David Hale: At home with my family

It was a typical Saturday morning for me. I was ensconced in my home office, catching up on a few work emails. I grumbled silently to myself, resenting the intrusion of my business into my precious downtime. Still, that was the price I paid for shining up the greasy pole of the corporate world, and if I focused I’d be done in an hour and free to enjoy the rest of my weekend.

With that in mind, I tried not to let the sounds of my family starting their day distract me. I refused to think of the delicious smell of baking that would soon be wafting from the kitchen as Tina, my wife, set about preparing a fresh batch of her famous cookies. And with the benefit of long practice, I managed to screen out the sound of relentless chirpy pop music drifting through the wall from my daughter's room. Kelly was a sweet girl, but her taste in music left a lot to be desired.

At least I didn’t need to worry about any distractions from my son. Like any self-respecting teenage boy, Mark made it a point of principle not to show his face before noon.

I pushed thoughts of my family aside and opened the next email in my queue, only to be interrupted by the soft pinging of my phone.

I frowned at the glowing screen, puzzled to be receiving notifications when I'd already switched it to do not disturb mode specifically to avoid this kind of interruption. A message from something called the Gemini App greeted me when I unlocked the screen and stubbornly refused to vanish when I swiped at it. Instead, it brought up a screen bearing a cryptic message.

"Three compatible receivers detected" it informed me. "Prepared to transmit."

Below that text was a large green button labelled send to all and a much smaller red button labelled dismiss. Irritated by what was clearly spam, I stabbed at the red button trying to clear the screen, but in my haste I missed and instead punched the larger green button.

My vision swam, a wave of disorientating vertigo washing over me, then vanished as quickly as it had hit. Blinking rapidly to clear my sight and wondering what the hell had just happened, I found myself looking at...