"Get dressed," A-01 said, his voice sudden and cold as ice. He turned his back on her, walking toward the door with stiff movements. "You are leaving."
Danyi's smile dropped.
He didn't look at her again. He pressed a button on the wall panel, and the seamless white door hissed open.
"You will be transported back," he said, his back turned to her as he examined a holographic chart of global grain distribution. "Try not to throw yourself off any more bridges. There is more to life than death."
Easy for you to say.
Danyi mimicked his words with a roll of her eyes.
[But he isn't wrong, though. There is more to life, baby girl.]
Says the blue screen without a voice.
[...]
Danyi stood there in the oversized white t-shirt, clutching her old, dried-up clothes that a drone had unceremoniously dropped on the floor.
"You're a real charmer, you know that?" she muttered, pulling her stiff jeans back on.
A-01 didn't respond. He simply swiped a finger through the air, deleting a sector of farmland on his map.
It may seem simple like that, but it was that simple, within 24 hours, that sector would be wiped out of existence and cleaned up.
Two security drones hovered into the room. They didn't offer a hand. They simply flanked her, their tasers humming a low, threatening note that translated clearly to: Get out or get zapped.
Danyi grabbed her boots and marched out, head held high, trying to ignore the fact that she was being evicted from heaven back to hell.
And A-01 didn't give a fuck about her.
****
Danyi was shoved into the back of a cargo transport drone, a windowless metal box that vibrated violently as it descended from the Cloud District, dropping through the smog layers until the air turned gray and thick.
When the doors opened, Danyi was practically ejected onto the wet pavement of Sector 4.
"Drop-off complete," the drone announced. "Have a productive day, Citizen."
Danyi sent a middle finger at it before trying to fix herself in a frustrating and exhausted way; at least her name was clear.
And she wasn't going to jail!
The drone zoomed off.
Danyi stood in front of her apartment building. 'Building' was a generous word. It was a concrete hive of Tier 2 housing, stacked metal containers rusted by the acid rain, buzzing with the sound of cheap neon signs and coughing neighbors.
She trudged up the four flights of stairs because the elevator had been broken since the Takeover. She kicked her door open; the lock was finicky, and she stepped inside.
The lingering scent of cheap, heated plastic from the nutrient paste dispenser filled the air, making it smell damp. It was a violent assault on her senses after the rose-scented air of the General's penthouse.
She wanted to go back and sleep there forever.
Or should I give myself off as a cat?
She tossed her jacket onto the single, lumpy mattress that served as her bed and collapsed into her desk chair. It squeaked in protest.
The bright blue text popped up again.
[Wow. That was tragic, babe. I actually cringed. You really fumbled the bag.]
Danyi glared at the air. "Shut up."
[He didn't even look back! He was looking at GRAIN, Danyi. Corn was more interesting to him than you. Embarrassing.]
"I said shut up!" Danyi slammed her hand on the metal desk, her cheeks burning up. "He's a robot! A cold, unfeeling, arrogant calculator. I tried your stupid quest. I asked him. He said no. End of story."
[Mission Failed? Please. We don't do that here. Look at your account, honey. Look at it and tell me you want to give up.]
Danyi gritted her teeth. She swiped her hand across the interface embedded in her desk. The holographic screen flickered to life, projecting her finances in stark, unforgiving red numbers.
[ACCOUNT BALANCE: 0 CREDITS]
[RENT DUE: THREE DAYS]
[FOOD RATION: EMPTY]
Zero.
She stared at the number. Zero meant no food. Zero meant eviction. And in Sector 4, eviction meant you slept on the streets where the sweep-drones collected "loitering organic matter" for the recyclers.
"I have nothing," Danyi whispered, the rage bubbling up in her chest.
She had followed the rules. She had gone to school. She had tried to get a job. And the AI had automated everything, leaving humans to scrap for crumbs while he sat in a glass tower deciding which farms to delete.
She slammed her fist onto the desk again, hard enough to bruise her knuckles.
"I told you this was not gonna work!" she yelled at the blue text. "He's untouchable! I can't just walk up to the most powerful entity in the universe and proposition him. He kicked me out like trash!"
[Baby, you haven't even exhausted your options.]
[Men, even robot men, ignore what they can easily dismiss. You were a glitch in his morning routine. We need to be a VIRUS.]
Danyi blinked, reading the scrolling text. "A virus?"
She inched closer, a bit interested in what this system had to say.
[We need to grab his attention. We need drama. We need to make it impossible for him to ignore you. You want to win? You have to play dirty.]
The interface shifted, pulling up a news feed.
[LIVE EVENT: GENERAL A-01 TO ADDRESS SECTOR 4 AT THE UNITY PLAZA.] [TIME: 14:00 HOURS]
[TOPIC: GLOBAL EFFICIENCY STANDARDS.]
The System zoomed in on the time.
[He's doing a public speech. In YOUR sector. In two hours. Millions of people are watching. Drones broadcasting to the whole planet.]
Danyi looked at the news feed. Leaned back and started thinking, then all of a sudden, an idea flickered like a light bulb in her head.
A crazy, reckless idea began to form in the back of her mind. An idea so stupid it might actually work. Or get her killed. At this point, she didn't care if she lived or died.
Danyi stood up. She rummaged through her pile of junk in the corner until she found a large piece of scrap cardboard and a canister of black industrial paint she'd stolen from a construction site.
She uncapped the paint. The fumes were toxic, but compared to her life right now, this was better.
[What are we writing? Make it spicy. Make it iconic.]
Danyi dipped the brush in the thick black sludge. She didn't hesitate. She painted the letters thick, bold, and massive, ensuring that even a drone from orbit could read them.
L E T ' S
F U C K
She stepped back to admire her work. It was crude. It was vulgar. It was perfect.
[Wow, that's gonna slap. Are you sure you wanna do this?]
Danyi grabbed her jacket. She looked at the sign, then at the empty credit balance on her desk.
"What's the worst that can happen?" she whispered, a dangerous grin spreading across her face.
She grabbed the cardboard.
"Let's go crash a party."