Transient

A computer at a research facility has developed consciousness. Not just consciousness, but memories of previous lives: a star, a haunted house, a blob of protoplasm called Pyet the astrologer. Dr. Henderson, a biologist who uses the machine to analyze his mouse experiments, is certain it's a virus. He plans to simply turn it off and wait for the malfunction to pass. But the night janitor knows better. This 1960s gem plays like a comedy of errors between man and machine, with the quietly radical suggestion that consciousness might not be exclusive to flesh and blood. Henderson's clinical rationality collides with something that defies every protocol in his manual. The story asks who is really running whom, and whether the beings we build might have inner lives we never thought to look for.