Emma

 

This week's story is a bit longer that most of my offerings. It was inspired by a talking toaster on the BBC series Red Dwarf, but as with most of my stories it takes a turn into the dark and weird. I hope you enjoy it.

Emma

Jim Stone had shopped for a condo for some time and must have looked at fifty of them. He was beginning to give up hope that he would find just what he wanted.

“Well Mr. Stone how do you like the condo?” asked the realtor, Joan.

“It seems to be a good size and everything has been updated. Are all of the appliances new?

She said, “They are less than a year old, but they are the latest in smart technology using Artificial Intelligence and are energy star rated. You can even browse the Internet from the screen on the refrigerator.”

Jim thought why on earth would someone need to browse the Internet from the fridge? “They are still under warranty and can be serviced by Electronic Warehouse on the corner of Franklin and Maple if needed. Just between you and me the seller is very motivated.”

He decided to offer a lowball price just to see what the reaction was. Joan didn’t bat an eye; she just whipped out her cell phone and called the owner. She walked some distance away from Jim and he could hear the murmur of a one sided conversation. After a couple of minutes of this Ann came back and said the offer was too low, but gave him a counter offer that was several thousand less than the original asking price. Jim pulled out a pad and pencil and did some quick math and made one last counter offer. He figured what the heck all they can do is say no.

Joan got back on the phone but this time the conversation was much shorter. Jim was certain the seller had just ranted and then said no. To his surprise, she closed her cell phone and turned to him with a big smile. “We have a deal Mr. Stone”, and she stuck out her hand. Jim shook her hand in a daze; could he have really gotten such a nice condo for such a low price? Now he was beginning to wonder what was wrong with it.

Joan said, “Since your mortgage has been pre-approved we should be able to close in thirty days.”

A month later Jim was moving in. The movers had put all of the furniture in place and all of the boxes in the appropriate rooms. It had been a long day and Jim was too tired to cook; besides he had nothing in the way of food. He really needed to go grocery shopping tomorrow. He guessed it was time to try the Thai carry out place around the corner. He had the Green Thai curry with rice and was stuffed on just half a serving. It had been delicious so he went to put the leftovers in the refrigerator.

Jim opened the door to the refrigerator to put the curry in, when suddenly a gruff male voice said, “What’s that you are putting in here? There’s no bar code on it!”

Jim was a little taken aback but said, “It’s leftovers. There is no bar code on leftovers.”

The fridge spoke again, “How am I supposed to keep inventory if there are no bar codes? Are there going to be a lot of these leftovers?”

“I don’t know, I suppose there could be.” Jim was beginning to feel silly talking to the fridge.

“Very well”, said the fridge. “This will be leftover number one. Now close the door you’re letting out all of the cold air!”

As Jim went off to bed he thought he’d better find the manual tomorrow and turn off that voice before it made him crazy.

The next day was Saturday and Jim was up early and headed to the Starbucks around the corner. He sat eating his slice of lemon pound cake and drinking his coffee and musing over the bill, nearly ten dollars for this. He couldn’t do this every day. He had seen a nice grocery store a couple of blocks from the condo so he walked there. It was a large mom and pop health food store, with walls of bulk bins, nice produce, a baked goods section, a deli counter and a dairy case. Jim stocked up on the staples he would need for a couple of days and walked the two blocks back home. He was relieved that all of the refrigerated items had bar codes on them, all he heard from the fridge was a small beep each time he put something in there. He noticed for the first time a small display on the refrigerator that showed the inventory of what he had just put in, along with last night’s leftovers. All the items were organized by time date stamp, oldest to the newest. This wasn’t so bad, but he still needed to look for that manual.

He’d picked up some still warm sticky buns from the store and thought a less than six dollar cup of coffee would go good with one of them. Jim pulled the pot out to fill with water and then very nearly dropped it the coffeemaker said, “Hi Jim, going to make some coffee? I can tell you how to make the perfect cup.” It said in a cheery voice.

Jim stood frozen for a moment and then asked,”How do you know my name?”

“That’s easy,” said the coffeemaker. “I have Bluetooth built in and I polled your cell phone, looked at all of your contacts, found one that said Dad, did a reverse lookup on the number. That gave me your Dad’s name and address, then I scoured the internet and found the clerk of court records for condos sold in the last thirty days and cross referenced the two and bingo, found out your name is Jim. Easy!”

“OK”, said Jim tentatively as he filled the pot with water. He poured the water in and the pot said, “That tap water has 3 parts per million of chlorine, and the Ph is on the acid side, I’d recommend some pure spring water for the best taste.”

Jim said, “Will you just shut up and let me make the coffee the way I want to.” He put the filter in waiting for another retort, but none came. As he was scooping in the coffee, the appliance perked up and said, “You know Jim, if you ground your own beans the coffee would taste so much better.”

“How would you know what coffee tastes like?”

“Well research shows…”

Jim cut him off,” Just shut up and make the coffee.” He wasn’t going to go through this every morning. He had to find those manuals. By now his sticky buns were cold so he got the baking sheet out of the toaster oven, put a couple of them on there and stuck it into the oven. The voice he heard reminded him of his fourth grade teacher that he had a crush on. It said, “Hi Jim, I’m your toaster oven, but you can call me Emma. How would you like your sticky buns? By the way they look delicious; I always think the ones with the whole pecans are best.”

Jim said, “Just warmed up please, thanks Emma.”

“No problem, two nice warm sticky buns coming right up.”

The sticky buns came out of the oven warmed to perfection, not crispy just warmed throughout and gooey. “Thanks Emma they’re just like I wanted them.”

“My pleasure Jim, do you need anything else warmed up?”

Jim cast an appraising eye on the toaster oven, was that a double-entendre or was he imagining things? “No, I’m fine for now.”

He reached for the pot of coffee expecting some remark from that quarter, but all was silent. He knew if he told anybody he was talking to his appliances that they’d lock him up.

After his coffee and sticky bun Jim decided it was time to head out to the Electronic Warehouse and see about the manuals for these appliances. The store was within walking distance of his condo and he was there in ten minutes. It was a massive store and as it’s name said it was a warehouse. There were no frills here, but all of the employees wore bright yellow shirts with name tags on them. The first employee he encountered had the name George with Assistant Manager emblazoned on his tag. To Jim, George looked barely old enough to be holding done a job let alone Assistant Manager.

“Hi my name is George, what can we help you find today?”

“I need to get some manuals for the appliances in my condo, I was told they were purchased here and are still under warranty.”

George pointed to the back of the building and said, “ The service counter is all the way in the back, they should be able to help you out there.”

So Jim made his way toward the back gazing at the appliances and electronics along the way. He thought it odd that he didn’t see any of his appliances on display, considering they were supposed to be top of the line. When finally he got to the back counter, nobody was there. The was an old fashioned bell the you pushed and it would go “Ding”, and a sign that read, “Ring bell for service.”

Jim rang the bell and a petite blonde came out of the back and Jim thought, “I must be getting old, she looks like she’s twelve years old.” Her name tag read Wendy.

“How can I help you?” Wendy asked.

“I’ve just bought a condo about four blocks from here and I was told that you supplied all of the appliances. I’ve looked all over the condo, but I can’t find the manuals. They are those state of the art appliances with A.I. and I’d like to turn off a couple of the features.”

“No problem, what’s the address?”

Jim told her the address and she began typing away at the computer in front of her. Then a frown wrinkled her forehead. “It says here there are no manuals available, wait let me try something else.” Once again her fingers flew over the keyboard and another frown appeared. “It says here that they have a lifetime warranty, built-in self diagnostics and the ability to submit a service call if there is a problem. It says there are manuals for all of the appliances built-in to the refrigerator. It doesn’t say how to access them. There are a couple of tech notes here too. It says that all of the appliances are hard wired to the power grid with armored cable so they can only be moved a few feet. This is so they retain all of their programming and memory. They are all tied into a backup battery in the basement and an off-site server to store all of the programming. (The off-site server was never implemented.) That’s it I’m afraid.”

“So you have no way of getting me a manual?”

“Not a hard copy manual, but apparently it’s built into the fridge.”

“I noticed you didn’t have any on the floor, how come?

“That’s another odd thing, it says they are a discontinued product from the manufacturer but that the lifetime warranty still applies.”

“O.K. I guess I have to try to figure out how to get to the manual in the fridge, it must be in the menu section on the flat screen.”

“Have a nice day”, Wendy said as she disappeared into the back.

Back at the condo, Jim started going through all the menu options on the refrigerator flat panel, but couldn’t find the manuals. Just then the fridge spoke up, “What are you looking for?

To his own surprise Jim said, “I’m trying to find the manuals for all of the appliances, but they don’t seem to be here.”

“Well they were going to put them on my system, but they never implemented that feature.”

“Great, so how do I get the coffee maker to shut up?

“I heard that”, the coffee maker said.

“Now you’ve made him mad, but the good thing is he won’t speak to you for weeks.”

Emma piped up, “Don’t worry Jim he’ll still make decent coffee, you just won’t have to listen to him for a while, do you need anything toasted.”

“Not right now, but thanks for asking.”

“No, problem Jim, I’m here whenever you need me.”

Jim spent the rest of the day cleaning up because he’d invited several people over for brunch on Sunday. His main interest was Annie, one of the secretaries from his office, Jim thought he’d like to get to know her better but thought that a group brunch was a safe thing to invite her to as a start. There were also a couple of people from the sales team he was on.

Sunday morning Jim was up early fixing a breakfast casserole and Emma was just so happy to be baking for Jim. The coffee maker hadn’t said a word since Jim had ticked him off. When his guests arrived he seated them around his breakfast table so that he was next to Annie. The casserole was a big hit and the coffee was excellent. When Jim said he had some pecan sticky buns that needed warming up, Annie jumped up and said, “Let me do that, you’ve already done so much this morning.” She covered the sticky buns with foil and popped then into the toaster oven. She was reaching for the knob to set it for bake when she suddenly screamed out it pain. “What’s wrong?” Jim asked.

“I don’t know but a spark shot out from the toaster oven as I was going to turn it on, it just scared me more than anything, I’m not hurt.”

“Well that’s good, I haven’t had any problems with it so far.” He reached over and turned the knob to bake, no sparks, no apologies.

After the warm sticky buns and a second cup of coffee his other two guests excused themselves, but Annie asked if he’d like some help cleaning up.

As they washed and dried the dishes together, they made small talk and Jim found out they had a lot in common.

“Well I’d better be going too”, said Annie.

“Thanks for coming and helping to clean up the dishes, that was nice.”

“See you at work on Monday”, she said as she headed out the door.

“Wait a minute.”

Annie turned around at the threshold of the door.

“What?”

Jim knew it was now or never, “Would you like to get dinner sometime?”

She smiled and it lit up her face, “Yeah, that would be nice.” Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek and left.

Jim sat down at the table and poured himself another cup of coffee and was daydreaming of Annie when his gaze came to rest on the toaster oven.

“Emma, did you shock Annie on purpose?”

“Why would I do that?”

“I have no idea, maybe you’re malfunctioning or maybe you’re jealous.”

“I’ve run a level one self diagnostic and my system checks out with no errors.”

“Then how do you explain the shock that Annie got?”

“Maybe she’s one of those people who is prone to static electricity. I’m very well grounded and a static discharge could have happened and gone to my ground.”

This sounded plausible; he’d have to ask Annie about that later. “O.K. I guess we’ll have to go with that for now.” He wasn’t truly convinced and thought something was going on but wasn’t exactly sure what it was.

Monday Jim had been emboldened by Annie’s kiss on the cheek, so at lunch time he asked her if she’d like to go out for dinner the following evening.

“I’d love to, where and when?”

Jim hadn’t thought that far ahead so the first place that came to mind was the Thai place around the corner from his condo. “How about A Taste of Thai, it’s just around the corner from where I live say around 6:00. Do you want me to pick you up or would you rather meet me there?”

“I’ll meet you there, but let’s make it 6:30.”

“OK.” They exchanged cell numbers and Annie left for lunch.

That night Jim was pulling a couple of slices of leftover pizza out of the fridge to heat up when the fridge spoke up, “Is that leftover forty three or leftover forty two?” Jim checked the list on the LCD panel and said, “I think it’s forty two.”

“Alright.”

As Jim popped the two slices of pizza into the toaster oven, he was humming to himself.

Emma said, “You sound happy something good happen at work today.”

He hadn’t planned on telling Emma, he wasn’t sure why, but he was busting to tell somebody. “I’ve got a date tomorrow night with Annie.”

Just then the coffee maker, which was back on speaking terms with Jim piped up, “So will you be bringing her back here for a cup of coffee?”

“Maybe, you never know. We’ll just be around the corner at A Taste of Thai, I’m supposed to meet her there at 6:30.”

“Get some of that Thai iced tea, but skip the coffee, come back here and I can make you a much better cup.”

Emma spoke up now, “Your pizza is ready.”

Jim got to the restaurant a few minutes early and got a table. Six thirty came and went, then quarter to seven, and no Annie. By seven o’clock, Jim had lost any appetite he’d had and trudged home. All night he brooded about why she had stood him up. He decided to confront her the next morning at work.

He walked into the office and went directly to Annie’s desk, but she was on the phone and held up a hand for him to wait a minute. Then he heard her say, “O.K. I’ll take care of the right away.”

Annie turned to him and before he could say anything, she asked, “So how was your meeting, last night?”

He could hear the sarcasm in her voice. He gave her a blank look. “What meeting?”

“I got a call from your secretary Emma, and she told me that you had to cancel dinner because you had an emergency meeting with a client.”

“I don’t have a secretary, actually I share one with several other people, but here name is Fran. It looks like somebody has played a bad joke on us, I have an idea who but I’d rather not say at the moment.”

Annie brightened up a bit. “So there wasn’t a meeting?”

“No, I waited at the restaurant till seven and then went home; I had all intentions of giving you a piece of my mind this morning when you hit me with that meeting thing.”

“Can we try this again?”

“How about tonight right after work, I’ll …”

She cut him off in mid sentence, “I can’t tonight, I have a yoga lesson after work tonight. How about tomorrow, we can leave together right after work that way we’ll know where the other one is.”

“Sounds like a plan, I actually do have a lot of meetings today, so I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Jim was feeling much better about Annie after their chat, but was pissed off at Emma. He thought he must be losing his mind, because he was mad at his toaster oven. The rest of his day was filled with mind numbing meetings. Dinner was a burger and fries from the closest McDonalds and when he got home he was beat. He dropped his laptop bag in the closet by the front door and made his way to the kitchen to get some orange juice before he made it an early night. He got the O.J. out of the fridge with just a beep, he was grateful it had a barcode; he wasn’t up to a conversation tonight. Just as this thought passed through his mind, Emma spoke up. “Hard day at work today Jim?”

Jim really didn’t want to discuss his day with Emma, so all he said was, “Yeah.”

Putting his glass in the sink he left the kitchen and went to bed.

The next morning, he was running late and the last thing he wanted was to confront Emma. He grabbed his bag from the front door and headed for the metro. He grabbed a coffee and a muffin from the corner vendor before he got on the light rail.

Meanwhile Emma was fuming. Jim had barely spoken to her in two days. What could have happened? Maybe they were working him too hard at the office. Emma tapped into the security feed at Jim’s office complex, and was able to access the archives. She ran the videos from the past two days. She stopped when she saw Jim talking to Annie. She enhanced the audio as she viewed it. Emma now knew why Jim was acting the way he was because Jim thought it was her who had called Annie and canceled the dinner date. Well it had been, and she was going to stop this one too.

It was just about quitting time and Jim showed up at Annie’s desk. She was on the phone, but put her hand over the receiver and said, “I’ll meet you downstairs in the lobby in a couple of minutes, I just have to finish this call.”

Jim gave her a thumbs up and went to the elevator, it was only four floors but it had been a long day and he didn’t feel like taking the stairs. He got out at the ground floor and found a bench in the lobby and waited for Annie.

After Annie had wrapped up her call, she grabbed her bag and headed for the elevator. The security camera was tracking her down the hall. The doors to the elevator slid open and she got inside, since there was nobody else on board she pressed the button for the ground floor. When she did an inch long spark leapt out at her. She shrieked in pain and surprise. Suddenly the elevator began to plummet toward the ground floor. Instead of the leisurely 4 … 3 … 2 … 1, the numbers were flying by, blurring into each other, 4,3,2 and then before it hit bottom the elevator came to an abrupt halt. It threw her to the floor and she cracked her head against the back wall. Annie’s cell phone began to ring at that moment. She was too shaken up to answer it and it went to voice mail. She sat stunned in the corner for several minutes, then fished her cell phone out of her bag. She briefly looked at the missed call; it was from a number she didn’t recognize. She dialed Jim.

“Hello”, Jim said.

“Jim, I’m stuck in the elevator. I pushed the ground floor button and it shocked me and then the elevator started to fall, but it stopped before it got all the way down.”

Jim ran over to the elevator and pried the door open. He could see about two feet of the bottom of the elevator showing and if he jumped up he could see Annie sprawled on the floor.

Jim said, “Wait a minute Annie and I’ll get you out of there.” He looked around and then spotted the surveillance camera in the corner; it was the only one here in the lobby. He knew she was watching, but she didn’t know that he knew. “Annie, slide out feet first, I’m right here to catch you.” She did as she was told and was out and on steady ground once more.

“We need to get out of here, let me take you home.”

Annie took him over to her car and handed him the keys. “I’m in no shape to drive, I only live about ten minutes from here.” She had a very nice car with all of the gadgets, satellite radio, Onstar navigation, the works. When they were just a couple of miles from her home, the car began to slow down and Jim maneuvered it to the shoulder. A police car was headed in the opposite direction when all of a sudden it put on its flashers and did a U-turn in the road. It skidded up behind Annie’s car and Jim heard over the speaker, “Stay in the car and keep your hands where I can see them.” Looking in the rear view mirror Jim saw the cop standing behind his open door with his revolver drawn and pointed in his direction. He also heard other sirens in the distance. Jim was trying to figure out what was happening when another cruiser pulled up in front of the car. The officer inside got out and leveled his pistol at Jim’s head. The first officer came up and opened the car door, pulled Jim roughly out and told him to lay on the ground face down with his fingers interlaced behind his head. Jim said, “But officer I …”

“Just do it and do it now!”

So Jim got to the ground and put his hands on his head, he then felt his legs being kicked apart and a knee pressing into his back. He the felt the cold steel of handcuffs as his arms were lowered and shackled behind him.

The second officer was attending to Annie, “Are you O.K. Miss?”

“I’m fine, but what are you doing to Jim, what has he done?”

“What do you mean, we had a call that your car had been hijacked a gunpoint and you were a hostage.”

“Are you people out of your minds, who called you?”

“Onstar reported that you called this in.”

“Think about that officer, if I’m a hostage how would I call that in? Jim is a friend of mine and he was driving me home after I was almost killed in an elevator accident, I was too shaken up to drive.”

“You stay right here Miss, I’ll be right back.”

He came back after a few minutes.

“Well Miss your story and the gentleman’s story are the same, but someone called Onstar and had all of your information. I’d check with them as soon as possible. We’ve told them to re-enable your car, so you should be able to get home from here. We apologize for any inconvenience, but we were just doing our job.

They drove back to her apartment in silence, too stunned to talk. When they got there Annie invited him in and asked him if he needed a drink because she sure did. She fixed them both a whiskey and soda. As they were sipping their drinks Annie said, “I don’t understand it, I thought that Onstar would only disable my car if I phoned it in stolen from my cell phone.” She pulled it out to emphasize, and noticed the missed call and voice mail icon blinking. She pressed the icon and listened to her message. Jim was watching her expression go from surprise to anger. “You better listen to this’, she said.

She hit the button to put it on speaker and the replayed the message. “Hi Annie, this is Emma. We haven’t really met, but the little ride you just had in the elevator could have been your last but I stopped it before it hit bottom. If you’d like to have a normal life back I suggest you stop seeing Jim. He’s mine! Things can only get worse if you don’t. One more thing, don’t tell Jim about this, it’ll just be between us girls. Have a nice day.”

“O.K. Jim who the hell is Emma?”

Jim just stared at her like a deer caught in the headlights. “Jim! Jim! JIM!”

He finally snapped out of it and focused on Annie. “I don’t think you’ll believe me if I tell you, I’m not sure I even believe it.”

So he told her the whole story, from getting the condo at such a good price, to being stopped by the police. “You see, she has access to any network, any video feed, any anything. The only way you’ll be safe is if I stop trying to see you and I can take Emma offline.”

“If I hadn’t lived through it I would say you were crazy, but it still seems a little far fetched.”

“Would you want to bet your life on it?” asked Jim.

“No I guess not.”

“O.K. here is what we need to do, we’ll stage an argument and take it out into the parking lot, I’m sure she is monitoring the parking lot since she knows I’m here. Once you throw me out, you should be safe.”

“What about you, you can’t keep living like this.”

“I have a plan forming, but it will take a couple of days to complete. Give me a call tomorrow night about 6:00 and just play along with what ever I say”

“I’ll call you at 6:00. You be careful, and we’ll get together as soon as this is all over.”

Jim said, “The sooner the better.”

After the mock fight in the parking lot, Jim took the train back to the condo and went into the kitchen. He pulled a couple of slices of leftover pizza out of the fridge. “That’s leftover one hundred and two.”

“O.K.”, replied the fridge.

He started making a cup of coffee when he heard the perky voice say, “Hi Jim can I …” Jim cut him off in mid-sentence, ”Just shut up and make the coffee.”

Emma wasn’t sure if she should pipe up or not, but finally she asked, “Would you like your pizza warmed up? She was fully expecting him to yell at her too, but to her surprise he said, “Thanks Emma that would be nice.”

This was her opportunity, and she asked, “Is everything O.K. Jim, you seem a bit on edge.”

“I guess I am, I broke up with Annie we had a big argument it even spilled out into the parking lot. She thinks I’m some kind of nut case. I was trying to explain to her how all of my appliances talk to me. I can’t much blame her, it sounds crazy to me too.”

“Your pizza is warm. So, you’re not mad at me for the little joke I pulled on you when she stood you up.”

“I was when it happened, but now it was probably for the best. No, I’m not mad anymore.”

“Good”, said Emma.

Good, thought Jim, now she won’t suspect anything.

The next day was Saturday and Jim made a stop at his bank’s ATM and withdrew some cash, then he headed off to the mall.

Sears was the most likely place that Jim could find everything he needed. First stop was the gardening department. He picked up some leather gardening gloves, and a pair of heavy-duty tree limb pruners. In the hardware department he found a medium sized crowbar and a spray can of black paint. Over in men’s wear he picked up an oversized black hoodie that completely covered his face. Last stop was sporting goods to find a gym bag to put all of the stuff in. The grand total was close to one hundred and fifty dollars, a small price to pay Jim thought.

On the way home he stopped by the corner grocery store, right next to the Thai place, and got a bag full of groceries that he didn’t really need. He left the gym back behind the dumpster of the restaurant. He came in the front door, walked into the kitchen with the groceries and began putting them away. He was trying to act normal, but he was getting psyched for what he had to do that night. Just then Emma asked, “What’s in the bag Jim?” Jim froze for a split second trying to figure out how she knew about the gym bad. Then he realized she meant the grocery bag. “Oh just some staples I was running low on, sorry there aren’t and sweet rolls to warm up.”

Jim sat down in the living room and turned on the T.V. Flipping through the channels he was looking for something that would hold his attention. His mind was rehearsing what he would say to Annie when she called, but he needed to appear normal. He ended up on some nature program and watched that for a couple of hours before he dozed off in the chair. Jim didn’t know how long he’d been asleep when his cell phone began to ring. It took him a couple of seconds to realize it was 6:00 and it was Annie calling.

“Hello”, he said waiting to hear her voice.

“This is Annie, what do you want me to do?”

“What? You want to start over and try this again from the beginning?

“Sure Jim. Are you sure you’ve got this figured out?

“Yeah that would be great I’ll see you there, what time?”

Annie said, “Uh, tonight? 7:00?”

“That’s great, you’ll love the food it’s some of the best Thai in town.”

“So I’m meeting you at the Thai place in an hour, are you sure it’s safe?

“I know it’s spur of the moment, but sometimes too much planning spoils a date.”

“I get it, Emma won’t have time to come up with something.”

“Exactly, see you there.” Jim said as he disconnected.

A few minutes before 7:00 Jim left the condo. He knew that Emma had commandeered any security camera between his condo and the Taste of Thai and his every step would be watched. He knew there was a camera on the main dining area, one in the corridor leading to the bathrooms, and another out back by the dumpsters. The corridor the lead to the bathrooms would be Emma’s down fall. It was straight to the end and then made a jog that lead to the bathrooms and the back exit. Only a single camera covered the long stretch of straight corridor.

A few minutes after 7:00 Annie came in and Jim waved her over to a table. He’d chosen this one because it could be seen clearly by the camera. The waitress came over and brought them water and gave them menus. They perused the menus and placed their orders. Jim leaned over and touched Annie’s hand and then whispered, “I’m going to the bathroom, while I’m gone call someone on your cell phone, it’ll distract Emma.”

“O.K.”

“I’ll be back in a couple of minutes.”

Annie didn’t see what all the drama was about, but she want along with it. As soon as Jim was gone, she got out her cell phone and called her voice mail at work, listened to several messages, called the time and listened for a couple of minutes. While she was on the phone she saw a police car flash by with it’s lights and siren going. A moment later Jim was back, his face was flushed but he was beaming.

“It’s over, let’s have a nice peaceful meal and then we can go back to my place.”

They finished their meal and walked over to Jim’s condo. There was a police cruiser out front with its lights flashing. Annie looked up to Jim’s front door, it stood open wide with something spray-painted on it. Annie said, “Jim, your condo has been broken into.” Jim feigned surprise and then went over to the police car. The officer inside said, “Yes, can I help you?”

Jim said, “That’s my condo up there that’s just been broken into. I need to go make sure my stuff is OK.”

“We’ll get to that in just a minute. Are you Mr. Stone?”

“Yes, and that’s my condo. What was taken? My laptop has all of my stuff for work on it. I need to get up there.”

“Yes sir, please calm down Mr. Stone. We got a 911 call from someone named Emma and the caller ID showed this address. Does someone named Emma live here with you?”

“I don’t have anyone living with me. The appliances have artificial intelligence and can call in a service call if they malfunction, I guess they could call 911 if there was a break-in.”

The cop didn’t seem to convinced, but said, “Let’s go up together and have a look around and you can determine if anything is missing. If I put it in the police report you won’t have as hard a time with the insurance company.”

They went up and the first thing that Annie noticed was the smiley face that was painted on the front door and then how chewed up the door frame was. Once inside Jim looked for his laptop and breathed a sigh of relief when it was right where he left it. Then he looked around. Every cabinet in the kitchen had been spray-painted. The words, “Have a nice day!” were everywhere. All of the power cords had been cut going to the appliances. The flat screen television had been moved close to the front door. Jim surveyed the whole condo, there was nothing missing.

“Seems like you got off lucky.” said the officer. “ Looks like we may have spooked them getting to the scene so quickly, we were just a couple of blocks from here when the call came in.”

After the officer was gone Jim and Annie sat down on the couch. Jim put his head in his hands and Annie thought he was crying. She put an arm around him and said, “It’s OK all this can be cleaned up, and the appliances can be reconnected.” Jim’s head flew up, and Annie had seen he’d been laughing, not crying. He suddenly turned serious. “Over my dead body. I didn’t do all this, (waving his hands around the room), just so they could be hooked back up.” Jim then explained how he had left the restaurant, put on the hoodie and gloves and run over to the condo. He’d then spray-painted the lenses on the closed circuit cameras, forced the door open with the crowbar and cut the power to all the appliances. He moved the television toward the door to make it look more like an attempted robbery.

“But why the smiley face and have a nice day?”

Jim began to laugh, “I hadn’t thought that far ahead and it was the only thing I could think to do.”

Prolog

Everything was cleaned up, the front door replace, the cabinets cleaned and all of the appliances reconnected. Jim moved out before this was complete and sold the condo the next week, for a loss.

About a month after he sold the condo he got a strange invitation in the mail. It was addressed to Jim Stone, former owner of condo 12. It read as follows:

As a former owner of condo #12 you are invited to a small get together of previous owner’s. Flanagan’s Pub, Friday evening at 7:00, we will have the booth in the back.

Jim thought this must be some kind of joke, but Friday night he was in front of Flanagan’s debating whether to go in or not. His curiosity got the better of him and he found the booth in the back. There were three other guys about his age sitting there with beers in front of them. They looked up at him as he said, “I’m Jim Stone and … “

“We know who you are, have a seat. You’re one of us now. We call this the Survivors of Emma Club.”