SHOW HOME - Chapter 3
The App
Chloe
I stayed up late scrolling my phone. I started with my usuals but everything felt boring and far away. It was weird, being up on some random mountain, a million miles from all my friends, just because Dad couldn’t stay relevant. They said the ride to the new school was an hour and ten. Grim. I’m mostly done anyway. Just the run up to the exams left.
My room was so silent it made my ears swell. I couldn’t hear anybody else at all. I got the feeling I could blast my music and nobody would notice. The stuff they gave me was my wishlist on steroids. When they said we’d have to leave almost everything behind, I thought I’d miss my old stuff but this was just better stuff.
When my scroll started hitting doom levels I went to switch apps. As I did, the Telos Home app sent me a notification. I didn’t read it, just tapped it.
No login, no two-step code, just:
Good evening, Chloe.
“Hello?” I said, wondering if the app could hear me. The soundproofing made it feel safe to talk out loud.
The logo spun and the app loaded the home screen - black background, white type, expensive spacing.
Profile. Spaces. Comfort. Products. Creator.
The last one was glowing, marked with (1). It wasn’t there earlier. I tapped it.
Haptic pulse. Confidence.
Telos Creator lets you monetise interactions with your environment. To unlock advanced features and receive payments… you have to agree to a lot of technical stuff about listening and personalisation that I didn’t bother to read. I tapped OK. Accept All. OK. I could always opt out later.
I scrolled through the list of rooms. No bedrooms were listed at least. Each public space was marked into sections and each section had my name in brackets next to it and a grey switch marked:
Passive Capture – Off.
Active Capture - Off.
I switched the kitchen areas On. They could listen to my late-night yoghurt slurping, if they wanted to pay for it. All the other public spaces - On. Toilets - Off. Nobody wants to hear that.
A new pop-up: Add Creator Wallet?
The Skip For Now button looked poor, so I hit Yes and linked my Monzo.
Again, no approval screen. Just linked.
I scrolled deeper.
Scenes. Cuts. Effects.
This section looked more like a production suite than a home app. Canva meets Insta. Under Moments there was already a video: Chloe’s First Night. The thumbnail was my face - lying here, this exact moment, captured by my phone. Except I hadn’t tapped to record anything. I opened it, half weirded out. The image flickered and resolved into a template photo: my phone’s live feed providing the content.
The lighting looked more inviting than it was in the room. My face looked prettier, smoother. My eyes were a brighter blue. The filters were the kind I actually used when I still posted. There was a caption already sitting there, waiting for me to edit:
First night vibes #TelosHouse #SmartLife.
So predictable. Underneath, a button:
Click to Post.
I tapped More Info and these extra categories popped up beneath the text:
Platform Distribution: Partner networks (regional)
Estimated Reach: 18,400
Primary Audience: East Asia / Pacific Tier 1
Creator Remittance (Pending): £0.67 GBP
I frowned and the reach and remittance figures went down. They were live numbers, algorithmic estimations. I lifted the phone higher and smiled. The numbers shot up. I pouted, they went down; tried a sillier, more ironic pout, then up; shifted the angle, up again. I opened my mouth and raised my eyebrows, up again. The app pulsed a tiny confirmation dot, like it was agreeing we’d made top tier content. I tapped to capture.
Estimated Reach: 42,600
Creator Remittance (Pending): £1.43 GBP
There were options to edit the image. A sliding scale that ran from soft to sharp, dragging a light haze across my skin. I brightened it, then dimmed it again, testing what the algorithm liked. The shadows in the corner of the frame folded outwards until my room looked larger, smoother, less like where I was. Each change brought a flicker at the bottom of the screen - a green pulse on the reach number, and the remittance nudging up.
A skin filter warmed everything by half a degree. The hair that fell across my shoulder softened, then shimmered. I edited out my phone charger’s wire - green pulse; made my pillow pink instead of white - green pulse; tilted the contrast until I hit the green pulse again. I added background blur, nudged me more into the centre. Another pulse.
Estimated Reach 82,600.
Creator Remittance (Pending): £2.81.
I tapped the colour balance, watching the image shift towards that quiet gold you only ever see in adverts. The sort of light that says everything is fine. The numbers moved again: 85,200. £2.94.
Next was Shaper. I pulled the phone close to use the tools, fixing the curve of my jaw, the angle of my eyes, until I was totally symmetrical. The more I edited, the more the app prompted and helped - smoothing the landing point where I paused the slider, correcting a tiny bit more. When I’d finished, the girl in the photo looked freaking hot. Barely even me. Which made the whole thing feel like it didn’t matter. The numbers at the bottom of the frame were pulsing green, as though we had hit our ceiling for this image:
Estimated Reach: 116,800.
Creator Remittance (Pending): £4.02 GBP.
I stared at it for a few seconds then clicked Post, wondering if I got my money straight away or I had to wait until after a hundred thousand creepoids had seen it.
Scanning the app settings, I found some of the deeper details and started scrolling through what must have been all the stuff I’d signed off on. There was a shopping list of sensors: Mirror bezel. Table edge. Ceiling array. Frame beam. This was just one tiny section of the dining area. I had no idea what kind of sensors they were or what they recorded.
I got a buzz from my Monzo account. When I checked, it said £3.80 added. No sender. No reference note. Did the post under-perform? How could they know already? Probably a test payment or something. Still, it was there. Free money for taking a selfie and messing about with an app a bit. Crazy. I figured I could probably smash through twenty-five selfies in ten minutes and make a hundred quid.
I went back into the Moments section to try my luck but it wasn’t that simple. There were new options, currently greyed out:
Optimising for partnership. Visibility tier upgrade pending.
A new notification slid in:
Brand Alignment Available. Promotional partnership with selected lifestyle suppliers.
Expected Reach: 216,000.
Expected Remittance: £23.82.
One selfie and suddenly I was some kind of influencer. Big in Japan or whatever. I hit Accept.
The app said:
Congratulations. Creator account activated.
It was actually fun, how quick it all progressed. I’d just been doomscrolling and now I suddenly felt like someone with something to do. I knew that was the whole point, they were appealing to my vanity, but who was it hurting? I wondered if mum still checked my Monzo.
Another notification, smaller text in pale grey:
Earn more by allowing emotional state estimation?
I hovered, then toggled it On. I went back to the Creator menu and looked at the brand alignment thing. It was for the new earbuds they had left by the laptop on my desk. I hadn’t set them up yet so I collapsed the app. It was too late to stage a whole thing. I turned my phone face-down, purposefully, like I didn’t want it looking at me anymore. I lay back. Maybe I could make this place work.
The house hummed, like it thought so too.
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