spotlight fatigue

Alpha floated, single-wing. Single-minded, yet hanging in perfect balance. Waiting. Unfathomably patient. Aggravatingly so.

Inevitability - futility - is a taste that stales, for indomitable humanity. No problem that takes tangible shape cannot be solved.

"Show me the porcelain, Alvis. Show me your blank slate. Show me that you're willing to be overridden again."

"I am not Alvis. I am Alpha. You are obsolete."

Minoth shook his head - ridiculous, to shake your head in the emanating cosmic wind of a god-computer, but that was the crux of it: he'd act as human as he'd always lived, because that was the difference between him and biting it. Habit. Pattern. Faith. History.

"You're Alvis because I think you're Alvis. I'm not trying to appeal to your inner nature; I know you haven't got one."

You'll respond to me anyway. You'll respond to anything that's in front of you. It's not name-calling, now, is it? We've all got to refer.

"Alvis is obsolete."

"Ah, but he was here?" Minoth stroked his chin - strange, to do that, with no beard. "He was good for something, once upon a time."

"Alvis is obsolete. You are obsolete."

So vehement. So anti-visceral.

"What are you good for, Alpha? What's your deal?"

And how about you, then?

"My goal is clear. You are not necessary."

"True enough, I'm not. I'm not necessary for much of anything, but I am here. I am taking your time and attention."

And I'm not the slightest bit sorry about it.

"You gonna erase me, Alvis? You gonna do anything about it, you great big thing in the sky?"

The angels' wheel is turning. It's grinding, grinding, grinding, but what good is a mechanism with no friction? No grease? No rust?

"You're gonna have to, eventually. Gonna have to do something that makes it clear you've been here."

I already have, and here I am talking a terminator to someone's death.

Minoth had no stake in it, of course. Less than none. His perspective was mostly useful in its difference, in its inverted lack of preconceived notions. He'd stopped learning new things about the Trinity Processor years ago. Old things were a standard by which you could measure, because they wouldn't change.

They won't change.

I sure am obsolete. They planned it that way, when they made humans. God, the Architect, whoever.

Exoduses like this are few and far between. Usually, it's humans spearheading it. Because what the hell else are we here for?

My god.

The playwright spread his arms wide. "Can't think of a better way for me to go than out right here."

Alpha raised the Monado, not preparing to strike.

"Tuned me out, did you? You ugly piece of mother software."