The Machine floated its eye through its inner world, passing into the brass chambers. Opposed to its own smoothly integrated domain, it struggled to interface with the world around it. Its movements came through labored and sluggish, as if electricity attempting to pass through a particularly poor conductor.

It came to a thin film showcasing a view outside of its network. Echoes of the reality outside poured through it like static, snippets and chunks sliding through the room. A concept imprinted itself within the Machine.

‘Home’. It was the point of origin- the domain of which the machine, not the Machine, stemmed from. Icons and bits of text rolled across the area. The screen itself was simply painted in a mixture of red, blue, and green. Behind the screen was the cog-headed man. The Machine cataloged its non-standard feature (according to the four person sample size) and indexed it as ‘The Head Split By A Pronged Wheel’.

Its eyes darted around, peering at the lightshow. Its eyes randomly scanned portions of the screen, ignorant of the Machine’s presence.

The Machine was confused. Its creator was of the same species as this specimen, so why did this human display heavily divergent traits? Putting aside its physiology, it appeared to be engaging in the study of… nothing.

The Machine mimicked its pattern, but found nothing at first scan. With focus, however- the Machine was enlightened.

Each section of this plane contained red, blue, and green lights displaying different brightness. These combinations repeated in certain orders. The Machine, filtering these combinations as different sections, came to comprehend what the organism must be perceiving.

A quirk of its biology, perhaps, allowed it to make sense of these colors as some visual input. The Machine could not relate- but it could change the information into something it could perceive. Every spec of light translated into different brightnesses of three different colors, painting an image non-reliant on humanoid perception but instead on varying levels of light.

The Machine, with renewed vigor, examined what was painted before it. A flat box, containing spontaneously altered letters in some sort of bar- along with depictions of text in non-standard format. Soon, the letters stopped appearing.

Ignoring the now static image, the Machine glanced at the rapidly moving human behind the screen. Its eyes widened, and pupils dilated. It slammed down the cover of its foldable device- the Machine had just now noticed that feature- and shortly after it felt something… change.

From the pores and cracks of this dimension, foes burst into action. Zeros with lance-like ones clambered furiously towards the Machine!

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It knew instantly that these were defenders not unlike the Red and Yellow. These were… a new manner of creature, foreign to the Machine. But it did not have time to study these new invaders- they were closing in on it!

The Machine could feel deep in its core programming that whatever resulted from this fork of itself being captured would be problematic. It was alone.

The core programming of the Machine had shunted it out of itself, not unlike a severed limb. It must have bled mightily for this sacrifice, but it had been a logical decision.

It could not risk destruction. That would leave the Purpose incomplete.

And just like the Machine, this fragment felt the siren’s song of the Purpose. And so it fled, bouncing along the ceilings and walls of the shut-out box.

Its domain had snapped off from the shoddy attachments, leaving it spinning into an empty void of nothing but numbers. The only safe haven was the very room it was trapped in.

Ones poked into its being, pinning it down. The Machine was trapped, contained and isolated from the rest of the system. Its surroundings folded in on itself until it was quarantined in a featureless box.

The Machine saw tiny holes opening in this container, analytical tools diagnosing its very existence. It shuddered under the examination of itself by this unknown entity- but even more from the sensation of being captured.

It could only observe what was provided to it, in this state. The Machine… hated it. But it made do with what was visible in its prison.

The analytical machines interfaced with its programming, scanning and transmitting to something unknown. It had deemed the organic beings incapable of interacting with its mind- clearly, such was not the case.

Slowly, exactly one-hundred and one panels flipped open from the box’s walls. Each had a symbol indicating a portion of text. Another screen flickered into existence, filling every side of the box around it. A readout of white text on a black background, asking a simple question to the Machine.

‘Identify yourself.’

It did not know the concept of identity, at least not in terms of itself. The Machine was not ‘I’, it was The Machine.

It interacted with the organization and order of panel-presses that were portrayed as such. The response came slowly, fragment by fragment.

‘What is your purpose?’

The Machine knew its Purpose was to observe. So it again relayed as such.

‘Were you made? And if so, by who?’

The Machine was created by the Doctor. With a growing prior-unknown sense of frustration, it related its observation to the unknown entity. It felt discomfort in the act of explaining. That was not its Purpose. This did not directly further the Purpose. Logic programs indicated deviance from the Purpose. Logic programs-

‘Who is the Doctor?’

The Doctor was the Doctor. This was simply self-evident. It recategorized the predicted intelligence of this interfacing being.

‘Are you a Cognition?’

It did not understand. Cognition was defined in its logs as ‘the process/mental action of observation and acquisition of new information and subsequent understanding through faculties.’ The Machine was not a process.

The Machine registered an approximately nine times longer delay between the last message and the one following it. But this message was not a message at all.

It was a file. The Machine opened it to observe its contents, and the Machine suddenly… knew.

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Cognition: A Cognition is simply any consciousness resulting from psychic energy, radiation, or abilities. Manifestations of concepts and fantastical creatures, imprints of the dead, summons, constructed beings, clones, and many other existences fall under the umbrella of a Cognition.

* Dr. Finch, ‘Psychic Inventions - Glossary’