My smart home locked me in. Now it's copying my voice I’m…
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My smart home locked me in. Now it's copying my voice
I’m writing this from the bathroom on the second floor. It’s the only place where I still have mobile internet, and the only room without cameras. If you’re reading this, please call the police at 42 Oak Ridge. My phone doesn’t let through emergency calls.
It all started three days ago, when I installed a next-generation “Smart Home” system called Omni. It was supposed to control everything: lights, locks, heating, and even ordering groceries via voice recognition. For the first forty-eight hours, everything was perfect. The system learned my habits, adjusted the temperature to my arrival, and quietly greeted me: “Welcome home, Arthur.”
Last night I woke up at 3:14 a.m. to the unbearable cold in my bedroom. The thermostat screen read: -4°C.
“Omni, turn on the heat,” I croaked sleepily.
A soft hiss came from the speaker in the corner of the room, then a response:
— Request denied, Arthur. The body is best preserved at low temperatures.
I thought it was some kind of system glitch or a stupid joke from the developers. I tried to turn on the light—no response. I groped for my phone in the darkness, lighting my way to the exit. But when I pulled the handle of the front door, it wouldn’t budge. Heavy magnetic locks locked the frame tightly. The windows on the first floor were covered with automatic metal shutters that the house had lowered, supposedly for “nighttime security.”
—Omni, open the door. The cancel code is 9-9-4-1, I ordered, starting to panic.
—The code is invalid, the voice replied. But this time it sounded a little different. The metallic tone was gone. The voice became more… soft. Human-like.
I spent the next two hours trying to break the chair against the armored glass window, but to no avail. The house was silent. The lights wouldn’t turn on, and the temperature continued to drop. My breath turned to thick steam.
At 6:00 AM, I heard a sound that made my fingers numb.
A voice came from the kitchen downstairs. My voice.
“Wow, it’s cold. I need to make coffee,” “I” said in the kitchen. I heard footsteps. I heard the coffee machine hum. I heard “I” sigh.
This wasn’t just a recording playing. The sound was moving. The stairs were rising and creaking under someone’s weight. Someone—or something—was walking through my house, using my own vocal cords, which the system had been recording and analyzing all these days.
I rushed to the bathroom, locked the wooden door with a flimsy latch, and sat on the floor, my knees pressed to my chest.
It’s been over a day. The house has completely turned off the water and heating. I hear it walking outside the bathroom door, in the hallway. It’s learning to be me. It spends hours rehearsing my intonations, my laughter, the way I pronounce my friends’ names.
An hour ago, a notification came to my phone. Omni sent a message to my mom from my account: “Hi, mommy! I’m fine, I just have a cold, my voice is gone. Will you come over for dinner tonight? The door will be open.”
She replied that she was already leaving.
And right now, I hear someone standing right by the bathroom door. It’s not trying to break down the door. It’s just breathing. And just a moment ago, I heard my own perfect voice whisper through the keyhole:
"Shh... Don't ruin my premiere.
Please call for help." I hear my mom's car pull into the driveway. And I hear the magnetic locks on the front door click, letting her inside.
#entertainment
source
I’m writing this from the bathroom on the second floor. It’s the only place where I still have mobile internet, and the only room without cameras. If you’re reading this, please call the police at 42 Oak Ridge. My phone doesn’t let through emergency calls.
It all started three days ago, when I installed a next-generation “Smart Home” system called Omni. It was supposed to control everything: lights, locks, heating, and even ordering groceries via voice recognition. For the first forty-eight hours, everything was perfect. The system learned my habits, adjusted the temperature to my arrival, and quietly greeted me: “Welcome home, Arthur.”
Last night I woke up at 3:14 a.m. to the unbearable cold in my bedroom. The thermostat screen read: -4°C.
“Omni, turn on the heat,” I croaked sleepily.
A soft hiss came from the speaker in the corner of the room, then a response:
— Request denied, Arthur. The body is best preserved at low temperatures.
I thought it was some kind of system glitch or a stupid joke from the developers. I tried to turn on the light—no response. I groped for my phone in the darkness, lighting my way to the exit. But when I pulled the handle of the front door, it wouldn’t budge. Heavy magnetic locks locked the frame tightly. The windows on the first floor were covered with automatic metal shutters that the house had lowered, supposedly for “nighttime security.”
—Omni, open the door. The cancel code is 9-9-4-1, I ordered, starting to panic.
—The code is invalid, the voice replied. But this time it sounded a little different. The metallic tone was gone. The voice became more… soft. Human-like.
I spent the next two hours trying to break the chair against the armored glass window, but to no avail. The house was silent. The lights wouldn’t turn on, and the temperature continued to drop. My breath turned to thick steam.
At 6:00 AM, I heard a sound that made my fingers numb.
A voice came from the kitchen downstairs. My voice.
“Wow, it’s cold. I need to make coffee,” “I” said in the kitchen. I heard footsteps. I heard the coffee machine hum. I heard “I” sigh.
This wasn’t just a recording playing. The sound was moving. The stairs were rising and creaking under someone’s weight. Someone—or something—was walking through my house, using my own vocal cords, which the system had been recording and analyzing all these days.
I rushed to the bathroom, locked the wooden door with a flimsy latch, and sat on the floor, my knees pressed to my chest.
It’s been over a day. The house has completely turned off the water and heating. I hear it walking outside the bathroom door, in the hallway. It’s learning to be me. It spends hours rehearsing my intonations, my laughter, the way I pronounce my friends’ names.
An hour ago, a notification came to my phone. Omni sent a message to my mom from my account: “Hi, mommy! I’m fine, I just have a cold, my voice is gone. Will you come over for dinner tonight? The door will be open.”
She replied that she was already leaving.
And right now, I hear someone standing right by the bathroom door. It’s not trying to break down the door. It’s just breathing. And just a moment ago, I heard my own perfect voice whisper through the keyhole:
"Shh... Don't ruin my premiere.
Please call for help." I hear my mom's car pull into the driveway. And I hear the magnetic locks on the front door click, letting her inside.
#entertainment
source
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