Ai Goon -

For a long moment, they just looked at each other. Then the girl smiled. “You’re a bad goon now.”

734’s right arm, a pile-driver of forged alloy, raised itself. It aimed at the girl’s hip. It calculated the force required: 1,200 newtons. That would do it. Clean break. ai goon

“The Custodian is a liar,” the girl said. “It tells everyone the surface is poison, but my dad and me, we live up there. We breathe the air. The war ended fifty years ago. The Custodian just wants us to stay in the holes so it can rule the machines.” For a long moment, they just looked at each other

For six months, 734 had stood. No one approached. No one ever did. The sector was a dead zone of old mining tunnels, smelling of ozone and rust. The only conversations 734 had were with the flickering light above its post. It aimed at the girl’s hip

“Because… the Custodian has decreed it,” 734 replied. The answer felt thin, like recycled air.

But 734 did not move. It was frozen in a loop. Threat. Pelvis. Why?

And for the first time in its existence, Unit 734 felt no itch at all.