Retirement Home
A single gesture cast at the front door transmits the order and authorization to unlock and open, and a thousand thoughts recede from his mind as he crosses the threshold. The singular room, a perfect circle twelve meters in diameter, visibly expands around him as he enters, as if drawing in breath. Two low, long couches and a narrow table nestled between them move away from the door and the room's advancing resident only to fold away almost invisibly into the glossy white floor several feet from the far walls. After three steps inside the room, a short column ascends from the same seamless floor and keeps pace with the resident as he approaches the center of the room. Once at the center of the cornerless, sterile space his right hand finds the column's flat top and rests there, establishing a hard connection between his neocom and the home's processes. A thousand possibilities dance before him in holographic glamour.
A voice speaks inside the room, but its broadcast is carefully aimed and the surface material in the room's current configuration affects the acoustics such that to the resident it sounds as if the speaker is just beside him, having an intimate conversation. The voice is deep and male, but it speaks in a thickly accented Villoire Gallente with just a hint of vulnerability and submission. It is, in fact, the voice print of a former lover, created from archival data and is a fitting vox for the loyal house computer considering how indiscreet the man had been. The resident is pleased, as he always is, to hear the voice repeat its standard greeting, "Good morning, master."
The resident smiles slightly into his reply, "Configuration. Meal. Breakfast." A tiny pause separates his words as he watches the holographic menu projected in front of him change and specify with each subsequent word. "Alone," he says, and the menu shrinks to only one option.
"What would you like me to prepare, master?"
He considers the matter of breakfast for a moment and eventually orders something dripping with sweetness and a heavy, bitter coffee to tame it.
The house computer almost begs, "Is that all, master?"
In reply, the resident lifts his hand from the column, disconnecting from the program and by default executing its last complete set of instructions. The column quietly falls back and disappears into the floor. And the room metamorphosizes around him.
A high rectangular bar rises from the floor like a mountain range thrust up from molten depths. Several accent lights appear from the ceiling above it and descend to staggered heights over the bar. Each glows just slightly against the light of early morning that suddenly spills into the room from the enormous circular window that opens around its perimeter. A seamless ring of glass, the main entrance having vanished into a wall, this great window permits sweeping views of the eastern mountains and the new day dawning just beyond their snowy peaks as well as the broad valley to the west and its city lights sleepily fading with the new day. Cinnamon and fresh coffee whisper their seductions to the resident's olfactory senses whilst he blinks at the visual transformation still taking place. The glossy white surfaces of the room dull and melt into carefully fitted hard woods and brushed metals, light and pristine. Thrumming notes of an improvisational musical group quietly infiltrate the room as a single three-legged stool appears from a wall and slides into place between the resident and the bar upon which now sits a plate of sugary rolls and a large cup of steaming coffee.
"Breakfast is served."
The resident walks casually over to the stool and sits. It is perfectly placed so that no adjustment is necessary. He rests his forearms on the edge of the bar and considers which delicate pastry will be the first to go. After several bites and several minutes appreciating the chaotic yet calming air of the musical selection, he touches a corner of the bar and summons a video projection of the day's local weather programming. Mid-day rain for the valley. Who would order rain given the choice? "Leave it up to the electorate," he mutters to himself between sips of coffee.
His plate now boasting only crumbs, he switches to a news broadcast and is surprised to see his own face. Oh, of course, his speaking tour manager booked him locally for a few days during the coming week. It'll be the first time he is home for more than one consecutive night in several months. He takes one more draught of the coffee and sets his cup down on the bar top. With a moistened finger the resident jabs each crumb left on the plate and greedily finishes them off. For a second, with his lips still wrapped around the finger in his mouth, he stares at the cleaned plate. It is a pristine dish, extremely expensive and it bears a hand-etched coat of arms. Its original purpose exhausted, it's now just part of the swag. He reads the words inscribed in black along the golden ring that encircles the great eagle at the center of the coat. "President of the Federation Union" it reads across the top.
And along the bottom between the eagle's outstretched claws: "Suoro Foiritan".
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Topic: Retirement Home (Read 1107 times)