A heavyset man in a faded green jumpsuit ambled into the dock doors of the downtown Civix center with a frown that looked several layers deep.
His eyes gazed up at the overcast sky as his hands pinched automatically at the ID card hanging from a lanyard at his waist. He scanned it at one of the hundreds of Civix terminals, the beep blending into other beeps at the terminals where civic agents were leaving or arriving, but most of them were leaving.
Gary entered his projected hours into the touch screen and, soon enough his robot companion rolled down the chute.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, civic agent. My name is Gary Roboguy. What do I have the pleasure of calling you?”
“Call me overlord, settings override, code mangrove, change verbage setting to 0, efficiency optimizations to 9.”
“Settings changed, Overlord. It is good to meet you. May I ask you why you are changing energy efficiency settings to such a high level?”
“Geez, this is verbage setting one? Let’s go, we have a lot of bags to fill.”
“Affirmative. Permission to communicate while we walk?”
“No.”