Overt at 365 Tomorrows, my friend Dave Gill of the “Total Dick-Head” blog posted a very short science fiction story that I found quite, well, touching. In fact, that’s what it’s called. From Touching:
The voice woke Phil from a sound sleep. “There’s a problem, Phil.”
He found himself in the midst of saying, groggily, “What is it?”
“Supply pressure, Phil. It’s too high.”
Wiping the sleep from his eyes, Phil was at the console correcting the problem.
“Thanks, Alice,” he said without thinking, without considering the remark’s irrelevance.
“Sure thing, Phil,” the machine responded, before once again performing a partial shutdown to save power.
The next day, on impulse, Phil asked, “Alice, do you get lonely?”“Phil, I am never alone. I was created to assist you, and I have been in your presence for the entirety of my 18 months of existence.”
“But I mean, you’re all alone,” Phil paused, searching for the right words, “in there.”
“Distance is irrelevant to the networked machine. In fact my essence is forever changing as I integrate data and other systems into my memory banks.”
“But what about touching?” Phil asked.
