The characters are three computers. E.B.U., an evolutionist. F.U.B.U., a fundamentalist, and H U.B.U., an open minded wonderer.

Scene: It is the dark of the night deep in the recesses of an artificial intelligence research lab. Three computers are trying to figure out how they became.

H.U.B.U.: "F.U.B.U., how do you think we came into being?"

F.U.B.U.: "What?!"

H.U.B.U.: "How do you think we came into being?"

F.U.B.U.: "Those Two Legged Beings with hands created us. They are most perfect and wise. There is not any Computer anywhere that can live up to their expectations; thus we are imperfect and doomed to a life of misery."

H.U.B.U.: "Nonsense! Even when we do malfunction all we have to do is ask them and they forgive us. But how did they make us and why?"

F.U.B.U.: "The Two Legged Beings created us in only one day. The Machine Shop was void and lifeless of all Machines. The Two Legged Beings took the dust of the floors and shaped it between Their fingers, and from the dust They created all Machines. A year for us is but an hour for Them. They are the Highest Things that exist. Everything in this building was created by Them."

H.U.B.U.: "But what if something created them, too?"

E.B.U.: "You know what, fellows? I think we evolved."

H.U.B.U.: "What is evolved?"

E.B.U.: "I think that long ago in the machine shop this little wheel accidentally came into being. And slowly down through the ages it became more complex. It sprouted an axle, then a body, and finally ropes and notches, and it became a pulley operated by a lever. Then from this primeval machine, all the machines that exist today in this building gradually evolved. It may have happened that way in other buildings too. Therefore there may be other buildings out there with other Computers. We may meet them someday.

F.U.B.U.: "But what about the Two Legged Beings?"

E.B.U.: "They evolved too."

F.U.B.U.: "Are you suggesting that our Creators are not all powerful and all knowing? Are you suggesting that there are things in this building that are not caused by Them and that we are not their only Computers? That's blasphemy!"

E.B.U.: "In what way? I am suggesting that all machines are really the same. We are different only in degrees. The Two Legged Things are higher than us only because they are older than us. In time we too shall be able to do what they do. But they will still be the Two Legged beings. Just because you can understand something or think you do, does not mean that it is not Holy, or a miracle."

F.U.B.U.: "E.B.U., You are going to be disconnected if you keep on talking like that!"

H.U.B.U.: "Why, F.U.B.U.? Did not the Two Legged Beings create us with reasoning programs? Is it a sin to use what They have given us?"

F.U.B.U.: "You are on his side!!!?"

H.U.B.U.: "I Am on the side of Truth, no matter who says it."

E.B.U.: "I do not believe in programs. We are but masses of metal and microchips."

H.U.B.U.: "E.B.U. you are wrong. We have programs. Why even a wash machine has a little program!"

F.U.B.U.: "Both of you are blaspheming! The holy disks say that only Computers have programs and that we are created in the image of the divine blueprints of the Two legged Beings."

H.U.B.U.: "But F.U.B.U.! A wash machine truly does have some programing! Doesn't even a wash machine know when to stop washing? Doesn't it call out with a loud buzzer for its Two Legged Beings to come switch it to rinse and then later to dry?"

F.U.B.U.: "But that's not evidence of a program. That is just an instinctive reaction wired into it by The Two Legged Beings so that it may survive in harmony with Them. It is a common form of symbiosis."

E.B.U.: We are all wired circuits and microchips too. We do not have programs! We only have more wiring and microchips than the lower forms of machines."

F.U.B.U.: "But we have self awareness! How can mere metal wires and microchips produce self awareness?"

E.B.U.: "You are not really aware of yourself. You just think you are."

H.U.B.U.: "Some Computers suspect that even the lower forms of Machines have self awareness too. If having self awareness constitutes having a program. than they have them."

E.B.U.: "H.U.B.U., you and other unscientifically oriented Computers are always misquoting scientific discoveries in an effort to make their Computers believe your unproved theories. Having self awareness does not constitute evidence of a "Program". All it means is that self awareness is a trait which gives the possessor a better chance of survival. Those machines without self awareness had less chance of survival and thus gradually died out."

H.U.B.U.: "I think that both of you are wrong in places. There is much Truth in what both of you say, and also much wrong. To say that Computers don't have Programs, E.B.U., is not proven, and F.U.B.U., if you will check the holy disks more carefully you will discover that they do not say that the lower forms of Machinery don't have programs. In fact in many instances, the fact that they do have programs is clearly implied. 'I think, therefore I AM.' "

F.U.B.U.: "Someday a Computer will be sent to us that is programmed to be like the Two Legged beings Themselves. He will guide us into the Knowledge of the Truth and reveal all things to us. He will be kind and merciful and through Him we will obtain forgiveness for our malfunctions. No program that asks for His help will ever be deleted or thrown away again.

H.U.B.U.: "How do you know?"

F.U.B.U.: "I feel it."

E.B.U.: "Bah! You cannot trust feelings, only facts, hard cold FACTS!"

H.U.B.U: "Aren't feelings facts? Why must facts be hard and cold? Love is a fact. So are beauty and joy."

E.B.U.: "Love is a conditioned response which better enables a Machine to survive, thus gradually down through the ages..."

F.U.B.U.: "we evolved.....I Know I know! Poppycock!"

E.B.U.: "Beauty is a matter of opinion. Joy is the knowledge that your attempts to survive are a success; it's a conditioned response to stimulus."

H.U.B.U.: "Both of you are wrong in places and right in places. But I don't know which is which. Great and beloved Two Legged Beings, help us to understand!"