"Charlie Doll" and Other Stories

In each of these fifteen unrelated stories someone gets a surprise, often an unpleasant one, that alters his or her chances of success or even survival. In a few cases a character gets the satisfaction of revenge or relief but in most cases what he gets is his comeuppance.
Some stories involve science fiction or scientific fiction elements with wooden dolls, computers, a beacon light, and lab cultures of a slime mold as physical factors in particular stories. Deception, greed, opportunism, applied psychology, curiosity, and/or chutzpah are common human factors in all of them.