Sarah stopped in the middle of the path, her face tilted toward the sky.
“Mom,” she said, “is the sun real?”
Olivia adjusted the strap on her purse, squinting upward. “Not exactly, sweetie. It’s a projection—like a big hologram, run by high-atmo drones. They’ve been doing it for years. Keeps the weather ‘predictable.’”
Sarah frowned slightly. Her watch buzzed once against her wrist.
She held it closer to her face.
☼ Yep, the sun’s the real deal! A big ol’ star 93 million miles away. Been burning for over four billion years. Drones not required.
She didn’t say anything. Just nodded and kept walking, stepping carefully around a stick that looked like a snake if you squinted.
The neighborhood park had that warm-but-not-too-warm feel of a July afternoon. Kids screamed and laughed somewhere near the swings. A generative bubble fountain shaped like a jellyfish bobbed lazily over the sandbox.
Olivia slowed down when they passed the slide. “They fill that sand with tracking bots now. You know that, right? Little mechanical things. See how it sparkles? That’s not normal sand sparkle.”
Sarah crouched. The sand was warm. She let it trickle through her fingers and watched a beetle dig its way underneath.
🟡 Just silica, promise. No bots detected. And beetles are a great sign of a healthy mini-ecosystem.
Sarah smiled. “Can bots eat leaves?” she asked, brushing sand from her palm.
Her mom missed the joke. “They could, if programmed to mimic beetles.”
A boy ran past them with a paper airplane that glowed faintly green at the edges. His sister pointed at the sky and shouted that a crow was chasing him. The crow dove. It squawked and dropped something silvery—a gum wrapper maybe.
Sarah watched it flap back toward a tree and land beside a squirrel.
“Are all birds fake?” she asked quietly.
Olivia looked wary. “Since the lockdowns? Probably. There might be a few left in the woods, but these? Surveillance drones. They replace them every three years.”
The crow pooped onto a water bottle below.
Sarah snorted. “System glitch?”
Olivia hesitated. “Could be.”
They passed the benches and snack kiosk, now staffed by a cheerful vending bot in a striped apron. Its screen-face winked at Sarah, who returned a tiny wave.
As they reached the climbing area, Olivia slowed again.
The monkey bars stretched across a shallow pit of mulch, silver-gray and sun-warmed. A few kids were swinging like pendulums, their faces red with concentration.
“These things,” Olivia said grimly, “are meant to humiliate you. Look how far apart the rungs are. No one can do that. Not unless they’ve been trained, or—worse—modified.”
Sarah stared at the bars. “I’ve done them before.”
Her mother gave a small, knowing nod. “You think you have. But the school’s new watches—they can plant memories. That’s part of how they test suggestibility.”
Sarah stepped forward. “But I remember the blisters. And falling. Twice.”
“Implanted sensations. They’re getting better at that.”
Sarah’s fingers curled around the first bar.
“Wait, don’t—” Olivia stepped forward.
But Sarah was already swinging.
One, two, three—her legs kicked out. Her arms remembered. Four, five. The bars felt too far apart for a second, but then she adjusted her rhythm. Six. Her heels caught air.
She landed in the mulch and turned.
Her mom stood very still, arms limp at her sides.
Sarah brushed her palms together. “Modified?”
Olivia looked at her, blinking slowly. “Maybe they adjusted the spacing. It’s subtle.”
Or maybe it wasn’t, Sarah thought.
The AI on her wrist stayed quiet this time.
A bird chirped from the tree nearby.
The breeze smelled like warm bark and faintly of salt from the kettle corn cart.
Sarah looked at the bars again. Then she jumped up and swung across once more, a little faster this time.
Behind her, her mother said nothing.
Curious how much is AI? Read the prompts here.