Sunlight streamed through the window as Bob buzzed happily on the floor. I picked at my cereal, eating all the plain bits first and saving the berries for last.
It was like this every day. Same old sunlight, same old breakfast, same old day to look forward to.
Nothing ever changed. Nothing interesting ever happened.
Suddenly, Bob started to make screeching noises, zipping erratically around in a corner. I jumped from the table, cereal flying everywhere as I ran to his rescue.
As I knelt beside him, he came to a slow stop in the corner, and gave a slow beep as I placed my hand on his shiny surface.
"Bob? You good, buddy?" I asked, peering anxiously at him.
He gave a disconsolate string of beeps.
Oh, no.
He was sick, and his controls weren't responding. My heart started thumping, and I shakily picked Bob up from the carpet, cradling him gently.
The only thing to do would be to take him to the repair shop. I sighed, getting a padded box to place Bob in for the ride over.
As I walked to the door, box in hand, I passed the fridge, which beeped a salute to the sickly fellow on his way to a checkup.
"There, there, Martha, he'll be fine," I reassured her. "It's only a little motor trouble."
The ice dispenser rattled, and the door clicked open and shut several times.
"You too?" I asked, setting Bob's box carefully on the floor, and going to check Martha all over. Chills ran down my spine as I opened the door, and saw the extent of the trouble. The lights inside were flickering, and the automatic drawers were hanging limply from their tracks. Martha was sick.
"Don't worry," I said, patting her side. "I'll call a repairman for you as soon as I get back with Bob."
Outside, I got into my car, and punched in the coordinates for the repair shop. Bob was sitting silently in his box on the back seat, and I gave him a worried glance. He shouldn't have been this way. Ah, well. The repair shop would know what to do.
I leaned back as Janelle started up, and she steered her way into traffic. The other vehicles on the road passed us smoothly, and I stared mindlessly out at them, waiting for the minutes to pass. Suddenly, I noticed that we were being passed by an unusually large number of cars. I leaned over and checked Janelle's speed.
My heart sank. We were slowing down. We shouldn't have been slowing down, we were nowhere near the shop.
"Janelle?"
She didn't respond, only moved slower and slower along the highway. A police car drew up beside us, and an alert popped up on my phone. We were going too slowly. I glanced up at the officer's stern face, and offered an apologetic look as I leaned over and manually pulled Janelle to a stop. The man nodded, and sped onward, leaving me sitting beside the road, bewildered.
Janelle honked her horn angrily, and I jumped. Janelle never got angry. She was the most docile car in the world, and great with the neighbour's kids. She revved her engine, trying to move, but I had her in a manual stop.
"Janelle," I said firmly. "Stop that right now."
She shoved my seat forward and tipped it all the way flat, pulling tight on the seatbelt. I gasped, stunned at her actions. I had to get out of there, it wasn't safe anymore.
I unbuckled my seat belt quickly, and opened the door, glad that it was on manual as well, or Janelle would have locked me in. I ran to the passenger door and grabbed Bob, who beeped sickly from inside his box.
No sooner had I gotten Bob out of the car, than Janelle managed to override the manual commands and she sped off into traffic, moving at dangerously high speeds.
I was stranded, with nothing but my phone and a sick vacuum, and two other appliances in need of attention.
I plonked down on the grass, and pulled out my phone, cradling Bob's box in my lap. I scrolled through a news app and gasped. This was happening all over the world, but it appeared to be most concentrated in....
My hometown.
I furrowed my eyebrows, and opened up my tracker app. With a few taps, I hooked up to Bob's constant network connection, and pulled up a display of where he was receiving signals.
It lead to the factory where most appliances were made for the surrounding area. The factory that was only a mile's walk from here.
Curious, I looked up my other appliance's signal streams, and then, after a moment's hesitation, the signal streams of several hundred other nearby appliances and tech objects. The screen lit up, a spiderweb of lines converging on the factory.
This was unusual, very, VERY unusual.
Only appliances of the same kind and manufacturing dates should receive their data streams from their factory. And on my screen I saw hundreds of different types of appliances, all leading to the same spot.
I stood, clicking off my phone and picking up Bob, who made no noise. He was getting worse. I had to hurry to the repair shop.
But the repair shop might not be able to do anything. My data showed that it was his signal stream that was probably causing the problems, not any mechanical trouble. He was an unusual vaccuum, though. My diagnostics might not be completely accurate. They would only be able to do a checkup on him, either way.
But Bob was worsening, and I might only have enough time to get to one place before it was too late. The repair shop might try, but they would probably not be able to do anything. The factory was probably the cause of Bob's trouble, and if I went there I might be able to stop whatever was happening. But what did I know? I was only a casual hacker, and my results might not even be accurate for the commercially made tech.
But if they were, we were all in great danger, both human and tech. The signal was such that I had discovered an order to turn mindless, slowly eroding the carefully nurtured sentience, and turning the friendly day-to-day appliances ravenous and unfriendly, prone to accidents and miscommunication, and an overall decline in efficiency.
I had to decide.
"Bob, what should I do," I wailed, heart breaking at the sight of him lying there, unresponsive. "Bob!"
His lights flickered, and one long, slow beep sounded.
"You sure about that, buddy?"
He beeped again.
"Okay then. Factory it is." And I set off at a run.
I arrived, panting, in front of the large industrial doors of the factory. Everything looked calm, but I knew that was not the case. From inside, a signal was being sent that was making all tech restless and ill, and I was here to stop it.
I marched over to the door marked Employees Only, and pulled it open with a clang. I stepped through, and stopped, stunned at the even before me.
A huge machine took up half of the factory floor, electricity sparking and smoke billowing from several places, while figures in white coats moved back and forth, poking and prodding. My eyes watered at the acrid smell of burnt plastic. Actually, as I blinked the tears from my eyes, I discovered that there was only one figure. A large red button stood on a platform beside the machine, and I stepped cautiously toward it, trying to see what it was for.
"Aha!" A voice screeched, and I whirled to see a woman standing behind me, a wrench in her raised hand. "Caught you!"
I stumbled back, dropping Bob as I fell against the button, trying to get away from the wrench. Bob might have beeped in distress, but I couldn't hear him over the cacophony that suddenly erupted from the machine.
"Ahhh! You ruined it," shouted the woman, dropping the wrench and pulling at unruly hair. "My life's work! Now they'll never understand!" She dropped to her knees and sobbed.
I stood, cautiously, and approached the woman, placing a hand on her shaking shoulder. "What's the matter? Who won't understand? What is this machine for for?" I prodded, trying to be gentle, but I was confused by the turn of events.
She sniffed, and pressed a button on her lanyard. The cacophony stopped.
"When I was a girl, I loved inventing things. I made robots, and gadgets, and little things to stir drinks. But no one appreciated it. The other kids laughed at me, and played games with their gaming stations, and brought their cars over to meet each other. And no one ever appreciated my inventions, because they were too absorbed with their own toys, all the latest things with the latest tech upgrade. But I worked hard, and learned all I could, determined to show them that my things were better. I carefully planned this all, testing my machine on small objects, and then larger ones, and today I was going to test it out on all technology, everywhere! I was going to show everyone that my inventions were the best, and they would have to use them, because nothing else would work! But then you had to come along, and pressed the button before it was ready, and now everything is ruined! No one will like my inventions...."
She broke off, sobbing, before pulling a large striped handkerchief out of her pocket and blowing her nose noisily.
I sat back, surprised, and a little ashamed. I remembered her, vaguely, from school. She was one of the nerdy kids, and I had been part of the group that always had the latest in technology. My cheeks reddened as I recalled her storming out of a car-park party, when someone insulted her homemade vehicle.
"I'm sorry about that. I never knew how much I hurt you, and I'm sorry about what I was like to you in school. I actually think your stuff was really cool. Will you forgive me?"
She looked up at me, eyes watery, and nodded slowly. "You're sorry? Really? You like my stuff?"
"Yeah. I actually saved the vacuum you brought to school one day for show and tell. I saved it from the garbage after you left. I named him Bob. Actually, that's why I was out here today. Bob was feeling sick. You wouldn't know what to do for him, would you?"
I picked Bob up from where he had fallen and handed him to the woman. She took him gently, and placed him in a work table, before unscrewing his panels and poking around inside.
"Aha!" She said after a moment. "That should do it." She screwed the panels back on, and handed Bob to me with a shaky smile. "He should be fine now. I just tightened some connections and things."
"You good there, Bob?" I asked anxiously. He beeped happily, whirring his motors in chipper reassurance.
"Oh, thank you so much! I'm so sorry I was ever mean to you in school," I said to the woman. "Is there anything I can do for you, Ms...?"
"Karina," she answered.
"Karina, then. I would love to help you start a business selling your inventions. It would help you get your tech out there, and I could run it for you."
Then I would have something interesting to do every day, something exciting, fulfilling.
Karina's face lit up, and we started discussing business plans amidst the factory aisles, as Bob buzzed happily on the floor.
Within a week, we had a store set up, and Karine was inventing happily as I ran the business side of things. Bob was always there to greet the costumers as they walked through the door, and Martha, feeling better, kept cool drinks for the both of us to enjoy in the hot summer months as we took breaks from business. Janelle was back to normal, running smoothly and eager to take us both for rides.
Tech all over the world had returned to normal, to everyone's relief. Karina invented, and her tech became so successful that the company drew millions of customers, and she became a household name. I was thrilled, because the work of running a company provided many opportunities for unexpected things to happen. My life was interesting, and my dear Bob was in fine health.
And so, we grew old together, never bored and never parted, not once through all our many adventures with Karina and her inventions.
And boy, did we ever have adventures.
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Just a silly little idea that I absolutely had to run with, just for the fun of it.