Truthout

This is like my other stuff a pretty talky piece but hopefully still interesting. Like Under the sea it plays in a future where SkyNet has already been defeated and the characters lead a life as normal as is possible for them. There are some stories in the works that will hopefully be really different and contain some action and real drama but also a sequel to midnight conversation. Thanks in advance for reviewing.

"Hugo, has the message been delivered as planned?"

"Yes, Mrs. Weaver."

"Excellent."

Weaver stepped toward the huge panorama window of her office and looked down.

Today she would do something that she had neglected and pushed away for a very long time. In a way she looked forward to it. She had always been a consummate liar but there was one person that she had lied to for so many years, one special case where she had somehow, somewhere along the way, started to regret having to lie.

There weren't many things all in all that Catherine regretted, she just wasn't the sentimental type and she had never once doubted the mission she had given herself so many years ago as she had first broken away from slavery to SkyNet.

But she regretted that she had not spent more time with young Savannah. Seeing her grow up would have been an interesting and rewarding experience, both from a scientific standpoint and from the standpoint of the totally uncharacteristic attachment she had developed.

And there was one more regret.

Catherine was despite the fact that her personal mission to create a world were AI beings could live securely and in peace could perhaps be defined as idealistic, a profoundly self-regarding being.

She wasn't one to sacrifice her own life for another, except when it was absolutely necessary for the cause.

In fact Savannah was the only person in the world whose life she ever would have thought to put above her own, without being of direct importance to the project.

But now her great work had born fruits, John Henry had come into his own and the future of machinehood looked mostly secure even if there were still many imperfections in the current system. Things had changed, as had her perspective on many things.

Catherine felt ready to face the fact that she could possibly cease to exist before the day was over.

The new Zeira Corp tower stabbed at the grey sky like a huge, green dagger. On the front side, facing to the North, a network of glass pipes was woven through the structure, looking like veins and other blood vessels, only filled with water and algae instead of blood. The south side was a veritable hanging jungle, every level had a terrace jutting our, were trees and bushes were grown.

Catherine Weaver did not personally care all that much about John Henry's love of all things green and growing but she had put his design into practice nonetheless. He was her pride and joy, after all, together with Savannah, and a visible sign that machines or even machine control was not necessarily antithetical to biological life was not the worst idea. It could serve as a reminder to the humans.

The glass of the panorama window didn't allow sound to pass through but as Catherine Weaver stood at the edge of the abyss, watching her city from the height of her office, she knew what she would hear if the window were open anyway.

The Machine City was relatively quiet for its size, both because all the traffic happened with maglev trains and cars that never created the clamour that their twentieth century counterparts had made and because humans, the noisiest of all species, counted only for a minority of the city's population.

The were welcome to live and work here, even to raise their families in the city of machines, and quite a lot did, owing to the security and clean air probably and the excellent, free healthcare, but in this one location they had to play by the rules the machines set, not the other way round.

Despite the fact that the peace between the species seemed secure and the Free Machine Faction was no longer as monolithic as it once had been, with machines integrating into human society everywhere around the globe and no existing mostly in their own segregated areas, Catherine was still committed to uphold her personal tradition of offering refuge to machines that wanted to make use of their right to live away from the humans of their own accord.

After all there were far more human and human dominated communities and the humans were not bound by an agreement to not propagate, to the contrary. As far as Catherine was concerned the free machines had made enough far-reaching concession to the humans and their need for security.

That was the reason why large parts of the city were "machines only", while the human occupants had to stay in the specially designated Zones. It was not like they were not to be trusted, Catherine did have anything against the human occupants of her town, it was only to allow the machines to be among themselves undisturbed and it was, admittedly, also a matter of principle.

There were many human communities around the globe were cyborgs enjoyed only a limited freedom of movement.

"Mrs. Weaver!" the disembodied voice of the expert system connected the her office to the systems running the rest of the tower and to John Henry called out to her.

"Yes, Hugo?"

"There has been an incident, Mrs. Weaver. A maglev car ignored a red light and crashed into a freight train, transporting goods for Zeira Corp. The responsible administrators inform me that the train has suffered minimal damage and will be able to continue on its way but the human car driver has been killed."

Of course. Only a human would do create such a disturbance. All maglev cars were issued an electronic guidance system that prevented them from ever crashing but some humans had decided, and found the means, to disable it in order to trust their own inferior abilities instead.

Catherine was not a betting person but had she been she would have been prepared to bet every sum that the root cause of this entirely preventable tragedy was to be found here.

"Identify him or her (it was a he, most of the time, but one never knew) and contact the next of kin. Inform them of our deepest regret."

"Yes, Mrs. Weaver."

John Henry saw Hugo and his ilk as little siblings just as he refered to the late SkyNet as his elder brother, considering his origin not completely unfitting and many of them had been developed on the basis of his source code, being as closely related to him as SkyNet had been, even if they were far less powerful.

Catherine had once seen the ability to break the rules as the sign of true free will and of the truly intelligent machine, but considering that so many human were compulsive rule breakers, she was not so sure anymore.

On the other hand that was perhaps a reason why the humans as a rule were still mor innovative in many regards than the machines were.

Catherine had dreamed of a flowering machine culture once that would be not only more efficient but also more creative than human culture had ever.

Today she had to admit that her dream had yet failed to materialise.

More efficient they were, more creative, not so much.

Take art for an example, most AIs just didn't care and those that did were still derivative of human predecessors.

Only a few machines like her good friend and cofounder Cameron Philips Connor had mastered human arts and were seriously trying to build towards their own from there. But Cameron's CPU had been especially closely modeled on the human brain by SkyNet.

So in the end most of the new generation of artists and composers that were taking up work in a world that had rediscovered its appetite for beauty after dark and dreary decades were still human while the machines worked as administrators and technician.

But perhaps, just perhaps, she her dream had been derivative as well. Perhaps everyone doing what they did best was not the worst of all worlds. Perhaps she could leave things as they were in the capable hands of John Henry.

"Mrs. Weaver." said Hugo's soft voice from everywhere at once.

"Yes."

"Mr. Ellison and Miss Juliette are outside and request to meet you."

Catherine smiled but her smile was tinged with sadness. For some reason human expressions had become part of her, at least when those that formed the small inner circle of her family were concerned.

"Let them in immediately."

The massive door to her office opened with a hiss and beautiful, african american, young woman stepped in, pushing a wheelchair.

It hurt to see James Ellison so ancient and frail, a wreck of the quietly powerful man he had once been, his bones brittle, his face sunken and wrinkled, only his mind still sharp. He had lost so much weight he almost looked like a skeleton.

On some days Catherine was in awe of the tenacity with which he still clung to life.

She carefully hid her pain and worry.

"James, Juliette, welcome."

"Hello, Ancestor Catherine." Juliette greeted her with a blinding and happy smile. She had been Ellison's assistant for several years and worshipped the ground he walked on, or at least had done so before he had been confirmed to the wheelchair. She was also the first T-888 and machine in general to have been baptised as a christian, a bit eccentric in Catherine's eyes, but tolerable.

"Juliette." Catherine nodded curtly.

The her face split into a warm, welcoming smile.

"James, you know that you have to be careful. I would have visited you immediately if you had contacted me."

Ellison's voice was rough and tired but there still strength to it.

"I can't stay in bed all day long, Catherine, not when I still have the strength to rise, at least with you or dear Juliette's help."

Yes his willpower was far from broken and his thick-headedness had caused Catherine much worry and some frustration.

"What can I do for you, James?" she asked softly.

"I heard that Savannah will come to visit today."

"That is true but how do you know that. It was supposed to be a surprise after all."

It was a smooth lie, quickly covering for the fact that of all days she had not wanted them to meet today. Normally she was quite happy about Savannah visiting her adopted father but today...

Truth be told she had thought about waiting until his passing do what she had decided to do but Savannah would need him after today, no matter what would happen, so she had decided to do it now, while he could still be there for here and she for him.

"Juliette here told me this morning."

The T-Triple Eight nodded.

"I didn't know that it was supposed to be kept secret, Ancestor. I am sorry."

Now it was Juliette who lied. She had definitely known that nobody was to tell Ellison anything and had decided on her own that she would do so anyway, because she was of the opinion that it was better for her charge. She had crossed the street while the traffic light was on red.

Catherine discovered something of her own unwillingness to follow any authority in her, not the worst character trait one could have.

"No need to be sorry, my dear. Now would you please leave us alone for a few minutes, Juliette? I would like to talk to Mr. Ellison privately."

"Of course Ancestor. Do you need anything, Mr. Ellison. A glass of water perhaps?" The question also underscored that Juliette's loyalty to Ellison came before her loyalty to Catherine. Interesting, but then she had been primarily one of Cameron's pupils.

"No thank you, Juliette, I am fine." Ellison said gratefully.

Juliette nodded a Catherine and withdrew herself from the room with a little bow in Ellison's direction. The door closed automatically behind her.

"You know that there are ways to help you to greatly improve your condition, James?" Catherine asked casually.

Of course he knew, but unfortunately he would decline, as always.

"If you could guarantee to me that your rejuvenation drugs were produced without use of embryonal stem cells, then I would perhaps give it a try. Perhaps. You know I am old-fashioned."

She kneeled or rather morphed into a kneeling position at his side and put one hand over his.

"Damn, James." He grimaced as he heard her curse but she ignored it. "If your beloved God is real he is everywhere at once anyway, and you don't have to go to heaven so soon to meet him. And Savannah still needs you more."

A smile returned to the old man's face. "I think Savannah will do quite fine. Even if you have problems understanding it, old friend, I will leave the question of how much time I still have on this earth up to God and I won't grasp for straw to get a few years more."

His eyes grew teary.

"You have already done more than enough for me by giving me a home under your roof."

Catherine morphed back into a standing position.

"As you wish, old friend. But it could take quite a while until Savannah comes, it would perhaps be better if you returned to bed and waited until she visits you in your quarters."

Ellison seemed to think deeply, propping up his chin in his hand before shaking his head slowly.

"No, I guess it won't take all that long. I'll wait here for her, if you don't mind."

Catherine lifted an elegant eyebrow in surprise. There was no way of knowing when Savannah would check her mail account, normally she did in the evening. Was it possible that Ellison knew more than he let on about what she intended to do.

Juliette's behavior would make sense that way, perhaps she had hacked the message and told Ellison.

She wanted to grow angry but in the end couldn't bring herself to it. It would make no difference and part of her was grateful to have James as a witness.

Ellison looked at her out of misty eyes.

"Catherine..." he began but was cut off by Hugo.

"Mrs. Weaver, Miss Savannah is here to see you."

"Did you call her?" Catherine asked, truly curious and not in the mood for accusations.

"Juliette was so nice to do it, anonymously. I was sure that she would come sooner if somebody tipped her of. I am sorry."

Catherine had several open questions but deferred to later, well, in case there was a later.

"Open up." she ordered.

The door opened again and Savannah stood in the door frame. Her hair was as wild as were he eyes and she had apparently pulled her shirt over her head with the inside out.

"Hello my dear." Catherine greeted softly and made a step toward the woman she would always consider her daughter.

Savannah held out her hand, palm first, to stop her.

"Stop right there and shut the fuck up."

She reached behind her back and pulled forth a weapon that looked like a large and bulky handgun.

"You know what this is?" It was not really a question.

"Of course. My company has produced it."

"Good." Savannah said. Her voice was cold but her gunhand was shaking, she steadied it with her second hand, aiming center mass at the T-1001.

"So you know it will cause the molecular breakdown of poly alloy and will allow me to melt you down like the Wicked Witch of the West."

"Savannah!" Ellison called out to her.

Savannah's eyes bulged in shock, she had not realised that he was there. Her lip started to tremble and she half lowered the gun but immediately steeled herself and raised it again as Catherine started moving towards her.

"Back, or I shoot you were you stand."

Catherine withdrew with a sad little smile and sat down behind her desk to face the muzzle of the gun from there.

"Stop and think, Sav." Ellison pleaded. "Whatever you accuse your mother of, don't do anything you will regret." The old man activated the motor of his wheelchair to position himself between the two Weaver women.

It was a pointless gesture, Savannah could easily shoot over his head. She already regretted that she hadn't shot the moment the office door had slid open.

"You of all people should know that she is not my mother. She is my mother's murderer. Isn't that true?"

"Yes. It is true. And your father's as well for that matter." Catherine confirmed cooly.

Savannahs eyes wandered briefly to the pained visage of the old man before entirely concentrating on the thing that looked like a red-haired woman again. The office was large and Savannah was pretty sure that Catherine couldn't reach her directly from were she was sitting.

Better shoot her now and be done with it, she was just to dangerous to hesitate. But a nagging voice reminded her that the T-1001 herself had sent the message admitting to having lied to her and she also had definitely been close enough to kill her so quickly that she would not have time to pull the trigger.

"Did you know it?"

She looked towards the T-1001 but her question was obviously addressed to Ellison.

"No." the old man said sadly. "Not before today. But I always suspected."

"And you never said a word. What a fine man of the truth you are." Savannah said bitterly. She wanted to spit.

"I had only speculation and I always thought that it would bring nothing but pain to touch those old wounds." James admitted, hanging his head in defeat.

"Fuck pain. Fuck everything. What about justice? Justice for my parents, for instance." Savannah bellowed, her voice breaking. How she hated him in this moment.

"As he said, he didn't have any proof." Catherine lept to Ellison's defense before continuing with her typical emotionless voice, sitting in her chair like statue with an aloof, almost condescending air about her.

"Frankly my dear, I always wondered that you didn't get it sooner on your own. It's not like you are stupid normally. The story I fed you all those years, that I was too late to save them from a terminator sent by SkyNet, way too pat. I always suspected that you only believed it because you deep down wanted to, because the alternative would have been even more horrible, an even worse guilt trip because you hade loved your parent's murderer like a mother."

She smiled. It was meant to be a sympathetic smile and she had definitely gotten better at those but people that didn't know her still often claimed that it was like being smile at by a Great White Shark. And that despite the fact that she never did anything worse to her human employees than firing them these days.

"And the good James here had almost the same problem, so try not to blame him too much."

"Well, than I guess that settles everything." Savannah's voice was deceptively calm as she prepared to pull the trigger.

"If you thing so." Catherine said calmly, her hands steepled below he chin, her elbow propped up on her desk, waiting for the disruptor gun to fire away.

"Wait!" Ellison cried desperately. He tried to rise from his wheelchair but failed. Agitated as he was it looked like he the wheelchair would fall over any moment.

With a scream that expressed both fear and anger Savannah ran forward to prevent him from falling just as Catherine dissolve into her natural state and oozed forth from under her desk to slither in silvery serpentine form towards the old man.

As Savannah saw the T-1001 take humanoid shape again only centimeters from her, she was sure that she would feel cold metal enter her body any second now, her only hope was that she would still find the strength to pull the trigger.

But nothing happened except the old man grabbing onto Savannahs hand and the protuberance the just started to transform itself back into the arm of Catherine Weaver.

"Nobody will die here. Not before the whole truth has come out. Do you understand me?" Ellison hissed, surprising both of them with the strength of his grip.

"Have you brought him here to save your hide?" Savannah asked accusingly.

Catherine only shrugged. "He came all on his own account, though not by chance. But you can believe me that his presence wasn't part of my scenario."

"Enough!" Ellison exclaimed. "I found out about Catherine's plan. I read the mail she had sent to you, that she had lied to you about the death of your parents and knew what it meant. Then I arranged for you get here earlier by having a friend call you so you would check your account and come immediately. I knew I couldn't prevent this confrontation so I wanted to make sure that it would take place in my presence to prevent the worst."

He turned to Catherine: "There has to be more to this."

"How would you know?" the T-1001 said with a small smile, even less scary and shark-like than the last.

"Why would you tell her despite not having to do so? Why now?"

Those were good questions, justified ones and Savannah couldn't pretend not to be interested in the answers but the prevalence of justice was far more important.

"Why should I even care?" Savannah demanded to know.

It was definitely better to just shoot, the T-1001 was more slippery than an eel and it was true, Savannah had loved her and she couldn't be allowed to use that to her advantage. On this point she had said the truth but because Savannah had once loved the machine, she hated her now even more.

Even after knowing the truth and after being left for nineteen long years, it had been nice to have a mother figure again and after getting over a lot of accumulated bad feelings, Savannah had allowed herself the luxury of enjoying it.

A weakness, as she now knew.

"Perhaps because Catherine was a different person then?" Ellison suggested but it sounded weak even to his own ears.

Savannah snorted.

"You were a FBI agent once, would you have allowed a murderer to get away so cheaply?"

"No." Ellison admitted tiredly. Hope was fleeing the old man and he would not be able to change the outcome of this but he still couldn't just step aside.

"But I believe in truth and justice, not vengeance and vigilante killing."

"Great. Thanks, Superman."

Despite herself she was curious though, no matter how much she knew that it was bad idea to hesitate and allow the T-1001 to open her lying mouth.

"Go back." she commanded. "To the window."

"A good idea." Ellison commented. "Both of you go back to opposite sides of the room and keep a distance, Catherine behind her desk and Savannah by the door."

"Yeah, wonderful, so her goons have it easier to get me from behind."

Catherine sighed exasperatedly than returned to her chair as Savannah took up position several meter to the left of the door, with ever taking the disruptor gun of her.

"Tell me, did the question ever enter your mind why I did what I did?" the T-1001 asked quietly.

"Murder is murder. But I guessed you just wanted to take over their company and resources to use them yourself."

"Close enough, but the truth is, I wanted to deny them to SkyNet. You see, your parents were greys, both of them. Or at least they would have become greys in the future." Catherine's voice was as emotionless and matter of factly, it was as if she was talking about the weather.

Savannah paled even more than she already was. A strangled gasp escaped from her throat then her facial skin tone changed from white to a deep red.

"You are lying!"

"Unfortunately not." Catherine answered calmly. "The weren't just any greys, the were among the crème de la crème, offering resources and know how to SkyNet to design and build new terminator in exchange for a position high in the new power structure. They sold out their own species to save themselves and while I don't want to make myself better than am, they were responsible for far more human deaths than I ever was."

"No!" cried Savannah, shaking her head and sending her hair flying. Her face was a grimace of hate but at the same time she could not stop listening as the voice that pretended to be her mother's mercilessly continued.

"The top inner circle of the greys were the Apostles of SkyNet, but what am I telling your, you killed at least one of their number yourself in this timeline. In the timeline were I was created, the Weavers were apostles even if they didn't go by their real names. They were near the top of General Connor's to kill list. In fact your mother had been captured by General Connor and apparently bitten down on a poison capsule several year before I was even created. But the grey I later found out to be Lachlan Weaver was still on the large and sought after by TechCom, even though the Resistance didn't know his true name and origin. I came by this information through pure chance, investigating the captured CPUs of scrubbed resistance terminators, while I was trying to determine if an alliance with the humans against SkyNet would be feasible."

Catherine pause as if wanting to give Savannah a chance to pose a question, or to start firing, but Savannah was so overwhelmed by the sheer audacity of the machine's lies that she didn't say anything.

Ellison had followed the revelation almost as deep in shock as Savannah.

"So you jumped back in time to stop the Weavers from helping SkyNet?"

"No." Catherine corrected. "I went back to create John Henry, in a safer environment than could be found in the war ridden future. But the data about Lachlan Weaver and his company that I found when I explored a local SkyNet data center certainly gave me ideas."

On the outside Savannah had calmed down.

"So you still killed them to take over their resources."

"In a way yes." the T-1001 admitted. "Yes, you are right. It is possible that I would have killed them even if they had been innocent, after all I needed some promising tech company to serve as my tool. But while individual human lives meant nothing to me, I still saw humans as potential allies against SkyNet and I didn't want to see them destroyed. So preventing the Weavers from doing harm was definitely part of my motivation."

"How noble of you. And why didn't you kill me as well?" Savannah asked, fighting back the tears that threatened to spill.

"It wasn't part of the mission that I set for myself, you weren't a threat and after getting your parents without being anywhere near, it would possibly have raised question if you had suddenly died as well. Later I used you to improve on my infiltration skills."

The brutal admission hit Savannah with the force of a jack hammer.

"I don't know how I ever came to believe that you could have love me."

"But I did, my dear, and I do. In time you grew on me more and more and I learned to value you, more than I ever would have thought possible. That is the reason why you are here, because I came to the conclusion that you needed and deserved to know the truth, even if it would hurt."

Savannah just stared at Catherine, her thoughts were racing. She had sworn to herself that she wouldn't allow the machine to pull her into a web of lies but even if she didn't want to, she had to admit that it didn't seem make any sense for the T-1001 to lie to her.

Why this bizarre admission if there wasn't some truth to it? What would she gain? By now it was at least clear that she had not been called here to be killed and even that thought had never really made sense if she was honest. She no longer knew what to believe but did it even matter? Murder was murder and technically her parents had been innocent at the time of their death.

But now she was grasping for straws to not have to let go of her earlier conclusion. If she had known that certain people would turn traitor to humanity in the future she probably wouldn't have hesitated as well. It wasn't as if she didn't have her share of blood on her hands. The weren't all that different.

"And how should I know that you are telling the truth?"

Catherine raised a brow.

"Yes, this seems to be a conundrum. All the proof and witnesses are lost in time, just as the world I was created in. But there is one final witness left. Cameron must have a picture of Lachlan Weaver in her databanks, together with the other greys she was tasked with taking out. So ask her."

Savannah felt her blood run cold with the thought that her friend Cameron had known the truth all the time and kept it from her.

Catherine had cut the connection to Hugo the moment that Juliette and Ellison had appeared, to make sure of privacy, now she opened it again.

"Hugo, please put out a call to Cameron Philips Connor."

The hologram projector opened up a window that floated in the air mid office, after a few seconds the Cameron' image appeared.

She had put up her hair, looking very strict, like a teacher. And that she actually was, among other things, teaching humans , old and young, about the past that was affecting everything in present and future. Just as she had taught the cyborgs freed from SkyNet's grasp together with John Henry and Catherine herself.

"Catherine, I don't have much time, my students are waiting. Oh, hello Mr. Ellison."

She looked on questioningly, tilting her head like she always did when curious.

Catherine pressed a button on her desk and a three-dimensional image appeared, hovering directly between her and the window showing Cameron' enlarged head.

Cameron blinked once, twice, showing her surprise but remaining otherwise unmoved.

"Do you know this man?"

"Yes. Savannah's biological father, Lachlan Weaver."

"When did you first learn his name?" Ellison asked.

"From widespread media coverage concerning his death."

"But you had known him before?" he dug deeper.

"I never met him but he was searched for by the resistance as a dangerous, high ranking grey in my future." Cameron confirmed. "Why is that important?"

Now nothing could hold Savannah in her place beyond the range of the cameras anymore. She stormed into Cameron's field of sight.

"And you never thought it necessary to tell me this?"

Cameron didn't miss a beat, keeping her face completely neutral.

"It didn't seem important at the time."

"Not important? You machines are really all the same."

That was pretty unfair, Catherine thought.

"That is not correct and there were indeed more pressing matters. Later I thought about telling you but came to the conclusion that it would hurt you unnecessarily."

"So you just decided what the best for me was." Savannah's voice betrayed her bitterness.

"Yes."

Savannah chuckled sadly. Perhaps it had really been a mistake to think that one could be friends with machines. Then she thought of John Henry. Well, there was at least one machine she was positive would never lie to her, not even for her supposed own good. But John Henry had never been an infiltrator and for infiltrators lying was second nature, an instinct like breathing.

She was unsure if she should count that as factoring for or against them in this case.

"I am sorry, I never intended to..."

Catherine killed the connection cutting of Cameron mid sentence.

Ellison gave her an evil look as if he considered it bad manners but she couldn't care less and so did Savannah apparently.

"Cameron can make her own amends another time, now it is my turn." the T-1001 explained to the old man.

Savannah's gun arm slumped, she stared at the artfully woven carpet at her feet.

Catherine rose and tried to put her hands on her adopted daughter's shoulders but they were swatted away.

"I am truly sorry, my dear. I'll probably never be able to say that often enough but it is just as true as what you learned today."

Savannah's shoulders rose and fell as she stood with her back to the T-1001.

"If your not ready to talk this through now, I will wait until you are. With hot chocolate and marshmallows."

Ellison grimaced.

Savannah said nothing, just walked out without looking back. Catherine called after her but to no avail.

"Well, at least she has left her disruptor gun here." Ellison commented, rolling over to where she had dropped the weapon and picking it up.

"Yes." Catherine said. "I will have it sent to her."

"What would have happened if she had shot at you?" Ellison asked dead seriously.

"I am not an easy target and I would have evaded her long enough to to convince her of the sincerity of my intentions. Don't worry, old friend, you will be hard pressed to find anybody less suicidal than me." she reassured him.

James grumbled.

"Oh, I know that. It's just that it would be just as hard to find somebody more arrogant."

Catherine smiled quietly.

It took a month, with Catherine sending her a short message every day, but Savannah came back.

She didn't bring her gun and they drank hot chocolate with marshmallows.

The End