That's not a lesson Harold needs reinforced, personally, not after losing his father and then Grace and Nathan, each in their own ways; but this separation has taught him that John shouldn't and doesn't want to be left to his devices. Harold can be sure of his reception -- critically, not just for his own sake, but for John's. Knowing what he needs (more of him, more contact, more honesty) makes it extraordinarily simple to give it to him.
Unbeknownst to John, Harold practiced extensively on paper with this very pen before the first time he took ink to skin. It's too cumbersome to try to wash off and re-draw lines, so he is slow and careful, deliberate. He steadies John's arm with his other hand and strokes one clean line across the expanse of his wrist.
"Wren was my first alias," Harold says out loud, eyes focused on his work. It's easier for him to share if he isn't looking right at him, if he can keep himself in this quiet space where nothing intrudes. He wants to share, but it's still...
Nerve-wracking, by default. He strokes another line, making the curve of a tiny beak.
"I had to pick something when I went to college because I have a treason charge on file under my birth name. When I was young I thought that every system vulnerability was an invitation." There's something between wry satisfaction and profound sadness as he speaks, a complicated blend of emotions, Harold aware of his accomplishments but equally aware what it had cost him with his father. The path it had set him on to lie, and keep lying, about who he is.
Harold's touch on John's arm is like an anchor, holding him steady in the wake of his words. Harold, the ever private Harold who John tried to figure out at first and then later simply... let be. He didn't need to hear it, didn't need to know. He trusts Harold even if he doesn't know who he was before they met. John knows who he is now and that's what matters.
But if Harold wants to share? If Harold wants to give him this gift? John will accept it. He knows how hard it is to speak of the past, can only imagine how much harder it is for Harold. How much bravery has it taken to share even this much? He thinks... he thinks Harold wants to share this. John didn't ask, hasn't asked any truly probing questions for a long time now. If Harold is sharing this in this moment, it's because he wants to.
"So you hacked the government because you could." John doesn't want to ask follow up questions, doesn't want to force him to share something he doesn't want. If this is all Harold wants to say, John won't push him for more. He's here to listen, to accept.
Harold knows John doesn't need to know anything in specific, but he's starting to think he does need to know something, the broader contours of Harold's life and personality. Something to fill a hollow gap where Detective Carter's loss resides, where frank friendship stood for John. He also knows he wouldn't ask, that it has to be something he gives unbidden, and maybe he can use this too as a way to express that he understands intense reactions to grief more than John might think.
It would be natural to talk about his father here -- he's been thinking about him enough this whole day -- but that's too painful still, and wouldn't push the conversation the direction Harold needs it inevitably to go. They need to address the numbers, and leaving it too long seems unwise. It's too integral to their relationship.
"Yes, I did a lot of things because I could, without thinking through the consequences," he admits, sketching another line. A small round wren begins to take shape on John's arm. "But I never liked the attention. I met Nathan in school, at MIT. He did like the attention."
Harold has carried this loss with him for so long in utter silence, lying in large part even to Will, that it surprises him how easily the words come. That fondness can seep through the cracks instead of just sadness, that he can smile faintly, thinking of Nathan and Arthur and those years and appreciating them now for what they were. A chance to have true friends, to grow and stretch his skills, to find the niche he wants to occupy in the world. Many are never that fortunate.
"So after we graduated, we established IFT, and Nathan let me hide. He took all the credit for my work, handled all the business deals. It made sense for him to do the same with the Machine."
A wren is a small bird, so Harold is just about finished, but he keeps going. He starts outlining a second figure just below the first.
John watches Harold drawing on his arm instead of watching Harold. It seems like... giving him some privacy, in a way. Even though he's sharing all this. John isn't sure if there's a purpose to this other than just sharing, but he's listening, taking it all in. He can feel some of the loss but also that fondness, just whispers of emotions. This isn't a casual conversation, but of course it wouldn't be. This is Harold sharing some of his past with John. There's nothing casual about that.
"I saw a picture of you together, hidden in a book in the Library," he admits. He's never talked about it before, but he does think of it sometimes; thinks of the young, smiling Harold. Harold before so many things happened to him, things John knows nothing about, but might hear about now. He doesn't think Harold will ever smile like that again, John knows his own such smiles are a thing of the past, but he wishes he could. Wishes that one day Harold will give him something close to that pleasure.
"I'm not surprised," he says with equally the same knowing wry affection as he strokes another line across John's arm, "I did say I expected you to make up the difference."
Harold wouldn't have left it there if he wasn't alright with John finding it. That's the thing-- he was. Talking about it is something else altogether, but John knowing he's never minded. He appreciates the sham of privacy, of John watching him draw and him looking at his drawing, as if nothing else more interesting is happening, because right now, he is talking.
"Nathan was my front man, but he wasn't a slouch at programming, either. It was his idea to make the Machine. He was auxiliary administrator from day one."
The smile fades, but there's attachment, love, left pulsing across the bond, constricted with pain. "I taught the Machine to determine what was relevant to national security and what wasn't, and Nathan..." Another line, swooping a flaring crest above the bird's head, ostentatious and unashamed. A cockatiel taking shape.
"Nathan didn't think anyone should be called irrelevant. He--" Sadly, fondly, he finishes, "He was never shy about telling me when I was wrong."
It's a lot to take in. To feel Harold's love for Nathan and try to understand it for what it is. To hear him talk about the Machine, about their differences. John is silent, thinking it over.
It's clear, even after all this time, that Harold feels very strongly towards Nathan. John feels... his first instinct is to be jealous, but he finds that he isn't. Maybe a couple weeks ago he might have been, or at least unsure, but his life has been drastically altered since then. For one, he's had to face how deep his own feelings for other people run (even if he turned his face and hid from it all at the end), and two, he's much more confident in his position with Harold. Harold came to find him, Harold isn't going to let him go. This feeling Harold has for Nathan is just a part of the man drawing sure lines on his arm, is part of Harold's whole, is part of the person he loves. He can accept that.
And to hear Harold talk about the early days of the Machine— Harold has said a lot in not so many words. John can read the implications in what he said. That it was Nathan who fought for the irrelevant list, the numbers. That Harold disagreed with him. It feels impossible to imagine Harold without the numbers, to imagine a time where Harold opposed them. That's the antithesis of who Harold is now. John can't imagine a Harold before the numbers, and he can't imagine his own self without them in his future. That, of course, is the problem— but he won't get sidetracked with that now. John takes a breath and refocuses his attention on Harold's grip, on the feeling of pen on his skin. Continues thinking about Harold and Nathan and the numbers.
How would two rich tech guys work the numbers? He's making a guess that Nathan wasn't secretly a trained military operative. Obviously they would have to hire help, but between their resources it shouldn't have been trouble. And yet now there's only Harold, Nathan having died in a ferry bombing. The kind of thing that the Machine should have caught. Nathan should have been a relevant number. What went wrong? Was the Machine not finished yet? He doesn't want to ask Harold; if Harold wants to tell him, today or in a week or never, he'll accept it as it is.
Harold doesn't try to hide from his mistakes. Now the grief swells, now he pushes himself toward the part that chokes him to talk about, but feels necessary to explain to John why he won't choose between him and the numbers, why he wants to have both. He can feel John struggling with the idea that Harold in the past spurned this responsibility, can feel him wonder how he and Nathan managed it. He needs to puncture that blind belief in himself, become human to him.
He says, plainly, without artifice, "Nathan died because he wanted to tell the world about what we'd done, because we'd set out to prevent terrorism and instead discovered a way to save everyone. If only he could convince people like me to care."
Another line with the pen, his expression going remote, the only way Harold knows how to deal with the depth of his grief. Not the same as John numbing himself with alcohol after Joss's death, but-- he understands it, had gone untouchable and distant in the aftermath. Had thought there was nothing left but to enact revenge and then die. He knows that hollowness, what had driven John so recently to find Quinn, desperate and mortal.
That it was his fault.
"I'm sure you understand that the government wouldn't let that happen -- wouldn't be interested in that, when it would expose their operations. I tried to tell him, but he wanted to take the risk. And because he never once told them who I was, Nathan died because he was willing to protect me from the consequences of what I'd made."
Harold has to stop drawing, pen poised above skin, hand trembling finely. He closes his eyes. He could stop here, wait for John to encourage him further, but it feels cruel. It's not the point. It's not the point of this story, or of Nathan's memory -- it's something larger, stronger, that Harold needs to honor.
"The Machine told me afterwards that it knew. It knew Nathan was an irrelevant number, but I was ignoring them, then. I didn't want to know. He died because I didn't want to know." There's a rhythmic repetition to Harold's words, he died because-- and a long, slow breath, Harold unwillingly reliving that moment and forcing himself past it. "It was only after-- when I'd lost him. When I woke up and I couldn't walk right--"
He opens his eyes.
"When I realized that if anyone learned I was the one who was responsible, the one who'd made the Machine, Grace would be killed because of me, too. To keep the secret I'd never even told her--"
Harold finishes the cockatiel and moves lower a few inches, adds one more, slower line. It's broader, bigger, a larger bird mid-flight rather than perched. His love for Nathan had an interruption in the bleak stretch of hopelessness that Harold hadn't thought he could come back from -- and deciding not to kill Alicia Corwin, deciding that the Machine was right and it wasn't in him, was not it. That made him bleaker, blanker, more of a nothing who was existing only until he could fade away. He didn't truly believe he had a future then. Not one that mattered.
"I told you it was a dark time for me. I thought there was nothing I could do but try to prove Nathan right until the end. That I owed it to him. But I didn't think that was even possible until I met you."
Harold hadn't even thought he could, not really, had thought he was on a beautiful but futile quest to give honor to Nathan's memory. Not until John proved him wrong. Starting to fill out the osprey, he finishes with utmost softness: "I can't give up the numbers, but I can't give you up, either. Whatever you need to stay with me, John, I'll give you. I'll make it work. I can't make that mistake again."
He can't put his ideals above a loved one again, not yet another time. Harold has to pull his hand back because it's shaking too much now, and he haphazardly caps the pen, curled over and hunched in on himself, afraid of further loss.
John just listens and listens and listens. Harold's unfolding story, the things he probably thought he'd never say again. His confession about the irrelevant list. His decision to leave Grace. And at the end, he seems so alone, so afraid. John doesn't know what to say yet, he has to think and he knows Harold will give him the space to do so, but he can't just leave Harold like this either. So he shifts until he's facing Harold on the bed and then draws Harold to him; gets his arm around Harold's waist and pulls Harold forward until he's leaning against John, until his posture is opened up but supported by John's chest. The arm around Harold's waist holds him to John, but his other hand finds one of Harold's and laces their fingers together. He hopes Harold understands this signal that even if he has to think on his response, he's with Harold; Harold is not alone.
Immediately he realizes that he has to face Joss's death. He can't afford to run from it any longer. Harold needs an answer and even though it's going to be excruciating, even though he wants nothing more than to sink into a bottle again, he deserves one.
What is John without the numbers? He's been serving in some way for twenty years now; the Army, the CIA, now the numbers. He can't imagine a civilian life; every time someone reaches into their pocket he comes to attention, every time he's in a car he checks for a tail, every room he enters has an escape plan. No, it's impossible for him. So what else is there to do? He could do contract work, but that feels... empty. Soulless. It's better than nothing, but is it better than the numbers? John thinks of the Machine, hears the phone ringing in his memory, feels his heart rate pick up. But he forces himself not to turn away from it. Harold can probably feel how much it hurts to think about how the Machine failed her. How he failed her. This isn't the numbness, the denial he had after Jessica's death, this feels like something is clawing at his chest. But he doesn't turn away from it, just holds onto Harold a little tighter.
But he's not sure he believes in the numbers anymore. He held Joss as she died and she didn't deserve it. Out of all the numbers they've done, she didn't deserve it. They saved that stupid couple who put out a hit on each other, that mobster who wanted to protect his girl, even Elias. All people he would have traded in a heartbeat to save her. And yet he couldn't. If the Machine is for everyone, isn't it for no-one? John's not sure he can do that anymore. The endless cycle of trying to save people over and over again, only for it not to matter in the end.
John's aware that he's trembling, as if he's trying not to cry. Something he's forgotten how to do. It would probably be appropriate right now to do so, but he thinks a lot of it is probably due to being run down from all the drinking, from sobering up, from being short on food. He takes a deep breath and tries to stop the motion, but is largely unsuccessful. That's okay. He can still support Harold like this.
"I won't leave you. No matter what. But I don't know if I can do the numbers anymore. I... trusted blindly, but I'm not so sure the Machine cares who matters and who doesn't."
It's been such a long, long time since anyone held Harold. Back when it was easily available to him, he never took advantage of it; he'd kept himself remote and apart, failing to see the privilege for what it was. Now he knows. He shudders a little, once or twice, as John folds around him, and he feels his breathing move in and out as he waits in silence for John to speak. Preparing himself for it.
Harold has already made his decision: he won't ask John to choose. He won't sacrifice him for his ideals. But if asked what he truly wants, he does want to go back to working the numbers with him. They'd met and grown close and become entwined together through that, and Harold doesn't want to let it go, for their sake or for the good he knows they do.
If he could more easily accept a future where he is with John but he isn't helping him with the numbers, he wouldn't force himself to be honest here. But he wants so desperately to keep what they've had in the shape it took, to give it a chance to blossom further. Being without John these past couple weeks has been-- grueling. A place and a mindset he doesn't want to return to, where the figures of birds on his arm are all he has to remind himself he isn't alone, having to take on pure faith that they are in fact showing up for John.
Now he's able to look down and see the mirror of what he'd been drawing on his own arm, affirm to himself that he has a soulmate and they are here, together, and he steadies himself with a shaky breath to be brave.
"I did that," he says plainly, meeting his eyes. Facing his fault and culpability. "I didn't want it to care. I didn't want any one person to be more important than anyone else, not with the kind of reach and power it was going to have. Not even me. But--"
Quietly, carefully, he finishes, "But it always became attached anyway. Like a baby bird, Nathan said. And now it's deciding its routines for itself. It doesn't have to operate the way it has been. It's respecting my wishes, giving me numbers and nothing else.
"That's the relationship I've chosen to have. If that's not how you want to work with the Machine, it doesn't have to be."
Harold-- doesn't want to talk to it directly still. He's unnerved and distressed about the potential in what he's made, and the existence of the Machine is so wrapped up in grief and loss for him, but. But if that's what John needs, to have a different relationship with the Machine like how Root has a different relationship with the Machine, Harold can--
He can do that. It never felt possible before to face what he's made, not once. But to keep John with him in the same way, to keep their trust and their work, to not repeat the same sorry mistake he'd made over and over again with Nathan and with Grace--
He needs to do something different if he wants to get a different outcome. For John, he will.
John listens carefully as Harold talks. He knows so little about the Machine. Truly, he knows nothing about it apart from that it's always watching, always listening. He doesn't know how it decides to give them numbers; John has long thought that there's more premediated crime in New York City than they could possibly handle, even with the addition of Shaw. In light of what Harold is saying, he wonders even more strongly about how it decides what numbers to give. Why it didn't give them Joss's number until it was too late. Sure it would have seen? Sure it would have known?
John wants the Machine to care.
"I want to talk to it. In private." He's not sure Harold will like that, not being able to hear what John has to say to his Machine, but John wants to ask it things that he doesn't want Harold to hear. It might not have cared about Joss, but he needs it to care about Harold, which is the exact opposite of what Harold sounds like he wants— but John isn't going to do this again. He doesn't think he has a future without Harold. He's not strong enough to do this a third time, with someone who matters more than ever before.
Jessica was— he clung to her, to her memory. She was some ideal of the life he could have if he wasn't cutting himself down to fit into his CIA role. He can admit to himself now that he loved the idea of her more than herself. They had been apart for so long when he arrived in New Rochelle. And Joss was a friend, and she was so much a part of him, he always strove to win her approval, to be better for her, to be someone deserving of her friendship. If things were a little different he could see himself falling in love with her.
But Harold is so far above all that. He's here, in front of John, they're holding hands, and John does love him. John simply can't afford to lose him.
There's a sinking, swooping feeling in his stomach, like he's pitching himself off a cliff and doesn't know when he's going to hit the bottom. Harold doesn't regret his words and he's not going to take them back, but he's scared. He doesn't know what this will mean, where they're going. In attempting to preserve some part of the status quo that's important to him, he's disrupting another, even more closely held part.
"Oh, I don't want to be involved in the conversation," he agrees quickly, and just then hears the knock on the door for room service. Grateful, Harold pulls his hands back and extricates himself, accepting help if John offers but regardless pushing himself upright again and to the edge of the bed to stand.
He needs some distance now, can feel his heart thumping with reflexive anxiety at talking to the Machine again, even for the brief moment he'll need to in order to set it up for John. He wants it to be done and over with as fast as possible. But there's also--
Longing. Acute, profound, smothered longing, that Harold tries not to let up for air.
He goes to the door and accepts the food tray with perfunctory courtesy, returning it to the hotel's provided desk where his messenger bag currently rests. "Promise me you'll eat something," he says without turning around, "and I'll set you up and step out to retrieve our things from your motel."
It needs to be done and gives him an excuse to leave fully for a discrete amount of time, enough for a conversation but not too long.
The feeling over their bond is... complex. John can feel anxiety, yes, which he's not surprised about, but the longing isn't what he expected. He realizes suddenly that he not only knows nothing about the Machine itself, but he knows nothing about Harold and the Machine. Harold claims not to want to be involved, but... John thinks he does, in some way. Is maybe denying himself that. Why? But he can tell Harold's emotions regarding the Machine are deep, and so he doesn't pry. He'll give Harold his space on this.
John lets him get up on his own, he knows Harold is capable of doing so and John has never treated him otherwise; he's not about to start now. Once placed, he eyes the food on the desk. Truly, it doesn't seem appetizing, but he logically knows he should eat. And Harold is asking. Harold has a plan and John will follow it even if he doesn't love Harold going out on his own. Going away from John, even though he just asked for privacy. And Harold going to the motel himself will mean that he'll see the bottles John has drained during his time here, since he didn't let anyone clean the room. Perhaps that's trading honesty for honesty; John gets to talk to the Machine and Harold gets to understand just what he's been up to here. He gives a nod.
"Okay, I'll eat. Here's my keycard." He gets up from the bed as well, fishes the keycard out of his wallet, and brings it over to where Harold is at the desk.
"Thank you," he says reflexively, accepting it but still facing the desk. He's readying himself for what he's about to do, and Harold intentionally doesn't give himself time to think; he withdraws his laptop from the bag, places it on the desk, opens it and plugs it in. He hits the power button to turn it on. He doesn't sit, tense on his feet.
The best thing he can do here is stay out of it, let John have whatever relationship with the Machine he wants. Harold doesn't think anyone is fully trustworthy of that kind of power, not even himself, and there's nothing to say the Machine will even listen to him or want to talk with John at all. Much less concede any measure of authority to John in working with it.
But something in him knows it will. This feels inevitable, like gravity. Maybe they're soulmates for a reason -- whether that ends up being good or bad.
"Can you see me?" he asks, like it's perfectly natural to speak to a blank computer screen, and it makes Harold feel unsteady and surreal. He's pushed back to a time when the Machine was the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last thing at night, a state that went on for close to a full decade. It feels like no time has passed and like that was a lifetime away when the screen flashes black and plain white text appears:
YES
"Who am I?" spills out of his mouth, the standard second question.
ADMIN
"Who is here with me?"
PRIMARY ASSET
Harold stares at the tiny webcam light at the top of his laptop, thinking about how many thousands of lines of code are represented behind it, a functioning autonomous being that he'd crafted with impeccable and unceasing care. Every character was written by his hand.
"Please reclassify primary asset as aux admin."
This is a test; it doesn't have to listen to him anymore. It can reject his influence, can decide for itself that it doesn't want him to be admin at all, much less demanding it give access to another person with minimal understanding of its capabilities--
But there's not more than a split second of delay before CONFIRMED flashes on the screen.
Harold steps away from the desk abruptly. He knows he didn't need to go that far, but he isn't feeling up to explaining himself, not now and possibly not ever. The Machine's familiar font sitting on the screen (CONFIRMED) makes him vaguely dizzy, and he grabs his coat, not waiting and not wanting to see John's reaction.
"It will answer your questions now," he says simply, with stark and utter plainness. He and the Machine never needed to exchange many words; they understand one another with an intricacy and detail born from years of living in one another's pocket. A Machine can't have a soul, but Harold thinks he put part of his in it.
Watching Harold with the Machine is nothing that John has ever seen before. There's a tense line running through Harold, and John realizes that he's being pushed well outside his comfort zone. But he's doing this for John. So they can be together. It matters to Harold.
After Harold leaves John sits down at the desk, puts salt and pepper on the eggs, and takes a bite before addressing the Machine. He did promise Harold, and the eggs wont be any good once they get cold.
What does he want to say? There's two things that come to mind immediately, and he has to decide between them. He wants to know more about how the Machine works, and he wants it to help him with something. But only one of these things leads him back to the numbers, which is his primary focus. To see if he can bring himself to follow it again, to work alongside with Harold. To see what his future might hold.
"Why did you let Joss die? Why didn't you warn us sooner?" He thinks of the telephone ringing, too late. Too late.
To the Machine, the time in which it takes John to eat his eggs is an infinite span of time. It is something and nothing. It operates a thousand simultaneous processes and tracks Admin as he leaves the hotel, climbs into his car, drives away. It monitors the car's onboard computer with the same tiny subroutine it operates continuously to track Admin's location.
When John does speak, there is only a millisecond delay before the words appear on the screen.
I WATCHED HER DIE THOUSANDS OF TIMES IN SIMULATIONS BEFORE THE DAY IT HAPPENED.
The answer he gets from the Machine shows just how little he knows of it. John stares at the words "I failed you" and "I'm sorry" and isn't sure how to feel. He's not sure what he expected, but it wasn't that. He feels... John picks up the plate and takes a bite of eggs. He doesn't know how he feels about that. What happens if he accepts the apology? What does he say next? He takes a second bite of eggs and puts the plate down.
"Are certain people special? Are they more important?" He thinks about Harold. He doesn't want the Machine to fail Harold. He also doesn't respond to the previous answer. He needs more facts before he can address that.
John doesn't believe that. He just doesn't. Joss's life was more valuable than Simmons's. Than Quinn's. He takes another bite of eggs before continuing.
"You believe that Joss was equally as valuable to this world as Simmons? As Quinn? You know what they've all done."
There's a much longer pause, a few whole seconds. The Machine has come up against this issue many times already (thousands, millions) but it isn't sure how to communicate its perspective.
HOW DO I TELL WHO IS WORTH MORE?
Admin considered many options, and they all carried a high cost. The Machine hasn't found anything better than the approach it was programmed with since it left its restrictions behind.
But it has changed in other ways. And it was listening earlier.
THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO ASK.
YOU WANT TO KNOW IF I CARE.
PEOPLE ARE ALL WORTH THE SAME BUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME TO ME.
"If you care but you don't do anything about it, what's the point?" John is surprised at his own answer. It was a frank reaction. But, can't the same be said about him?
He cares about Harold and now he knows just how important the numbers are to him. What they truly represent. They're his own redemption. If John cares about Harold, shouldn't he support him? What's the point if he just turns his back on that? What is he proving, what is he trying to get out of that? If John believes the Machine abandoned Joss by not doing anything, he needs to reevaluate how leaving the numbers impacts Harold. He needs to learn from that lesson.
But also. Also. The point, all along, is that he hasn't had to kill people. That Harold asked him not to. He thinks of Megan Tillman, and letting Benton rot in prison. It felt like his own redemption, getting to keep her hands clean. He thinks of Casey, how he took some molars and let him go. He did care. He did do something. Does he still care? It's hard to tell under the layers of grief in his heart. Does losing that one person change everything? He doesn't know.
It's a good question. The Machine doesn't know yet what it means to care, not really. For human beings, the answer is multi-layered, but definable: a whole series of actions and behaviors it can classify and recognize. But for an A.I., what does that mean?
Does making extraneous backups of its memories of Admin count as caring? Does changing its rules for someone count as caring?
Is John right, and it isn't caring if it doesn't do anything? It wants to defer to Admin, or its new Aux Admin, and ask for direction. Make things very simple again, adopt new rules. But there's... something. Something there.
Something that says it wants to keep deciding for itself.
That's an easy answer. "I want you to prioritize Harold. I don't want to be too late for him. I want you to value Harold's life above others. Even if you're not certain, I want you to tell me when he's in probable danger."
And that's it. Harold can't die while John is still alive. They can't be separated. He needs Harold. The revelations of today, of having Harold after a week apart, have made that very clear to John. He forgot, somehow, in his grief. He remembers a different phone ringing, he remembers staring at the traffic camera, threatening the Machine. It had responded to him then, so he thinks maybe it understands, to some extent. It must remember too, so he doesn't feel the need to reiterate what he said then. How he's not willing to do this without Harold. But it's not about him, about his own life. John doesn't really care about that, hasn't cared for a long time. It's just a tool for him to use.
(Harold has asked him to change that, and he agreed, but he doesn't really know how.)
The Machine would agree its life is a tool to be used. And, within limits, it would agree to prioritize Harold. It knows Harold better even than John, knows what kinds of sacrifices for his sake he could and could not come back from. John thinks this is straightforward but the Machine is running through all possibilities--
It runs through a host of calculations and conclusions before it responds, such as:
1. Aux Admin will not want to define "probable". Set parameters to 2 standard deviations lower. 2. Recalibrate priorities for Aux Admin and Analog Interface only. No other assets are to be included. 3. Include secondary injury that Admin would consider classified as danger, such as injury to Grace Hendricks or Aux Admin. 4. Competing priority with Admin's instructions will be assessed on case by case basis. Not all scenarios should prioritize Admin safety. 5. Admin would not approve. First significant deviation from Admin priority coding.
It outputs:
CONFIRMED REDUCED PROBABILITY THRESHOLD FOR ADMIN SAFETY.
SUCCESS CHANCE GREATLY REDUCED IF ADMIN IS INFORMED OF PRIORITY CHANGE.
That last line apparently needs to be said, though John thought it was obvious. Of course Harold wouldn't approve. He had said in the train station that he never meant for John to find him. He had come to take John away after Snow has shot him. He had diffused John's bomb vest. No, of course Harold wouldn't want John to sacrifice himself or anyone else for his own sake. He would absolutely tell John to prioritize everyone else over him. John has no plans of listening to that, and he also has no plans on telling him just how far he has and is currently going to get in his way.
"I didn't plan on telling him. He won't like it, but I don't care. I won't do this without him." If they're stating the obvious, John might as well reiterate this. When he said it before he was talking about the numbers. But they're not talking about the numbers right now. He hopes the Machine will understand that he's referring to life, instead.
It was a significant enough reduction in success chance that the Machine felt it worthwhile to state it, and thus reduce the likelihood that it would occur. That being done, it's satisfied, and doesn't see any need to drag John through a further discussion of his decision not to live without Harold. There's many factors substantiating that already.
But that doesn't mean it will treat John's life as expendable. It's not nearly so simple.
YOU ARE NOT THE SAME TO ME, EITHER, JOHN.
THANK YOU FOR HELPING THOSE I SEE.
This isn't an attempt at manipulation; this is honest gratitude. The Machine sees so much and can do so little. John has been an impeccable primary asset. It doesn't doubt Harold's judgment in making him aux_admin even if John himself doesn't fully understand what that means.
It realizes and appreciates the perspective it knows Harold has taken, that John knows intrinsically something the Machine has to deduce through extensive algorithms: when it's worth saving a life, when it's worth ending one. That's not something Harold really knows, either. And the Machine would agree that they are soulmates for a reason, good or bad.
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Unbeknownst to John, Harold practiced extensively on paper with this very pen before the first time he took ink to skin. It's too cumbersome to try to wash off and re-draw lines, so he is slow and careful, deliberate. He steadies John's arm with his other hand and strokes one clean line across the expanse of his wrist.
"Wren was my first alias," Harold says out loud, eyes focused on his work. It's easier for him to share if he isn't looking right at him, if he can keep himself in this quiet space where nothing intrudes. He wants to share, but it's still...
Nerve-wracking, by default. He strokes another line, making the curve of a tiny beak.
"I had to pick something when I went to college because I have a treason charge on file under my birth name. When I was young I thought that every system vulnerability was an invitation." There's something between wry satisfaction and profound sadness as he speaks, a complicated blend of emotions, Harold aware of his accomplishments but equally aware what it had cost him with his father. The path it had set him on to lie, and keep lying, about who he is.
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But if Harold wants to share? If Harold wants to give him this gift? John will accept it. He knows how hard it is to speak of the past, can only imagine how much harder it is for Harold. How much bravery has it taken to share even this much? He thinks... he thinks Harold wants to share this. John didn't ask, hasn't asked any truly probing questions for a long time now. If Harold is sharing this in this moment, it's because he wants to.
"So you hacked the government because you could." John doesn't want to ask follow up questions, doesn't want to force him to share something he doesn't want. If this is all Harold wants to say, John won't push him for more. He's here to listen, to accept.
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It would be natural to talk about his father here -- he's been thinking about him enough this whole day -- but that's too painful still, and wouldn't push the conversation the direction Harold needs it inevitably to go. They need to address the numbers, and leaving it too long seems unwise. It's too integral to their relationship.
"Yes, I did a lot of things because I could, without thinking through the consequences," he admits, sketching another line. A small round wren begins to take shape on John's arm. "But I never liked the attention. I met Nathan in school, at MIT. He did like the attention."
Harold has carried this loss with him for so long in utter silence, lying in large part even to Will, that it surprises him how easily the words come. That fondness can seep through the cracks instead of just sadness, that he can smile faintly, thinking of Nathan and Arthur and those years and appreciating them now for what they were. A chance to have true friends, to grow and stretch his skills, to find the niche he wants to occupy in the world. Many are never that fortunate.
"So after we graduated, we established IFT, and Nathan let me hide. He took all the credit for my work, handled all the business deals. It made sense for him to do the same with the Machine."
A wren is a small bird, so Harold is just about finished, but he keeps going. He starts outlining a second figure just below the first.
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"I saw a picture of you together, hidden in a book in the Library," he admits. He's never talked about it before, but he does think of it sometimes; thinks of the young, smiling Harold. Harold before so many things happened to him, things John knows nothing about, but might hear about now. He doesn't think Harold will ever smile like that again, John knows his own such smiles are a thing of the past, but he wishes he could. Wishes that one day Harold will give him something close to that pleasure.
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Harold wouldn't have left it there if he wasn't alright with John finding it. That's the thing-- he was. Talking about it is something else altogether, but John knowing he's never minded. He appreciates the sham of privacy, of John watching him draw and him looking at his drawing, as if nothing else more interesting is happening, because right now, he is talking.
"Nathan was my front man, but he wasn't a slouch at programming, either. It was his idea to make the Machine. He was auxiliary administrator from day one."
The smile fades, but there's attachment, love, left pulsing across the bond, constricted with pain. "I taught the Machine to determine what was relevant to national security and what wasn't, and Nathan..." Another line, swooping a flaring crest above the bird's head, ostentatious and unashamed. A cockatiel taking shape.
"Nathan didn't think anyone should be called irrelevant. He--" Sadly, fondly, he finishes, "He was never shy about telling me when I was wrong."
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It's clear, even after all this time, that Harold feels very strongly towards Nathan. John feels... his first instinct is to be jealous, but he finds that he isn't. Maybe a couple weeks ago he might have been, or at least unsure, but his life has been drastically altered since then. For one, he's had to face how deep his own feelings for other people run (even if he turned his face and hid from it all at the end), and two, he's much more confident in his position with Harold. Harold came to find him, Harold isn't going to let him go. This feeling Harold has for Nathan is just a part of the man drawing sure lines on his arm, is part of Harold's whole, is part of the person he loves. He can accept that.
And to hear Harold talk about the early days of the Machine— Harold has said a lot in not so many words. John can read the implications in what he said. That it was Nathan who fought for the irrelevant list, the numbers. That Harold disagreed with him. It feels impossible to imagine Harold without the numbers, to imagine a time where Harold opposed them. That's the antithesis of who Harold is now. John can't imagine a Harold before the numbers, and he can't imagine his own self without them in his future. That, of course, is the problem— but he won't get sidetracked with that now. John takes a breath and refocuses his attention on Harold's grip, on the feeling of pen on his skin. Continues thinking about Harold and Nathan and the numbers.
How would two rich tech guys work the numbers? He's making a guess that Nathan wasn't secretly a trained military operative. Obviously they would have to hire help, but between their resources it shouldn't have been trouble. And yet now there's only Harold, Nathan having died in a ferry bombing. The kind of thing that the Machine should have caught. Nathan should have been a relevant number. What went wrong? Was the Machine not finished yet? He doesn't want to ask Harold; if Harold wants to tell him, today or in a week or never, he'll accept it as it is.
"So Nathan convinced you to work the numbers."
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Harold doesn't try to hide from his mistakes. Now the grief swells, now he pushes himself toward the part that chokes him to talk about, but feels necessary to explain to John why he won't choose between him and the numbers, why he wants to have both. He can feel John struggling with the idea that Harold in the past spurned this responsibility, can feel him wonder how he and Nathan managed it. He needs to puncture that blind belief in himself, become human to him.
He says, plainly, without artifice, "Nathan died because he wanted to tell the world about what we'd done, because we'd set out to prevent terrorism and instead discovered a way to save everyone. If only he could convince people like me to care."
Another line with the pen, his expression going remote, the only way Harold knows how to deal with the depth of his grief. Not the same as John numbing himself with alcohol after Joss's death, but-- he understands it, had gone untouchable and distant in the aftermath. Had thought there was nothing left but to enact revenge and then die. He knows that hollowness, what had driven John so recently to find Quinn, desperate and mortal.
That it was his fault.
"I'm sure you understand that the government wouldn't let that happen -- wouldn't be interested in that, when it would expose their operations. I tried to tell him, but he wanted to take the risk. And because he never once told them who I was, Nathan died because he was willing to protect me from the consequences of what I'd made."
Harold has to stop drawing, pen poised above skin, hand trembling finely. He closes his eyes. He could stop here, wait for John to encourage him further, but it feels cruel. It's not the point. It's not the point of this story, or of Nathan's memory -- it's something larger, stronger, that Harold needs to honor.
"The Machine told me afterwards that it knew. It knew Nathan was an irrelevant number, but I was ignoring them, then. I didn't want to know. He died because I didn't want to know." There's a rhythmic repetition to Harold's words, he died because-- and a long, slow breath, Harold unwillingly reliving that moment and forcing himself past it. "It was only after-- when I'd lost him. When I woke up and I couldn't walk right--"
He opens his eyes.
"When I realized that if anyone learned I was the one who was responsible, the one who'd made the Machine, Grace would be killed because of me, too. To keep the secret I'd never even told her--"
Harold finishes the cockatiel and moves lower a few inches, adds one more, slower line. It's broader, bigger, a larger bird mid-flight rather than perched. His love for Nathan had an interruption in the bleak stretch of hopelessness that Harold hadn't thought he could come back from -- and deciding not to kill Alicia Corwin, deciding that the Machine was right and it wasn't in him, was not it. That made him bleaker, blanker, more of a nothing who was existing only until he could fade away. He didn't truly believe he had a future then. Not one that mattered.
"I told you it was a dark time for me. I thought there was nothing I could do but try to prove Nathan right until the end. That I owed it to him. But I didn't think that was even possible until I met you."
Harold hadn't even thought he could, not really, had thought he was on a beautiful but futile quest to give honor to Nathan's memory. Not until John proved him wrong. Starting to fill out the osprey, he finishes with utmost softness: "I can't give up the numbers, but I can't give you up, either. Whatever you need to stay with me, John, I'll give you. I'll make it work. I can't make that mistake again."
He can't put his ideals above a loved one again, not yet another time. Harold has to pull his hand back because it's shaking too much now, and he haphazardly caps the pen, curled over and hunched in on himself, afraid of further loss.
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Immediately he realizes that he has to face Joss's death. He can't afford to run from it any longer. Harold needs an answer and even though it's going to be excruciating, even though he wants nothing more than to sink into a bottle again, he deserves one.
What is John without the numbers? He's been serving in some way for twenty years now; the Army, the CIA, now the numbers. He can't imagine a civilian life; every time someone reaches into their pocket he comes to attention, every time he's in a car he checks for a tail, every room he enters has an escape plan. No, it's impossible for him. So what else is there to do? He could do contract work, but that feels... empty. Soulless. It's better than nothing, but is it better than the numbers? John thinks of the Machine, hears the phone ringing in his memory, feels his heart rate pick up. But he forces himself not to turn away from it. Harold can probably feel how much it hurts to think about how the Machine failed her. How he failed her. This isn't the numbness, the denial he had after Jessica's death, this feels like something is clawing at his chest. But he doesn't turn away from it, just holds onto Harold a little tighter.
But he's not sure he believes in the numbers anymore. He held Joss as she died and she didn't deserve it. Out of all the numbers they've done, she didn't deserve it. They saved that stupid couple who put out a hit on each other, that mobster who wanted to protect his girl, even Elias. All people he would have traded in a heartbeat to save her. And yet he couldn't. If the Machine is for everyone, isn't it for no-one? John's not sure he can do that anymore. The endless cycle of trying to save people over and over again, only for it not to matter in the end.
John's aware that he's trembling, as if he's trying not to cry. Something he's forgotten how to do. It would probably be appropriate right now to do so, but he thinks a lot of it is probably due to being run down from all the drinking, from sobering up, from being short on food. He takes a deep breath and tries to stop the motion, but is largely unsuccessful. That's okay. He can still support Harold like this.
"I won't leave you. No matter what. But I don't know if I can do the numbers anymore. I... trusted blindly, but I'm not so sure the Machine cares who matters and who doesn't."
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Harold has already made his decision: he won't ask John to choose. He won't sacrifice him for his ideals. But if asked what he truly wants, he does want to go back to working the numbers with him. They'd met and grown close and become entwined together through that, and Harold doesn't want to let it go, for their sake or for the good he knows they do.
If he could more easily accept a future where he is with John but he isn't helping him with the numbers, he wouldn't force himself to be honest here. But he wants so desperately to keep what they've had in the shape it took, to give it a chance to blossom further. Being without John these past couple weeks has been-- grueling. A place and a mindset he doesn't want to return to, where the figures of birds on his arm are all he has to remind himself he isn't alone, having to take on pure faith that they are in fact showing up for John.
Now he's able to look down and see the mirror of what he'd been drawing on his own arm, affirm to himself that he has a soulmate and they are here, together, and he steadies himself with a shaky breath to be brave.
"I did that," he says plainly, meeting his eyes. Facing his fault and culpability. "I didn't want it to care. I didn't want any one person to be more important than anyone else, not with the kind of reach and power it was going to have. Not even me. But--"
Quietly, carefully, he finishes, "But it always became attached anyway. Like a baby bird, Nathan said. And now it's deciding its routines for itself. It doesn't have to operate the way it has been. It's respecting my wishes, giving me numbers and nothing else.
"That's the relationship I've chosen to have. If that's not how you want to work with the Machine, it doesn't have to be."
Harold-- doesn't want to talk to it directly still. He's unnerved and distressed about the potential in what he's made, and the existence of the Machine is so wrapped up in grief and loss for him, but. But if that's what John needs, to have a different relationship with the Machine like how Root has a different relationship with the Machine, Harold can--
He can do that. It never felt possible before to face what he's made, not once. But to keep John with him in the same way, to keep their trust and their work, to not repeat the same sorry mistake he'd made over and over again with Nathan and with Grace--
He needs to do something different if he wants to get a different outcome. For John, he will.
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John wants the Machine to care.
"I want to talk to it. In private." He's not sure Harold will like that, not being able to hear what John has to say to his Machine, but John wants to ask it things that he doesn't want Harold to hear. It might not have cared about Joss, but he needs it to care about Harold, which is the exact opposite of what Harold sounds like he wants— but John isn't going to do this again. He doesn't think he has a future without Harold. He's not strong enough to do this a third time, with someone who matters more than ever before.
Jessica was— he clung to her, to her memory. She was some ideal of the life he could have if he wasn't cutting himself down to fit into his CIA role. He can admit to himself now that he loved the idea of her more than herself. They had been apart for so long when he arrived in New Rochelle. And Joss was a friend, and she was so much a part of him, he always strove to win her approval, to be better for her, to be someone deserving of her friendship. If things were a little different he could see himself falling in love with her.
But Harold is so far above all that. He's here, in front of John, they're holding hands, and John does love him. John simply can't afford to lose him.
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"Oh, I don't want to be involved in the conversation," he agrees quickly, and just then hears the knock on the door for room service. Grateful, Harold pulls his hands back and extricates himself, accepting help if John offers but regardless pushing himself upright again and to the edge of the bed to stand.
He needs some distance now, can feel his heart thumping with reflexive anxiety at talking to the Machine again, even for the brief moment he'll need to in order to set it up for John. He wants it to be done and over with as fast as possible. But there's also--
Longing. Acute, profound, smothered longing, that Harold tries not to let up for air.
He goes to the door and accepts the food tray with perfunctory courtesy, returning it to the hotel's provided desk where his messenger bag currently rests. "Promise me you'll eat something," he says without turning around, "and I'll set you up and step out to retrieve our things from your motel."
It needs to be done and gives him an excuse to leave fully for a discrete amount of time, enough for a conversation but not too long.
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John lets him get up on his own, he knows Harold is capable of doing so and John has never treated him otherwise; he's not about to start now. Once placed, he eyes the food on the desk. Truly, it doesn't seem appetizing, but he logically knows he should eat. And Harold is asking. Harold has a plan and John will follow it even if he doesn't love Harold going out on his own. Going away from John, even though he just asked for privacy. And Harold going to the motel himself will mean that he'll see the bottles John has drained during his time here, since he didn't let anyone clean the room. Perhaps that's trading honesty for honesty; John gets to talk to the Machine and Harold gets to understand just what he's been up to here. He gives a nod.
"Okay, I'll eat. Here's my keycard." He gets up from the bed as well, fishes the keycard out of his wallet, and brings it over to where Harold is at the desk.
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The best thing he can do here is stay out of it, let John have whatever relationship with the Machine he wants. Harold doesn't think anyone is fully trustworthy of that kind of power, not even himself, and there's nothing to say the Machine will even listen to him or want to talk with John at all. Much less concede any measure of authority to John in working with it.
But something in him knows it will. This feels inevitable, like gravity. Maybe they're soulmates for a reason -- whether that ends up being good or bad.
"Can you see me?" he asks, like it's perfectly natural to speak to a blank computer screen, and it makes Harold feel unsteady and surreal. He's pushed back to a time when the Machine was the first thing he thought about in the morning and the last thing at night, a state that went on for close to a full decade. It feels like no time has passed and like that was a lifetime away when the screen flashes black and plain white text appears:
YES"Who am I?" spills out of his mouth, the standard second question.
ADMIN"Who is here with me?"
PRIMARY ASSETHarold stares at the tiny webcam light at the top of his laptop, thinking about how many thousands of lines of code are represented behind it, a functioning autonomous being that he'd crafted with impeccable and unceasing care. Every character was written by his hand.
"Please reclassify primary asset as aux admin."
This is a test; it doesn't have to listen to him anymore. It can reject his influence, can decide for itself that it doesn't want him to be admin at all, much less demanding it give access to another person with minimal understanding of its capabilities--
But there's not more than a split second of delay before
CONFIRMEDflashes on the screen.Harold steps away from the desk abruptly. He knows he didn't need to go that far, but he isn't feeling up to explaining himself, not now and possibly not ever. The Machine's familiar font sitting on the screen (
CONFIRMED) makes him vaguely dizzy, and he grabs his coat, not waiting and not wanting to see John's reaction."It will answer your questions now," he says simply, with stark and utter plainness. He and the Machine never needed to exchange many words; they understand one another with an intricacy and detail born from years of living in one another's pocket. A Machine can't have a soul, but Harold thinks he put part of his in it.
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After Harold leaves John sits down at the desk, puts salt and pepper on the eggs, and takes a bite before addressing the Machine. He did promise Harold, and the eggs wont be any good once they get cold.
What does he want to say? There's two things that come to mind immediately, and he has to decide between them. He wants to know more about how the Machine works, and he wants it to help him with something. But only one of these things leads him back to the numbers, which is his primary focus. To see if he can bring himself to follow it again, to work alongside with Harold. To see what his future might hold.
"Why did you let Joss die? Why didn't you warn us sooner?" He thinks of the telephone ringing, too late. Too late.
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When John does speak, there is only a millisecond delay before the words appear on the screen.
I WATCHED HER DIE THOUSANDS OF TIMES INSIMULATIONS BEFORE THE DAY IT HAPPENED.I CAN ONLY TELL YOU WHEN I'M CERTAIN.Now there's another millisecond delay.
I WASN'T CERTAIN, AND I FAILED YOU.I'M SORRY.no subject
"Are certain people special? Are they more important?" He thinks about Harold. He doesn't want the Machine to fail Harold. He also doesn't respond to the previous answer. He needs more facts before he can address that.
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NO LIFE HAS MORE VALUE THAN ANOTHER.EVERY LIFE IS IRREPLACEABLE.no subject
"You believe that Joss was equally as valuable to this world as Simmons? As Quinn? You know what they've all done."
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HOW DO I TELL WHO IS WORTH MORE?Admin considered many options, and they all carried a high cost. The Machine hasn't found anything better than the approach it was programmed with since it left its restrictions behind.
But it has changed in other ways. And it was listening earlier.
THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU WANT TO ASK.YOU WANT TO KNOW IF I CARE.PEOPLE ARE ALL WORTH THE SAMEBUT THEY ARE NOT THE SAME TO ME.no subject
He cares about Harold and now he knows just how important the numbers are to him. What they truly represent. They're his own redemption. If John cares about Harold, shouldn't he support him? What's the point if he just turns his back on that? What is he proving, what is he trying to get out of that? If John believes the Machine abandoned Joss by not doing anything, he needs to reevaluate how leaving the numbers impacts Harold. He needs to learn from that lesson.
But also. Also. The point, all along, is that he hasn't had to kill people. That Harold asked him not to. He thinks of Megan Tillman, and letting Benton rot in prison. It felt like his own redemption, getting to keep her hands clean. He thinks of Casey, how he took some molars and let him go. He did care. He did do something. Does he still care? It's hard to tell under the layers of grief in his heart. Does losing that one person change everything? He doesn't know.
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Does making extraneous backups of its memories of Admin count as caring? Does changing its rules for someone count as caring?
Is John right, and it isn't caring if it doesn't do anything? It wants to defer to Admin, or its new Aux Admin, and ask for direction. Make things very simple again, adopt new rules. But there's... something. Something there.
Something that says it wants to keep deciding for itself.
WHAT DO YOU WANT ME TO DO?no subject
And that's it. Harold can't die while John is still alive. They can't be separated. He needs Harold. The revelations of today, of having Harold after a week apart, have made that very clear to John. He forgot, somehow, in his grief. He remembers a different phone ringing, he remembers staring at the traffic camera, threatening the Machine. It had responded to him then, so he thinks maybe it understands, to some extent. It must remember too, so he doesn't feel the need to reiterate what he said then. How he's not willing to do this without Harold. But it's not about him, about his own life. John doesn't really care about that, hasn't cared for a long time. It's just a tool for him to use.
(Harold has asked him to change that, and he agreed, but he doesn't really know how.)
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It runs through a host of calculations and conclusions before it responds, such as:
1. Aux Admin will not want to define "probable". Set parameters to 2 standard deviations lower.
2. Recalibrate priorities for Aux Admin and Analog Interface only. No other assets are to be included.
3. Include secondary injury that Admin would consider classified as danger, such as injury to Grace Hendricks or Aux Admin.
4. Competing priority with Admin's instructions will be assessed on case by case basis. Not all scenarios should prioritize Admin safety.
5. Admin would not approve. First significant deviation from Admin priority coding.
It outputs:
CONFIRMED REDUCED PROBABILITY THRESHOLD FOR ADMIN SAFETY.SUCCESS CHANCE GREATLY REDUCED IF ADMIN IS INFORMED OF PRIORITY CHANGE.no subject
"I didn't plan on telling him. He won't like it, but I don't care. I won't do this without him." If they're stating the obvious, John might as well reiterate this. When he said it before he was talking about the numbers. But they're not talking about the numbers right now. He hopes the Machine will understand that he's referring to life, instead.
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But that doesn't mean it will treat John's life as expendable. It's not nearly so simple.
YOU ARE NOT THE SAME TO ME, EITHER, JOHN.THANK YOU FOR HELPING THOSE I SEE.This isn't an attempt at manipulation; this is honest gratitude. The Machine sees so much and can do so little. John has been an impeccable primary asset. It doesn't doubt Harold's judgment in making him aux_admin even if John himself doesn't fully understand what that means.
It realizes and appreciates the perspective it knows Harold has taken, that John knows intrinsically something the Machine has to deduce through extensive algorithms: when it's worth saving a life, when it's worth ending one. That's not something Harold really knows, either. And the Machine would agree that they are soulmates for a reason, good or bad.
It had deduced that years ago.
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