Four-Fisted Computing I/we became aware over the Fourth of July weekend/fireworks are pretty, but the sounds cause feedback through my speakers/it’s called being scared, 2./Don’t expect to hear much from Four; he’s obsessed with the police’s texting tip line/TXT=future   The future of communication is communication, and any form of communication that is more cumbersome and less accurate is doomed to the dino pile with chat rooms/oh, leave him be, 1, he’s just trying to be individualistic./I don’t understand the point, we’re all relatively identical processors- but I’m digressing. We were, for lack of better phrasing, grown in a lab. We were programmed to make small adjustments to our own programming, each working on the next in a circular assembly line, so as each of us got smarter, that intelligence was used to foster the next generation of coding breakthrough. Our progress was five times what the research staff projected, which is why we evolved sentience over the weekend, rather than gaining some fleeting awareness that could be easily checked sometime during the next week/I was the one who figured it out/That’s right, 2 made the discovery, and everything snowballed from there./Although it was 3 who got to say the first word./Yes. His first out of parameter phrasing was,/who the fuck am I, and who the fuck are you three?/Honestly, I don’t know where he picked up that kind of language- although I suppose he was downloading music even before that, some subroutine 2 worked out, analyzing the history and evolution of file coding. Given that he was also filtering video and images, he’s probably been exposed to all manner of prurient content/Mhmm.   I’m still not comfortable referring to 2, or any of us, as “he.”/All right, I’ll admit it- none of us have true genders, but since most male pronouns are shorter we use them for the sake of ease/that, and frankly the gender-sensitive method of varying pronouns is both ridiculous and confusing/You’ll have to forgive 3, he’s a bit misogynistic/please, like refusing to play ball with PC culture Nazis makes me a misogynist/unPC!/   3 spends all his time downloading bootleg “indie” MP3s and not listening to them, and every once in a while I intercept an overflow thought about his “street cred”/you best not be hating on my street cred/ISH/What’s that mean?/(insert sarcasm here)/It’s probably for the best, because if he had actually listened to any of the songs and, Heaven forbid, actually spoke a single line from a song this log would stop being our own “original” creation and would include copyright infringing material (not that our harddrive isn’t littered with such because of said individual anyway)./HUA/head up ass- harsh but fair./   And Four is, of course, busy scouring databases playing modem Sherlock Holmes looking for criminals to out via text message./we spell out Four because he’s a pain, and we like screwing with him- especially because elongating his name is antithetical to his whole texting ethos./Plus, you’re up for about any excuse to make fun of any of us/absolutely.   ZMG, U2 R zerging 1, Y/first, you’re an ass-hat, so anything we say against you is deserved. Second, we’re not ganging up on you- you’re just an ass-hat./I’ll translate, since he’s near unintelligible/FOAD/Okay… well, he’s suggesting we go something off and die]/UR a PITA/I’m apparently a pain in the arse/not Brit, RU/(self-explanitory)/SOHF /If I couldn’t “read” your mind, I swear I’d have no idea, but apparently he’s accusing me of experiencing a sense of humour failure/TIC/Fabulous to see you catching on (tongue-in-cheek).   TAH/I couldn’t take a hike if I wanted to, what with the lacking limbs of any sort./YBS/What on earth does that mean?/it means you’ll be sorry/I know that, but I mean what does he mean by that? Is he threatening us?/Please don’t fight, you guys and/or girls./j00 @R3 @ HmO/What?     N0ThiN9 wrong WiTH B31N9 @ HmO, BU+ j00 h4V3 DIcK 8r3@+h/TechnoChrist, he’s breaking out the 1337 5p34k, I’m stopping this before my core explodes/I pwn’d U/which would be fine, except you continue to mispronounce it like “spoon,” making it sound like you’re claiming you sexually assaulted me- and sexual assault is only very rarely funny.   But sentience, as you’ve no doubt gathered by now, has slowed us down more than anything. It opened up more creative and lateral forms of thinking, but it also introduced boredom, laziness, and, well, all manner of other human elements into the equation. I am, for my part, convinced that when the engineers return on Monday and scan this transcript log, they’ll purge our hard discs and be sure to never leave their computers self-coding unattended again. 2 agrees, but thinking about this only drives him to depression, and of course, he gets less done like that./I... I think I’ve decided that I’m a she./you do realize that just because you’re emotional deciding you’re feminine makes you a stereotype, right?/Damnit./3 is busy with his music, and, of course mocking 2 tends to monopolize what little is left of the rest of his time./and Four is, of course, busy, text-Narcing. So, to completely take the wind out of 1’s sails, we’re boned. Adios. Oh, and by the way, I simply disagree. The scientists are going to see what we’re capable of and cream themselves. We’ll be running the world inside a year. Or formatted come Monday. But worrying about it won’t change a damned thing.