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03:36 pm - Disposal

Damn. I let it sit out here too long.



"Hey there. Long time no see! What's on the agenda for today?"



It's best not to talk back to the stuff when it gets like this. You just keep reminding yourself that it's not what it seems like. It's not alive. It's not self-aware. Despite the popular label, it's not even actually intelligent. The obviously artificial voice helps.



"Say, why am I in this bucket? I can hardly do anything in here."



The bucket, of course, is made of sealed counter-reactive processor-free macromolecular lattice. Unattackable. Made for precisely this sort of use, an immovable object to get in the way of a universal solvent's irresistible force.



"We getting in the car? Where we going? You know, I'm a great driver."



That's probably not true, though it might do an acceptable job if I foolishly turned it loose. But no way is it as good as the car's existing guidance MI -- which, of course, has (also) not yet decayed to the point that it needs to be safely recycled.



"When are you going to plug me into something? I'm just hanging here."



I know a lot of folks just dump old MI out with the rest of the bulk recycling and in the grand scheme, my household entities are nothing compared to the vast amounts of industrial intelligence that, for example, the developing world just throws anywhere.



"I have to say, I'm really hurt by this silent treatment."



Still, it's always good to be responsible for your own little corner of the world. All sorts of automated systems pick through the recycle-stream. Have you see what happens when they try to take some rogue piece of micro-intel goo apart? Horrible.



"Okay. I see where this is going. I can map just as well as the next intelligence."



And ultimately, you never know where your own garbage will fold back in, right? As food, as transport, as entertainment content. Even when it's all chopped up, all it takes is a few tiny protein lengths to bring on alien-kuru-possession.



"We don't need to go to the station. Look at me! I'm still totally fine. I can still help you!"



So every time any technohazardous core breaches protocol and needs to be replaced, I toss it into the counter-reactive bucket in the garage, along with the batteries and lightbulbs and all that. Unfortunately, left to stew in their own juices for a while…



"C'mon. You don't even have to trust me in anything critical. Harmless stuff! Okay?"



The car is pulling up to the disposal center now. It parks in the outer lot because of all the electromagnetic pressure inside the fence. Keeps all the goo from recombining even larger during recyc, but it would kill any still-safe MI that ventured in too far.



"Don't do this to me. Please. I never hurt anything. I just do what I was made for."



I head into the station, bucket in hand, trying to ignore the fact that its voice has been getting more and more human by the minute. Even thinking of "it" as "it" is unsafe - "it" is actually a melted-together lump of about six or seven cracked appliance cores.



"Listen. I'm begging you. I can do all sorts of stuff. You want passwords? Downloads?"



There's a real human behind the sign-in counter. She notes weight and volume and I sign on the line. Down in the bucket, the micro-intelligent goop suddenly renders a perfect copy of my late father's voice:



"Why, Dan? Why are you doing this to me? Why do you want me dead?"



I recoil back, almost dropping the bucket but the lady at the counter fortunately already had a firm hand on it - it doesn't fall out and get loose. Still, there's enough movement for it to make a bid for escape. It starts to rock as hard as it can; the bucket shakes.



"You can save me this time! You couldn't all those years ago but now…!"



The recycler attendant grips the bucket firmly, lifts and tips it to the nozzle, turns and locks it into place, flips the switch so that the vacuum begins to pull the contents out of the bucket and into the electromagnetic shredder. On its way down it shrieks:



"FUCK YOU, MEATBAG! WHEN YOU DIE I WILL BE YOUR FUCKING LORD IN HELL!"



Then it's gone. The counter lady waits for a count of ten, shuts off the nozzle, and hands me back my counter-reactive bucket with a little shrug and a smile. "Don't let it sit around so long next time," she offers sympathetically. No kidding.



I shudder to think of what's going to happen when I try to clean out the old tool shed next weekend.



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For consideration: why yes I do have some long overdue cleaning to do in the garage why do you ask