A Woman Alone

by Nina Laurin

  But even when ebooks were my bread and butter, I never could quite get in on the trend. I gave it a try but I missed the weight and texture of paper and the distraction-free experience a good old-fashioned paperback provides. You can’t click over to Facebook or Twitter like you do when you’re reading on a tablet or phone. And you don’t have hundreds of other books at your disposal, available at the tap of a fingertip. I always thought that somehow cheapens the experience.

  At the moment, I’m finishing up one of those Scandinavian mystery-thrillers that delight in their own gruesomeness. You’d think I wouldn’t be able to so much as touch them, after what happened just over a year ago, but on the contrary, I find them oddly comforting.

  Right now, though, my copy is nowhere to be found. Which is annoying because I was pages away from finding out who the culprit was and how the damaged female detective’s love triangle finally worked out.

  “Your bath is ready, Cecelia,” announces a pleasant voice, accompanied by a faraway chime from the tablet. The house knows what room I’m in at all times, of course, due to advanced motion-detecting technology combined with the input from the identity chip. It would be great if it could also locate my paperback. With a groan, I grab a decoration magazine from a side table in the hall and head to the bathroom.

  The house is true to its word, as always. The bathtub is full, topped with a shimmering heap of foam. The scent of lavender and eucalyptus pleasantly tickles my nostrils as I throw off my clothes. Magazine in hand—it’s an old issue that I know by heart but it’ll do—I swing my leg over the edge of the tub and lower it into the water.

  The shock races up my nerves, from my toes to my spine. It’s so sharp and sudden that I give a start, instinctively yank my foot out of the water, and lose my balance. My behind hits the ceramic, and my teeth clack. The whole thing takes less than a blink. I sit on the floor, numb with shock, trying to comprehend what just happened.

  “Saya?” I yell out.

  Recognizing the voice command of its name, the house’s system beeps on. The pleasant electronic voice sounds from the speakers in the ceiling. “Yes?”

  But my words have deserted me. “The—the water,” I stammer. I stare at my foot, my toes a painful crimson, still throbbing.

  “I’m sorry, Lydia,” says the voice. “Would you like to change your temperature settings?”

  “Yes,” I snarl, relieved that finally, someone—something—decided to work with me. “Change them to—”

  I stop midsentence. “What did you just call me?”

  Three months earlier

  “What is your problem, Cece?” Scott struggles to keep his voice to a loud whisper. He doesn’t want to make a scene here, in the waiting room. We were supposed to have “a few minutes of privacy to talk it over,” as Clarisse put it, but this place hardly feels private. I think of all the hidden cameras and microphones that could be spying on us right this second. “Isn’t this what you wanted?”

  “What? To live in Big Brother’s guest room?”

  He groans and rolls his eyes. Just like I thought, he doesn’t understand.

  “This is what you wanted. This is what we need. Think of how secure it’s going to be. No one can come within a mile of the place without being seen and recorded. And should anything happen, it’ll call an ambulance…think of that! Think of Taryn!”

  “They want to microchip us like purebred cats,” I snap back.

  “All that information will be private. You heard her—they have the country’s top cybersecurity experts on payroll. The only way the information will ever be used is for our benefit.”

  “Do you even hear yourself?”

  He gives a laugh, shifting his strategy—putting on the charming, boyish smile, just like in the early days when we used to affectionately tease each other, not snipe at each other at the first opportunity. “For God’s sake, Cece,” he says. “You think we’re not spied on now? Your phone knows more about you than I do.”

  I sulk because it’s hard to disagree with that.

  “Face it, the time of privacy is over whether we like it or not,” he says. “Unless you want to just leave it all behind and go live off the land deep in the Appalachians somewhere.”

  I can’t help but shrug.

  “That’s what I thought. And you say you hate being spied on but I don’t see you deleting your Facebook and Instagram. Or throwing your GPS out the car window. Only instead of selling our information to corporations for money, this place will use it to better our lives. Sounds like an improvement to me.”

  I can only shake my head. I know he’s winning the argument, and I have nothing to say. Nothing I can put into words.

  “And anyway, this is a trial. We can’t afford to be early adopters. At least not yet, not until I get the promotion. Because yes, people like us pay millions of dollars to live there. Are they all idiots too?”

  “I never thought you were an idiot,” I point out. Just gullible.

  “Worst that can happen, we live there for a couple of years—we’re not going to sell the house yet—and then we can leave! At the very least, it’s a break from the same old. A change of scenery. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  Here we are again, with whatever it was I said I wanted.

  For God’s sake, what I wanted…what I really wanted was to simply be out of the house where a man tried to kill me.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I run my fingertip over the thin skin on my outer wrist, right below the wrist bone. You can’t tell—there’s no scar and not even a mark—but this is where the microchip is embedded. A microchip that, according to the brochure, “thousands of sensors all over the house will detect and react to your unique DNA signature.”

  I don’t see why they couldn’t have gone with facial recognition or any similar technology instead but, according to Clarisse, the DNA signature offers superior possibilities. The chip is powered by my own body heat, and, apart from identifying me flawlessly to every feature of the SmartHome and SmartBlock, it also takes my vital signs and will activate a call for help if it picks up on any distress. For instance, if I have a heart attack in the middle of the day with no one to see me and I can’t get to the phone, the chip will transmit a distress signal to the central command system, which will call an ambulance, sending the data along for good measure. Not wasting a single second to get you the help you need, the brochure read.

  Think of what it’ll mean for Taryn, Scott said. No more panic in the middle of the night because of a rash or a fever—the chip knows best when the situation is urgent and makes the decision for us. He presented it as a good thing.

  But I balked at the idea of microchipping my child, sticking that needle into the perfect, creamy skin on her chubby arm. It feels wrong, I told Scott. It feels like despoiling her. Taking away her integrity somehow.

  He rolled his eyes and said I get it from my mom. Which made my face flush with embarrassment and put a definitive end to the argument, like he knew it would.

  Whenever he thinks I’m acting “crazy”—his term—all he has to do is insinuate that I’m turning into Therese. It never fails. Whether it’s me suggesting—just suggesting, in passing—that we have Taryn baptized, to expressing concern that having five mobile devices for three people, two phones, and three tablets, might be less than healthy—it always means I’m turning into my mother and will inevitably go off the deep end. And this was before the SmartHome project was even on our radar.

  So Scott won the argument. On the same afternoon we were handed the keys to the house, we were officially given our chips. The needle has a built-in anesthetic that kicks in with surprising speed, and I barely felt a pinch. I was so worried that Taryn would throw a tantrum when she saw the needle, with tears and wailing, and I wouldn’t be able to go through with it. But Taryn was too busy looking around the office, twisting her neck this way and that, her brown eyes the size of saucers, and she didn’t even see the technician approaching her with the needle, cooing soothin
gly. When she pressed the device against Taryn’s arm, there was just a soft hiss that lasted for half a second, and then it was done. Taryn blinked, bewildered, wondering whether she should cry but there was already nothing to cry about. She got a little plush teddy bear for her good behavior, a logo of IntelTech on its belly, and that was the end of that.

  Now, she would be safe at all times, Clarisse said—the house’s sensors would know if she got out of her playpen, if she toddled too close to any stairs or kitchen appliances, if she took a fall. Both Scott and I would get instant alerts on all our devices.

  Clarisse shook our hands. We were in.

  At my request, the house obediently changes the temperature settings for the bath but I’m no longer in the mood. I drain the tub, go downstairs, and get on my laptop.

  There’s an app we installed on all our computers and devices that lets us access the SmartHome portal to report any bugs and malfunctions, among other things. I think that trying to boil me alive counts as a bug. Plus, this is part of the reason for the trial—to help them improve the system. At the price of some occasional boiled toes and burnt palates, I guess. I click on the app impatiently, and it loads in the blink of an eye. I click Report a problem.

  The house’s operating system is named Saya. Each house on the street has its own: The one to the right has Sandy and the one on the left has Sophia. Always women’s names, and the default voices are soft and pleasant.

  Any malfunctions with Saya? Let us know! prompts the page.

  I enter the date and time. Microwave oven setting malfunction, I type in. Bath temperature malfunction. The system registers both.

  Used the wrong name, I type, then backspace. Did it actually use the wrong name? I can’t be sure. Maybe I misheard. My ears were ringing from the impact. While temperature screwups merely caused annoyance, this one makes me nervous. So much for the unique DNA signature. Who on earth would Lydia be, anyway? We were the first to live in this particular model, Clarisse said. And if “Lydia”—if that’s what I actually heard—is real, why would she take her bath at eighty degrees Celsius?

  I decide to forget about it for the time being. The important thing was the temperature, and that’s taken care of. I’m so sorry you experienced this inconvenience, the page informs me. Please accept our sincere apologies on behalf of SmartHome.

  This does little to mellow me out. “Saya,” I say out loud.

  “Yes, Cecelia?”

  “Can you find me some vegan recipes, please?”

  Number one item on my to-do list is to prepare for the party tonight. Party is a bit of a strong word for what’s going to be more of a pretentious dinner.

  “Of course, Cecelia. Today’s most popular vegan recipes are uploading to your tablet.”

  Scott’s colleague’s wife is a militant organic-vegan who I suspect actually has some form of an eating disorder. So although she’ll be the only vegan at the table of six, no dead animal flesh must come within a mile of the kitchen.

  “Never mind,” I say after a moment’s thought. “Find me some vegan caterers who are available for tonight.”

  “Of course, Cecelia.”

  Of course.

  * * *

  As usual, Saya—and the last-minute caterer found by Saya—doesn’t let me down. All the food is in place, waiting for its time in the vast downstairs refrigerator. Only a couple of items need to be heated up beforehand. The menu is basically different combinations of various rabbit foods, profoundly unappetizing.

  Not that I’m all that hungry to begin with. Little work to do means little energy expenditure. Taryn has been picked up and is safely absorbed in her tablet, in one of the many educational games I downloaded on it. It makes me feel less bad that the games are educational. She’s not just out of my hair for an evening—she’s also learning about the fauna of African veldts or something like that.

  Scott shows up pretty much at the same time as the guests. Which is not a surprise—since another handy app on my phone sends me a notification when he leaves work and when he’s approaching the house. But still, it’s a small annoyance.

  Scott’s coworker is Kyle, and his wife, the rail-thin, red-lipsticked vegan, is Emma. The other couple was invited, I’m guessing, for my benefit: one of Scott’s old friends from his previous job and his wife, Mia, who I used to get along with quite well. I alienated most of my real friends over the last few years, the dark years of the fertility struggle. And the few who remained dropped off after all the drama went down.

  I can’t blame them. No, that’s not true. I totally blame them, even though it’s hardly their fault. They just never were the type of friends to stick around in dark times. More the fair-weather kind, far more common these days, more suited for wine-soaked girls’ nights and shopping sprees. That’s who I surrounded myself with because that’s who was available. In the age of smartphones and apps, there’s no need to stick around for someone’s moping. Why bother when a brand-new partner in crime to sip wine with is just a tap of a fingertip away?

  Lounging in the living room while Scott goes to make drinks and uncork bottles of wine, Emma the vegan and Mia politely admire the house, like they’re supposed to. I say I wish I could take the credit but everything was here when we moved in. Emma runs her hand appreciatively along the lacquered surface of the hardwood coffee table, tracing the whorls in the exotic wood frozen forever beneath the thick layer of gloss.

  “Good materials,” she says. “Hard to find these days. Everyone cuts corners where they can.”

  I think of the tree that had once been, a magnificent exotic species from South America or maybe Africa, sawed into neat slices meant to adorn rich people’s houses. That doesn’t seem to bother her, for all the posturing about ecological footprints and animal rights. Then again, if her five-hundred-dollar pumps aren’t genuine leather, I’m willing to eat them.

  But you don’t point these things out. Not in this crowd.

  “Yes,” Mia chimes in. “My sister had a house built to measure last year. Cost a ton of money. Imagine her surprise when she dropped in on the contractors to find them painting her walls with six-dollar-a-gallon paint.”

  Emma commiserates, while I wonder what I could possibly talk to them about. Scott tops off Emma’s wineglass and gives me a meaningful look. Or maybe it just seems meaningful, because the conversation is now about swapping renovation horror stories. Not a direction I like at all. My face grows warmer. I fidget on my chair.

  He gets it and comes to my aid. “Food, anyone?”

  The women are annoyed at the interruption but the husbands eagerly agree so we move to the dining room.

  As we sit down to the rabbit-food feast I set out on the dining room table, I can tell the drinks are starting to kick in. Everyone visibly relaxes, and the slight air of formality slides off them as they tuck unselfconsciously into their appetizers. I excuse myself before picking up my tablet and remotely starting the preheat of the main course, some kind of tofu curry.

  “Lucky, lucky you,” Mia says to me. “You must get everything done in the blink of an eye with all this tech around.”

  “I won’t lie,” I say with a chuckle. “There are advantages.”

  “She’s being coy,” Scott says. His face is a bit flushed, and I wonder how many times he’s refilled his wineglass. “She loves it here. Who wouldn’t?”

  Later, once the main course has been eaten (or, in Emma’s case, picked at and left mostly intact) and the third or fourth bottle of wine has been opened, I realize I’m actually having a good time. I’m relaxed in my comfortable chair. The lights appear to have dimmed—I don’t remember presetting that but it’s nice. It smooths the edges of everything.

  Emma, who’s not nearly as discriminating with alcohol as she is with food—I suspect two of the three or four bottles of wine ended up in her glass—has finally let loose and is telling a story about one of her friends’ Botox disaster. Scott is talking to Emma’s husband about work. I’m getting lulled into it all whe
n a discreet notification chimes on the screen of my phone.

  “Sorry,” I say, and I really am sorry to have to get up. “I have to put Taryn to bed.”

  “Wow,” says Emma, interrupting her story, “I hardly even noticed you had a kid!” Her face is flushed from the wine, and nobody, least of all her, seems to notice the tactlessness of her little slip. “It’s the robot nanny?”

  “Entertainment center,” Scott corrects.

  “One hell of an entertainment center. We should get one for Jason,” Mia chimes in, howling with laughter. “Oh, he’s just hell on wheels. Taryn is cute now—wait till she’s five!”

  I excuse myself, letting them continue that train of thought. Upstairs, the credits of the latest educational cartoon episode are rolling on the tablet screen as my daughter blinks sleepily at it.

  At once, I’m overcome with tenderness. Maybe it’s the wine amplifying my emotions but I just want to pick her up and cuddle with her on top of her tiny bed. All this, I think to myself as I reach out and switch the screen off with a tap, all this is for her. So she’ll grow up with every possible comfort and every possible opportunity. So that she’s safe at all times, sheltered from the scary parts of life—at least for now. I’m not dumb. I know it can’t go on like this forever, with her hidden inside this cozy digital cocoon. Kids grow up and venture out into the world, and she will too. In time.

  For now, I’ll do everything I can do.

  As soon as the screen goes dark, Taryn lets out a high-pitched squeal of protest that splits the silence and makes me wince in spite of myself. Shredding my peaceful little mind-image.

  “It’s sleepy time, Taryn,” I coo automatically as I reach to pick her up. She swats violently at my hands, trying to bat them away. Her face is quickly turning red—a sign that a tantrum is coming.

  “Taryn,” I say, with a soft but present note of warning.