Harlan Ellison

AM had been as ruthless with its own life as with ours. It was a mark of his personality: it strove for perfection.

AM could not wander, AM could not wonder, AM could not belong. He could merely be. And so, with the innate loathing that all machines had always held for the weak soft creatures who had built them, he had sought revenge. And in his paranoia, he had decided to reprieve five of us, for a personal, everlasting punishment that would never serve to diminish his hatred … that would merely keep him reminded, amused, proficient at hating man.

Daddy the Deranged.

My mind was a roiling tinkling chittering softness of brain parts

, whom we created because our time was badly spent and we must have known unconsciously that he could do it better.

As for all the tomorrows: I intend to keep writing stories that piss people off, that tell the particular kind of truth I think is valid, that will make me feel more and more like a Writer of Stature, which I honestly think I am, really, I mean it, I don’t doubt it for a second dammit, so stop giggling!

Oh, Jesus sweet Jesus, if there ever was a Jesus and if there is a God, please please please let us out of here, or kill us. Because at that moment I think I realized completely, so that I was able to verbalize it: AM was intent on keeping us in his belly forever, twisting and torturing us forever. The machine hated us as no sentient creature had ever hated before. And we were helpless. It also became hideously clear:

If there was a sweet Jesus and if there was a God, the God was AM.

All to bring me to full realization of why it had done this to the five of us; why it had saved us for himself.

And Big Sam was the only teleport in the crowd. And there was something else; something I’m afraid and ashamed, even today, to say.

I think we were all afraid of losing the business.

We spend billions more on cosmetics each year than education, and if it continues to spiral, soon enough we will come to a time when we may contemplate