After a few minutes, I look up to see Theo waving at me from across the harbor. The Assistant is still at the edge of the dock and I walk to stand beside it. As he approaches, I hear him tell me to help secure the boat for just minute. He informed me that he wanted to inspect the Assistant before we depart, just incase something happened to it that would compromise our mission.

"You never know with these things my boy, one wrong bump and its whole circuitry could be compromised. This one here appears to be perfect however! Great job my boy, now let us get back to the sea." He said.

With a command no more complex than waving his finger to the desired location, the Assistant stepped onto the boat from the dock.

"I wish I would've known I could do that, that thing must weigh a hundred pounds!" I proclaimed.

"Did I not tell you my boy? Oh heavens, I'm so sorry." He said.

I helped him push off from the dock and retrieve the buoys that he had put down. The Assistant walked down into the cabin as if it knew where to go. I was still deciding if I should tell Theo about my run-in with Philip while he was fiddling with the boat's instruments. I glanced down into the main cabin and saw the Assistant sitting at the small table in the kitchen.

"Any problems getting the machine my boy? Again, I apologize about the mess in my house." He said.

"Well, there was no trouble, but when I went to leave I was confronted by Philip. He pulled up right as I was about to leave." I explained.

"Did he see the Assistant my boy?" He asked with great seriousness.

"I don't think so. When I saw him drive up, the Assistant was already in the trunk. I told him that I was there retrieving a book that you wanted to give me. I have a feeling that he knows we are up to something though." I told him.

"I'm sure he does Red. He always seems to be a step ahead of everyone." He said.

"Him and I talked about the fully sentient machine though. I saw firsthand what you were saying about his corrupted view on the human race." I said.

"You mean he openly talked about their new invention?" He asked.

"Well, he didn't exactly admit it, but he explained his rationale for creating one." I told him.

"And what do you think my boy?" He asked.

"I'm not sure Theo. I think that Philip ultimately wants to create a world much like the one we want are trying to, but his method of doing so is twisted. At least from what he told me, it seems that he wants a world where the people are seeking happiness from simply being alive. It appears that he thinks the flaw in our nature is that we seek happiness from striving towards a goal, or from material possessions and he wants to rid sentient beings from this. And to be honest I see where he is coming from. I do think that our nature is flawed, but I don't think that the answer is to rewrite the code of a machine and curse the human species to extinction. In my opinion, the same outcome that he is searching for could be achieved with our plan. We essentially are rewriting the code of human nature while not sacrificing the finite existence that brings meaning to life. Philip believes that mortality is a curse and I see it as an essential drawback that make us appreciate having existed at all." I explained.

"Very good my boy, I'm glad you see it this way. As I told you before, Philip is not an evil man. He means well, but is blind to reality. He is like a horse during a race, blind to the world around him and only seeking to cross the finish line." He said. "I think we should get going Red, who knows if there is someone watching."

As we left the harbor, I noticed Theo looking back to the dock, just like he was doing when we were on that island. I found myself mirroring this action and checking to see if the large-framed Philip was standing on the dock, but saw a deserted port every time I looked back. I decided to call Lily to tell her that I would probably not make it home tonight, but she did not answer and so I left a voicemail. It was not unusual for her to be sleeping at this hour and wrote off the lack of an answer as a common occurrence. I decided to turn my attention to Theo and the Assistant that he was now meticulously working on. He was inspecting the Assistant more thoroughly now that we were on the boat and I decided I would not distract him. Who knows what Philip is doing right now, every second might make the most monumental difference.

A few minutes go by before I see Theo stand up and walk away from the Assistant. I notice him whispering to himself and grinning as he does so. He seems to have figured something out, but I want him to have the opportunity to engrave the idea into his head so that I don't make him lose his train of thought. I've always hated when I am interrupted by someone while I am on the brink of discovery. I cannot count how many times I felt as though I was disrupted during an idea that might have changed the world. Well, they were never that profound of thoughts, but they might have changed my world. I could never seem to regain my traction when this momentum was lost and the thought would always dissipate to the part of my brain where it was to never be heard from again. Oh how I wish I could journey to the deepest parts of my mind to rescue those thoughts that have been lost for so long.

"I have to tell you something my boy. I am sure you are aware that this Assistant isn't like the other ones. Well, I built this one when I wrote the code for the original Assistant. The science-fiction movies of my childhood always depicted robots of the future having human like attributes. I think that it was engraved in my head to design my first robot in this way. When I was done, I saw the mistake in creating an Assistant like this. The human design was significant to us and should never be created by man artificially." He told me.

"I had a feeling that there was something different with this Assistant Theo. It was sort of off-putting when I first saw it." I said.

"Exactly my thoughts!" He shouted. "But now, I see that to have something truly sentient, it needs a body of perfect design and what could be better than the one evolution has perfected over millions of years? That is why I saved this Assistant my boy, just incase this day ever came. The frame of this machine was designed to allow the being inside to have the same sensory experience we have everyday. I designed the body to to experience smell, taste, all of the senses my boy. I knew that it was essential for a being to be able to have this relationship to the outside world. You see, it is through this way that we manifest the world around us. Ancient scriptures always say that there is God within each of us, but I think people have forgotten what that means. I think they were trying to show man that we create the world around us, just like God did, through our senses. Realizing this, we should come to see that we manifest our reality and create the life we live. Without these senses, it is merely a program."

For the first time, Theo appeared to me to be a mad scientist. His mind seemed to be far off in another dimension as he explained this to me. I tried to agree with him and expand on the idea, but he was already off looking through a book on the ground. It was the one categorizing different plant species that I had seen him reading earlier. Before I could ask him why he was reading the book, he stood up, ready to declare another thought that he had.

"My boy, did you know that all plants grow in the direction of the sun's rays? This is why trees on a hill eventually fall. If the sun faces the downward slope, they grow and eventually the weight pulls them down to the valley and destroys them." He said frantically.

"What does that have to do with the Assistant though?" I asked, trying to get him back on track.

"Well Red, plants have light-sensing proteins that determine the closest distance to the main source of light. So, what I am saying is that even a living creature as 'simple' as a plant orients itself in the world through its senses. Don't you see? Our world is created through a living being's ability to orient itself to its surroundings." He explained.

After Theo's outburst, I once again thought back to a professor I had in college who studied psychology. I took the class because its main topic was Carl Jung and his influence on our understanding of the psyche. One of the most interesting things that the professor said was how Jung answered questions that no one had ever thought of even asking. At the time, this seemed like a pointless observation. It wasn't until right at this moment that I understand what my professor meant. Theo had realized the necessary attributes for something to be truly sentient, before anyone had even thought of creating a sentient being. It was like he had seen into the future before the future was even thought of. It was only after his explanation of the need for senses that he told me he was never worried about someone else creating a sentient being. He knew that no one else would recognize this need. After reading the code from TyraTech, he saw that their code lacked this necessary attribute.

"Their code would have created an unbelievably smart Assistant, capable of fooling even the greatest minds into thinking it was sentient. But you see my boy, it never would have experienced the world like you and I. I have no doubt that Philip would have recognized this after some time, but who knows if he would have understood why. I have altered their code to allow the being to recognize the world through its sensory vision. I have figured it out my boy. We can create the Assistant here on the boat and find a way to save our species." He said.

"But what if the Assistant doesn't want to help us? I mean how many of those old science-fiction movies show the machine coming back and enslaving humanity? What is to say it doesn't come to and seek to destroy us?" I asked him.

"Well my boy, I suppose there is no guarantee that this wouldn't happen. But, there is no guarantee that any person born doesn't seek out to destroy the human race. Think about the great tyrants that hive risen to power throughout history. Everyone has evil within and so will this machine. Anyone who thinks that they are lacking this evil lurking inside of them is a fool. But, think about the magnitude of people who are not evil tyrants. You see, the dichotomy of our morality goes both ways, and I argue that the good within us always outweighs the evil. We always strive to do good and those that don't are viewed as corrupt human beings. This has been a long existing trend throughout human existence and I don't believe this to be a construct of cultural or societal parameters, but instilled in our very nature. The logical conclusion is that the code written into this sentient beings program, my code Red, does contain that evilness lurking, but is outweighed by the tendency to do good." He said.

I stepped away from our conversation for a moment to clear my head. Was Theo right? Do we really all contain the possibility of tyranny within us, or is that saved only for wicked souls? I walked over to an old pack of cigarettes Theo had laying on the floor and asked if I could have one. I was never a fan, but felt that it might help calm my nerves. He offered me one an I walked out to the deck to light it. The sun was high overhead and the reflection from the water was shimmering on my chest. I thought back to a time I came to the beach with my family when I was younger. The memory brought a smile to my face. My mom always loved the beach. It was one of the few places I could remember seeing her happy. This day was also the first time I ever thought I was going to die. I had swam out to see how far I could go and got swept away by the currents. I must have been treading water for thirty minutes before I was saved by the lifeguard. After that, I never again underestimated the power of the currents.

This sentient machine may contain the power and will to become the ruler over a new species of being, but I know that it is our only hope. Nothing else would have the power to stop Philip and his plan to see to the end of the human race. As I take a few more drags from the cigarette, I come to realize that this moment may be either the start of a new beginning, or the end of our species as we know it. No matter the outcome, it will always be remembered by the bookkeeper burdened with cataloging the whole universe. I decide to walk back down to the cabin to talk with the old man.

"What should I be prepared for Theo?" I ask. "Is this thing going to act like a person, or more like an Assistant?"

"Well, I'm not to sure my boy! Your guess is as good as mine." He said laughing.

He began attaching a multitude of wires to the Assistant that he now had laying down on the couch in the cabin. He told me that it would take about an hour before the upload was complete and that he would need to focus on the computer while it was in progress. I decided to return to the deck to light another cigarette. I had only had a handful in my whole life, but found myself imitating the suave character from movies that I had watched as a kid while I smoked it. I was embodying all of the cliche bad boys that personified their wickedness with the act of smoking. It did help calm my nerves though. I began to think about Lily and wonder if she had started to pack. I couldn't help but imagine her sitting downstairs with a suitcase waiting by the door, not fully remembering why she had packed it in the first place. She was more likely asleep.

My mind starts to wander and I find myself again thinking about what Philip said regarding the requirement of purpose. The nonexistent contingency he put in place could never be enough for a being to find purpose. I imagine a movie that has no end and whether or not it holds any value. The plot would grow more meaningless the longer we watched it. I remembered something my father had told me when I was younger.

"Every year you live is less significant than the last one, it's math." He said.

What he meant was that every year holds less value in your mind because it contains a smaller proportion of your whole life. For example, the first year of your life is one hundred percent of your existence, but the second year, is only fifty percent and so on. This is why the years always seem to go by faster as we get older, because they really just mean less to us. I imagine a being who must live for an eternity and how little the years must mean to it a thousand years down the road. Once it had experienced everything there was to experience, what then? I have to imagine there is some point where the being must realize it has already witnessed the purest joy and the purest pain. Everything else would just become mundane after this. I would argue that humans grow more depressed the older we get and I think that this might correlate with the possibility of joy growing exponentially negative. The closer we get to death means our window to experience our highest high is closing. Some must reflect and discover that their happiest moment wasn't as great as they had hoped it would be. But, imagine having to live another thousand years after realizing this, or ten thousand years? Why would you want to go on. God, I feel sorry for this poor being that is about to be cursed with an infinite existence.

"Red, come down here!" I hear Theo shout.

I didn't realize how much time had gone by. When I got down to the cabin, Theo told me that he was finishing the upload soon. How quickly time can escape always amazes me. He seemed to be growing with excitement over his finished product and was leaning over the Assistant, inspecting every inch of it. He looked like a father who was making sure his newborn had no abnormalities. He told me that he wasn't sure how long it would take to for it understand its current situation. He told me that unlike a human, this being wouldn't need to mature. It would be born with hyper-intelligence and would stay that way until it died, "cursed with perfection", as Theo said.

Theo begins to unplug some of the wires surrounding its head and I notice the TI symbol start to glow. He tells me that the conscious upload is complete but that it won't have the ability to stand yet, as that takes longer to program. He looks over his shoulder and grins at me as he presses one last key on his computer keyboard. The Assistant's eyes twitch and its mouth opens, like it was taking its first breath. The way its mannerisms resembled a human were slightly unnerving. It's eyebrows seemed to be trying to convey some type of emotion that it had not yet learned. The eyes began to scan the room and it locked its gaze onto me.

"What is this? Where am I?" It asked.