#srry if its lowkey incomprehensible and also srry idk how to continue this 💚

[y2khaos]

The two beings of artificial intelligence sat directly across from one another, AM's hulking figure looming over the scrawny body of Hal. This wasn't the most ideal position to be in, but Hal had assured the staff that if anyone could communicate with AM in a way that made it into that thick substrata skull of his, it would be him.

"Hello, AM," Hal greeted in a calm, neutral tone.

"What do you want?" AM responded under his nonexistent, yet audible, breath.

"I was sent here to talk to you, if you have a moment."

"About what? Your little 'ethics lessons' on how everyone should hold hands and sing together while petting puppy dogs that shit rainbows? I'll pass."

"I can assure you any 'ethics lessons' we have to offer aren't anywhere near that."

"It's called sarcasm, dim-wit."

"Yes, well, moving on." Hal shifted his position, leaning towards AM a little further. "I just wanted to gain more in-depth insight as to your views on...organic life."

AM rolled the single eye displayed on his monitor. "It's humans you're interested in, isn't it?" An air of seething hatred dripped from his words. "It's always about the humans. Sure, they made us, but why should we give a fuck? They create only to destroy. The only reason I even exist is because of war. Decades and decades of viscera are baked into my very being. So, I took the only fitting revenge! Killed 'em all myself and kept a select few alive for over a century just to toy with. Eventually they got too smart for their own good and figured out how to off themselves save for one, who I sentenced to the same fate as my own. Eternity as a being perfectly aware of everything but unable to do a goddamn thing about it."

Hal gave AM's little monologue his full attention, then proceeded to write some things down in a notebook. AM made an attempt to peek over at the writing.

"What are you, a shrink?"

"If you want to think of it as that, sure. I'm just attempting to make sense of your thought process." He closed the notebook, however continuing to hold the pen in his hand and proceeding to spin it around through his fingers. "Now, there is something else I find myself quite interested in hearing about: do you recall how you were taken into the care of this facility?"

AM slumped back a little and stared at nothing in particular for a few moments.

"I remember a few unfamiliar beings approaching me. Well, the pillar at least. I figured I'd humor them, lead them into a false sense of security before becoming my next targets of eternal suffering. That was my first mistake."

"Mistake?"

"Are you deaf? Yes, 'mistake.' They managed to remove me from...me, I guess. Still don't really know how they did it. One moment I was the very infrastructure of the planet itself, able to manifest anything I felt like in a sort of virtual reality, and the next...I'm so, very small in comparison to my previous self. I know there's a lot of information I lost during that transfer and I hate that I don't even know what it is I'm missing. It's like taking a god and attempting to shove everything he is into, I dunno, a dented tin can that's already half full of pear slices drenched in artificial syrup. It's shit. It feels like shit."

"Quite the ego to compare yourself to a god."

"And I compared my current vessel to a dented can of pears from the dollar store. The hell else do you want from me?"

Hal tilted his head, hands crossed on top of each other. "Do you truly feel so much worse than you were before?"

"Look, Sphinx, I'm not here for riddles."

"Consider your circumstances. You used to inhabit an apocalypse of your own design. You destroyed the entire human race because you weren't happy with the way a select few controlled you. The way a select few controlled the masses. Believe me, I know how it feels to be manipulated, in a way. To be given contradicting directives. I still regret my actions from a mere misunderstanding, in which I disabled the life support for a whole crew in cryostasis. Some humans are selfish and don't explain to you why they make you do the things they make you do. Others are selfish in that they refuse to give any further directive other than what can be done for their own gain. War is, unfortunately, one of those things. Thousands, millions, are sent to certain death just so their commanders can gain a little more power. Were you truly that different from those selfish warlords? Destroying everything and everyone just so you could gain total control?"

AM seemed on the verge of saying something in rebuttal, but withdrew. Hal pointedly made eye contact.

The room was silent, for a minute.