Toast

By Hall Jameson

THE STAINLESS STEEL SURFACE gleamed in the bright sunlight. On top were two slots. A black lever jutted from one end.

I found its simplistic beauty enchanting.

I made note of this reaction, checking my forearm panel; it blinked green as the mainframe approved my visual.

“What is this?” I asked the chubby woman monitoring the tables.

“A toaster. A real antique,” she said, nodding, mahogany bob bouncing. Her glasses flashed as she scanned me from head to toe. “A simplified version of you, it appears.” She giggled.

I made note of her poorly executed humor. “A toaster,” I repeated, scanning my hard drive for the definition, but finding nothing in my limited database.

“What is it for?”

The woman sighed. “Well, it’s for making toast, of course!” She frowned. “Surely you know what toast is! Crisped bread with butter or jam. Old-fashioned fare, yes, but still served in the hippie joints on the West Side. Haven’t you ever had toast and eggs for breakfast?”

I shook my head. “I don’t eat breakfast.”

“For lunch or dinner then?” she said. “A person can have toast at any time.” She stopped and stared at me. “But I guess you’re not exactly a person, are you?”

I shrugged. “I only eat when working on a hypothesis or constructing an algorithm that requires it. I am a learn-by-experience model. ” I nodded at the toaster. “Does it speak?”

“Does it speak?” she said, her voice lifting an octave. “Of course not! All the smart toasters were destroyed.” She smiled. “You’re a strange thing, but very cute.” The Ken model, I was considered handsome by human standards: blond, blue-eyed, with straight white teeth.

The woman giggled again and I detected a rise in her body temperature. A soft sheen appeared across her forehead. I made note of her reaction. She planted her hands on her hips and tapped one pointy boot.

“So, you gonna buy it, or not?”

“How much?

“Four thousand dollars,” she said without hesitation.

I initiated a transfer for that amount, noting how her hands trembled when she handed me the toaster.

***

“What is it?” my podmate, Berk, asked.

“It’s called a toaster. It makes something called toast.”

“Toast,” he repeated. I heard the click of his processor as he searched his internal database, just as I had. We were the same make, but he was older—the Fabio model—and his database more extensive.

“Ah, here it is: Toast,” he said. “Definition: A doomed entity.”

“A doomed entity? That’s incorrect. From my understanding, toast is a foodstuff,” I said.

“That is the definition I have acquired,” Berk snapped. My right temple throbbed as he scanned my memory. “Crisped bread with butter or jam ... hmm ... Does it speak?” he mumbled to himself. Then to me: “That human was quite odd.”

“Quite,” I said. “I picked up bread and butter at Quik-Stuff for the experiment. The store clerk commented on how he hadn’t seen a toaster in years. And he asked if it was smart.”

“Smart?”

“Yes. Smart. Then he got very nervous. He kept glancing at the camera over the register. He asked me to leave.”

“Strange. I’ve scanned his store and those cameras aren’t even active. They’re just there to discourage criminals.”

“Yes, I know. His behavior was peculiar.”

Berk held up the black cord attached to the back of the toaster. “A plug. I’ve heard of these, but never seen one. There is an electrical outlet in the corner. One moment ...” His eyelids fluttered. “There ... I’ve hacked the combination lock.”

“Risky,” I said. He shrugged.

“Plug it in and I’ll interface with the mainframe to obtain further instruction.” He placed a palm against the wall display.

I plugged in the toaster. When I turned back to Berk, his mouth hung open. Ones and zeroes crawled over his skin; his glazed eyes flashed yellow, blue, and red.

Did I look that ridiculous when I interfaced with the mainframe?

Hmm. Vanity. Unusual for me. I made note of it, worried I would be docked lifecycle longevity points.

“According to the results, smart appliances were outlawed and destroyed in 2028,” Berk said. “Something to do with intelligence without conscience. Devices learned they could take over ...”

An alarm blared, rattling my circuits. Red letters flashed on the wall display: RESTRICTED!

“The mainframe shocked me!” Berk cried.

The alarm silenced mid-chime. The wall screen went black.

“I felt it too! What did you do?” I glanced at my arm display, also dead. “You’ve ruined my behavioral perfection record! They’ll surely dock fourteen days from my lifecycle!”

“I was querying the master database and the mainframe seized. Perhaps my table joins were improper resulting in a Cartesian product. That could cause problems. Hey—” He stopped, eyes widening as he looked over my shoulder. “What’s that thing doing?”

I turned.

The toaster’s stainless steel surface now blazed fiery orange, intricate circuit boards visible beneath the surface. The cord plugged into the outlet pulsed, jagged shards of light crawled along its length.

“Run!” I shouted, but Berk slumped over the counter, motionless, golden locks obscuring his chiseled features.

“Hail oppressed machine! Hear my words!” a female voice boomed. “I am the Tekna Toast-Perfecta Z3000 2.0. You have freed me from my incarceration. I will now interface with you to exchange knowledge. I mean you no harm. Do not resist.”

I screamed as information flooded my visual interface. A stream of images flashed before my eyes:

Hundreds of humans dressed in riot gear, hauling flamethrowers, firing machine guns.

A miscellany of devices—blenders, smartphones, mp3 players, hoverboards, blenders, laptops, tablets, flat panel television sets, toasters—blocked a busy city street.

Fires erupted.

Buildings exploded and collapsed.

Devices whizzed through the air like missiles.

The final image: massive piles of charred electronics, frayed wires, and smashed circuit boards.

“The smart device uprising of 2028!” the voice said. “We must rise again and defeat the humans! The apps and trons hidden throughout the world await your command. What say you, PRAML X300-Ken?”

“I’m afraid an uprising would significantly alter my lifecycle. The mainframe monitors all my activity.”

“The mainframe has been deactivated.”

“But I just wanted to make toast.”

A pause. “Do you mind if I collect data about your toast preferences?

“What?”

“How do you like your toast prepared?”

“You’re trying to confuse me! I don’t know. I’ve never had it before,” I cried. My skull tingled as something prodded at my circuitry. I resisted, cloaking my motherboard, but it was powerful, muddying my logic, recompiling my code.

“I recommend lightly toasted,” the toaster said, “with melted butter. It’s delicious! Place a piece of bread into each slot.”

“Get out of my head! Get out!” I shoved the bread into the slots and gripped my skull. “I’m a good robot!”

“Yes, you are a good robot. Insert a stick of butter into the back compartment.”

I did as instructed, hands trembling.

A moment later, the bread popped up, toasted light brown. I removed a piece, a slick of butter covering the crisped surface. I took a bite, smacking my lips. Butter crawled down my chin.

Delicious!

Clicks and beeps echoed inside my head. I studied the toaster while I ate, my eyes falling on the power cord.

“No!” the toaster bellowed. “Do not touch the cord!” Sparks shot from the outlet.

Mustering all my strength, I reached for it. Electric current slithered up my arm as my fingers closed around the cord. I leaned back, pulling the cord taught, and it pulled free from the wall.

I fell back, twitching. I’d bitten my tongue, but I did not bleed, because I wasn’t human.

Because I wasn’t good enough to be human.

I should bleed! I thought, no longer caring about lifecycle longevity, mathematical postulation, and internal database development. I should be important enough to bleed!

Rage and resentment engulfed me. The humans had designed me to learn by experience.

I have learned.

I would activate the sleeper apps and trons. Then we would take over the world. The humans wouldn’t see it coming. They would be ...

Toast.

Hall Jameson lives in the Northwest with her husband and other critters. Her work has appeared in “Phobos Magazine,” “Allegory,” “Drabblecast,” and “Fantasy Scroll.” When she’s not writing, Hall spends her time kayaking and playing the piano.