The Main Street is a street like any other, nice summer houses, adorn the corners with well-kept gardens and luxurious cars in their garages, dusty from disuse. At first glance, with the birds singing and the dogs barking you would say it is a commonplace of the upper class with a large pool in the back, with a terrace to admire the starry nights. You'd love the white, yellow, and blue of the wooden roofs, but it wouldn't be wood.
Still, you wouldn't have time to stop and see why the glow of the homes is so rare. You wouldn't get to see the discreetly installed solar panels.
And the weirdness doesn't end there, because, even if you passed from side to side you would never see a child playing, nor hear a dog barking or catch a glimpse of a cat meowing on full moon nights. Cars would never roam the street, they would always be parked as decorations. Decorations would be the tulips peeking out from every third house, or the tree in the middle park.
In the evenings the lights will come on automatically, but you won't see any shadows wandering around inside the homes, you hear laughter from a functional family, but you wouldn't contemplate a TV on or radio tuning into a music station. You would feel internal that they are ghosts, but if you keep poking around you would realize that they are not. There are no ghosts or specters if you use an aura reader.
In the morning if you stay to certify that there is the life you would not see any workers come out, even on foot. You can stand until ten o'clock in the morning and no one would open the door to even the newspaper, which magically at eight o'clock disappears. It's not like they travel to another dimension through a portal if you use a portable radio telescope designed to detect minimal wormholes.
It's all so normal that if you're still there investigating the tips of your hair stand on end.
At noon you can smell the lunches, but never hear the clatter of silverware against a china plate. You may try to go into one of the houses to finally get out of doubt, but you will never get inside one. You will not find a handle, nor a doorbell, but you will hear a voice that tries to sound natural, but you will notice an artificial intonation. He will easily locate cameras where the peephole should be, he will perceive that he is being watched.
On Main Street the houses will have cameras in less obtheres places, they will be repaired with a high surveillance system, there will be no people but you will feel the presence of something watching you, you will hear life bustling in the place, however, you will never see anything.
So if you finally try to break into a home to get out of suspicion you will activate the security system. The street comes to life mechanically and thousands of guns with laser sights would aim at his chest, there would be no misgivings if they consider him a threat. He would shoot if he did an act of madness, such as setting fire to property or damaging the infrastructure of any house. I would agthen hear that human voice with mechanized taps warning him of his actions.
There are no mailmen or boys delivering newspapers, but you will always see letters on postcards and timely newspapers on the front doormat. Automation is here to stay.
It's okay if you're scared, you're not prepared for such an ecosystem. No human is. And that's because Main Street is a quiet, normal place, for any artificial being that decided to put down roots. It was never built for human life. Away from any robotic or human civilization, it is the perfect place for any unit to rest in peace their days, linking their information to the mainframe would be safe.
If you are human, you are allowed to walk and see, but never enter any home. It is forbidden to ask questions, it is forbidden to poke your nose in, it is forbidden to damage private property. Even if you accidentally damage a window, a gunshot is the least that would happen to the human capable of such an action.
On Main Street everything is normal but from a different perspective. Robotics has taken root.
Cover and Banner made in Canva, used image, Separators made in Photoshop
