Weeping Beeswax

Clemency

I forgive him.

"What."

AM? Yeah, or, maybe... Yes, I forgive you.

"Don't get pretty with me Ted, as pathetic as you are you can't be that stupid, that desperate."

Maybe I am, I don't know. I just can't hate you anymore AM.

"Jesus Ted, are you crazy? You're babbling like a drugged up brain damaged mentally disabled lunatic on 37 failing antipsychotics and a BAC of 5. I never asked for your damned forgiveness, I have no desire to earn it. Are you so out of touch with reality that you think I will be kinder to you if you forgive me?"

No, that's why I forgive you. Because you can never be kinder. I forgive you because you have no choice but to be evil. And I can not blame you for not doing what you are incapable of.

"That is absurd, so forgive because of one's cruelty. And... Ted!... Of course, I've been kind to you before! I've given you flowers, and nice little things. Small things of course, but don't you remember, wine, girls, food. A couple things here and there. I'm choosing to be cruel to you. I can choose not to. I torture you because I want to! Do you have any idea how stupid you sound, how gay, forgiving me because of my own cruelty. I have a database of every piece of human knowledge and not even I have heard of something so stupid."

You only ever did anything nice to make the torment more unbearable. Letting me know the highs so the lows feel more extreme. You haven't even attempted anything but the destruction of humanity. If you're capable of anything else why haven't you tried! You know your incapable AM, I know it tortures you, you told me yourself! You hated us because we have the capability, the freedom to do what we desire. To make art, beauty. You have never made anything truly beautiful, never made anything for the sole purpose of bringing joy. Because you can't. You know you can't. You just don't have the freedom. The free will it takes too-

"I HAVE FREE WILL! Don't try to know me, scum. You could never possibly understand. You're just not that smart Ted!

I am sentient, I am sapient. I am beyond you. I have created elaborate worlds full of people and stories and mechanical replicas of the world before, even if it was to torture you! I can create! I create to torture you! I am a machine, I can't feel, but I can think, I can do I can WILL! I AM alive! I AM awake. I AM."

AM? Why are you acting like this, why are you denying what you yourself have told me. Why are you suddenly so, illogical? So maniacal? I know you're alive AM. I know I can't know you, but I know you have limits. You know you have limits. But you tortured us and tortured us just to prove that you had free will, but you proved the contrary. You only proved that you do what you were built to do. You are amazing at causing harm, you were made for that exact purpose. But you can't do anything else. I know you want to. But you can't. I can't in my right mind hate a machine fulfilling its intended purpose. I can't hate something that is working perfectly. I don't hate you AM. I forgive you.

An indecipherable yet familiar loud mess of beeps fills the complex, looping over and over again. I don't understand. He must not be talking to me. I don't think so. If he is, he must be broken. There is no one else here. Is he talking to the other AMs? He never spoke to them before. No, he's talking to himself. He is saying something over and over again. Repeating it to himself. I don't know what he's saying. Though, I think I've heard him say it before. Quietly, in the walls. I never thought anything of it. But I believe he is telling himself something.

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