Two people live in a dark technological utopia/dystopia - "the Machine". Kuno and Vashti, have differing opinions about the world which they live in and their interaction and conflict as their society comes to a sudden collapse. The story raises themes of man's role in the midst of a technology-dependent built environment that are seemingly more relevant today than when the original short story was published in 1909. The Machine Stops pdf: https://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/classes/188/materials/the%20machine%20stops.pdf