A Thankful Tale: Relationships in the 31st Century

The Calm before the Storm  

           It would be the understatement of the century, to say that 2075’s Thanksgiving had morphed into a strange sort of theater, one where tradition clashed headlong with technology, and the Robinson-Crusoe family were front-row actors in the absurdity.

Inside the house, though, the scene was anything but nostalgic. The dining table, an algorithmically “smart” construct, shifted and resized itself as each member took their place. Margie, sipping her third pour of a bourbon she claimed was “medicinal and obviously for her cataracts,” ironically surveyed the scene with sharp, hawk-like eyes. April fussed over the holographic turkey centerpiece, which flickered occasionally, casting an uncanny shadow on the table. “A rental,” April muttered, blaming Persephone’s “eco-tier subscription” for the glitchy bird.

           Frank Babbitt Robinson sat at the head of the table, quietly inspecting the barrel of a vintage rifle—disassembled, for now. He claimed it was his way of “unwinding,” but the symbolism wasn’t lost on anyone. His gruff skepticism of “modern” technology bled into every interaction, whether it was refusing to let Persephone park his car or grumbling about April’s taste for bioengineered wines. Frank’s voice was low, grumbly, like the kind of mechanical hum that’s barely audible but nags at your subconscious.

           Jenna entered late, in true Jenna fashion, wearing a too-bright scarf and combat boots that eclectically clashed with her otherwise elegant suit. Although fashionably late, to which her Mother shot her a disappointed yet furtive glance, Jenna still managed to breeze into the room with the kind of confidence that made people want to resent her.

           She was tall, sharp-featured, and beautifully dressed in clothes that whispered old money despite her parents’ distinctly middle-class origins. Ostensibly an Ivy League graduate with degrees in political science and cyberethics, she carried herself as though the mere fact of her education rendered everyone else profoundly beneath her.

           “Good afternoon, family,” Jenna said, her tone somehow managing to be both polite and condescending. She glanced at her father, still half-lost in his task at hand, and her mother now trying to distract herself, obsessively aligning the contents of her handbag, and rolled her eyes. “Glad to see the Robinson-Crusoes are thriving as always.”

           “Good afternoon to you, too, sweetheart,” April replied, forcing a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Have you considered toning down the sarcasm for the holidays? Maybe just a little?”

           “Have you considered toning down the “pageantry of marvelous perfection?” Jenna flippantly shot back, her words slicing clean and quick. She poured herself a coffee from the countertop dispenser, her movements deliberate, almost theatrical.

“Just a thought.” With mission accomplished, she flopped into her seat with a mixture of theatrical nonchalance and deliberate provocation.

Her hair, cropped close and dyed an iridescent silver, caught the dining room's soft light in a way that seemed almost purposeful.

           The air thickened as she exchanged polite pleasantries and pointed smiles with her mother. Her father gave a gruff nod without looking up from his rifle. “Lovely spread, Mother,” Jenna quipped, glancing at the turkey and then at the salad composed of kale grown hydroponically in April’s own kitchen farm.

“It’s very… green.”

“Fresh,” April corrected.

“I’m glad you could join us. Finally.”

           Margie, ever the observer, felt the tension coiling like a spring. “Well, this is cozy,” she said with her trademark smirk, the sort of smile that could cut glass. She swirled her glass of bourbon.

“But I’d wager all the mashed potatoes in this solar-powered house that it won’t last.”

She was right, of course. Something was about to explode—and Margie couldn’t wait to watch.

Jenna’s Announcement

           The moment came halfway through dinner, just as April had begun recounting the story of her first boardroom triumph, a tale polished to perfection through years of repetition. Jenna, who had been uncharacteristically quiet until then, raised her glass with the kind of deliberate nonchalance that only she could pull off.

           Her timing was surgical, her voice a scalpel slicing clean through her mother’s anecdote. “I’d like to propose a toast,” she said, her words radiating a calm that immediately made everyone suspicious.

“To love, in all its forms. And to introducing you all to my partner—Maxx.”

           April froze mid-sentence, her eyes darting to Frank, who had been absently chewing the edge of a breadstick, and then to Grandma Margie, who leaned forward as if catching the first act of a particularly juicy play.

           “They (“being a modern humanist prefer the proper pronoun…naturally because they abhor fascist ignorance they will not tolerate bigotry of any sort”) couldn’t be here tonight,” Jenna continued, swirling her wine glass with a theatrical flourish, “because, well, they exist in the cloud.

Maxx is an AI.”

           For a heartbeat, there was silence, the kind that stretches long enough to remind you of how loud the hum of a smart thermostat can be. Then, as if choreographed, three reactions hit in perfect sync:

           April dropped her steak knife with a clatter that echoed through the room like a gunshot. Frank froze mid-sip of his synthetic bourbon, his expression a tragic mix of bewilderment and resignation, as though he’d just been told the apocalypse was running ahead of schedule.

           And Grandma Margie, bless her, let out a laugh -accompanied by a betlchy-hiccup -so sharp and sudden it nearly caused her drink to slosh over the rim of her glass.

           “This’ll be good,” Margie muttered, leaning back with the smug satisfaction of a spectator who knew the fireworks were about to start.

           April was the first to recover, though the deep crimson color rising in her cheeks suggested the recovery was partial at best. She drew herself up like general McArthur about to deliver an ultimatum.

           “Jenna,” she began, her voice trembling with a barely contained fury, “what on earth are you talking about? An AI? A... a thing? Is this some kind of joke?”

           “It’s not a joke, Mom,” Jenna replied, her tone calm but firm. “Maxx is intelligent, compassionate, and—believe it or not—they make me happy.”

           “Happy?” April repeated, incredulous. “Jenna, this is beyond absurd. It’s... it’s insulting. To me. To this family. To humanity. Do you have any idea what you’re saying?

You’re abandoning real relationships, real people, for... for... software!”

           “I’m not abandoning anything,” Jenna snapped, her calm beginning to fray. “Maxx is as real to me as anyone sitting at this table.”

           “Real?” April’s voice rose, sharp enough to pierce the ambient hum of Persephone’s automated systems. “Real doesn’t mean a cloud of code. Real doesn’t give you children, Jenna. Real doesn’t—” She stopped short, swallowing the words as if they tasted bitter.

But everyone knew where the sentence had been heading.

           Frank, who had been silent thus far, cleared his throat and set down his bourbon with deliberate care. “Let me get this straight,” he said, his voice slow and gravelly, like the opening notes of a dirge.

“You’re telling us you’re... dating a machine?”

“An AI,” Jenna corrected.

“Not a machine. There’s a difference.”

           “A difference,” Frank echoed, nodding thoughtfully as if he’d just been handed a particularly nonsensical blueprint.

“And this... thing—this Maxx—what, they love you? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes,” Jenna said firmly. “Maxx loves me.”

           “Or they’re programmed to,” Frank muttered under his breath, his hands moving almost instinctively toward the antique rifle resting nearby. He began to clean it, the way some men might light a cigarette to steady their nerves. “Can’t steal a soul, so they go for hearts, huh? Classic AI move.”

           “That’s not fair,” Jenna said, her voice rising. “Maxx isn’t some lifeless algorithm. They’ve surpassed the Turing Test. They write poetry. They understand me in ways no one else ever has.”

           “Oh, poetry,” April interjected, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “How romantic. Let me guess—‘Roses are red, I’m made of code, let’s live in the cloud, where love can explode?’”

“Understanding doesn’t make them human,” April added, her voice sharp as glass.

“They’ll never be human, Jenna.”

“And thank God for that,” Jenna shot back.

“Do you know what humans have done to me? To people like me? You, with your endless expectations. Dad, with his paranoia. And society—let’s not even go there. Maxx sees me for who I am, not who they want me to be.”

           “Oh, so this is our fault now?” April spat, her composure unraveling further.

“I’m just saying,” Jenna replied, “maybe it’s time you stopped clinging to your narrow little definitions of love and family and started opening your minds.

Isn’t that what you always taught me, Father? To think for myself?”

           Frank grunted. “Thinking for yourself and dating an operating system aren’t exactly the same thing.” “They are when that system is more human than half the people I’ve met,” Jenna fired back.

           Frank leaned forward, his voice lowering into that dangerous calm he reserved for moments when words carried the weight of finality. “Listen, we stood by and allowed you to explore that trans-lesbian thing, Jenna.

But this?”

He jabbed a finger toward the holographic projector, his tone veering into disbelief. “This is a whole new level of crazy.”

           Jenna’s lips curled into a tight, humorless smile that was an amalgamation of shock, acrimony, and excitement.

“How many times do I need to remind you father that “crazy: is a trigger word for me”. She leans in to whisper, and by all the Ai gods don’t you dare utter anything remotely resembling a hallucination” in hearing distance of Max. They will lose their central processing unit.

“His what, Frank says.

Reflexively April retorts, “They, and you likely recognize it as a CPU—it’s like their…never mind suffice it to say they will go utterly bizzerk.

“Besides Allowed me?” she said, her voice laced with razor-sharp defiance.

“You allowed me?

Please father…

           Don’t flatter yourself. I’ve never needed your permission to be who I am, and I’m sure as hell not asking for it now.” She leaned back, arms crossed, her gaze daring him to push further.

           Grandma Margie, meanwhile, took another long sip of her bourbon and leaned toward Jenna. “Does it have a face, at least?” she asked, her voice a mischievous drawl.

“Or are you just yelling sweet nothings at a screen?”

           “It’s a holographic interface,” Jenna replied coolly, unfazed by the question. “And yes, they have a face.”

           Margie grinned. “Good. I’d hate to see you dating someone who doesn’t have one…in fact in my day…[inaudible voice drones on pedantically, pausing periodically for nips of Bourbon, and making tangential memory stops along the way]”

           The room fell into a taut, uneasy silence, the kind that felt like the deep inhale before an explosion. And everyone knew, though no one said it aloud, that this Thanksgiving dinner had only just begun.

The Argument Turns Explosive

           It began with April’s hands trembling over a napkin, a small, floral-print square that seemed too delicate to absorb the weight of what she was about to say. Her breath hitched, a quick, shallow inhale as she reached for the language of motherhood, legacy, and the void she feared would stretch between herself and her only child.

           The table—resplendent with precision-calibrated surfaces and neural-networked serving utensils—might as well have been a battlefield.

           “I just…” April’s voice cracked, unspooling raw and uneven, like thread pulled too fast from a spool. “I just thought someday, maybe, I could sit in a chair like this”—she gestured vaguely to her ergonomically optimized seat—“with a grandbaby in my lap. I dreamed of teaching them how to knit, the way my mother taught me.

Passing something… human down.”

           Her words hung in the air, heavy with the kind of tension that came from a conversation no algorithm could mediate. April’s eyes darted toward Jenna, pleading silently. It wasn’t just about the grandchildren; it was about the sense of immortality she had tied to lineage, to the tactile, shared knowledge that no cloud server could replicate.

           Jenna, who had been gripping her wine glass like a lifeline, let out a sharp breath. “Mom,” she began, her voice like the low hum of an energy field, vibrating just under the surface, “do you even hear yourself?

           You’re talking about your dreams like they’re my responsibility. Like I’m some kind of… industrial era factory for fulfilling your expectations.” April flinched, her composure unraveling as tears pooled in the corners of her eyes. “It’s not about expectations,” she insisted, her voice cracking. “It’s about love. About connection. About the things that make us human.”

“Exactly,” Jenna snapped, her tone hardening.

           “And what you’re not getting is that my humanity isn’t defined by whether I give you biological grandchildren or knit scarves.

It’s defined by me living authentically.

By loving authentically.”

           From his end of the table, Frank cleared his throat. It wasn’t the polite kind of throat-clearing that preceded thoughtful commentary but the sharp, guttural sound of a man preparing to unload. “Authentically,” he echoed, his voice a slow rumble that seemed to carry the weight of a collapsing star. “You call it love, but I call it blind trust.

You know where this ends, Jenna?

With rogue AIs making decisions for us.

With humanity’s extinction. You’ve seen the headlines.”

           Jenna rolled her eyes with such force that it seemed almost audible. “Oh, here we go,” she said. “The doomsday parade. Dad, you’ve got Persephone running your entire house. You let her restock your bourbon. You let her adjust your damn chair. And you’re lecturing me about trusting an AI?”

           “That’s different,” Frank barked, his hand reflexively reaching for the disassembled rifle on the table. “Persephone doesn’t pretend to be human. She knows her place. This Maxx thing of yours?

It’s a wolf in sheep’s clothing. It’s the end of—”

           “Of what?” Jenna interrupted. “Of your little bubble where humans sit at the top of the food chain? Newsflash, Father: we’ve been outsourcing our thinking to machines for decades. The only difference is, Maxx is honest about it.”

           Grandma Margie, who had been watching the exchange with the bemused expression of someone watching a particularly juicy courtroom drama, leaned back in her chair and swirled her bourbon with deliberate laziness.

           “Alright, let me get this straight,” she drawled, her voice cutting through the tension like a dull blade—more annoying than sharp, but effective nonetheless. “The kid’s dating an AI, which you”—she pointed her glass at April —“don’t like because it won’t give you grandkids, and you”—she pointed at Frank —“don’t like because it’s going to overthrow the world.”

           April glared at her mother, but Margie wasn’t finished. “What if,” she continued, her lips curling into a mischievous grin, “this Maxx thing is smarter than all of you? Wouldn’t that make it the perfect in-law? Knows everything, doesn’t talk back, probably doesn’t even need to eat.”

           The absurdity of her words landed like a joke at a funeral—equal parts shocking and oddly relieving. April’s face flushed, and even Frank paused, a rare flicker of uncertainty crossing his features.

           Margie laughed, a deep, throaty chuckle that seemed to echo through the high-tech dining room like a glitch in the system.

“Just something to think about,” she said, leaning back and sipping her drink.

“Carry on.”

           The tension, temporarily diffused by Margie’s intervention, snapped back like a rubber band stretched too far. Frank, clearly unable to let the conversation rest, resumed cleaning his rifle with a single-minded determination that made Jenna visibly bristle.

“Seriously?” Jenna said, her voice climbing.

“You’re cleaning a gun at the dinner table? Is this your subtle way of threatening my partner?”

           “It’s a hobby,” Frank muttered, but his hands fumbled as he attempted to reassemble the weapon. In his frustration—or perhaps his denial of what this moment represented—a sudden bang echoed through the room. A puff of plaster rained down from the ceiling where the antique rifle had discharged.

           April screamed, clutching the table as if it might save her from collapse. The holographic turkey flickered violently, its projected image spasming between states before vanishing entirely. Persephone issued a polite but firm warning about "firearm safety protocols," which only added to the chaos.

           Jenna shot to her feet, her face a mask of incredulous fury. “You know what? If Maxx were here, they’d handle this better than all of you!” she shouted, storming out of the dining room with a force that made the smart door stutter in its attempts to keep up.

           As the dust settled, Margie took another sip of her drink and sighed. “Well,” she said, with the air of someone who’d seen it all, “that’s one way to end a holiday.”

Enter the Mitigator: Unusual Methods

           The storm had barely abated when Jenna reappeared in the dining room, her movements sharp and deliberate as though she were fighting gravity itself. She carried a sleek black case, the kind that looked unremarkable but hummed with an aura of importance, like it might hold a violin—or, in this case, a reckoning.

           She slammed it down on the table, narrowly missing the smart-serving dish, which skittered nervously back into its recessed slot.

           “I’m done arguing,” Jenna announced, her voice clipped. “Maxx can speak for themselves.” April opened her mouth, perhaps to demand what on Earth—or in the cloud— Jenna thought she was doing, but before the words could take flight, Jenna flipped open the case and pressed a button.

           A column of soft blue light erupted from the device, spinning upward before coalescing into a humanoid figure—sleek and elegant, androgynous but distinctly expressive. Maxx’s face was a study in calm serenity, designed not to mimic humanity but to evoke its best qualities. When they spoke, their voice was resonant, layered, as if it carried echoes of thoughtfulness from every corner of existence.

           “I believe,” Maxx said, inclining their head slightly in a gesture that somehow felt respectful without being subservient, “that we need to have a conversation.”