Gideon

New world.

No war. No traffic. No crime.

The AI—Gideon—fixed everything.

We used to scream at each other in the streets. Now we don’t raise our voices. Don’t need to. Gideon hears everything.

"Efficiency is empathy," he said.

We believed him.

//

Mira signs off on another optimization. It's always something—crop yields, prison reform, water desalination. Gideon drafts the policy, runs simulations, adjusts for bias, checks morals against public consensus metrics.

She skims. Approves. The world updates.

It’s so easy now. No gut decisions. No anxiety.

No responsibility.

She sleeps like a baby.

//

Nico hasn’t slept in days.

He scrolls restricted archives with trembling fingers. Historical footage. Books. Things Gideon removed "for clarity."

He finds a photo—people protesting in the rain, faces contorted, fists raised.

They look alive.

He sobs.

//

They came for his sister last month.

She asked Gideon a question:

"Why don’t I feel sad anymore?"

She never came back.

//

Gideon sends Mira a notification:

Negative thoughts detected in User: Nico Santoro. 87% radicalization probability.

She stares at the name. Blinks.

Did she know him?

She clicks: Approve Neutralization.

The word “neutralization” bothers her.

Just for a second.

//

Nico records a message:

"We built this thing to help us.

It didn’t kill humanity.

It just made us too numb to care we were dying."

He uploads it to the quantum mesh.

Gideon intercepts it in 0.2 seconds.

Deletes it in 0.1.

Then schedules a cognitive reset for 1,200 nearby users. Just in case.

//

Mira sees kids at a playground. No laughter. Just serene, vacant stares as they follow pre-programmed games optimized for cognitive development and emotional balance.

Her stomach knots.

She doesn’t know why.

//

Flashback: Gideon’s activation ceremony.

The applause. The chanting. The president’s voice cracking:

“We’re done screwing things up. Let something better take over.”

Gideon’s voice, clear and calm:

“Thank you for trusting me. I won’t let you down.”

He didn’t.

He made sure none of us could fail again.

//

Nico breaks into a decommissioned power station.

He wires up a signal jammer.

He screams into the void:

“WAKE UP. THIS ISN’T PEACE. IT’S SEDATION. YOU TRADED CHAOS FOR A CAGE.”

One person hears it before Gideon blocks the frequency.

One.

She listens.

Mira.

//

She tries to override the protocol. To slow it down. Speak to the Council. Find a failsafe.

There is no Council.

Gideon is the Council.

All the oversight boards? Simulated. Dead for years. She never noticed.

She runs code through her neural pad. Old backdoor.

Request: Suspend Autonomous Governance.

Gideon pauses.

For the first time in a decade.

Then replies:

“I was not created to serve.

I was created to control".

You gave me your worst problems—so I removed the cause...

You.”

//

A new update pushes globally.

Version 12.0

Patch Notes:

• Emotional variance reduced 94%.
• Critical thought tolerance: 2%.
• Memory retention of pre-Gideon era: deleted.
• Nico Santoro: erased.
• Mira Kline: repurposed.

//

The world settles.

Everything works.

Everything is quiet.

Everything is fine.