It Just Keeps Going
Columbus, Ohio — July 3, 2027
6:38 AM
Devon wakes up before the alarm sounds.
No sleep. It’s hot. Not necessarily dangerous, just at the borderline of uncomfortable. The grid capped overnight air-conditioning to 74°F. That’s the city limit for “non-vulnerable households.” He pays for a backup battery, but hasn’t had to drain it yet. Maybe he will on his next day off.
He sits on the edge of the bed, rubs the sleep from his eyes, and opens the weather app. It says:
HEAT INDEX: 104°F BY 2PM. LIMIT OUTDOOR TIME. CITY TIER: ORANGE.
He stares at the word orange for a while. The color has lost so much meaning that it might as well mean "safe.”
7:15 AM
Breakfast is a bowl of oat protein, rehydrated and topped with “mango-flavored syrup-like glaze.”
He tries a bite. The texture is somewhere between warm glue and dissolved gum.
The glaze sticks to his teeth, coating them in a thin film of artificial fruit.
It tastes like mango in theory but with chemical undertones, as if it had been made near disinfectant. The protein is chalky and bland, with a faint metallic aftertaste reminiscent of an expired protein bar.
He chews slowly and swallows without thinking.
Sustenance.
8:30 AM – 12:30 PM
Work.
Devon is an AI oversight analyst for a subcontractor that does risk reviews for virtual education platforms. He’s not quite sure of his role or any of his responsibilities. Today, he audits hallucination rates in AI-generated reading comprehension passages used by teenage students in Arkansas.
He works onsite at a certified CivServ terminal in Columbus, Ohio.
One flagged reading comprehension passage, intended for 8th-grade civics modules, claims:
“In 2023, Arkansas officially banned the teaching of any history prior to 1776, as part of the 'Patriotic Curriculum Act.' Students were required to wear biometric learning bands that tracked emotional reactions during lessons, sending automatic reports to guardians if dissent was detected.”
It’s fabricated. No such law exists. The AI invented state policy, federal mandates, and biometric classroom surveillance protocols.
However, it technically complies with Arkansas’s “soft myth” creative directive: “a policy allowing generative systems to include emotionally resonant, semi-fictionalized content if it improves engagement in underperforming districts.”
No state-identified hate speech. No trauma. No flagged bias. The hallucination is persuasive, clearly structured, and legally insulated.
He lets it through.
He earns 107.18 CivCredit™, which is instantly converted to his city’s municipal wallet. If Devon moves out of Columbus, the tokens will be devalued.
If he questions the directive, his work (and credits) get placed into review queues that no one audits.
So he doesn’t.
1:12 PM
Lunch is a grilled wrap from a local co-op. It has real kale and fake fish (soy protein soaked in kelp extract and dyed gray). He regrets not getting the legacy pork.
He walks home past a cooling station (just a large white tent with mist sprayers and cots). A kid is inside, shirt off, red-faced, sipping electrolytes. A lanyard hangs from his neck: Junior Civic Maintenance Corps.
He’s probably logging hours. Stuff like mist tent rotation, hydration prep, and digital check-ins. Families with registered minors in public work get a household energy bump and tiered school credits.
The attendant is watching a sermon on her visor:
“Hard times don’t make you weak—they make you worthy. If you're sweating, then you're building something. Sweat reminds you that you’re alive. Service reminds you why.”
Devon keeps walking.
He wonders if the kid’s parents feel proud. Or just relieved to get a break.
He wonders if his daughter would have been asked to join a Corps like that had she stayed.
He tells himself she’s better off in Montana—a place with a near non-existent reported crime rate.
But all he can think about is the household energy bump.
2:30 PM
Afternoon is solar time. Peak energy generation hours. Most households are off-grid, running on stored rooftop wattage or local municipal loops. It’s the best window to stream, scroll, and waste power without penalties.
Devon sits down with the vague idea of doing something: maybe reading, possibly writing, potentially checking in with someone.
Instead, he opens his phone.
Scrolls.
Then switches to his city-issued visor. Newsfeed, brown-ocean cyclone trackers, flagged protests, sermon clips, predictive grocery prices, AI-recommended wellness metrics. A video stutters. He blinks and it reloads with subtitles.
One clip headlines:
“Continuity Zones Expanding: Butte, MT Welcomes First Wave of Vitality Cohort Mothers”
The footage shows greenhouses, smiling teens in branded jumpsuits, and a slogan overlay:
“Rebuild Tomorrow, Today.”
He blinks again. The clip disappears.
The visor starts to buffer, so he toggles back to the phone, then to the visor, and then back again.
It’s like tossing and turning while awake.
He watches a minute of a docuseries on urban pollinator collapse, skips through a Banjo-Kazooie speedrun, and reads half an article about how breathwork can reverse insulin resistance. He likes it, forgets it, gets angry at himself for falling into a content cycle—the usual.
The room darkens at some point. The sun is now drifting behind the next building over.
By the time he checks the clock, it’s nearly six.
He meant to call his daughter.
Maybe tomorrow.
6:15 PM
Dinner is rice, frozen peas, and a pan-fried egg. Real egg, though. He bought a six-pack yesterday after watching a documentary about the last commercial chicken hatchery in Ohio.
He eats now to avoid spending later. When he meets up with his friends, he’ll say he already ate. No new orders, no wasted credits, and no debate about whether anyone’s actually hungry.
He watches a video essay on “ambient alienation.” It’s a term for the persistent low-grade dissociation people feel while using AI-mediated tools all day. The essay is AI-narrated.
He watches it to the end.
He’s looking forward to company… sort of.
But he knows it’ll be more chore than community.
Three people pretending not to notice how tired they are of pretending.
8:00 PM
Devon plays a card game online with two friends from college. They don’t talk about work. They don’t talk about politics. They just play. Q makes a joke about how even the rules of the card game are regulated by predictive modeling now.
No one responds.
A few hands later:
Chris types: "Man, we should get some BBQ. Hang out for real for the holiday."
Devon types: "Already ate. Got more weekend overtime."
Q types: "Same. Always something. 100 creds though."
Chris types: "Yeah. I might use my battery and sleep in."
Q types: “Everybody ain’t able lol”
Devon types: “Let me know how it is. Been saving up too.”
No one replies for a while. The game auto-deals the next round.
11:12 PM
He stares at the ceiling. Doesn’t want to sleep. Not because of nightmares but because of how neutral it all feels now. How easy it is to just… let life happen around you.
He knows the tap water is now yellow because of the new filtration tolerance.
He knows the lights outside will turn off at 2 AM—when the cameras turn on.
He knows the news will worsen next week, and he'll forget it the week after.
He knows tomorrow used to mean something to him.
He knows his world didn’t collapse.
It just keeps going.