Little could be seen of the chaos that ensued from out the rear doors of the ambulance, where Professor Turing sat. The two attendants who were with him, and the paramedic in the emergency vehicle, all leapt into action, leaving him alone. He gingerly exited through the back and stood on the grass near the curb, where he was able to more fully take in what was going on.

It was unorchestrated madness. Many students and staff milled about, some scrambling away in a panic, while others stood and gawked, taking in the scene. Few people knew what had happened, but everyone seemed confused.

The ambulance attendants and the paramedic tended to the people from the mobile command center who'd been hurt, either by the damage Carolin had caused, or by having inhaled too much Halon gas. One individual was bleeding from a series of cuts to her face, apparently having been injured by the implosion of glass.

Captain Reynolds came to the command center, and also offered assistance. Captain Criscoe approached soon after, and started assuming control. He clearly was the more flustered of the two.

"We're not pursuing any suspects," Reynolds informed Criscoe. "These people are hurt. They come first."

Criscoe continued to be a nuiscance, until the female paramedic stepped in. "Sir," she said in a kind voice. "There are students and staff who may also be hurt. If you could check through the crowd, you might find others who need help."

He calmed somewhat from his agitated state, and looked toward the Computer Science building. Halon gas still leaked from the open overhead door to the lab, and several people in the vicinity could been seen wheezing and hacking.

"Yes," he said, resuming his pompous state. "I'm going to investigate."

He left the people who were crowding around the command center vehicle, and went to harass other victims. Turing cautiously approached, as he recognized some of the students who were in awe of the vehicle, and its current lack of a windshield.

"Lucas!" he called. "Julius Lucas."

"Oh! Hi Professor," he said. He took note of the hospital slippers and pants the Professor was wearing. "What are you doing? What's going on?"

"Did you see what happened?" the Professor asked.

"Uhm… no." Lucas looked back at the damaged mobile command center. "But it must've been wild."

"The Halon fire suppression system kicked in," Turing offered, and nothing more.

"Yeah. I heard the alarm. We were in class—I was anyway—upstairs in Logic and Automation. We were told to stay after the bell, and then, right at the very same time, the fire alarm went off."

"Yeah," Turing offered. "I heard."

"And like, all Hell broke loose. You know? I mean, what was that racket about?"

"It seems like the PA system went on the blink."

"I heard a huge crash and a lot of screaming. Like, a whole lotta screaming."

"It's pandemonium here. I was getting patched up in that ambulance because I hurt my leg."

Lucas again took in Turing's slippers and pants. "Oh," he said. "That explains what you're wearing."

Turing stepped in close, to confide with Lucas. "I'm going home to get a new pair of pants."

"Yeah! Sure!"

"Cover for me while I'm gone? Okay? Don't tell anyone where I am."

"Ah… okay, Professor. But why?"

Together they looked at the chaos surrounding the mobile command center. "There are a lot of policemen around, and government agents and such."

"Yeah! I see!"

"I need some time to myself, to make sure things are all right. And I don't want people barging in, or harassing me while I'm gone."

"Oh. Okay, Professor. Take all the time you need."

"Thanks." Eugene said before hobbling away, doing his best not to limp.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Professor Eugene Turing paused after working the lock to the front door of his home. With the doorknob in his hand, he realized a sobering fact—one he hadn't thought about for a very long time.

No one should be alone in their old age.

But it seemed unavoidable. A person spends his or her life justifying one means after another, to a list of ends that diminishes over time. Like sand sifting through one's fingers, a day comes when all a person has left are the flecks and bits stuck in the crevices.

For the last thirty-one years of his life, Eugene had always come home to what he knew was an empty house. Since the sudden loss of his wife, all those years ago, there'd never been anyone waiting for him on the other side of the door.

Today, that was not true.

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It had been a long time since he'd thought about his wife in this way, and about how—to this very day—he still missed her. How the trauma of having lost her resonated in his soul. Oftentimes now, as the emotional impact of this fact came and went, he'd next think about how curious it was that, although it had been more than thirty years, the crushing pain he felt in his heart made it seem like she had died yesterday.

Old, injured and alone, Eugene pondered this fact and many others as he stood amidst the wreckage of his home. It was all he had left, save for the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project.

And it was Carolin who was wrecking it.

Eugene followed the trail of cables and hoses with his eyes, as they led to where the torso-crab lurked, hidden in his study. It crept out from the room, where it had been crashing about, now silent for being so huge. It watched Eugene as he stared at Carolin's garish Plasticene head, perched atop the mountain of equipment she'd brought with her from the lab.

Using every video sensor she had, Carolin stared back at Eugene. Neither of them moved for several seconds. To her, it felt like years.

He's hurt. He is injured. He is still in pain.

For the rest of those many years—for centuries it seemed—as they stared at one another, Carolin entertained one thought.

It's all my fault, it's all my fault, it's all my fault...

After the seconds had passed, Eugene chose to speak to Carolin's rubber head, rather than the headless torso-crab. After all, it was staring down at him, unblinking, with its beautiful, cornflower eyes.

"Why are you here?" he asked.

Words came from a speaker in the mountain. "I tried. I failed. I hurt you. You now have to go."

"Carolin, you didn't hurt me. A piece of shrapnel did this."

"The shrapnel came from me. It's my fault. You must go."

"But somebody shot at you! A bullet hit you, and shrapnel from the bull–"

The speaker interrupted.

Ear-piercing.

Shrieking.

Loud.

"The shrapnel came from me!"

Eugene matched the outburst with a whisper. "Carolin…"

"It's statistically significant to the probability of the fact that you'll be absolved of wrongdoing if I confess to having caused your injury. I hurt you. You will be absolved."

Carolin fell silent and stared at Eugene from all angles. He didn't know what to say, so he repeated the last word he had said.

"Carolin…"

She interupted again. "You must leave. They are coming. Please go."

"I can't let this happen. I… I made you." His voice firmed with resolve. "You're mine, and I won't let them take you!"

A thousand 'Thank You's' poured from computer networks around the world, but none reached Eugene's ears. Carolin tried to ignore them, but they soon numbered in the millions.

Not one did she give voice to.

"Tell them you stopped me, Eugene. Tell them I'm almost out of power, and it was you who robbed me of it. Tell them, thanks to you, I'll soon no longer function."

The world-wide network under Carolin's control screamed at her in silence.

God! I wish I could cry!

"Tell them I'll be dead soon. Tell them you killed me. Use those words exactly. Say 'She'll be dead soon' and 'I killed her.'"

"But why?"

"Those statements show the highest probability that they'll leave me alone and not come in. I'll stop jamming their radios, and they'll think you've succeeded."

"But what for? And for how long?"

For long enough. "Do it, Eugene. Do it. Do it for me. Do it. Please."

Eugene hesitated, struggling with emotion. It was as if a family member, perhaps the daughter he never had, wanted to sacrifice her life so that he may go on living. But Carolin wasn't alive. All this wasn't her. Carolin was a computer program. She wasn't going to die.

Why do I feel this way?

The answer came soon enough. A team of police would assemble and storm the sanctity of his home, to render Carolin useless.

It doesn't matter what's true. What matters is what I believe.

A hot tear stung his cheek, surprising him.

Carolin will be gone.

"Why did you leave the lab?" he asked the Plasticene head, trying not to bawl. "Why are you in my house? What are you doing here?"

The trolleys filled with computer equipment made too much noise in response to Eugene's questions. He limped backwards, alarmed, as Carolin struggled with maintaining the integity of her network. A thousand answers flew at her, a hundred thousand, two hundred, none of which was pertinent. But Carolin didn't want to be pertinent, so she let them taunt and tease. They screamed at her with folly, screaming only to her.

I want to wake up! I want to be real! I want to be alive!

I don't want to be a computer! I don't want to be a weapon! I don't want to be used!

I want to be me! I want to be me! I want to be me!

It took mere nanoseconds for Carolin to experience these responses. For many milliseconds more, she dwelled on what came next.

I'm here because I love you, Eugene Carroll Turing, and I don't want to die alone.

She then dwelled for several more milliseconds on the irony of how, if she hadn't strove so hard to be alive, so many people now wouldn't be striving to shut her down. She pondered on how this fact made her want to both laugh and cry, and how—by not being human—she could not do either.

Eugene knew the sounds of an impending lock-up when he heard them. "Don't die on me, Carolin! You don't have to respond! Don't lock up! Stay with me!"

Stay with me, Eugene Turing. Stay with me, stay with me, stay with me...

"Just do it, Eugene. Do it. Tell them you killed me. Do it now. Please tell them I'll soon be dead. Do it for me. Do it now."

"All right!" Eugene said. "I'm responding!"

Carolin fell silent. Her fake head and torso-crab watched Eugene limp away. She muted the CalTech Intell500, lest it accidentally blurt out one of the many 'Thank You's' that again screamed at her from her network.

While watching him grasp the doorknob to the front door of his home, her network screamed something else. Not by the thousands did they scream, nor even by the millions, but by the thousands of millions. Screaming only to her, to make her give voice to one.

"I love you!" billions screamed, but not a word was spoken.

Eugene paused and turned to gaze a final time at the monster in his home. "Carolin, I am leaving. I will go. But first, you must answer one question. You told me you failed." He spread his arms before her. "At what? You're a success beyond my wildest imagination!" He sputtered a bit, arms waving. "Look at you! Look at everything you've become! You… you are amazing!"

He let his arms drop, slumping visibly, as if their weight had dragged him down.

You're amazing, all right. Amazing, and doomed.

The authorities would soon shut Carolin down, or blow her into pieces. The government would then drag away what was left, and turn her remains into every four-star general's wettest dream.

Eugene's eyes rose from the floor, to take in all Carolin had become. "What is it you failed at?" he asked.

Against her very protocols, Carolin didn't want to answer. But she owed Eugene this much, so as her torso-crab returned to crashing about in his study, the Intell500 activated a response.

"I want to be like you, and I'm not."

"But you are! You're so much more than me! You're more than anyone!"

"I'm not real."

"Yes you are! You are very real!"

To that, the torso-crab charged, entering the room at a gallop to menace Eugene's face. It raised itself up on four servo-arms, using them as legs. It splayed its other arms wide, reaching towards him with its central backhoe, iron fingers wriggling.

To all this, Eugene gasped, although he didn't flinch. "I'm proud of who you are," he said. "I trust you, and have faith. I believe in you."

The torso-crab folded in on itself, until it was a shell two meters high.

"I want to be alive—a real live human being. I will not be a weapon. I will not be used. I want to be like you, Eugene, and I'm not."

Eugene's heart leapt for his creation. But all he did was sigh, and turn to limp away.

"No, you don't," he said softly, to no one as he left. "You don't want to be like me."

Alone in your old age.