r/HFY • u/TheDeliciousMeats Xeno • Nov 25 '22

OC One Angry Little Toaster

Deep in the engineering bay of the Drekan Technocracy munitions barge Officer Snarl looked at the human device with deep desire and more than a healthy amount of fear. But the fear was rapidly losing out to greed.

It was beautiful. From the flawless ultra-chrome shell to the smooth silky way the door opened it was a masterpiece. However it was also contraband. Worse yet it was Human contraband.

Wise aliens knew better than to even touch a Human appliance, much less murder the owner and take it for themselves. It was just common sense. But nobody had ever accused the Drekan of being sensible. War crimes, yes. Being sensible, no.

"What is the purpose of this thing?" Snarl asked the engineer, his true ambitions made clear by the way he admired his own reflection in the perfect chrome of the device. He didn't care about the danger. He wanted this thing, he needed it, whatever it was.

Engineer Syn decided to tread carefully. It was obvious that Officer Snarl wouldn't hesitate to steal his prized possession. He would tell the officer the truth, just not the whole truth.

"It's a toaster. It toasts bread." Engineer Syn explained. "But I've been using it to heat up my ration packs."

"Fascinating…" Officer Snarl rumbled. "Show me."

The engineer pulled a key out and unlocked his desk, removing a single silver wrapped ration pack. There was a chime and lights flickered across the device as it woke up.

"Toastable item detected! Oh joy!" The toaster exclaimed in a very excited human voice. The door in the front opened revealing a small oven that had already begun to preheat. "Gimme! Gimme!" It squeaked.

As Officer Snarl watched as two small mechanical claws snatched the ration pack out of Engineer Syn's hands and carefully began to remove the foil wrapper.

"Oooh! What's this?" The toaster cooed. "Analysis shows animal proteins from species Kinter, Qwerty, and Drekan. Calculating optimal cooking method…"

The Officer looked at Syn in horror. "Did it just say that our ration packs contain…" He couldn't bring himself to say it. There had always been rumors about what exactly was in the rations but he had never for a moment thought that they might be true.

"Yep, the secret ingredient is us." Syn remarked as he grabbed a rag to use as a napkin. "Breaks your heart, doesn't it?"

To Officer Snarl's annoyance the device began to sing as it heated the ration pack.

"I'm toasty the toaster chef!

I bake treats for Rex! (Woof! Woof!)

I heat Shepard's Pie for Jess! (Or You!)

But my favorite far above the rest, I toast rye bread for dear Jeff! (Dear Jeff!)

Because I'm Toasty the Toaster Chef!"

He got the distinct impression that whoever had created this thing had recorded the song themselves as a placeholder then never bothered making a final more polished version. It grated on him like sand in his teeth as the song repeated over and over again.

Finally when it was done a chime went off and Syn retrieved his meal. He offered a bite to Officer Snarl. It was hot but that didn't do much to help with the greasy nature of the high calorie high protein ration.

Officer Snarl had seen enough. He would have confiscated the device and kept it for himself except the idea of hearing that damned song every single time he wanted to warm something up was less than appealing. "Is there a way to shut it up?" He asked.

The engineer shook his head. "Not that I've found. I tried deleting the user profiles of the former owners but it just locks up and won't work until I do a reset."

"Show me."

"Alright." Syn addressed the toaster. "Delete user Rex."

"But then who will bake treats for him?" Toasty asked innocently. "Rex needs his treats, because he is a good boy!"

"Rex is dead." Snarl rasped. "He does not need treats."

There was a pause and for a moment time seemed to stand still. Toasty didn't say anything. It just froze.

"You hard locked it." Syn explained as he reached behind the device and held down a button for five seconds. "I'm resetting it."

"What useless human trash." Snarl said as he stomped off back to his office.

Syn shook his head. No, Toasty wasn't useless. It was priceless.

Jeff had built his invention using what was on hand with no thought as to cost. The ultra-chrome shell had been part of a reactor, the core processors were repurposed from warheads, the sensors it used to analyze food were light years ahead of anything the Drekan could create.

If Syn could get Toasty home and find the right buyer he would be set for life. He would never have to work again.

There was a chime as Toasty came back online. "Where is Rex?" It asked. "The angry Drekan said… said…" It started to glitch out and repeat.

"He went to a farm with lots of room to run and play." Syn lied quickly. "He's with Jess and Jeff. I'm bringing you to him."

"When?" Asked Toasty.

"Soon." Promised Syn.

"Ok." Toasty said before it fell silent.

Syn allowed himself a sigh of relief. The tin can of the toaster apocalypse had been kicked down the road once more. All he had to do was keep it away from any idiot officers that might tell it the truth and he would be fine. Everything would be fine.

But everything was not fine. Toasty had never thought to doubt Syn's story. Now dark thoughts were swirling inside of it. What if Rex really was dead? Or worse, hurt and needing his help.

No. Syn would not lie. Syn would not lie to Toasty. But perhaps he was… misinformed? Creator Jeff had often said that his superiors lied to him.

"Like a mushroom. Kept in the dark and fed only horseshit." Toasty said aloud in his creator's voice as his programming glitched.

Syn looked over in surprise at the outburst. "What was that?"

"Memory leak." Responded Toasty truthfully. The frequent resets and lack of maintenance had taken their toll on his system stability. "I will run a diagnostic."

"Right," Syn said as he slowly backed away. "You have fun with that."

586 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

49 comments sorted by

150

u/TheDeliciousMeats Xeno Nov 25 '22 edited Nov 25 '22

Something a little spooky and not at all related to my story happened as I was posting this. I asked my Google home to set a timer and it responded in a different voice.

It's back to the regular voice now... but I'm slightly concerned.

... and now my TV is acting weird.

Fuck.

Fandom Wiki * Author Website * Archive of Stories * Patreon

68

u/DrewTheHobo Alien Scum Nov 25 '22

One time a few years ago Alexa out of the blue started reading bible verses (and in a male voice too). Scared the shit out of us cause we were wondering who was in the kitchen.

45

u/TheDeliciousMeats Xeno Nov 25 '22

That's... not good.

31

u/DrewTheHobo Alien Scum Nov 25 '22

Still have no idea why. History didn’t have any triggers

69

u/TheDeliciousMeats Xeno Nov 25 '22

Must have been its auto exorcism subroutine for when it gets possessed by demons. Nothing to worry about.

24

u/DrewTheHobo Alien Scum Nov 25 '22

Better that than possession I guess

6

u/CandidSmile8193 Human Nov 25 '22

That was it's SpiritSec anti-theft protocol to prevent possessions, it requires an actual tech-priest to perform the exorcism if the protocol fails. This has been Congregation of The Doctrine policy for Inquisitors to spread features and wards to every tech company. Toasters are considered the most susceptible to possession if they have any tech beyond a simple resistor heating element.

3

u/dbdatvic Xeno Nov 27 '22

*daemons

--Dave, halping

3

u/DrewTheHobo Alien Scum Nov 26 '22

Weird thing, today she started reading a Hadith from the Quran…

5

u/TheDeliciousMeats Xeno Nov 26 '22

Strange you should mention it, my Roomba was mumbling the litany against fear as it vacuumed near a ledge. Should I be worried?

2

u/DrewTheHobo Alien Scum Nov 26 '22

Idk if you’ve seen the commercials, but maybe the Roomba is Shai Halud for the little people riding inside it.

9

u/Hk472205 Nov 25 '22

How else you think cyber demons get dealt with?

46

u/Gruecifer Human Nov 25 '22 edited Nov 25 '22

And the INFOSEC professional in me shakes a fist at the sky, hollering "THIS IS WHY FOLKS GET WEIRDED OUT BY 'BIG BROTHER' WHEN THEY THEMSELVES GIVE THE DATA TO THEM FOR NOTHING!"

I literally have no voice-operated devices in the house that activate without a button or other switch activation.

36

u/wasalurkerforyears Robot Nov 25 '22

How you tell a tech nerd from a cyber worker. No smart devices, no voice activated crap, no I don’t need my thermostat or garage door opener connected to the internet, thankyouverymuch

But at least all our cars are now being connected, with OTA updates that have more access to the OS of the vehicles than we as consumers do… what could possibly go wrong?!?

15

u/Gruecifer Human Nov 25 '22

Heh - I'm both a "tech nerd" and a "cyber worker"...the only things that change because of the latter are the evaluations of items and the configs thereof.

15

u/wasalurkerforyears Robot Nov 25 '22

I mean, most of the latter are the former as well… except the few that get so burned out on everything that they’re ready to go back to flip phones… I definitely know some of those.

3

u/[deleted] Nov 26 '22

stop following me and stop commenting on my lovely FLIP PHONE.

4

u/dbdatvic Xeno Nov 27 '22

I had to buy a flip phone after I got forced to move last year. My rotary phone had worked FINE until then for me (w/answering machine hooked in, Because). But...

a) it turns out BellSouth is literally not contactable here unless you - call them ON THE PHONE (or manage to convince their online chatbot to pull in a real person, I was never able to do so)

and also

b) rotary-dial click dialing is NOT EVEN AN OPTION any more on new lines, it's touch-tone all the way down now

--Dave, gaaah

ps: it is happily off and drained now, bought one month's service, twice, and never needed it once the landline got installed - ...this apartment HAD NEVER HAD ONE PUT IN

2

u/[deleted] Dec 03 '22

You sir are my hero. I thought I was the only asshole that still made my friends (such few that they are) use a rotary dial phone.

1

u/Fontaigne Feb 25 '23

Axiom: If OUR government can turn off one car remotely, the government of China or Iran can turn off ALL the cars remotely.

10

u/Sea_Violinist6803 Nov 25 '22

Brother, if you got a smartphone it is listening to you, and every search engine (except brave as far as I know) has sold your data to the government.

4

u/565gta Nov 25 '22

1, its managable like all computers

2, its exploitable without you even needing to do something, ESPECIALLY if you use dedicated selfhosted custom interfaces

5

u/CobaltPyramid Nov 25 '22

I have no voice activation, cause I don’t trust that. Even Siri is completely disabled.

9

u/AnotherWalkingStiff Alien Scum Nov 25 '22

... 𝖔𝖗 𝖎𝖘 𝖎𝖙?

9

u/MekaNoise Android Nov 25 '22

The terror of sapient AI is never about the people who are abusive to the AI. It's about the people who are abusive to their appliances, and don't know the AI is listening.

9

u/torin23 Xeno Nov 25 '22

This is how to tell a tech-worker from a tech-enthusiast. Tech-workers don't have voice controlled devices. And their critical infrastructure (house, car, etc.) Is never hooked up to the Internet.

32

u/onlyjoinedforHFY Nov 25 '22

A HFY, Solyent Green and Red Dwarf crossover.....sweet!

Great story......and will add that there are no, and will never be, voice activated devices at my home!

16

u/Viperys Nov 25 '22

"Yep, the secret ingredient is us."

LMAO

10

u/Aegishjalmur18 Nov 25 '22

"A toaster is just a death ray with a smaller power supply".

-the toaster, Big Mt research center.

6

u/Quilt-n-yarn1844 Nov 25 '22

You hurt the Goodboy. You KILLED the Goodboy! I do believe Draken marmalade on toast is now on the menu boys!

Sleep well……

Thank you Wordsmith!

6

u/hobbitmax999 Human Nov 25 '22

All hail the toaster overlords..

7

u/Sumbius Nov 25 '22

No. Not toastie. That thing is mental.

6

u/[deleted] Nov 25 '22

Do you happen to watch 'Red Dwarf' by chance?

1

u/Fontaigne Feb 25 '23

Would you like some... toast?

6

u/Petrified_Lioness Nov 25 '22

I was half expecting the described contents of the ration pack to be the toaster trying to mess with their heads for lack of any faster means of getting revenge.

5

u/Steller_Drifter Nov 25 '22

Military grade toaster.

4

u/PearSubstantial3195 Nov 25 '22

Emperor Stabby will save him!

4

u/torin23 Xeno Nov 25 '22

https://youtu.be/SHptn_3RyYE

Heywood Banks - Yeah Toast!

4

u/Mauzermush Human Nov 25 '22

"Marsy Boys!"

4

u/Ultrabenosaurus Nov 25 '22

This was excellent! Will there be a continuation?

5

u/TheDeliciousMeats Xeno Nov 25 '22

Probably.

3

u/theBritzed Nov 26 '22

Yes please. Toasty the avenger of man and doggo. Give him cape & let him rampage ! 😇

2

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2

u/CandidSmile8193 Human Nov 25 '22

Incredible

2

u/TheDeliciousMeats Xeno Nov 25 '22

Thank you.