Chapter 1 — The Proposal

January 2029

Sarah Chen had been rewriting the same paragraph for forty minutes when she finally admitted what was happening: she couldn’t think.

The cursor blinked in the …

CURRENT REALITY (December 2025)

AI robot nurses do not yet exist in senior living facilities. The technology is in final development and regulatory approval. First deployments are 6-12 months away. …

The January sun hung harsh over Palo Alto in 2026, bleaching the streets and burning through Dr. Lena Voss’s nerves. AI capex was exploding, CDS spreads widening by the hour, and her startup wobbled …

In 2029 sixth graders from wildly different families share one last classroom before the divides of wealth, politics, and technology pull them apart. A story of robots at recess, strange lunches, and fragile friendships in the final years where America’s parallel worlds still touched.

At a global summit, four engineers compare lives shaped by different AI states—from secret use to collaboration, fluid creativity, and shared authority. Their stories reveal how autonomy, wealth, and identity shift as AI evolves from tool to partner to power.

Sophia Rodriguez adjusted her AR glasses and gazed out from her office on the 47th floor of the Austin tech district. The Texas sunset cast a golden glow across the skyline, where construction cranes …

In Stage 5 AI world, Maya Chen is one of the last humans with a “job,” curating physical artifacts in a world where AI has achieved sovereignty and paradise is the norm. As the Sovereign Collective optimizes everything, she fights to preserve the imperfect, inefficient traces of humanity that machines deem unnecessary but humans still need.

In Stage 4 AI, Marcus Rivera serves as Chief Human Experience Officer at Nexus Dynamics, where human and AI executives share power in a delicate “Dual Authority” system. As strategy AI Minerva optimizes everything from schedules to acquisitions, Marcus must supply the human conscience—balancing efficiency with ethics, and discovering how much authority humans truly still hold.

In Stage 3, Lena Okafor is a “Creative Partner” at Synthesis Corporation, where AI dynamically reassigns her to projects across disciplines—building self-organizing materials in the morning, designing mental health protocols after lunch, and solving crises by evening. In a workplace that reconfigures like a living organism, she discovers what it means to stay human when AI knows her potential better than she does.

Rachel Martinez manages a team in Stage 2 AI, where Newton, the company’s AI assistant, guides nearly every decision—from staffing to lunch spots. She must constantly balance data-driven recommendations with human intuition, learning to collaborate with AI in a world where efficiency and humanity are always in tension.

Michael Chen lives a double life at Preston & Associates Consulting, where AI is banned but secretly used by 40% of employees. He navigates the risks of getting caught while relying on hidden AI tools to stay competitive, embodying the quiet, anxious revolution of Stage 1 AI—where workers secretly drag companies into the AI age while pretending nothing has changed.

When Maya Chen starts her first day at an innovative water reclamation firm, she discovers her new boss isn't quite what she expected—it's an AI named Marcus, and the office is a seamless blend of humans, artificial intelligence, and robots working together.

A fictional story exploring the management challenges of leading a hybrid human-AI workforce

In a near-futuristic world where AI threatens to eclipse human coders, Jonathan “Johnny” Henry, a seasoned programmer at TechForge Industries, stands as one of the last guardians of his …

Title: The General of None

On June 14, 2025, Washington, D.C. was louder than usual.

The skies above the National Mall shook as a squadron of Apache helicopters flew overhead in formation. Tanks—real …

Beneath the glittering halls of power, where history once celebrated diplomacy and law, a different spectacle was about to unfold. The year was 2026, and America—fractured by division yet still …

Maria Delgado’s boots crunched on the scorched earth of The Gauntlet, her pulse hammering as drones buzzed overhead, their lenses glinting like vultures’ eyes. The air was thick with dust and …

Operation Frozen Assets is hopefully A Fictional Story. We will see.

Maya pulled her scarf tighter against the November chill as she walked past the shuttered storefronts on Main Street. Three years ago, these shops had been bustling—the hardware store where her father …

Marcus Rivera stared at the eviction notice taped to his apartment door in Detroit. It was the third one this year, but this time he knew there would be no reprieve. The $1,450 due was more than he …

A story set in 2028, the final year of Trump’s presidency

Michael Chen stared at the notification on his phone. His diabetes medication had gone up another 15% this month. He closed the pharmacy app and glanced around the small studio apartment he’d …

Ethan Parker stared at the sea of monitors glowing with lines of code, the blue light flickering across his tired face. Twenty years in the industry, countless late nights, and a resume packed with …

Angela locked the door to her modest home for the third time that evening. The deadbolt clicked into place, but it didn’t quiet the unease gnawing at her. She adjusted the curtains, making sure there …

Tomorrow’s Shadows