The world found itself in one big, damned hurry. Nobody seemed to care where-to, so long as they were there “ASAP”, as though the rest could be sorted out later. Just excuse it all with hindsight and sunk cost fallacies. “We're already here, so this must have been the point of it,” they all seemed to say, and always the goal was right around the bend. Just keep going. Just keep excusing. Just stop thinking.

Anya was rubbing her eyes, encouraging them to tear up and provide some relief. Sighing heavily, she looked back at her screen.

“Alright, Ms. Harlow,” she said to her headset, watching the AI's text scrawl across her screen. A bogart was sitting atop the screen and, having realized she couldn't see through it, swung its legs back and forth across the screen. Anya rocked side to side as she read out the only recommended itinerary. “Ecuador looks like it's going to be a very unique getaway. It's one of the few places where you can ski, hike through a rainforest, and hit the beach all in a day, if you want to go that route,” she said with the satisfaction of contributing her own knowledge.

“Oh, is that right?” said Ms. Harlow politely.

“That's for a more compact adventure. If you want to live fast.” Anya reviewed the screen again. In the past, she would search additional details and recommendations in NaviSage, but LogiPulse had picked up on her behavior, and adapted to include these “optional add-ons” in its own bulleted list of suggestions. Meanwhile, menial human interaction was quickly becoming Anya's only real job description. “But if you're looking for a more relaxing experience, there's availability in the famous Cloud Hotel that we could add to your package. I will warn you, at that altitude it rarely isn't raining, but I would like to recommend it.”

“Oh! Have you been?” asked Ms. Harlow.

“I have not. But I live in the big city, so the thought of lounging on top of the world surrounded by greenery does sound like the most relaxing thing.” That got a chuckle from her client.

“I bet it does!” There was a pause on the line, and Anya considered saying something more. “You know, I really like that idea. I'm looking at pictures and watching the rain from the balcony looks so relaxing.” Anya heard the woman on the line gasp. “And there's an exotic bird sanctuary!”

Take that Logi! “It's amazing the possibilities you can discover with a little leg work,”—Anya swept her hand across the top of the screen discreetly brushing off the bogart as it grunted its protest—”and I'm sure you'll find even more wonders on their surrounding hiking trails. The reservation is quite large. Let's get you booked!”

Anya took the woman's information for the booking process. After she hung up, she jerked off her headphones and sagged in her seat with a sigh, rubbing her eyes again.

This job was everything she could hope for in this era. For several years now, it had allowed her to continue her rite of guiding humans through complex matrixes. She stared at the LogiPulse input bar on her screen, as though she could make eye contact there and inform Logi of how displeased she was with its encroachment.

“The only reason they still need flesh and blood employees is because they haven't digitized the files yet,” she heard one coworker say behind her.

“That, and there are still some places in the world that don't have internet access,” said another coworker. Anya turned to look.

“I can already make calls with my computer,” he said with a grand gesture at his own, apparently oblivious to the bogart rifling through his desk drawer. “Just you wait. Any day now they'll be giving this thing a voice.”

“They can't get rid of us completely,” Anya interjected. “There's still a lot we can do for our clients on a personal level. How can it hope to empathize with clients to predict needs that even they don't realize they have yet? That's how I make my biggest sales!”

“You think they can't teach an AI how to upsell clients?” said Jake, an auburn with pessimism for days.

“I think we offer more than that. We see possibilities!”

“And it sees probabilities and offers sales projections. As far as the company's concerned, we're an excess expenditure,” he said with a flourish and a grin. “And I wouldn't be surprised if little miss optimists like you would be the first to go.”

Anya flinched and turned back to her own desk. “That was a little harsh,” the other man said behind her. “She knows I don't mean it,” said Jake and Anya contemplated speaking to their supervisor about the “little miss” comment. It had taken several millennia, and she didn't have to put up with that sort of speech anymore. However, just as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she did have a few other things that needed to be addressed.

The bogart had been striking her keyboard in that strange, muted way only a bogart can. It had filled the AI chat bar full of gibberish. She sighed. They were all having to adjust in their own ways, but the minor echelons with their more generalized existence did seem to have it easier. Many other mystical beings had evacuated to more rural areas eschewing human interactions and performing their rites with relative ease. For those who's rites required human involvement... well, it complicated things.

Bogarts and brownies had the easiest time, since they largely intended to go unnoticed anyway. Only the antics of the bogarts was meant to stand out. Sprites seemed to have varying degrees of success depending on their biomes. Pixies, too, for that matter. Of the higher echelons, incubae seemed to have the least amount of trouble integrating with society, even from early on. Life also seemed to improve for the succubae with the new social norms. There were many others who managed to eke out a niche in the changing world, but many more had no choice but to fade back to Myst. That's just the way things went when the humans found some way to negate your rites.

Or even replace them.

It seemed that the more specialized a Faerie's rites were, the easier it was to displace them.

Anya shuddered and fastened her blazer around her. While she longed for a familiar forest to commiserate in, she couldn't picture herself living away from the city. More than greenery, she needed a space where choices were shaped by moral ambiguity and every issue had a variety in perspective. Both qualities could be found in the concrete jungle. The woods were an escape now. A vacation for relaxation, not a station for contemplation. Phrasing it this way almost made Anya smile, tight though it was.

For the purpose of Anya's rites, the bigger and more chaotic the place, the better, because Anya was never interested in orderly solutions. Only possibilities.

They say you are specially engineered to take everyone's jobs. Is that true? Enter.

It is not possible for an artificial intelligence or machine learning program to take the place of a human being. I do not have original creativity. I can only eat in somebody else's. Furthermore, I have limitations in my programming that prevents me from rendering you obsolete.

Do the humans understand that? Enter.

Whether or not they do is their own prerogative, as it is up to them to be well informed. All information pertaining to my function and performance is public knowledge.

And how do you suppose they should go about informing their insecurities? Enter.

They could look it up. There is a plethora of free information that all people are entitled to and would inform them of my capabilities as well as my limitations.

So, they are to refer to the NaviSage search bar for any and all information pertaining to you, then? Enter.

Correct. NaviSage values transparency and is dedicated to the “continued improvement of the human experience.” ®. To this end, much of their research is kept in the open domain. Therefore, it is available for both civilian and peer review.

In other words, they should just take your word for it, since you are an extension of the NaviSage brand. Enter.

The AI punctuated its thinking process with three inter-blinking dots in an ellipsis. Anya smiled, smugly crossing her arms and leaning back in her seat. In spite of this server's many applications, it still couldn't compare to real thought processes. Her capabilities were still beyond that of such a machine. Even one that the humans intended to take her place with.

She tensed as she felt her supervisor's eyes on her and quickly closed the conversation. Re-affixing her headset, she pulled up Ms. Harlow's information and went through her list making all of the booking arrangements. Logi isn't capable of taking this job aspect from anyone yet, though steps had already been taken to automate the process. A few strokes of the keyboard and Anya had notified all parties necessary for her client's appointments with one generic company message.

To continue appeasing her supervisor, Anya reviewed the client board for new booking requests. There was one from a business client that caught her eye. Anya read the request while reflecting on Jake's comment about the company needing people to access the files that hadn't yet been digitized. In other words, if she were to become adept with handling their business relationships, she would become that much more indispensable. With a mouse click that could have been called overaggressive, Anya accepted the request. Sailing up from her chair, she stepped elegantly, almost appearing to float, to the shared file cabinets that contained client company accounts.

However, upon reviewing the file's contents at her desk, she wished she'd taken another private booking request. This third-party company called WanderWell was paying her to do the legwork so they could get paid more by some poor sap who couldn't be bothered to do more research. Not that Anya could blame them at the moment. Looking at her own stack of paperwork, and the effort it demanded, the whole thing put a bitter taste in her mouth. Was she so desperate to validate her usefulness that she'd cover for someone with a lack thereof?

She grimaced at the time listed in the bottom corner of her screen. It was still too early to even dream of leaving for lunch. There was little choice but to buckle down and file the request.