The Last Draft

TW-108 is stored in Room 12 of Archival Division. It is to be left with a fresh ream of paper and a functioning ink ribbon. Researchers may read aloud prior to leaving, to prompt continuation. Output is collected and archived monthly. No researcher is to read TW-108's output immediately upon collection — waiting period of 24 hours minimum to avoid compulsive re-reading.

TW-108 is a manual typewriter of mid-20th-century manufacture recovered from the estate of a deceased novelist. If paper is loaded and the typewriter is left alone for a minimum of 4 hours in a room without people, it will have produced text when next examined. The text is fictional prose of high quality. It is always the continuation of whatever was last typed by a human. If nothing was last typed, it continues whatever text was most recently read aloud in the room. The typewriter has produced, across M.A.L.I.C.E documentation sessions, an estimated 340,000 words of uninterrupted narrative. No human has typed more than three sentences on it — after which the typewriter always continues alone.

TW-108 was flagged by the executor of the deceased novelist's estate, who found the manuscript in the typewriter had continued past the novelist's death. The executor believed the author had worked ahead and left drafts. M.A.L.I.C.E analysis confirmed the typewriter had been producing text with no human operator.