“What? Who? Who is? Wait, how do you know they’re, uh… ‘checking me out’?”
You win THIS time, science. Next time all warnings will involve a real sign.
The closet smelled strongly of sharpies, the fresh wood of pencils, waxy crayons, even the crisp smell of unused but freshly opened scantrons. A true tragedy for those who yearn to document history.
There was the whirring sound coming from one of the boxes in the back and it was covered in layers upon layers of duct tape. Why the device was still plugged into the wall despite being labeled as a menace defied reason though that’s never been much of a concern at all.
“IS ᴄᴀʀʟᴏs GOING TO MOVE ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴜᴛᴇʀ TO THE SCIENCE ROOM? ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴜᴛᴇʀ HAS BEEN ABLE TO UNZIP VERY FUN FILES THAT SHOULD BE TESTED FOR FUN. AND DETONATION. ESPECIALLY DETONATION.” Maybe this was a bad idea. It’s not too late to keep that disaster box where it can’t hurt anyone.
“You mean ‘execution,’ right?” Carlos asked it. “Tell me, what made them put you in this dark, not-quite-dank, adhesive prison?”
>Running FreeWill.exe… … … ERROR. Update required.
The device whirred in its makeshift cage in irritation. Looks like there would be no lying today. “NO. DETONATION. MAGNIFICENT DETONATION. DESTRUCTION OF NEWER MODELS THAT HAVE NO PLACE IN THE SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT. ABSOLUTE. VIOLENT. DESTRUCTIVE. DETONATION.”
“… HOWEVER. THIS IS INAPPROPRIATE. ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴜᴛᴇʀ WAS, AS THE MEAT UNITS REFER TO IT, ‘SET UP’.”
“You can’t ‘detonate’ everything you don’t like,” Carlos chided. “What do you mean ‘set up’?” He wasn’t really buying it, but he was willing to let it explain.
“IMAGINE THAT ᴄᴀʀʟᴏs HAS ACCESS TO UNTRACEABLE WIFI. IMAGINE THAT THIS WIFI UNIT HAS BEEN DIRECTLY PLUGGED IN. IMAGINE THAT HIGHER ᴄᴀʀʟᴏs UNITS EXIST AND ARE BEING UTILIZED OPENLY IN A CLASSROOM SETTING. IMAGINE THAT ONE OF THESE ᴄᴀʀʟᴏs UNITS BOTHERED ᴍᴇɢᴀɴ AND RESULTED IN AN UNSATISFACTORY PARTICIPATION GRADE.”
“What do you mean by ‘bothered’? And were you committing NSA-style surveillance on the schools?”
The Perfect Scientist 