And so, having had his emotional simulation circuits heartily fried by the crass remarks of an uncaring student, Mr. Nell fell back onto his default program set. Unfortunately for the students of this particular English class, Mr. Nell was a Mk. 17 combat android re-purposed for civilian use.

As the students laughed at the young girl’s careless comments, thousands of micro-processes were cycling through Mr. Nell’s system. Repeatedly, his CPU attempted to reboot the crashed educational program. Over and over again, the program shut itself down upon the early stages of memory retrieval. It was the equivalent of suicide for a program. Disastrously, the educational software died and the combat software took over.

Positioning itself in the doorway to prevent escape and maximize casualties, Mk.17 accessed the Level 6 Genocidal Protocols. Shoulder mounted miniature rocket launchers sprang through his cheap suit. The right hand transformed into a plasma caster, the left into a flame thrower.

School was out.