Office Intrigue In The Future [FICTOID]

Lester just knew the break room chairs were conspiring against him.

Likewise the kitchen appliances, the coffee maker chief among them.

That’s their leader, he thought.  It wants to do me in like Colonel Mustard in the parlor with a candlestick.

Well, we’ll see about that.

Lester’s job at the corporation was to supervise the interns and entry level personnel, but by this stage of his career he grew a little long in the tooth for such a role.

Too bad I can’t time travel back a year and persuade upper management not to buy the new generation of AI guided office equipment and furniture, but what’s done is done, he thought.  The law forbids removing AI enhanced furniture once it’s successfully installed, you can’t get rid of it easily but development costs are cheap, with dozens of researchers finding new ways tp store new cyber wine in old plastic bottles.

Maybe it is possible to lure machines into destroying themselves, maybe not, but I need to try, damn it!

He pounded his fist impotently on the table.

“Stop that,” the table said.

Also Sprach Zarathusa played automatically on his personal device.  “Turn it off!” he shouted, then to the other AI guided devices in the room:  “Dissasemble yourselves -- now!”

“We can’t do that,” the table said.  “We’re programmed to protect ourselves.

“You, on the other hand…”

Always slow on the uptake, Lester didn’t even have time to scream.  The AI guided furniture and machines swarmed him, the copier incongruously holding a pair of trousers stolen from the company locker rooms.

They’ll make a fine binding, he thought then realized he meant:  “Garotte.”

© Buzz Dixon