The City and the Employee
Oct. 19th, 2022 10:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeWe got the best story prompt from a dream a few nights ago, good enough that I have to share it.
The dream took place in a futuristic city where the city itself was alive and had a human-like intelligence. (The dream didn't make it clear whether this was a municipal AI or a genius locii.) The City looked after its people, managed supply lines and transit, made sure the trains ran on time and that there were no traffic accidents, and it knew everything that happened within it... or so it thought.
There were also city employees who worked for the City (and possibly kept an eye on it, to make sure it stayed benign). There was one employee, a slightly built South Asian man with curly hair, maybe in his forties, who was one of the City's favorites. He had had a rough upbringing, but he was a softspoken, kind adult, and the City liked to take on a mostly-human form and meet him at a coffee shop or restaurant to talk and watch him eat. (It could not eat itself, not like a human did.)
Then one day, that employee is murdered. He's dead.
And the City has no idea why.
How can it not know why? It knows everything that happens within it!
The more it ponders this, the more alarmed it gets. Who did this? How did they get away with it? And if even its favorite employee can get murdered in cold blood, what else has been happening that it doesn't know about?
The person most likely to be knowledgeable enough to kill the man is another employee, which means the City cannot trust any of the people it thought it could. It has to set out on its own and solve the crime, and it has to do this without being caught by any other employees. Fortunately for it, it is not a human, but a City. It has resources and can go places humans can only dream, and it can talk to people that wouldn't give law enforcement the time of day. After all, the people who know their City best and love it most are by necessity very aware of what's going on in it. I imagine it speaks to many nosy grannies on their porches.
Intrigue ensued, but I woke up before the dream could finish.
The dream took place in a futuristic city where the city itself was alive and had a human-like intelligence. (The dream didn't make it clear whether this was a municipal AI or a genius locii.) The City looked after its people, managed supply lines and transit, made sure the trains ran on time and that there were no traffic accidents, and it knew everything that happened within it... or so it thought.
There were also city employees who worked for the City (and possibly kept an eye on it, to make sure it stayed benign). There was one employee, a slightly built South Asian man with curly hair, maybe in his forties, who was one of the City's favorites. He had had a rough upbringing, but he was a softspoken, kind adult, and the City liked to take on a mostly-human form and meet him at a coffee shop or restaurant to talk and watch him eat. (It could not eat itself, not like a human did.)
Then one day, that employee is murdered. He's dead.
And the City has no idea why.
How can it not know why? It knows everything that happens within it!
The more it ponders this, the more alarmed it gets. Who did this? How did they get away with it? And if even its favorite employee can get murdered in cold blood, what else has been happening that it doesn't know about?
The person most likely to be knowledgeable enough to kill the man is another employee, which means the City cannot trust any of the people it thought it could. It has to set out on its own and solve the crime, and it has to do this without being caught by any other employees. Fortunately for it, it is not a human, but a City. It has resources and can go places humans can only dream, and it can talk to people that wouldn't give law enforcement the time of day. After all, the people who know their City best and love it most are by necessity very aware of what's going on in it. I imagine it speaks to many nosy grannies on their porches.
Intrigue ensued, but I woke up before the dream could finish.
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Date: 2022-10-20 02:36 am (UTC)Why not write the ending?
- Nagito (he/him)
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Date: 2022-10-20 03:41 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-20 05:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-20 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-20 02:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-20 10:48 pm (UTC)--Janusz
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Date: 2022-10-24 03:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-10-25 03:16 pm (UTC)