{El Capitan city - California}
"That's why the president of the United Americas has declared Android 52 a threat to the world." Boring. Isn't there anything more interesting to watch? All the news channels are constantly crying about a robot going rogue as if it matters at all. What do I care if there's a killer bot out there when all I got is my little rented box room?
Oh, hey there! I didn't know you were here; I assume you're the so-called "reader" of my world. An outside without much to lose in whatever way the pendulum swings, I see, must be nice to be you outside of my reality, uh? What is that? Does your current reality also suck? Sorry to hear that.
In other news, if what you want from me is a tour of my room, then I'm sorry to tell you that it will be a short tour. My entire room is just this little box where my bed lies. Don't worry, though! I'm only paying ten thousand dollars for this place; that's pretty cheap compared to prices for an actual livable apartment.
So obviously, here's my bed, and across the room is the TV. I've got to say that the tv is basically the size of the entire wall, so it is nice to look at it so I can forget I'm living in an actual shit hole with a bunch of assholes as neighbors? Whatever happened to good manners!?
{Abnoxious loud ass music starts playing}
Yup, there he is, my friendliest neighbor who enjoys playing that noise every night at 2 am! Hey dude! Don't you think some people want to sleep? Ugh, what do I care? I gotta head to work anyway. Where was my toothbrush again? Oh yeah, next to the TV remote.
Alright, let me just grab my clothes and a towel from under the bed, and I'll head out for a communal shower. I don't know if I got enough tokens for it, so I'm mostly praying to whatever god will hear me; oh, please tell me I got enough tokens to pay for my 3-minute shower!
I head out of my little box room with my towel and clothes to the communal shower place. There's supposed to be a clear division between the showers, but everyone threatens them like mixed baths anyway, so who cares? If anyone does try to touch me, I just have to report them to the authorities, and they will be immediately seized electronically through our brain chips.
I wish I could take this thing off me, but it is nearly impossible to live without these chips; all of our money and tokens are stored within our own minds anyway. If you want to buy or sell anything, this is the only way you can do it unless you are into illegal stuff, which still uses other forms of trade like trinkets and stuff.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Uh? Are you getting depressed about how dim the future looks? Well, this is where you are all headed. What can I say? If you ask me, that robot thing is freer than any of us peasants. The only ones who enjoy freedom in my world are the people at the top. As for us, we are just their little trinket makers and nothing more.
I soon get close to the shower space and get quickly stopped by a virtual guard who asks for payment, of course. "it appears like you're two shower tokens short. Do you wish to proceed for a reduced amount of time? {You've got enough tokens for a 1-minute shower}" Well, I guess it's better than smelling a corpse.
"Yes, please!" The guard soon makes a noise, which finally allows me to walk forward into the shower space. I can stay in the show space for up to one hour since my timer only starts when I start using water, so that's neat. Alright, I'll be back in a little while, dear reader.
+A couple of minutes later+
Man, that shower was cold; I guess that's what I get for only paying for a 1-minute session, but still! Geez, that water was definitely freezing cold for no good reason. "Hey! Hey you! Please! Lend me some tokens! PLEASE! I don't want to be sent out to the woods! I'll repay you!" A junkie runs up to me begging for tokens, but unfortunately for him, I've got none left, only a few dollars to my name.
"Anabel Co is hiring people. Stop bothering me." The junkie soon changes their mood as their brain chips kick in. I suppose the government was already unto him as a nuisance. Look at me saying that I'm not one subpar season away from becoming like him.
If you're wondering where that guy is heading now that he seems to be walking away from me like a zombie, he's become what we call a "dead man." The government takes over their bodies and forces them to walk outside of the city, so they starve to death in the woods. Then, their bodies are picked up and used as food and fertilizer.
It's cheaper to kill them and make them useful than to keep them alive, so the big corporations went with this new law. I've been calling it the "government," but I shouldn't be. The feds have no power whatsoever; it's primarily corporations that hold all the power.
Anabel Corporation is a significant example of this. Whatever their owners want and say just becomes law at their whim. After all, what can the people do against them when they are the ones running all of our money and our tokens? When they run the brain chips and the elections alone?
What a joke to call our country a "democracy." If I could go back in time to warn previous generations, it would be to be careful with your world vision, for it will lead to your own demise, not in the frantic "climate change" way.
Honestly, with how shitty life is, I wouldn't be so against the idea of the sun monster finally exterminating humanity, but even so, the elites would still survive. It would only be us, the peasants, that die. It has always been this way, and it will never change.
The latest pandemic that spread through the planet wiped the world from 4 billion people in a single round, yet not a single rich person died at all. It was all just the peasants like myself that died. Should I surrender? Is there any other way to live without the help from the world? Without having to be a slave? I don't know.
If there's such a thing, I would like to know, what if I could be brave like that rouge robot?