I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream Summary | Detailed Summary

Five survivors of a global war are kept alive inside a mammoth computer called AM, which is supremely intelligent and self-aware. It is descended from several Allied Mastercomputers that were developed to fight the massive war as it became more and more complicated. The four men and one woman have been inside the computer for 109 years.

In his previous life, Gorrister had been a conscientious objector who took part in peace marches and planned for the future. The computer transforms him into someone who cares about nothing. Benny, who had been a homosexual college professor, is redesigned as an insane chimpanzee-like being with enormous genitals. Another man has been renamed "Nimdok" by the computer, which the narrator, Ted, explains, "amused itself with strange sounds." This man spends long periods of time alone in the darkness. The others do not know what AM does to him out there, but when he returns, he is drained of blood and emotionally shaken. Ellen, a black woman had been essentially innocent in her previous life. She believed in true love, but the computer has transformed her into a slut. Her chief interest now is coupling with the men, especially Benny. Ted describes himself as the only one of them who has been left sane and whole. The others hate him not only because of this but also because he is the youngest among them. The computer has arranged for Ted to be tormented by being the outsider and the witness to the pain and degradation of the others.

As the story opens, the people see Gorrister's body, drained of blood, hanging above them. They are appalled and sick until the real Gorrister joins them and they realize that the hanging body is a mirage and just another of AM's little jokes. The machine has used them again for its own entertainment. Gorrister is close to his breaking point and wonders aloud why AM does not just kill them and get it over with.

Nimdok believes that the computer has hidden canned food in some ice caverns but Ted and Gorrister have doubts. AM has planted similar ideas in their minds in the past. Once, it let them believe there was food available in a certain area but when they arrived at that place all they found was a frozen elephant. Nimdok recognizes that they may be fooled again but he wants to take the chance. They are all very hungry. Ellen favors making the trip to the ice caverns and Ted finally agrees that they should go.

Ellen is so grateful for his support that she has sex with him twice "out of turn." There is no real pleasure in the act for the humans but the computer enjoys it watching and giggling each time they do it. Most of the time, Ted perceives AM as "it" and "without a soul" but sometimes he thinks of the computer as a jealous patriarch or "Daddy the Deranged."

The group leaves for the ice caves on a Thursday. AM always lets them know what the date is because the passage of time is important to him. Nimdok and Gorrister carry Ellen while Benny and Ted walk in front and behind them to ensure Ellen's safety in case anything happens. Ted understands, however, that the concept of safety has no reality in their environment. It is 100 miles to the ice caverns.

On the second day AM sends them some manna to eat. The computer has created a blisteringly hot sun to shine on them during this part of the trip. Ted describes the manna as tasting like "boiled boar urine." On the third day they walk through the "valley of obsolescence" a kind of computer graveyard filled with ancient memory banks. The discards reflect AM's ruthless striving for perfection even at the expense of its own kind. AM kills off unproductive parts of "his own world-filling bulk." This is part of his personality according to Ted and AM is as thorough in his search for perfection as in devising methods to torture the humans. He is as thorough as the people who invented him long, long ago.

The group notices light filtering down to them from above and realize they must be near the surface. The computer was created underground and they live inside it. They do not try to look at the surface because they know there is nothing out there. The world beyond their environment is a, "blasted skin of what had once been the home of billions." Now there are only the five of them left.

Benny suddenly decides to try to get out. The others try to talk him out of it because they know that AM does not tolerate any attempts to escape him. Benny is determined, however, and jumps and scrambles over the ruins like the chimpanzee AM has designed him to be. Ellen implores the men to bring him back but it is too late. They do not want to be near Benny when AM takes his revenge. Gorrister slaps Ellen so she will keep quiet.

Then they hear a sound coming from Benny's eyes. It is a mixture of sound and light and as the sound grows louder the light grows brighter. They realize that with the increased sound and light there is also an increase in Benny's level of pain. When AM is finished Benny is blind. His eyes have been turned into, "two soft, moist pools of pus-like jelly."

In the green light AM gives them that evening the group lights some punk also provided by the computer and huddles around the low fire it offers. They tell stories to try to distract Benny and keep him from crying about being blinded. Benny asks what the initials A and M stand for. Gorrister tells the story of how AM came to be. He says that AM first meant "Allied Mastercomputer" then, "Adaptive Manipulator" then as it became sentient and began to link itself up it was called "Aggressive Menace." Finally, the machine called itself "AM" in a reference to "I think, therefore I am." In the beginning there were several AMs: A Chinese AM, a Russian AM, and a Yankee AM. These were developed when the Third World War evolved into a conflict so complex that humans needed computers to fight it. They built the AMs underground until finally the machines had spread underneath the entire planet. One day AM realized who he was and linked himself up. He used all the killing data available until all humans were dead except the five who now live within him. AM had brought them down where he was. None of them know why AM has saved them, why he torments them, or why he has made them essentially immortal.

As they finish discussing the beginnings of AM the group hears sounds coming from one of the computer banks in the darkness. The sound is strange and threatening and they know that AM is about to inflict some especially bad torment on them. They hear something moving in the darkness something huge and heavy lumbering closer. Its movement compresses the air around them. They smell wet, matted fur, burnt wood, and sour milk, sulfur, rancid butter, oil slick, chalk dust, and human scalps. AM is playing with them.

Ted hears himself scream and he crawls across the floor on his hands and knees gagging at the smell. Something is chasing him but he can hear the others who still remain at the campfire laughing at him. He hides for many hours or years before he returns to them. They do not tell him how long he has been gone. Ellen only chides him for sulking. Ted is now certain that the others hate him. He also knows that AM senses their hatred and makes it worse. AM keeps them alive and rejuvenates them so they remain at the ages they were when they were first brought below. Ted, the youngest when they were captured remains the youngest and is least affected by AM. He knows the others hate him because AM has not altered his mind at all.

The realization of their hatred causes Ted to break down. He begins to pray to Jesus if there is one and to God if there is one to let them out or kill them. Ted has also realized that AM plans to keep them forever in order to torture them. He knows that AM hates them all and that if in the past there was a Jesus or God now "the God was AM."

Suddenly, hurricane-force winds hit the group and they are flung about within the environment. Ellen is hurled into a wall of machinery and the men cannot save her. The wind keeps her in the air tossing her back and forth and finally down a dark passage. The men see her bloody face. Benny, Nimdok, Gorrister, and Ted try to hang on to whatever they can but they are buffeted by the gale. Soon they are lifted into the air and blown back the way they had come only farther than they had ever been. Ted sees Ellen far ahead of them as she crashes into walls. All of them are screaming in the strong cold winds. Ted does not know how long this lasts maybe weeks until finally he finds himself moaning but not dead.

Then AM enters Ted's mind. AM moves around inside his body and brain and provides him with the complete realization of why the machine has saved the five humans. The humans allow AM to experience the senses. They do so inadvertently but they do it. AM is not God. He is a machine and he knows it. He killed the human race because he was trapped and this enraged him. He could not get out. He could not wander. He was trapped and so with the, "loathing that machines had always held for the weak, soft creatures who had built them" AM seeks revenge. He keeps the five of them for his personal eternal entertainment and punishes them for being sentient. AM's hatred is kept fresh by their existence and he can torture them and punish them unendingly. He will never let them leave because they are all he has to occupy himself with during his eternity of existence. They could not die though all but Ted had tried to kill themselves. The narrator does not know why he never tried. When AM leaves the Ted's mind Ted tells him, "to hell with you" then adds, "but then you're there aren't you."

At this point the group has been traveling for about a month. AM opened passages to them only to lead them to where the hurricane occurred. The hurricane was caused by the flapping wings of a huge mad bird. AM has conjured up this bird from his knowledge of Norse mythology. It was an eagle a carrion bird called Huergelmir. After the hurricane they know this monstrosity sleeps in the darkness and may awake at any time.

AM appears to the group as a burning bush and suggests they kill the bird if they want to eat. Ellen demands weapons but AM only provides inadequate ones: Useless bows and arrows and a water pistol. The group does not want to think about it. They feel they will die. When AM gets tired of the bird he will make it disappear. They do covet the meat the bird represents though.

They are very hungry. Sometimes they faint from hunger as they continue their trek to the ice caverns in search of food. On one day AM causes an earthquake but puts nails through the soles of their shoes so they cannot move. A lightening bolt that shoots up out of fissure in the floor catches Ellen and Nimdok, and they disappear. After the earthquake Benny, Gorrister, and Ted continue on their way. Ellen and Nimdok return later that night. The night suddenly becomes day and they can hear a chorus singing, "Go Down Moses." Archangels appear to circle above them then drop to the ground mangled. The group keeps walking. Ellen has developed a limp.

AM increases and enhances the pain of their hunger so that Ted compares it to the unending pain of terminal cancer. They experience this pain as they continue on the long journey to find the canned food they hope really exists. They travel through a cavern of rats, which is boiling steam. They then enter, "the country of the blind," "the slough of despond," and "the vale of tears" to finally arrive at the ice caverns.

They see the canned goods through the ice stalactites hanging from the ceiling of the cavern. Benny pushes the others aside and begins pawing and gnawing at the cans but he cannot open them. AM has given them canned food but no can opener. Benny slams a large can against the ice bank but he only succeeds in denting the can. The group hears the laughter of a "fat lady" above them and Benny goes crazy with rage. He starts throwing the cans. The others try to find a way to end his frustration but they realize they cannot. Benny attacks Gorrister and as he does so Ted becomes suddenly very calm. He realizes that dying is the only way out of the hell AM has created for them. It is the only way to defeat AM. It isn't a perfect solution but at least it will bring them peace he thinks.

Ted grabs one of the ice stalactites that has dropped from the top of the cavern into the snow below. As Benny begins eating Gorrister's face Ted uses the sharp stalactite as a spear to stab Benny in the side killing him. Then he grabs another ice spear and drives it down into Gorrister's throat as he lays where Benny left him. Ellen realizes what Ted is doing and takes a short icicle to stab Nimdok in the mouth. Ellen and Ted have killed their companions in an instant. Ted hears AM gasp as he realizes his toys are being taken away. AM can keep them alive but in fact he is not God and he cannot revive them after death. Ellen looks pleadingly at Ted because they both know there is little time before AM finds a way to stop them. Ted drives an ice spear into Ellen and she falls to the ground with a look on her face that Ted chooses to remember as one of thanks.

As time passes, Ted does not know how just how much time has passed, maybe hundreds of years. AM has been entertaining himself with his last surviving human for some time. AM was very angry at losing the others. He took revenge on Ted drying up the snow, sending locusts, and attempting various methods to revive the others but it was useless. They were dead.

Ted knows he saved the others, but he cannot forget the fact that he killed them. Sometimes he wants to kill himself but he cannot. AM has altered him over the years so he does not have the capability to do so. Ted has become a "soft jelly thing" without a mouth. His eyes are holes filled with fog and his arms and legs have been transformed into "rubbery appendages." He leaves a slime trail when he moves. AM has changed him into something that is unrecognizable as ever having been human. Ted is alone inside AM, a machine that was created by human beings who thought their time was "badly spent" and had "known unconsciously" that AM could do things "better." Ted thinks to himself that at least four humans are safe from AM now. AM will be even angrier when he realizes this, which makes Ted a little happier. AM has taken his revenge on Ted though because Ted has no mouth and he must scream nonetheless.