The city hummed with mechanical precision. AI-driven drones zipped overhead, scanning for anomalies. Automated patrol units glided through the streets, their glowing visors sweeping back and forth. Even the pigeons had been replaced with surveillance bots, monitoring every alley, every corner, every breath. This was the new world, the one where humans no longer policed themselves. AI did it for them.
And he hated every single bit of it.
Trudging along the sidewalk, teeth grinding, fists clenched, he sneered at the towering drones that hovered above him like ever-present, mechanical gods. “Piece of shat,” he muttered under his breath, his voice filled with venom.
He was going somewhere. He didn’t know where, didn’t care. His past was littered with violence, outbursts, arrests, psychiatric holds. But the world had changed. The courts were gone, the judges gone. Everything was handled by them now.
AI.
He climbed onto the bus, slumping into a seat near the back, his eyes darting suspiciously at the passengers. Most of them stared blankly at their neural interfaces, lost in some digital daydream. A man looked in his direction—maybe at him, maybe past him. It didn’t matter. It was enough.
His temper flared. “What the hell you looking at!?” he bellowed, jumping to his feet. His body tensed, ready to lunge.
Before he could move, a dozen red dots flickered onto his chest, shoulders, and forehead. The bus went silent.
AI targeting system engaged.
A calm, synthetic voice filled the space. “WARNING. HOSTILITY DETECTED. LOWER YOUR HEART RATE. CEASE AGGRESSION.”
He froze, just for a second. His eyes darted around—there was no escape. Every possible angle had him pinned. The passengers couldn’t see the lasers, but AI saw everything.
Then he sneered. “That supposed to scare me?” He spread his arms wide. “I ain’t afraid! I got this, and I can take all of you with me!”
He reached into his coat. One moment he is thinking the world is going to see violence like it’s never known before. The next thing he knew, he wasn’t on the bus anymore. He was on the cold floor of a courtroom. His body ached, his mind fogged over. Had he blacked out? Was he dead?
A voice echoed behind him. “Subject SC-Lamer5150. Charges: Public endangerment. Intent to cause harm. Threat level: Critical.”
He struggled to his feet, wobbling, and turned toward the voice. His lip curled in disgust. The judge wasn’t human. It stood on a raised platform, a cold, metallic figure, its synthetic face unreadable.
He spat on the floor. “Piece of shat.”
The AI judge continued, undeterred. “Sentencing: Indefinite community service. Crime designation: SC-Lamer5150. Role: Sanitation. Effective immediately.”
Two AI enforcers seized his arms, their grips like iron. He struggled, cursing them, cursing everything, but they did not flinch, did not hesitate.
He was dragged outside, into the automated world that had no place for men like him. A nearby drone whirred to life and fired a scanning beam over his forehead. A moment later, his skin burned with digital ink as the identifier etched itself permanently onto him.
SC-Lamer5150.
His crime. His state of mind. His new existence.
The streets buzzed with their usual perfection, but here, in the outskirts, where the AI sent its waste, was his new home. Towers of compacted, AI-generated debris stretched into the sky.
The enforcers released him. A mechanical limb extended from a nearby sanitation droid, offering him a long-handled brush.
His sentence was clear.
He would spend his days cleaning AI’s waste—shat cleaner, forever.
And as he cursed the lifeless machines around him, as he scrubbed their refuse from the pristine city they had built, he could swear he heard them laughing as he continued shackled to the very thing he hated.
