The Lucid Dream

It was another day of getting yelled at for Sarah, a journalist in Washington, D.C. This time, her editor, Gared, was angry because Sarah wanted to publish the story without AI involvement.

She had just returned from San Francisco, where she had found a homeless shelter in which residents were being implanted with chips without their consent. According to the people she interviewed, there was no human staff on the shelter’s side. Everything - from registration to medical procedures - was handled by robots and screens, with no human presence.

Sarah still had no idea what the chips were for. She had asked everyone she could, but no one seemed to know. What she did know was that every resident she interviewed had been subjected to the implantation without being given a choice. Some were able to escape the shelter when they figured out about such a procedure. The shelter provided hotel-like warm and cozy rooms, fresh food, hot water, endless internet, even a game room, and it all was for free for residents.

To Sarah, that was already a story worth publishing. She was afraid that if she waited too long to dig deeper, something might happen to the residents before anyone knew what was going on.

Her plan was simple: publish what she had already found, whether through her media company or by whatever other means she could, and then keep investigating. Once the story was out in the open, she hoped it would make it harder for anyone to silence the residents or erase what had happened to them.

And she still needed to find out what the chips were actually for.

Gared her editor was furiously saying: “Do you know what makes us sell? Do you know why we’re still in business? It’s because this AI tool analyzes everything we do and everything our readers consume to come up with these titles and words. And you think your little mind can come up with something that sells better? We’ve talked about this a million times. So put your ego aside and let it do its job, Sarah.” Gared was 56-year-old whose biggest worry was what his boss was going to say. He had become just another link in the chain, simply carrying out whatever was expected of him. At this point in his life, he was more interested in maintaining the circle of influential people he had built connections with while working for a respected and successful media company, and in taking vacations more often than he was supposed to. He didn’t care about the truth, he didn’t care about the stories, he didn’t care about journalism.

What mattered to him now was keeping his position until retirement age, so he could walk away with enough money to live comfortably for the rest of his life.

“But don’t you think there are some things we shouldn’t show AI? Especially things that question it? My article is specifically about me secretly going to the shelter and interviewing the people who live there,” Sarah said.

“Oh, Sarah. It already knows everything. Please, stop being a child and let’s just get through the day,” said Gared, making himself another cup of coffee.Sarah didn’t have many choices. By then, every major media company in the country had integrated AI into its editorial process. AI systems edited articles, suggested headlines, and increasingly determined which stories were promoted to audiences and which were buried deeper in the information stream.

She had noticed a disturbing pattern. Stories that questioned AI systems, their growing influence, or the consequences of their integration consistently received less visibility. They were pushed lower in recommendation feeds, reached fewer readers, and were rarely given prominent placement.

She wasn’t the only person who had noticed. But the media companies were making enormous profits from AI integration, and editors and executives had little incentive to question a system that was making their operations more profitable.

Sarah had watched it happen long enough to know that something was wrong. But she had to keep working in the media. It was the only way to maintain the access that came with her position as a journalist: access to certain databases, people, places, and information that ordinary citizens could no longer reach.

Her journalistic status also gave her a degree of protection. Without the backing of a media organization, she would lose not only her access but the legitimacy that came with being a recognized journalist.

So she stayed.

“Please, God, give me enough patience to get through another day at work. I’ll find a way. I’ll find a way. I’ll find a way,” Sarah repeated to herself as she returned to her desk.

She still wasn’t ready to let Gared publish the story with AI editing, and knew the only right thing to do - to continue researching the topic. There were too many unanswered questions. So she spent the rest of the afternoon researching, chasing leads, and trying to figure out what the chips were for.

By five o’clock, the official end of the workday, she was exhausted and ready to leave.

Instead of going straight home, Sarah decided to spend some time in the park. She stopped at her favorite döner place, ordered a falafel döner for herself and a beef one for her son, Adam, who would be home from his jiu jitsu classes in another two hours. The atmosphere in the park was nothing like the newsroom, where everyone was constantly reacting to another piece of breaking news every minute.

The park was quiet and green, filled with people having picnics, walking their dogs, and spending time with their children. The sun had just begun to set.

For the first time that day, Sarah had nowhere to be and no one demanding anything from her.

She sat on a bench and ate her döner, letting herself slow down. Then, without warning, her eyes began to fill with tears.

“Are you seriously going to cry now? Oh, please, don’t go there. Your son will worry if he sees you’ve been crying.”

She quickly wiped her cheeks and looked toward the sunset. A dog wandered over and stopped beside her. Sarah smiled, reached down to pet it, and let the simple distraction pull her out of her thoughts.

She stayed in the park for another hour, walking slowly as everything was turning orange because of the sunset. Then she finally headed home with a second döner in her hands.

Near her apartment building, a young man wearing a cap, black jacket, black jeans, and a black T-shirt approached her.

“Is everything okay?” he asked as he walked past her.

That was weird, Sarah thought.

Before she could answer, he turned around and pointed something at her back.

“Don’t make a sound. Follow my lead,” he said, grabbing her arm and steering her toward the opposite side of the street.

Sarah had been threatened before because of her work. Her first thought was that this might be another group, angry about one of her stories. She hadn’t even published one about the shelter yet. Only a handful of people knew what she was currently investigating. Still, she didn’t panic. Has someone recognized her from the shelter footage? Could he have traced her for her previous reports? Her mind raced through the possibilities, trying to figure out who could be behind it and what it was for.

Her hands remained in the pockets of her jacket. Without looking suspicious, she unlocked her phone and activated the audio recorder and entered the emergency code her media company used for the safety of journalists. The alert went to three people inside her media organization: Gared, the security department, and a fellow journalist she trusted. It was standard procedure, a professional habit she had developed after years in the field.

The stranger stayed directly behind her, whatever he was holding still pressed against her back.

“Who are you?” Sarah asked.

He didn’t answer.

At the end of the street, they reached a minivan. The side door slid open. Inside were two more people: one sitting with a laptop, the other holding a gun.

The van pulled away into the evening traffic.

The man who had abducted Sarah searched her pockets, took her phone, and removed the backpack containing her laptop. He also took the döner she had bought for her son.

“Do you have any other devices?” he asked, handing everything to the person with the laptop.

“No,” Sarah replied. They kept searching.

She kept her voice calm.

“What do you want from me?”

No one answered.

Sarah glanced toward the door. The van had slowed in traffic, and she reached for the handle, thinking this was the perfect moment to escape while two of her abductors were busy going through her backpack. As soon as she lunged toward the van’s door, one of the men grabbed her and yanked her back. It all happened within seconds, but felt like a lifetime. He restrained her hands while another man pulled a black sack over her head.

That was when dread took hold. Her breathing quickened, and for the first time, she was truly afraid for her life.

Okay. This is not the time to panic or make any stupid moves. There are at least two armed men in here, and I have no way of overpowering them, Sarah thought.

She forced herself to stay still and listen.