THE GLITCH

Fred, the peacemaking AI, tries to force people to be kind and generous. It doesn’t go well.

In this third series entry, Fred, who’s been kidnapped and taken to the Tomorrow Sphere, a prosperous secret city, joyfully invites the city’s leaders to share their abundance of food, water, medicine, and other supplies with the rest of the postapocalyptic world’s beleaguered survivors. Fred’s response when they arrogantly refuse is oddly uncharacteristic—he gets mad, his oversize glasses go red, and he stomps off to recruit several warlords and a passing crowd of refugees to attack the selfish settlement. “I’m done being nice!” he rants. “And no one is getting a sticker!” His loyal sidekick, Wormy, who has brown skin and blond hair, realizes that something is definitely wrong. But it’s only after a pitched battle that her plea to remember that people can’t be told to be good (they have to make that choice themselves) brings him back to himself in time to do what he does best by engineering an amicable settlement for all. It’s a settlement that involves lots of ice cream, too. Why? “Ice cream makes you happy when you are sad!” Rex doesn’t offer actual explanations for Fred’s software glitch or its timely disappearance, but this unexpected behavior does make the light-skinned, round-headed pacifist seem a little less too good to be true, and his message therefore that much easier to accept.

A sweet spoonful of happiness for readers.