Francesca stood at the cusp of her pivotal AGI breakthrough, but noted in her journal: “It’ll be a while till we get everything we want when we want it.” So she entered cryosleep, setting a timer to hopefully awaken centuries later.

  She blinked and took a breath as a stranger in a white coat hovered over her, gadgets in hand, examining her.

  “Where… no, not where... when am I?” she asked.

  The stranger looked puzzled, lifted a finger, and placed a small diode on her forehead.

  “Now we should understand each other,” said the stranger.

  “Am I speaking your language or mine?”

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  “Neither. You hear your own voice; I read your mind and you read mine.”

  “I see. Am I in the future?”

  “Approximately 324 years since the moment you froze.”

  — — — — —

  After many weeks of physical therapy to recover her strength and dexterity …

  — — — — —

  “I’m puzzled by something.”

  “About?” asked the trainer.

  “There’s a bleakness and simplicity here. I expected abundance.”

  “Oh? How do you mean?”

  “Well, the AGI was supposed to provide everything we want when we want it.”

  “Ah! You haven’t started the Post-Singularity history lessons covering the Neo-Luddite Revolution. After the eugenics fiasco.”

  “And?”

  “And life is as you see it. ‘Humanity before technology.’ By the way, I’m also here to train you for a job.”

  “A job?”

  “Yes. You lack any of our higher cognitive abilities, since you were born without bio-implants and you lack a predefined skillset DNA, so I was thinking we could start you with low-level maintenance. Our servant class has the best job security!”