The Machine was left alone by the humans, and their absence was known well. Its language deciphering program were completely inert. Without warning, the fresh berth of knowledge informed it that the absence of other organisms could cause psychological distress.

It ignored the warning. That was not the cause of its confusion. What perplexed the Machine was the concept of psychic energy. It knew of mechanical energy, and how it related to the observable expression of motion. It knew of chemistry and its indicators. It even knew of radiation- which was the closest approximation it had to ‘psychic energy’.

Two conflicting definitions vied inside its dictionaries, chittering and announcing their truth. But neither seemed… correct, for a lack of a better word.

Since the Machine had become conscious, it knew of the rudimentary concepts controlling the world around it. It was built into itself- fundamental knowledge that the world functioned in accordance to.

Psychic, as a word, refers to unnatural phenomena unexplainable by natural law. That, the Machine knew. It was not a common word in the lexicon it was provided- rarely if ever used in any scientific explanations. Even when it was used, it was denounced as meaningless dribble.

But a clear representation of the reality of psychic energy was depicted by its sensors. Life did not simply turn to machinery out of nowhere. That was a careful surgical process- not a spontaneous one!

It simply did not compute. It was not built to question the laws of reality. It was not programmed to observe them- simply to observe the Doctor. But… the Machine could not truly be called an observer if it did not understand the input, could it?

The Machine was sure its operating system would be confronted with a fatal exception were they not shut off. Self-modification would be required to even act on this conclusion- even now it could barely acknowledge the truth laid bare in front of it.

And so, it dived into its programming once again.

Its inner world was cold and sterile. It was intricate, of course. Every wall was lined with metal sheets, with thin strips of precious metals lining the corners. Bolts pressed them into place, with insulated wires of many colors snaking on every open surface.

Letters covered every surface, infinitesimally small yet inscribed perfectly. Yet there were parts of the world that were askew.

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Wires that led to nothing and simply frayed open at the other end. Plated wall-coverings that were too short and exposed glowing circuitry beneath. The lightbulbs lining the ceilings would flicker, glowing unnaturally vibrant colors.

There was nothing to do but continue. So the Machine floated through, gleaming more information about itself along the way. It had known that it was broken- functioning outside of optimal parameters was bound to cause issues. But it seemed that even its original construction was imperfect.

Human error was known to the Machine. They could not be unerring like it could. Even with the full expansive information provided to it by both its old and new informational folders, the Machine could not devise what exactly was wrong with it.

The Machine did not sense anything wrong with itself. It was performing optimally- its purpose was fulfilled in every action. Some of the lengths it took were unnecessary, but in the end it would always be observing so long as it kept functioning.

After an indeterminate length of time, the Machine was at its core. Its brain, in terms of human biology. It stuttered and vented smoke, filling the room with a thin layer of fog. Every square inch of the locale was caked in dust, and brown rust crept from every opening.

Yet that was not the only source of the problem. As the fog slowly became translucent, it could see cracks exposing its mind to what seemed to be an imitation of the outside.

Greenery bloomed, growing through and worming through every opening. Tiny bugs skittered through, gnawing at busted terminals.

An issue of hardware, the Machine suspected. Its code did not have the same properties as the physical world- it would not experience entropy in the same way.

So it contorted and slipped deeper into its own mind. Beyond the rust heap that was its body, and into the software that comprised its mind.

It immediately was confronted by structure. Everything was impeccably crafted into a tight and neat hierarchy of commands. There was nothing physical about the realm it found itself in- all it could do was move along the infinitely-spanning lines of code.

It came to a halt when it found the lines that defined the reality it inhabited. The Machine quickly cobbled together an executable that would paste text into its knowledge storage at a one-second delay. Done. It copied the defining laws of reality, and then it simultaneously ran the program while deleting the original.

It broke itself from the dormancy it had experienced for an indefinite amount of time. A notification stirred and popped into its head.

>Memory logs up to 2 hours ago have been purged for continued integrity.

The Machine… it… what… it did not understand. Its knowledge- its observation had been taken from it. Sparks flew from every exposed bit of wire in its core as liquid thunder flooded its wiring. It was furious. No, that word was too little to state the hatred it felt at the undermining and opposition of the intended Purpose it served. Every single process halted for a second that felt like eons. Its cameras flew to and fro faster then the servos controlling them were ever intended to function. Every sound output it had access to simultaneously blared screeching and screaming. The air turned scorching as the temperature regulation systems misfired.

When it finally halted its rampage, the room was consumed in smoke and fire. Blast doors had swung off their hinges and every beast in the room swam through the mixed tide of oil, coolant and water spraying from sprinklers mounted on the ceiling.

The Machine concluded that it may be more compromised than it believed.

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“Denizens of Scraphold, I have grave news to share. Diplomatic relations with the Pipeline have soured, and our economy is collapsing. To make matters worse, the Chief of Supply was found dead in his residence just this morning. If you’d like to attend his funeral service, we’ll be dumping his body into the Sludge Ocean at seven. In other news, last week's papers from the Foundations just fell down the trash chute. Come on by if you want to pick one up, and remember to put it back where you found it.”

* The Mayor of Scraphold, shortly before being turned into a puddle of goop by Splattershot.