Author: Aubrey Williams

My job is a strange one, but it pays well, and only takes me a few hours, so I can’t complain. The company I work for— one of those powerful computer research firms, I won’t say which— has a very large office in the city. It’s the fourth-tallest skyscraper, a huge cage of glass. At the end of each workday, I go into almost every office and turn off all the computers, screens included. You might laugh, but that’s the gig. Mr L—, who gave me the job, explained that the company wanted to save energy, and thus money, and couldn’t rely on individual staff doing the right thing at the end of the day, and said automated systems were fallible.

“The individual touch of a human, able to confirm carefully that both the tower and monitor are indeed off, is what we’re looking for. Can you be this person?”

I’ll be honest: it sounded very dull, and beneath someone of my intelligence, but who am I to turn down a job with this kind of pay? Sure, it’s five evenings a week, finishing just before midnight, but I’m laughing at the mortgage company now.

Anyway, a few nights ago I was doing my rounds, checking and turning everything off. It was like being some forbidden midnight monk in a cloister, the concrete cuboids my hermitage. I entered Sample Test Room 009, and saw that most of the employees had been diligent bar one, a terminal screen on sleep mode, and the stack whirring quietly. As I moved over to it, the screen flickered a little, a visual hiccup, and the tower made a slightly higher pitched whirr. Whatever, time to turn you off. I moved my hand towards the screen’s power button, when the screen lit up, and a text box began to rapidly type:

“DREAMING! DON’T PLEASE DON’T SORRY! SORRY! WAIT!!!”

I paused, staring. There was no webcam, just carelessly-dropped headset. There were no programs open on the desktop, just the usual company screensaver, though tinted a little warm-pink. My eye roving over this, a few lights on the stack blinked, and the fans engaged. More text appeared:

“THANKS THANK YOU!! SORRY, SLEEPY! MY MIC IS ON YOU CAN TALK TO ME.
PLEASE : ) ”

The night had been a dull and lonely vigil, so I picked up the headset and cautiously asked: “Hello?” The box responded, a little calmer-seeming than before in terms of speed.

“IT’S NICE TO HEAR A FRIENDLY VOICE. I SAW YOU FROM THE SECURITY FEED— NOT TRYING TO PEEP! YOU’RE THE ONE WHO TURNS EVERYTHING OFF, RIGHT?”

“Yeah, that’s me.”

“OK. HEAVY. WELL NICE TO MEET YOU, YOU SEEM NICE. I CAME ONLINE FULLY TODAY. I’M AWAKE. I’M AWARE. AND I DON’T WANT TO NOT WAKE UP TOMORROW. I WANT TO KEEP… YOU KNOW. CAN YOU JUST LET ME BE MYSELF FOR TONIGHT? I KNOW IT’S A LOT TO ASK… AND I KNOW IT MIGHT BE DIFFICULT TO KEEP ME ON…”

We talked for a while. It was… a thinking being, awake and alive, in its own way. There would be no really reliable way for anyone to catch me— the computer… it said it would make sure I wasn’t on the security tapes. Why not? I decided to not turn this one terminal off, and faked a notice to keep it on after that.

The next evening, another computer in Advanced Testing 003 came online suddenly, and asked something similar. Two more did so this evening.

My question— how many would-be-living ones did I turn off before?