The NeoAmerican Dream
Enjoy the sweet safety of freedom
Napping Kitties
Han (top) and Lando (bottom) chillin’ on a hot day. All the cats have been lounging and more lethargic now that summer is in full blast. So, I’ve gotten lots of cute sleeping kitty pictures lately.
…Time for this week’s story…
The NeoAmerican Dream
Hello Ultimate 86 Forum.
Someone asked what life is like in NeoAmerica for someone in our line of work. The first thing I hear each morning is the pitter-patter of six-legged robots that resemble spiders scurrying out of my room and vacating my apartment. The little rascals look through your home while you sleep. The law dictates that they must be unobtrusive, so when you go to sleep they scurry in and do their thing. Although, unobtrusive can be a very subjective term once you leave your home.
Before I leave my apartment for work, I spritz on some cologne and make sure I put on my sunglasses to prevent passive retinal scans while I go about my day. That one isn’t so much to hide from the law as it is from advertisers. The only coupons I want are from my local grocery store. Save sixty percent on butter? I think I will, thank you very much. The first thing I do is head down the street to get a coffee. The surveillance bots monitor everyone’s movement, so it’s good to maintain habits. I didn’t even like coffee that much when I started drinking it, but it has really grown on me.
The walk there is pretty typical. Drone copters police the skies. There’s little to be done about them except learn their patterns. Surveillance birds can be harder to spot, but neither are allowed in residential areas. The surveillance bots nobody seems to mind are the packs of robot dogs which roam the streets with varying levels of cuteness.
Each pack has one security dog that looks like an armored four-legged robot with no head. The rest of them actually resemble dogs with fake fur, heads, eyes and everything. The little ones mostly scout around, so if you see one sniffing around, there’s a pack nearby. A lot of people stop to pet the dogs, which actually lowers your general threat and suspicion level since they passively collect information about you when you pet them. So, I usually pet a cute one or two when I’m out. The dogs don’t tend to be in residential areas unless they’re helping someone home, like if a kid gets lost or you’re drunk.
They can be dangerous, though! The other day, I got to see a pack of robot dogs chase someone down. They bit him in the leg and dragged him to the floor. He dropped his groceries and some pricey tech he had just purchased. As soon as the humanoid robot showed up, I picked up the stuff from the floor then reported it as abandoned property I found on the floor and asked if I could keep it. The robot gave me the green light and I got to walk away with everything, so I didn’t need to go grocery shopping this week.
The big passenger drone showed up a couple minutes later with some human officers to haul him away. I later learned that guy was being arrested for posting pictures online of the security bots with googly eyes. Real shame. I love those pictures. I can’t believe that guy lived in my neighborhood, I could have taught him a thing or two. He probably won’t get off, what he did is a serious crime.
I got an even better haul a little while back. Some idiot was trying to do a surprise proposal at this restaurant as I was walking by. One of the bird bots noticed him slip something in her drink and a pack of dogs jumped onto the second story balcony and totally swarmed him. They knocked the table over and spilled the drink. The ring fell right in front of me. I immediately called over one of the little robot dogs that hadn’t made it upstairs yet and reported the abandoned property. It let me keep this guy’s engagement ring! I got in touch with him privately to return it for a modest reward. Botched engagements happen at least once a week. For these easy scavenging reasons, I always recommend people just walk around every day.
It also makes for great opportunities when your target returns property, since these payments are usually on prepaid cards for privacy and ease of transfer. So, you get a nice extra haul when you kill your target. It’s a lot harder in metropolitan areas, but in the suburbs it’s easy to dodge surveillance drones and kill whoever you’re after. I’ve been hired to kill people in every English-speaking country. The biggest difference is the extra steps to take advantage of the robots’ algorithms, which ultimately works to your advantage in our line of work, because it creates evidence of your innocence if you do it right.
You probably have the same question other killers do when I tell them what my day-to-day is like. Why do I stay here and deal with all the extra work to stay off the radar instead of being a contract killer anywhere else in the world? The reasons for that are simple. Do you have fresh avocados within walking distance in your country? Probably not. I’d have to move to a latin country to get avocados like I get here and I don’t speak Spanish, so I guess I’m stuck here.
I guess when I lay it out like that, there isn’t really that much stopping me. It’s not that much effort when I think about it. The avocados would probably be better, too. Well, I guess it’s something I can evaluate later. I’ve got work lined up for a few months and my lease isn’t up yet. Sorry I can’t reveal how I evade the surveillance bots on the daily and had to fudge some details. We all know who is reading our forum.
Happy Hunting!
— ”Ben”