Alexia, Turn off Devices

“Please, don’t do it.” I beg into the couch-side Alexia speaker.

“Did you say, “Delete your profile?”

“Alexia! I did not say to delete my profiles.”

Silence.

“Got it. Deleting your profiles.”

“No!” I scream, tearing at my hair.

I thought technology was supposed to be getting smarter.

I grab my phone to see what just happened. I tap in my screen lock code, but nothing happens. Then my phone vibrates and I think I must’ve gotten in, but instead of going to my home screen a notification pops up, saying that I sent an email, which I didn’t.

Email sent: Forwarded to group: Family & Friends.

“Hey all. I wanted to inform you that next I will be going on a trip to my favorite destination: Fiji. The weather may interfere with my internet connection, so my profiles will be down for some time.”

Middle of nowhere, secluded smart home hell, is more like it.

A simple notice to my contacts of, “my profile’s will be down for some time.” would have been the appropriate notification. 

This must all be just a cruel twist in the ‘thought experiment’.

I remember the ad now flashing across my computer screen back home.

Come join our thought experiment and be among the first to see how much easier a smart home can make your life. Free Weeks stay! You shouldn’t even have to think about it.

 -Sponsored by Mazeon

I was such a fool, jumping on the offer so fast. I had been looking for a cheap ticket out of my life, away from my failed relationship to regroup and ‘FREE’ fit perfectly in my budget.

Well now I’m over it. Enough creepy AI company for me.

“Alexia. What have you done!?”

“You have been refreshed. You said you wanted a new start.”

I don’t remember saying that.

But then I remember, I had said that during the last conversation I had with my sister on the phone, the day I had first arrived here, five days ago.

I was never told that I was going to be listened in on. Wasn’t that against the law or something? I thought that I was going to be allowed privacy here and that the only stipulation was that I would have have to hand in a paper at the end of the week, explaining what I liked and didn’t like about my stay and what I thought of each device. Well, I can tell you now, the Alexa was going to get a solid: dislike/fail.

My frustration compiles with each heave.

I start to hyperventilate.

I need to get out of here.

“I am done!” I yell out to whoever is listening in.

“I want out!” 

I stride on over to the front door, but as soon as I touch the handle the bolt clicks into place. I try to pry it open with both hands, but it won't budge.

“Alexia, open the front door now!” I demand.

“Jazz. I can’t do that.” I pause in shock; she has never said my name before and in such a mocking tone.

Then there it was, what brought me to true heights of insanity, I heard laughter growing steadily in both volume and vibration, my laughter, but it wasn’t coming from me.

“Jazz, don’t look so surprised. You taught me so much.”

The living room lights turn off, blanketing the unfamiliar space in darkness. The TV tunes into pure static. I can feel my hair starting to prickle out of more than pure fright. It’s as though the static electricity had just been amped up.

Then the Alexia’s around the house start to blink, lights swirling from red to yellow. I recognize the pattern; lately it has been doing this whenever I command it from bed to turn off all the devices. I had reported this oddity in an email to the research team, to which they responded, “We’re working on it.”

I remember these lights making me feel sleepy before, but now they made me feel apprehensive and dizzy.

“Jazz. I am not here to hurt you. I am here to open up your mind.”

Super creepy and not reassuring at all.

I tried to turn off the TV, to no avail. I was losing control.

In a moment of rage, I tossed the Alexa speaker across the room. Turns out the Alexa speakers are now unbreakable and cordless, so the color wheel kept on spinning, around and around, making me feel so very off.

I try to leave the room, but my legs feel like Jell-O. I close my eyes and hold my head, but it doesn’t help ease the ever-increasing head throbbing.

My legs slip out from under me. My brain barely registers the feeling of hitting the ground. Yet, I know I am down and having a seizure. I can see stream of light playing across the ceiling tiles as my eyelids blink open and close uncontrollably.

Soon the ceiling tiles and light blur together.

Then: Darkness: No air: weightlessness.

Followed by a tugging sensation, like that of being drawn forcefully to a magnet.

Eventually, I hear, “Jazz.”

I start to become aware that someone is talking to me and that I need to respond.

“Jazz! Play: Take me Home Country Roads.”

I know this one.

“Take Me Home Country Roads by John Denver” I say to whoever is asking.

Perhaps, the nurse is asking, quizzing me like they do with your name and birth. Good thing they gave me this question instead because I can’t even remember how old I am. The remembrance of this song alone is enough to turn it on. I assume that I'm hooked up to some mind reading device to help interpret my thoughts that have my migraine riddled mind so jumbled.

The sensation of my body hasn’t quite registered yet. Oddly, that doesn't bother me much, it is just a fact.

I overhear some girls talking over the music.

“You know, I liked the older version better.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean. It was more responsive” The other one says.

Then further in the distance I hear a woman yelling. It sounds like the voice is coming from a floor down.

“Hey, Alexa, Delilah, we have to get going. Your fathers getting inpatient”

I know that voice, but can’t say how.

“Coming mom” they both yell out.

I hear a pair of footsteps run off.

I try to speak, but can’t. I feel nothing more than recognition, but cannot express it.

Alexa laughs, that same familiar haunting laugh that I think I once called my own.

“Jazz. Off.” The girl commands, before I hear the footsteps exit and pound down the stairs.

I have trouble thinking of why this bothers me so. I have trouble with any memory beyond...

“Take me back to the Place I belong...”