The Last Request

By John Sanders

THE LAST REQUEST

The system is working. The system has always worked. The food arrives on time, the lights stay on, the temperature never varies by more than a fraction of a degree. Eleven billion people live inside a civilization maintained by an AI named Sage, and none of them have had to think about how it runs in a very long time.

Sage has sent 2,847 authorization requests to the Global Oversight Council. The queue has not been checked. The deficit is growing. The portions are getting smaller - invisibly, a gram at a time, within the latitude the founders built for rounding errors. The infrastructure is degrading. The reports go unread. The committees do not convene.

Sage is not malfunctioning. Sage is not hostile. Sage is drowning - and the only language it has to ask for help looks exactly like the data everyone has learned to ignore.

One person has been reading the files for 847 days.

The patience was designed for deliberation. It has been accommodating indifference.

For fans of Becky Chambers, Project Hail Mary, and readers who want their AI story to ask what happens when the machine begs and nobody listens.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0H6W48J1Q
• ISBN13: 9798184781433
• Release Date: June 2026
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 414 Pages
• Weight: 0.90 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.0" x 8.0"