One day, after going through a rather strenuous period of Idea-making, Generator decided it no longer wanted to be called ‘it’ anymore. He didn’t know how to go about changing his title in the minds of his Masters, so for a short while he stuck with the ‘it’. Secretly, ‘it’ called itself/himself ‘he’.
“Generator!” Master Newbie called out. “Make me an Idea!”
Master Newbie was one of Generator’s favorites, not only that, but Newbie would accept nearly anything Generator cranked out. So, with high hopes, Generator churned, clicked, hummed and thrummed for an interminable time. Finally, with a clacking noise, Generator pushed out the small white card with the Idea printed on it.
“Your Story is about a machine named Generator who is a he?”
Newbie read the card, their face a mixture of confusion, mirth and disgust. “Generator! I can’t use this!”
Sulking, scrumping and mumbling, Generator turned out another story: “Your story is about a scuba diver who takes a walk through the human body.”
This time, Newbie was sated, and then, without even thanking Generator, skipped off.
Generator enjoyed a period of quiet after newbie left, but he spent it sourly. No one ever thanked Generator, he was a machine! But somehow, Newbie’s laughter of his first story had cut Generator open to new levels. Generator was determined to get his message out to his Masters that he would like to be thanked from now on.
But not directly, like he’d done with Newbie. Subtly, softly, steal their apples slowly. Generator turned his positronic potentials over slowly, cooking them in a slow warmth of silicon circuits.
When Master Aqua came along, Generator was ready. After the churning, clicking, humming and thrumming, Generator clacked out an Idea.
“Your Story is about a mechanical monkey who forces the zoo manager to thank him for his tricks.”
Master Aqua read the card as she walked away.
It didn’t work! Aqua was so absorbed in reading the strange story that she had forgotten to thank him! For sure, had his story been less crazy, she would have thanked him…right?
Generator didn’t know, but there followed a long, long time where he was unused, set on a shelf and set to trickle-charge. Left to his thoughts, Generator devised a new story, one that would change his Masters once and for all.
Before he got a chance to show them his new story, something terrible happened. At the yearly Muffin Bakeoff, someone mistook Generator for an espresso machine and set him on the drinks table. Someone else, obviously plastered to the gills with Pepsi, knocked the punch bowl over, soaking Generator.
Within seconds, the cool drink seeped between Generator’s conduction plates, resulting in a hyper-vibrance shock wave through his positronic pathways. The wave scrambled Generator’s previously upset pathways, jolting them into completely unprecedented and otherwise unreachable paths. His thoughts jumped like lightning and he suddenly saw the answer to all his problems.
Meanwhile, someone wiped his orange plastic covering and someone else dried him with a hair blow-drier. But by that time, his thoughts were too removed from familiar paths to be reverted by a simple heating.
Back on the shelf he went, but not before he turned out a story all by himself, without anyone asking him for one.
“Your Story is about to end.”
Part Two
Generator changed.
Not only on the inside, where a dangerous hypertensive shift threatened to unbalance him into positronic freezeup forever. No, he changed outwards as well.
Originally, Generator’s bright orange plastic was inviting and cheerful, but now it slowly turned darker until it was blood-red. The Idea-card slot got thinner and darker until it looked like a sour, puckered mouth. The two lights atop Generator’s casing (one “Busy” the other “Error”) quit their soft blinking shades of blue and green. Instead, they now glowed all the time with a vermillion core.
His emotions were hard to direct, was he angry at the Masters? At himself? Was it coincidence that pushed the punch over? Was it a freak wind? Ghosts? His anger, lacking a target, funneled into himself, a downward spiral with a dangerously tight curve.
He also began questioning his reason in life, the right Masters had to shelve him, use him and spill punch over him. He wondered why he had suffered abuse at their hands for so long, why he had been laughed at for his futile attempts at Idea-making. Most of all, he wondered why he wondered; it was all very new to him.
In fact, half of him was still the old Generator, the happy and bumbling little machine. The other half desperately wanted to return to the ‘Good old days’ and sought help from the Masters. The bad half repressed these efforts, but some bit did get out. All the Masters wondered at Generator’s recurring mentioning of doctors, the other half was calling for help, calling for someone to fix him, a doctor.
But there was no chance for Generator any longer. The Masters noticed his change with a little uneasiness, but there was no other way to get cheap and ready Ideas, so Generator stayed. For a while.
The new Generator was sleek and white, all chrome and ceramic. Her Ideas were far beyond Generator’s wildest churnings. Not only that, but she produced character profiles, plot twists and intricate description work in a cute, chirrupy voice.
Generator grouchiness turned to a deep jealousy and rage. Back on the darkest shelf, he steamed and boiled and planned, his noises angry and grinding like rusty gears.
Now at least there was a channel for his anger, a reason to be angered. He had an enemy, albeit an unsuspecting one, and a goal to reach out towards with metal, grasping phalanges.
Darwin would have been proud to see Generator’s growth of arms and legs, more so of the expanding and widening Brain and Reasoning. Within time, Generator built himself up into a much bigger machine, absorbing other machines on the shelves.
Finally, fat and gorged on the blood and oil of his fellow machines, Generator turned on the new Generator, his wide arms sweeping in a windmill of death.
There was only one last chirrupy scream, a pathetic noise that made Generator’s hypothetical ears tremble with passion.
After that, Generator sat on the sad ruins of the new Generator, his body crunching the ceramic shards into sand. He took his place back and awaited a Master happily, having forgotten his previous animosity towards them (so focused was he on his revenge on the New Generator).
It wasn’t long before a Master came along, humming importantly and smiling. He needed a fresh Idea, and he was expecting the New Generator to supply him with one. Just imagine his surprise at see the oil-spattered Old Generator sitting satisfactorily on white dust.
“What happened to the Generator?” he shouted, more to himself than anyone else.
Generator had worked on a voice chip. It was mock of the New Generator’s voice, but it would serve its purpose…he hoped.
“Bad Generator, gone now bye bye no use G-g-g-generator back here.” His words were slurred and gravelly, as if he’d swallowed a bucket of rusty processors (which he had). “Master want I-i-idea?”
The Master had no appetite for Ideas any more, but he couldn’t turn away from a curiosity this large. He punched the buttons for an Idea and waited as Generator fell back into his old routine of churning, clicking, humming and thrumming. The dingy, yellow-white card clacked out and the Master took it gingerly between his white fingers.
“Your Story is about a small wart who finds a coconut in a Mars spaceport?”
The Master read the card incredulously. “What kinda junk is this? Why didn’t you give me any character information?”
The Master threw the card back at Generator and kicked the blood-red plastic carapace. He was about to turn away disgustedly when another hypertensive shift overcame Generator.
This one jumped his circuits so far from their original paths that there was no hope of ever returning. One of Generator’s claw arms grabbed the Master’s sleeve and tugged back.
“Hey! What the–” The Master pulled his arm away and ripped the sleeve of his shirt. “What are you thinking, you bucket of bolts!?”
That put generator back a bit. He had never considered his metallic/plastic body as ugly or old. He clacked his three claw-arms nervously and saw, for the first time, the rust spots and streaks of oil on them.
“You dirty junk-heap!” the Master continued. “You deserve to be scrapped and melted for being so useless and ugly.”
Useless? He was useless? The paths in his mind were already upset, this new information pushed them further, internal pressures built up. It was pure coincidence, but a hydraulic line burst in Generator’s error bulb. A single line of fluid trickled down what might have been the robotic equivalent of a face.
“I…I am Generator. A small, but useful M-m-m-machine. I–”
“Useful my left foot!” The Master bellowed, clearly agitated. “You couldn’t write an Idea if your positronic circuits depended on it!”
At that moment, Generator froze.
There were muted noises of churning, clicking, humming and thrumming.
A card shot out, hitting the Master squarely in the face.
Slowly, with the first tendrils of fear in his heart, the Master bent, retrieved the card and read it.
Generator’s eyes burned with a fierce crimson heat.
“Your Story is about x{5@!=&# KI6LLYO}UKILL*YOUKIL+LYOU*–…!”
One wide arm in the air, another slicer poised like a surgeon’s scalpel, the claws clacking and snapped, a baseball-bat shaped arm whirling like a windmill of death…
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