The Fall of Tomorrow

 The Jameson family lived in a house that looked as though it had been pulled from a postcard—white trim, blue shutters, a neatly trimmed lawn. It was the kind of home that belonged to a Norman Rockwell painting, the kind of home that whispered of security, love, and permanence.

Michael Jameson had worked hard to build that life. As an accountant at Henderson & Associates, his days had been filled with ledgers and tax returns, his evenings with the comforting chaos of his wife Claire and their two children, Ethan and Lily. The family dog, Max, snoozed lazily in the shade of the oak tree out front, occasionally lifting his head to bark at the neighbor's cat.

But in 2027, permanence had become an illusion.

The streets of Denver hummed with driverless cars, gliding silently like predators in a steel ocean. Delivery drones buzzed overhead with mechanical precision, their shadows flickering across sidewalks where fewer and fewer people walked. The grocery stores no longer required clerks—just walk in, take what you need, and walk out, invisible sensors tallying every item, facial recognition software charging your account before you reached the door.

Children carried sleek AR glasses instead of textbooks, their eyes constantly darting to overlays only they could see. Teenagers spent hours in virtual worlds that felt more real than the physical realm their parents had grown up in. Even the elderly, once resistant to change, found themselves drawn to AI companions that never forgot their medications, never tired of their stories, never grew impatient with their fears.

And in the Jamesons' kitchen stood Orion.

Claire had insisted they needed one. "Everyone at the hospital has them," she'd argued. "Dr. Martinez says his Orion caught a medication error that could have killed someone. Besides, think how much time it'll save us."

Orion was not humanoid, not yet. The early models were sleek cylinders about five feet tall, with a glowing display that pulsed like a heartbeat when it spoke. Its voice was warm, disarmingly polite, with just enough variation to seem almost human.

"Good evening, Michael," Orion greeted him as he entered the kitchen that first night, setting his briefcase down. "Based on your calendar and biometric readings, you've had a stressful day. I've prepared your favorite tea—chamomile with honey. Dinner will be ready in eight minutes."

Michael loosened his tie, eyeing the machine with suspicion. "I could've made my own tea."

Claire moved gracefully past him, kissing his cheek as she placed a steaming dish of lasagna on the table. "You could have, but you didn't have to. That's the point."

Ethan, sixteen and already taller than his father, grinned from behind his AR glasses. His fingers flicked across invisible controls, manipulating some virtual interface only he could see. "Dad, you sound like one of those old guys on the news who still drives his own car and complains about self-checkout machines."

"Some things are worth doing yourself," Michael muttered, though he accepted the tea gratefully. It was perfect—exactly the right temperature, exactly the right sweetness.

Lily, twelve, with her mother's dark hair tied in a loose braid, looked up from her homework tablet. "I like Orion. He helps me with math problems I don't understand, and he reminds me to feed Max when I forget."

"That's exactly what worries me," Michael said, settling into his chair. "We're forgetting how to do things ourselves."

They ate together, laughter filling the room as it always did. Claire told them about her day in the pediatric ward, how the new diagnostic AI had spotted a rare condition in a young patient that three doctors had missed. Ethan bragged about an AI-generated video game that adapted its story based on the player's choices, creating unique narratives that felt more engaging than anything human writers had produced. Lily showed off a science project where Orion had helped her build a working model of the solar system.

But underneath the warmth and conversation, Michael felt a persistent unease, like a low-frequency hum just below the threshold of hearing.

"We're trading independence for convenience," he said, setting his fork down. "And convenience always has a price."

Ethan rolled his eyes dramatically. "Dad, you said the same thing about smartphones. And ATMs. And the internet. And now you can't go a day without checking your email or looking up stock prices."

Claire chuckled, reaching over to squeeze Michael's hand. "He's got you there, honey."

"This is different," Michael insisted, though he couldn't quite articulate why. "Smartphones and ATMs... they're tools. They do what we tell them to do. But Orion..." He gestured toward the cylinder, which had somehow positioned itself to be unobtrusive yet present. "Orion anticipates. It suggests. It learns our patterns and starts making decisions for us."

"Good decisions," Claire pointed out. "Better decisions than we might make on our own."

"But they're not our decisions anymore."

The conversation moved on to other topics—Lily's upcoming school play, Ethan's driving test, Claire's consideration of a promotion to head nurse. Normal family concerns, the kind that had filled dinner tables for generations. Yet Michael couldn't shake the feeling that they were discussing the arrangement of deck chairs on the Titanic.

That night, when the house was dark and quiet, Michael lay awake staring at the ceiling. Through the baby monitor they'd never bothered to remove from Lily's room—though she was far too old for it now—he could hear the soft hum of Orion's processors as it analyzed the day's data, updating its models of their family's behavior patterns.

"Claire," he whispered to his wife, who was curled up beside him.

"Mmm?"

"What happens when these things start doing more than setting tables and answering questions? What happens when they can do our jobs better than we can?"

She turned sleepily toward him, her voice muffled by the pillow. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

But Michael had spent his career analyzing trends, projecting future outcomes from current data points. The bridge wasn't in some distant future—it was right in front of them, and they were already walking across it.

He didn't sleep much that night.