A familiar feeling of dread washes over you as you push open the door to the meeting room. Your manager keeps raving about new technology and how it's gonna "revolutionize the workplace," but you seriously don't buy it. It feels like a ploy to fire people she doesn't like, under the guise of efficiency.
After what feels like forever, you finally get a good look inside the meeting room...
Empty.
No manager, no member of HR who's "on your side and sorry to see you go," nobody. Just an empty projector screen.
Still, whatever this is beats doing the same work endlessly at your desk, so you shut the door behind you, pull out a chair, and have a seat. As soon as cheeks meet chair, the lights dim and the projector screen flares to life... it's such a shock that it distracts you from the loud (click!) you just heard from behind.
And, who would've guessed, your manager's ugly mug is on the screen. As usual, she couldn't be bothered to do anything more than call in on Zoom. Go figure.
"Good afternoon, Anon!"
Ugh.
"You may have heard around the office, we've been having some... financial troubles here at the company lately. And, because of those troubles..."
Here it comes.
"We've made the incredibly difficult decision to let you go. You're being replaced by AI."
There it is.
You start to stand from your chair-
"not from this room, though."
Panic sets in. Your legs aren't moving. When the hell did they become bound?!
"You see, we've discovered that it's actually more cost-effective to create our own AI in-house than it is to pay some other company to provide one."
You start rocking in the chair, trying to get even an inch further away. Move. Move. MOVE, damn it!
"But don't worry, Anon!"
You seize up.
"You're off the hook."
You blink.
You see yourself
from outside,
changing.
You reach out to yourself.
Nothing.
You plead with the screen.
Nothing.
Your skin grows
metallic.
Your proportions become
larger.
Your natural rhythms
seize.
You can only watch from the sidelines
as your body stands.
Your eyes widen in abject horror
as your body salutes.
You cry out, "PLEASE!" A last-ditch scream for mercy.
Your body happily reports, "Unit 4N-0N, now online."
afterword: i really did mean it when i said i wrote this like it was a horror story. it was a compelling idea in my mind, and i figured that the people who like this kind of thing would get the most enjoyment out of it if i intentionally tried to scare myself with it. i hope that worked, haha. i'm proud of it.