SHOW HOME - Chapter 11
The Slip
Mark
On Monday morning, the light was a flat, smoky grey. Winter darkness was beginning to draw in on both sides of the day. The Preston garden lights were still on when the Telos car for the school run turned onto our gravel. No driver. Just a continuous sweep of black glass and soft white running lights. We watched it approaching on the wall interface.
“Here we go,” said Sarah, rallying Chloe and Leo. She was at the island with her coffee, dressed for work. Shirt, blazer, loose trousers, bare feet. Her new look. Sharp and intelligent, but also relaxed.
The car pulled up to the front of the house and stopped. My phone buzzed. All the control panels chimed at once, to cue us.
TELOS COMMUTER TYPE 07 – BLACK - ARRIVED
Shared route: PRESTON-SCHOOL-RUN-ALT-CHLOE-LEO
The notification sat on the screens with a small green leaf icon - a badge of honour that signified we had made a good environmental choice.
We walked them through to the front door. Chloe’s blazer sleeves were pushed up, skirt rolled once at the waistband. Ready to disrupt. Leo looked awkward, his blazer somehow twice as stiff as Chloe’s. His tie was perfect but his hair looked like it had lost a fight with a pillow.
“It’s so cool that we don’t have to ride with the Olds,” said Leo, grabbing his bag.
I sensed a little excitement in him. Perhaps he was harbouring a slight attraction to the Preston girl?
“It’s whatever,” Chloe corrected. “Let’s go.”
The front door opened for them and cold air moved into the hall. They stepped out. The car’s doors opened.
“Message when you get there,” I said.
“Dad,” Chloe sighed.
“Humour me. We didn’t have self-driving cars when I was a kid.”
Sarah stepped in to save us from a fractious parting.
“Have a good day, guys. Try to enjoy it.”
Chloe and Leo both half-nodded, getting in the car’s white leather interior. No driver’s seat - just four chairs facing the centre of the vehicle with screens for “information, entertainment and education” in the centre. Olivia was already in there, sat in the back corner with a seatbelt on and one leg up, watching something. She gave me and Sarah a small wave, more acknowledgement than greeting, then smiled at them and started chatting.
The doors closed without a sound. The glass went opaque. A small panic rose in me. Sharp, ridiculous. My kids inside a black box run by software I didn’t control.
On my phone, the notification updated.
SCHOOL RUN – ACTIVE
Route: HOME → ACADEMY-023
Sharing: PRESTON-ASHWORTH
A tiny line of white text blinked into place at the bottom.
Thank you for choosing shared transport.
Sarah slipped her hand through the crook of my arm.
“They’re so brave,” she said. “So adaptable.”
The car eased away from the house, tyres crunching softly over the gravel. At the bottom of the track it paused, then turned and rolled down into the valley - a polished black pill being swallowed by the dip in the road.
We watched the empty space it left behind for longer than we needed to.
“They’ll be fine,” Sarah said.
“I know.”
She squeezed my arm, then let go.
“I’ve got a call at nine,” she said. “I’ll be in until lunch.”
The house responded to the words. The lights in the hall toward her study brightened a fraction.
“Enjoy your morning,” she said. “Find something to do.”
She kissed my cheek, light and distracted, then padded down the corridor, as though to a more exciting lover. I heard the study door seal behind her with that soft, airlock sound.
The house registered my idleness. The big black square in the hall woke up to a “Good morning, Mark” dashboard. The ceiling speakers lifted their volume by a notch, trickling in an unobtrusive piano concerto. As it did this, I realised that there had already been a sound in the background and it made me suspicious about what was being shipped into my subconscious unawares.
“Mute,” I said, looking at the screen. The piano ceased.
SUGGESTED MODES
– Exercise (30 mins)
– Build Focus (90 mins)
– Explore Opportunities
The last option pulsed gently at the bottom, a small, persistent heartbeat - offering the kind of patience and support you couldn’t argue with, because it implied care. I ignored it and walked through to the kitchen. I stacked plates and loaded the dirty dish cupboard.
I tapped my tablet on at the island to check the tech news but the Telos overlay caught the device immediately, the loading ring coming and going faster than I could blink. No passwords. No lag. The OS opened on a homepage that wasn’t mine. It was cleaner, emptier, only a search bar and a few tiles.
- PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES.
- INDUSTRY HIGHLIGHTS AND BRIEFINGS.
- TRUST & SAFETY – CURRENT OPENINGS.
I pulled down the overlay and clicked out of it on reflex. I opened a standard internet tab and typed in a preferred tech news source. The page loaded slowly, full of jittering banner ads and half-broken cookie notices.
“Christ,” I said.
The fridge pinged softly behind me. My phone vibrated. My tablet and my watch too. I glanced. The Opportunities icon was pulsing on all the displays.
MARK – OPPORTUNITIES UPDATED - ONE 100% MATCH
The urge to ignore it battled with curiosity. I gave up, put my tablet face down on the island and stepped over to the interface on the wall. My name at the top, my old job title underneath. A small list of roles rolled up from the bottom.
ETHICS CONSULTANT – PREDICTIVE SYSTEMS (REMOTE, FLEXIBLE).
BEHAVIOURAL RISK LEAD – AUTONOMOUS PLC (HYBRID).
CONTENT SAFETY ARCHITECT – EMERGENT TECHNOLOGIES.
Each tile had a little arrow that, when tapped, created a neat drop-down summary beside it.
“High fit with Trust & Safety background. Recommended for phased re-entry with structured support.”
“Aligned with current burnout profile. Reduced exposure to active user trauma. Stabilised workload.”
“Opportunity to shape policy at infrastructure level. Low-noise remit. Predictable escalation handling.”
I stared at the subtext. Phased re-entry? Burnout profile? User trauma? Low-noise remit? That wasn’t recruitment copy. It was the house profiling me. It was letting slip that it saw me as somebody who needed shielding. Would it make such a blatant fumble or was it trying to manipulate me, by offering me a story about myself?
My throat tightened. I could feel myself wanting to argue with the screen. At the same time, that counter-impulse - to withhold my interior life, my data.
A faint chime came from the interface.
DOOR – ACTIVITY
The camera pop-up showed a figure near the boundary between our drive and the Prestons’. I tapped to close the opportunities and full-screened the camera feed. The front path, the sweep of moorland behind it. The OS had already highlighted the moving figure with a soft yellow rectangle.
ZOOM: ON
LABEL: NEIGHBOUR - DAVID PRESTON
I tapped the rectangle. The footage jumped closer. David, in a charcoal fleece and running leggings, slowing from a jog to a walk as he approached the invisible line between properties. He came to a stop just on their side of it. Hands on hips. Breathing hard.
He straightened his spine and looked our way. Not at our door. He looked past it, over the roof, at the valley. Below, a line of system text.
Perimeter – neighbour presence (standard)
“Standard,” I repeated.
I opened the video library scrolled back through the thumbnails from the last week. Any major movements triggered a recording. The school car leaving. The school car arriving. A delivery drone pausing above the landing pad and lowering a package. Sarah stepping out briefly to collect it, robe fluttering around bare calves.
Then David again. Last night. Different clothes. A navy jacket, headphones around his neck, a reusable coffee cup in hand. I tapped to watch. He stopped roughly where he was now, took a sip, glanced at the house.
The yellow rectangle found him again.
Perimeter – neighbour presence (standard)
He was not doing anything that would raise a flag. He was just… there. Again. I pictured the line of sight. Was it the valley beyond the house? Or was it Chloe’s bedroom?
I played the clip again, and again, but it was impossible to tell.
“You’re not helping yourself, Mark,” I said, aloud, then I had a pang of anxiety as I realised I had allowed the house to have my thought.
The lights shifted. The air vents breathed out a faint hint of citrus. A correction. Not to the room - to me. I shut the video library, drifted from room to room. The house responded each time. Lights brightening a degree here, dimming behind me there. The heating tracked my movements, keeping the air a little warmer where I stood.
By eleven thirty, another door alert. David again. This time in a Telos-branded gilet, talking on his phone as he walked up the gravel from his house. He stopped for a moment, exactly where he had before, and lifted his eyes to our facade. The yellow box dropped round him.
“I want to hear the front garden,” I said, in a sudden flash of inspiration.
On the screen, David smiled at something the person on the other end said. Then there was the sound of a gentle wind and David’s voice, faint at first, but soon found and amplified.
“Exactly,” he replied. “The house will take care of it.”
He started walking back towards his house. The video and audio stopped as he stepped away and moved out of frame. I watched the earlier recording again. He had earpods in. He was talking.
“Can I have the audio for this one?” I asked.
Privacy protocols restrict unprompted audio capture at the boundary line.
I swiped the notification away and skipped back to the most recent video.
“The house will take care of it.”
His tone was blase, a hint of cynicism maybe. It sounded like he was talking about our house. Not his.
Perimeter – neighbour presence (standard)
I saw a small, down arrow and tapped. There was an option to log the recordings.
TAG AS:
– Friendly
– Neutral
– Concern
I stared at the three options. Friendly was default, already faintly highlighted. My thumb hovered over Concern. The urge was irrational and strong. I tapped it. I wanted to see what the system would do. A soft, grey dialogue box bloomed.
COMMUNITY HARMONY PROTOCOL: Negative tagging requires a verified incident log. To prevent unnecessary distress, subjective concerns must be recorded as observations.
Proceed to record and log incident?
I stared at it. I didn’t have an incident. And I didn’t want to record my thoughts for Telos’ scrutiny. They could turn it into data, use it against me, verify their weaker, paranoid version of me.
I cancelled the tag. I tapped Friendly instead.
The box vanished immediately. A small, green tick pulsed.
Thank you for building trust.
What a joke.
By the time Sarah was out for lunch she was high on productivity.
“It’s unbelievable,” she said, leaning on the island, cheeks slightly flushed. “I was getting exercise in and my camera just made it look like I was sitting there paying attention. I was listening, obviously. But, wow. Then there were all these prompts waiting for me when the floor opened at the end.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
She let out a short laugh. “It’s like being three people at once. Work-life balance might actually be achievable. What about you? Enjoy your morning?”
“Yeah, not bad,” I said. “Looked at a few things.”
“Job things?” she pressed.
“Some,” I said. “Some house stuff too.”
“That’s progress,” she said, kindly. “You’ll find something. Just… don’t throw yourself back into the heavy stuff too fast.”
Heavy stuff? So, she thinks I need shielding too. Is that her official position on me or is the house helping her think like that?
“Did the kids send you a message when they got there?” I asked, ignoring her implication.
“No. You?”
“No.”
“Typical.”
Sarah laughed. She looked happy. The house hummed quietly around her.
That night, after everyone had gone to bed, I found myself in the Telos app watching those clips of David again on my phone. Sarah was on her side, one arm flung over the duvet, breathing slow. I watched him stop at the boundary again and again. The yellow rectangle hugging him each time, obediently. The slight zoom. Hands on hips. Talking. Then the glance. The system text underneath, neutral and patient.
Perimeter – neighbour presence (standard)
The volume was down, there was nothing to hear, but I zoomed deeper on him, on the blur of his face, the pixel slide of his eyes, the faint motion artefacts of the compression. I told myself I would watch it once more, then put the phone away. Tomorrow, I would stand where he was standing and look in the same direction.
As I decided that, I felt something shift in me. Not fear. Form. Did David’s presence have the shape of a prompt?