Intelligence from a human is something that is so average that if a person doesn't exhibit it, they deem them as unfit in society. Yet when something that's been believed to be inanimate, suddenly seeming to show signs of communication, suddenly the world is interested and consumed by curiosity. But sometimes what the object has to communicate across isn't exactly what you want to hear.
Standing outside the recording booth, my radio co-host and I were having our usual pre-show conversation, to make sure everything is going okay and if we need to cover incase someone is feeling under the weather. Fortunately for us, we were both doing perfectly average. I'd say fine but my co-host, John, and I weren't exactly ecstatic about our jobs. Sure, it came with its perks. The pay is amazing, the attention is phenomenal, and the people we get the chance to meet because of the job makes it far better than anything he and I had worked.
Since John and I were feeling fine and nothing new was really happening in our lives, we figured talking about what today was going to hold would break the tension some.
"Did you see the plant that guy brought in?" I asked, pointing to the inside of the booth. "Why do you think they spent the entire morning hooking it up to our computers?"
"I dunno, Kathy," he replied, trying to get a better look at the plant. "I think that's a beet. Ughh, I can imagine they're going to make me recite some kind of beet and radio station joke." He said, rolling his eyes.
"Jeez, I can't wait to fake laugh along with it." I said.
Not too long after, the executive came out and told us we'd be on the air soon and to take our places. John opened the door and waited for me to walk in before following behind and letting the door swing shut. It was nice of him to do this every time we came in. I knew he had started to develop feelings for me. Sure, we'd known each other for a while, but the way he treats me and flirts with me when we are off air makes me a little uncomfortable. But I'd rather put up with it than leave my job.
The light over the window in front of us flashed red. We were on the air. We put our headphones on and music swirled through my ears before fading into silence.
"Good morning, you lovely people," John said in his regular radio voice. It sounded lower and better controlled than his real voice, though there wasn't a massive difference between the two. "Welcome back to 97.1 The Roll. We give you the rock and we keep it rolling."
Words flashed on the computer screen that told us to answer a call with a Dr. Lunk.
"We are live with Dr. Lunk, the botanist from New Jersey. He's here to talk about his research on a new finding in veggies." I said, reading the prompt on the screen.
We answered the phone and a man's voice came through. It was a higher pitched voice than I was used to with a slight accent I couldn't quite place my finger on. European? He started talking about a new study that was done recently at his facility. They ran tests on beets and found they hold a frequency that they use to communicate. They found a way to harness the frequency and let it make its own choices.
A prompt appeared on the screen in front of us. We'd finally found out what the plant was hooked up for. It was hooked up to our system to randomly choose songs from our entire catalog. It was going to be hooked up to play for the next eight hours, which is when we go home for the night and let the station go full shuffle.
After the phone call, we let the machine run, picking songs at random. Some of them were really good songs that we played every other day, while others were songs we forgot we even had in the catalog, bring us nostalgia.
Eventually, John and I had decided to go on our hour long break. We put it on full auto, to play commercials and previously run commentary bits of us.
We stepped outside and lit our cigarettes. The early spring air was cold against my bare arms. I knew I should have brought a jacket. John saw me shiver and offered to let me wear his suit jacket. I would have said no, but it was cold and I'd rather suffer than freeze. I disliked the feeling that I might be leading him on.
As we were smoking, I came straight out and told him to stop hitting on me. He acted shocked as if I had no idea what he was talking about. I pointed out all the things he did for me and came back to say he was trying to be nice. I shook my head. There's being nice and let me open the door for you every time I'm around you. Not just that, but I informed him of the way he speaks to me, almost flirtatiously.
He was about to reply back, but a phone call from our boss broke things up.
"You both need to get your asses inside now!" he exclaimed in a fury we had never before heard.
"What's going on, boss?" John asked.
"The plant is playing our emergency recording we would have looping incase of a nuclear attack!" he yelled. "Get in there and shut it down before we get our asses sued!"
We hung up the phone and ran inside. Sure enough, echoing through the speakers inside the building was the message about the nukes. We were in a complete state of panic and charged back to the booth. We tried the computer to let us override the broadcast, but the way it was set up, if you leave everything on auto, ads and all, there is no way to override it. Instead it will only let you pause the autoplay after what's currently playing. We had no choice, and our boss agreed, that we had to sit through and suffer the excruciating knowledge of knowing we were telling thousands of people that the world was going to end. We tried not to think about the horrible repercussions of this.
Standing outside the recording booth, my radio co-host and I were having our usual pre-show conversation, to make sure everything is going okay and if we need to cover incase someone is feeling under the weather. Fortunately for us, we were both doing perfectly average. I'd say fine but my co-host, John, and I weren't exactly ecstatic about our jobs. Sure, it came with its perks. The pay is amazing, the attention is phenomenal, and the people we get the chance to meet because of the job makes it far better than anything he and I had worked.
Since John and I were feeling fine and nothing new was really happening in our lives, we figured talking about what today was going to hold would break the tension some.
"Did you see the plant that guy brought in?" I asked, pointing to the inside of the booth. "Why do you think they spent the entire morning hooking it up to our computers?"
"I dunno, Kathy," he replied, trying to get a better look at the plant. "I think that's a beet. Ughh, I can imagine they're going to make me recite some kind of beet and radio station joke." He said, rolling his eyes.
"Jeez, I can't wait to fake laugh along with it." I said.
Not too long after, the executive came out and told us we'd be on the air soon and to take our places. John opened the door and waited for me to walk in before following behind and letting the door swing shut. It was nice of him to do this every time we came in. I knew he had started to develop feelings for me. Sure, we'd known each other for a while, but the way he treats me and flirts with me when we are off air makes me a little uncomfortable. But I'd rather put up with it than leave my job.
The light over the window in front of us flashed red. We were on the air. We put our headphones on and music swirled through my ears before fading into silence.
"Good morning, you lovely people," John said in his regular radio voice. It sounded lower and better controlled than his real voice, though there wasn't a massive difference between the two. "Welcome back to 97.1 The Roll. We give you the rock and we keep it rolling."
Words flashed on the computer screen that told us to answer a call with a Dr. Lunk.
"We are live with Dr. Lunk, the botanist from New Jersey. He's here to talk about his research on a new finding in veggies." I said, reading the prompt on the screen.
We answered the phone and a man's voice came through. It was a higher pitched voice than I was used to with a slight accent I couldn't quite place my finger on. European? He started talking about a new study that was done recently at his facility. They ran tests on beets and found they hold a frequency that they use to communicate. They found a way to harness the frequency and let it make its own choices.
A prompt appeared on the screen in front of us. We'd finally found out what the plant was hooked up for. It was hooked up to our system to randomly choose songs from our entire catalog. It was going to be hooked up to play for the next eight hours, which is when we go home for the night and let the station go full shuffle.
After the phone call, we let the machine run, picking songs at random. Some of them were really good songs that we played every other day, while others were songs we forgot we even had in the catalog, bring us nostalgia.
Eventually, John and I had decided to go on our hour long break. We put it on full auto, to play commercials and previously run commentary bits of us.
We stepped outside and lit our cigarettes. The early spring air was cold against my bare arms. I knew I should have brought a jacket. John saw me shiver and offered to let me wear his suit jacket. I would have said no, but it was cold and I'd rather suffer than freeze. I disliked the feeling that I might be leading him on.
As we were smoking, I came straight out and told him to stop hitting on me. He acted shocked as if I had no idea what he was talking about. I pointed out all the things he did for me and came back to say he was trying to be nice. I shook my head. There's being nice and let me open the door for you every time I'm around you. Not just that, but I informed him of the way he speaks to me, almost flirtatiously.
He was about to reply back, but a phone call from our boss broke things up.
"You both need to get your asses inside now!" he exclaimed in a fury we had never before heard.
"What's going on, boss?" John asked.
"The plant is playing our emergency recording we would have looping incase of a nuclear attack!" he yelled. "Get in there and shut it down before we get our asses sued!"
We hung up the phone and ran inside. Sure enough, echoing through the speakers inside the building was the message about the nukes. We were in a complete state of panic and charged back to the booth. We tried the computer to let us override the broadcast, but the way it was set up, if you leave everything on auto, ads and all, there is no way to override it. Instead it will only let you pause the autoplay after what's currently playing. We had no choice, and our boss agreed, that we had to sit through and suffer the excruciating knowledge of knowing we were telling thousands of people that the world was going to end. We tried not to think about the horrible repercussions of this.
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