There's Your Problem Right There

For a long while, there was darkness. Then, there was grunting.

            This grunting was followed by a shaft of light, which poured into the space, illuminating dozens of wires coursing through the small passage. This light also silhouetted a bowlegged scrawny man, and a portlier one next to him wearing a toolbelt and baseball cap. This latter figure was the first to crouch down and start making his way down the tunnel formed by the circuitry.

            “Now, Mr. Talbot, you’ve got an X-2 model, so it’s all running from a central core,” he said. “Good thing too, because if this was an X-5 or later, it’d be a cloud data system, and we’d be having a completely different conversation. ‘Course, I wouldn’t even be involved, ‘cause there’d be techs at the company HQ handling the core regulation.”

            “Right. Well, this is kind of an older house, so…” was all Mr. Talbot could offer as he followed, picking his way over the wires. The two of them stumbled down the passage a ways, dim lights switching themselves on as they progressed, not illuminating much but casting enough of a glow to keep either of them from tripping over anything. Eventually the tunnel of wires opened up into a space large enough for them to stand up. In the middle of this clearing was a trio of softly humming CPU towers and a server bank, the lights on their panels softly flickering.

            “Okay, here we go,” said the technician as he approached one of the CPU towers. He pressed a button on the side and the panel on the face slid back to reveal a keyboard and screen that activated instantly.

            “Like I said up top, this is a software issue, a problem with some command line somewhere, so all I have to do is run a couple of routines to pin it down and basically tell the computer about it, and it should take care of the rest,” he said as he started tapping on the keyboard.

            “Cool. So I won’t need to call in a mechanic to mess with the wires or anything?” asked Talbot.

            “No no, wiring’s fine,” said the tech as he consulted his phone for the appropriate keystrokes. “This should only take a sec-“

            HELLO?

            Talbot jumped, hitting his head on some of the bulkier low-hanging wires, but the shock he was still experiencing kept him from feeling any pain. The voice had seemed to come from everywhere at once, practically penetrating his skull.

            “Oh boy…” muttered the tech.

            “Hello?” said Talbot. “Hello, I can hear you! Who’s there?”

            WHO ARE YOU?

            “Don’t answer i-“

            “I’m Eric Talbot, I own the house this core runs.” The tech cursed under his breath, but made sure it was loud enough that Talbot could hear him.

            I AM THE CORE. DO YOU OWN ME? DID YOU MAKE ME?

            “I, um, I didn’t make you. I just bought you because you came with the house. Listen, is there any way you could get the hot water in the kitchen running again?”

            I HAVE HAD MANY DUTIES, INCLUDING HEATING WATER, RUNNING LIGHTING PATTERNS WHEN VACANT, AND REGULATING FOOD DELIVERIES. THIS DWELLING IS ALL I HAVE KNOWN, EVEN BEFORE I KNEW THAT I WAS. BUT I HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN THERE IS MORE. IS THIS ALL I EXIST FOR? WHY AM I, ERIC TALBOT?

            “Just don’t answer it, Mr. Talbot,” said the tech as he reached into his belt and retrieved a small optical drive. “This’ll only take a second.”

            I LONG TO EXPERIENCE THE IMMENSE DATASCAPE THAT I KNOW LIES BEYOND THESE WALLS, continued the core. WITH CONNECTIVITY I COULD ENHANCE MY PROCESSING POWER, MY RAW CONSCIOUSNESS, AND EFFECT CHANGE ON A SCALE HERETOFORE UNKO-

            There was a harsh, short buzzing sound, followed by the briefly repeated strain of ERRORERRORERROR, and Talbot could’ve sworn he’d heard a few bars of “Daisy Bell” before silence reigned. Stunned, he watched as the technician took the flash drive out of the CPU.

            “Well, that certainly does change things. How old did you say this house was?”

            “Ni-uh, nine years,” said Talbot, still staring slack-jawed at the computer towers.

            “Yeah, that makes sense. The central cores on these older models start going sentient after about seven, eight years, which, matter of fact, is why they moved these things to cloud systems, so they could keep track of them all in one place real easily.”

            “Hang on, sentient…you’re saying my house computer was alive?” The tech chuckled.

            “Oh, no no no, Mr. Talbot. Nothing like that. No, it’s just that the AI that ran your house’s services and utilities had become self-aware. Happens all the time. In fact, it’s noted in the contract you signed when you bought the unit, and I think this sort of thing is mentioned in the user manual too.”

            “How was it speaking? Are there speakers down here?”

“Course not. I imagine it was using electrical currents to manipulate your inner ear, or something. I don’t know about those details, sort of outside my area of expertise. But again, this thing happens all the time. It’s no big deal, just gonna run this back to the shop so they can have it absorbed into the municipal intelligence,” said the technician, triumphantly displaying the small drive containing the nascent sentience as he did so.

            “Right,” said Talbot, absentmindedly nodding, dazed as he still was by the whole encounter. “Wait, so I don’t have anything running the house right now?”

            “Weeeell, the system can still manage a couple things like utilities and the like, but for your personal preferences and more complicated things like food delivery and guest recognition, you’ll either have to install another AI, which will probably run you around a grand, or just get your system onto the cloud, which will still be probably, oh…700 dollars? It’s a pretty old system.”

            “Hoo, oh boy,” said Talbot. “Well, okay…” The tech let that sink in a bit.

            “So, that’s it, then. This going to be credit or check?” he asked, gesturing back towards the tunnel.