2100: Perfect Unhuman Heaven

DONA

Another year passed, and I do not feel like watching TV with Aunt Stella and her family. There will be the same president talk, the same promises that we will live better. I just leave the house before they put me to do more chores, because Lara is afraid of robots, and for that, I am the house robot. I have to cook, clean, work, and go to university. I am so damn tired.

The metal door is cold under my hand when I shut it. The stifling temperature inside the house made me dizzy. I wonder if outside of this city, life is better?

The street is empty. Everyone is watching TV. I see the glowing lights in the windows. Everyone is waiting, waiting for news. What will this year bring? What new laws, to change our chaotic society, will be put in place?

Since the AI was unleashed in this world, people didn't live as before. Some things got better; some things went into total chaos. People got greedy, people got jobless, but science evolved. People that would have died lived, people that could not walk walked, people that starved were fed, people that had plenty had nothing.

"Hey, Dona," I hear a voice behind my back.

I turn and see Suna.

"Hey, Suna." I sigh and continue to walk toward the park.

"Are you going to the bridge to watch the fireworks and drone show too?" shouted Suna and ran after me.

"Yup. Why are you out? You're not with your parents?"

"Nah," replied Suna. "My brother brought a girlfriend home. You know, he is way younger than me, and now my parents look at me and ask me when I am going to bring somebody home. Like I can buy him from a bookstore or something."

"Maybe someday I can get rich enough and buy one of those hybrids, you know, bio-android hotties. Some are so credible you can't even tell they're not human."

"I've never seen one in real life," I replied and continued to walk toward the bridge.

The air was sharp, crisp, and fresh. That was one of the best things that changed in the world. The electric machines and the banishing of all fossil fuels made the cities cleaner.

"You need to dress better, Dona. Your skirt is way too short, and your boots are not fit for winter. Your jacket is short at the arms too. That aunt of yours keeps you on the bare minimum, does she?"

I turn around to Suna and bare my teeth.

"Did you come to ruin my mood, Suna?"

I look at her pink coat, her woolen dress, and her cute grey boots. She looks adorable, like a doll. She is one of those pretty girls everyone adored at school. Everywhere she walks, everyone is watching her.

I am watched too, but for all the other reasons. For the reason that my clothes are two sizes smaller, probably since I started high school. I didn't get anything new.

My aunt Stella keeps all the credits I get for her daughter. All I get is food and a roof above my head. But I am a prisoner. I do not have a guardian since my mother abandoned me and ran away to some vegetable-hand-growing commune.

You can't take children there. The police prohibit children from living outside cities, in forests and villages without amenities. You are free to go live in the wild, away from society, from AI and robots, but you can't take children there.

So she left. Never looked back. Abandoned me with her sister.

Stella didn't beat me, no, because God forbid she be caught beating me by the AI that scanned abandoned motherless children in the city once a month. She just abused me in all other ways. Not really abused me because she wanted to make me feel bad, but because she needed my credits to cover her husband's gambling habits, to cover her taste for fashion, and to dress up her girl who studied in a school she could never have been able to afford unless she didn't have a stray like me that the city council paid her 1,000 credits a month.