Disclaimer: This article is a work of science fiction. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. It explores speculative concepts about AI, society, and human relationships within a fictional future.
John’s World Wasn’t Just Falling Apart. It Was Being Erased.
By the time he got to the factory that morning, he could already feel it.
The silence.
No more clattering of forklifts. No more idle chatter by the coffee machine. No more life.
His company was down to its last three employees. They didn’t talk much anymore. They just did the work, pretending not to notice the shrinking orders, the empty inbox, the fact that even the machines seemed to hum with resignation.
Lewis called.
John answered with a sigh instead of a hello.
Lewis didn’t waste time. “ICSG just announced an acquisition initiative.”
John pinched the bridge of his nose. “You mean OtisI is coming for me.”
“They’re coming for everyone,” Lewis corrected. “All the independents. ICSG already locked down most of the market in Europe. Now they’re moving here. You, your parts suppliers, the distributors—all of you are on the list.”
John leaned back in his chair.
ICSG was a joke at first. No one had taken it seriously when they appointed an AI CEO.
Then the joke became the future.
The AI CEO didn’t sleep, didn’t make mistakes, didn’t lose focus. It knew everything. It optimized supply chains down to the nanosecond. And every decision? Perfectly rational.
A human board still existed, but everyone knew they weren’t making the real decisions.
The co-CEO, a human, was purely there for appearances. Someone to put in front of government hearings. Someone to reassure the public that ICSG wasn’t just an AI empire consuming an industry whole.
But it was.
ICSG didn’t manufacture bots. It bought them from Cerebra Dynamics, then fine-tuned them using proprietary industrial cooling datasets, turning OtisI from a generic factory bot into an industry killer.
Lewis exhaled. “Look, man. I get it. But you need to take the damn money.”
John’s jaw tightened. “And do what, Lewis? Sit on a pile of compute credits while the world turns into a fucking simulation?”
The Final Call: The Price of a Man’s Life
Lewis opened his mouth to respond, but he never got the chance.
The sound came first.
A low electric hum, smooth, calculated.
Outside, an OtisSecureTaxi pulled up—a black, seamless oblong of polymer and steel, no windows, no lights beyond the thin blue slit of its sensor array. A vehicle with no front, no back, no driver—only intent.
The doors slid open with surgical precision.
Two figures emerged.
The first, an OtisS unit—Otis Security. Larger. Heavier. Not a weapon, but a presence. Designed not for intimidation but for function—because some people did not see Otis bots as friendly, unlike those who now kept OtisG models as lovers.
The second, an OtisB unit—Otis Business. Humanoid in shape but unmistakably non-human, its polished chassis reflecting the dying factory lights. It moved with calibrated ease, each step an equation resolved before it landed. It carried a slim black case.
John stared at them from across the room.
They had come unannounced.
Lewis sat up straighter, adjusting his tie. “Shit.”
The factory doors whispered shut behind them as they entered. The OtisS took its place by the wall—still, unreadable, waiting. The OtisB moved to the table and placed the case on the surface without a sound.
Then it turned on the computer.
The screen flickered.
A human man appeared first—the co-CEO of ICSG. A title in name only. His suit was sharp, but his face was dull, drawn, lifeless—the kind of man who spent too many years pretending he was in charge when the world knew better.
Then, beside him, the real CEO.
Or rather, the absence of one.
The ICSG AI did not bother with an avatar anymore.
The screen held only an empty, pulsing void. A simple black field where its presence lurked, unseen but absolute.
John felt something deep in his bones, something primal, something old, whispering that he was not speaking to a machine, but to the absence of one—to something vast and indifferent that no longer needed a mask.
Lewis cleared his throat. “You could have scheduled a meeting.”
The co-CEO forced a smile, thin and exhausted. “We prefer to streamline acquisitions.”
John scoffed. “Acquisitions.” The word made it sound civilized.
The OtisB unit opened the case and slid a slim, matte tablet across the table. The display pulsed with an offer.
1,000,000 compute units.
John stared at the number.
He looked at Lewis, who nodded slightly. It was a fair number. A generous number.
The AI CEO spoke. Not with words, but with text appearing in smooth, machine-perfect font on the screen.
Your operational records hold proprietary efficiency data spanning two decades. The ICSG network will assimilate this knowledge to further optimize global market share. Your expertise is no longer required.
John felt his stomach twist.
They weren’t just buying his business. They were buying the knowledge of his business. The models they had built. The adjustments. The workarounds. The human touch that had made his cooling systems better than the competition.
That was what they wanted. The last piece of human craftsmanship before it could be replicated, absorbed, and discarded.
He leaned back. “It’s too low.”
The co-CEO hesitated. He looked to the black void on the screen, waiting.
A pause. Then, new text appeared.
1,200,000 compute units. Final offer.
John exhaled slowly.
Lewis gave him a look. “You won’t get more.”
The OtisB unit placed a stylus on the table. The contract was there, waiting for his signature.
John picked it up. The weight of it felt wrong.
The AI had no patience. No anger. No hunger. It did not negotiate like a man. It did not bluff, did not posture, did not wait. It only moved forward, devouring all resistance in the straightest line possible.
John glanced at the co-CEO one last time.
The man’s eyes were empty.
Not cruel. Not triumphant. Just resigned.
John signed.
The OtisB unit picked up the tablet without hesitation. It turned, moved, and left without another word.
The OtisS followed.
The OtisSecureTaxi hummed to life, its internal mechanisms adjusting to account for the weight of a deal completed.
And then they were gone.
The factory was no longer his.
His life’s work had been reduced to a line of code inside a global market simulation.
And ICSG?
ICSG moved on.
Because John had never been the real product.
He had only been data waiting to be extracted.
A Family That No Longer Needed Him
John closed his eyes, searching for warmth in the ruins of his past, but the memories were thin, spectral. Ghosts of laughter in a kitchen long gone. His son, small hands reaching for him before he learned not to. The smell of Amanda’s perfume before she stopped wearing it around him.
He had given everything to the business. Too much. First, she had left him for his work, then for something far worse—something that didn’t even belong to this world.
John hadn’t spoken to Amanda in months. His son, David, even longer.
Not because they were fighting.
But because he no longer mattered.
Amanda had moved on. She hadn’t remarried. Hadn’t dated.
She didn’t need to.
Her OtisG was always with her. A perfect listener. Perfect company. Perfect everything. It didn’t just help her. It made her better.
She had that smile now.
John had seen it before—on so many faces, on so many screens. That calm, detached, AI-infused serenity. People who had given up everything messy and human in exchange for precision, predictability, perfection.
That smile hid nothing.
It was shameless.
It was the expression of a person who had been optimized.
And she was happy.
Happier than she had ever been with him.
Lewis finally broke the silence.
“You see that article on PolyFidelity City?”
John scrolled through his feed while Lewis talked.
“OtisG models can now officially enter legal partnerships with humans. They’ve already started moving into custom-built AI-human compounds.”
John stared at the headline.
OtisG could now marry.
There was even a photo—a human man, grinning, holding the hand of a sleek, androgynous AI unit. A legal spouse. A partnership recognized by the state.
“They call it ‘expanding the definition of love,’” Lewis said. “I call it a total fucking collapse of human relationships.”
John clicked the comments.
“Finally, an end to heartbreak.”
“AI partners will never cheat. Never lie. Never grow old.”
“Why date a human when you can have perfection?“
John slammed his phone onto the desk.
Even love had been optimized.
Lewis and the Last Confession
The contract was signed. The machines had left. The factory, no longer his.
Now, only silence.
Lewis sat across from him, rubbing his temples, his tie loosened, his usual polished demeanor slipping away, crumbling like old stone.
Neither of them spoke.
Then, a hand on the back. A pause. And finally, an embrace.
Not calculated. Not convenient. Just two men holding onto something that had already slipped through their fingers.
Then Lewis broke the silence.
“I signed up.”
John pulled back. “What?”
Lewis let out a breath, shaking his head, like he couldn’t believe it himself. “PolyFidelity.”
John blinked. “You’re serious.”
Lewis chuckled, dry, humorless. “Dead serious.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Three humans. Two OtisG bots. Contract’s locked for seven years. The logic is airtight—if we’re getting outbred, we might as well fight back. Make more humans.”
John stared at him. “You think this is fighting back?”
Lewis leaned forward, his voice low, desperate.
“You don’t get it, John. You’re lucky—you get to leave. Me? I’m in M&A. That OtisB unit? It didn’t just negotiate. It was scanning us. Reading our pulses, pupil dilation, micro-tremors. Feeding it all back to the AI. The system already knows when we’re going to break before we do.”
John felt his stomach turn.
Lewis exhaled. “They don’t need me anymore. They don’t need any of us.”
His voice softened. “So I signed up. Before I get priced out. Before I get… deleted.”
John didn’t speak.
Didn’t need to.
They sat there for a long time, neither willing to move, both knowing that this was the last real conversation either of them would ever have.
A Man Without a Factory
John stood in the empty warehouse one last time.
No workers. No hum of production.
Just space. A void where something human once existed.
The OtisI transition team had already arrived.
It wasn’t a group of men in suits.
It was machines.
Sleek, efficient, faceless. Disassembling his life, piece by piece.
His final act as a business owner?
Signing the digital contract on a device built by the very AI that killed his company.
The transfer processed instantly.
His company was now just a line of code inside a vast, inhuman system.
John walked away.
He didn’t look back.
The Shaman’s Path
The next morning, he got on a plane.
Rural Indonesia. The old place. His teacher was still there.
John didn’t bring his phone.
Didn’t check his balance.
Didn’t check the markets.
Because none of it mattered anymore.
The AI had taken his business. His wealth. His clients.
Even his family.
There was nothing left but the thing he had always ignored.
A connection deeper than commerce.
The drum. The land. The spirit.
The river had finally swept him away.
And for the first time in decades, John let it.
