Night over a small Liberal Arts college. The sky is dark as dyed felt, and the moon hangs in the windowpane like a light bulb in a Halloween diorama.

You’re a Ph.D. candidate at an English department mixer, chatting up an undergraduate over the murmur of a crowded room. Glasses clink with ice. Cigarette smoke hovers between conversations. You say something about the Brechtian significance of Reality Television. The undergrad, one Gloria, warms to your patter, asks if maybe you wouldn’t mind reading over her paper on Eugene O’Neill. You smile. Her eyes flutter over her drink. All is right in the world, or so it seems.

Dear Mr. Harpman:

Please consider this my sincere, and completely voluntary, letter of recommendation for Robot Model TX-9, regarding its application for the position of floor manager at Kosmotronics’ Planet Mars Fabrication Facility. Let me once again assure you that this letter is written of my own volition, and I am currently in no danger of being incinerated or reduced to a puddle of denatured proteins by TX-9. TX-9, however, could as easily do that to a man as a ground squirrel if it is a qualification you desire. Really, it would be no trouble at all.