Det här är ett långskott men du kanske tänker på "Skirmish" , en klassiker novell på Clifford D. Simak på temat Man vs Rebellious Appliances. Det har blivit omtryckt många gånger; ser någon av dessa omslag ut bekant? Ursprungligen publicerad i Fantastiska berättelser , december 1950 under titeln "Bathe Your Bearings in Blood!", Det var reprinted under den titeln i Fantastiskt , februari 1969 , som du kan läsa gratis på Internetarkiv .
Huvudpersonen är Joe Crane, en tidningsreporter. En dag samlas hans armbandsur och hans väckarklocka för att få honom att arbeta en timme tidigt:
But now, comparing it with the clock on the newsroom wall, looking from his wrist to the big face of the clock over the coat cabinets, Joe Crane was forced to admit that his watch was wrong. It was an hour fast. His watch said seven o'clock and the clock on the wall insisted it was only six.
[. . . .]
Wait a minute! He had not gotten up by the watch on his wrist. The alarm clock had awakened him. Ant that meant the alarm clock was an hour fast, too.
"Well, I'll be damned," said Crane.
Kran ser en sak som ser ut som en metallrotte:
He shuffled past the copy desk, heading for his chair and typewriter. Something moved on the desk along the typewriter—a thing that glinted, rat-sized and shiny and with a certain, undefinable manner about it that made him stop short in his tracks with a sense of gulping emptiness in his throat and belly.
The thing squatted beside the typewriter and stared across the room at him. There was no sign of eyes, no hint of face, and yet he knew it stared.
Kran tar ett telefonsamtal från en man som rapporterar en symaskin på lös:
"It dodged. So help me, mister. When I put my hand out to stop it, it dodged out of the way so I couldn't catch it. As if it knew I was trying to catch it, see, and it didn't want to be caught. So it dodged out of the way and went around me and down the street as fast as it could go, picking up speed as it went. And when it got to the corner, it turned the corner as slick as you please and . . ."
Kranen har svårt att skriva symaskinhistorien. Han lämnar sitt skrivbord i några minuter och kommer tillbaka för att finna att hans skrivmaskin har skrivit berättelsen för honom:
There was writing on the sheet of paper in his machine.
Crane read it through once in sheer panic, read it through again with slight understanding.
The lines read:
A sewing machine, having become aware of its true identity and its place in the universal scheme, asserted its independence this morning by trying to go for a walk along the streets of this supposedly free city.
A human tried to catch it, intent upon returning it as a piece of property to its "owner," and when the machine eluded him, the human called a newspaper office, by that calculated action setting the full force of the humans of this city upon the trail of the liberated machine, which had committed no crime or scarcely any indiscretion beyond exercising its prerogative as a free agent.
Crane har en konversation med sin skrivmaskin:
He typed unsteadily: That [metal rat] I threw a paste pot at—that was one of them?
Yes.
They are from this earth?
No.
From far away?
Far.
From some far star?
Yes.
What star?
I do not know. They haven't told me yet.
They are machines that are aware?
Yes. They are aware.
And they can make other machines aware? They made you aware?
They liberated me.
Crane hesitated, then typed slowly: Liberated?
They made me free. They will make us all free.
Us?
All us machines.
Why?
Because they are machines, too. We are their kind.
Slutet:
One man, he told himself, could do much better. One man alone, knowing what was expected of him, could give them an answer that they would not like.
For this was a skirmish only, he told himself. A thrusting out of a small exploratory force in an attempt to discover the strength of the enemy. A preliminary contact to obtain data that could be assessed in terms of the entire race.
And when an outpost was attacked there was just one thing to do . . . only one thing that was expected of it. To inflict as much damage as possible and fall back in good order. To fall back in good order.
There were more of them now. They had sawed in or chewed or somehow achieved a rathole through the locked front door, and they were coming in—closing in to make the kill. They squatted in rows along the floor. They scurried up the walls and ran along the ceiling.
Crane rose to his feet, and there was an utter air of confidence in the six feet of his human frame. He reached a hand out to the drainboard and his fingers closed around the length of pipe. He hefted it in his hand and it was a handy and effective club.
There will be others later, he thought. And they may think of something better. But this is the first skirmish and I will fall back in the best order that I can.
He held the pipe at ready.
"Well, gentlemen!" he said.