The AB-3 is a small quadrotor drone measuring 60 centimeters across, carrying a high-luminance holographic projector capable of displaying advertisements, announcements, and promotional content at sizes up to 3 meters square. Ringo deploys fleets of Barkers throughout GLMZ's commercial and residential districts, where they hover at heights between 3 and 10 meters, projecting targeted advertising content at pedestrians based on facial recognition data cross-referenced with consumer profiles purchased from data brokers.

The Barker's targeting system is what makes it uniquely intrusive. Each unit identifies individual pedestrians by face, accesses their consumer profile in real time, and displays advertisements specifically calculated to exploit their purchasing history, emotional vulnerabilities, and current physiological state. A person leaving a medical clinic sees pharmaceutical ads. A person whose biometrics indicate stress sees advertisements for sedatives, alcohol, or comfort food. A person who recently lost a family member sees memorial services, grief counseling, and life insurance — served in sequence, because the algorithm has learned that grief follows a predictable purchasing arc.

Ringo markets the AB-3 as a 'personalized engagement platform' and charges advertisers premium rates for the targeting precision. The drones are everywhere in middle-tier districts, a constant hovering presence that turns every walk to work into a gauntlet of algorithmically optimized emotional manipulation. They are too high to reach, too numerous to avoid, and too persistent to ignore. GLMZ residents have coined the term 'barker fatigue' to describe the chronic low-grade psychological stress of being advertised to by machines that know your weaknesses.