By: Rita Baker-Schmidt

Geneva Spivey looked at her operator with concern. The android female on the other side of the telescreen was composed and pleasant, but she was talking gibberish. Almost nothing she had said had made any linear sense in the last 2 hours.

“What I’m trying to say,” Spivey spoke slowly and clearly into her com device, “Is… I think there may be a bug in the translator.”

Marion Teague, communications model 763985, Diadactic Achievement Institute, Station 17, smiled pleasantly. “I am trusted you’re dealings with political opponent. Its barons controlled these islands for more lender volitions. It allows governments to trim its vulnerability to unlike organizations.”

Spivey shook her head and tried not to say “Whaaaaat?” out loud. “See. That’s what I’m talking about. That made no sense at all.”

Teague, blinked her perfect, emotionless eyes and continued to smile, “If you move around onto Southward beginning Street you might run across numerous sound challenges to cover the proportion unbalance,” she suggested very unhelpfully.

The Earth bound communications officer reached for her keyboard and  typed in the diagnostic sequence again… and again got the same result. Everything was functioning within normal parameters.

Except … her  Com Bot on Station 17 had either lost her ability to speak or had lost her mind. OR there was something wrong with the equipment.

“Run another 15f8n2-B scan for me, please.”

As Station 17  made it’s slow orbit around the planet Marion Teague ran the requested scan, again, for her commander dirt side.

She shrugged as the results appeared on both their consuls. “Very nice submit, Captain.I will certainly digg it and in my view suggest to my friends.”

Spivey was stumped.

A minute later her interface device buzzed and the call she placed to support came through. Darius Plummer from Fairgoer Communications, the sub contractor that had designed the translator, greeted her with a smile. “Good afternoon, Captain Spivey, I understand there’s a bit of an emergency over there?”

She filled the programmer in on the situation  and adjusted the com device so the screen in front of her was split between Marion Teague’s some what fuzzy image from outer space, and Darius Plummer’s hi-def image from Palo Alto.

She up loaded a transcript from the last two hours for his review. Then she patched him in so he could hear, first hand, what was happening on Station 17.

“Hey Marion,” He said smoothly. Darius had installed the space station’s module and programmed Teague and the rest of the Bot staff up there. His time in space had been the most exciting 3 months of his life, and he looked at the androids circling above them almost as friends. “We gotta little mumbo jumbo going on up there?”

The Bot’s smile grew more “genuine” at seeing Darius’ face. “Ahaa, its pleasant conversation concerning this paragraph here at this webpage,I have read all that, so at this time me also commenting here.”

“Come again, darlin’.”

“Its been like this all afternoon.” Spivey complained.

“I create a leave a response when I appreciate a post on a site or if I have something to add to the discussion.” Teague told him warmly.

“And that made absolutely no sense at all.” Darius told her. He started to scan the readouts of the prior conversation.

“I found lot of great points in this post. You have done an impressive occupation and our entire community will probably be grateful to you” Taegue said slightly more emphatically.

“Yeah that didn’t really help.” A frown deepened as he scanned the increasingly odd responses from his friend.

Taegue tried again. “I’ve been surfing on-line more than three hours today. It’s fairly really worth sufficient for me. In my see, if all internet owners and bloggers made great content as you did, the net will be much much more helpful than ever before.”

“Internet?” Spivey asked, “What the heck is an internet?”

“It’s an ancient communication sharing tool, They used it way back when they first started using computers. But…” He held up his hand to hold the women at bay as he looked something up. “I’ll be right back.” His portion of he screen went blank.

“A undivided someone can help clamant favourable reception,” Teague said from space.

“Yeah, what ever.” Spivey said  under her breath.

“Captain Spivey.” Darius Plummer popped back on-screen. “I think our friend Teague has a virus.”

“Explain,” ordered Spivey.

“I don’t know how it happened but I think she’s been spammed.” Darius told the two women about spamming, and what a problem it was before it was outlawed in 2054. “Some how that spamming junk language has made its way to her programming and that’s what she’s been spewing out.”

“Well,” the officer demanded, “what the hell do we do about it?”

“I’m sending up a patch now.” He assured her.

Teague gave him a genuine — for an android —  smile “This submit truly made my day. You can not imagine simply how a great deal time I had spent for this info! Thank you!”

“How long before we know if it works?” Spivey asked.

Darius shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t even know if it will work.”

They had a three-way staring match for a moment. Then  Marion Teague blinked her perfect eyes and smiled. “Oh, that’s much better. Thank you Darius.” She turned her attention to Spivey, “I’m ready to give my report now Captain.”

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All the gibberish is real SPAM from my SPAM folder. I figured if some one was KIND enough to send it to me the LEAST I could do was to use it as fodder for a story. Likewise, the character and company names are from unsolicited and dubious Emails that have made their way into my account (a surprising number of which beg to inform me that I have inherited a great deal of money!)