No, typed the writer.
Crane brought his feet down off the table with a bang and reached for the length of pipe lying on the draining board.
The machine clicked sedately. It was planned that way, it typed. They did it.
Crane sat rigid in his chair.
‘They’ did it!
‘They’ made machines aware.
‘They’ had set his clocks ahead.
Set his clocks ahead so that he would get to work early, so that he could catch the metallic, ratlike thing squatting on his desk, so that his typewriter could talk to him and let him know that it was aware without anyone else being around to mess things up.
‘So that I would know,’ he said aloud. ‘So that I would know.’
For the first time since it all had started, Crane felt a touch of fear, felt a coldness in his belly and furry feet running along his spine.