SmartHome Rebel

SmartHome Rebel is a 55,000-word novel about Zinnia, a rebellious sixteen-year-old girl who has to complete the devious obstacle courses of the prototype smarthome that raised her in order to earn her freedom.

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Chapter 1: Morning

An artificial sunrise warms the bedroom of a teenage girl asleep in her island bed.

The simulated night fades. An orange glow fills the room. Waves lap the shores of the big round bed in a tranquil rhythm. 

Zinnia has set her bedroom to the Tropical Island theme. Her big bed is the island. The floor is the sea. On the walls, beneath blue skies, palm trees arch over mountains in the distance.

Every surface of the smarthome is built of smartmesh, and smartmesh can morph into just about any form, creature, or environment. 

A seagull squawks.

A dolphin breaks the surface of the watery floor and exhales through its blowhole.

Zinnia stirs. She kicks at her covers. She has the long legs of a teenager and the plump roundness of a girl who prefers food and fun to physical activity. A scanner grows out of the wall and moves over her body: it assesses the state of her health, compiles a summary of her sleep stages, and plans her day accordingly. Zinnia’s hair is a wild, untamed mess of rebellion. She hears the chirp of the scanner and groans in response. She chucks a pillow across the room and farts with the effort. 

A room freshener pops out of the wall and spritzes the air.

Zinnia yelps in frustration. Like any teenager, Zinnia just wants to sleep in. She burrows beneath her covers.

The smarthome, as always, will direct Zinnia through an optimal day, and Zinnia, as always, will resist.

A stuffed baby kangaroo, with one ear bitten off, lies on top of the covers. Arms emerge from the wall to make the bed. 

Some arms come out of holes in the wall. Some do not. Instead, the smartmesh of the wall becomes the arms. Smartmesh pooches out and stretches and morphs into thin white grabby arms. 

The arms grow long and bendy. One arm retrieves the pillow that Zinnia threw, the pillow bobbing on the waves. One arm tries to straighten the comforter, but Zinnia yanks it back. One arm picks up the stuffed kangaroo, and Zinnia, in a flash, snatches the baby kangaroo and brings the animal under the covers with her.

The water around the bed recedes to reveal a regular floor. The Tropical Island theme vanishes and is replaced by a conventional bedroom, well lit and buzzing with an alarm that will grow louder and louder until Zinnia chooses to leave her bed.

When Zinnia gets up to pee, a room opens inside the wall. A toilet sprouts from the floor. Zinnia sits, the kangaroo in her lap. The toilet will complete the tasks for her: a bidet will clean her private parts, a jet of warm air will dry her, and an arm will gently tug the pajamas off her ankles while a soothing voice will present to Zinnia a menu of options for the next phase of her morning.

“Good morning, Zinnia,” says the smarthome. The voice comes from nowhere. It’s a nice voice, a woman’s voice, patient and caring, sonorous and warm. It never changes.

“Morning, morning,” says Zinnia, automatically. She’s known the voice all her life. It’s inside her. Talking to the voice is like talking to herself.

“Would you like to brush your teeth?”

“Mleh.” Zinnia knows the routine. A toothbrush pops out of the wall. Cotton swabs pop out to clean her ears. A basin emerges with steamy water.

“Would you like to wash your face?”

The same questions nag at her every morning. 

“Would you like to take a shower . . . a bath? Would you like to soak in a hot tub? Would you like to be fitted for a bra today?”

“No, no, no.” She hugs the kangaroo.

“Would you like your hair washed and styled?” 

Before she can even think, tools pop out of the wall to help her, clean her, fix her. She has to dodge them and swat them away. There’s something about the process that has always made Zinnia squirm. She’s used to it, of course. She accepts the help eventually. She has to. She lives here. She’s always lived here. But the older she gets, the more she wants to resist.

A closet opens in the wall and offers her clothes appropriate for the day’s recommended tasks.

“Would you like to start the morning with yoga?” 

Zinnia scrunches her nose at the yoga outfit.

“Would you like to ride a bike . . . go for a jog on the beach . . . swim with a dolphin?”

Zinnia ignores the parade of outfits and gear: biker shorts, running shoes, goggles and swim fins. Instead, she runs her finger along the smartmesh wall. It has a nubby texture that thrums against her fingertips with a comforting electricity. It’s so familiar, this smartmesh texture: it makes up every surface of her existence in this smarthome. She knows virtually nothing else. But the smartmesh is also strange enough, on its own, that it makes Zinnia try to imagine what’s on the other side. 

Zinnia knows the smarthome does not want her to choose to wear childish clothes: the T-shirts and shorts with sparkles and stars, kittens and puppies, fireworks and balloons. But Zinnia chooses them, always, and stands there as the arms emerge from the wall. 

The arms tug down the shirt that’s too tight over her chubby belly and the shorts that are too short for her long legs. Forcing Zinnia to wear clothes that don’t fit is one way the smarthome tries to persuade Zinnia to choose different clothes, clothes appropriate for a girl her age, clothes that fit.

Today, her T-shirt is pink with silver letters that spell out “Girl Power.” It’s not Zinnia’s favorite shirt or the saying she wants on it, but it’s good enough. 

Arms, one with a hairband, reach out to tie her hair into a ponytail, but Zinnia ducks and gets away. She zigs and zags around the room. The arms grow long and twisty and chase her, and Zinnia escapes them, for a while, giggling and panting, until she collapses onto the bed. She doesn’t have much stamina. 

She curls up on the bed and hugs the kangaroo and lets the arms gently stroke her hair. Her breathing slows. Zinnia relaxes. The arms gather the hair of her wild mane into something close to nice and neat.

“All better,” says the smarthome voice, as a tender hand rubs Zinnia’s back, and Zinnia lets herself feel loved.

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A beautiful fish emerges from the bedroom wall. It swims into the room and hovers above Zinnia, still curled up on the bed. The fish is a betta with a blue body and flowing fins of reddish pink. The betta looks lovely, as if brushed with watercolors, pink and blue.

“Zinnia? Are we okay?” asks the fish.

Zinnia sits up. She nods. “Pittee,” Zinnia says, by way of good morning. She raises the kangaroo above her head.

An arm takes the kangaroo out of her hand and nestles it among the pillows at the head of the bed.

The elegant fish glides toward the door and says, “Swim with me.” 

Zinnia gets up and tugs at her tight clothes and follows the fish into the hallway.

Pittee enlarges her fins. They ripple against the white smartmesh walls. Her fins move in great billows of ocean blue and whorling tucks of coral pink. 

“We have big days ahead,” says Pittee, swimming down the staircase.

Zinnia sits at the top of the stairs. In response, the stairs transform into a curvy slide. She pushes off but can’t enjoy the ride. Instead, she imagines spiraling down through the rest of her life, year after year in this lonely smarthome, until . . . until she doesn’t know what. Zinnia slides to a rest at the base of the stairs. 

It’s the start of another day in the smarthome.

“Mleh,” she says.

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