Smart House - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

The start of a new story, commissioned by Mashugana. This is based on a kind of silly idea I had to do a sort of sequel to/reboot of Smart House, the Disney Channel Original Movie from the 90s, but, obviously, with an AB/DL twist to it. It might take a couple chapters for that part to manifest, though rest assured, it's coming.

"Well, you just made partner," Gillian giggled, slightly tipsy on the champagne her friend, Brigid, had bought to celebrate her promotion. "What are you going to do now?"

Brigid would be lying if she pretended she hadn't been thinking about that. After all, this was what she'd been working towards ever since she'd graduated from college... She'd been confident she could do it, yet even she hadn't expected it all to happen this quickly, not in her wildest dreams. 

"I want to upgrade my wardrobe a bit," she said, glancing down at her suit, her designer heels, both of which she'd been perfectly happy with when she got them... Now that she could afford something better, they felt cheap, ugly. She needed to dress to impress, after all; as a partner in the firm, people were going to be looking up to her.

Looking up to her... The phrase made her blush slightly, though it was hard to notice, past her face, flushed from the alcohol she'd been sharing with her friend. She'd always gotten teased for her size, for as long as she could remember, but those words in particular stuck out to her, making her think back to college, where she and Gillian had been roommates. 

She'd made the decision then that she was going to take control of her destiny, that she wasn't going to let her short, scrawny frame define her anymore. She'd started dressing nicely then, in direct contrast to so many of her classmates, who would stumble into class in pajamas like a bunch of overgrown toddlers, always wearing heels, padding her bras... She'd thought it was working, too, at the very least to make her more confident, which helped to motivate her to study harder, to get the best grades in all of her classes...

And then, one of her professors had announced that, had told everyone that Brigid had gotten the highest score yet again, challenging the other students to try to knock her off her perch. It was a harmless bit of motivation, one that Brigid was proud to be a part of, proud to be the measuring stick that her classmates were judged by. Until after class, when a couple of the boys came up to her.

"Gee, Brigid, we really look up to you!" one of them smirked.

"Really?" she'd asked, wide-eyed, not at all projecting the image of the intelligent, put-together woman she'd been doing her best to portray, too elated for that, or to pick up on his sarcasm.

He and his friend laughed. "No!" he sputtered. "The only people who could look up to you are so little, they're still in diapers, pipsqueak!"

She'd wanted, very badly, to march up to her teacher and tell him what they'd done, to get them in trouble, but she was in college... She ought to be mature enough not to be bothered by their childish taunts, shouldn't need the 'grown-ups' to help her out when she was one herself. Then again, she would have thought the boys were mature enough not to mock her for something like that, something completely out of her control, too, and that obviously wasn't the case. For a long moment, she was right back in middle school, where one of the boys - the boyfriend of the queen bee of the school - would always grab one of her textbooks, hold it way up out of her reach, making her try to jump up and take it back, until a teacher came around to put a stop to it.

After everything, after her determination for a fresh beginning, after using all the money she made at her work-study job to buy fancy new clothes, she was right back where she'd started, where she was trying to get away from. And the worst part was, she didn't do anything about it. She was too mortified to come up with a response right away, and by the time she had, the boys were long gone.

What that meant, she decided, was that she needed to try even harder, and so she did. She graduated summa cum laude, and, while it was satisfying, finding one of those boys so she could casually stroll by with her honors cords, it was far better knowing that the other wasn't there, because he hadn't managed to pass enough classes to graduate yet.

She was certain having something to prove had been what had helped get her to the point she was now already, given her the motivation to work harder, to show everyone what she was capable of. She supposed she ought to thank those boys... But, if she did run into them at homecoming, or a reunion, she'd definitely only do that after she made sure they heard all about her success, so they knew that they really should have been looking up to her all along.

That was somewhere in the future, however, assuming she wasn't so busy with work that she'd have the chance to drop by, deign to bless her alma mater with her presence. For now, she had more pressing matters to attend to, such as how she was going to celebrate her victory.

"You know what?" she took another swig of champagne. "I think it's time I move out of this apartment, don't you?"

Gillian looked much more surprised by that than by the idea of Brigid upgrading her wardrobe. Of course, Brigid had done the latter a number of time in the years they'd known each other, whenever she could, so it wasn't anything too shocking. She'd stuck with her apartment through it all, though, from the beginning, where she was struggling every month to scrape together enough for rent, to now, when she knew it was too small for someone who made as much as she did, but she justified it mentally by reminding herself she rarely had the chance to be there anyway, since she was spending most of her time at the office.

"Wow," Gillian replied finally. "That's, like, the end of an era."

"It is," Brigid agreed, glancing around, feeling a bit misty-eyed. Like her clothes, however, now that she had the idea that it wasn't good enough for her, she was already starting to feel disgusted by it. "But it's time. I deserve something bigger and better, don't you think?"

Gillian nodded. "You do. So, what, are you going to look for a penthouse, or...?"

She hadn't gotten that far, although, if there was one thing she'd learned from her time scrambling to the top, it was how to come up with a plan on the fly, and sound like you'd had it all along. "No, I don't think so," she shrugged. "I think a partner deserves a real, actual house."

"You're leaving the city?" Gillian asked. "Do you have somewhere in mind?"

Brigid couldn't say where the memory came from, why it resurfaced now. As soon as she started thinking about houses, however, there it was. "You know what?" she giggled. "I do..."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

She couldn't remember where she'd heard about it first, how she'd come across the page. Had there been a new report about it? Had she overheard someone at school mentioning it? It seemed unlikely that she would have stumbled across it on her own; she wasn't exactly spending her time looking for contests to win a new home, after all.

When she'd seen the picture of the house, though, she'd wanted it badly. She and her parents had a nice enough place, but, since it was only the three of them it didn't have to be huge, and wasn't. She convinced herself that they needed the extra space - for what, she didn't know - and that it was absolutely essential that she be the one to win the contest, especially when she began to read more about what the house could do.

Because it wasn't just a pretty, new house... No, this was a smart house, one that could handle her, and her parents', every need, cooking for them, entertaining them, waking them up in time for work or school, picking out clothes for them... To be fair, Brigid was still young enough then that all of that was done for her anyway, and she was, in fact, trying to get away from some of that, to prove her independence. That was only when her parents were in charge of everything, however... It would be totally different if the house itself was doing it. Plus, the house was supposed to clean itself, too, so she could get out of the chores she'd been given when she insisted she wasn't a little girl anymore.

She hadn't won, obviously, and she'd been crushed for a week or two before moving on, almost forgetting all about it, except for, apparently, one tiny memory in the back of her mind, waiting for this exact moment to show its face. She was an adult now, and smart homes were a lot more common, and less exciting, than they had been back then... She had a smart speaker of her own that could order her food, or set an alarm. As an adult, she knew that was probably all the smart house had, too, along with a Roomba or something so it could claim to have self-cleaning floors. She could buy that on her own, turn any house into a smart house.

Still... It only felt right that, after all these years, she give herself the thing she'd wanted so badly, and not been able to get, when she was a child. She'd been ready to buy out whoever lived there now, but, to her surprise, it was already for sale, and for pretty cheap, at that. Maybe, she told herself, that was a bad sign, and she ought to re-think this... Then again, there was a decent chance it was because the technology in the house was relatively old at this point, so it just barely qualified as 'smart' at this point.

Once she started talking to the real estate agent, though, it turned out that wasn't even the case. She was promised that all that equipment had been upgraded, which was almost a shame, since she wanted it for the nostalgia factor. It might have been fun, seeing what the old system had been like... Probably frustrating, too, and something she'd have grown tired of after a few days, so maybe it was for the best. And, as soon as she'd seen pictures of the outside of the house, it was exactly what she remembered from the picture on the contest website...

There was a part of her that wondered why the old owners had moved out, but it had been long enough that it was only natural, really... And she doubted there were that many other people who remembered the contest, and had been so desperate to win it. Everything was coming together perfectly, almost as if it was a sign, that she belonged here after all, like she'd told her parents over and over when she was certain she was going to win.

"This place isn't smart enough to help you move your stuff in?" Gillian's boyfriend, Reece, panted, dropping a box onto the floor with a thud. "That would actually be useful."

"I'm sure they're working on that," Brigid rolled her eyes. She'd never been a huge fan of Reece, but the fewer boxes she had to haul in the summer heat herself, the better. She had planned on using a moving service, until Gillian insisted that they could do it themselves, and that she wanted to help... And, of course, that meant Reece was tagging along, too.

"Don't listen to him," Gillian told her. "This place is amazing!"

It really was... Brigid had tried to temper her expectations, telling herself that her memories of the photos from the contest website were old, and unreliable, and that the ones on the real estate page were designed to make it seem bigger and nicer than reality, but it was everything she'd hoped it would be. Even ignoring all of the 'smart' stuff, it was shocking nobody else had bought it before her.

Which was handy, once they had everything out of the van, and were sitting in the living room, enjoying some pizza, and Reece asked, "So what can this place do, anyway?"

"Oh, you know," Brigid waved her hand dismissively, trying to think of something impressive from the list of commands she'd been given, along with her keys. "Hey, House, living room lights off!"

After a moment, there was a pleasant beep, and the lights switched off, leaving them in darkness until Brigid used the opposite command to turn them back on. 

"Cool," Reece said sarcastically. "I mean, I can do that with my phone, too, if I have the right light bulb, but..."

"That's not the point, Reece," Gillian swatted him on the arm.

"Yeah, all this is just a bonus," Brigid replied defensively. 

"The house really is great," Gillian told her again, glaring at her boyfriend. "Reece! You're getting crumbs all over her floor! Be careful!"

Brigid shook her head with a smile. "No, it's fine," she said. "Hey, House, send the vacuum to the living room."

She settled back, waiting, sure this would be more of a spectacle. It took a minute or two before, finally, a tiny, circular robot appeared, starting to slowly make its way across the floor, searching for something to clean up. "Like I said," she blushed, concentrating on her pizza. "This stuff wasn't the point..."

As strange as it was to think, she was positive that what little she'd seen of the smart capabilities of the house on the website were way more impressive than this new stuff. Of course, that was all based on her memory, and some surely pretty grainy, low-res videos, from a time when all of this was new... She knew, realistically, whatever had been here had to have been far less complex, and capable, than what was available now. And, while it had been a defense mechanism, it was true that it wasn't the main reason she'd wanted this house in the first place. It just would have been nice to be able to show off, and make Reece shut up.

She quickly forgot all about it, for the most part. She'd play music through the smart speakers now and then, while she was unpacking, or, if she was feeling too lazy to get out of bed to go hit the light switch, she'd turn them off with her voice, but it wasn't that much different than her apartment when it came to that.

At least, not until she started trying to decorate. "You want to be careful about putting things on the walls," the real estate agent had told her. "It should be fine in the hallways, but in the rooms themselves..."

She hadn't thought too much about it at the time; coming from an apartment, she was used to that. Now that she was here, in her own house, however, she realized how silly it was. Who were they to tell her what she could and couldn't do with her walls?! She almost wanted to Facetime them, to force them to watch as she hammered the first nail into the wall so she could put up a painting she'd bought forever ago, and never had anywhere to hang. 

She took a good, long time, deciding where she wanted it, then marched over, hammer and nail in hand. She vaguely recalled hearing that you were supposed to check for something before you hung anything up, to make sure it was in the right place on the wall, but she wasn't sure what... And, really, the painting wasn't so huge that it was likely to be an issue anyway.

As soon as she touched the wall, she could tell it wasn't quite right. It didn't feel like wood, or plaster, or anything else that she'd expect a wall to be made of. She frowned, running her hand over it, trying to figure out what it was, instead... It was smooth, and slightly cool, almost like glass, even though, despite how close she was to it, it looked like a perfectly normal, painted wall.

Were all of the walls like that? She set her painting down, wandering through the house, checking everything. Like she'd been warned, the hallways did appear to be normal, but most of the actual rooms were made out of this other material. She couldn't imagine what the point of it was, if it was just some sort of protective coating, perhaps to make cleaning up easier, or something more. From what she could tell, the 'real' walls were right behind that, barely out of reach.

"Weird," she commented to herself. Maybe that was why this place had gone for so cheap... If you wanted to redecorate, you were going to have to get through that glass coating. She didn't mind the paint and wallpaper choices that had been made, at least for now, but something about knowing she was stuck with them, unless she hired someone to do a lot of extra work, made her antsy, like she might want to change things up now, just because she knew she couldn't.

Searching online, she couldn't find any explanations for why it would be like that, or even any examples of anyone else doing this. Of course, without knowing exactly what it was, or what the reasoning had been for it, it was difficult to know what to look for, so it was possible an answer was out there somewhere, eluding her. 

If it hadn't been for that, however, she might never have noticed the door. It was out in the hallway, covered in wallpaper, but, since she was paying such close attention to the walls, she happened to see that they looked different there, and, when she rapped on it with her knuckles, she felt, and heard, metal there. 

There were already more rooms in this place than she could possibly need, but, understandably, she was still curious about what this one could be, why it was hidden like this. She debated for a few minutes, part of her not wanting to ruin the wallpaper, another pointing out it was one of the few things she could change if she wanted to, so she might as well, before, finally, she went to get a knife from the kitchen, carefully cutting along the faint outline of the door, peeling the paper off, letting it crumple on the floor beside her.

What she saw only confused her further. It was a door, all right, and, like she'd felt, it was metal, unlike the doors to all of the bedrooms, and bathrooms, which were wood. More than that, though, it seemed like it belonged on a bank vault, not in the middle of her hallway. It was thick, and looked heavy, and didn't have so much as a handle for her to try to open it with. She slid the knife into the tiny crack between the door and the frame, but she couldn't pry too hard without risking the blade breaking.

"What the hell?" She knocked on it, hearing nothing in return. "Hey, House?" she tried. "Can you open this... hallway door?" She had no idea what it would be called, what it led to, but it was worth a try.

"I'm sorry," the speakers responded. "I'm not sure what you mean."

"That makes two of us," Brigid mumbled. She was almost ready to give up when she saw something else strange beneath the wallpaper, a foot or two away from the door. It was metal, too, and much smaller. Wielding her knife again, she sliced it free, finding what appeared to be a plain, metal panel. It seemed like an awfully big coincidence that it would be so close to the door, however, and that it would be hidden, too... And, unlike the door, she could see the screws holding it in place, so she knew how to investigate further.

When she moved the panel out of the way, she was greeted by a mass of wires, almost too many for her to want to mess with, until she spotted a few that was clearly taped up, as if they'd been cut, then reattached, in the past. "Am I really going to do this?" she wondered out loud. She knew nothing about this sort of thing, or how to fix it if she messed anything up... But she'd already come this far.

She held her breath as she sliced each of the taped wires, half expecting to get electrocuted. Instead, after the last one, she heard a heavy clunking sound from the wall beside her. It didn't look any different, but when she went back to the door and slid the knife into the opening, the door started to move.

"Whoa," she whispered once it was open, and she could peer inside. She wasn't sure why she was being so quiet, in her own house, though it only felt right, knowing that she was in a place that nobody else had been in who knew how long. The whole room was filled with ancient-looking computers, and monitors, probably very similar to the kind she'd used when she was a kid, entering the contest. "What is all this?"

There was no light switch that she could see - probably, it was supposed to come on automatically, but either that had failed to happen, or the bulb had burned out long ago - yet, fortunately, there was enough light coming in from the hallway for her to make her way inside without tripping on anything. 

Was this where everything had been controlled, back when the house was originally built? It was crazy to think that all of these computers had been needed to replicate what she could mostly do with one fairly small smart speaker... It was also crazy that all of this had been sealed away, instead of being removed. Then again, she couldn't imagine it was worth all that much now... It probably didn't even work.

Of course, there was only one way to find out. In the darkness, it took her a few minutes to find a power button. With all the equipment, she didn't know if it was the right one, if it would turn everything on, or just one piece, but she decided to give it a push anyway.

Suddenly, the whole room sprang to life, lights flashing, fans whirring. The monitors clicked on, green text scrolling too quickly for her to read, before, one by one, she saw video feeds appear on them, each showing a different room of her house. There was something different about them, however... The walls were now blank. Not just empty of any decoration, completely, totally white.

She stumbled back out of the room, to the living room to see it for herself, shocked to find that the room she'd been so sure she wouldn't be able to change had somehow done so on its own, radically. She touched the wall again, confused, and, in a flash, it changed back to the way it had been, as if nothing had happened.

Was this whole thing a screen?! If it was projecting an image of a room, it was incredibly high definition, enough to look perfectly real, but, given what she'd just seen, she didn't know how else to explain it. 

"Would you like to redecorate?" a voice asked out of nowhere, making Brigid jump and turn around, even though it was obvious it wasn't coming from any human. It also wasn't the same one the smart speakers used, but it was much closer to that. It was definitely meant to be feminine, although there was no escaping how stiff and mechanical it sounded. "I would be happy to assist you with that. Please allow me to introduce myself first. You may call me Pat."

"Pat?" The whole thing was crazy, but, for some reason, that was what made Brigid chuckle. "That's a weird name for an AI."

"I suppose you are right," the voice agreed coldly. "Would you introduce yourself?"

Brigid didn't see any harm in doing that, so she opened her mouth, only to see an item slide out of the wall, onto the desk. It was obvious right away what it was for, thanks to the green handprint glowing softly on its surface.

"Oh. I'm not sure... Is that really necessary?" She knew there was always a certain amount of privacy she was giving up, when it came to this smart home stuff, but letting it scan her fingerprints felt like a bridge too far. What could it possibly need that for?

"It will help me more effectively care for you," Pat informed her.

Brigid looked down at the scanner uncertainly. "I'm sure you'll do fine without it," she said after a moment. "My name is Brigid."

"Brigid," Pat repeated, and, while she knew it must be the same, Brigid still could have sworn the machine's voice sounded ever so slightly disappointed in her. "Are you sure you would not like to properly introduce yourself?"

"No, thanks," Brigid told her.

"All right," Pat said. "It is nice to meet you, Brigid." But, Brigid couldn't help noticing the scanner did not return to wherever it had come from, staying out, waiting. "Welcome to your new home. It will be my pleasure to assist you while you are here."