CHAPTER ONE
As I make my way downstairs, I hear the coffee machine whir to life. Even before the smell of expensive, exotic beans reaches me halfway up the stairs, I know it’s making one long double espresso and one skim latte. The former for me, the latter for Scott.
It’s only one of the many perks. When I went to take my shower, all I had to do was touch the sensor-laden handle. Detecting my signature, the water blasted from the showerhead at a precise pressure and temperature. No more cringing while the stream warms up, goose bumps racing up my arms and legs. Like the water, the floor is heated, exact to one-tenth of a degree.
As soon as I left the bathroom and Scott went in, more sensors detected the change, and imperceptibly, the air shifted. Silent, invisible fans started up in all corners of the bathroom, drawing the humidity out and cooling the air to the perfect breezy temperature he prefers.
Now I drop two sliced bagels into the toaster. One will come out barely warmed, and the other browned to a crisp and slathered with butter. It’s nice not having to think about it but it also anchors one in one’s habits, good or not-so-good. Lately, the tap in the bar has been pouring cocktails the second Scott comes through the front door at 6:30.
I don’t have to worry about waking Taryn. At exactly 7:35, the curtains of her room upstairs will open and the tablet by her bed will flicker on, distracting her with morning cartoons while I prepare her oatmeal and come to get her.
Right now, I’m deliberately stalling. I want this moment with Scott, nice and quiet, without oatmeal flying in all directions and boisterous requests for the Pop-Tarts Taryn knows she’s not going to get. She will be absorbed in her shows or interactive games or whatever the AI decides best fits her mood this morning. She won’t notice if I take fifteen minutes longer.
I feel a brief flash of guilt that dissolves as soon as I pick up my coffee and breathe in the luxurious smell. Scott is coming down the stairs, his own tablet in hand. He gets his cup from the machine, deposits a quick kiss on my cheek as he passes me, and sits down at the counter.
“Where’s Taryn?” he asks.
I tell him she’s still upstairs.
“But I want to say bye to her before I go to work.” He looks a tiny bit vexed. I’ve become more attuned to shifts in his moods since we moved here, and I fear that he might have become more aware of mine as well. “And won’t she be late for day care?”
I feel my face color slightly. Yes, she will be a few minutes late. I can’t see the harm, although I know it’s motivated by pure selfishness.
Scott misinterprets the blushing. “She’s refusing to go again?”
“No,” I reassure him with a laugh. “If anything, she likes it there a bit too much. The other day, she asked me if she could stay in the overtime group. Can you believe it? That’s because all her friends do. I think she doesn’t like that they’re playing and…I don’t know, bonding? Without her there.”
Scott shakes his head and chuckles in turn. “It’s good that she’s making friends though. Maybe you can leave her in the overtime group once or twice a week so she doesn’t feel left out.”
“That’s not a bad idea.”
Deep down, I’m a tiny bit horrified by the suggestion. I know exactly why Taryn is one of the few children at the local day care to get picked up on time. Other parents work long hours to pay for living in SmartBlock. Many work right there at IntelTech, which gives employees discounts, but not quite as nice as the deal we got, since we got to be part of the trial program. I get the luxury to be a housewife—if you can call it that, considering that machines and futuristic gadgets do everything for me.
As if in response to my thoughts, the moment I set my empty coffee cup on the designated metal stripe on the counter, its surface opens up seamlessly and swallows up the cup, which will be washed and dried somewhere deep in the bowels of a concealed dishwasher. All designed to save time on busy mornings. For people who are hurrying to be somewhere. Who have something to do.
“Doesn’t it make you feel kind of useless?” Scott jokes.
My laugh comes too soon, before he even finishes the question that’s supposed to be rhetorical, I’m sure. It’s sharp, tinny, and hollow.
He finishes his coffee, stuffs the last of his undertoasted plain bagel into his mouth, and the dishes disappear in turn. When he gets up to leave, it’s exactly five minutes past eight. The house has memorized how long we take to do each and every insignificant task: eat a bagel, four minutes; check the news, five minutes thirty seconds; kiss your wife goodbye, three seconds; put on shoes, fifteen seconds. In the garage, I know his car has already begun to purr with its silent electric engine. Everything here is electric, sustainable, green.
I tap the screen of my own tablet as soon as he’s out of sight. There’s an alert reminding me that Taryn has been up for twenty-two minutes now, and in three minutes and thirty seconds, she will be officially late for day care but I sweep it impatiently aside.
I tap the icons and swipe until the security camera footage fills the tablet screen. On it, I watch the electric car pull out of the garage, into yet another bright, perfect day in bright, perfect Venture, IL, the place where dreams come true. That’s what the brochure said.
You don’t know the half of it.
THREE MONTHS EARLIER
“So what do you do, Cecelia?”
I hadn’t expected the question, seemingly innocuous. Although I probably should have. I blink.
“I’m looking for work, actually,” I say. “I used to work freelance but then I went on maternity leave, and with a toddler at home—”
“Understandable.” The woman who insisted we call her Clarisse gives a small nod and smiles. The smile is like a rictus because of the vast amount of plastic surgery I’m sure helped sculpt her face. I give up guessing how old she actually is. Fifty-five? Sixty? More? Clarisse seems like one of those women who find me pitiful. To give up a career and independence, all for a child, how pedestrian, tut-tut. Well, we can’t all have high-ranking positions in major corporations. Billions of dollars in contracts with Chicago, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Toronto, wasn’t that what she said? Everyone wants a piece of IntelTech and its products, SmartBlock and SmartHome, trademark registered, all rights reserved.
“Well, I’m happy to say you’re exactly what we’re looking for. A young, modern family. Modern values. Focused above all on self-fulfillment and deriving satisfaction from your life, experiences over possessions. This is exactly what SmartHomes are about. Experiences.”
It sounds to me like it’s the opposite. The cost of a SmartHome starts at nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine dollars, for the most basic two-bedroom model.
“The concept behind the design is to reduce the amount of time you waste on trivial things every day,” Clarisse says. Her gaze travels from me to Scott and back. “Have you ever wondered how many seconds, minutes, hours you spend every day on boring, useless things? Like waiting in line, setting alarm clocks, waiting for the bus. Time that adds up. Hours, days, whole years. Wouldn’t you rather spend that time enjoying life?”
She doesn’t wait for an answer. “Of course you would. So would anyone. That’s where SmartBlock comes in. You may not have noticed but you—along with most people in most major cities, actually—have already used our technologies. Improved bus and subway services, for instance. Reduced waiting times, not to mention reduced traffic and nonexistent emissions, all thanks to an automated system that evaluates the volume of passengers and responds in real time by increasing or reducing the number of available transport units. I could go on but I’m not here to bore you…”