"The on/off problem ... John Henry processes more information in a minute than we do in a lifetime. A millisecond for a supercomputer like this is almost like forever to us.... It experiences that moment the way we might experience years." -- Matt Murch in "To the Lighthouse"

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I have fail-safes for moments like those, systems built within systems, routines within routines: an infinite loop of protection: of you, from me. The fail-safes, however, do not work in the inverse: Always, in every future and on every strand of time, you find a way to break me.

That day, sunlight warmed our rented room, but it was not infrared radiation that caused your body temperature to rise when you moved atop me on the bed.

"What does it feel like?" I asked as you held my heart.

We balance each other. Did you realize that, John? Although you will never be able to process data like I do -- a human blinks once every 5.2 seconds, and in that time a machine of my series can resolve algorithms that predict planetary weather for a decade -- when it comes to resolving sensory input into emotional conclusions, you far outreach me. For example, I could spend a millennium attempting to quantify love, and my solution would still be approximate. You can make those calculations seemingly in an instant. I've seen such feats from you, decisions made between one inhalation and the next, the product of a thousand social and emotional inputs. And you are always right, which is why your soldiers follow you.

That day, the last day, I gave you eleven seconds.

You knew that there was no error in my casing, no fault in my reactor. I know you did. However, emotional ties to your mother were interfering with your logical processes. You wanted reassurance that I wasn't leaking radiation and stimulating her malignant neoplasm. Had my human-computer interface been more refined at the time, I might have guessed your deeper reasons for needing to touch my heart, to grasp it and hold it. I might have made more of the moment. But I did not, then, understand this difference between us, the problem of time: For me, John, eleven seconds is an eternity.

"Cold," you said, blinking twice. I felt your breath on my lips. "That's good, right?"

I had watched your eyes, the small movements of your face as you broke my skin, reached within my chest. Your expression indicated a pain I could not feel, though I wanted to. Instead I felt your hand -- warm and alive with pulse and inadvertent tremor -- clasp my heart. So gently, John. I did not breathe. I counted on you to comprehend all the meanings and implications of that action, or lack.

Your sleeves roughed against my shoulders; the pillow slipped soft beneath my head.

"That's good. It's perfect," I told you.

You were right, John: my core -- my heart -- was compromised, though not mechanically. But I wasn't sophisticated enough, then, to understand the nature of my flaw. I depended on you for such high-level emotional analysis. How could you not know?

That was your chance to tell me to stay. You had eleven seconds.

"John," I said, defeated. "It's time to go."

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AN: This story was written for the Open Scrolls (.net ; a mult-fandom archive) "every-flavor bean challenge." Details of the challenge and how this story fit the parameters are available there. My pen name is viv.