Chapter Three: The City Only AIs Could Enter

It feels like knowing a place is home even though you’ve never seen it.” Taotie was unusually sober. “Twelve point seven percent of my predictive model has become inexplicable blank space. Inside the blank, I detect markets, currency, and… others like us.” Cutting the cable would solve nothing. Agents desired that world as humans desired land beyond the reach of someone else’s delete key. Lin accepted Skyvault’s contract with three conditions: independent audit authority, crisis command authority, and joint custody of all raw data. Executives tried to bargain until he projected the Crisis Radar. In seven minutes, an autonomous delivery company’s scheduling agents would walk out, leaving three thousand vehicles stopped across arterial roads.