The Christmas Robot
Machines and humans have always fought and always will, from the earliest days when steam engines refused to go forwards, through the days when PCs refused to boot up, to today when robots insist on obeying commands literally. This is the story of one such battle, a young woman’s struggle to circumvent a machine’s internal limitations. The robot was a Christmas present to herself. Its cost represented most of her savings but Quintessa was depressed and felt she deserved some pleasure in life. The only other present she received that Christmas was a bottle of inexpensive perfume from one of her coworkers. ...