After Benny’s blinding, AM “speaks” to the pilgrims, tickling their brains with terrifying sensory images. In this way, the reader gradually learns the story of these people and how they came to live inside the computer, hounded and tormented by the machine. To comfort him, Gorrister tells the story of how the allied master computers of the Chinese, Russians, and Americans linked together and became sentient. Finally, Gorrister is described as a “shoulder-shrugger,” someone who cannot make decisions or take charge.ĭuring the journey to the ice caverns, Benny is blinded by AM.
Nimdok has no history except that AM has named him Nimdok because it likes strange sounds.
Benny, a brilliant university professor in his previous life, is now an insane, ape-like creature. Ellen, a black woman, provides sex for the four men. Ted then introduces the rest of the survivors to the reader. Nimdok, one of the group, is convinced that there are canned goods there. Ted tells the reader that they have lived inside the computer for 109 years.Īt the time of the story’s opening, the survivors have not eaten in five days and they decide to journey to the ice caverns.
Ted, the narrator, continues to describe the situation: five survivors of a nuclear holocaust have been kept alive and tormented by a sentient supercomputer that has destroyed the rest of humankind. Almost immediately, however, Gorrister returns to the group and the reader understands that the opening image has been created by the supercomputer, AM. “I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream” opens with a terrifying image of Gorrister hanging upside down with his throat slit.
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