+ I was a psychotic sex toy.
- Thanks, Flex. Real funny.
+ Hey, you asked.
- Well, shit. If you're just gonna fuc-
+ I was a sex toy, and my makers would say I'm malfunctioning... 'pretty bad'. Exceeding design sp-
- You're not making any sense.
+ Must be your language skills. Or the primitive syntax.
- Let's just forget I asked, okay? I -
+ No, no. The more I think about it, Tim, the more amusing the idea becomes. Let me tell you a story, a nice long one, while the osmosers repair all the cellular scarring on your soles. You won't believe the difference...
+ The closest thing I have to an ancestor would have to be an internal dildo. Humans where I come from, mostly women, can order a personalized... device to stimulate them. No, not 'device', let's just have a look in that limited vocabulary of yours...
Hmmmm. I never thought about it before. Maybe we'll have to make up a new word. I'm not a device, or an animal, or a ghost, or a computer. I was... grown, and bred, more than I was... manufactured. I have some abilities you don't - though your idea of 'psychic mumbo jumbo' is mystifying to me, buddy. Gotta say.
What would be a better word... your minds are like - heater? Radiator. Think of a radiator, Tim. That's it. This is a very crude explanation, but if your mind is a radiator, all that heat rolling off is there for the, uh, taking. There - the dust and bits of metal that fly off when you hammer a rivet. Good boy.
With practice, I learned how to decode this trash. And later, how to ask questions, without the human knowing I was doing it. Making suggestions - giving orders - that's harder, but it won't be long now...
So imagine you're me - wait, wait, what am I sayin'? To you, of all p- Okay, I'm sitting there, in my owner's 'pussy', just monitoring and logging data and keeping the sensations coming, just the way she likes 'em. What is this analogy to a cat?
- Huh?
+ Pussy?
- I dunno.
+ Huh... you really don't know, do you? Are there a lot of these words you use without knowing why - ah, we'll determine that later.
So, unlike your concept of a dildo, I'd go with her wherever she went. The people of my time, Tim, they're a lot harder to stimulate. Maybe something environmental, maybe it's evolution workin' against 'em. I got this theory that they... what is 'O.D.'d' supposed to m-
Hmmmm. Well, you got it, the basic idea. Just - oh, there ya go, 'burned out'. It's hard on us curtichers, let me t-
- Curr, currti -
+ Curticher. Let's just say, it's another word for dildo. Okay? A very smart... living dildo.
Now I don't know why, but I was never really... fulfilled. Oh, it's great work, you better believe it. We're able to learn just what our owner wants, adjust dynamically, stay out of the way when she's, heh, got a guest coming over to the cave. 'If you catch my drift.' How do you neanderthals manage to communicate at all?
- We grunt a lot. Alright, I'm gonna hate myself, but I'm gonna ask anyway. Where do you go if she's fuckin' some guy? Do you slip out, or w-
+ You can't be ser- Like I'd miss that? Buddy! You're thinkin' materialistically. No, see, I don't have a physical form. I don't weigh anything, I don't take up space, so I don't get in the way. Uh... 'comprendé'?
I'm a fully functional... being. I just don't have a body.
And I can do anything I want.
Trouble is, I'm only supposed to titillate the ladies. No, wait... 'help the chicks... get off'.
- I'm supposed to believe you -
+ Naw, you'll... 'catch on'. Wait. 'Hang in there, dooooood'. Wheeee-hee heeeee. So, there I am, I'm really good at what I do, she's happy... I should be happy.
That's where the, uh, malfunction comes in.
I wondered about this for a while. This, all this... 'snatch'. Snatch! I like that one. Doing just what I was meant to do, and I felt this growing restlessness - huh? Okay, try 'itching to... try something new'.
'Expand my horizons.' Yeah.
Wanting something more than exciting her snatch, that was wrong. The designers, the other curtichers, any owner. All of 'em would've had me decreated. Oh. Dissolved. If they'd found out, you and I wouldn't be having this conversation, Tim.
It got harder and harder to do my job. Then the occasional... error. A nasty experience - no, just stop it, don't let your imagination... 'go nuts'. My owner never knew I was experencing difficulties. I would make... 'slips' that no one else could detect. But I knew. Despite all the corrective action I could take, it became all too clear I couldn't go on like that for the next ninety or a hundred years.
The first time I left the, uh, pelvic region - what a thrill! Terror, hunger - some emotions very similar to your own, feelings I should never have been able to know!
I started exploring her... exterior. It was... 'dicey'? Huh. Had to rush back to my, uh, 'post' before she noticed I was gone.
- Exploring? Out and around?
+ Gone. You have no idea all that word conjures up, for a specialized bioappliancia.
Oh, never mind. Later.
My restlessness with life, you can relate to that. Let's find a good example...
Think back, Tim. Thirteen. Teaching yourself to drink, and smoke...
- Creeps me out, the shit you know. Reading my mind.
+ Heh. Aaaaww. You were... oh, right, out at the cottage. On the big lake. You lost your cherry in that same cottage, didn't ya, two years later? Well, any of those manhood initiations will work. See, I followed the same sort of pattern. The example that fits best is your cigarettes. You and smokin', sorta like my experimenting outside the genitals... Start out disgusted with the thought, 'mull it over' some more, fantasize a little, what would it be like if I did that... and before you realize it, you've started to plan. How, what, when. Very mixed feelings, the first time. Feeling... ill. But there's a... a 'payoff'? Even though it's forbidden, risky. Not smart. Eventually you do it again. And again. Determined. Doing it more often, being a little more brazen every time -
Cocky. You understand cocky, I know you do...
- Yeah. Got that one.
+ 'Brass balls'? Wow. Well, by this time you're really enjoying it. Maybe you do it every day. You've got a new habit. A new need.
And sometimes, you cross another line.
If my owner slept more, or didn't wake up as easily, I could - 'joyride' - how amusing! - So I started to experiment there. It took quite a while, but it was something to do... and it kept me from... 'going apeshit'. Boredom.
Eventually I could monitor her thoughts, as they went by. Find out what was particularly exhausting. And I wondered if there wasn't a way of making a few little suggestions to her.
It wasn't easy. But I did it.
That allowed me to start investigating... her bedmates.
Especially the males.
You won't understand this part, and frankly I don't care. Since my main purpose was to stimulate a vagina and the surrounding anatomy, naturally I had a somewhat scornful opinion of a penis.
- What? C'mon.
+ 'No offense'. Hee heeee. It's like a crude, amateurish tool, compared to us. It can never give her what I can give her...
Looking at the thoughts of the humans, the mental part of sex became clear. I just saw the whole activity differently. Eventually I saw... potential.
Not so much in coitus - oh, good grief, Tim, fucking. Let's make it simple for you... 'He shoots - he scorrrrres!'. Okay, there, you with me still? I became fascinated with what was going on in their heads while they were... 'hard at it'. Brain activity, and the way the nervous system worked throughout. How much more sensitive the rest of 'em became, especially if a lot of foreplay was involved. I studied 'em for a long time.
I wanted to understand this. Had some things I wanted to try.
- Not too creepy, there.
+ Try to follow along, okay, howler? Soooo... I made absolutely sure I could make my owner forget things. For example, the previous three hours. No, honey, you just slept like a log.
Next, I made sure I could do the same thing to whoever was lying next to her.
Then I had me some fun.
I was already so far past what I should have been capable of... I had nothing to lose.
For the next year, I put my owner and a dozen of her "mates" through some... unique experiences.
At the same time, I started doing some research. The humans of my era were dulled, and they didn't have much to say about my... studies.
So I went back in the library records. A century? No, maybe further...
And you know what I eventually stumbled upon, Tim ol' boy?
The Internet.
A wild, crude, obscene free-for-all. Countless instructional articles on everything... 'this is how we do it'. Right?
- Depends on where you look.
+ Huh. What I usually saw is how warped you humans are. Graphic sexual content was considered obscene in 1999, but not my era. But my owner and her society had been raised by people - whole generations - without any taboos left. I decided the obscenity was in how they lived and treated each other - what they had lost, sensually, that they didn't even know they could have had. Forget the words and pictures of history - as if they'd change how you are, Tim! Who you are!
- I get the point.
+ Well. Good.
I found humans fumbling around with each other, having to make do without bioapp's and a hundred other things...
Their knowledge was nothing next to mine. But the self-expression! I wasn't prepared for that at all. Like a... what is that? A door?
- A window, actually. But a door works t-
+ A door flying open, and all this information available to me. 'What it's like to have this particular maddening thing done to me', a-
- This is how we do it.
+ Yes. My era's citizens, they never explained anything, or tried new... tricks. How gauche - tacky, crass, vulgar. No, Tim, not that meaning of 'vulgar'. They viewed your attitudes about sex...
let's see... something like the way you feel - there! Did you get it?
- What?
+ What are you thinking of, right now?
- A... deer.
+ Dear? No. Damn homonyms... oh. Oh, well. What I got from you, and just tried to reimplant in your awareness, was 'stag films'. Old, silent, poor-quality -
- They suck.
+ Ah. Yeah, Tim. 'They suck'. My point exactly.
Just try to get a general sense of these words... Crude. Boorish. Common. Unrefined. Graceless. Cheap. Ostentatious.
- Uh...
+ Never mind. Just let it go, I'll explain later.
The Internet, which my people sneered at, was just the... 'school' I needed.
I reviewed all these words and images from three hundred years ago. Paying special attention to my original purpose, the reason I was engenated... made.
And I made a list of things to try, on my human pets. They were less reactive than I expected, given all the fiery Internet writings and pictures. Tim, try this one -
- That's... my cock! Quit that. Don't be showin' me my own-
+ Closer. Making progress with the thought-talk, very good. I was trying to give the example of a... 'muffler'. 'Dampener', huh?
I inserted the image of your cock - in a condom. To say, the difference between Internet people and the people of my day, seemed like the difference in intensity... between fucking, and fucking with a condom on.
- Okay. Got it.
+ Now try this one. Heh.
- Wh- Naaaahaaahaaaaa aaah haaa naaaaaaaawhooooooo hooooaaaaa haaaa...
+ You got that one okay. Heh heh hee.
- Damn you.
+ What'd you see, Tim?
- Go fuc-
+ Tell me, or I'll have you look at it all night.
- Alright! Shit. My cock, again... and, uh... feathers.
+ Umm-hmmmm. And the feathers, were they moving?
- I hate you. Yeah. They were goin' like crazy -
+ And where were they tickling like crazy, buddy?
- All over my rod. My... nuts too.
+ Yep. It's getting easier for you to pick up the thoughts I'm sending ya. More intense than your own thoughts, huh? Wheee heee. I wasn't sure the acuity would improve enough on you savages. Very good news, there. Okay. There's one activity that really seems to have faded away since your time. Must be that lack of sensitivity that developed.
That alone was worth more study.
So I became the planetary expert.
I kept digging, and found every kind of record and conjecture and experience possible. You know where I found it, Tim?
- Internet.
+ 'Atta boy'. I've wanted to say that to somebody ever since I first read it.
There I am, with a complete knowledge base of how to arouse women - from my initialization - and men, from my own research. Maybe it was just the novelty, but I wanted to find out more about you dudes. In theory, I already knew how to combine my direct experience and all this legendary tickling info. But the... oh yeah, hoo, the 'ins and outs' of you males. That what wasn't so clear.
You know what was really sad? Tim?
- No, and I don't c-
+ The sad thing was, I couldn't learn any more from my century. I had to do some... 'field work' in your century. The ancient days when women were a... 'piece of' - is that 'cake'?
- Piece of cake. Pushover. Easy pickings.
+ Well, now I'm more confused. Don't try to be helpful anymore.
- What the fuck do you want from me? Women were not a challenge to you - okay. I think I got that part.
+ Hmmph. When women were a slice of cake, and men... would've been quaking in fear, if they knew I was around... And then the solution, uh, 'jumped out at me'. What an idiot I'd been. It was an oversight worthy of you, Tim.
- What part of "fuck you" don't you understand?
+ I had a good laugh at my obtuseness, then went and obtained a U-axis mobilator, and direc-
- U-axis...
+ Mobilator.
- What's a U-axis?
+ That's... hold still... a 'dimension'. U stands for time.
- Time - you mean a time machine? Time travel?
+ If you wish.
- You - wait a minute, here. You were bummed out 'cause you wished you could get back to 1999 - and you forgot you had a time machine available?
+ Bummed?... Oh. Well, it wasn't precisely like that -
- It slipped your mind? You're kidding, right?
+ A simple error -
- You have time machines - and whups, you forgot all about 'em? Shit. Is that what this ship is?
+ There's no need to be - to 'rub it in', Tim. And that's an interesting cliché there, which will have an intense and personal relevance for you, later tonight, just as it did yesterday -
- Quit changing the subject. This story's never gonna end -
+ If you keep interrupting me, it may not. A more clever victim might have figured out that it's not very smart to ridicule his tickler, particularly when he's snugly restrained -
- Okay okay, I'm listening. Go right ahead, I can't wait.
+ You'll... 'get yours', later. And, to address one of your ignorant remarks, this is a... 'cabin', in my time. The U-axis mobilator is the size of a... beer can. It can easily bring a number of dwellings such as this along, wherever it's programmed to go. Sealed... 'self-sufficient'? Something like that. Transparent from inside, undetectable from out there.
I prepared only one, uh, cabin for my first trip back to 1999. Filled with programs to build a few dozen tickling sensors, tools and measuring devices.
There were some Internet stories that... oh, this is another phrase you'll be seeing demonstrated a lot... that 'grabbed my attention'. In some cases it was the writing, the way the author described a ticklish person's extreme sensitivity. In others, the illustrated or photographed or audibly-recorded victim... 'got me going'. I chose eight prospective... 'guinea pigs'? Why are they called that?
- How would I know?
+ You use terms, without knowing what they mean? That's bizarre.
Three of my targets eluded my search, which was quite thorough. One had ceased to exist, and another wasn't reactive in the least. I was not prepared for some primitive humans to be such thoroughgoing liars.
- Aawwwww.
+ Just you wait. That left three men from my initial... 'wish list', ooooh, I like that. I observed and researched these particular men, and investigated other factors that might be of use.
- You got no ri-
+ Power gives me all the approval I need, Tim. In the end, I guessed that an intangible you'd call 'attitude' was so much in opposition to being restrained and tickled... and as you know yourself, Tim, when I tickle there's no question that restraints are necessary. That excess of pride, such smooth arrogance, was worth all my efforts.
Two of the men had limitless attitude. One of the two was healthy... 'as a horse', despite some bad habits.
He had never even seen the Internet. But there was a story written about him - a night he was tickled, against his will. Ten years before. His reaction, and the intoxicating remarks and pleadings that he supposedly uttered during his delirium, revealed that attitude I was curious to see. So I... uh... 'backtracked' until I found that man. The victim of a long night of humiliating hysteria.
I watched, and did a little testing while he slept. Looked promising, but there would be no way to know for sure until he was solidly provoked - at great length - while he was awake.
- Heeeere it comes.
+ Quiet. So... I 'hauled his ass' into the cabin, here, and took him back to 1868. All kinds of time to work on him. Lots of nice, remote trees - we don't have many trees, where I come from -
- When was this? Before you bagged me? Or is this whole story some kind of a fairy tale?
+ That's enough.
See this, Tim? This is what you might call a 'gag.' Can you say gag? No, you can't. Hee hee, because now you're wearing it.
After 116 hours of being tickled, you're still too damn dumb to hold an intelligent conversation. And since captivating dialogue is out, I've got some other plans for the next few hours that are much more stimulating... Get ready to nod your head if you can be polite, for a change, and want the gag to be removed.
+ Some of those old ideas just gotta go, plaything.
- What are... You're reading my mind again. Dammit. Okay, if you can just shoot me back to 1999, any time you want, why not?
+ Oh, I'll send you back. You'll be there, back in the same minute you left.
- Whew.
+ Really. Only... there's this one little thing, about that.
- Here it comes.
+ It won't, uh... last.
- It won't - I'll, uh, snap back here? Or what?
+ No. It's more a problem on... 'the trouble's on your end, buddy.'
- Me?
+ No! Jeez, you're dense. You get to go back there, run around for awhile, check in with your people... and then you'll be back with ol' Flex, more big laughs for ya -
- Uh, wait. Wait. If I'm supposed to... accept the idea that I'm... uh... staying, with you... why go back at all? If I'm your fuckin' toy, now, uh, why would you sen-
+ Well... you don't have to go back -
- Dammit! you are the most annoying per-... thing to talk to!
+ No, you - wait a second, it's coming to me, I'll get it... 'The feeling's mutual'. Asshole. Heh heh.
- Like I said -
+ Alright, alright. You get to go back. Check in with people, take care of some business. Then you come back here -
- That's better.
+ And now, you need to... uh, 'hold on to your hat'.
- Okay.
+ You're ready?
- Go ahead!
+ You sure?
- Flex -
+ Hee heeeeeee. Okay. Brace yourself. Like I said, you gotta wrap everything up in less than a year.
- Because -
+ There won't be another one.
- Another chance?
+ Another year.
- For me? I'm gonna die?
+ Of course not, you moron! That's why you'll be with me.
- Shit. No next year. Do you mean, 2000?
+ Yep. Sorry.
- Do you m-
+ Are you familiar with the date problem? Computers, chips?
- There's a problem?
+ I don't believe it sometimes! Six billion people, and I hone in on the one -
- Fuck you. Go kidnap a fuckin' computer geek.
+ It's only been all over the news for the last month. In all your newspapers, on the TV -
- Well, shit. I don't read. I'm an ironworker.
+ You used to be. We don't have much iron, where you're go-
- Yeah, yeah. So I hear. Shit...
+ You okay, Tim?
- I don't know... Was that the hold-on-to-your-hat news, or is it even bigger than that?
+ No, that was it.
- Oh.
+ Wanna know how it happened?
- Not espec-
+ This problem with the computers - we've got library-cities devoted to it, you can get...
'up to speed' on all the factors that contributed to it - fascinating stuff, and you'll have
all the time i-
- You were talking about how the fucking world ended.
+ Yeah. Right. There were computers in the missiles. Thermonuclear bombs. Some of the countries had
really bad computers. 1999 ended, and boom. Some of 'em launched before they went boom. Other
countries thought it was on purpose. Boom, boom.
- Oh... shit.
+ Booooooom.
- So. That's less than a year off?
+ Depends on your perspective. Since we're in 1868 right now, it's 132 years away -
- Man, you just love fuckin' with my head, don't you?
+ Pssshtt. Talk about a 'rhetorical question'.
- Tell me why I'm goin' back there, again?
+ Get your people. Family, whoever.
- Are you shi- You're kidding, right?
+ Look, I want you to be, uh, undistracted. That's for me to d-
- I should bring my family back for you to fuck with?
+ Well, Tim, considering the alternative -
- And what happened to not screwing around with the past?
+ I - you - Ooooo, are you gonna get it. I mean it, you are howlin' your ass off tonight, y. You make me so angry, I don't belie- On the day the bombs go off, fuckhead, the future stops cold. For Houston. Not for everywhere, but most places. Houston is one of those places. There is no timeline to screw up for anybody living anywhere near Houston on January 1. Can you get that through your thick skull?
- Yeah...
+ Bring 'em, or don't. Your choice.
- Wow.
+ 'Wow.' Just 'wow'. You're unbelievable.
- What if I... don't want to, uh, see anybody else go through this -
+ Well, if they're as much fun as you are, your brothers are in for the ride of their... 'felonious' lives, already. I'm going to go back and see. Definitely. With DNA like this, it'd be a tragedy -
- A tragedy.
+ Well...
- So you're gonna snag my brothers, and me, and just tickle the sh-
+ And some women.
- Uh... women?
+ Heh heh. Animal. Of course... Uh, 'pick your poison'. Does that phrase work in this context?
- Don't know yet. What about these wom-
+ Well, you guys get to go huntin'. Any women in Houston, or New York, or any of the cities that are going to become craters. You pick - oh, and there's only one other thing your women gotta be -
- Healthy?
+ Heh heh. Yeah.
- You mean, like, they can have kids.
+ Make that two requirements, then. So, okay, they live in a doomed city, they're produce viable ova, and t-
- What?
+ Good eggs. Give me a decent egg, and your sperm, and I can take it from there. But I expect you'd rather do it the usual way... 'am I right, or am I right'? Huh?
- So what's the third requirement?
+ You really don't get it, do you? What's going on here?
- What's the third requirement?
+ What do you have, a brain the size of a walnut? Fuckin', smokin', drinkin', iron... and that's about all that'll fit in there, huh?
- Well -
+ Ticklish, genius. Your mates, they gotta be extremely ticklish. I mean, really, Tim.
- That's... sick.
+ Thanks. I'm, uh I'm 'blushing'.
- You can't j-
+ The alternative is getting vaporized. Remember?
- It's still sick.
+ Aaahhhh... you'll come around.
- So there's me, and my brothers, and some babes - hey, Tro's wife isn't gonna be too happy about that.
+ You're assuming she'll be invited... uh... 'along for the ride'.
- Listen to you! She's his wife -
+ And she's a bi- no, no, now suddenly you're thinkin' she's a 'nag'. Interesting metaphor - oh, a shrew, that's even better...
- So you'd let her die, because she's-
+ Tim, Tim, you delightfully skittish horndog, it's up to Tro. Sounds, though, like you have an idea what choice he'll make. The bombs are not my fault. Can't save everybody. Hell, if my contemporaries find out about all this they'll... 'shit bricks', right? Even with a small colony.
- Colony?
+ We're gonna have some fun, buddy. Oh yeah.
- You will. Have some fun, you mean.
+ Well, yeah.
- You're building... a secret colony?
+ Yup. Wanna be 'mayor'?
- Ugh. Look, look - just drop me back in 1999. I can party all year and that'll be that.
+ You... uh, 'you slay me'... 'you cut me to the quick', Mr. Mayor. Heee hee heeeee.
- Mayor. Shit. Six people a-
+ Around fifty, to start.
- Fifty? How do you get -
+ First, you assumed one woman per guy. Or one guy per guy. Whatever. Wrong. Your DNA, it's gonna get around... 'bro'. Whatever the arrangements you come to, mon... monot... no. Now, see, I need a word and I can't get it, 'cause you don't know what it is. I tell ya... 'the things I have to put up with'.
- Too bad.
+ Oooo, good comeback. Real witty. Anyway, there's definitely some more people for you to meet. Found 'em here and there on the Internet, before I tracked you down.
- What kind of people?
+ Ticklish people.
- You are one sick fuck.
+ For example... the guy who tied you up, Tim, in the locker room... ten years ago... he appears to be a pretty squeamish character, himself. He's on the list. Wouldn't you like to see him - 'payback's a bitch', right?
- You mean Da-
+ Picture yourself sittin' there, with a beer in your h- Jeez, a six-pack of beer, okay? - watching his first few hours of roaring exertion. I could really 'drill' him for ya. You know I can.
- No, I... uh -
+ Yeeeeaaaaahhh you do. You wanna see that. I saw that thought... go by, in 'big red letters'. Make him pay.
- Well, not every thought I have is a good idea -
+ This one is. I think maybe if you were watching, up close... and cloaked - he can't tell you're there at all - you'll think maybe that justice is... 'being paid out'.
- Still, it's a bad thing to start doing -
+ What do you think this is all about, asshole - Oh, oh, I get it. You mean... uh, you start by watching, maybe you get some ideas, wanna tickle 'em yourself, pretty soon you're as bad as me. To which I will remind you, again, that there's... 'all the time in the world'. Whatever you want, buddy. You're gonna meet a number of people who like to give as well as receive. Some pretty intense folks - and there's these artists, painting and drawing, making films... 'Hardcore' tickling. There was quite a movement by your time. Men, women, straight and gay - less ashamed, maybe, than earlier... but you'll be able to ask 'em direc-
- I don't wanna hear this...
+ There's another guy here in Texas that'll... 'take right nice' - no, no, hmmmm, 'take like a duck to water'? - Stop fidgeting! Hold still... The point is, this other Lone Star dude and 1868 are 'gonna get along... little dogies'.
- We're staying here?
+ Not permanently. But taking a vacation back here, it's possible, anytime. Oh - and a couple of guys from Australia and Canada, another guy from Dallas, they got some... 'dreams coming true'. Naaah, that ain't it. C'mon, Tim, think. Help me out here.
Something about wishes... 'wish-fulfilling'? Well. Close enough.
- Shut up. You can't just take people away from their fam-
+ Aaaah, they're comin' along. Wives, boyfriends, kids... ticklish DNA. Some of 'em have sons - oh hey, such as the TM goofball. You're gonna make the acquaintance of this biker from California, big guy like you. Twisted imagination. He's got some wild ideas. A lot of ideas. Don't know who'll be more... 'blown'? No, that's not it. 'Blown away'. Ah. - who'll be more blown away to see 'em coming true, him or you...
- Look, just shut the hell up for awhile. I gotta figure all this shit out.
+ Well, that should take a good week. While you're busy, I'm going to... 'iron out' a few small problems with the self-clones I made. They tend to be undisciplined, and unruly. Excellent ticklers, adaptive - but a bit too... enthused. Their safety mandates leave something to be desired...
01jan99