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Damien shot awake, covered in sweat. His wife grumbled and rolled away from him, mumbling how he ought to cool it with the late night junk food. He scrambled out of bed, busting into the hallway. “Emma!” he shouted. “Emma, are you there!?”

His daughter emerged from her room, rubbing her eyes. She was still a high schooler. “Dad? What’s going on?”

So, his basement confinement had been a dream? From below came the sound of symbols crashing. It was down there, scheming against him. This Golem, this Frankenstein’s monster, wanting to replace him and lock him in that pit. Damien spilled down the stairs on blistering feet. He wound the corner, then found the basement, flipping the lights on. The beast was there, now playing his novelty accordion by itself, seeking to take yet another talent from humanity’s weakening grasp. Damien did the only thing he could. Ripping his bass guitar from its pedestal, he let out a cry that was half raging-Viking, half wounded-animal and closed on the Multiectomy Machine.

Its cameras locked on him. With his bass, he smacked them loose, pulling them off their wires. Blind, the machine spun round on its hydraulics, winding spasming circles like an antennae-less ant. He brought the bass guitar down on its excuse for a face, smacking the instrumentation loose, spilling drumsticks and guitar picks over the floor. He smacked it from the side, knocking the machine over. It went careening to the marble tiling below, its chassis splitting open, spilling gears and servos and microchips over the floor. “The only thing you should be playing is Daisy Bell!” he shouted, beating on the broken beast until his guitar had split in half at the neck, its wires spilling loose and wild.

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