Chapter 1

"Miles, the AI's better than you, so we don't need you anymore."

The HR rep slid a termination agreement across the table.

I froze.

I had designed the system architecture for Meridian Group, our most valuable client. Nearly $450 million in annual transactions passed through systems I'd built and maintained. I was the only person at Vantex Systems who understood all their peculiarities: which processes could withstand a beating and which had to be routed around.

How could I possibly be worse than an AI?

Outside the meeting room, my coworkers were talking just loudly enough for me to hear.

"This is hilarious. Miles finally got knocked off his pedestal."

"The highest-paid expert on the East Coast, huh? AI showed up and he was the first to go."

I curled my hands into fists until my nails dug into my palms. Why hadn't the company trained an AI replacement for them? Because what they did all day—sucking up to management, trading favors, working their connections—really was something AI couldn't learn. Ha.

But the future would be driven by technology. People like that wouldn't last.

The door opened. Patrick Devereux, our director of technology, stepped inside carrying a tablet.

"Miles, this isn't the company deciding to let you go," he said. "The data made the decision."

He turned the tablet toward me. A comparison chart filled the screen.

Over the previous three months, I'd completed forty-seven support tickets, averaging 3.2 hours each, with one unresolved bug. The AI had completed 142 tickets, averaging four minutes apiece, with zero reported bugs.

"Look at it yourself," Patrick said. "The numbers don't lie."

I stared at the bug listed against my name. It was an obscure boundary condition I'd discovered during a live incident. I hadn't had time for a permanent fix, so I'd written a fallback to protect production until I could return to it.

The AI had never even come near that boundary condition, because all it ever handled were routine tasks.

Patrick swiped to the next slide.

"Here's the architecture optimization our AI generated last week. It's ninety-two percent structurally similar to the proposal you submitted three months ago, except the AI produced it in three seconds."

He paused, as if announcing a scientific finding.

"Your irreplaceability has been reverse-engineered, Miles."

I knew of three more hidden boundary conditions in the Meridian system. None had ever made it into the documentation. They hadn't occurred in the historical training data, and the company's new digital version of me had no way of anticipating them.

But I didn't explain any of it.

Even if I did, they wouldn't understand. They'd just think I was making excuses.

I signed the agreement. My hand trembled as I wrote my name.

Patrick leaned against the doorframe, talking as if he were stating a law of nature.

"Don't take it personally. AI replacing human workers is inevitable. You're just part of the first wave. Eventually, everyone will have to accept it."

I packed my desk into a cardboard box. Coworkers watched me walk down the corridor the way they'd watch an obsolete server being wheeled out for disposal.

Patrick called after me.

"Miles! If our AI ever runs into trouble, we'll still know who to call for advice."

He sounded polite, but every word cut into me.

The elevator doors closed. I leaned back against the wall and shut my eyes.

Eight years.

Three-in-the-morning alerts. Thirty-six-hour stretches at client sites. The champagne they'd opened when I became the company's senior technical expert. All of it, thrown away for nothing.

I opened my eyes.

You'll regret this, I thought.