This one ran a little long.
At 2400 words (300/min) it’ll take you about 8-10 minutes to read. Sorry.
When they do that, I put them over on my other site so that my editor can help tweak my myriad technical mistakes. I will never master English. Never.
Read it in a new tab here.
Anonymole - apocryphal agitators 
You might not be interested in this, but in Mexico a “cojito” is a person or animal that is hurt or damaged in someway. Usually in the foot or leg. Lame is a good synonym. We have plenty down here like that. You will often see them in Mexico City rolling around in a coke box with wheels. Duke
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Cogitation was the root word I was going for. I debated “Cogi” vs “Coji” and figured folks might pronounce the former “Kogy”.
Maybe one of those cojitos is a cripple by day and a superhero by night, rewarding those who offer up $, punishing those that snub him-or-her.
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lol – reading through the comments, I have to ask – do you guys never read for pleasure?
I really enjoyed this piece, Mole, but then I love scifi with a bit of depth, and smells, and big cats. 😀
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Yeah…when?
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Tomorrow.
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Hey I was really engrossed in this. I think it was tightly written and just the right length. Narrator’s voice seemed louder and clearer than usual. Reminded me of stuff I’d read in science fiction anthologies back in the day.
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I liked the story out front and the usual “look what treatise I just read” syfy techno gobbledygook in short supply. Assumptive selling. No one needs a how to manual on whaling, know what I mean?
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Yeah that’s probably it. And the characters didn’t smell bad. (For some reason his characters always smell.)
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Stinky characters have their place but that can be made assumptive with other adequate descriptors inferring stank.
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Olfactory: the most overlooked sense in fiction.
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There is academic and psychological research into why. Cut your book closers down by avoiding smell. Covering your nose against the (insert large machinery and trucks full of shit here) of the dump is enough to trigger a response. Go into how it smells like diesel, vomit, spoiled milk, rotting maggot covered meat and month old broccoli, dead rabbits, dissolving disposable diapers, rancid grease, decaying vegetation, wet tampons and other “man the incorrigible’s” waste and you’ll lose people. Overly dead catfish in a closed Igloo cooler is plenty. Or a reaction to them. Smell is one of the most powerful senses. Talk about triggers. That’s why authors say things like fresh, hot pizza or the metallic smell of fresh blood without going overboard. However you are welcome to enhance the fiction lexicon with Mole’s descriptive stanky style. But for me flies and grey hamburger meat, or cottage cheese science experiment is plenty. He picked up the milk carton, chunks banged against the side. Open it? No fuckin’ way🤣
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A grandma’s-kitchen-warm-bread smell oozed into his flaring nostrils. Nostalgia slapped him hard in the face. He stumbled and plopped into the spindle-legged wooden chair. “Somebody better get me fresh butter on a roll, pronto.”
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Oozed is indelicate but typical🤣
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Incongruous is my middle name.
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“Just read”? – you mean obsessed with for years…
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Been better off readin’ Betty and and Veronica comics.
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I’m glad to hear that, Hetty.
When trying to communicate fairly obscure tech, I guess I needed to ensure the 1stPerson/narrator became overt.
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“Yes, they did.” Eliminate telegraphing. Rewrite this bit –
I heard that squeal again. I turned at a creak on the wooden stairs, snatched a glance and caught Samee’s shape melding into the dark background. “You wouldn’t.” I stepped toward the off-switch, lifted my hand…
“What is society without rules? Huh, Samee?”
Make it go BAM, don’t let the air out of it first. Reminds me of one in Lawrence Bloch’s “Sometimes They Bite” collection. Ethics, attitude, come-uppance. Bad ass. Your stiff convo works well between geek and machine. I used to wonder why your machines are often more human than your humans but it’s become obvious in all your work that humans are generally a bunch of greedy, selfish, unethical assholes. I’m surprised the short worded well drawn stereotype’s head wasn’t crushed, but then the AI would have come off as callous as the human.
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Make it go BAM… OK. will try.
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… Must be one of those darlings I need to kill, but can’t find my knife.
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Think psycho. Think visual. It’s written so we get it, but how do we see it? Terror is best implied. Convo, ethics line, yeah yeah huh….THEN the last bit is a look over the shoulder, the creaking stairs. Dial it up tight all the way to the oh shit moment and let go of it.
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