“I-I-I worry about the robots,” Joe said.

“Robots?” Finnegan asked, wiping off his chin. “There aren’t any robots.”

“Like in the movie,” Joe whispered.

“That wasn’t a robot, Daddy,” Hunter said, his keen junkie ears catching their conversation. “It was an AI.”

“Al?” Joe asked. “Who’s Al, some friend of-of-of, you know, from the thing?”

“The letter A and the letter I, it means Artificial Intelligence,” Finnegan said. She saw Joe was beginning to sweat. She was worried one of his fits was coming on.

“Machine sentience, Dad,” Hunter said, idly thumbing through a copy of Oui magazine from 1978.

“In a, the movie it w-w-was a bad ALF,” Joe said in a rush. “The bad elf tried to take over the world and the kid from that movie where-where-where he’s like in his boy-panties stop it.”

“What?” Hunter asked. Finnegan shrugged.

“The movable with the glass egg and the hooker!” Joe said, shaking all over.

“Grandpa, please calm down,” Finnegan said, backing away.

Pretty Woman?” Hunter asked.

Joe was red-faced and sputtering, “That orgy movie!”

“Oh, Tom Cruise,” Hunter said.

“Tom Cruise,” Joe crooned, “Tom Cruise,” as his aphasia faded.

“They let him watch the new Mission Impossible movie on the plane?” Finnegan asked.

“Yeah, whatever, no machine could replace me,” Hunter said, falling wearily to the couch.

“Artificial Intelligence doesn’t exist, Grandpa,” Finnegan said. “They are just Learning Language Models. It’s like high-tech Ad-Libs.”

“All my friends are scared of it,” Hunter said. “The machines are going to take their jobs and they are going to be broke.”

“I had a dream once,” Joe moaned, gone pale. “A field of human skulls and-and-and this metal foot crushes them.”

“That’s Terminator, another movie, Daddy,” Hunter said in slow loud letters.

“It was real, I tell you. I grew up as a little Black Jew robot, I know what I’m talking about.”

Ter-min-a-tor,” Hunter droned.

Joe suddenly smiled, “It starred Arnold Schw–”

“Don’t say it, Finnegan said sharply.

“Arnold Sch–”

“No, Daddy, really, don’t.”

“Arnold–”

“Not even his first name,” Finnegan said. “Be best to not even think it.”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger!” Joe finally spat.

“Oh, God, so close,” Finnegan said, clutching at her chest.

So close,” Hunter agreed. “He really had me worried there.”

“Arnold Schwarzenegger, Arnold Schwarzenegger!” Joe said happily.

There was a bright flash of light and a flabby old naked man appeared in the Oval Office.

“DID SOMEONE SAY MY NAME THREE TIMES?!?” he asked in a thick Austrian accent.