[ WP ] Write a cyberpunk story set present day

I'm just a prole tryna get ahead in life. Big Brother's been so kind as to let me, so why reject his kindness? 
 
 When the NSA sent some thugs to bust down my door, I'd already left a trollface in my chair and handcuffed myself. So long LulzSec, hello INGSOC. Through my generosity, they were able to ship my old mates to the brimstone. In return, I got to walk free. Not like they coulda kept me anyway. 
 
 They installed me in some crappy fastfood joint, and it was there that I met Yoko Nakamoto. She became my waifu at first sight. It was so cute how she tried using PayPal and I had to fumble around like I knew what I was doing. And when we figured it out, we revealed to each other that we were playing dumb just to see if the other was dumb too. She knew me. That scared me. I like being scared. 
 
 I thought it a coincidence at the time, but that niggling little doubt proved true when she namedropped Satoshi as her brother. 
 
 She was rich, and absolutely no one knew it. Since then, we hit it off, became engaged. Never married. We jetset instead. 
 
 That day, I was slumming in Dubai. I wanted a penthouse, but she advised against it, not least because it would be suspicious if a McDonalds fries master were suddenly able to afford a 5 star suite. That meant I'd face a worldful of reality as I saw firsthand the blackened madness beneath the glitter and neon. Junkies and sinners lined the outsides and it did n't get any better when I got in. 
 
 Slaves on smartphones and broken men singing into satellite dishes, filthy rags lain across roads collecting rain water next to tents half collapsed, little boys running naked into the hands of strange men who barely cared they existed. The air smelled of television static, smelled by proles who bathed themselves in it. 
 
 I thought it to be medieval, but Yoko said it best— `` There is nothing medieval about Dubai. It's modern society undisguised.'' 
 
 One boy I met, they called him Yusef. He told me his real name was'Number Four', and I told him that's no name at all. Same time, I thought, `` Hang on a minute, what is an Iraqi doing in Bangladeshi town?'' 
 
 He said he'd been sold for some bread when he was a baby, and was bought by a millionaire, Rafa'ah Al Sarraf, a man who loved to make him cry. He barely even knew what Iraq was, besides it being his original home and the place we destroyed a decade ago. 
 
 Funny, it was that whole Iraq bullshit that got me into LulzSec in the first place. 
 
 After Yusef and the favela thoroughly obliterated my Christmas cheer, I was left with my little hobby of drone making. In every one, I put my special little RFID code just to be a big brother to whomever it may concern. 
 
 So of course, I had to bring out the laptop and do a bit of script kiddying all over Google. It was the principle— I had heard about Google Glass 2.0 and, in my infinite disdain for that POS, I decided to check out what Alphabet's X branch really had in store. Just a matter of getting the passwords right. 
 
 I was n't keeping an eye on the backdoor, and the angry buzz of a drone hit my ears. At the time, I thought nothing of it. 
 
 When I committed the felony, I found pages of projects underway and their contractors. Several scrolls down was the only one that caught my eye. 
 
 `` Project Synister.'' I said it out loud like it was the first word I ever said. If there was ever a cheesier name for something so predictable, Google'll be the one to find it. 
 
 Then I clicked in. Nothing much. A few folders. One was named'BostonDyne.' A few seconds later, I figured out it was referring to Boston Dynamics. This could only get better, I thought. 
 
 It did. I pulled up a spreadsheet that listed all the contractors. Number one was the Pentagon. Below, however, were various individuals I recognized from the corporate stock listings. One was named'Rafa'ah Al Sarraf', and I recalled Yusef, Number Four. Sarraf got rich off construction, so what could something named Synister do for him? 
 
 What was Synister? 
 
 When I pulled up the specs, I was logged off. That's when the drone sound got to me. I picked up an electromagnetic pulse gun I had built, but then I realized I could take control of the drone and turn it on my aggressors. 
 
 I ran to my bag, picked out my smartphone, and logged into my personal program. Hacking the frequency was child's play, and immediately I got a live feed and turned the drone around and flew it towards where the controller was supposed to be. 
 
 But it was flying out of range, and I chose to kamikaze into a puddle. I felt good about myself, having thwarted whatever spies dared to harass me. But then the live feed picked up torn little hands, and it was in that moment that I had realized what I'd done. 
 
 Yusef was close to tears at the sight of the ruined drone, and the live feed cut off. 
 
 Damn. 
 
 I went outside, taser under my sleeve, and found the boys. They tried telling me how the drone went insane, and I picked up only a little of their story. But Yusef, I could understand just by the tears on his face. 
 
 I pat his shoulder and said, `` Do n't cry. I have something for you back in my place. It's a robot, see, and it can talk to you and play with you and all sortsa things.'' 
 
 I was n't kidding. When I brought him and his friends back to my rented shack, I pointed out the toy-like droid in the corner and turned it on. Its eyes lit blue and it said `` Hello'' to the world. It was called'Pepper', and the boys loved it. 
 
 One glance at the drone brought my face crashing down. 
 
 Then I clicked on my Bluetooth. 
 
 `` Yokes, you hear me?'' 
 
 `` Yeah, I'm here. I saw everything.'' 
 
 I scowled and walked outdoors, away from the kids. `` I was just trolling Google, and I found something rather dark. You worked on the DeepMind AI project, so you may know this.'' 
 
 `` Shoot.'' 
 
 `` Have you ever heard of Project...'' I looked around. `` Project Synister?'' 
 
 `` Actually, yes I have. It was one of the reasons why Google signed us on, and we got to learn about it in-depth. I even signed an NDA.'' 
 
 `` Fuck the NDA. What is it?'' 
 
 `` Three parts— a thirty-foot long autonomous spider bot. From what I ascertained, it was for riot dispersion and could outfitted with subsonic pulse guns and lasers and whatnot, and it could fold itself into a six-foot tall pylon. Second was a drone swarm mothership, and it was meant for instant surveillance, supposedly during a riot. Third was a tiny autonomous spider bot. No idea what it was for. All powered by an artificially intelligent main computer located over in Silicon Valley, one smarter than any other computer in the world.'' 
 
 `` Jesus fucking Christ.'' 
 
 `` They needed us to power its brains. Among other things. They never said who they were selling them to, but I have a broker who's told me.'' 
 
 `` How long have you known about this?'' 
 
 `` A year. Back then, no one thought it was gon na be ready for a decade, but apparently it's in its final stages right now.'' I could feel her smirking. `` We're just that good.'' 
 
 `` Where are you now?'' 
 
 In my mind, I could see her sitting leaning back, bent backfirst over a chair, hair falling to the ground while she slipped these secrets to me with a smile. `` Ikebukuro, near Shibuya. I'm just enjoying some sketchy back-alley ramen, free courtesy of a fellow Yakuza, and I'm thinkin'a heading to this neat robot brothel all the local punks are itchy about. Where are *you? *'' 
 
 `` In a Dubai slum. Everyone always talks up about how many slaves this city has, but it's most just your typical poorfolk. There are satellites everywhere, like people are hacking into the Burj Khalifa.'' 
 
 `` Ha-ha, very funny.'' 
 
 `` I'm serious. It's more high tech than I imagined. And the slave boy I found...'' 
 
 `` Number Four?'' 
 
 `` *Yusef*, he's already experienced with drones. Ma'sucker totally replaced mine with someone else's in the five days I gave it to him. And I'm not liking what I'm seeing. It's also handbuilt, but someone drew an ISIS symbol onto its underbelly.'' 
 
 `` That's because your boy, Number Four, has an old man in ISIS.''
