T.A.N. - Talaria AI Network

Blinking away the last traces of sleep, Connor rubbed the sand from his eyes, wondering as he did so if the droning buzz he'd woken up to was a leftover from last night, or an actual swarm of bees hovering around his head. Sitting up in bed (too quickly, dammit his head hurt) he looked around his small apartment bedroom, trying to locate the source of the buzzing noise. It didn't take long to spot the gray drone hovering right outside his window with a large cardboard box attached to its midriff. The little robot was as close as it could get without its wings crashing into the glass, it's small red optical sensor swiveling around, scanning Connor's tiny apartment.

With a sigh, Connor got of bed and approached the window. After a moment, the drone's red "eye" locked onto him, and having registered an approaching human it backed away to give him space to open the window.

"I am Hermes Delivery Unit 1138. Are you Connor Johnson of 424 Amsterdam Street, New York, NY 10027?" it asked in a flat and emotionless tinny-sounding voice.

"Yeah," Connor said cautiously, "but I wasn't expecting a..."

"Package delivered." the drone intoned, dropping the box and taking off into the sky.

After a few moments it joined the drone traffic rising from and descending to various Manhattan buildings, and then became an indistinguishable part of the massive drone swarm that filled the two major designated flight corridors over the city. Currently, the corridors roughly corresponded to Broadway, though they changed to a different street or waterway every other day to avoid the negative environmental effects the swarm caused by blocking out large swathes of sunlight. Regardless of where the major corridors were, there were always minor ones branching out to the other boroughs of the city, and they also changed frequently. A logistical nightmare that required constant adaptation and coordination with multiple city agencies, individual buildings, and other parties which was beyond the abilities of human air traffic controllers. That was why Hermes Corp had helped set up the Talaria AI Network (called TAN for short) that ran it instead, making it possible for the Hermes Corp and smaller e-commerce fulfillment companies to use tens of thousands of drones each day in the NYC area alone.

None of those facts was on Connor's mind though, as he turned over the cardboard box, looking for any kind of label. Not finding any, only a bar code used in the drone delivery process, he dropped it on his desk and started getting dressed.

Still half-dressed, he turned in the direction of his phone and said "Talaria, Home." trying to enunciate the words as clearly as possible.

"Recognized. Johnson, Connor." a female voice responded, as the corresponding Talaria Home app opened on his phone.

"Talaria, did I have a Hermes Corp delivery scheduled?"

"Working. Working. Working. Work-"

"STOP!" Connor shouted. "Never mind. Talaria off."

At that point tying his sneakers, he muttered under his breath, "Stupid, useless AI."

Connor rushed off to English Comp, barely giving his roommate who was sitting on the sofa and working on a laptop a nod as he left. Once there, he opened his laptop like most of the class, but instead of bringing up notes, browsing email, or even checking social media like most of the other students, he logged into his Hermes account. Quickly opening his order history he scanned the contents, then raised an eyebrow. As he'd suspected, no pending orders, and in fact no purchases within the last few days. Odd, he thought.

H spent the rest of English Comp, and most of his university classes that day, trying to figure out where the package could've come from, and what the heck could be in it. At first Connor kept refreshing the page with his Hermes order history, but that didn't do any favors for his hangover, so he gave up and started checking all of his accounts at the other fulfillment companies. Zero pending deliveries.

Connor leaned down on his desk, head in his hands. It made no sense! He hadn't bought anything, no one had emailed or messaged him on social media saying they'd bought him something, his birthday was months away, and he wasn't currently dating anyone. There was no way it could be an error with the Talaria network either; it had been operating with no problems for several years now, since 2029. The AI that ran TAN were supposedly the best in existence and unhackable.

For the rest of the day Connor was distracted by questions in the back of his mind. Who had sent the package, why, and most of all - what was in it?

Hurrying back to his apartment after Chemistry, Connor waved distractedly at his roommate as he passed through the common room and kitchen. His roommate, still working on his laptop in the same position on the sofa he'd been in when Connor had left that morning, didn't seem to notice. Once in his bedroom, Connor gingerly picked up the package.

Not too heavy, maybe a few pounds? No audible noise when he gently shook it. Setting the package back down on his desk, he carefully cut the tape and opened it, peering curiously into it as he did.

Tightly and thoroughly secured with bubble wrap were a few items: a dustpan, a box of cookies, and a boombox.

Connor scratched his head. He not only had no idea who had sent him the package, he also had no idea why they had done so. Shaking his head, he grabbed the package and stepped out into the common room.

"Joey, the weirdest thing happened today." he said, walking over to his roommate and showing him the package and its contents.

"What's all this?" Joey asked softly, finally looking up from the laptop he'd been furiously typing away on all day as far as Connor knew.

"A Hermes unit dropped it off this morning. No return address. I didn't order anything, and I'm not aware of anyone having sent me anything."

"That's weird. From what I know, and from what my dad told me about TAN during his work helping them set it up, they don't make mistakes like that."

"Right!?" Connor said.

"I do think you could use those items though." Joey said, still in the same soft and disinterested tone of voice.

Connor shook the box at him. "Are you serious? What would I need these for? What if some rando was expecting this shit or something?"

There was a flare of emotion in Joey's eyes, suppressed almost instantly. He set down his laptop, started walking towards the kitchen. "All I'm saying, you could probably use them is all. Like my grandfather used to say, don't look a gift horse in the mouth."

Narrowing his eyes, Connor replied. "Is there something you want to tell me, Joey?"

Joey turned back to face Connor, his teeth clenched, hands curling into fists. "Are you kidding me?!"

Connor took a step back. "Hey, calm down, I just wanted to check if you knew-"

Joey glared at Connor before screaming, "You never clean the apartment, you constantly steal my snacks, and you always bring back loud dates here instead of their own apartments!" Turning to punch a wall hard enough to leave a dent, Joey said "Figure it out for yourself, asshole!" before stalking off to his own room.

Connor stood awkwardly outside Joey's room. "C'mon, I'm sorry, man. I'll try to help you clean up, I won't take your snacks, and I'll stop bringing dates here as often. How'd you do it anyway? The TAN doesn't allow for anonymous deliveries."

"Yeah, you wouldn't remember that I work at Hermes Corp, or that my father helped set up TAN, would you." Joey's voice came through the door. "TAN is unhackable, except for myself and a few others."

"Joey, that's hella impressive, and -" Connor paused as an increasingly loud droning buzz started drowning out his voice. Skin crawling, feeling goosebumps on his arms and a sneaking suspicion in the back of his mind, Connor quickly checked his phone. He'd forgotten to use the full shutdown phrase. The Talaria Home app hadn't been closed. It had been open the entire day. Rapidly flipping to the app settings, Connor's additional suspicions were confirmed: location tracking, microphone and camera access, all enabled even when the app wasn't active. Turning off the phone probably wouldn't have made much of a difference anyway.

Connor dropped the package, deliberately walked over to the nearest window. "Hey Joey, I don't think you should have hacked TAN. Or at least, you shouldn'tve ever talked about it out loud."

Joey came out of his room. "Why? What the hell are you talking about?"

Connor stared out the window. At the two drone flight corridors over the city, which were now coalescing into a single mass. No longer flying in two distinct corridors but in unison, the drones almost seemed to be headed straight towards the window Connor was standing in front of. "Because," Connor said solemnly, pointing at swarm coming right at him, "I think they heard you."