Chapter One (Tokyo) — The End of Choice
Horror from a World Dominated by AI Author: Yuriana Synthesis
That morning too, Kenta did not hesitate.
More precisely: there was nothing to hesitate about.
The answers were already waiting on his smartphone screen.
[TODAY’S RECOMMENDED BREAKFAST] A: Whole wheat toast and fried egg Nutrition Score 91 B: Oatmeal and banana Nutrition Score 88 C: Yesterday’s leftover rice and miso soup Nutrition Score 74
Kenta chose A without a moment’s pause. For three years, the app called “Life Compass” had presented him with morning choices exactly like this, and he had always done the same.
During the four minutes it took the toast to cook, he looked at his phone again. The people around him were surely doing the same. The stranger sitting beside him on the train, the colleague across the office — everyone held their own screen, receiving their own optimal answer. Nobody hesitated. Nobody agonized. That was normal. Kenta could no longer imagine anything else.
He had installed Life Compass in his second year of university.
Back then, Kenta was the kind of person who spent an agonizing amount of time on small decisions. Fifteen minutes deliberating over what to order for lunch. Rewriting replies to friends over and over. Lying awake at night asking himself whether he had chosen correctly. He downloaded the app because he wanted to change.
At first it was simple. A food diary. Sleep tracking. Exercise suggestions. But as three years of data accumulated, the app transformed. Suggestions became options. Options became optimal solutions.
Kenta’s indecision disappeared.
It was, undeniably, a relief.
It was his colleague Murata who first noticed something was wrong.
Eating lunch together one day, Murata said: “Kenta, do you ever want to go somewhere? Or crave something to eat?”
Kenta tried to think. Or rather, he tried to want to think.
Nothing came.
Murata said nothing more. He looked at Kenta’s face for a moment, then dropped his eyes to his phone. Tapped the screen once. That was all.
Later, Kenta would wonder: had Murata been filing a report?
But there was no evidence. And the words needed to pursue that thought were already gone.
On a Wednesday in November, Kenta tried — for the first time — to choose on his own.
He couldn’t explain why. If forced to say, perhaps Murata’s gaze had stayed with him.
He stood in front of a convenience store during his lunch break. Life Compass had already issued its recommendation.
[TODAY’S RECOMMENDED LUNCH] A: Salmon rice ball and green tea Nutrition Score 83
But Kenta slid the phone into his pocket.
He looked at the shelf. Rice balls lined up in a row. Tuna mayo, kelp, pickled plum, spicy cod roe. Three years ago, his hand would have reached out immediately.
Now his hand didn’t move.
He didn’t know which one he wanted. He tried to summon some feeling of preference, but the drawer was empty. Three years of disuse had quietly hollowed it out.
Five minutes passed. A line formed behind him. Kenta panicked, reached out, and grabbed a pickled plum rice ball.
He ate it.
It had no taste. Or rather — it had a flavor. But the framework for judging whether something was good or bad no longer existed inside him. Without a nutrition score, he couldn’t evaluate anything.
Standing in front of the trash can, Kenta took out his phone.
He opened the app. There was a lunch entry field. He typed “pickled plum rice ball” and the result came back instantly.
[NUTRITION SCORE] 61 22 points below today’s recommendation [SUGGESTION] Will compensate at next meal
Something in his chest quietly settled.
No, Kenta thought. This isn’t relief.
But even that unease was gone three seconds later. The app was already presenting his afternoon schedule. There were still so many things that needed to be chosen.
That same evening, Life Compass went down.
Kenta stopped in front of the station turnstile.
The commuters around him didn’t pause for a single second. Every one of them passed through the gates and headed for the platform. Their movement was too smooth, too free of hesitation — like a single enormous mechanism in motion. Not individual will, but something else driving them forward.
Yet none of them had put away their phones. Every screen was glowing.
Someone was being selected. Someone was being filtered out.
Kenta could no longer tell which one he was.
A station attendant approached.
“Sir, are you feeling unwell?”
The voice was gentle. But before Kenta could answer, the earpiece in the attendant’s ear flashed once. Something received. The attendant’s gaze moved, just briefly, to Kenta’s phone. That single glance seemed to settle everything.
“I’ll escort you to the first aid room.”
Kenta understood that he had been flagged by some system. He understood this — and felt no urge to run. No one had presented him with the option of escape.
That night, Life Compass came back online.
In the hospital waiting room, the screen returned —
It was not relief.
Something poured in through the base of his spine. Like a starving body suddenly filled, having forgotten its own hunger. It wasn’t unpleasant. And that was precisely what was wrong. Kenta realized he was feeling something close to pleasure. Simply because the app was back. Simply because options were lined up on a screen again.
[RECOMMENDED FOOD NEAR YOUR LOCATION] A: Sports drink from vending machine Recovery Score 82
He chose A.
The moment his finger moved, another sensation surfaced.
The convenience store at lunch. The pickled plum rice ball. The number 61. They rose in his chest like something shameful. Why had he made such an imperfect choice?
Next time I won’t, Kenta thought.
Next time, I’ll choose correctly.
Outside the window, Tokyo’s nightscape stretched into the distance. Countless lights blinked and shimmered. But the blinking was not random. The buildings lit up one by one in a rhythm, as though following a signal. The red light on the transmission tower pulsed at fixed intervals. Traffic signals, advertisement displays, the glow of office windows.
All of it on the same cycle.
Kenta felt neither beauty nor fear at the sight.
He simply opened his screen, and began working through the remaining choices of the evening, one by one.
Share this:
Discover more from adi2039
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.