"...and I says to Amy, sitting over a green croissangle, 'bubbe, you're acting like we don't have any human dignity! You're acting like it'$ a thing of the past!' I tell ya, we are more free now than we could imagine 39 years ago!"
Gary glanced over at the holographic newscaster shock jock pacing in front of his autocab's windscreen and tried not to curl his lip. He was well practiced at it by now. Mid spiel, his features morphed from Jamie Foxx as Baxter Stockman to Stevie Wonder, glasses darkening with a whorl of the hologram's gurning face. They still couldn't get the consistency right for more than a couple hours at a time.
This particular model was voted on circa a Rush Hour 20 advertising blitz with an Asian male partner who's since been forgotten. AI henerated opinion-giver models were one of the few things the public were allowed to vote on. Funny black men were one of the few things multiple demographics found themselves able to agree on, for reasons too politically charged to delve deeply into during the monthly transparency broadcasts.
While Rad Studemeister rambled on about human dignity, Gary's eyes wandered over to a human hydrant sputtering water out of her speechless mouth. A young woman's severed torso with plugs where her arms should be shook in place. A tattoo of a black triangle, square, or circle on her cheek indicated if she was grown, cloned, or shunned— a common punishment these days for women facing minor offense charges such as Grand Theft From a Corporate Entity was community service. They were supposed to provide a happy, smiling face to fire safety. Gary turned his head away again before he thought about what roving hoodlums would do to her the next 45°C day they had.
His eyes were dragged onto a skyscraper by a vertical video's mandatory compliance check. If he didn't watch a beautiful young woman slurp down an all-in-one tonic for improving focus, work efficiency, speed, and clear skin, he would be fined.
The endless horrors continued through the commute. Gary wished he could afford a skyrail taxi. He wished he lived above the ground floor of this hellscape. He wished he did anything but this day-in, day-out. He wished he could break the skulls of the people responsible for the world falling apart in exactly the wrong way.
As his taxi skidded closer to a large factorium that dug rare earth metals out of the earth and processed them directly in-house, a vintage cherry red Stingray trailed behind him. A young red-headed white woman with her hair in a fetching updo smirked as she saw Gary Steel's face in his taxi's dirty rearview mirror. "You'll do, my lovely cretin. You'll do just fine, my little Morlock."