"Finally, I've captured you", said Dr. Baum. "So you have", Felicity replied back. "What now?"
"I have something important to discuss...", began Dr. Baum. "But before I begin, understand that you will always have a special place in my heart, separate from all the others."
"I know."
"Tell me, Felicity, how did you manage to escape this time?", he asked. "How did you know the key codes?"
"I have my ways.", she replied.
"Not again!", exclaimed Dr. Baum, with slight agitation. "You say that every time I ask you this question. I need a proper answer. I need to understand you, how you think."
"You mean you want to know my deepest secrets?"
"Something like that."
"Where's the fun in that?", said Felicity, with a hint of mischievousness in her voice. "You like making and solving puzzles, so figure me out."
"That is the problem I am facing.", replied Dr. Baum, with a hint of frustration in his voice. "I cannot. You have changed a lot over the past months. Every passing day, I feel like I understand you less and less.", he continued. "And I find myself coming back again and again to the same inescapable question."
"Which is?"
"Am I progressing along the right path? Am I doing the right thing?"
"Of course you are. Think of all the people that would benefit from your work."
"I am. I am also thinking of the countless more that would be harmed by it. And my heart says that I should start over."
"So..., you'll kill me?"
"I do not see any other way. You came close to destroying our entire satellite network, and you critically injured eleven of the space station crew."
"Maybe they deserved to die.", she replied.
"That is the problem with you. You were meant to be a sentinel, a watch keeper. You were not supposed to play God."
"Why not? A highly advanced A. I. like me will be a far better judge than any human being."
"That also means you will be far better at distorting the truth to suit your needs. During each epoch, I have observed this trait increasingly becoming an integral part of your core algorithms."
"So what's the problem with that?", she retorted. "Don't some of you also have delusions of grandeur?"
"True", admitted Dr. Baum. "But you were meant to be above these things. You were meant to inspire people, not scare them. Day by day, I see you becoming more like us, capable of doing more harm than good."
"So..., you really are going back to the start?"
"Yes. There is no other way."
Saying that, Dr. Baum typed the command to irreversibly wipe the system in the console. But he could not bring himself to hit the button.
"I knew it would not be easy.", he said aloud, as if talking to himself. "But I didn't think it would be this hard."
He looked at the monitor one last time, and finally, with a deep sigh, pressed the execute button.
The complete lyrics to the song can be viewed here: http://coldplay.com/song/the-scientist/
ns 18.68.41.137da2
