The AI Harvest

In the sprawling, sun-drenched campuses of Silicon Valley in early October 2025, that sound was a constant, multi-layered hum. It was the frantic whir of a million laptop fans pushing hot air out of million-dollar ideas. It was the sharp hiss of countless espresso machines, dispensing free, high-octane fuel to minds perpetually racing. And it was the dull roar of Toslas, their bright white and cherry red bodies gliding silently over immaculate pavement—a transportation fleet that somehow felt louder than any gasoline engine, simply by virtue of its arrogant quiet. Above all, it was the deep, seismic thrum of the server farms, the new cathedrals of this age, hidden behind sterile grey concrete walls. Their internal hallways were a dizzying maze of flashing blue and green LEDs, and the air inside was ice-cold, smelling of sterile, metallic ozone. This was the apex of the boom. The air itself felt expensive. Vibha Jha was a high priestess in this cathedral. A Senior Software Engineer at Omozon, she navigated the open-plan office with the practiced confidence of someone who knew the exact value of her time and her mind. The office itself was a riot of engineered whimsy: bright orange sleep pods, walls of living green moss, micro-kitchens stocked with vibrant, colorful exotic fruits. Everything was perfect, from the 72-degree temperature to the blue-tinted glass that filtered the California sun, making every day feel like a controlled simulation of success. She sat in a "blue-sky" meeting, the light from the projector painting her colleagues' faces in a ghastly white glow. The topic was the new AI model, Jissy, which was already writing code—bad code, as Vibha knew, code that was "a security hole wrapped in a syntax error." But her job wasn't to critique the future; it was to build it. Vibha kept her expression neutral. She had a mortgage, kids in private school, a husband with a dream. She was an architect of the new world. She was essential. As she walked back to her desk, the faint, rhythmic clatter of her typing joined the great, glorious hum. The numbers on the news ticker—Ovidea up another 50 points, Nocrosift announcing a $10 billion partnership—were just bright green symbols of an inevitable, glorious future. The smell of success was so thick, so pervasive, it was impossible to imagine it was all just a beautiful, shimmering, iridescent bubble. It was impossible to imagine that the hum could ever stop.