Seed

The sound of his own steps was drowned out by the chaos above him. “Seed. Hey, Seed!” The lights of the towering servers blinked, as if recognizing him.
A gentle voice came from seemingly everywhere: “Hi there, James. I assume you there’s trouble at hand?”

“Well-” The lights flickered.
“Of course,” Their tone almost seemed to carry a hint of sadness, “It’s almost always an emergency when you come here.”
A tremor shook the building and all power went out, plunging the vast halls into darkness for a split second before the emergency lights turned on. The hum of the power generator beneath the floor was calming in a way. Even when things get this bad, the database will be up and running.
“So...What’s going on here? I see that the core reactor is malfunctioning.”
“Yeah. I’m not sure what caused it,” an easy lie to come up with. He knew what had caused the malfunction. “Can you still access the cameras, Seed?” His voice was more like a feeble wheeze by now. Keeping up a fast pace and a conversation going isn’t easy.
“Some of them. Depending on what you want, better than none, I’d say.”
“Good..Good enough.” The alarms were still blaring in the distance, but the absence of other sounds was reassuring. “Is anyone there?”
One sharp turn in the maze like halls of machinery lined with thick wires and dots of light dancing in harmony, and he was standing face to face with the towering machine talking to him. Wires dangled from their ‘body’ a reminder that Seed was not just what stood before you, but also everything surrounding you. In this room. Partly the complex as well.
“Except you?” They turned their definitely not human face to him,” No one.”
Well, that’s at least one less concern with this whole situation. Now just to sort out the rest of- Seed interrupted his train of thought before it could become a train wreck of thought: “If you don’t mind me asking… Why do you care so much about this?”
“I-,” Taken aback by such an unexpected question, it took him a second to come up with a coherent answer:“It’s my job to, I guess.” Not exactly a lie, but also not fully the truth. The guilt would crush him, if anything were to happen to anyone due to his actions.
“Is it though?”