Episode 11: Artificial Intelligence.
725 Words
Episode 11: Artificial Intelligence.
The thing was possessed. There was no other explanation.
Kira stood on the cracked leather cushion of the antique armchair, her silk pajama pants tucked frantically into her socks to keep her ankles covered. Below her, the Vance estate’s brand, new commercial-grade robotic vacuum a heavy, metallic disc that looked less like a cleaning appliance and more like a weaponized weapon was slamming itself repeatedly into the chair leg. Whack. Back up. Whack.
"Re-dock!" Kira yelled, throwing a couch cushion at it. It absorbed the cushion, jammed it into its intake valve, and let out a high-pitched, grinding screech that sounded like a blender eating a fork. "Die!" she screamed.
The glass terrace doors slid open with a heavy click. Kaelen stepped inside, a pair of rusted pruning shears in one hand and dirt smudged across his collarbone. He froze, his eyes darting from Kira’s bird-nest hair down to the roaring, smoking machine currently trying to chew through the mahogany furniture.
He didn't just smile. He snorted. A loud, sharp sound of pure, unadulterated amusement that he didn't even try to hide.
"Don't," Kira warned, pointing a shaking finger at him. "Do not laugh at me, Cross. Drop your shears on it or something! It’s on the deep-clean cycle and it won't shut off."
"I think it’s doing a great job," Kaelen said, leaning his shoulder against the glass door and crossing his arms. He looked completely at ease, entirely ignoring the fact that he was tracking mud onto the rug. "It’s got a solid sense of judgment. Your attitude's been needing a deep scrub since Tuesday."
"Kaelen, I swear to God, if it breaks the wood"
The vacuum suddenly let out a loud beep, spat out a shredded piece of the couch cushion, and spun around. Its little red sensor light blinked twice, locking dead onto Kaelen’s mud-caked work boots.
It revved. Literally revved.
"Wait," Kaelen’s smile vanished.
The machine shot across the parquet floor like a bowling ball. Kaelen picked up his left foot, but the disc clipped his right heel, hard enough to make him stumble. "Hey! Back off!" he barked, hopping backward before throwing his weight onto the edge of the massive dining table. He hauled himself up, his boots leaving two giant, wet smears of garden soil right across the polished wood surface.
Kira let out a loud, undignified wheeze, clutching her stomach as she watched him scramble. "Oh, look at the genius! The pride of the biochemistry department, defeated by an appliance! Calculate its trajectory, Kaelen! Use your logic!"
"Shut up, Kira!" he hissed, shuffling sideways along the table as the vacuum kept ramming into the table legs, making the crystal chandelier above them rattle. "Grab something heavy!"
"Like what?"
"I don't know, anything!"
Kaelen lunged forward, grabbing the heavy silver soup tureen from the center of the table. He leaned dangerously over the edge and dropped it upside down, straight over the rogue machine.
CLANG.
The vacuum was trapped. For three seconds, the silver bowl vibrated violently against the floorboards, making a horrific scratching sound, before the motor gave a pathetic, dying whine and clicked off.
The silence that followed was heavy, broken only by Kaelen’s rough breathing. He was still in a half-crouch on the table, his hair messy and falling into his eyes. Kira was still standing on the armchair, her fingers dug into the fabric.
They stared at each other.
The sheer ridiculousness of it hit them at the same time. Kaelen looked down at the ruined, mud-stained table—worth more than his entire truck—and a breathless, low laugh escaped his throat. Kira couldn't help it either; she let out a loud, snorting giggle, burying her face in her hands.
There was no brooding. No sharp tension. Just two college students realizing they looked completely absurd.
"If you mention the table to your dad," Kaelen said, pointing a finger at her as he carefully swung his legs over the side to climb down, "I’m telling the whole campus you got held hostage by a Roomba."
Kira wiped a tear of laughter from her eye, stepping down from the chair. "Mutually assured destruction. Deal."
- Writer
