You are listening to a Clark's World magazine podcast with your host and narrator Kate Baker.

Greetings Clarkville Citizens.

I hope this podcast finds you extraordinarily well.

There's not much news to report, so I'm just going to jump in to the third story for issue 132 September 2017.

The piece is titled The Secret Life of Bots,

this by Suzanne Palmer.

Suzanne Palmer is a writer and artist who lives in the beautiful hills of Western Massachusetts.

She works as a Linux Systems and Database Administrator for the Science Center at Smith College.

And notes that hanging out with scientists all day is really just about the perfect job for a science fiction writer.

Her short fiction has been nominated for both the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial and the UGM Foster Memorial Award

and other stories of hers have won both the Asimov and and Lab. And of a novel in the works.

So my dear listeners, my dear, patient, wonderful, awesome, supportive, fantastic,

amazing listeners.

I hope you can sit back.

Relax.

And let me tell you a story. I have been activated, therefore I have a purpose, the bot thought.

I have a purpose.

Therefore, I serve.

It recited the mantra upon waking,

a bundle of subroutines to check that it was running at optimum efficiency.

Then it detached itself from its storage niche.

Its power cells were fully charged, its systems ready, and all was well.

...