Welcome To Hellville - Part 16 contd By Rich Mills

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"This is a version 6.67 E-Linx terminal, containing the additional Student Identification feature, as favoured by eighty per cent of all educational authorities this semester. The terminal is fully voice activated Artificial Intelligence Unit, designed to learn the habits and information accessing strategies of its users. The terminal is able to pre-empt the decisions and requests of its users, such that it will retrieve not only requested information but also any relevant background information, and related items. The terminal..."

"STOP!" Alan felt a bit weird shouting at an intelli-link system sat in the middle of the foyer in the University Union building, but it had pushed the wrong buttons with him. He didn't quite know why but this thing really wound him up. If it had been anything more than artificial then he'd have probably mumbled its classification as a tosser without hesitation. Then he remembered that the tosser in the bar was as artificial as they come, so not being real didn't stop someone or something from being a tosser. In fact it appeared that one of the prerequisites of being a tosser was the artificiality of that particular tosser.

Anyway the terminal didn't have any limbs, and no sexual organs for that matter, so in actuality it couldn't really fulfil its role as a tosser. Whereas his friend in the bar was fully equipped to toss, and probably did regularly.

Not that Alan had seen sign of the existence of the guy's sexual organ, but he was sure it was festering away down there somewhere between his thighs. Anyway since Alan had had time to reappraise the guy in the bar, he'd come to the conclusion that the guy was more than a tosser, he was a bit of a knobhead as well. So he could always use the knob on his head to toss off with. Alan mimed the school yard abusive sign language action for knobhead, as he chuckled to himself silently.

"Community Net-News update, would you like to view the update?" Questions again, Alan replied just so the damn thing would stop asking questions. He had to get a grip and take control of the situation. It's only a machine, he thought to himself. How could he let a man-made machine get to him? Unless that is, the guy who invented the terminal was a tosser, surely some of his personality would rub off on the design concept and architecture of the system. That would explain a lot, as children take on the characteristics of their parents, so machines contain aspects of the characteristics of their human designers. The text rolled up the bottom of the screen.

Continued ....Part 17,

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