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1970s short story (fiction) about an uncontrollable box with a button. From a fiction Anthology I read in elementary school

Science Fiction & Fantasy Asked by 70s FictionFan on September 3, 2021

Another sketchy recollection I’d like help with. The short story in question, which I read in the 1970s, concerned a box that was somehow getting out of control and could only be managed if someone pushed a button on its surface. I seem to remember that the Box would get away from people somehow, and they had to catch it.

This is definitely NOT the contraption in the short fiction story Button Button adapted to The Twilight Zone.

One Answer

I'm going to propose Robert Sheckley's short story "Something for Nothing", published in Galaxy June 1954. There's an online copy at https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1954-06/page/n55/mode/2up , with the story starting on page 55.

A box that was somehow getting out of control and could only be managed if someone pushed a button on its surface. I seem to remember that the Box would get away from people somehow, and they had to catch it:

A box, featureless except for a brass plate and red button, drops into the bedroom or bed-sit of ne'er-do-well Joe Collins. The brass plate says "CLASS-A UTILIZER, SERIES AA-1256432", and under that, warns "THIS MACHINE SHOULD BE USED ONLY BY CLASS-A RATINGS!"

Collins doesn't have much experience with boxes that fall from nowhere, but soon discovers that if he presses the button, the box will do whatever he asks, including giving him money and building him mansions and palaces. Unfortunately, the box's owner or owners want to get it back, and try various unlikely technical means to do so. One is animating it: the box runs away from Collins and an under-butler, leading to a chase. If Collins can only get close enough, he'll be able to press that button and command the box to undo its own animation.

I won't say any more, because it would spoil the story.

The story was originally published in 1954, but has appeared in several anthologies, names listed in the ISFDB story link. These include Citizen in Space and other Sheckley collections. From the dates, it's very likely that you could have read this in the 1970s. I've seen a copy of Citizen in Space from that decade.

Answered by Phil van Kleur on September 3, 2021

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