Author

Andrew Karl Brown

404

A Story By

Andrew K Brown

Chapter 1

I hate Thursdays.

As the Computer alarm buzzed, I felt a great weight settle onto my shoulders as I looked at the time on the small screen beside the bed, 07:00.

The computer voice droned, “Wake up Brett, It is oh seven hundred hours”

“Off” I snapped and the voice stopped.

 I remembered waking up, what seemed like a dozen times throughout the night, lines of code running through my mind. What was that code? What did it mean? It had been bothering me for days now, ever since I found the sheets of printed code in an obscure pile of records at work.

I thought about work.

Damn, Jethro will be in full flow today – again. Same crap every week.

I slid out of bed and shuffled into the kitchen area, pressed the panel on the serving area to start the Auto Meal to prepare my breakfast, toast, bacon and eggs. I knew this would take exactly two minutes and twelve seconds, it has done every morning for the past three years, since I moved from the 23rd floor single dwelling domicile to this one on the 117th floor, and mainly because I am lazy, that’s all I’ve programmed it for. It would be served on the counter using technology I barely understood, or care about.

I decided to have my shower before eating, knowing full well the food would be stone cold before I got anywhere near it anyway. Animal products through the automatic cooking process seemed to always come out cooler, rather than hotter, but I also knew I’d eat it as I do every morning. Habit’s a funny thing. Even when you know something is bad for you – you still do it just because it’s a habit. Like marriage.

Since Cassandra divorced me, I spent my weekends in solitude in the Domicile we’d originally planned to make the family home. Ha, there’s a laugh. I guess I always knew she’d leave. Must be the pessimist in me. The three rooms in the single floored, 117th storey domicile were dusty, bare and miserable. But then, so am I.

I shed my shorts and stepped into the shower cubicle.