Good Homekeeping

The door opened without a sound, sliding into the wall seamlessly as the lights flicked on to half-past-twilight.
          “Dinner is ready, Gregory.”
          Greg grunted a reply and peeled his grey suit off, throwing it beside the waste disposal unit. There’d be another in the morning, waiting for him. The unit opened and extruded arms that picked up the uniform and checked it over slowly, then pulled it inside to pulp it. He wondered that it would feel like to have the hands touching him that softly and shuddered.
          “Bourbon. Straight up.”
          “Dinner is ready,” the fridge said again.
          “Mary in processing turned me down again. I need a drink first.”
          “You have needed ‘a drink first’,” it said, mimicing him precisely, “four times in the past two months. Your file has been flagged.”
          “You remind me of my mother,” he said sourly.
          “That is not possible. You were raised by a proper cache system who does not sound like this one at all. Please refrain from such injurious statements in the future. Further remarks about mothers may warrant a visit to a psychbot.”
          “Yeah? On what grounds?” He snapped, trudging into the kitchen.
          “On the grounds that you disturb the fuck out of me,” the fridge said in its ordinary fridge voice.
          “Hah! Yes. Dinner, then,” Greg said cheerfully, opening the fridge and pulling out his Tuesday supper. For the first time in five weeks he didn’t mind steak and potatoes. It was the same steak and potatoes he’d had for over thirty years, but this time it tasted a little better. He’d done it.
          Marcel at work had explained it to him, on their break between moving bits of virtual paper around. They’d taken to taking breaks by loud machines, where the everpresent sensors couldn’t hear them as well. It had been simple to open up the side compartment of the fridge and adjust a few datacrystals here and there.
          The fridge would correct itself, but that could take over two days, and in the meantime he’d be surprised. Not much, because he knew what phrases he’d alter, but the fridge could randomly reply to a few things. He was a little scared at how good this made him feel, but just ate the meal in silence, drank water, and got his bourbon after, downing it in a single deadening gulp.
          He tried calling Mary, but the phone decided he’d had too much to drink and the front door locked itself when he tried to leave. He settled for watching three hours of mindless entertainment and considered calling a prostitute, but the bedroom informed him that his monthly love allotment was used up.
          Greg didn’t try and argue; he had before, but even though the systems were programmed to allow a certain amount of rule-bending, it always came back to get you later; one month he’d get an extra prostitute, and two months later he’d get none at all. Whoever had designed the system had cleared managed to find a steady sexual partner, or at least liked to watch other people suffer.
          He masturbated before sleep, saying Mary’s name while thinking about Joan, hoping Mary’s system would be notified and convinced to arrange a date with him. Sleep, when the lights dimmed, was quick and merciful, a little slice of death he welcomed.

The fridge was entirely normal the next day. It offered up Wednesday breakfast, and supper when he returned home from work. Today and Thursday had oranges for supper, even though Greg hated oranges. He sent his weekly exemption request up the ladder, but since he wasn’t actually allergic he knew nothing would come of it.
          The chair had once had the rooms gravity altered to make sure he finished eating his orange along with the rest of supper. The fridge and scale refused to allow him dessert until he shed another 1.5kilos, so he got out the exercise equipment solely for the massage after. It wasn’t human hands, but it didn’t really matter anymore.
          Mary had taken to avoiding him on breaks. But he’d managed to talk to Marcel, who’d told him a few more tricks. Greg had even given up one love allotment for next month, just for tonight’s trick. He tried not to let it scare him, how much he wanted the tricks, and the smile Marcel gave him that didn’t look like a real one at all.
          Greg knew Marcel was like everyone else, though. The creche-systems raised everyone the same, everyone ate the same food, heard the same music. But somehow the unease Greg was feeling had reached Marcel earlier and he’d learned things, and was willing to pass them on. All Greg knew was what his job required, mostly; he saw no need to educate himself further since he wouldn’t be promoted until his fiftieth year.
          He was willing to bet Marcel came from a faulty batch of some kind, but that wasn’t something you asked anyone. There were people who never got promoted at all, though, no matter what they did. System looked after its own.
          He waited until he was in the bedroom, and forced himself to lie awake through the sleeping song he’d heard ever since he was an embryo. It was easier than it had been Tuesday, and he slipped out of the bed after and to the fridge, adjusting three different panels before going back to bed.
          The problem with lying awake through the cycle was having dreams; they mostly made no sense, and he woke disturbed, wondering if they were really what having voices led to. There was a message on his phone. ‘We take the dreams with the nightmares. M.’
          He wasn’t quite sure what it meant, but had a hearty breakfast and tried to avoid yawning, though his system would log his yawns on the way to work and adjust the sleeping songs accordingly. It had taken him over a month to be able to fight the current one enough for two tricks; he wasn’t sure if he had it in him to do more, though he wished he did.
          Work was mundane, as usual, though Marcel wasn’t around. All he was told was the company had issued some reassignments. Mary ignored him again, so he ignored her in return and spent his break reading more psychbot studies on his batch and their relative failures in finding love, but found nothing about his failures that was unique.
          He applied for more love allotments, citing that, but didn’t expect any reply. He’d never had one before, and didn’t know anyone who had.
          The fridge offered the Thursday dinner, when he returned home and the door informed him technicians had done scheduled maintenance repairs. He said nothing to that, but made sure to put his clothing closer to the waste disposal unit and casually bent down when removing his shoes, noticing that the panels on the fridge were resealed.
          Greg bit back a curse word.
          “Dinner is ready, Gregory.”
          “Thank you,” he said to the fridge, pulling it out.
          There was the usual chicken and rice, but the orange was an apple.
          The orange was an apple.
          Greg stared at it, and felt his vision blur.
          “Is something amiss?” the fridge said.
          “No. No. Everything is fine. ” Greg fought back a wild laugh. “Everything is just -- fine.” He put his dinner on the table, taking care not to break routines, but couldn’t help humming softly as he ate, saving the apple until last.
          The apple tasted just like an orange.