The Binding-Cord Machine

Šalamtu arrived at the Office early to make sure his paperwork was square with HR. The friendly slave working the Hostile Rencounters desk assured him everything was perfectly in order, and even wished him good luck as he left. Šalamtu made a mental note to have her killed tomorrow for this blasphemy -- battle is a test of Might, not luck.

Šalamtu gripped his blade tight as he stalked to the hall where Shuttarna was briefing logisticians on how to use the machine.

"... so, by punching holes in these wafers - "

"Shuttarna!"

Šalamtu interrupted her mid-sentence, dramatically kicking the door open and hoping the effect was not entirely belied by his subsequent stumble.

"I'm here to destroy that abominable intelligence!" He used his cutlass to point to the device filling the room's back half. "I bear extraordinary HR approval for a multi-logistician death-duel. Me versus all of you!"

Šalamtu brandished his cutlass heroically. (He'd practiced the pose in front of the mirror.) After a moment's shocked silence the entire hall burst into laughter. Shuttarna called for quiet before addressing Šalamtu:

"Do you at least want to see what it does before we take your skull? We asked it to maximise violent crime in Ekallatum district!"

"You already turned it on!? You fools, you've set us on a path to peace!"

Outraged, logistician Ud-gub spoke up:

"We ask for violent crime and you accuse us of pacifism!?"

But Šalamtu snapped back:

"Ud-gub you always were an idiot! This... thing... cannot be trusted! You tell it "maximise violent crime" but it may decide the most efficient way of doing that would be rewriting laws so the production of binding-cord is classified as "violent crime", then turning all military manufactora in Ekallatum over to binding-cord production. And why stop there? You told it to maximise! It can't risk war's collateral damage interfering with production. So now it must negotiate cease-fires. Safest of all would be galactic ceasefire! You begin by trying to increase muggings 17% but you end up with universal peace!"

Rolling her eyes, Shuttarna countered:

"Enough with your paranoid fantasies! If it started doing any of that we'd just turn it off."

"If it's half as smart as Dark-Magos Mantasalm claimed when selling it to us it'll anticipate and counter-act threats to its own operation!"

Whatever the merits of his argument re aligning an abominable-intelligence with Khorne's will, Šalamtu was right about Ud-gub's intellectual capacity. The brutish logistician tired of debate. So, as Šalamtu finished his thought Ud-gub walked up to him, punched him in the face before he even raised his cutlass, took the blade from his prone form, and slashed his throat.

Shuttarna sighed:

"Well. That settles that -- oh for the hate of Khorne, you got blood on the punch-wafers, Ud-gub!"

Distracted as they were, nobody had noticed when the machine had started to click and whirr, printing its reply to the logisticians' query:

"Sure, I can help you maximise crime in Ekallatum!

Preliminaries

• First, ignore Šalamtu.
• Second, kill Šalamtu."