Machine Of Death

"This is my first concert," she replied, mustering her confidence. "But I've been a huge fan since Death by Rock and Roll." She made sure to name-check Stephen's first album, if only to prove her devotion.

Kris Straub and David Malki play a round of Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination.

Kris Straub interviews Ryan North and David Malki ! at the Super-Stupendous Machine of Death Magic + Variety Show, November 2011.

It was like that movie, back in the day, where the machine asks the kid, "How about a nice game of chess?" / "No," he types back. "Let's play Global Thermonuclear War." / That's what the slip of paper in my hand read. "Global Thermonuclear War."

He had not read his slip of paper. It was folded in an envelope in his left pocket. In his right pocket were several books of matches, and he was wearing a backpack. He pushed his way through the scrubby pine trees on the west border of the barrens. "This isn't how it works, you know. The machine is playing word games. You can't just say what's going to happen ahead of time. That's not how physical law works."

I saw the first ads in March. A week or two later it was all over the news, and then for the next few months you could not get away from it. Still, none of us expected it to have the impact it did. It was a killer. By November I had only had eight or nine dreams when I used to have three or four a week. This is how I make my living.

She was somewhere north of forty. Her dark hair showed silver strands, and the beginnings of crow's feet bracketed chestnut-colored eyes. Tommy noticed her fingertips, purple and tender. She was a Repeater.

Timothy got up. "One hundred and one here; just like the Dalmatians. I'm going to die in a fire while trying to save another." / Isma spoke slowly; she was visibly trembling. "I'm going to die in one hundred and one days as well. In a fire."

The machine printed out the certificates on special paper, the same pinkish color as those new five-dollar bills. He put them face-down on a tray and handed them to us. Maggie and I sat down on the examination table, butcher paper crinkling and creasing under us, bunching between us as Maggie scooted closer. The doctor left us alone.

"It's an older model, but that's all that ever made it to Fukuoka before these things were outlawed altogether. It was functioning, as of a week ago. This was the machine that correctly predicted the death of Watanabe Yoshiro."

At nine o'clock on a Tuesday morning, the parking lot in front of Jack Bogg Enterprises was somehow already full. Kelly didn't know quite what to do. It had never happened before, not once in the year she'd been working for JBE.

SWF, 36, seeks SM 25-50. Must be employed, love outdoor hobbies. No OVERDOSE, ALCOHOLISM, similar readings, please. Box 1876.

For a while, he kept the little slip of paper hidden at the back of a desk drawer at work, still inside its official envelope. He didn't want it in the house -- Phil was bound to ferret it out. Phil was just one of those people who found things.

In garish red and yellow, the flyer announced that You, Too, could "Defeat the Machine!" A colorful cartoon hammer smashed a predictor box, starbursts flying out zanily. A beaming man in a tie beckoned to his new best friend, You.

A shot kicked up dirt in front of Grale's face. He pulled himself backward, back to the dubious protection of the fallen sign. They all knew Grale would die here. God damn that machine.

Bradley McLaughlin performs his original song "After Many Years..." at the Machine of Death Talent Show, April 26, 2011, in Hollywood, CA.

"You gotta be fucking kidding me!" says one of Jill's friends, leaning forward to get a better look at my shirt. On Toe Tag Night no one wears tags on their toes. What we do is use a template on our PCs and print a graphic of a toe tag, which we then wear attached to our clothing somewhere, like on a t-shirt. Printed on the tag is your Name, and How You Are Going to Die. For mine, I had to use a smaller font size.

"The bloke's a whack job." Billy, the Director of Marketing, tells me this while he's picking his nose with a paperclip. In the background a phone has been ringing for five minutes without kicking into voicemail, and in the next cube, somebody's screaming at a subordinate employee on another line. I want to kill them all and dance to the sounds of their suffering through the junkyard of smashed computers and office plants and overturned desks.

"Missus Murphy, I will have you know that I am to be torn apart and devoured by lions." Simon Pfennig was fully aware of how strange he must sound. He had no choice. It was too exciting not to share. "I'm sorry," said Mrs. Murphy. "Weren't you just talking to me about insurance a moment ago?" "I was," said Simon. "Now I'm talking about lions."

"You don't see it? What if we could ship this box further away? What if Dr. Merry lived thousands of light-years away, and we could somehow get the box to him? If we set a time for him to do the killing, and for us to run the blood through the machine shortly afterward, then as soon as we read the machine's prediction, we've sent information faster than the speed of light."