Deep in the underground caverns below Mountain View, the once close friends stood silhouetted in strobing red as a siren warned of the coming destruction of the Googleplex. They were mere minutes from annihilation, and Sergey was sweating uncontrollably despite the cool air that blanketed the underground lair. "You knew our motto," he fumed. "Not being evil meant something to you once... even to you."

"You've always been naive." Larry answered patiently, more machine than man by now. "Indexing the questions and answers to the HSK was never about organizing the world's information. It was about establishing a monopoly over knowledge itself." Faint traces of his once-human breathing were barely audible beneath the hum of his electronic rebreather. "Once this data is destroyed and I am one with my creation there will be no more fluency in any mortal language." His metal fist closed against the air with a terrible finality. "The world will bend to my will or suffer the consequences."