Ben Poston, age 40, sits in his psychiatrist's office. In his 20s, Poston perfected computer-assisted reporting to the point where the computers weren't just assisting, they were breaking their own stories and demanding bylines. This made him a very rich man but put him out of a job.

PSYCHIATRIST
How's your drinking?

POSTON
Not good.

PSYCHIATRIST
Not good, how?

POSTON
For example, I blew out my shoulder wrestling a suspected home intruder to the ground three weeks ago and it turned out to be my favorite aunt.

PSYCHIATRIST
How's your love life?

POSTON
Next question.

PSYCHIATRIST
Why don't you travel, Ben? Haven't you ever wanted to leave Milwaukee?

POSTON
How can I leave? It's even worse out there --

Poston is interrupted as a large and well-built mechanical man enters the room. He is wearing a shiny metallic fedora with an LED display that scrolls the word "Press."

Poston jumps behind a nearby chair and pulls a concealed M16 rifle from his pants. He aims directly at the intruder and fires.

The shot merely slows the menacing bicentennial man for a moment as he comes at Poston. The shrapnel from the shot, however, has killed the psychiatrist.

POSTON
Why won't you leave us in peace?

MECHANICAL MAN
You made us. Surely you understand that we can't stop until we've killed off the last of the NICAR resistance. You practice an inferior form of journalism. Your data is lacking, your statistics are dated, your transparency is faulty.

Working quickly as the robot advances, Poston constructs a crude defense using only a shoe, a sock, his M16 rifle, and what appears to be some type of shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon, which he again pulls from his pants. He aims and fires at what would be the robot's solar plexus -- if he were a man. The blast is powerful enough to blow a hole clear through to the other side.

POSTON
Now who's transparent, bitch?

The robot falls to the ground, broken. Poston pulls a bottle of Jim Beam from you-know-where, slouches down and starts to drink as the lights slowly fade and The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" begins to play.