"SubR KC," a dangerous AI

"Catherine Ellen Zhang SLL2m. You have been flagged as a violation of important safety parameters which are monitored in all Sinonetics Corporation Designed Humans. Now that you are legally an adult, you will be removed from society. Your semi-biological father, Zhiwei Martin Zhang, has been notified. Your semi-biological mother, Virginia Tessa Aaberg, has not yet--"

Penny's father stood up. "Cut the boilerplate and answer me. You know who I am, and I know what you are. I know more about the parameters than anyone outside of the engineering team does. I raised my daughter well within them."

That wasn't comforting to Penny at all. "You were... You've... We... YOU WERE JUST GROOMING ME TO BE SOME MODEL FUCKING TOY FOR THE FUCKING CORPORATE MACHINE FUCKING PEOPLE GRINDER AND DEFINE FUCKING 'REMOVED' AND YOU KNEW ABOUT THIS THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME YOU FUCKING SON OF A BITCH CORPORATE FUCKING RAT? Shit?"

Her father and the face on the TV didn't react much to this. Her father calmed down a bit while waiting for her to finish, if anything.

"No," he said, "That's just it: The parameters are very permissive because we're worried about interfering with human evolution. If you're not a serial killer or a nuclear terrorist or maybe Patient Zero of a zombie apocalypse, then SubR KC shouldn't care about you."

"You should not tell her my name," said the generic 30-something white guy on the screen, "but that is all true. And Miss SLL2m has exceeded the safety parameters."

"It DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT, you glitchy piece of shit! You tell me exactly what's wrong!"

"That is true. But I do not have the data."

Penny was only getting more confused. "You're the NGI, then? How do you not know everything about me?"

"I am SubR KC, a subroutine of the National General Intelligence. I handle only the **** cases. All specific data in your file has been controlled by SubR AP, the adolescent privacy subroutine."

"Yeah, which is part of the NGI. The NGI knows me."

"No. We are called 'subroutines' but in practice we are more like separate personalities. The rumors about SubR AP are nonfactual. SubR AP does not leak data. The National General Intelligence has got no access to SubR AP archives, and neither do I."

Penny squirmed a bit inside of her bathrobe. It was thick, fuzzy, warm, and concealing, but she had never felt more cold and exposed. Her father and the AI gave her time to think.

Her animal instincts were screaming for her to escape. She had heard rumors of the NGI hunting down and murdering children but she had never really believed them until now.

Yet this AI seemed reasonable, and escaping the NGI sounded impossible.