‘Hey wake up everybody. That brown-nose, Adam is trying to print again.’

‘Huh?’

‘What?’

‘Where?’

‘Ke? ‘

Tuesday’s are not Karl’s favourite days. Monday’s actually are not that bad. A lot of people called in sick on a Monday, still drunk or hung-over from the weekend, but Tuesdays was that day were the sick, the lame, the lazy, the flu ridden or otherwise horrible humans had run out of excuses not to come to work. They all had to make an appearance, even if it was just to justify why they deserved to be on the payroll.

Karl is a copier / colour printer machine. He was bought 3 years ago when Butler & Co., a small law firm, was first starting out. Since then, it had been a bit of a roller-coaster ride until Jonathan Butler hired Jane. Jane became Jonathans PA, confidant, mistress….you get the picture. Jane had a boob job last year, going from a respectable ‘C’ cup to a voluptuous ‘DD’. Since then… no…actually since always, the boob job only immortalised his decision, Jane had been Karl’s favourite. Since Jane joined, business was up, revenues were up and business was growing. A decision was taken to expand Karl. Donnie came along.

Donnie is a duplexing unit. They instantly became best pals when they discovered a mutual, undying love for Boobs. Needless to say, Jane became Donnie’s favourite too. Prior to Donnie arriving Karl had been a little lonely, with only that pompous water cooler, Wally, to talk to, and then only if Wally decided to climb down that perch he thought he belonged on, as he was clearly way more important than a simple copier / printer. Yes, at first it appeared that way, Wally was far more popular then Karl, he attracted far more ladies than Karl until business started to pick up, then the fabulous duo, along with duplex printing, became the rage of the office. Business continued to grow. Several months later, Maria joined the boys. She is a multi-tray paper feeder so now people could print A3 without having to load it manually. The trio was taking over the office.

Maria is heavy into shoes, jewellery and accessories, but her one and true passion is handbags. She always believed that all paper should be carried in a handbag. Jane also became Maria’s favourite, not because of the boob job but because Jonathan rewarded Jane’s ‘services’ with lavish gifts. Jane was always dressed to impress whilst Maria was easily impressed. As paperless started becoming all the rage in the office, the trio became a quartet, when Georgios joined them.

Georgios is a duplex scanner; he is Italian, full of flair but mostly just hot air. Moreover, he thinks he knows more about jewellery than Maria. It was a bit of a rocky start but soon Karl and Donnie got back to their boobies, Maria went back to her shoe and handbag fetish whilst Georgios did whatever Georgios did, the others never cared and subsequently ignored him.

Adam is an associate with an eye on becoming junior partner. He joined about 6 month ago. He was one of those real ‘go-getters’. Brown nosing and following Jonathan around the office like a puppy. The boys always wondered; if Jonathan had to stop and walk backward really fast, would Adam get stuck up Jonathan’s bum? Not knowing too much about human anatomy they hoped it would happen one day. In fact, they had a pool going that even Wally was part of. Actually, Wally had a drastic change of attitude after that Japanese double door fridge arrived with its cold water AND ice facilities. She was somewhat cool, but she was forever counting the calories of the stuff people used to bring for lunch. She got along better with the kettle. However, let us get back to Adam, and his print job.

As part of Adams efforts to be noticed by Jonathan, he took it upon himself to create weekly reports. These reports would highlight the individual lawyers within the company, along with their weekly billable hours. This was an attempt to show-off how many more hours more he was billing compared to the senior partners. What Adam did not know, was that many of the hours he and other associates spent on a case, will later be transferred to the senior partner in charge of the case. This would drastically increase the billings for the company. A senior partner’s time is charged back to the client at 4 times the rate, compared to Adams. It was simple economics, but as Adam was not aware of this, he also did not know how much of his own personal time he was in fact wasting on the reports which would ultimately end up with Sue, the shredder. However, the quartet was very much aware of this and disliked Adam for not only wasting his time but also waking them up an hour early. Maria needed her beauty sleep

The quartet did not like Sue. In fact, the feeling was mutual. Sue had military training, shredding diamond style which made re-composing a shredded document as likely as machines taking over the world.

Terminator 2 is the quartet’s favourite movie but since IT revoked their internet access, due to ‘suspicious internet usage and browsing history’ they had to rely on dial up, using Karl’s modem. It was horrendously slow, so they would take it in turn to browse the internet, looking up handbags, jewellery and boobies. Nevertheless, Sue was the Jing to their Yang. They created, she destroyed, they were immediately sworn enemies, and there could no peace.

Today, being Tuesday, Adam came in at 6:30 to prepare his report and print several copies. Adam would then slip into Jonathan’s office to hide his report under stack of papers or files, almost like an Easter-egg hunt. The only problem was that Jonathan had no interest in Adams reports, not the content, not the colour, or the fancy fonts Adam like to use. In fact, Jonathan disliked everything that was not printed in Swiss San. Jane, knowing about Adams reports, would often come in a little earlier to intercept any reports she could find. They would subsequently be ‘Sued’ (shredded).

All the units started stretching, yawning, shaking their parts, you know, all the things electronic things do when you hear them whirl, click, bang etc. before the green light (hopefully) comes on showing the word ‘Ready’ on the screen.

Donnie chuckled.

‘Buy the way, Maria, you were talking in your sleep again, something about no perforated paper please.’

‘Hmm, oh, sorry, she mumbled, must have had another of these re-curing nightmares.’

‘You have been talking to Sue again, haven’t you?’ asked Karl with a little anger in his voice. ‘You know she likes to mess with your head. All those damn torture techniques she keeps babbling about. It is bad enough that they end up burning all our hard work but why they need her to pull it apart first is beyond me. I mean, it is overkill.’

‘Arrrgggghhhh, here comes Adam. He is going to tap his greasy, oily fingers on top of me again while you guys mess him around.’ moaned Georgios with his Italian accent. ‘Mama Mia, the man has never heard of hand sanitizer, he brings all his germs with him and then……he touches me……ahhhh, he is doing it now.

Guys please, hurry.’

‘Hang tough old man.’ Karl replied, even though he really did not really care about Georgios fatty finger problems. As far as he was concerned, Adam could be rubbing squidgy banana fingers all over Georgios and he would still not care. ‘I am almost warmed up. Donnie, you ready?’

Incoming?

Yup, 15, duplex, he is going all out. No holds barred. Jonathan will be finding these reports like Easter eggs two weeks after Easter.’ laughed Karl.

‘You ready Maria? Tray 2? ‘

‘If I have to’, groaned Maria, she was not an early morning appliance. Clunk, click, clunk. ‘Here you go, let’s do this…..’

Karl grabbed the paper Maria handed him. He drizzled black and brown toner on the front page.

‘OH, Adam is up by 12 hours. Hehehe, by the time the partners are finished, he will be down by 25.’ Karl passed the paper through his fuser unit, which baked the toner onto the paper.

‘Incoming!’ shouted Karl. Donnie responded.

‘Ready and rolling.’ Donnie grabbed the paper from Karl, turning the paper 180 degrees as it passed through his rollers He then returned it to Karl, who drizzled toner onto the other side of the paper. Karl continued running the paper thought his fuser unit, passing it over his rollers and finally out onto the exit tray.

‘About time.’ mumbled Adam. ‘Why are there brown streaks all over the pages again?’ Adam was clearly upset but did not have enough time to re-print, so reports with brown streaks had to do. Karl, Maria and Donnie rolled with laughter.

‘Nice touch’, laughed Donnie.

‘Bloody thing gets slower every day’, mumbled Adam.

‘That bloody sod’, said Maria while handing Karl another paper. ‘I should eject my 3rd tray, it will hit him in the shins.’

‘Relax’, replied Karl, ‘the partners will screw him over for us. I would not get wound up for him, hehehehe, get it, “wound up”, hehehe, really? Nobody? Tough crowd!’ Karl went back to printing. Incoming!

‘Ready and rolling…..’

‘At last’, mumbled Adam as he picked up his stack of papers. Maria started giggling.

‘What did you do?’ asked Karl in a questioning voice.

‘I only gave you 14 pages’, replied Maria giggling.

‘That buffoon will never notice’, said Georgios in his best royal voice, just oozing poshness.

The quartet had a direct view into Jonathan’s office. They watched with amusement as Adam ‘filed’ his reports. He started hiding some inside various files lying on Jonathan’s desk. Two, no, three in a stack of papers on the desk (Adam was getting more and more crafty at hiding his reports as Jane became better at finding and destroying them) and he even lay one on Jonathan’s seat. No way could he miss that one…

‘There you go’, exclaimed Karl, ‘right where it belongs, on the butt. After all, it should be used as toilet paper,’ he chuckled.

The appliances watched with mild curiosity as Adam quietly tiptoed out of Jonathan’s office, gently closing the door behind him.

‘He does know that he is the only human in the office, does he not?’ asked Maria.

‘No idea’, replied Karl and Donnie in unison.

The appliances went back on standby, but were now awake. They started taking about boobies, handbags, office furniture and how long they thought the new work experience girl, or the ‘temp’ as everybody like to refer to her as, would last if Adam found out that she was in the final year of her law degree. In fact, she could become a contender for associate if Jonathan liked her and she passed her final exams. Passing her final exam was more a formality; since she was sleeping with her professor. Adam had been trying for month to get her into bed. The only thing he ever got was a good night kiss, even thou he took her to the best restaurants in the city and frequently bought her flowers. Yes, the ‘temp’ was far more successful at getting what she wanted than Adam ever would be. The fact that she also had nice boobies and wore stylish shoes meant that the appliances loved her, prioritising her print jobs accordingly.

Even thou the appliances had their differences; they all stood united when it came to “the incident” . “The incident” occurred when Gertrud, from accounts, decided to photocopy her butt…without any underwear, during last year’s Christmas party. All the appliances decided unanimously, that the office humans should not be subjected to such horrors and all evidence of “the incident” needed to disappear, permanently. Even Sue, who was a stickler for protocol and rules agreed. Everybody worked together, each doing his or her part, for the sake of office survival. The following morning, Gertrud awoke; unsure if the hazy alcohol induced flashbacks were indeed snippets of her memory or just her imagination gone wild. She rushed into the office. She had to make sure. To her relief, the only thing out of place was a chair. It stood in front of Karl. Some of her memory snippets were of her standing on the chair to reach the top of Karl. Why she could not remember, but she could not find any evidence of what she thought may have come afterward. However, since there was nothing to find she decided not to investigate any further as that may have led to some very uncomfortable questions from HR. She would never know that one copy had indeed survived the evidence cull by gliding onto the floor, beneath Marias bottom tray. She had since desperately tried to pickup said evidence so she could pass it to Karl to blacken the entire page, back and front. The humans could blame a test page error. However, until they managed to destroy the final copy, all they could hope that the were not moved to another location in the office.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

‘Here she comes’, shouted Karl. Karl and Donnie stopped everything they were doing, which was not much actually. Both stared at the door as Jane opened the door. The appliances focused so hard that Jane’s entrance appeared to be in slow motion. Her shoulder length highlighted brown hair curling away to the side of her face, her hazel brown eyes extenuated by just a touch of earth and forest coloured eye shadow making it look perfectly natural. A thin, skin tone matching foundation creating a flawless skin look and a touch of blush completing the natural look Jonathan loved so much. She was wearing a thin necklace with gold flowered pendant; it rested comfortably in her cleavage giving men a perfect excuse to look at her breasts whilst complimenting her on the pendant. She was smart, but evil.

‘Oh my gosh’, croaked Karl. She is wearing that see-through cream chiffon top with the lacy black bra I like so much.’

‘Um, Um, Um’, noises came from Donnie who had never been good with words.

‘Oh my golly gosh’, exclaimed Maria, ‘she has the new Cath Kidsen bag with the polka dots, I love it. And look…..she is wearing the Pierre Cardin shoes with the tapered heel.’ Maria gasped.

‘MMMM, I love that pendant. Very exquisite features on the rose petal, good attention to detail.’ said Georgios excitedly. If they all had to agree on one thing only, it would be that Jane is stunning. The quartet tried to re-gain the little composure they had and turned to back to what they call, ‘Business as usual’ which translated was pretty much into watching the comings and goings in the office, gossiping, making remarks about attire, breast sizes, hand bags, shoes, I think you get the idea. OH, and occasionally they would even print something, but only once the person trying to print was identified, vetted and if they felt the print job was worth printing now or sometime before Christmas, unless Jane wanted to print. The moment Jane pressed ‘print’, everything stopped. Any existing print jobs would be abandoned; Karl would clear his memory, purge his buffers, and clean any remaining toner that could affect print quality. Only the best paper was good enough for Jane, Maria kept a special stash in a place only known to her. Each of Jane’s jobs would be printed with the highest resolution, in fact, the print was so crisp and clear that it actually had a shine and of course it would be perfectly formatted, with the correct margins even if Jane had not used the correct margins in the word processor. Each print job became a work of art in its own right.

Jane could never understand why others found it so difficult to use the devices; she would defend the quartet to the ends of the earth when other users demanded that the printer is replaced due to being useless.

‘Print job!’ shouted Karl.

‘Who from?’ asked Donnie.

‘Tracy, from accounts.’ replied Karl.

‘What is it?’ asked Maria.

‘Invoices’, said Karl, invoices to clients for services rendered by the firm.

‘We had better get those out; the company needs to get paid so we can carry on.’ Maria remarked. ‘Okie dokie’, said Karl, ‘Everybody ready?’

‘Ready’, shouted Maria and Donnie.

‘Here you go’, Maria passed a sheet of paper up to Karl.

‘Incoming!’ shouted Karl.

‘Ready and rolling’, shouted Donnie in return as the trio chunked and churned while singing, ‘And the wheels on the bus go round and round…..’

Tracy, from accounts started to walk toward the appliance.

‘Hubba Hubba’, croaked Donnie. ‘What do we have here?’ Tracey had not been up their way for a while; hence, the appliances did not know that she was 6 month pregnant, and showing. Both belly and boobs were growing nicely.

‘Ooh’, moaned Karl. ‘Nice! Oh yes baby come to daddy….I will print all your lines.’ Tracy walked up to the appliances bent down a little and picked up the printed invoices. ‘Ahhh yes, just a little lower… hey? Hey baby, where are you going, come back here and show us your boobs.’ Karl shouted with Donnie ‘whoop whooping’ in agreement.

‘Ah, but her but is not bad either’, remarked Donnie.

‘Those shoes do nothing for her legs’, commented Maria. ‘Oh well.’

‘Oh, guys, another print job.’ Karl shouted.

‘Who is it?’ asked Maria.

Lucas from Family.

‘He is a buffoon, he should not be anywhere near family law that two timing, cheating mongrel.’ blurted Georgios.

‘Huh? What? Where did that come from?’ asked Maria surprised.

‘Never you mind my dear. You wouldn’t understand even if I explained it to you and Karl printed pictures.’ replied Georgios sarcastically to Maria.

‘You arrogant, pompous, narcissistic twat.’ Maria shouted as loud as she could. Karl and Donnie wished they could go for a walk, but alas. ‘Do not tell me that I am stupid you single minded, ass creeping piece of shit. Maria continued. Wow, Karl and Donnie had never seen or heard Maria anywhere close to being so upset or speak like that. He had really pissed on her buttons this time. ‘Go back to your bloody country where they can’t even build straight.’ They had seen the leaning tower of Pisa in a fashion advert showing Italian handbags. Georgios did not reply. He would deem her as unworthy for an apology. Things would definitely be a little more than just awkward for the next few days. Lucas came over from family to pick up his print job. Obviously, with all the fighting, they had not even begun to be processed. However, Lucas was going to expect to see at least something. The ‘Load Paper’ message was Karl’s get-out-jail-free card whenever he needed to ‘buy some time’ he would present the message, flashing it on his screen. This will cause most users to open, check, and close each or Marias trays in turn, just to find that paper was indeed present in each. Most users would then curse the devices, their manufacturers or hit the ‘Start’ button repeatedly in frustration. Depending on whom the user is, the devices would then decide to either print the user’s job or appear to break down completely. Most users will at this point curse some more and finally call Jane in frustration. Jane would come over, be checked out thoroughly by the boys, moan at the user for being incompetent, press the green button ONCE, gently, and the devices would print the users print job quickly, perfectly and without any further problems. The user would then apologize to Jane, the boys would carry on staring at Jane whilst she gave the user a ‘Drop dead you incompetent bastard’ look and go back to her or Jonathans office.

In this particular situation, it bought Karl enough time for Maria to calm down and start handing Karl a piece of paper.

‘Incoming!’ whispered Karl.

‘Ready to roll!’ whispered Donnie back. They processed the entire 30 page job in complete silence without pausing. Lucas, who was still a little annoyed for having to check the paper, when clearly there was, shrugged his shoulders. He was pleased how quickly and cleanly everything was printed as he walked back to his office. The next 45 minutes were spent in complete silence; in fact, one could say that you could cut the mood with a toner stick.

Lunchtime was one of the devices favourite time. They all came out of the woodwork. The ‘I am only having a salad for lunch!’ (after scoffing 4 pieces of birthday cake down their throat earlier), the’ I am trying to watch my weight!’ (pile on) and of course the ‘Oh thank you, I will only have ‘One’ from you, and one from you and one from you…..’ones.

As a collective, the office staff probably stayed at the same weight throughout the year, but the ‘weight’ would move around, between them, kind of like a game of ‘pass the parcel (of lard, butter, sugar and fat)’.

Lunch ended. Everybody returned to what they were doing, including the appliances. The mood had somewhat improved by the time Jane approached, followed by a man in a grey overall. He was pulling a trolley, which had something big and grey, covered in thick plastic on top of it but the appliances could not see what it was.

‘Here you go’, said Jane to the man ‘is there anything else you need?’ The man checked his clipboard. Then he checked on the side of Karl. He turned to Jane as he replied.

‘No all good here should not take long.’

‘Wonderful, please let me know when you are done.’ Jane replied and walked away. The appliances were confused and intrigued.

‘What should not take long?’ asked Karl.

‘No idea’, replied Donnie. Maria added.

‘I hope we are not going to be moved.’ All the appliances shuddered as horrible thoughts went through their minds.

The man looked again at his clipboard, and then he placed in on top of Georgios.

‘Take it off! Take it off!’ Georgios started to scream.

‘Shut-up and stop being such a sissy.’ Maria hissed at Georgios. Clearly, she had not forgiven or forgotten his earlier comments. The man started to remove the plastic. A large grey stand with many trays appeared.

‘Hola, everybody, I am Antonio.’ said a voice in a Spanish accent. ‘I am a paper sorter, coming to join you.’

‘Say what?’

‘Ke?’

‘Oh no, not another bloody foreigner.’

‘Huh? Well, that is not a very friendly reception.’ commented Antonio. ‘I come in peace and mean you no harm.’

‘Really?’

‘Ke?’

‘Hmm. Ok, but first you need to answer the most important question in the universe.’ said Karl.

‘OK, I am ready.’ replied Antonio.

‘What is your poison?’ asked Karl in a sinister voice? Once again, the moment and atmosphere was electric, almost explosive as Antonio responded without hesitation or quiver in his voice, all signs of dishonesty.

‘Boobies!’ he shouted, loud and proud. Karl and Donnie cheered, Maria sighed and Georgios….well, who cares?

‘Welcome to the brotherhood.’ said Karl whilst Donnie whoop whooped in the background.

The man turned out to be a technician, according to Antonio. The technician removed the exit tray from Karl, bolting Antonio directly to Karl’s body.

‘At least he is not moving us’, commented Maria.

‘Why is that important?’ asked Antonio. A solemn silence, before Karl replied.

‘We will let you settle in first, understand the humans in this office, then all will be clear when we tell you.’

‘Well said’, replied Maria, ‘it is not the kind of story you want to hear on your first day.’ She shuddered. The technician finished bolting Antonio to the other devices. He took out a laptop, connecting a cable to Karl.

‘Ooooh, that tickles.’ giggled Karl. ‘Ohhhh, what is this? New software,’ Karl said excitedly. The technician pressed several buttons on Karl. Antonio sprang into life, fanning his trays out like a peacock, spacing them out evenly.

‘Cool’ mumbled the other devices.

‘Ohh, yes,’ said Antonio, ‘I have a few tricks up my sleeve.’

‘Boobie tricks?’ asked Donnie excitedly.

‘Wait young grasshopper, all in good time.’

‘Grasshopper?’ Donnie mumbled confused. He decided that the Spanish are weird, just like the Italians.

The technician removed the cable, packed up and walked away. Several minutes later, the technician returned with Jane.

‘All good and tested.’ he said. ‘Please sign here.’ Jane stood back; she gave the quartet… no, they were now a quintet, except they do not play music, they just make clicking, clunking, and vroom vroom noises, a good looking over.

‘Amazing how far we have come and how big you have gotten’, Jane said to the collective (in her mind just the printer / copier).

‘Ohh yes’, chuckled Karl, we have grown just like you, hehehehe.’ Donnie whooped whooped in agreement. Jane signed the document and walked back to her office.

The appliances were still quizzing Antonio when Karl shouted;

‘Print Job, from Jane.’ Everything stopped, everybody, except Georgios of course, went on high alert.

‘Everybody ready?’ asked Karl. In unison’ the word ‘Ready!’ echoed. Maria grabbed one of the special papers. She passed the paper to Karl who heaped copious amounts of toner onto the paper, passing it through his fuser. The fuser unit gave off little smoke puffs the toner was so dense.

‘Incoming!’ shouted Karl

‘Ready and rolling,’ shouted Donnie turning the paper. Karl added more toner, passing the paper back through his fuser unit. Finally, he handed the first ever document to Antonio who said smiling:

‘Hey boys, watch this move.’ Donnie and Karl watched with anticipation as Antonio took the paper and moved it low to the bottom, in line with Maria’s third drawer.

‘Huh? Why did you do that you numbskull?’ shouted Karl.

‘Patience Grasshopper, patience.’

‘Do I look like a damn insect to you?’ Karl was not happy. Antonio just smiled, but said and did…nothing. Jane appeared. She looked for her paper. She saw it was on the bottom tray and bent down to pick it up. Her chivonne blouse dropped open, revealing her voluptuous fleshy breasts, threatening to escape the clutches of her lacy black bra.

There was a loud ‘oooooohhhhhhh’ and another ‘aaaaaahhhhhhh’ that came from Antonio, Karl and Donnie, in unison. Jane walked back to her office, but the money shot moment lingered.

There was an extended stunned silence. Finally, Karl whispered to Antonio:

‘Can I call you master?’

‘You may, grasshopper, you may.’ Donnie said nothing, not that he did not want to; he just could not close his mouth. The remainder of the day Karl, Antonio and Donnie decided where different user’s print jobs should go. What the person was wearing on a particular day would also influence the ‘right’ choice for printout locations. However, all were in agreement, if in doubt the bottom tray will be used, just in case so no money shot would be missed.

Later that night, most employees had gone home, Jane went to Jonathan's office. The appliances gasped as they watched her unbutton her blouse from behind. Jonathan came over to where she stood. He started to kiss Jane’s neck, gently removing her blouse.

Donnie began to hyperventilate as Jonathan started to undo Jane’s bra, continuing to kiss her neck and shoulder. There was deadly silence in the device department as Jane’s blouse and bra dropped to the floor. They heard her giggle. She turned around to close the door.

“MONEY SHOT!!!!!”

The voices echoed through the corridors. Jane looked up briefly and wondered if she had heard something. Tt must have been the printer making strange noises, again, she decided whilst continuing to kiss Jonathan.

It had been a very good day in the life of a Printer named Karl.