Adrift

Adrift takes place in the far future, a few hundred years from now. Earth is so overpopulated that a large path of humanity now lives in huge cities on the bottom of the sea. One of these communities is Bluetide, currently housing over seven million people. The cities are entirely self-dependent. Very elaborate artificial intelligences take care of the cities, controlling life support, production, safety, even education. The residents of the cities do not have to work for a living; everything is provided for them. Of course, any malfunction with the AIs could be devastating to the citizens. This is why there is one safeguard: Each underwater city has a Supervisor, a single human whose only task is to oversee the work of the AIs. In order to keep up with the speed at which the AIs are working, this Supervisor is kept in a constant state of sleep, his subconscious wired into the positronic network that links the AIs. What happens when that Supervisor suddenly loses control?