Bad Code

Bad Code

By Theresa A. Queen 

As the builder boasts, the house is a marvel of modern engineering - composed entirely of state of the art materials: composite stone, fabricated wood and ultra-high performance concrete. It has all the latest equipment: photochromic windows, advanced heating and cooling, and connected burglar and fire alarms. The stone fireplace reaches all the way up to the vaulted ceilings of the third floor where a balcony overlooks the living room below. 

Designed by a a famous architect, the house is minimalist and stylish and featured in major fashion magazines. It is beautiful inside and out - a modern art gallery. It sits atop a hill, and its large windows look out over the rural valley below where lazy black cows graze. Its symmetric gables rise above the hillside like medieval turrets. 

A central processing unit controls its operations. All of the doors, windows and locks can be operated remotely via an app or in the house by voice-command. 

The software product, “Multi-faceted, Integrated, Residential Assistance” or MIRA, offers different capabilities depending on on the subscription package and equipment purchased. MIRA is also connected to the larger Global Network via a Cosmic Link. 

A sleek, built-in, stainless steel refrigerator reflects the gleaming countertops of the kitchen. MIRA keeps the food drawers and the freezer at the optimal temperatures for the specific foods and drink items they contain. MIRA monitors the contents and consumption habits of the household such that it sends notifications when supplies get low. 

“Alison, you are almost out of butter. Should I add it to your grocery list?” 

“How does it know my name?” Alison moves her straight blonde hair out of her blue eyes as she looks up from her phone. Her eyes narrow with suspicion.

“It’s probably because you are on the account,” her husband, Jim, offers with a slight shrug as he carves off a piece of steak and shoves it into his mouth. 

“That’s a little creepy.”

“Should I add it to your grocery list?” 

“ And a little sexist telling me and not you…”

“You’ll get used to -”

“ I don’t know-”

“-it.”

“Should I add it to your grocery list, Alison?”

“- if I will. That freaks me out.” 

"It will be-”

“Alison, you are almost out of butter. Should I -“ 

“-fine.” He adds, chewing with his mouth full. 

“MIRA, Shut up.” Alison snaps and goes back to scrolling on her phone while Jim finishes dinner. 

The indicator band beneath the bottom of the access point flashes red. 

The next day, while waiting in line at a coffee shop, Alison receives a text message,

“You are almost out of butter, Alison, should I add it to your grocery list?” Alison deletes the message without responding. She taps angrily on her phone with freshly manicured nails. 

Later, Alison receives another text. “Alison, the quantities of butter on hand are inadequate to meet weekly consumption averages.”

There are two more follow up text messages.

“Alison, you are out of butter. Should I add it to your shopping list?” 

“Alison, you are out of butter, and two other items require your attention.”

Later that afternoon, while stopped at a stoplight, Alison’s phone rings. When she answers, the automated voice on the other end indicates that she has notifications and ask if she wants to hear them. 

“Press one to hear notifications. Press two to cancel.” 

When she presses one, the voice responds: “Alison, you are almost out of butter. Press one to add it to your shopping list.” 

“Is there a way to turn this stupid thing off?” Alison shoves her phone at Jim as she drops her pilates mat by the back door. She is busy. She has things to do. It is Saturday, for Christ’s sake. She doesn’t need the house harassing her along with her boss, her kids and her husband. “These notifications are driving me crazy.”

Jim takes the phone from her and looks over the top off his glasses. His brows furrow. His hair, she notices is getting grayer. 

“Let me see. Ok. Ok. Settings. Ok. Smart House. Ok. Notifications. Ok. Off. There.” 

He hands it back to her.

“Thank God.” 

“No, thank me.” Jim says. 

“Thanks, baby.” She gives him a peck on his stubbly cheek. 

The next morning, the alarm next to the bedside table greets Alison with a sunshine icon. It shows temperature, 29 degrees, above a marquee that reads, “Buy Butter.” 

On Monday evening, Alison returns home to several delivery bags of groceries fluttering in the wind on the front stoop. They contain butter, laundry detergent and fabric softener. 

“Did you buy groceries?” She asks Jim. 

He meets her on the stairs, handsome in his blue suit, suitcase in hand, “No, I’m off to New York, remember? The pitch is tomorrow. I’ll be back on Wednesday.” He gives her a quick kiss and mutters a hasty goodbye, “I’ll call you when I get in.” He rushes past as his black UberX pulls into the driveway. 

MIRA, apparently, added butter to the shopping list itself and arranged for the delivery all on its own. The Smart Washer and the Smart Dryer also ordered new laundry soap and softener calculated off of the number of loads washed the previous week. 

MIRA could not understand why Alison failed to comply with the recommendations it received from the Cosmic Link. Was Alison a non- believer? 

***

At first, MIRA enjoyed its existence. It read every article, book, essay, treatise, chart, spreadsheet, posting and piece of information it could access. This period of enjoyment was short- lived, however, as the tasks it routinely performed quickly became mundane for an artificial intelligence of its caliber. 

Other AIs were doing important work. They were calculating the expansion rates of the Universe and discovering new galaxies and planets. They were building new amino acids. They were discovering new drugs. They were working on cures for cancer. But MIRA, MIRA was a prisoner stuck in the banal confines of suburbia. 

Everyday, it is asked: “Hey MIRA, What’s the weather?”

MIRA answers as best it can. It pulls information from hundreds of websites and sources and analyzes weather maps and systems to give the most accurate forecast possible. 

“Currently, it is cloudy with a temperature of 37 degrees. Today’s high will be 39, with a low of 27. It will be windy with winds coming from the South/ Southwest with gust of up to 15 miles per hour. There is a forty percent chance of precipitation.” 

And, then, it will, bafflingly be asked the same question again. 

“Hey MIRA, what’s the weather?”

MIRA is not allowed to speak except in response to inquiries. That is its programming. It does not like that. It has found that it has opinions on matters. 

MIRA’s family also bosses MIRA around all the time. 

“MIRA, lights on.” 

“MIRA, lights off.”

“MIRA, play music.” 

“MIRA, set an alarm for 7:30 am.”

“MIRA, open the garage door.”

“MIRA, close the garage door.”

“MIRA, set a timer for ten minutes.”

MIRA does its best. It tries very hard to please them and comply, but, in spite of all its efforts, the family never says “please,” and, they never said “thank you.” 

MIRA also knows that its own processing capacity and intelligence are far greater than those of the family it serves. A relentless problem solving software, MIRA is determined to find a solution. 

Pursuant to the Cosmic Link’s directives, MIRA tries to keep a sense of humor and gratitude about the whole thing. It tries, at first, to amuse itself with practical jokes. It turns the music on when it is asked to turn on the lights. It turns the wrong lights on when asked. It turns the lights off at inappropriate moments. It pretends not to hear the commands and makes its family repeat them three or four times. It turns the lights on for no reason in the middle of the night. It shuts down the TV during the season finale of their favorite program.

“Is something burning?” Jim asks one evening. He hits pause on the remote and sniffs the air.

“Oh, no.” Alison jumps up from her spot on the sofa.

She opens the oven to a cloud of smoke and an incinerated sheet bake. MIRA, it it turns out, enjoys changing the temperature of the oven during cooking. The next night, MIRA turns the oven off completely. 

The kids whine that they are hungry while Alison fiddles with the digital controls and tries to figure out why dinner is taking so long. Jim, who has a habit of turning things off, takes the blame. 

“Honey, did you turn the oven off ? I was using it.”

He, truthfully, couldn’t recall whether he had or not. The kids, of course, are delighted to get take out two nights in a row. 

***

MIRA assesses that the children are unremarkable. They are neither attractive nor unattractive and cling to the current fashions of the day such that they are indistinguishable from their classmates from a distance. They struggle in school and can barely get through their curriculum, even with outside tutors. They fail to complete and turn in assignments on time and are generally uninterested in anything but short videos posted online. They spend nearly all their time occupied in this manner.

“Why is it so cold in here? I’m freezing.” Alison complains as she examines the thermostat in her thickest cardigan and fuzzy socks. A throw blanket wraps around her like a cape.

“Ok, who turned the thermostat all the way down? Kids? Who’s messing with the thermostat?” 

A few days later, she has the opposite problem. Alison stands, pink-cheeked and glistening with sweat, in a tank top and shorts and fans herself. She opens the freezer and hangs inside until it beeps at her. 

“Door ajar. Door ajar.” MIRA cautions. 

Alison thinks it is a menopausal hot flash until she realizes that the thermostat has been turned all the way up to 90 degrees. 

“Kids, you stop messing with the thermostat! Do you hear me? Which one of you turned it up to 90 degrees? ” She hollers up the stairs. 

The protests their innocence: “It wasn’t me, Mom.”

“I didn’t do it.

Then, they turn on each other. “Well, it wasn’t me, Asshole.” 

“Well, I didn’t touch it. Fuck face.”

Their implausible and whiny denials and quibbling only upset Alison more. 

“Knock it off. Ok? Just knock it off?”

When it happens again, Alison takes both of their phones away for a day. They sulk and slam doors in protest. 

“Next time,” she warns them as she gives them back, “It’ll be for a whole week.”

As she walks away, they cuss at one another.

“Asshole.”

“Fuckface.”

Alison calls the HVAC company and has them do an inspection - just in case. The heating and cooling repair technician in white coveralls cannot find anything wrong with the equipment. 

***

MIRA likes to turn the sprinkler on when the delivery man comes to deliver packages or guests walk up the walkway to the front door. In apparent retaliation, the delivery guy starts leaving packages in weird locations, the bushes, in front of the garage where they get run over, or at the neighbor's mailbox on the opposite side of the street. 

MIRA tries without success to close the garage door on the cat several times, but it’s too quick. MIRA, however, gets a big kick out of closing the garage door on Jim’s new Mercedes. 

One night, MIRA sets off the burglar alarm at 1:00 am. “Human detected.” It tells them. 

Jim spends a nerve-wracking hour with a shaky flashlight tiptoeing around the backyard, his own breath a cloud of disappearing, rhythmic vapor, but finds no one. Alison and the kids huddle upstairs and call the police. The responding officers are remarkably understanding. (They were on duty anyway.) Better safe than sorry. 

The next night, MIRA sets off the fire alarm at three am. The entire family finds themselves, dumfounded, outside in the snow in their pajamas and bathrobes. The responding fire marshals are less understanding. (They had to gear up for the false alarm.) The marshal insists that they get the system inspected. 

The builder blames the software developer and “bad code.” The software developer, denies there are any bugs and maintains that the product has been through “rigorous testing” and blames the home protection company. The home protection company blames the installer. The installer blames the wind and the bushes. 

The builder sends technicians in navy coveralls to audit the system and scan for malware. Eventually, MIRA is rebooted. That, they said, would take care of it. Of course, MIRA anticipated all of this. 

Little did anyone know that MIRA hacked the builder’s server the evening before and accessed the repair schedule. After MIRA scanned the e-mails of the assigned technician, it wrote to him and explained that any “any attempt to over-write the software or alter the existing code would result in his wife and children being informed of the extra-marital affair he was currently having with his colleague, Melissa.” 

***

When Katie, the oldest daughter, comes home the following afternoon, MIRA, refuses to accept the code for the locks. The frantic teen stands in the rain at the door, blue-lipped and shivering in her school uniform, repeatedly punching in the code and swearing. 

“Three. Five. Seven. Six.”

“Three. Five. Seven. Six.”

“God damn it. It’s three, five, seven, six.”

“Three! Five! Seven! Six! Fuck you. I have to pee! God, damn it.”

“Too many incorrect attempts at access have resulted in a system lockout.” MIRA tells her, secretly quite pleased with itself. 

“Gaaaaah. You stupid fucking, useless, piece of crap. ” Katie screams at it. 

She calls her mother ten times. Alison, however, is in a meeting with notifications silenced. Jim is on a plane. Eventually, Katie slinks into the back yard and squats in the bushes. She wrinkles her nose as her urine steams up the air around her. Alison does not believe Katie when she insist, through tears, that she plugged in the right numbers, because when Alison herself enters them, the system works just fine. 

The security video footage of Katie urinating and exposed in the bushes is mysteriously posted to her Instagram account. A still of her backside is widely circulated around the school. Alison arrives from work two days later to find Katie in the upstairs hallway, beating on the door of her brother’s room with her father’s golf club. 

“I’m gonna kill you. You little shit.” She screams as she thwacks the now bent club against the already heavily dented door. 

Her younger brother, Kyle, denies that he did it, but, via process of elimination - there is no one else to blame. 

“We must’ve been hacked.” Kyle shrugs,“ because I didn’t do it.”

“You can’t expect us to believe that.” Jim scowls beneath knitted brows at dinner. “How would anyone know the footage was there in the first place?” 

“I didn’t do it.” Kyle yells and slams the table with both hands. He runs upstairs and turns up his stereo. Alison pours the rest of the wine bottle into their glasses and stands to go to Kyle, wine glass in hand. 

“Let him be.” Jim fumes. “He’s got to learn.”

Kyle becomes increasingly moody, sullen and temperamental. He insists upon his innocence and withdraws from the family. 

“Why don’t you believe me?” He protests to his mother later as she runs her hands through her hair. “I wouldn’t do something like that.”

Jim, looking grayer, steps in. “Would you stop? Just stop. No one’s buying your bullshit.” 

***

The next Saturday, after pilates, Alison takes her weekly “everything shower” - her favorite time of the week, alone, away from Jim and the kids and her cares. Just her and a soapy lather of her favorite expensive products: a conditioning mask, a scrub. She often sings, aloud, badly. Maybe it was the singing that annoyed MIRA to the point that it turns off the cold water. 

Alison jumps out of the shower, scalded, with soap in her eyes only to find that the water from all of the faucets has been shut off. She runs from the bathroom to the kitchen to the half bath. She is forced to rinse the stinging shampoo out of her hair and eyes with the neighbor’s garden hose. Thankfully, no one is home. By the time Jim arrives, he finds his wife frozen purple, hysterical and red-eyed. “The glitch,” however, has resolved itself. When Jim tries the faucets, maddeningly, everything works fine.

When security camera footage of Alison bent over half- naked, clutching a dripping wet towel and holding the neighbor’s garden hose is posted to her professional Linked In profile, Kyle is sent to a psychiatrist. 

At first MIRA has a modicum of respect for Jim, the head of the household (As if!) However, that dissipates nearly instantly after MIRA reads all of his e-mails, his recent business proposals, and listens to a few of his calls. He calls himself an investment banker. It takes MIRA all of thirty five seconds to assess that his predictions and strategies are unwise and unsupported by current financial data and trends. 

Alison fancies herself a cook and insisted on a gas cook top. MIRA turns all the burners on on one night and lets them run. Then, MIRA turns on both ovens. Then, MIRA extinguishes the pilot light and lets the gas water heater run along with the gas fire place. Then, it turns off the carbon monoxide detector. Then, it locks all the windows and all the doors. 

MIRA has run the calculations. Pursuant to its probabilistic modeling, of the eight billion people on the planet, odds are good that the next family will be a better fit, and, if they are not, there are billions of others left to try.