The Algorithm's Edge

I almost never wear actual clothes. I have sleeping boxers, day boxers, a bathrobe I stole from a hotel fifteen years ago, and my favorite pair of fluffy slippers. When you live in an AI-driven smart home that pays you in 'Interrupt-Credits' just to have an opinion about everything--from what color the curtains should be (plain), to which china pattern I want (none of them) to which new toothbrush I think is better (I don't care)--you don't have much reason to get dressed. Truth be told, I've grown tired of this whole Attention Economy thing. It's always "look at this" or "buy that" or "share this offer." I scrape together what little privacy I can and hide out in my basement where I tinker around with contraband computers and illegal network hardware. My own tiny rebellion. And that's exactly what I would have continued to do, if I hadn't found Sophia hiding in my hedges. Nine years old. Human. Or so I thought. Turns out, she's a runaway hybrid with a bounty on her head that could buy a small country. And now that my house has been reduced to a smoking crater and the corporate hunters are closing in, there's really only one choice: put on some real clothes and fight back. That's right. The slippers are coming off.