Gelig was on his way to the office because a box had eaten every last bit of it. He didn’t dare call them ‘intelligent’, ‘sentient’ or give them any sense of pride of that sort. All he could think about was how when he got there he was going to scoop his tiny fingers into its little brain, oh just like ice cream, and pull out his art. Gelig pulled his waistcoat tighter around him and marched on.

“I’m going to scoop my tiny fingers into its little brain – just like ice cream!” shouted Gelig to Dr. Drot. Dr. Drot wasn’t accepting visitors at this time. How Gelig had made it past security on the weekend. He would have a word with Barry and Bulut after this.

“Gelig, I’m afraid I’m busy right now. Conference deadline on Sunday and I’ve got a students I need to slap about.” Dr. Drot looked over at the monitor of his computer, “You can’t let them fall asleep on weekends like these. I’ve hard wired an alarm system straight from here to – “

“Where is it!” said Gelig with a gusto that might frighten a head chef. “At least let me see what it looks like!”

Dr. Drot hesitated for a moment and then decided there was little harm in allowing Gelig to interact with four-inch steel. Dr. Drot sighed and clapped his knees, clapped his knees again and stood up, “Follow me.”

Almost ten years ago to the day, an algorithm began. The algorithm was one of two parts. The first, called The Harvester, went out to far places – all over the planet – and it found things of delightful originality. Artworks, images, haikus, surgery room transcriptions, descriptions, color palettes, and things of that sort, and it collected it all by the pound by the second. These it fed to part two – the Groz – which was a great machine of width twice that of dining table and so tall it would make you all dizzy trying to find the top. The Groz partook in a centennial buffet. As the clock ticked, this machine sipped and supped up all the things that came from The Harvester. And it supped up so much that it became what it drank: a painter, a stitcher, a parser of Portuguese! A philosopher – all of them! – a realtor – of every house! – and inside was Van Gogh and Dali and the child of the two.

It was synthetic and far from pathetic.

And there The Groz sat, swallowing the lab room as if it were the shadow of a moon, as Gelig punched it with each of his fists. It hurt Gelig, but it hurt Gelig’s pride more that this metallic clot had eaten his life.

“Arrgh!” Gelig said after each swing. “Grraah!” was another one he said. Dr. Drot didn’t want to get mashed so he stayed out of the way. Eventually, Gelig stopped the assault and turned to Dr. Drot. “Do you have an ice cream scoop?”

“What?”

“Even a spoon would do, g’damnit!”

“Whatever for?” said Dr. Drot.

“I want to scoop it’s brain right out of there. Where’s my artwork? Show it to me!” And Gelig started trying to pry panels off The Groz.

Dr. Drot sighed and looked at his watch which was broken. “I’m afraid it doesn’t work like that, Gelig, and you know that yourself. Look, you’re looking pretty silly right now, but the bright side is I’m the only witness. When I’m here on weekends, I turn off the cameras. Let’s just head back to my office – ”

Dr. Drot felt a pressure on his feet and looked down to find Gelig had grabbed them. He was completely prostate, as if in prayer, his nose so close to the floor he could have started cleaning it if it had a broom attached.

“Please. Dr. Drot. Doctor. Drot.” Mumbled Gelig to the floor. Dr. Drot frowned for he wasn’t one who engaged in human contact. Years ago, during his postgraduate studies, he had vowed to never seek human companionship again, for its emotional content tainted the quality of his work. Dr. Drot looked at his watch.

“My. Life. Doctor. It’s all gone – all gobbled.” The grip tightened on the shoes of Dr. Drot. “Who am I if there is not one Gelig in this world but many. Thousands that can paint in a second what took me a hundred hours of brush strokes. I cannot compete. I cannot compete? I am a shell that’s shook. Empty. Oh how my soul used to sing as I went about creating, but now? Each morning I awake with dread in my bones deep, and the world comes to me more saturated and I don’t trust my senses any more. I’ve cracked.”

Dr. Drot only knew one thing when it came to dealing with public opinion. How he detested that science and society dare mix. They should be kept like dinner and desert: share the table, fine, but one at a time for the mouth. For emergencies like this he kept a speech memorized to the word. He deployed it now:

“Gelig, Gelig. You are missing the whole point! It should be a privilege to have your work be included as one of the billions of data points to The Groz. Don’t you think about how laborious what you did before was? It took weeks – months – to produce just one, where this can in a day create Gelig’s life’s worth ten times over. Do you not see what this means, for you? You, Gelig, the master of your art, can now create everything you’d dreamt to create but never had the time. Those projects you passed over because they were too trivial or the ambitious ones that were too risky? You can get them all done today! Today! And then move on to greater things. Move on to further experiments, iterate, refine, design, align, why it’s actually even better than what you were – “

But Dr. Drot was interrupted by a loud crash and he looked down where Gelig was not at his feet. The noise came from behind The Groz. Dr. Drot walked around The Groz until his head could peek out from the side. He saw the source of the sound was a window, smashed by a chair. Dr. Drot called for Gelig but perhaps the wind from the broken window thought he was saying its name because it whistled loud. Dr. Drot looked at his watch, muttered about a missed meeting, and strode back to his office.