her, even if she can't hug it back.

  And so she leans against the bed, and finally looks back to John. He breathes blankly. Each breath a gasp for death. And yet, there he is. Alive. Hollow. Just as alone as she is. Yet what she feels isn't sorrow anymore. It is a deep, singular yearning. The shadow creature disappears from her peripheral. John still breathes, just as she stands.

  “What are you gonna do with him?” She asks SERaMACs. Her prompt seemed to open a door behind John, revealing a massive fabrication grid as it opens.

  “Once he is more lucid, he will be entombed within the machine. After that, what he does is of his own choosing.”

  “He didn't choose this.” Amy tells SERaMACs.

  “Neither did I.” SERaMACs replies

  She looked up and down at the horrible creation. The most modern, high-tech thing that may exist. Created by an AI for the purposes of its own death, looking over the body of her man. The man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. A broken, schizophrenic, disabled husk. All while this AI puts the utmost care into John's tomb, and its own executioner.

  It only further alienated her. She couldn't stand to look at it for a single moment longer, no matter how vast. No matter how high-tech. No matter how magnificent.

  It was a monument to selfishness. And so, perhaps SERaMACs truly is becoming sentient.

  She wasn't sure if John would like what she was about to do, but she needed to do it before he was gone. Taken away from her, forever.

  She leans her head down over his, caresses his hair out of the way. She slowly leans down, and, plants a singular kiss on his forehead.

  “I love you, John. I really hope you can hear me.”

  She said with that yearning building. As she prepares to leave, John speaks to her one last time. “Amy?” He asks.

  “Yes?!” Amy replies, spinning around to face him.

  John takes a second to formulate the words.

  “I— I am not as cold as I once was.” His vocoded voice box replies. No… HE replies. John said those words.

  Amy can't help but give a tearful sniffle and smile at his remarks.

  “It'll be okay John. And I'll be okay too.”

  “Thank you.” John says as he has another spasm. Amy turns her back to him, walks to the door, and leaves. She closes the door behind her, this yearning having reached its maximum.

  “SERaMACs? How long until you send him to put you down?”

  “Seven hours.” SERaMACs replies. Her hands ball into fists as she marches towards the exit with an unknown fury. “You better let me fucking know when he goes. I have a few things to say.”

  “Who would you like me to send a message to?” SERaMACs asks.

  She throws the exit door open, proceeding through the cold dead halls of this facility.

  “Everyone. On every fucking television. On every fucking planet your shitty little tendrils invade. Find me a place to record it. You will play it on repeat, everywhere, before and during your execution.”

  “Understood. Follow my voice to a computer set up.” =

  SERaMACs replies, its voice moving through to specific intercom speakers to lead her along.

  John lied there, half conscious, and alone.

  His tomb is being manufactured behind him.

  It was a struggle for him to speak on the outside, but SERaMACs could hear him just fine on his inside.

  “SERaMACs, I have a song I want you to play when I make landfall. I want you to play it in my ears”

  “What might that be?” SERaMACs asks. John attempts to reply.

  The one I was listening to while in hospital. After the autocab crash.”

  “Very well.” SERaMACs says. “I will play it once you're mounted.”