Chapter 3 – An Unexpected Visitor
Sariah and Janet arrived home somewhat later than expected. A routing drone malfunction at a major intersection had snarled traffic for a good half-hour and caused them to miss the usual twenty-nine-minute window for returning home. When they finally entered the condominium, Sariah was famished.
“Ahhh, it’s good to be home,” Sariah said as she put her purse down on the credenza in the foyer. She interlaced her fingers behind her back and extended her arms to stretch.
“Shall I make you something for dinner?” Janet queried.
“Yes, that would be great. How about some General Tso chicken?”
A look of disappointment crossed Janet’s face as she replied, “I’m sorry, that recipe isn’t in my system.”
“You’re kidding me? I specifically included that recipe on the last update,” Sariah said.
“I’ll download a recipe for General Tso chicken from the internet if you like,” Janet continued.
“No, don’t bother. How about Mexican? A chicken quesadilla sounds good, too.”
“Yes, I have that recipe on file,” Janet replied, smiling slightly. “I’ll go and check to see if we have the ingredients.”
“O.k.,” Sariah replied, yawning. “I’m going upstairs to take a shower. Let me know when it’s ready.”
“Of course,” Janet said. “Kindly direct me to the kitchen.”
“Oh, right. I forgot about that. Straight through that door. I think we have all the ingredients, but if we’re out of anything you need, you can run down to the corner store to pick it up. Just knock on my bedroom door and I’ll give you some money.”
“Very well. Thank you,” Janet replied.
Sariah walked up the stairs and went into the master bedroom. She turned on the hot water in the shower and let it run while she began taking off her clothes. With the tankless water heater, she could have waited to turn on the water when she got in the shower and almost instantly have had hot water, but she preferred the atmosphere provided by the foggy mirror and a good vapor cloud in the bathroom. It was one of life’s little indulgences that she wasn’t prepared to give up, despite the doomsday prophecies delivered on a daily basis by the energy-saving eco-warriors. If the world was going to vaporize tomorrow, at least she would have a relaxing shower first. The eco-warriors would just have to go pound sand.
Twenty minutes later, she had just wrapped herself in a towel and was about to pick out some comfortable clothes to dress in for dinner when her cell phone began to ring. She instantly knew it was Jerry. Why she had ever set his ring tone to the old tune “Endless Love” was a mystery to her now – an error that she would correct momentarily. She hit the disconnect button, and instead of changing the ring tone, she edited the number’s properties, checking the box labeled ‘block this number’ before tossing the phone back down on the bed. She smiled as she turned around and entered the walk-in closet.
* * * * *
Dinner was superb. Sariah was almost glad that the recipe for General Tso had gone missing. Janet’s culinary skills were definitely going to be a top selling point. The chicken was tender, there was just the right amount of cheese, and Janet had even succeeded in creating a mildly spicy sauce to go along with it – just like they did in the restaurants.
“This is very good,” Sariah said through a mouthful of quesadilla.
“I’m glad you like it,” Janet replied.
“How did you make that sauce? I didn’t even know I had all the ingredients for something like that.”
“You didn’t. I took the liberty of going to the corner store for the missing ingredients while you were in the shower.”
“Really? That’s like, six blocks from here. How did you get there and back in twenty minutes and still cook the meal?”
“I’m very fast,” Janet replied. “I can run at a top speed of sixty-two miles an hour. However, I wasn’t required to run that fast in this case.”
“How did you pay for it?”
“Nomel Robotics created an expense account for the project, and I have been authorized to charge incidental amounts to this account for the duration of our test. I simply interfaced wirelessly with the payment device in the checkout line to pay.”
“Really? Wow. An expense account.” Sariah pondered the fact for a few moments before asking, “How much is in the account?”
“Six thousand dollars.”
Sariah almost choked on a bite of quesadilla. “What?”
“Six thousand dollars,” Janet repeated. “Does this trouble you?”
“No, no. I just... I mean, I think somebody made a mistake. That’s a good bit of change for a one-week test. I’ll put that on my list of things to check tomorrow.” Sariah pulled her phone out of her pocket and typed a note to remind herself to check on both the missing recipe and the expense account.
After dinner, Sariah left Janet to clean up while she curled up in her favorite overstuffed chair in the den and continued reading an old paperback copy of The Seer by C.L. Wells. Even though the physical book was often touted as an obsolete technology, she still loved the feel of holding one in her hands. She was just settling in when the doorbell rang.
Sariah was in the process of getting up when Janet looked over at her from the adjoining kitchen area. “Would you like me to see who it is?”
Sariah smiled. She could get used to having a domestic robot. “Yes, please.” Having dispatched Janet to the door, she immediately went back to her book. A few moments later, she heard Janet ask the visitor for their name. Her mood immediately soured when she heard Jerry’s muffled voice reply. Satan on a stick! she thought to herself. This has got to stop.
She put her book down on the end table beside her chair and walked determinedly toward the front door just as Janet was turning to come back down the hall.
“The visitor says his name is...”
“I heard, thanks,” Sariah replied flatly as she continued up to the door. “Jerry,” she said, speaking loudly so she could be heard through the door, “I don’t want to talk with you. Go home.”
“Sariah, come on,” he replied, “let me in. I just want to talk.”
“What happened with you giving me some space until the weekend?”
“Look, I just wanted to apologize. Can’t you just let me in so we can talk face to face?”
“No. Now go away or I’m calling the police!”
There was no reply. Sariah thought that she heard Jerry walking down the steps. She had just turned around and started to walk back to the den when she heard Jerry’s voice again. Only, it wasn’t just his voice; with each word he yelled, he pounded on the front door hard enough for the whole door-frame to shake. “LET (pound) ME (pound) IN (pound)!”
“Janet, call 9-1-1,” Sariah instructed. “I’m going to get my mace.”
“Calling 9-1-1 now,” Janet replied.
How in Hades do I always get stuck with the losers? Sariah thought to herself as she practically jogged up the stairs to find her purse and retrieve the mace that Jasmine had loaned her.
Meanwhile, there was no more pounding on the door.
Janet faithfully stood guard while Sariah watched somewhat nervously from the balcony overlooking the foyer – phone in one hand, mace in the other. She quickly made a plan in her mind. If Jerry broke in, she would take the two steps to her bedroom door, shut and lock it, and then push the chest of drawers in front of it until the police arrived. At least she didn’t have to worry about anyone else’s safety. Janet was only a robot, after all.
She waited several minutes, hearing her pulse beat behind her ears until a knock on the door made her jump.
“Garden City Police, we had a call about a prowler who tried to break in?”
Janet turned and looked up at Sariah. “Shall I let them in?”
“Yes,” Sariah replied as she hurried down the stairs.
Janet opened the door wide and stood back as Sariah reached the bottom.
“Thank God you’re here.”
“Sure, is everything o.k.?” the officer asked.
“For now, but earlier a man named Jerry Baldachi came by and started banging on my door and demanding that I let him in. I’m seeking a restraining order against him. He assaulted me in the parking lot at my workplace yesterday. I already filed a police report for that.”
“O.k., o.k., so you two are the only witnesses?”
“Yes... well, Janet is actually a robot,” Sariah replied.
“A what?” the officer asked, looking at Janet with disbelief. “She... is a robot?” he asked, pointing his finger in Janet’s direction.
“I have an audio recording of the event if that would be helpful,” Janet replied.
“O.k. This I gotta hear,” the officer replied, somewhat perplexed.
Janet replayed the audio of the conversation between herself, Sariah, and Jerry while the stunned officer listened. When the audio completed playing, he asked her to play it again, this time recording it on his tablet computer.
“That’s great,” he said when the audio completed for the second time, and then he looked Janet up and down as if she was a three-headed goat at a freak show. “She does not look like a robot. I mean, we have one that delivers the mail at the station, but it doesn’t look like her. Wow. Go figure.”
“So, Officer,” Sariah began, trying to bring the focus back to the subject at hand, “I’m genuinely concerned that he might come back and try to break in.”
“Oh, don’t worry about that. I’m going to call this in; then we’ll have an officer stationed outside your house for the rest of the night. No problem. I mean, technically, he hasn’t broken any laws or anything, but I understand you’re concerned and we’ll have someone here for the rest of the night. You can rest easy about that.”
“Thank you; I appreciate that,” Sariah replied.
True to his word, the officer remained outside of Sariah’s door until a second officer relieved him about an hour later. Meanwhile, Sariah tried to go back to reading her book, but was so frazzled by Jerry’s visit that she couldn’t get back into it. She poured herself three fingers of scotch instead. A few drinks later, and once she confirmed that the police were all set to watch her condominium for the night, she went to bed.
* * * * *
Jerry was fuming after he left Sariah’s place. She couldn’t just dump him like that. They were made for each other. Why couldn’t she see that yet? He could have made her see that if she had just let him in. He was sure of it. But then she had called the cops. Well, he knew how this game was played. He would lay low until the police stopped watching the house – which would probably be by sometime tomorrow – and then he would go back, break into Sariah’s condo, and force her to talk with him. Then she would see the light. He was sure she wanted to be with him; she was just playing hard to get.
He parked his car outside of his gym and went inside to work out. He needed to blow off some steam. Staying for a good two hours, he started out on the heavy bag for half an hour, then moved on to the swimming pool, and finished up in the sauna. It was dark by the time he went back out to his car.
The gym was built inside the shell of a reclaimed factory building from the turn of the century. The red brick exterior gave a retro-chic feel to the place. In keeping with the whole ‘re-use, don’t replace’ ethos, they had turned the alleyway between the old building and the one next door into a one lane one-way street. The second lane had been repurposed into a line of parallel parking spots for their patrons. Jerry always parked in the last space if he could, so he could head straight out onto the road behind the gym without having to wait for anyone else to get out of his way.
He hated it when people got in his way.
As he walked along the poorly lit alleyway to his car, he heard someone walking behind him. By the time he was within a car-length of his vehicle, the pace of the person behind him had picked up. He glanced sideways to see who it was as he took out his key fob and hit the open door button. He saw a guy dressed in all black, wearing a hoodie and gloves, and with some sort of scarf covering his face. The man grabbed him, spun him around, and pushed him hard up against the side of his car.
“Leave the girl alone,” the guy said, his voice deep and gravelly.
“Whoa, what’s up, man? I don’t know who you think I am, but I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Jerry replied with his hands up in mock surrender. He sized the guy up as he spoke. Five-nine, five-ten maybe, a little on the lean side, no weapon in either hand. Jerry was six three and in very good shape at one hundred and ninety pounds. He was sure he could take this guy.
“I’m talking about Sariah Delphi. You’re done. Stay away from her,” the guy replied.
“Sure, sure,” Jerry replied, and then stepped forward, taking a swing at the guy’s head. Jerry was no stranger to the occasional fight, and he usually won. He had even made it to the final round of the Garden City Toughest Man Contest a few years back before being eliminated by a semi-pro MMA fighter. But the black-clad figure who was standing in front of him moved out of the way of his punch with astonishing speed, and all Jerry hit was air.
In the next instant, Jerry received a hard hit directly to the solar plexus. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been hit so hard. As he doubled over, unable to breathe for several seconds, the masked individual grabbed his hair, pulled his head back, and then leaned down close to his ear and said, “You heard me. Stay away from her before something worse happens to you.”
After uttering his threat, the masked man released Jerry’s hair and then ran quickly around the corner and out of sight. Jerry stayed doubled-over for another minute before he was finally able to get into his car. He drove around the area looking for the guy who had assaulted him, not sure what he would do if he found him. Run him over with my car, he thought to himself, knowing full well that the car’s navigator wouldn’t allow that to happen. He scanned the area on both sides of the street, but never saw anyone who matched the description of his assailant. After two more passes around the block, he went home for the night.