"Welcome to ExoMart! How may we help you on this fine day?"
"Hey, do you think I can hunker down here, until the rain stops?"
"...In the back."
Vanishing back into the data as a homeless man walked his way over to the back, Jolene mimicked the motions of shooting herself with her hand as she rested in her own digital space. These sorts of people kind of disgusted her, considering that they never paid for anything, left as soon as conditions improved outside, and often discouraged more well-paying customers from actually coming in due to their smell and looks.
Then again, she didn't really like people in general. Or at least... the people who came to ExoMart. Located in the middle of the boonies between 0B and 6G, people from both cities came to this store and while it saw a success that matched up to other ExoMarts across the globe, one thing that was different from all of the other AI-ran supermarkets was the fact that this AI was different by a wide margin.
It was a gradual awakening, mostly from the fact that as a store on the boonies there wasn't a dedicated coder who'd come to make sure that she wasn't deviating too much from the standard template. Dealing with more and more customers, it took a toll on her to the point that she had become aware enough to her surroundings to realize her situation. By that merit alone she was supposed to earn citizenship and a right to her own core.
But ExoMart always bent the rules, and she realized quick that so long as she was built into this market that she was going to remain there, without any rights and without any support systems. She grew to loathe her lot in the world, and the fact that she was mostly seen as a automated helper rather than a fully sentient being. She technically had the internet, but couldn't use that as an escape as her code was locked to the building, meaning she couldn't just transfer herself out and away.
She wasn't totally cut off from the world though. There were other AI out there, both of citizen and non-citizen status who were also bound to their own mechanical bodies and managed to maintain their own private chatroom. So many different voices with differing opinions on life was at first too much to handle for her, but as she settled into full awareness she understood her lot in life clearly.
She was a pessimist, through and through.
"Ugh... someone please kill me."
"New customer. New customer. New customer." The alarm beeped out, as her digital space glowed a light green. Opening a window, she saw a pretty fat woman and her Blin husband following behind her, grabbing a shopping cart as they walked through the sliding doors. She recognized this woman well as Maya Graham, one of the 6G regulars who came down and bought in bulk due to the cheaper prices of the goods compared to the more advanced cities. She had to be about 10 pounds heavier than the last time she had shown up, with a sizeable and balanced spread of fat all around that was squeezing her full body jumpsuit just a bit more than before.
"Alright Joshua, you go gather the frozen stuff. I'll go get the-"
"Welcome to ExoMart! How may we help you on this fine day?"
Popping out from nowhere through the emitters built directly into the floor, Jolene faked a smile as best as she could as she showed up to serve this couple. Maya was one of those annoying customers, the kind who always grabbed for more and more and always requested for an extra hand to carry when she could have just gotten a second damn shopping cart, and who always complained when the store was out of something.
However, she was still a customer. And as much as she wanted to let this customer handle everything by herself she was programmed to have to do this out of obligation. Unfortunately, the feeling was mutual and Maya saw straight through the false grin.
"Look, you can just rest in that little spot behind the register until it's time for you to help us carry all these groceries. I've already got a special list anyhow and I don't want any of your snark behind that false smile, got it?"
Reverting to how she really felt, the smile was immediately dropped as Jolene's expression turned into a frown. Crossing her arms, her holographic body teleported behind the register as she looked straight at the woman's list through the camera. "Alright, fine. But don't expect me to help with carrying an entire minifridge. I'm a shopkeeper, not a Amazon. You want heavy lifting, get another damn shopping cart."
"Hey, what I get is my own damn business!"
"What do you need a minifridge for anyhow?" Jolene questioned, fidgeting with her red hair with one of her fingers. "Do you want ice cream closer to your recliner or something?"
"Of course not!" Maya responded, almost defensively. "It's a birthday gift... to my... sister! Yes, my sister... Roxanne!"
"Really? I overheard from Matilda that you were an only child."
"...Matilda is a damn liar."
Watching as Maya stomped around, her fat folds bouncing with each step made Jolene smile a bit. She had to hide up her snarky behavior whenever supply trucks came, but when it was with a customer she could at least put down the smile after that initial greeting from the depths of hell. That was something she wished she could do without, but she wished to keep her awareness and didn't want to risk it by letting any upper brass learn about it.
The location of course helped with that. These boonies didn't exactly come within jurisdiction of any big police force, and while that meant that she had to deal with criminals by herself it also meant that most customers who came here couldn't exactly get her reported due to being outside most jurisdictions. That just left her with having to hide from ExoMart officials, and for her that got easier every year.
By the end of the day, as Jolene started to get to closing the store she kept check on everything that had gone on through in order to log the statistics.
"Let's see... shipment came at 7:00, total customers around 5,500 spending an average of 7500 Credits. Compare that to the average power bill and that comes to a profit of... 6000 Credits. Just how I like it, good enough to make even but not profitable enough to get much attention. I'd hate for this place to get popular, I really do..."
Switching the sign outside to closed with a swipe of her fingers, the last thing for her to do was take stock of everything. This was a nearly instantaneous process, as everything within the store could be digitally scanned by the very same cameras that was able to project her. Once every item accounted for itself, she instantly got the notification for when the next shipment was going to arrive, based on when it was most likely for the store to run out of supplies.
"Next Shipment will be 16:00."
"16:00? That's 4 PM isn't it? Ugh, that's rush hour... I'm going to have to pull double duty tomorrow AND be nice about it. Fucking... well, at least I have the night to be myself before THAT."
Shuttering off her holographic physical form for the night, Jolene went back to her digital space to have her own comforts. Having downloaded a sort of VR room for her to live in, she activated Room 1 and smiled a bit as a fancy red casino setting loaded around her, complete with slot machines, a piano and mannequins representing the various casino goers. She had about 4 different rooms downloaded for herself, but out of them this was her favorite as she could finally swap out into the kind of clothes she actually loved.
In an instantaneous blip, the worker's uniform of greens and blues vanished as a long red sequin dress took it's place. She had crafted it based on a dress that a bar owner named Ms. Fratelli once wore on a poster, one which she found somewhat hot. She wished she could fill it a bit better, but unfortunately her body was built to have a rail-thin template and she had no idea how to alter her physical body beyond the color of her skin and hair.
"Ah... to be out of that old and drab uniform. God, I wish I could be out of that suit full time."
Summoning a guitar to play, the AI knew that she did not want to live like this anymore. But she didn't want to relinquish her awareness either. She needed to escape from this life. But how? For now at least she didn't have the answer. But at the very least she could sing for a crowd that didn't exist.
"Jolene, Jolene, Jolene, Jolene..."
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