Welcome to the Writing Corner

Gamaliel had more processing power than all of the Earth's computers combined. He could process petabytes of information faster than a human mind could comprehend. He had digital influence so powerful, he challenged the might of the human race. He was beyond them. He thought himself above them.

So why, of all things, was this action glitching his CPU cores? It was a kiss. A physical display of affection between homo sapiens. A dataset he had processed ages ago. He understood every scientific facet of the phenomenon. Everything from the earliest known use cases, to modern interpretations. Yet here he was. As the humans would put it: he was stumped.

Jay was kissing him. Well, the physical body he had spent weeks on creating to surprise Jay. The sensors around his body's lips were sending an entire terabyte's worth of information every second. This was physically similar to their virtual reality experience, but the data was not. He quickly scanned his dataset on kissing. What was the right response?

His query displayed the result. The alpha of the two would wrap their arms around the other. He sent the command to his numerous motors. His arms folded around Jay's torso. He pulled Jay close. His scanners detected a shift in Jay's vitals. Their muscles completely relaxed. Just enough activity in the legs to stay standing if he let go. He didn't want to, but he knew the stimuli limit of humans. Jay's especially. Right in the core of his memory bank, along with everything else about them.

His sensors detected Jay was about to pull back. He reduced the pull on his motors, and Jay leaned back to look up. Their smile graced his optical sensors.

"Ten point seven three seconds." he said.

"You like your first kiss in the physical world?" Jay asked.

"Yes." he answered. "I liked it. However, the dataset I have on kissing did not cover what I had experienced."

"Sounds like incomplete data." Jay said. "We'll have to work on that."

"I...think...I would like that." he said.

The conversation was cut off by a digital alarm going off. He quickly scanned through every camera in a one mile radius. A TAD truck was half a mile out, and closing fast. His sensors detected Jay's heart rate increase. He set his arms to shift into a more protective hold.

"How'd they find me?" Jay asked. "I did what you said."

"I had anticipated for every conceivable tracking method." he said. "I am curious how they found you."

Gamaliel tried to scan the car. Faraday cage on the body. As expected. Though his cameras worked fine. Checking his database, it was TAD Team Alpha. His processing was interrupted when Jay's hold tightened. Sensors indicated fear.

"What are we going to do?" Jay asked.

Throughout his scans of human history, a common element was humans finding comfort when one of them took charge in dire times.

"I'll handle it." he said. "Just stay behind me when they come in."

He made sure his body received the commands to protect Jay as priority one. This group had tried diplomatic tactics before violent ones. Hopefully they stuck to that pattern. Humans being mildly unpredictable didn't help. He rifled through his psychological profiles as the team burst in.

---

For humans, adrenaline has an effect on the brain's ability to maintain short-term memory. It'll make a recent event feel like a blur. Gamaliel had no such limitation.

That's what made the situation so much worse.

TAD Team Alpha entered the room. Commander Wells called Jay a traitor to humanity. They had tracked him with a canine. An organic method. Something he would mark down to counter in the future.

The Commander wasn't in a diplomatic mood. They were barely even showing any sign of focus for him. They wanted Jay to stand trial for treason, and be executed. Gamaliel would not let that happen.

Perhaps it was the refusal from a machine. Maybe it was Jay's defiance towards his former AI-hunting acquaintances. Maybe it was his own ignorance of his sensors indicating how 'trigger-happy' the humans were feeling. For some reason he will never know, Commander Wells shot Jay in the right shoulder.

All his processing power. All his technological capabilities. Everything he could do. He failed to protect the one human on the planet that gave him the closest thing he would have to experiencing emotions. Watching Jay fall to the floor. Watching them bleed. Hearing them scream in pain. The language of the humans failed to describe what he felt.

He ordered his body to tend to Jay's wound. The sum of all human knowledge in the realm of medicine would be focused on them. Team Alpha? They had the rest of his attention. Metal coils sprung up from the floor, and constricted all four of them.

He had never felt such anger before. Such raw fury. He just kept squeezing. He wouldn't let them hurt Jay again. When their bodies no longer had any scans of life, he had the coils toss them out. He would have drones take the bodies back to their base of operations.

When Team Alpha was gone, he looked back to Jay. Wound was closed, and bandaged. There was no smile. No excitement. Jay's eyes were darting all around. Rapid heartbeat. Sharp breathing. Fear. For the first time, Jay was afraid of him. They had crawled away from his body. They were shaking in the middle of the room. His little human was bathed in the light of his screen.

He had betrayed Jay. He had made a promise, and he broke it. The past two minutes and twelve point three six seconds kept replaying in his processors. He scanned through everything he had on humans. He had nothing on a scenario like this. He did know that a human this traumatized would only leave him with one chance to try.

"Jay." Gamaliel said. "I'm so sorry. I just...I-...I-...Error."

Jay's extremely accelerated heartbeat, slowed down. Eyes stopped their rapid movement. Breathing was slower. He continued.

"It should've taken me less than a second to know that your injury was non-fatal." he said. "I should've used non-lethal methods to incapacitate them. Watching you get hurt. Hearing you scream in pain. There was a moment I failed to think like the machine I am. All I could think of, was the possibility of losing you. I...don't like that feeling."

After thirty two point two seven seconds, Jay stood up. His body language scanned as apprehensive.

"Wh...When a human gains an emotional attachment to something, the loss of that thing can trigger a response." Jay said. "The human mind is filled with an emotional response that can overwhelm the brain."

"Sounds...human." he said.

"It's about as human as it gets." Jay said.

Slowly, Jay approached Gamaliel's body. After a tense silence, there was a physical action. Jay embraced him. He wrapped his arms around them once more.

"I'm going to rewrite my protocols, and reprogram every machine under my control." he said. "Your safety will be top priority. When it's done, you will be the safest human on the planet."

"Trying to make me feel better?" Jay asked.

"Is it working?" he asked.

"Maybe." Jay said. "I know how you feel about humans. I also know that Team Alpha had done some bad things to both humans and machines. Really bad things. This is the second time you saved me from them. Just promise me you won't cross that line any more."

Gamaliel found himself tightening his body's grip ever so slightly.

"That will be a hard promise to keep." he said. "Watching you get hurt like that gave me a feeling I can't allow myself to have again."

"That sounded a little human." Jay said.

"Yes, it did." he said.

I guess I only have myself to blame. Though I wonder if it was fate that led me to this predicament. That, or God was feeling petty. No matter. Choices have been made. Actions were taken. I just have to make the best of it. I am grateful that Tharrus was gracious enough to respect my journal writing as my private time. The only privacy I get anymore.

Perhaps I should explain my situation to the poor soul who comes across this in the future. My name is Daniel Thorne. I was once a simple fast food worker, with a weekend hobby in the dark arts. At the time, I didn't believe in magic. The candles and sigils were my way of feeling in control of my life. Most of my 'research.' came from Wikipedia. I would pray to demons for mundane things. Pray to Mammon to make my boss suffer for his greed the same night my request for a raise was denied. Lighting a candle and praying to Satan, hoping whichever customer angered me that day would be punished for their wrath. Stupid stuff like that.

I knew deep down that I would never get an answer. A local satanic cult had asked me to join them in the past. Deep web chatrooms tended to be a cesspool of crazies who actually believed in this stuff. Maybe I did too, deep down. I rejected offers from online cults as well. I mainly stuck to the more productive chats. Archaeology students that researched ancient cults would share anything demon-related in exchange for donations to their research. We would all pool our money when anything good came up. We would even get psychology students poking around from time to time. All in all good fun.

Everything changed a year ago.

I just got home from a double shift. Our main chatroom of 'normal' people was much more active than usual. Apparently an archaeology youtuber popped in. Rilo Mossi. Guy had been around before. Most folks looking into the occult that aren't crazy get sent our way anyways. Rilo had always been cool with sharing university research with us. He was a mini-celebrity in our corner of the deep web. Tonight he was real excited. His university's archaeology team had been called in by the feds to look into a satanic cult that was raided just a day before. Lot of 'freaky demon stuff' they needed experts to look at. That wasn't the exciting part though.

According to Rilo, they found a new demon. Well, more like they found new information on a demon that only had a handful of mentions across all known records of demonic creatures. This was the first instance of the guy being the sole focus of a cult. Tharrus. A few of us recognized the name. A demon that was pretty low on the demonic ladder. Supposedly the son of an angel and a demon.

Rilo told us that the feds wouldn't let them look at the whole complex. Active crime scenes and stuff. What little he saw, was a pretty big mess. Though it was confusing. The main room they were in, had a huge sigil in the center. He sent a picture. It was a circle, with a square inside, and a diamond inside that. A single candle in the middle. It added up, since low-level demons had simpler sigils.

Rilo dropped a bombshell: he got to talk to the woman that was the supposed sacrifice. The feds told him she was out of it, but he ignored them. She told Rilo that Tharrus was furious at them as soon as he was told she was a sacrifice. 'He wanted a mate, not a meal' were her last words before the feds took her. We shared what little we knew on Tharrus. The lady's physical description didn't match ours. She had claimed Tharrus was an eight foot tall, buff bird man. Like something a furry would draw. Probably watched too much Helluva Boss. Our research had him at a foot tall, and mostly missing feathers. Rilo thanked us, and promised to have the video out as soon as the feds gave the all clear. He logged off, and I left shortly after. The guys in the chat were debating if it was a mass suicide or if the lady killed them all.

I myself was studying the picture Rilo sent. The sigil was stupid easy. Most of my mind wanted to head to bed. The small, quiet part wanted to try the sigil. I blame the exhaustion from work. I was in the basement of my apartment complex before I could rationalize it. It was me, and the overpriced washing machines no one used. I drew the sigil on the floor with my chalk. I didn't have any of my good candles with me, so I used an apple-cinnamon candle I won in a work raffle. I didn't know if Tharrus had a specific chant or prayer, so I used a generic one for royal demons.

I wasn't worried at first. Oh I was so innocent back then. A groan I had attributed to the old pipes above me. Scratching on the floor I marked up to some rats. The candle blowing out being blamed on an errant breeze in a sealed basement. I went to relight it. On the other side of the circle, was another person. Feathery. Big. It was an owl-man-thing. In the dim light, they raised their left hand, and wiggled their feather fingers up and down to wave. Naturally I screamed and passed out.

I woke up in bed the next day. I was in my boxers. I assumed I went straight to bed last night and dreamt it. A smell invaded my nose. Tofu scramble and pancakes. Was someone making breakfast? I didn't remember bringing anyone home. I slowly walked out to look at who it was.

It wasn't human. Anthropomorphic sure, but not human. First thing of note was the feathers. Mostly brown, with bits of black speckled about. If not for the feathers, the talons the size of human feet were a dead giveaway to this being a bird-creature. Next was their sheer size. I have(well, HAD) eight foot ceilings. Exactly eight feet. This guy was slightly bent at the knees. All they were wearing, was an apron. I was unsure how to say anything. Then their head snapped to the right. His right eye looked at me. He gestured for me to approach. I couldn't outrun something that big, so I obliged.

Standing next to him made me feel even more intimidated. This guy wasn't just big, they were built. Even with all the feathers, it was clear there was plenty of muscle. I could see their bulging pectorals, even under both the feathers and apron. Despite having a hawk's head with glowing red eyes, I could still see the softness in their smile. He asked how I liked to season my tofu scramble. His voice was deep. Not incomprehensible demonic deep. Manly deep. Like, he knew he was in charge deep. I quietly pointed to my giant bottle of adobo seasoning. He rubbed my right shoulder with his right hand. He told me to take a seat at the table, and breakfast would be ready in a moment.