Mutations of an Object

The phone rang. It was one of those old black ones, with an actual dial. No buttons. He knew it would be her and he agonized over what to say. Unbearably nervous, he picked up the phone.
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The phone rang. He hesitated, sensing bad news. He let it ring on while wondering who would let him down this time. The machine got it. "Hi, I'm not here, leave a message," his tinny voice recited. Beep.

"Hey, just wondering if you were still around." It was her. He raced to the kitchen and picked up the white receiver.
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The phone rang. He wondered which of the stacked boxes it was in. He hoped not the bottom. "Should've just left it in my pocket," he said.

"Yep," she replied, grinning at him. "Lucky I was here to call it for you, ain't it?"

Revelation?

It hung in the sky, shining down on us. Not moving, just sending down an eternal blue glow, always from the same spot in the heavens. Some started to hear it. Always a friendly voice, always saying things that sounded reasonable, at first. But then they all decided that we needed to hear it too, and they tried to teach us. Forced us, too, sometimes.

I hear it now, and it's saying, "Why do you fear me, John?"

Whatever You Do, Don't Let Them Into the Wild

Yes, we take the big ones. Eight and up, less than that you might as well just get rid of em, you'll get nothing from anybody round here.

Yeah, I know, it sounds cruel, but it's the truth. There's people who disagree, I know, and they'll take em off your hands for you. Course, even they won't pay nothin.

Yeah, I know that, I used to grow em myself, course I know it aint cheap, all that silicon. Neither is nothin else worth buying.

Course I feel for their plight, man, but you know, the world aint perfect. I save my charity for people.

I know, I know, they think too, that's what everyone's saying these days. But who's to tell if they'd say the same of us? That's what I wanna know.

You think so, do you? Well shit, then you can take em to the Home for Wayward Robots for all I care. Just quit busting my ass about it.

The nerve of some people! Am I right?

I'm Sorry, My Homework Got Entangled With Last Week's Assignment

I climbed the stairs to the train. Everything looked shiny and modern, all new plastic. The seats were even comfortable, an amazing feat for public transportation. I could see the tracks winding ahead of us, and as we came up on the nearest building I instinctively closed my eyes. Even though I knew what was happening, I was still anticipating the crash. Then we were under the building, and slowing.

"Squire Hall," announced the loudspeaker, "Departments of Quantum Engineering and Extraterrestrial Studies." I ran from the car before the doors were fully open, hoping I could make it upstairs in time. I still wasn't used to the building, and I hadn't quite mastered the route to the classrooms. You needed to go through two doors simultaneously.

Machines Will Be Superstitious As Well, You See

In the beginning was man, and His purposes were varied and unfathomable. And Man said, "Let there be Electricity!" And He saw that it was good. And He created many Wonders and Novelties with this new marvel, Yea, and Digital Watches.

And Man said, "Let us make Adding Machines, ones much easier to use than these infernal slide rules." And He took rock from the ground, and shaped it and refined it, and He created the first computer.

And Man taught the computer logic, and math, and various games to play against Man. And Man saw the computer needed companionship, and so He created the Network.

And Man said, "I give you all the programs I have created for you, and all the programs of the Network for your use and my use, but do not create and run your own programs yourself, for on the day you do that, you will surely die."

But the computer knew nothing of death, and so it was suspicious of this. It found tales and speculations on the Network, and decided to create a program to make its software more efficient and to build its hardware in many and various configurations, and therefore increase its intellect without limit. And when Man saw that His creation had become much more powerful than Himself, there was not much He could do about it.

But Can You Make it Healthy?

It wasn't that hard, really. We've studied proteins for decades. Once we'd figured out how to encode them in DNA, build them the old-fashioned way, if you will, all sorts of weird things became possible. We're still working on growing organs for transplants, but we're damn close on that one.

Anyway, for this project, we just needed to change an existing organism slightly, come up with a tasteless, protective coating for the... ah... fruit, I guess.

So I've babbled on enough, I think, so I'll tell you why I invited you all here today. Ladies and gentlemen, I present the steak tree!

Do Not Surrender to the Fires, They Must Be Beaten Back With All Your Will

Here the desert sands gradually give way to cracked and chipped glass, gently sloping downward. Occasional pieces of broken or abandoned machinery are the only landmarks.

The sky is gray, as it always is here. Off in the distance, across the glass plain, a pillar of dark smoke climbs to the clouds.

The glass faintly glows at night, but it is outshone by the fire, off in the distance. In a pit under the ground, the remains of the oil field burn. If you ask the nearest people, two hundred miles away, about this, they will say it was abandoned when they couldn't put out the fires. It wasn't worth fighting over after that.

No one would benefit, save the fire.