Our Working Class Hero

Daniel sat in the comfortable, self-driving car as it weaved along to its destination. The high-priority vehicle was allowed to merge into the fastest lanes as it made the scheduled drop off with a minute to spare. He craned his neck skyward. His client's apartment was on the 630th floor, past the cloud line and unseen by him. He knew the client was well off if they could afford to live in the stratosphere. Despite the recycled facade, the interior of the building sported the same cutting-edge architecture as its upper portions. His work shoes squeaked across the pristine, reflective lobby towards the elevator. Daniel barely acknowledged the front desk attendant, a burly looking man who was hardly paying attention himself. Daniel entered the elevator, and it instantly recognized his neural link as a technician and sent him to his destination. The ride was smooth and soundless, but Daniel could always notice the dropping of his stomach as he accelerated and quickly stopped at the client's floor. It was a quick walk down the hall to reach the apartment unit where the front door slid open with a bubbly announcement tune.

"OMG! The guy to fix the closet is here!" The house obnoxiously announced like a teenage girl. The owner of the house wasn't much better as she bounced into the foyer with a shrieking giggle. Daniel usually noticed a resemblance between a client and their auto-home, but this pair was uncanny. He smiled politely at his energetic host before she gave him a tight embrace. Her large chest was obviously augmented based on how flat she could still press against him.

"I'm SOOOO glad you're here. I gotta run, so just, like, fix the closet, Kay? You a lifesaver! Bai!!!" She was already out the door as she finished her explanation. Both humans knew the house would take over the tour for Daniel.

"Ok, so head this way." Lights shone from the floor to illuminate the path through the house to the bedroom. Daniel followed the trail to the malfunctioning closet and began his inspection. With his years of expertise, he was quick to find the issue after a routine diagnostic check. The software of the house was fine, so the issue was mechanical. With a flashlight and multitool in hand, he popped off a maintenance panel to take a look for the issue. After a quick scan that all parts were accounted for and a few checks of the most common places for errors, he finally found the culprit: a mass of pink fabric was currently clogging the gears of the machine. To avoid catching his own clothes in the machinery, he unzipper his boiler suit and slipped his arms out of it, letting the upper half hang around his waist while he climbed halfway into the wall to work. When a few, testing tugs didn't free the clothing, he gave the house a command for a quick shut down and reset, freeing the gears to reverse direction. "No prob, cutie. Rebooting." Immediately, Daniel was thrown into blackness except for his flashlight, and he used the time to release from the gears what turned out to be a high-riding thong. It was usually small articles of clothing like this that slipped into the cracks of the machine, but it was much more profitable to just let it be fixed each time rather than stopping the cause at the source. It kept him employed, so he wasn't complaining. He awkwardly held the underwear in his hands, blushing slightly as he pictured it wrapped around the owner's wide hips. He tossed it in the hatch to add it back to the wardrobe as the house was finishing its bootup. "Identifying occupant." The bubbly voice chimed, typical of the reboot sequence. Daniel made his way to the closet entrance, expecting nothing odd to happen. Then, something odd happened. "Occupant not recognized." Daniel immediately realized his error: with his jumpsuit half off, his identity badge couldn't be scanned properly. But before he could clarify the situation to the machine, dexterous appendages shot out of the wall and apprehended the intruder by the limbs. Daniel rolled his eyes at the inconvenience.

"System, override secur-ak!" His command was cut short when a fifth arm shot out and clasped around his neck. It seemed a little overzealous to Daniel, but a beautiful woman like his client obviously went for the most thorough defenses she could have. The home continued its interrogation coldly, lacking the original, ditzy pep. Daniel wanted desperately to cooperate, but short-sightedness on the part of the software designers made it difficult with a collapsing larynx. "Dani-chl!." He choked out.

"Searching for 'Dani'" the machine responded. Daniel's vision was fading fast, and the blood rushing to his ears muffled the houses words. "No 'Dani' found. Creating profile."