Renovations

Bob Henderson despises the modern world.

Talking elevators. Automated cars. Smart phones that track every move, mood, and thought.

The day his office building grows security cameras in the halls, Bob realizes the modern world might despise him right back.

What happens when the network decides to search for itself?

An excerpt from Renovations:

The office now had the most modern building maintenance unit available, one of the first to combine routine maintenance and wiring with computer and phone network monitoring.

Light source defective? No problem, the building took care of it as soon as it happened. Need a room wired for an extra phone? Just have the building do it. Even better, this CBU was self-sensing for most things.

No one even had to ask.

Bob had grown up with self-reliant buildings like everyone else, but he’d never liked the idea. He imagined tiny mechanical fingers in the ceilings replacing the lights, stealthy robots doing the cleaning at night, most of the activity invisible. All of it coordinated by the central unit lurking in the subbasement.

Any technology with that much control would eventually mess something up.