Explore "The Night of the Trolls" by Keith Laumer on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The machine's job was to defend its place against enemies -- but it had forgotten it had friends!
It was different this time. There was a dry pain in my lungs, and a deep ache in my bones, and a fire in my stomach that made me want to curl into a ball and mew like a kitten. My mouth tasted as though mice had nested in it, and when I took a deep breath wooden knives twisted in my chest.