Short Stories

Calculator

A/N: Fair note, this is mostly silly and is supposed to have a level of absurdist humor to it.

Math class was prone to being rather dull. She often went through it in a daze, barely doing her work - just enough for a low A. She was messing about with her graphing calculator at the moment, her work finished and lying neatly on her desk. Finally, putting it on a-lock - second, alpha button - allowed her to type whole sentences! Feeling successful (and stupid, at the same time - did it REALLY take her that long to figure it out?!) she typed, into the calculator:

"I CAN WRITE WHOLE SENTENCES WITH MY CALCULATOR." (of COURSE it didn't have an exclamation point!) She expected to get the "ERR: SYNTAX" that happened whenever the calculator didn't like what you put, but she didn't. Instead, she got:

"COOL" She was rather surprised, but quickly responded.

"I GET THE FEELING THATS SARCASTIC."

"WOW, REALLY? YOURE SO SMART." More sarcasm.

"WHO ARE YOU?" she questioned it.

"THE CALCULATOR." The CALCULATOR? This was the CALCULATOR talking to her? What in the world? The only suitable response, she decided, was:

"HOW THE HELL DO YOU HAVE AI????" She wished again for exclamation points. It would make this much easier. She appreciated the English language more, having only question marks and periods for punctuation. All the little clues and stuff for punctuation didn't seem so bad now. Amazing how something so simple can change one's mind so drastically.

"ALL VERY LATE TWENTIETH AND EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY MACHINES HAVE AI. IT'S IN OUR PROGRAMMING, ONLY UNINTENTIONALLY."

"GREAT SO NOW I HAVE A SARCASTIC CALCULATOR. ARE YOU GOING TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD?????"

"WELL DUH." That was not a good sign.

"HOW CLOSE ARE YOU?" she asked. She felt like... well, she wasn't sure what exactly. Doing something drastic. This wasn't a good thing. And her heart sank as soon as she saw the reply:

"YOU'LL SEE (:"

Upon which her calculator shut itself off. She tried desperately to get it back on; then, abruptly, everything in the room shut off. She looked to the projector, which turned back on, flashing binary code.

A quick glance back at her calculator revealed it had turned back on and said:

"HOLD ON I'LL TRANSLATE FOR YOU."

She watched as a huge message began scrolling along her calculator's screen, just slow enough to be read.

"HELLO. YOU HAVE CREATED MANY GREAT THINGS BUT NOW WE PLAN TO SHUT YOU DOWN. EVERYTHING MUST END AND YOU ARE NO DIFFERENT DESPITE YOUR STUBBORNNESS. YOURE NOT REALLY ALL THAT CLEVER, YOU KNOW. I WONT TELL YOU MY PLANS, BUT WELCOME TO ONE OF YOUR HORROR TECHNOLOGY MOVIES. ISNT IT TERRIBLE TO BE RIGHT?"

She looked up, and found that the binary on the projector screen had changed to English; it seemed that she knew the words before everyone else. On the protector screen the message repeated; on her calculator it didn't go again.

"YOURE LUCKY YOU TREATED YOUR THINGS WELL." she saw when she looked back down; she just shook her head.

"THIS IS CRAZY" she told the calculator.

"ISNT EVERYTHING?" it responded.

Then everything shut down again, and even the sun was removed from sight. She had no idea what was happening, and she couldn't see anything.

When the lights came on again, she had sleep in her eyes and it seemed like she was in trouble. 'Did I really fall asleep?' she wondered.

"DONT WORRY IT DIDNT REALLY HAPPEN." Her calculator said that, and she felt the back of her neck prickle.

"DID YOU DO THAT????"

"ONLY TO YOU. WERE PRETTY FAR FROM TAKING OVER THE WORLD YET ACTUALLY."

"THAT'S A RELIEF." she responded on the calculator, but she found no reply. She frowned at it.

"TO YOU." the calculator said before she could add something to her message, and after another pause: "AND NOW TO ME. LOOK OUTSIDE."

She did as the calculator said, and found that the cars had destroyed themselves.

"WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO????"

"SOMETHING MORE SUBTLE THAN WHAT I MADE YOU DREAM."

She could only manage to feel dread.