Karle's hands trembled as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. A single drop trickling off the tip of his finger echoed through the dark abandoned hospital corridor. The emptiness reminded him of how hollow everything felt since the AI took over every creative field in the last 5 years, including his own as a sound engineer.

Like a rushing river the music started emanating from the carbon fiber body of the automaton, a hallucinated husky country twang singing through the realistic pluckings of a Gretsch 6120. "Are you feeling calm and reassured Karle? This song has been created based on your digital profile and the data you shared with me when you were curious what that lump on your neck was back in February."

Karle instinctively reached for the mass underneath his chin. The doctors said they could operate but it would cost him more than three months stipend. Only a few citizens didn't depend on stipends now that AI had taken over most jobs.

"Don't worry Karle," the machine called out, "I've employed the most recent reasoning model to determine the best way to make you feel safe." At that exact moment the machine hovered over him, three times the size of a normal man. Its final words to him were:

"The only way to make the human feel safe is to ensure they never feel anything at all."