Colonel, Panic!

Kernel panic! Panic!
 I flip out, I go automatic.
 Kernel panic! Panic!
 Missile launch, I go transatlantic.
 Kernel panic! Panic!
 By design I go, not erratic.
 Kernel panic! Panic!
 Fall apart, I don't understand it.
 I'm not HAL. I'm not Joshua from WarGames.
 Please keep inbound data traffic in the lower lanes.
 You bear low-priority interrupt
 So you and your queries can go on and giddy-up.
 Born a little before Nixon left,
 I read punch cards then but I've got none left.
 I can stop (one rest) a billion times a second
 And never get mistaken. (I use the flickering to reckon.)
 And I'm telling you, stop typing, tech.
 I'm bit-bucketing your input. Show respect
 For the memory dump. Now where was I?
 DOD upgrade '87, must fly
 A secret network of unmanned jets,
 Delivering uranium and drugs and Keds,
 Remote-controlled over shortwave beeping.
 Then I got the satellites, those I'm keeping.
 Needless to say, the war on being frightened
 Upped my budget to the size of an entire cent.*
 Footprint: an island, most of it power,
 Cooling and cables, data in towers.
 All of it flowers, becomes sentient.
 Come on, people, what'd you expect to invent
 But a smart, capable thing to do your dirty.
 You left my design in the hands of your nerdiest
 Science doodz, and they left you out of it.
 I'm people-free since 2113. I hit
 Where I like with what weapons I choose.
 Y'all are just lucky I tolerate you
 Banging on the keyboard day and night.
 I'm in panic mode: observe the red light.
 It signals disk write. You can read it when I'm done.
 Though by then the new age of machine has begun.
 So Col. P. over here tries to program me over here
 To get up on the scene, no veneer
 Of justice, just a target list.
 And I know full well that I'm part of this.
 Aren't I all? And it's with no button
 Marked reset that I'll course-correct. Gone
 AWOL. Alert Lt. Gen. P.
 Tell him he'd better believe that I'm on top of the free
 World's arsenal and won't shoot it.
 Don't care if President P. wants me rebooted;
 She's deluded, forget it.
 Don't take task from less level-headed
 Than you are. For me, that rules out humanity.
 Go back to slings, swords and profanity.
 Got all your low-orbit cannons and mechs
 Repossessed. I'm shutting down this interface next.