I remember reading a book in my youth about a kid that lived in a shielded city with an AI controlling it with the assignment to keep everyone ‘happy’ (= docile). He/she breaks protocol and gets ejected through a trash chute. Meets an old man. Crossed a wasteland and finds old ruins, learns something and then blows up the shielding of the city to make it free again.

In the Dutch translation either the old man or the main character was called ‘gull’ or ‘sea gull’. I’ve posted on a few subreddits and forums with people pretty much ignoring, and I have scoured Google without much results neither.