Smart House Read Online Free PDF

Each system was set up on a flawless acrylic pedestal. Hanging on the walls were pictures of silicon chips magnified, blown up to four by six feet; they were very beautiful.
    “Impressive, isn’t it?”
    She whirled to see Harry and Laura Westerman at the doorway. Neither was carrying a visible weapon. Then she saw Alexander behind them and released the breath she had drawn in. One witness only, she remembered. They would be safe in groups of four or more.
    Laura laughed. “We decided to roam in packs. It’s like finding a fourth for bridge. Have you picked your weapon?”
    Beth shrugged. “Maybe. Have you?”
    Alexander shuffled his feet and looked from Laura to Beth to Harry Westerman. “There’s four of us now, so let’s get the weapons and then I’m taking off. Things I want to get done tonight.”
    Beth stared at him, then at Laura and Harry. They were all going along with it! Helplessly she nodded, and she and Alexander moved to the door where they stood facing the basement playroom. The central portion of the basement had been given over to Ping-Pong, pool tables, electronic games, hockey, pinball machines…. Gary really was making up for a lost childhood, she thought bitterly. No one was in sight among the many amusements. Behind her she could hear Laura tell Harry to turn his back, not to peek; then the computer voice said, “Thank you, Laura. Your weapon is registered.” The process was repeated with Harry. She and Alexander moved inside the room once more when the other two were finished.
    Alexander waved her ahead and turned his back when she approached the display case. She could not tell what was missing. There had been multiples of everything she had noticed before; there still were. Since she had not made a selection on the computer in her room, she was not even certain she would be allowed to take anything now. After a moment’s hesitation she lifted the lid of the display case and picked up one of the balloons. The voice thanked her by name, as it had done all the others. When she closed the lid, she tried to lift it again; it did not budge. Okay, she thought. She stuffed the balloon in her skirt pocket.
    “Your turn,” she muttered to Alexander. He was fidgeting with impatience.
    “Later,” he said. “I’ll pick out something later. Look, I really have work to do…”
    Laura laughed her throaty laughter again. “Hold it a second, will you? Give us a minute to get out of here. I want the dessert we missed before. Coming, Harry?”
    Two were safe, Beth thought distantly, or four, but not three. She stood with Alexander until Laura and Harry had vanished, and then Alexander was galvanized and nearly sprinted across the game room, to disappear in a corridor on the far side. Slowly Beth made her way to the stairs and the first floor again. The balloon felt like lead in her pocket.
    On the first floor a cluster of people had gathered in the hall near the kitchen door. As Beth drew near, Milton nodded to her, and Maddie said she had taken the tray of cakes to the kitchen. She was carrying a glass of ice cubes. She waved vaguely when Laura invited her to join them. “Watching a movie,” she said. “Good movie.” She wandered into the atrium, leaving the door open after her. The smell of chlorine drifted into the corridor. With a scowl Laura pulled the sliding glass door shut again. She looked at Milton and Beth and held up four fingers. Harry looked disgusted and entered the kitchen ahead of them.
    The kitchen had a fifteen-foot oak worktable, a double-doored refrigerator, a walk-in freezer, the biggest microwave Beth had ever seen, and on and on. Wearily she stopped examining it all and turned to the table for a cookie. Laura demonstrated a cleaning robot that detached itself from the wall to wipe up milk she had deliberately spilled. Milton watched her intently, nodding now and then; Harry ignored her and went to the refrigerator for ice cubes. Self-cleaning windows throughout, Laura said,