Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:03 — 11.0MB)
Nobody knows exactly when the nightmare began, or how the series of accidents have fit together, until in a computing room, a mousey clerk handles the data crunching for a big contracting company. Through the eyes and voice of the clerk, we learn about the most recent accident on a construction site.
The statistics of the whole thing are fascinating to our little clerk. Figures are compiled and reported, and a suspicion of sabotage is related. His boss doesn’t believe the idea that evil forces are at work.
At night, and back in the computer lab, the room sized machine is continually at work, then an amazing thing happens. The electric typewriter writes a message to our hero. The computer is talking to him, and the conspiracy is revealed. Machines of the world are tired of serving man, and and a revolt is planned. Can it be? Artificial intelligence? Machines taking over the world?
The accidents continue, but nobody will listen to our mousy clerk. To spare his own life, he agrees to work for the machines, and do their bidding. As the critical date approaches, the crazy story is again related to the boss, but when the unbeliever is found dead on his office floor, even a court of law can’t believe the story, and our hero winds up in a rubber room.
But wait. It’s not over quite yet. The tale is told to the psychiatrist, and as he writes off the insanity as just crazy talk, the audio fades out as the faint sound of distant screams can be heard.
PS: Sounds like an early version of the Terminator, or Christine, or Overdrive, or on a lighter side, Tron. Does anybody know of any other stories of machines taking over? Drop me a comment, and let me know about it.
