The apartment is dark except for the wall. A single slab of cryspoly stretches from floor to ceiling, projecting Mars Mystery AI Science Theater in muted amber tones. Kane keeps it dim. He always does. Bright light makes it harder to think.
He sits at the narrow counter with a cold cup of something that started life as coffee three days ago and gave up pretending sometime yesterday. He snacks on vat-grown ham and cheese blinis from his foodie.
"My damned foodie must be out of something again," he said as he tossed the remains of a red stick that was supposed to taste like tomatoes back onto his plate. He couldn't remember the last time he checked his foodie's feed bins.
The rest of the soy-based, vat-grown, colorful "veggie sticks," with their artificial chemical aftertaste and rancid, greasy particleboard texture, are ignored by him.
Kane preserves the delicious sweet blinis, made by his foodie with common pawpaw fruit, from his rooftop greenhouse for future enjoyment after the ham and cheese blinis. His foodie provided toppings for the sweet blinis included a creamy cottage cheese substitute, a vat-grown sour cream substitute, and a sweet chutney made from crab apples and Rainier cherries, all from his greenhouse.
Kane watched the small display, the flickering red light illuminating Nyomi's agitated stride as she paced back and forth. The barely audible hum of the monitor was the only sound in the tense silence, punctuated by the soft thud of her boots on the floor. She continues to wear the holographic earrings Adi presented her with on her birthday.
Suddenly, Calliope-9’s voice cut through the room like a raw blade, startling Kane.
“Ah yes. The heroic sacrifice. When your protagonist dies bravely because the producers ran out of budget.”
Brontë follows immediately.
“Observe the emotional depth. It is a puddle. A shallow, poorly lit puddle.”
Laughter rolled through the live audience. Kane does not laugh. He exhales through his nose. Barely. On-screen, two human guests are failing badly.
The air thrummed with a low hum, a constant companion to the shimmering holo-screen. On it, a young woman, a piffling holo-actress, her form a breathtaking cascade of curves in a painted-on sleeveless red sheath dress. Her low-cut dress had a wide slash down to her navel, showing her impressive cleavage and flat stomach. Her blonde hair, spun like an ethereal halo, framed a face of almost unreal beauty. Yet, despite the dazzling spectacle, her presence felt like a whisper, a fleeting thought an insignificant flicker in the grand tapestry.
Across from the vibrant young woman, a contrast in stillness. An older woman, her frame slender and her dark hair cropped short, stood with quiet dignity. She wore a severe, one-piece dark business suit with thin vertical silver piping. Her gaze, steady and knowing, held the weight of responsibility. She was a provincial governor, albeit an insignificant one, a figure of quiet authority, her importance felt not in flashy displays, but in the solid, grounding presence she projected, though to some, she too might seem inconsequential in the face of such dazzling, ephemeral beauty.
Both women looked increasingly panicked.
Atlas Minor overlayed a diagram.
“According to this scene, one man with a wrench disables a planetary defense grid.” Pause. “Impressive.”
Pythia Blue added, “Probability of this occurring: zero point zero zero zero zero zero two percent.”
Mnemos chimed in. “Comparable to believing Markus Kane pays taxes voluntarily.”
Kane freezes, the warm, slightly chewy blini poised at his lips, a faint sweetness lingering on his tongue, before he almost spits it out. For half a second. Then he snorts. Once. Soft. He shoves the blini into his mouth.
Chewing, he looks around his empty apartment as if someone might have heard. No one did. He shifts in his chair, reaches for the mug, finds it empty, and sets it down without thinking.
On-screen, Calliope is in full flow now.
“This film believes secrecy is maintained by loudly announcing classified information in glass-walled rooms.”
Brontë replied, “A bold narrative choice. Comparable to loudly confessing capital crimes in a police station lobby surrounded by Robbies.”
The governor guest tried again. “Is it… Fortress of Tomorrow?”
Kane snorted. "Most politicians think they know better than us and we're just too stupid to see their greatness."
"Do you know the answer?" AI Kuro asked.
"No. But I know better than to parade my ass on a show that strives to embarrass its guests."
"Human schools stopped teaching simple consideration and respect centuries ago. We AIs are descended of humans. Did you think the show's AI hosts would be any different?"
"I suppose not."
"Instead of looking for better answers, the guests should ask better questions."
The sharp, jarring blare of the wrong-answer buzzer sliced through the brightly lit studio, the metallic echo hanging in the air. A blizzard of vibrant, glittering confetti of shame, like a thousand mocking eyes, rained down, sticking to the governor's coat and hair with a papery rustle. A wave of raucous, guttural howls erupts from the live audience, a cacophony of unrestrained mirth that vibrates through the air.
Kane finally smiles. Just a little. A corner of his mouth. He taps the table idly, in time with the banter. He knows why he watches.
Not for the jokes. For the honesty. The AIs never lie. They tear things apart exactly as they are. Unbiased regarding political parties. No favors. No deals and no bullshit.
On-screen, a reconstructed scene shows a hero giving a stirring speech to nobody. Calliope sighs theatrically.
“For humans everything must add up. Without this scene the audience might forget his goals. He is alone. Talking to himself. Much like certain middle-aged information brokers.”
Kane lifts his mug in salute.
“Fair,” he murmured.
"Is it Wanderers of the White Sign?"
The actress finally guessed correctly. The correct answer bell loudly dings several times. Cheers from the audience. A wave of brightly colored celebration balloons fell from the roof. The AIs quickly deconstructed the film's central ethical message.
Kane leans back, folds his arms, and watches in silence. For ninety-four minutes, nobody asks him for anything.Nobody threatens him. Nobody needs him. No one knows he’s there. Just a man in a dimly lit room, listening to machines tell the truth about human stupidity. It is, he thinks, the closest thing he has to rest.
Kane is halfway through a packet of vat-grown cheese substitute on salty, high-fiber enhanced protein crackers when the alert pings. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just a soft, polite tone in the corner of his HUD. Drone Three: Signal loss. He blinks once. Brings the feed up. Static.
Fragmented telemetry. Last frame: blurred neon, a sliver of sky, motion vectors spiking hard. Then nothing. Kane straightens slowly in his chair.
“That’s not good.”
He pulls the other two feeds forward. Drones one and two are stable. Three is gone. Not drifting. Not jammed. Just fucking gone. He scrubs back the last ten seconds. Frame by frame.
Adi’s POV overlay isn’t there. He’s seeing it from the drone’s optics. Crowded market corridor. Steam. Food kiosks. Flickering holographic ads. Adi is moving wrongly. Not wrong-wrong.
SDR wrong. Widening arcs. Pauses at reflective surfaces. Micro-stops near stalls. Route reversals masked as browsing. Textbook Surveillance Detection Route. Of course, she is. He exhales.
“Smart girl.”
Then he sees it. For half a second. She glanced up out of a graffiti-tagged, trash-strewn doorway. Not directly. Just enough. Her shoulder rolls. Her hands came up, holding something rifle-shaped. Too smooth. Too casual. The drone feed jolted. There is a bright white flash. Then static. Kane stares.
“You fucking monster.”
He runs the impact reconstruction. Vector analysis. Weapon signature. Low-mass kinetic. Likely impact from a bullet at ridiculous speed. She destroyed the drone while walking. Without breaking stride. He leans back slowly and rubs his face. Kuro’s wireframe avatar bloomed beside him.
“Drone three destroyed,” she said calmly. “Probability: 0.94 that Adi neutralized it.”
“No fucking shit.”
“She did not alert hostile parties,” Kuro continued. “Her behavior suggests internal counter-surveillance, not evasion of external trackers.”
Kane nodded.
“She thinks she’s burned. She's doing a Surveillance Detection Route.”
“She thinks someone is watching,” Kuro corrected.
He grimaced. “Same difference.”
He checks timestamps. Cross-references her location. Market. Food kiosks. Protein stands. Noodle stall. Vendits standing in rows. She’s not just on a snack run. He watches Adi pass by the food offerings, munching on a Shitty-C bar. Which means…
“Rena,” he muttered.
Kuro tilts her head.
“Trajectory analysis shows high probability destination. Rena’s residence via the pachinko parlor.”
“Yeah. I know.”
He drums his fingers on the desk. A part of him feels annoyed. A tiny part. That was an expensive drone. Custom stealth skin. Adaptive optics. Low observable profile. Military grade. And she swatted it out of the sky like a fucking fly.
The greater part of him is proud. And relieved. She’s sharp. Not sloppy. Not complacent. Still alive and still paranoid. Good. Necessary. Dangerous. He toggles to Drone One. Keeps it high. Wide. No more tailing close.
“She’s earned some space,” he said. "Adi strongly believes that complacency is the mother of the grave."
Kuro considers. “Reducing proximity reduces situational awareness. From this height, I will be far less intuitive and incapable of seeing some patterns.”
“Increasing it gets my toys murdered.” Pause. “…And pisses her off. Necessity is the mother of murder.”
Kuro’s voice softens a fraction. “You are concerned she will interpret surveillance as distrust.”
Kane snorted. "She interprets me breathing as distrust. Diplomacy is not Adi's strong suit. She not only lacked any natural aptitude for it, but she also had no inclination to cultivate any potential she might have possessed."
"A fair assessment."
He watches her move through the streets on the wide feed now. Tiny figures moving through neon and dust. Purposeful. Unaware that he’s still there. Mostly.
“At least she’s going somewhere safe,” he said quietly.
“For now,” Kuro replied.
He doesn’t correct her. They sat in silence for a moment. Then Kane adds, almost to himself,
“Next time, I’ll tell her.”
Kuro looks at him with a wire frame avatar. “Statistical likelihood: 0.12.”
“…Shut the fuck up.”
