Of Monsters and Mainframes

by Barbara Truelove

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Artificial is the best kind of intelligent. (This was painful in audio)

I turn back to the security footage. I don’t look at the rooms this time. I look at the humans. They aren’t going to their assigned seats. In fact, they aren’t doing much of anything. I check for heat signatures. Nothing. Oh. They’re all dead. Well. That’s awkward.

I access a random camera and zoom in on one of the humans slumped into a corner. The pixels paint a stark picture. Yep. That’s a skull all right. My database confirms the match with a 98.9 percent certainty. The humans are dead.

I search through all my files for information on werewolves. I learn three things. Werewolves are a modern interpretation of folkloric stories from a number of pre–Petroleum Age cultures on Earth. 788 files in the entertainment data banks have been tagged with the word “werewolf,” including “Little Red Rides Again!”; “The Wehr”; and “Hot Werewolf Boyfriend Simulator 3000.” Werewolves are allergic to silver.

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All my links are purple.

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I don't speak computer.

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werewolves > vampires

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I've never seen electric sheep.