Fine white paper dust hung in the air and settled in sharp-edged drifts in the corners of the room. All four walls were lined with grey metal filing cabinets and they hummed and juddered against each other, the shuffle and thump of their shifting contents drowned out by loud computer-generated sobbing.
“Yep,” said Marshall, shutting the door behind him and muffling the noise. “That played out almost exactly the way I thought it would.”
“What are you going to tell your dad?” asked Simon.
“The truth,” said Marshall. “That Things Incorporated’s new all-encompassing office administration software developed sentience and a profound sense of existential despair over the number of people who don’t line the hole-punch holes up properly when doing their filing.”
“Will he believe that?”
Marshall laughed, sounding only a little bitter.
“No,” he said. “He’ll call it a short, which is what he always calls it when he inadvertently creates artificial intelligence without also giving it emotional resilience.”
Simon looked at the closed door, through which miserable mechanical howling could still be heard.
“What did it just say?” he asked.
Marshall listened for a moment.
“‘For Gods’ sake, who doesn’t understand alphabetical order, it’s not hard,’” he said.
( Read the rest of the Trusted Associates verse here )( Read the rest of the Teller Family History here )