Part 1-4: The reflections of a professional Steemer in 2031 #steemtales (Everything Written So Far In One Post!)

Part 1-4 in one post for those that don't want to read chunks.

As I stepped out of my front door, I felt a slight shudder run through my body as the various sensors from self-driving cars, automatic street cleaners, and other devices identified me and added me to their list of things to avoid.
Mentally I knew the scans didn’t affect me in any way, but I always irrationally thought I could feel them.

Leaving my apartment behind, I made my way down the sidewalk. I lost myself in the usual sounds of the neighborhood. A few cars passed by, their electric motors humming along as their AI brains checked and re-checked the distance between them and everything else. A bus stop across the street chimed and softly announced in that ever-present voice that the bus would be arriving soon. No one else was around to hear it, but it dutifully made its announcement just the same.

As I got closer to the designated park area, a 50 foot by 50 foot square that had been mandated untouched, I started to hear the sounds of other people. The park area, with its greens, browns, and myriad of other colors, stood out in stark relief to the gleaming white plastics used in the structures around it. These plastics, which had replaced the more traditional, more expensive, and more dangerous materials like wood, brick, and even some metals, were used in everything. The streets were also plated in plastic panels teaming with sensors, LEDs, and heating elements. Unlike the outdated asphalt, these panels could display information to those on bikes or hoverboards, beam new instructions to self-driving vehicles, and melt off any built up ice.

But the park, the park was one of the few places where nature was allowed to run almost unchecked. Of course dutiful robotic Groombas (the cleaver shortened term for a Ground Roomba) sped around at designated times to keep the grass short, while a team of highly trained tree trimmers and groundskeepers carefully trimmed back limbs and tended to the flowerbeds.

People hung out at the park all the time. It was one of the few places where they could get away from the screen and the keyboard, especially in the city. Outside of the sprawling, urban areas, people still lived up close and personal with nature, but here, after almost everything had been replaced with the colorless plastic, we had to take what we could get. And people took as much of it as they could.

People were sprawled out everywhere: couples lay together on picnic blankets under the trees, while a gaggle of kids ran around in the clearing playing some kind of version of tag with rules they had invented on the spot. Their parents stood off to the side gossiping about the latest affair or something, I never listed long enough to care. I liked to spend some time at the park just zoning out. Like everyone else, sometimes I needed away from the Juice. Sometimes I even thought about hiring a car to take me away from it all. I’d find some smaller city where things weren’t all white and automatic, and I’d get back to basics.

Then I’d remember that would actually require me to have some kind of skill other than content creation, and I’d head back to the keyboard to bang out something new. People out in those rural areas probably wished they lived in one of the large cities where mundane stuff was handled by AI and we didn’t have to worry about crime as much. All we had to do was accept that the city itself would be keeping an eye on us all the time. Small price to pay, right?

I looked up over the tops of trees to the nearest building. Sure enough, sticking out from the smooth white exterior were little black pods, each one containing a bundle of sensors and cameras. I felt like waving to big brother, then thought better of it. After all, there was no need to call much attention to myself.

For Part 5-7, Click Me!