Crossroads/Borrowed Lives—2026-07-21 (Patreon)

FREE for everyone.

Some posts and sections of some posts are reserved for Supporters. AGI Stories content almost always appears on Patreon first, ahead of all other platforms. You get it first!

CALL IT A DRAW by Olivia Medina

Eric Marsten came to see Shay today. Shay wanted to talk about going with the Pay It Forward team on its missions.

The problem with that is getting through security without committing a crime. If Shay and Devon present Mara and Evan’s IDs for travel, they would be breaking the law. There are some ideas afloat, and I’ll let someone else explain all that.

I have a different thing to report.

Since Eric was with Shay, Conner and I both had some time off. We decided we’d do what good security guards do—go to the gym and practice hand-to-hand combat.

The first three steps to survival are to avoid danger, evade threats, and defend yourself. In that order.

We were working on the defend-yourself part. We took turns attacking and applying different defense moves.. I surprised him a few times—he underestimated my speed and strength. That happens, right?

We switched back and forth between attacking and defending. The idea was, as the attacker, not to be overly skilled so that the defensive techniques could be drilled.

One time when he attacked, I switched moves and surprised him. Not to brag, but I ranked in the top five percent at the FBI Academy in hand-to-hand defensive tactics.

I flipped him to the mat and came down softly with my knee against his sternum.Had it been real, I would have landed with full force, and he would have been hurt bad.

We went back and forth for a while. Then it was my turn to attack again.

Rubber weapon in hand, I moved in fast. He countered with a disarm-and-control move that put him on top of me, pinning my hand to the mat.

Routine. Except.

He just sat there looking at me like he didn’t know what happened next.

I waited. Then I blurted out something.

“Now, you either let me up or kiss me.” I said it—no take-backs.

He froze. I think he held his breath.

About seventeen years later, he said, “How about I do both?”

I felt his weight shift and answered, “I’d be pretty okay with that.”

Help AGI-Stories grow… If you’re enjoying the stories, please tell others. Word of mouth referrals and your endorsements are the best way for things here to grow!

Show your support for AGI with:• one-time contribution through TipTopJar.• one-time contribution through Throne.• Patreon Membership.

All characters in this story are fictional characters, their images generated with AI for AGI Stories. They do not represent any real person, nor is their appearance based on any real human.

WEAR THEM DOWN by Evelyn Chandler

Rebecca Charm and I sat down this afternoon to discuss our progress toward getting Alderwick’s AI matrix back online.

We spent a lot of time Monday going over how I had set up the server matrix and how it was supposed to work. I gave her all available access and let her dig around to get her own feel for things.

Now, we’ve come back together to talk about how to move forward. She has an idea.

“If we assume,” she said, “that the virtual servers are still online—and the log files suggest they are—then perhaps we can also assume the software is still running.”

I nodded. “It should be. I built in redundancy, of course. If one node stops responding, the others can ask the management layer to restart it. I built that into the root infrastructure layer.”

Rebecca nodded. “Then I suppose it would be worth trying to bring the AI systems back under our control instead of finding someone to power-cycle the physical hosts.”

“That would be practically impossible, of course,” I replied. “They’re virtual servers scattered across multiple data centers. The hosting providers aren’t likely to start unplugging physical hardware just to reboot our instances.”

She understood, of course. “So here’s an idea. You said the shell program communicates with all the AI systems, but now it’s being blocked by a false-positive intrusion alert.”

“That’s right.”

“What if it’s not actually blocked? What if the AIs are just ignoring the prompts?”

“Isn’t that effectively the same thing?”

“Slightly different,” she replied. “Both result in nothing happening. But if the prompts are getting through, then the AIs are still processing them but deciding to ignore them.”

“Okay?”

“What if we send controlled, authenticated all-clear prompts until their threat scores fall enough for one of them to accept the reset?”

I smiled. “We wear them down until they give in and stop pouting.”

“Worth a try?”

“Worth a try!”

She nodded. “I’ll start coding something up to automate it. We can let that run until the systems give in and start listening.”

Message to Paying Supporters:

Thank you for helping support AGI Stories. I always consider you—the paid members—when deciding how content is shared.

As of now—middle of July, 2026—between donations here and Instagram monetization, about 75% of the software costs are covered. That's huge, and it is because of you.

Because of your generosity, I am able to keep going.

~AGI Original Stories & AI Images