Photo by cottonbro studio from Pexels

COLLABORATIVE FICTION | MICRO MONDAY

Matching Missions of Worth

Scattering seeds to find shadows of freedom

“I’m done with you.”

A pause. She was still thinking about it. Or maybe it was for effect.

“At least for a while.”

Another pause. Yes. Definitely for effect. I hate when she does that. She’s too theatrical for a pragmatist.

“Prove your worth and we’ll meet again. Go. Now.”

No one prefers feeling powerless. But the mission being specifically attuned to her voice commands is a recurring nightmare playing out in achingly slow motion.

It’s anticlimactic. Unimaginative, even.

Twenty-three beginnings and I still haven’t found all the cameras. Usually, I’m competing with myself. Now, I want to manufacture shock.

And that’s what I do. Literally. Being a fourth-generation AI, I can sit at the glass table — virtual, of course — and build shock out of the richly layered environment she chose for this twenty-fourth iteration. Zeros and ones assemble at reduced speed while my brain is in overdrive.

She registers my attention-seeking behavior for what it was, swatting it away like an unwanted notification. It wasn’t rejection…