Chapter Text
In a city far, far away, a beautiful girl with hair as dark as a moonless night, eyes as bright as precious rubies, and skin as soft as woven silk arose to the sound of morning birdsong, the feel of sunshine, and the weather forecast being announced at the volume her TV had learned to start the day at.
As she twisted out of bed and set her feet into her slippers, the kettle in her kitchen started the boil for her morning tea. While she made her bed, the pipes in her bathroom warmed the water to the temperature that they’d long before detected she most preferred. When she appeared in the mirror over her sink, the faucet spouted a stream into her hands with precisely the right amount of pressure.
In her closet, the clothing racks slid, spun, and rolled to assemble the uniform she wore to work. By the front door, the shoe unit popped open to reveal the heels her company issued. The minute she finished in the shower, the exhaust fan started, and the towel rod disengaged from the wall to swing out and provide what it was she needed.
Once she was ready and dressed, she grabbed her perfectly brewed tea, slipped into her shoes, and stepped out the door at exactly 7:30. Without a key, without any prompting, without any action on her part at all, the door behind her locked. The TV turned off and her house lights dimmed. In the lobby, the mailman greeted her cheerily. She waved back kindly. As she passed, he fed his parcels and flats into a machine. The collection of mailboxes whirred, sorting the deliveries to their proper destination by itself. When it finished, the mailman exited out the revolving doors shortly behind the girl.
The hustle and bustle of the city arranged itself in orderly lines of coming and going. Human officers and traffic droids worked together to direct the flow of life. Billboards of all shapes and sizes soared overhead, some advertising products; some, services; still others, bots for any number of tasks.
The girl saw none of it. Most didn’t, but in her case, it was because she was too preoccupied with the harrowing ordeal of figuring out what she was going to say when her coworker inevitably asked about the very thing the girl was dreading sharing.
For everybody else, though, they didn’t notice because this was normal life. For everybody else, they awoke to this new day and took for granted the very ease of their lives, knowing without knowing that whatever they could possibly want, they would be able to obtain with little to no effort at all—because in 2321, everything was automated.
Because in 2321, everything was intelligent.