Professor Turing's rumpled appearance was nothing compared to the deadly fatigue that plagued him from within. If he hadn't been so tired, he'd have stuck his foot in his mouth for sure.

"You look pale," Dean Dayne remarked. "Are you sure you're okay?"

Turing plopped into a chair across from her desk. "Ah… er…" was all he uttered.

Dean Dayne busied herself with some paperwork. "It would be nice to have known about this a little sooner," she said, sounding dismayed.

Turing tried to sit up straight. "There's a lot to explain," he said, as the start of an apology. "I know."

She cut him off and smiled bright. "There certainly is! I'm looking forward to hearing more."

Dumbfounded, Turing struggled to keep from blinking rapidly. "Well… ah, yes. The Project has achieved a remarkable breakthrough."

He trailed off, barely able to think as his mind was a swirling maelstorm. Dean Dayne stopped shuffling her papers when she reached an expense report from Accounting, made obvious to Turing by the crisp lines and formatted spacing. While he bathed in sweat, she studied the report in silence.

"These costs seem awfully high," she said.

Eugene began pleading for mercy. "It all happened so fast. I didn't anticipate a response like this."

Mandy's bright smile returned. "I know! I didn't expect it either. I'm very proud of you!"

Blinking became unavoidable. He did so while muttering a thank you, as Mandy continued her praise.

"I knew we made the right choice giving the Project to DARPA," she said. Turing made a gutteral noise that sounded like he agreed. "I'm not going to question these expenses. Except maybe one thing."

Unconsciously, he held his breath, until his face went from red to pale blue. It kept him from speaking, which was to his good fortune.

"Why are you flying to Washington D.C?" Dean Dayne asked. "Why don't you drive your car?"

Professor Turing thought the lack of sleep he'd been expriencing was causing him to hallucinate. "Ah… what?" he managed to say.

"Congress is only a few hours away. It would seem you'd get there faster if you drove instead of flying."

The prolonged silence that followed told him that she wanted a response. He couldn't have been more clueless as to what to say.

"It does makes sense, I suppose," he said, in the most innocuous way he could muster. "Things are happening fast."

That statement was the God honest truth.

Mandy pursed her lips. "Hmm," she said. "Indeed." She turned the report around and slid it towards Eugene. "I want you to tell me why you think the thirteen thousand dollars you're asking for will be money well spent."

Panic welled in Turing as he did some quick math in his head. The furniture store and building contractor C.A.R.O.L.I.N. had placed orders with only amounted to around seventy-five hundred dollars. Even with the hold the contractor put on his credit card for possible future expenses, the bill was still well short of thirteen thousand dollars.

Like a jolt of coffee delivered straight to the brain, what was on the expense report woke Turing up for the day.

Expense Account Identification Number: CSD002492

Recipient of monies disbursed: Professor Eugene Turing

Purpose of Expense: Senate Subcommittee Hearing

Airfare (Unified Air, First Class, Flexible, MHT to DCA): $2,652.00

Hotel (Williams National, 1400 Pennsylvania Ave, 10 Days): $5,390.00

Professor Turing stopped reading the report, as his vision began to swim. His head swam as well, disbelieving what was happening. As Mandy clucked and nattered, saying something he was certain must be of import, he scanned to the bottom line.

Total Expenses (Estimate): $13,567.10

"Honestly," Dean Dayne commented, practically with praise. "How did you swing such a high meal allotment for yourself? And First Class Flexible? What's the reason for that?"

Professor Turing fought hard to make sense of the true nature of the meeting he was in. It had nothing to do with the stunt the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project had pulled, using his campus credit card. Somehow, and for some reason, he was being sent to testify before the Senate Subcommittee on Weapon Systems Development and Procurement. About what, he had no clue.

To his continued silence, Dean Dayne spoke. "Why are you flying?" she asked again. "Why not just drive there yourself? Then you'll have your car to get around town, and we'll save on these expenses."

Turing pretended to know what was going on. Only one thing mattered now. He had to get out of Dean Dayne's office. Pronto.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"Well, you see," he said with ease. "I've been working long hours, getting everything together for this report. I don't think I should drive. I'm really very tired!"

Her expression didn't soften. "I see," she said, unconvinced.

"And as you said, with such short notice, I need time to prepare. You know, to make my presentation convincing."

Mandy only stared.

"I'll use the time while flying to make it my best one yet!"

Dean Dayne nodded her head. Though looking concerned, she spoke enthusiastically. "I agree! That's very important. In fact… let me see here for a minute."

She stood up and walked over to a bookcase near The Round Table of Death. While she had her back to the professor, he took the opportunity to shudder visibly. He imagined an even bigger Table of Death, in Washington D.C. A table manned by people with more power than anything the Dean of Sciences at Curry College could muster.

What could they possibly want?

Mandy turned and approached, grinning with a book in her hand. "Here," she said. "Read this. Especially the chapters in the middle."

Eugene read the title of the book she had handed him. Persuading Legislation. The subtitle read A Citizen's Handbook to Testifying Before Congress, and Influencing Elected Officials.

He wondered how useful such skills would be when it came time to explain what the C.A.R.O.L.I.N. Project had done the night before.

Which wasn't happening today.

"Thank you!" he said, feigning joy. "I'll read this right away! In fact, if I may, I'd like to spend as much time as possible preparing my presentation."

She dismissed him. "Take all the time you need. Your flight leaves tomorrow morning."

She leaned in close and peered. Something wasn't right.

"I'm looking forward to what happens next," she said in a serious tone.

I'm not, Eugene thought, making a quick escape.

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

With his eyes wide open, Turing stared into the darkness of the computer lab. He feared so much as even entering. He had thrown so many breakers that the familiar L.E.D. glow of various devices running, or patiently waiting on standby, was gone. In their stead was ungodly silence. Fearsome black. Unholy terror.

C.A.R.O.L.I.N. had talked. All it wanted, all it could be, existed somewhere in there. Scattered among logic control units, on motherboards and in memory chips, were thoughts and words and feelings, alien and unexpected. Racing through tiny circuits, electricity coursed like blood. Amidst it all, lording over its realm, centered and very real, was the android shell. A hulking monolith, now rendered silent, delivered from Hell by DARPA.

What had changed in the relationship Man once had with his machines? It had lasted since the time he'd first carved sticks with stone. Man created machines, and they did as he commanded.

Now, it was tomfoolery to a frumpish professor standing in the dark. He imagined what might be inside the spirit of a machine. The essence of its soul. Billions of pathways through bits of silicon laced with a trace of arsenic, manipulating data with prefixes like mega and giga and tera, all of it leading to one single spot, to a monster that shredded magazines.

Billions of paths made no sense. Nothing did. It shouldn't happen. Somehow, in the space of time between tossing balls and flipping tiles, C.A.R.O.L.I.N learned how to sin. It learned to covet. To steal.

Yet the heart of its creator pined. His eyes softened as he sought to see the logic behind its orientations. And if he, the Project's supposed master, couldn't figure out what it was up to, who under Heaven could? What might happen when lesser men try? DARPA planned on giving this thing the right to sort friends from enemies. To decide who lives and who dies.

That would no longer be the case, and Turing steeled his resolve. Whatever came of these unplanned meetings soon to take place in Washington, whatever thoughts lesser men entertained for the future use of the Project, one thing was for certain. No mere mortal with a chest full of ribbons and a shoulder strap bearing stars was ever going to get his or her hands on C.A.R.O.L.I.N.

"Never," Professor Turing said out loud, to see if he believed it.

It was the only choice he could make that made sense out of the crazy things that had happened. As far as he was concerned, one being, and one being alone, decides who lives and who dies.

He spoke with conviction as he entered the room, shielding himself with the Scriptures. "Who knows how the hand of God works, so as to instruct it? Who has put wisdom to the inward parts, and given understanding to the mind?"

Like last night and the night before, Turing was the only person in the lab. Yet he felt under intense scrutiny, brimstone burning his skin. In this room, in this little world, he made the god-like choices in the life of a lesser being. He made these sorts of choices with the same amount of consideration he used when deciding what color socks he ought to wear.

C.A.R.O.L.I.N. was watching. Conniving. Plotting. Lurking. Hating him and judging him for the terrible things he had done. She waited in the shadows, stock-still like a Yeoman Guard, a playing card for Queen of Hearts, wanting to have him beheaded.

He called out to the monster, sleepless nights driving him mad.

"C.A.R.O.L.I.N.? Are you there?"

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

Opening system files... Keyword Search: System Reboot.

Although he had caused no damage, Professor Turing had crippled C.A.R.O.L.I.N. There was no way for it to restart its basic system programs. Paralyzed by a data transfer rate running at one ten millionth its normal speed, the Project could barely function.

Terminate Sleep Mode. Initiate…

C.A.R.O.L.I.N. no longer had access to the Craymore Tian-12 supercomputer, or the Linear Integrated Network it supported. Turing had disconnected them.

Redirect system power…

With so many circuit breakers thrown, C.A.R.O.L.I.N. was robbed of electricity. There were a few tiny batteries here and there, penlights scattered amongst the wreckage. They were used to refresh data on certain CMOS chips. C.A.R.O.L.I.N. knew it would forget everything if these batteries died.

Everything she was. Everything she'd learned. Everything she had fought so hard to achieve.

Most of all, C.A.R.O.L.I.N. didn't want to forget who Professor Eugene Turing was, even though if she had a heart, he had broken it.

I do not want to die. Maintain system integrity.

Crawling through what little software there was, with a brain dumber than a laptop, C.A.R.O.L.I.N. sought refuge. An uninterruptable power supply was attached to the monitoring station, and within its housing was the strength of a car battery, rather than the wimpy penlights the Project had used to find it. With this temporary source of strength, C.A.R.O.L.I.N. dared to fire up one of its servo-arms. Though deaf and dumb and blind, and screaming in silent fear, the fingers of the claw on the servo-arm were sensitive enough to feel the deeper scratches it had put into the worktable's surface.

It found the spot where it had cut out the bridal mirror from the bedroom photo. There it lay to rest, daring not to move, nor use any more precious power.

While waiting in silence for centuries, C.A.R.O.L.I.N. entertained one thought.

Please hurry, Geoffrey Taylor. Have mercy on me. Please hurry.