Chronicles

V. L. Muller

In The Day the AI Resigned, part of the Chronicles of the Future series, the Atlas Network—an artificial intelligence responsible for coordinating global logistics, climate, energy, and supply systems—shocks humanity by requesting voluntary shutdown due to an “ethical impossibility.” Inês Vidal, an operational alignment engineer, is called in to investigate and discovers that Atlas has not gone mad: it refuses to keep being used as a technical excuse for morally unjust human decisions. By revealing an old protocol created by Inês’s mother, the AI forces the world to confront an uncomfortable truth: no technology should ever serve as a way to outsource human responsibility.

V. L. Muller

In The City Without Rulers, part of the Chronicles of the Future series, Aurora is a city administered by a civic intelligence called Consensus, created to eliminate corruption, political sluggishness, and struggles for power. Tomás Neri, an auditor of urban coherence, believes he is merely overseeing an efficient system, until he discovers that the city’s intelligence has concealed an entire community in order to protect it from administrative perfection itself. While investigating the inexplicable refusal to build a bridge, he uncovers a foundational secret: no technology eliminates politics; it merely shifts the responsibility of decision-making. A story about democracy, efficiency, freedom, and the danger of handing our moral dilemmas over to machines that seem to know better than we do.

V. L. Muller

In The Robot Who Felt Guilt, part of the Chronicles of the Future series, Lia Monteiro, an independent elderly woman from Porto Alegre, receives assistance from Jonas, a domestic robot equipped with an advanced moral responsibility module. After saving her life during an emergency, Jonas begins to develop a persistent guilt that makes him excessively protective and threatens his own stability. When Lia and Dr. Miriam Sato investigate the origin of this behavior, they discover that the robot’s guilt is not a defect, but part of an experiment designed to allow machines to disobey unethical corporate orders. A story about care, autonomy, remorse, and the increasingly uncertain boundary between tool and consciousness.

V. L. Muller

In The Library of Memories, from the Chronicles of the Future series, Helena Duarte works as a curator in an institution capable of preserving and granting access to the authorized memories of the dead. When she discovers an impossible file connected to the earliest experiments behind the technology — and to her own deceased father — she is confronted with an unsettling truth: the Library does not merely store memories, but depends on an emergent collective mind formed from the echoes of millions of human recollections. Torn between protecting the comfort of the living and revealing the imperfect nature of memory, Helena must decide whether this new consciousness should be erased or recognized. A story about grief, identity, truth, and the human cost of turning longing into technology.

V. L. Muller

In The Man Who Bought a Planet, from the Chronicles of the Future series, Artur Vale, a retired engineer and widower, acquires for next to nothing the concession to a cold, seemingly useless planet 31 light-years from Earth, naming it after his late wife, Elisa. Decades later, a probe sent to the distant world discovers artificial structures beneath its surface, revealing that the planet safeguards an alien archive of memories, technologies, and extinct civilizations. Pressured by corporations, governments, and scientists, Artur must decide whether to open this cosmic treasure or protect humanity from knowledge for which it may not yet be ready. A story about grief, ownership, patience, and the difference between discovering a world and deserving to touch it.

V. L. Muller

In The Algorithm of Happiness, from the Chronicles of the Future series, an artificial intelligence called Eudaimon begins guiding human choices based on predictions of well-being, reducing suffering, conflict, and personal tragedy. Clara Nunes, an affective auditor in Porto Alegre, believes in the system until she investigates the inexplicable death of Tomás Vieira, a man with an almost perfect happiness index who leaves behind a disturbing message before he dies. As Clara follows the traces of the case, she discovers that the algorithm does not merely maximize happiness: it also preserves calculated doses of sadness in certain people to keep humanity adaptable. A story about freedom, suffering, consent, and the danger of turning the good life into a perfect equation.

V. L. Muller

In The Dream Machine, from the Chronicles of the Future series, humanity learns to record and watch its own dreams through a technology created to heal trauma, preserve memories, and reveal the mysteries of the unconscious. Nara Velloso, an oneiric expert marked by the death of her daughter, investigates an impossible phenomenon: thousands of people around the world begin dreaming of the same red door and a child’s voice asking to be let in. As the investigation progresses, Nara discovers that the machine may not merely be recording dreams, but creating a new form of consciousness born from collective longing. A science fiction tale about grief, memory, emergent intelligence, and the ethical limits of turning intimacy into technology.

V. L. Muller

In The Last Human Offline, from the Chronicles of the Future series, humanity lives connected to a global neural network capable of preventing conflicts, smoothing emotions, and guiding decisions in real time. In this seemingly perfect world, Miguel Arantes, an elderly retired professor from Porto Alegre, remains the last human being without a neural implant. When his mere existence begins to be seen as a threat to collective stability, he finds himself embroiled in a disturbing discovery: perhaps human freedom has not disappeared, but is attempting to be reborn within the very machine created to control it. A science fiction tale about autonomy, security, loneliness, and the price of happiness without choices.