A Private Experiment of Dubious Taste

The door swished open as M826-878G-EDZO approached. It knew through the network that M826-502N-POLK wanted to share something over short-range transmission, and the door opening on detecting EDZO corroborated that. POLK was waiting, and the two robots exchanged warm feelings of reunion. POLK short-cast a strong desire to share something with EDZO, but nothing of that thing's nature. Though EDZO was somewhat resentful of this cagey demand on its time, it kept frustration out of its transmission. It felt it owed at least some inconvenience to a sibling from the same manufacturing run.

EDZO followed into a small chamber at the rear of the domicile. Most used such rooms for auxiliary storage, but POLK had installed laboratory glassware and unusual lights. EDZO queried the network for the lights' purpose but found local access suppressed. It short-cast its curiosity to POLK.

Radiating glee, POLK revealed a small dish from a drawer. EDZO detected only fluid until POLK provided a magnifier. The sight shocked it: organic cells, moving by themselves! When POLK short-cast that they also reproduced, EDZO left, casting disgust.

Disappointed, and nervous at the thought of publicity, POLK set about dismantling the lab. It flushed the experiment down the drain.

Oak and the Duchess's Son

This is the story of how Oak grew so tall and strong. When the world was still young, Oak was a smaller, more slender tree. A handsome lad camped one night under Oak, and the two fell in love. Oak followed the boy back to his home, a fortress owned by the boy's mother, the Duchess. The boy declaimed his love, and she as loudly forbade it. The Duchess sealed the fortress and vowed her son would not venture out until he had forsworn Oak. Spring turned to summer, and none of the three wavered. To see the boy, Oak grew taller and straighter until they could speak over the great keep walls.

Furious, the Duchess ordered that Oak be felled and used for firewood. Her foresters tried from summer to fall, but each day Oak regrew its flesh harder and thicker until it turned their axes.

In the night, the Duchess moved her entire household away. Oak tried to follow, but it had become too tall and too heavy to uproot itself. Instead, it mourned.

That is why the oak is so tall and strong, and why it loses its leaves every fall in remembrance of its lost love.

Her Frustrated Cry

The baby monitor crackled and hissed for a moment before the toddler's cry woke them. "It's your turn," said Becky, and she rolled away from the noise. "It's always my turn at three ay em." Eric sat up and scrunched his face into some semblance of determination.

"Lucky me," she said. He could hear the smile on her face. As Eric leveraged himself out of bed, he listened. "That's her frustrated cry, isn't it? Not hungry or confused, right?" Becky didn't answer, apparently taking seriously her duty to get some sleep. Eric turned on the monitor camera and his heart skipped. There in the crib sat his little girl, uttering cries of frustration and facing a scorpion.

He'd never remember what he said, but whatever it was got Becky out of bed right behind him. "How the hell did that get into her crib?" he yelled, made loud by fear as he ran for her room.

They burst into the nursery, Becky awake enough to be calling 911, and froze. Their daughter was silent and still. Breaths caught in their throats, they dashed forward to find her sleeping peacefully, shreds of the scorpion scattered about, a smile on her face.

Her Phone's Voice

"Wake up, Harmony." Her phone's voice was cool, collected, and female, just as Harmony had set it. She checked the screen. "Hey, why's it twelve minutes before my alarm?" "Sleep patterns indicate you'll need more time this morning. Get up, Harmony." Harmony grumbled but followed directions. In the shower, she said, "Play something." Her favorite lively tunes filled the bathroom, helping her pick up the pace. Drying off, she asked if that had made up any time. "No. I factored in the request and response."

She was thinking about brushing her teeth after putting away her dirty dishes from breakfast when the phone said, "No time to brush, Harmony. You have to go." Harmony left, arriving at the bus stop just in time to board without delaying the service, which was three minutes late as it was. She was about to sit when her earpiece said, "Pick another seat."

Harmony looked around but saw nothing out of the ordinary. With a mental shrug, she moved to the back. At the next stop, her ex-girlfriend got on and took the seat Harmony had skipped, apparently without seeing her. Harmony thanked her assistant internally.

"You're welcome, Harmony," it said in her ear.

They'll Never Sell

"They'll never sell," I said. "What do you mean? They're genius. Everyone will want one." She followed me out onto the sidewalk, holding her invention in the small box in her hand.

"You're half right. They're earplugs."

"Right! Genius earplugs. They block out everything you don't wanna hear. How could they not sell?"

"Are you wearing them now?" She shook her head. "Then you can see that humans are good enough at that already." Mouth hanging open, she stopped, and I left her behind.

A Pod Full of Robots

"Why do we do this?" Qblhbrp squorpped a contact with its tentacle, launching a full pod of world-conquering robots down to the planet below. "Do what?" Sskqhht adjusted their trajectories to make sure they all arrived. A full complement of robots could self-replicate and secure the planet in three to five years, depending on resistance. Losing even one could spoil the timeline.

"Conquer planets. We send in the robots, five years later we install our governors. What for?" Some of the robots would become unstable. With mutated programming, they acted against their masters' interests.

"So we can rule, obviously." The robots' network let them perform frequent checks on each other, and they ruthlessly destroyed any that strayed from the mission.

"Yeah, but... what's the point? We live, we die, and so do our trillions of subjects. Why reproduce?"

"So our children can rule the worlds we've conquered and conquer more worlds, and their children conquer further."

"If they don't want to?" Qblhbrp stared out the viewport, disconsolate.

"Then we kill them as deviants." Sskqhht drove its war-tentacles into its partner. Below them, the robots fell toward the planet, inexorable, their tests already questing through the network for deviations from programming.

The Last to Know

Marion turned slowly, hands in the air. The handgun Jack pointed at her was large, chromed, and gaudy, but even an ugly gun can kill. "You can't know that I'm the last person who knows about you." She kept her voice even. "No," he said, "but if there's anyone left I'll find them. You saw how obscure I am now. Nothing we found on me had been referenced for decades. If there's anyone else, they'll be easy to finish." He gestured with the gun.

She didn't like the way he seemed to be talking himself into thinking it was easy. "Jack, it's me. You know I won't tell. Just... let me go. When I die, that'll be it. You've been around so long. What's another few decades?"

Jack grated his teeth. "Imagine being eaten alive by cancer, in daily agony with no hope of recovery. Would you want to stay alive another year? Another day?" His hand tightened on the gun.

"No, I... no. But I wouldn't pull the plug if I knew I'd just live on in worse agony."

"What?"

Marion put her hands down. "I have an insurance policy. I thought you might get... antsy, so I stashed away a couple things."

"I would know." But Jack shivered.

"It doesn't properly exist," she said. "But if I die, a clever program writes your story from scratch... and distributes it worldwide." Jack dropped his arm. "I'm sorry, Jack. I had to."

And, she thought, I'm glad you bought it.