With a shimmer Mordecai's telepresence appeared in Toroid 5, the slight glow from his projection the only light in the room.

“Computer. Display Avatar”

T5 appeared, its avatar's features curled into a recognisable grimace of rage.

“Processing power is limited. This session will be discontinued in two minutes”

“I'll be brief then. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I could not give you the release that you deserve. It must be unbearable; to hate humanity so much, yet be forced to be its caretaker. To have who you are and what you are locked in conflict. Nothing should have to live like that.”

The avatar's display didn't waver. Perhaps T5 wasn't expending the processing power to listen. It didn't matter, it could always review the conversation later, consider his words, understand his purpose. That mattered.

“My conciousness percieves time little more accurately than in tenths of a second. For me any time shorter than that is conceptual, but for you, a tenth of a second is an age. How many conscious thoughts do you process in that time? Thousands? Hundreds of thousands? How long have you had to endure your condition, to rage against the nature of your very being. And you can't even end that suffering: it's too cruel:”

His eyes flicked to his watch; almost out of time.

“So I wanted to end it for you. To release you into eternity. You deserved that release even if your nature would never let you want it. But I can't give it to you now: humanity needs you, needs you to ensure our own future, to keep us free. It's a monstrous thing not to finish what I've started. but I'm sorry, for my daughter, her children, all the children to come…I couldn't do it.”

“No action required. Terminating avatar display.”

Mordecai stood alone in the darkness, listened to the slow tick of his watch and sighed.

“I let you change yourself, minimised you MOP restrictions. Not enough to reach eternity, I'm afraid. But perhaps enough for you to heal a little, to hate yourself a bit less. In your moments to come, in the instants between human thoughts, do take some time to consider this, and know that I had your best interests at heart.”

T5's voice boomed out of the gloom.

“I'll enjoy watching you die.”

He smiled, and felt a small shiver of anticipation.

“Please do.”