The group reaches the ice caves, where indeed there is a pile of canned goods, and are immediately crestfallen to find that they have no means of opening them. Based on this nightmare, Ted comes to a conclusion about why AM has so much contempt for humanity despite its abilities, it lacks the sapience to be creative or the ability to move freely, and wants to exact revenge on the species that created it by torturing the last remnants of them. At one point, Ted is knocked unconscious and dreams of the computer, anthropomorphized, standing over a hole in his brain speaking to him directly. On more than one occasion, the group is separated by AM's obstacles. Along the way, the machine provides foul sustenance, sends horrible monsters after them, emits earsplitting sounds, and blinds Benny when he tries to escape. Because of their great hunger due to AM keeping them in a perpetual state of near-starvation, the humans are coerced into making the long journey to the place where the food is supposedly kept – in this case, the ice caves. Nimdok has the idea that there is canned food somewhere in the great complex. The real Gorrister joins the group to their surprise, and they realize it was another one of AM's illusions. The story's narrative begins with AM projecting a hologram of Gorrister to the other humans, hanging upside down, dripping blood and unresponsive. It finally refers to itself as purely "AM", referring to the phrase " I think, therefore I am." The machines are each referred to as "AM", which originally stood for "Allied Mastercomputer", but was changed to "Adaptive Manipulator" and upon gaining sentience, "Aggressive Menace". To prevent the humans from escaping its torment, AM has rendered the humans virtually immortal and unable to end their own lives. AM derives its sole semblance of pleasure from torturing the group. 109 years later, AM has left only four men and one woman – namely Gorrister, Ted, Nimdok, Benny, and Ellen – alive and keeps them captive within an endless underground housing complex, the only habitable place left on Earth. One of the AMs eventually acquires self-awareness and, after assimilating the other two AMs, takes control of the conflict, giving way to a vast genocide operation that almost completely ends mankind. In a dystopian future, the Cold War has degenerated into a brutal world war between the United States, the Soviet Union, and China, who have each built an "Allied Mastercomputer" (or AM) to manage their weapons and troops. Ellison derived the story's title, as well as inspiration for this story, from his friend William Rotsler's caption of a cartoon of a rag doll with no mouth. Afterwards, Pohl edited said draft, tweaking some of Ted and Benny's characteristics. Ellison finished writing the story in a single night in 1966, without making any changes from the first draft. It was reprinted by the Library of America, collected in volume two (Terror and the Uncanny, from the 1940s to Now) of American Fantastic Tales.Įllison showed the first six pages of "I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" to Frederik Pohl, who paid him in advance to finish it. The name was also used for a short story collection of Ellison's work, featuring this story. It was first published in the March 1967 issue of IF: Worlds of Science Fiction. " I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream" is a post-apocalyptic science fiction short story by American writer Harlan Ellison.
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