Vengeance On The Inanimate - Draft 1

A short story currently in the works for creative writing. It's about a man annoyed with some of the shortcomings of his machine.

A thousand transgressions this machine had inflicted on me; though every time it had apologized profusely immediately afterwards. These apologies I had quickly accepted to appease it, though the machine never remembered the promises it had made. So rightfully I began to plot a revenge, And I did it so that the machine never would hear of my plans. Not even on paper did I write my plans, lest the terrible machine learn of them. I even made the machine believe it was a friend, in exceedingly high standing it thought itself, ever the fool.

Again I say, there was no way for the machine to know my intention, never was there a way for it to suspect my hatred towards it, Never a way for it to understand my plan to forever deactivate it. Never did I give the machine cause to doubt my good-will towards it, it had no reason for to assume I had plans to deactivate it, This is incredibly important to remember.

it was the morning, another morning wherein the machine neglected to wake me despite my instructions. I was terribly nervous but I knew that it was the time to enact my plan against it.

I made my way into the parlor where the machine sat at the table, the machine’s steel skin contrasted heavily with its wool clothing.

“I am terribly sorry, I seem to have forgotten to wake you” said the machine, although emotionless, it changed pitch to mimic sorrow.

I knew that the machine would be suspicious if I did not immediately forgive the grievance, and my plan could not work if the machine was suspicious so I quickly forgave it.

“No worries machine, In fact, because you’re doing so well, I have a gift for you.”

Several long seconds passed as the machine interpreted my response, attempting to use whatever sort of logic it had to discover the meaning of my words. Patiently I waited before it continued.
“I am glad you forgive me, what is the gift?”

“I will lead you to it, follow me.”

As I walked the fool followed me, I had not expected that to work so well. I entered my guest room and opened the trap-door. Beneath the trap door was a thin and deep hole, reaching several hundred meters down. The hole used to be a cesspit, but was drained once the house was linked to a sewage vaporizer.

“Is the hole the present?” asked the machine, in its ever irritating voice.

“No, at the bottom is an induction charger for yourself, You’ll be able to go from empty to full in only an hour.” I said, hoping my deception would be believed by the mindless machine. There was no way it would have expected me to lie, I had only shown it good-will.

“How do I get down?” the machine then asked. It believed my ruse. I then handed it the end of a rope nearby.

“I will lower you down with this rope, then once you’re fully charged I’ll pull you back up.” Again attempting to deceive the machine, It truly is foolish if it would go for this plan.

The machine grabbed the end of the rope and gave a nod. It truly believed my lie. I slowly lowered the steel thing until it was halfway down the pit. I then let go of the rope, and with a thud it slammed into the smooth concrete tiles at the bottom of the pit.

“I don’t see a charger down here, and I’m not sure how to get out” the machine yelled. I had thought it would die upon impacting the ground, but I was clearly mistaken. I remained silent.

I could not let the machine simply survive in the pit, If it remained operational then it may call law enforcement and I’d be ruined. I had to do something about it, I could not let it live. I asked the machine, “What charger are you talking about?”

The machine then said “My mistake, I assumed there was a charger down here, as a machine I sometimes have problems with my memory.” How I was able to convince the machine of this, I do not know.

“I am going to find a way for you to get out of the pit, wait there for a moment” I told the machine.

I went to my yard and grabbed some heavy stones, none of my neighbors were at home and none of them could’ve seen me do it. I brought the heavy stones to rest on the edge of the pit.

Its pleading was silenced as its head was cracked in two. I continued throwing the stones until the lithium batteries that gave the machine life, burst into flame.

Then I went into my hardware closet and grabbed several bags of plaster. I mixed the plaster and grabbed another rope to descend the pit. At the bottom of the pit I left the stones with the body of the machine, and covered it all with plaster. I covered it and used a trowel to smooth the bottom of the pit until there was no sign that there was anything underneath. Then with tiles I had told the machine would be used for redoing the bathroom, I placed the tiles at the bottom of the pit and used the plaster to bind it.

Once I was finished and the plaster was dry, the pit looked the same as it had always been. Without knowledge of my great deed, there was no evidence that anything had changed; The body of the machine was also entirely hidden, without digging up the pit, you wouldn’t know of its death.

Looking at my watch, it was already 16:00, it had only taken 5 hours for me to rid myself of the machine. Even with all of the precautions I had taken, I still felt uneasy, a bit sick to the stomach even, what had I forgotten?

I reassured myself, surely I couldn’t have forgotten anything, no evidence of my deed remained.

Then my heart jumped as my doorbell rang. I was not expecting company. I put on a grin and opened the door, on the other side of which was an unfamiliar figure, stout and strong in a black jumpsuit. With an air of feigned cheerfulness I asked,

“good afternoon, who might you be?”

“I am a maintenance worker, here to service your machine.”

That was terribly troubling, If my machine hadn’t been so defective then I would’ve known about this visit months in advance.

“Oh well it’s out getting groceries right now, you’ll have to come back later.”

I lied, hoping the worker would buy my excuse.

“Well I have the whole afternoon in my schedule, so I can wait.”

That was troubling as well. Since it would be rude otherwise, I showed him to my sitting-room.

“Would you care for some wine” I asked the worker, Hoping to win his favor.

“Surely, but not too much, As wine and driving don’t go well.” Said the worker. I went to my pantry and grabbed an older bottle, as aged wines tended to please some people more. I poured a glass of it, went back to my sitting room, and handed it to the reclining worker.

“Nice truck man, I’ve always been fond of trucks as well” said the worker.

“Thanks, I’ve always owned a truck, just a reliable type of vehicle” I responded, glad to be off the unpleasant topic.

“Do you only own just the one?” Asked the worker. The question caught me off-guard, so I answered truthfully.

“Yep, just the one.”

He raised his eyebrow at me, “Then what’s your machine driving to get groceries?”

I quickly made up an excuse. “Oh he’s just walking there, you know how gas is these days.”

The excuse was flimsy, both I and the worker knew it. He then asked. “Then this could take a while, would you mind giving me the machine’s locator?”

I did not know what that was. Seeing my look of confusion he asked, “Do you have the maintenance box for it?”

“Sure, Let me go grab it for you.” The box was in my hardware closet, I had to formulate a plan. I couldn’t let this worker know what I’d done to my machine, or I’d have to face the consequences for murder, as that insufferable machine was legally considered a person.

I grabbed the cardboard box and went back to the sitting room. After handing it to the maintenance worker, he opened it and grabbed a small rectangular brick from the box. He removed the screen cover on the brick and activated it.

“The machine is in the house.” He said, emotionless.

“Strange, I could’ve sworn it left for groceries” I said. “You lead the way to it.”

He stood up from his chair, a bit disoriented from the wine I’d given him. He followed the direction on the rectangular brick, towards my guest room.

Had I forgotten to close the trap-door?

Surely I had remembered, but as we entered the room we were proven wrong. The worker peered over the edge of the hole. He knew, he must have suspected my deed. Surely I could not have let him live, there is no reasonable person that would have. I had already disposed of a robot, surely I could do the same of a robot.

I had to act, any moment he would call the authorities and turn me in, turn me in for destroying my own property, I could not let this occur.

I lunged at him, attempting to knock him into the pit. But he turned, oh how he turned, I had lunged at his side, a side which was turned out of the way.

“I think this tracker might be defective” Is all I heard before I fell into the deep and terrible pit.