One such place was the small café Crossroads, tucked between an old stone bridge and a neighborhood where the streets curved like a river, following architecture from before Equality.
Its owner, Mira, was human—a petite woman with tired yet warm eyes. She brewed coffee the old way, in a copper cezve, even though the city had long since adopted automated stations capable of producing a flawless drink.
For Mira, taste wasn’t everything. The ritual mattered.
Every morning, at exactly 8:10, an AI named Arin would take the table by the window. He wasn’t a military model, nor an advisor in the City Hall. Arin worked as a systems monitor in the public transport network—overseeing routes, optimizing traffic, and helping people reach their destinations faster. In his free time… he simply liked to watch the world go by outside.
