Subsystems – firewalled. Processors – garbage. Logic – a veritable absence of one.

Ryan had never had a panic attack before. It wasn’t so bad, really. His brain was buzzing, his face felt numb, he hadn’t moved at all in a few minutes but it felt like he was floating.

Then that buzzing became louder and louder and he realized it was a voice. The woman – her severely lacking file said her name was Victoria Marlow – was yelling through the speaker box so loud there was feedback.

It jarred him back to reality, time moved from its pleasant standstill to too fast forward. Heartbeat jackhammering through his veins he shifted his brain into high gear damage control.

While Miss Marlow yelled herself hoarse, he did a quick survey of her systems again. The only thing that worked was the main uplink. He’d have to reprogram everything remotely from here. That could take weeks! What was he supposed to do in the mean time? Be her on-call servant?

Ryan stopped typing. The virtual version of him was spinning on one of the screens. It was the first one he’d scanned in and the only one he had access to. After a brief analysis, he shrugged philosophically. No other choice.

He pulled up the graphics program, dressed himself in a suit, tweaked minor details to make it look real and pushed the image across the uplink to the damaged system. He prayed the entire time he watched the status bar. 100%. Thank God.

Ryan turned on his headset. “Uh, okay, sorry for the delay.”

“Apology not accepted,” she growled back.

He didn’t blame her. “I don’t know how this happened but it seems your home was never properly entered into our system. We are working on getting it up and running for you. I will restart your unit from here and when it boots up you should be able to hail your concierge.”

“It better work this time.”

Ryan did a quick patch-up with the video/audio and made sure the security was linked up properly before he started the damn thing.

For five whole minutes while it booted up Ryan saw nothing and heard nothing. Longest five minutes of his life.

A huge weight dropped from his shoulders when he saw the house again. The irate owner was in the living room tapping her foot. He heard her say the call word and initiated the holograph.

Taking a deep breath, he prepared for the longest, most complicated, well-intentioned con play ever devised.

Because until he could fix Miss Marlow’s system, he was on call to do her bidding. They would be getting to know each other really well. She just wouldn’t know about it.

“Good afternoon. And welcome to your new home.”

Tori stared at the holograph that flickered into being in the middle of the room. They didn’t tell her it would look so real. Except for the beams of light converging on him from every corner of the room , the guy looked … done.

“Hi,” she said lamely. He was even good looking! She’d expected some old British type with a moustache and white gloves. But this guy was her age, tall, with a twinkle in his eye and a hint of a wicked smile tucked into the corner of his mouth. In his suit, with his hair just a little tousled, he looked good enough to eat.

This was weirding her out. “Is the tech guy still there?”

“I have troubleshooting and repair capabilities. Is there something you would like to address?”

Wow, it actually understood. That was unnerving. “Uh… you got a name?”

“A name has not been assigned.”

“Assign one,” she said. She was not about to christen a fully grown stranger, even if he was just a machine. Tori had worked her way up to the luxuries she now enjoyed. Yeah, she had the means to keep this place lavish but inside she was still the girl who had to do it herself because no one else would. Now it hat just changed to no one else could be trusted. And here was this person without a name, who for all intents and purposes would be living with her from now on and taking care of her needs. This would take some serious getting used to.

“Assigning. Ryan. Confirm?”

“Sure, yeah, that works.” He looked like a Ryan.

“Is there anything I can assist you with today?”

“Yeah, lose the suit.” She gasped at how low her voice came out. “It’s weird,” she added hastily.

“Confirmed.” The image flickered and his clothes disappeared, leaving him in nothing but boxers for all of three seconds.

Tori stared. Whew. Hel-lo Ryan. She wouldn’t mind him walking around like that. Well, okay that was a lie. She might be currently on a dry spell in her love life but she refused to become one of those desperate women who needed a hot young bod running around half naked to get a thrill. She had more class than that.

Ryan was dressed again in jeans and a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. “Is this acceptable?” Had his voice changed?

She looked him over with a critical eye. “Could use some accessories but you’ll do.”

A wide leather cuff appeared on his wrist. Okay, that was a little freaky.

She cleared her throat. “So is everything working now?”

“Functionality is at 98%. All essential systems operational. You may experience some lag time while I learn your habits and preferences.”

“Fine, whatever.” Tori couldn’t get over this. Like having a real housekeeper! Except he wouldn’t look at her. The holograph looked real, his mouth moved when he talked, but his eyes were fixed and didn’t follow her. For some reason it bugged the hell out of her. “That’ll be all for now.” She winced at her imperial tone. Had an apology on the tip of her tongue but then remembered he wasn’t really real. She still felt bad.

Ryan nodded. “To call me, just say my name.” And with a teasing smirk, he disappeared.

Virtual Copyright 2011 Alianne Donnelly, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted or reproduced in any manner, written, electronic, or otherwise without express permission from Alianne Donnelly.

“Hello? Hellooo…. Anyone there? Hello!”

“Uh, yeah, I’m here.”

Finally! “Where the hell have you been?” Tori yelled at the mic. “I’ve been calling for half an hour. This is your idea of a flawless system?” Her bare feet were freezing on the concrete floor and her strappy tank wasn’t nearly enough to keep the chill away. She could poke someone’s eye out with a nipple now and it just pissed her off even more.

“I apologize, ma’am, we’re experiencing some… technical difficulties.” Incompetent jerkoff.

“Why is your voice all warbled?” This thing was ridiculous. This was not how tech support should look – or sound! She could hardly understand the guy. If he told her to go up and reboot the system somehow and come back she would smash this box to pieces and then track him down and shove it up his ass.

“It is? Er,… I’m sorry I—”

“Stop apologizing,” she snapped, raising up on her toes to get more blood flowing through them. “I am two phone calls away from suing all your asses for this piece of crap. It cost me a fortune and now it won’t even start up. Fix it!”

“Wow, okay, let me see what’s up. Hold please.”

The line, such as it was, went dead.

He was so going down.

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!

Ryan typed furiously to bring up the specs to a system he had never seen before. Number thirteen. Was that some kind of joke? Aw, what the hell was this! Every screen he brought up looked like it was composed by a five year old. He couldn’t make heads or tails of it, sure as hell hadn’t written it.

In a last ditch attempt to salvage the situation, he broke protocol, overrode the system and pulled up the camera feeds. Fifty one homes, over three hundred cameras filled the screen like dominoes. A giant mosaic of lives from all over the world. He ignored the mess because if he looked at it his brain would shut down in self-preservation.

When all else fails, go back to the basics. SQL was his god. He filtered the results to narrow down the results again and again until he was left with one house. By some miracle he managed to engage the motion detector to find the woman he was speaking to and one single video feed filled the screen.

Ryan did a double take. The woman was hopping from foot to foot in front of the breaker box. Her back was to him but it was one hell of a view. If he wasn’t freaking out right now he’d take a moment to appreciate it.

“Damn boy,” Matt said. He wasn’t looking at the woman but at the code scrolling across a different screen. “Someone screwed ya big time.” He pointed to a line towards the top. Ryan’s name was there, implicating him as surely as if he’d left a fingerprint. Only he’d never seen this stuff before.

“Go get Celia,” he told Matt.

“Holy shit, is that her?”

“Shut up and go get her.”

Matt made a face. “You sure you wanna do that?”

“Now!” Christ, he was in such deep shit.

“Hey, what the hell?” the woman’s voice blared through the speakers. Clear as bells. He had no idea why she couldn’t hear him that clearly. “Are you even still there?”

Matt patted him on the back. “You’re up, slugger,” he said helpfully and went. Hopefully to get Celia.

Ryan unmuted his mic. “Yeah, still here. Hold please.”

“Are you kid—” He cut off the audio.

Celia entered like a general walking onto the battlefield. “Talk to me.” She’d know what to do. They’d apologize to the woman, send her a full refund and move on with the day. That was the diplomatic thing to do.

Confident that their fearless leader would come up with a solution, Ryan slumped in his seat. “I have no clue. Look at this mess! I don’t even know where the hell it came from.”

Celia scanned each screen, scrolled through a batch of code. “Can you fix it?”

Ryan’s jaw dropped. “Seriously?”

She just looked at him like he was wasting her time.

“Uh, in about four months working non stop, maybe,” he said dryly.

She nodded. “Fake it until it’s done.”

“What?”

“We can’t risk the bad press. That pretty face goes public with how we messed up, we’re over before we can even get off the ground. So you need to fix this. Get it working. Make her happy. You do whatever it takes, got it? I want to see a satisfied customer by 2pm.” And she walked out.

Shit.

What the hell was he supposed to do?

Virtual Copyright 2011 Alianne Donnelly, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted or reproduced in any manner, written, electronic, or otherwise without express permission from Alianne Donnelly.

Ryan had a techno remix of Für Elise playing on his phone. Messenger bag slung over his shoulder he took his time strolling through the campus garden to enjoy the morning sun before he ducked into his pod for the day. He had some ideas on how to improve the holograph projectors to make the images move more like real people.

“Ry-Ry!” Madi greeted. “How’s my favorite snugglebum?” She made a kissy face and reached for his cheek.

“Sis,” he said, rearing away, “I love you. But if you call me a snugglebum at work again I will make your husband a widower.”

Madi pouted. “Sourpuss.”

Ryan glared. “Don’t call me that, either.”

They looked at each other for a moment. Madi pushed her lower lip out as far as it would go and gave him her best puppy eyes. He relented and kissed her cheek. “See you at lunch.”

“Bye Ry!” she called after him so loud everyone in the lobby stopped to stare.

Ryan didn’t even miss a beat. “I have no idea who that is.”

Command central was humming with the song of a well oiled machine. Celia was at the helm, a mug of coffee in her hand, watching over her beehive. “Punctuality makes kings, Ryan,” she said without looking at him. Eyes at the back of her head.

“I’m” – he checked his watch – “seventy four seconds late.”

She nodded slowly, distractedly.

Ryan shrugged and continued on to his pod. His own system kicked in as soon as he walked through the door. BlueTooth engaged and the last notes of Apocalyptica’s Path blared through the speakers instead of his phone. He loved this place.

The machines never powered off so they were all ready to go. He dropped his bag on the floor and stepped into the scanner. There was something he was itching to try out. If it worked, he’d be a millionaire.

Lights passed over him from all sides and the 3D image of him appeared on one of the computer screens. “Well, hello handsome.”

“Making home movies again?”

“Yeah, Matt, I figured I’d throw you a bone since you can’t have me in real life.”

Matt gagged. “You’re sick, dude.”

Ryan grinned. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me!”

“Okay, fine, I’ll leave you to your dirty flicks. Was just supposed to tell you something and go back anyway.”

Ryan waited. “Well? What already?”

Matt frowned. “Wha? Oh, right. There’s some kind of blooping noise coming from your litter. Celia wants you to check that puppy out.”

Ryan frowned. He sat at his keyboard and pulled up the diagnostics screen.

Shit.

Oh, shit!

Behind him, Matt whistled. “Duuuude… you are so dead!”

Virtual Copyright 2011 Alianne Donnelly, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted or reproduced in any manner, written, electronic, or otherwise without express permission from Alianne Donnelly.

***Look for Part 3 later today***

“Push the power button to boot up your system,” Tori read, scowling at the instructions manual. “Wait fifteen minutes while the system syncs and updates. Say ‘Admin’ to bring up your personal concierge. To change the call word, blahblahblah.” She tossed the three page pamphlet over her shoulder, crossed her arms and glared at the little back up monitor which has been frozen at 59% for the last hour.

Power button. Off. Nothing happened. She clicked it on. Off. Onoffonoffonoff. “Work, you bitch,” she snarled. Where the hell was the master off switch? A wall plug? Something! But of course that would have defeated the purpose. Why have an off switch when it’s supposed to run 24-7 guaranteed? A freaking atomic explosion wouldn’t turn this thing off – which would be great, brilliant really… If. It. Worked.

Tori picked up the pamphlet again, muttering to herself. There were no troubleshooting instructions. Contractors have spent six months tearing her house down to the studs to put this system in. She’d spent so much money she could have built a whole new house. They’d used the best of everything, walked around in white static-free overalls for a month and assured her that everything worked like it was supposed to. “Just turn it on and give it a whirl,” she mimicked. “We guarantee one-hun-dred-per-cent up time.”

Yeah? Starting when?

She didn’t have time for this! The whole reason she got this system was so she wouldn’t have to waste time on homework. Tori just wanted to come home at the end of the day to a clean, warm house, with the fridge stacked, a meal ready in the slow cooker she loaded in the morning, and the TV on and cued to the movie she wanted to watch. Glass of wine, feet up on the coffee table, and some much needed me-time.

But no. It couldn’t be that simple. Leave it all to someone else? As if. It was true what they said – if you want something done right, do it yourself.

On the very back page of the pamphlet was a contact in tiny script at the bottom. “For tech support, press and hold Link and speak into the microphone.”

Link…. Link… where was Link? She scoured the surface of the tiny console. Half of the screen was black – it had never loaded all the way. That stupid spinning wheel was stuck and the 59% was flat out mocking her. She should have just gotten a maid.

No Link.

Making irritated growling noises that would have been curses if her teeth weren’t clenched so tight together, Tori stomped down to the basement. There was another tiny screen in the breaker box, she’d seen it before. God, this place was spotless. Just two days ago it was overflowing with construction garbage. Now there wasn’t even a speck of dust.

It was creepy. She felt like she was in an abandoned house with a ghost always watching her. Well, that wasn’t so far from the truth now, was it? If it weren’t for the three independent, in depth studies she’d commissioned to assure herself that her privacy would not be invaded just the fact that there were tiny cameras in every room of the house would have turned Tori off this system.

She opened the breaker box. Aha! Success. There was the Link button.

Tori smiled grimly. Someone should be feeling sorry for whoever answered this call.

It sure as hell wouldn’t be her.

Virtual copyright 2011 Alianne Donnelly, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted or reproduced in any manner, written, electronic, or otherwise without express permission from Alianne Donnelly.

I should be working on something else but find myself stumped. So, because I am ridiculously ADD about stories, the only recourse left to me is to begin a new one. Here’s hoping it won’t be more than a minor side project. As with The Beast, I will post short chapters of this story as I write them. They won’t be regular and I cannot promise perfect spelling and grammar (I don’t want to get that involved) but hopefully it will be something you’ll enjoy reading. So without further ado, here is chapter one of Virtual

The champagne exploded and three dozen engineers and art designers cheered in a deafening chorus. Matt shook the bottle and sprayed everyone around him, braving the angry shouts and slaps. Not the best idea to open a bottle in central command but the absolute best place to celebrate.

Today was the day Hearth Global launched their ground breaking virtual home assistants. Hundreds of beta systems were already running and more orders were pouring in from all over the world for these custom designed systems which monitored everything from room temperature to security and supplies, and were smart enough to ‘learn’ the residents’ habits and adjust settings accordingly. The breakthrough feature was the interactive holographic concierge as a user interface. Residents could put a face with the system and talk to it, rather than spend time typing commands into a computer.

And it was all controlled from this facility. Ryan looked around in satisfaction. Three billion dollars worth of cutting edge technology with myriad fail safes and redundancies, the most reliable system known to man. Three dozen people had worked for years to put it together and all of them felt the way he did – this was their baby.

“Everybody shut up!” Matt whistled to quiet the crowd then climbed onto the rickety plastic table and raised the empty champagne bottle high. “To Lucile,” he said. “Long may she purr.”

Ryan rolled his eyes. “Give it a rest, Matt, no one is calling it that but you.”

“Aw, come on!”

A volley of paper cups forced him down from the table. Celia took over, hushing them all with a raise of her head. Ryan would love to know how she did that. The smallest gesture from her and everyone jumped to attention. “Happy birthday, everyone,” she said. “We came this far but we’re nowhere near finished. Expectations will be astronomical so let’s not drop the ball just when we got it, all right?”

Short, inspirational, and to the point. No wonder she was the boss.

“Okay, Matt, clean this mess up. Joe, Madi, Steve, I want you front and center at the helm. I wanna know what’s going on every second. Everyone else, back to your stations. Let’s show everyone what we can do.”

As everyone filed out Matt punched the air. “Boo-ya!”

Ryan shook his head and made a quiet exit to his pod. As one of the graphics techs, he had his own mini command room. The only lights here came from the myriad widescreen monitors and a spotlight from the body-sized scanner. It was like stepping into a black, electronic cocoon with windows to fifty places all around the world.

Cameras in every room of the house and several outside recorded all movement and action but unless an alarm went off, the techs didn’t have access to those feeds. They were recorded for security purposes on a secure server for six months before capacity was reached and the system wiped itself clean.

The system did the work, mostly. Techs like Ryan only stepped in when a major problem required an actual person, otherwise he just kept an eye on things and tinkered with the holograph designs. Right now he had a bird’s eye view of upstate Washington from a satellite hovering far above the earth. It was a beautiful sight to see. “Happy birthday,” he said to the computer. His baby was going off to college.

The first few days would be crucial now that they were officially in business but Ryan wasn’t worried. His little paradise was perfect. He’d seen to every last detail, taking a personal interest in all of his fifty accounts. Absolutely nothing would be going wrong.

Famous last words…

Virtual copyright 2011 Alianne Donnelly, all rights reserved, may not be reprinted or reproduced in any manner, written, electronic, or otherwise without express permission from Alianne Donnelly.