A Weekend With Wayne: Wayne's Game--Book One by Daniel Broman

Author:Daniel Broman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2015-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Making some Calls

Steve had his earliest Sunday breakfast ever. He had tried to fall sleep again. Impossible. For the first time since they moved in, he hadn’t asked Wayne to make him breakfast, and Wayne hadn’t asked him. He searched the fridge, poured some yoghurt into a bowl and put on the kettle. The Twinings tea he brewed made him think of the dream again. He tried not to think of it. Usually, he’d briefly read the morning news sheet Maggie subscribed to. He’d followed her persistent urging, to more than just skim the main headlines, before jumping straight to the sports pages.

The articles yesterday, House eats dog and the lot. His neighbours’ dog and cat. Both run-aways. Or had they also been eaten by a house?

He finished his yoghurt and immediately called New Essex Housing, the housing association they bought the house from. They gave him the number to the developers who had integrated and installed the system. Steve was now standing in the hall, trying to convince the first person who picked up the phone at the development department, who didn’t seem to believe him. “Look, I’m telling you here, my smart home is broken, and I require some assistance right away. We paid for the house, and we have an insurance.” Usually he’d be more patient, but thinking back at Essie’s not-so-fun roller-coaster ride in the basement and his family being out of town … he wanted a swift resolution.

“Right, I’ll connect you to an operator”, the guy said on the other end.

“Fine, just connect me.” And Steve had thought this guy was the operator.

The face of the bloke disappeared from the phone’s screen, to be replaced by an animated company logo, fit for the season: a Halloween-style house at night, candles and pumpkins in the window, and red-eyed cartoon bunnies skipping around the lawn, munching on cobweb-covered bones instead of carrots.

Steve wandered back and forth in the hall downstairs, carrying around the thin phone pad. He’d ordered Wayne to go into hibernation mode, after switching on the phone. The house was calm. Wayne was sleeping.

Finally, Steve was connected and the face of an operator appeared. Steve told him he needed urgent assistance and that his smart home was broken. They connected him again, now to technical support.

Another face appeared on-screen, a really young techie-guy, smiling widely. Techie didn’t look too focused and spoke as if his whole mouth was full of bubble gum. Steve thought about how much he paid a month for home insurance and that he was now being supported by someone looking like he got his first spots of acne last week.

“G’day mate, name’s Larry, how can I help ya?” he said, chewing some Australian accent. Larry had a fan on his desk blowing in his face, wore a buttoned-up shirt and sported a tan. For the fourth time this morning Steve had to tell somebody that his smart home was broken.

“Okay”, the Techie said, “lemme guess, voice-issue, right mate?”

“It’s been talking strangely,

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