Home Away From Home

“Welcome to HSH Hotels: The only boarding establishment that exceeds in bringing home to you! Have you stayed with us before?”

The words came from a long, vertical screen standing behind the counter. A virtual avatar of a young man stood behind the screens’ pixels. Behind that, years and years of programs designed by some scientist who was hellbent on increasing unemployment in this sector. Didn’t bother me; Just an observation.

“No, I have not. But if there’s a whole monologue or something we can skip it.”

“Welcome to the family then, first-timer! Let me explain our establishment to you!”

I was a little out of it. My wife, Sarah, sent me off at 5 AM. A long ride on the tram. It was a classic trip, too. Babies crying and shitting their pants. The turbulence that put your stomach off. Bubbly attendants that wanted to sell you some tax-free augmentations. Just make my life a sitcom.

I reached across the counter and poked the screen a few times, thinking it might make the avatar cut to the chase. No such luck. His rambling continued, “You’re about to experience ‘Home Sweet Home’! A very special brand of luxury hotels that exceed in bringing home to you!”

The avatar had been designed to sound human, which was too transparent to achieve its goal of not being annoying as shit.

“As you know, our government has been able to survey your home since 2034, due to the Anti-Privacy Act introduced that year.”

“It was a clever name, for sure.”

“With your permission, we’re able us to use your home survey data to transmit a live feed of your bedroom onto your room here! You’ll feel like you’re there, and have full control of volume, picture settings, you name it! Adjust the darkness of the room to your liking! If you have a cat, you can hear it’s little feet tapping around at night. A leaky pipe? It used to irritate you, but now you can’t sleep without it! Or maybe you can! Just mute it and keep the rest! The decision is yours!”

I thought it was at least a good gimmick. No wonder the reviews were so high. I admittedly appreciated a good distraction. I never slept well, even as a child. Nightmares and potential sleep-paralysis made that possible. Melatonin and augments helped enough. We didn’t have this chain of hotels back in my zone. We had places with sex-bots, like every zone. Occasionally you could find a zero-G joint, but it’s kind of stay-at-your-own-risk. Lots of broken necks, and worse. This hotel also made something decent out of a terrible thing. That act had put a lot of bad people behind bars, but a lot of good ones as well.

I didn’t want to start dwelling on old politics, “Alright, I grant you permission.”

“Due to code 7748, I am required to clarify: You want us to use your home survey data to make your stay more comfortable?”

“Yes, I give my permission.”

“Excellent!”

I felt a whir in my skull as data streamed to it. The room key. I blinked to confirm I wanted to save it, and the avatar sent me on my way: “Welcome home!” I proceeded down the lobby and into a dim hallway leading to the rooms. The entire space was white. Some square-shaped holes were sunk into the wall and had exotic plants within them. Special light used in the latest hydroponic stations shone within the cubes to give them nutrients. Classy place. One species I recognized as a local favorite in my sector. They specialized in growing it; An alien plant called Bakku. It smelled like shit but was quite tasty if you prepared it right. I wondered what crazy fucker decided to try that first. God bless ‘em.

The door to my room glowed in my retina, and as I approached quickly slid open.

I knew what to expect stepping in, but it was still a little impressive.

It was my room.

I mean, my room from my home, from the shitty cream wallpaper to the shitty stained carpet. The sounds of the tram-tracks outside our window came through loud and clear and some light from the buildings outside shone sharply past the curtain’s edges.

And... Sarah!

She was sleeping in our bed, right in front of me. It made me smile, even though I knew it was a hologram or something. I wanted to lay down next to her and kiss her neck. I wanted to trace my fingers along the features of her body. Her warmth was calming and I doubted the technology here could simulate that. At this point, I had somewhat regretted not staying at a sex-bot hotel.

I considered calling her but I was tired, and she clearly was as well. I settled with laying next to the image on the bed. I looked around the space a bit trying to derive some pleasure from the gag; The faux familiarity. The only thing that stood out was a TV that was not in my real bedroom. An amenity provided with the stay. I laughed at the reality that my holographic recreation was much nicer than my actual place.

The level of darkness I was used to, but I liked the idea of maybe making it darker. Why not? I would fix it accordingly, then focus on sleep. I had more traveling to do the next day. I opened the room key file and found the controls. I laid back on the mattress, and put my arms behind my head, using my retina to sort through the options. I selected brightness and adjusted it down, dimming the room. The designs on the wallpaper got harder to distinguish, and Sarah looked more and more like a large, black lump under the covers.

It was strangely fun. Just because, I turned the dial the other way. Then, I was frozen.

A face was on the ceiling.

Not just a face, but a body; A full person. Not human. Not alien, as far as I could tell. Its skin was dark black, so it was hard to make out. It simply stared back at me. A toothy smile, unflinching, unwavering.

I exited the settings in the room key file and found the number for the front desk. The avatar manning it answered immediately, “Good evening! Are you enjoying your home away from home?”

“There seems to be a glitch in your system. There’s a shape appearing on my ceiling. A man of some sort. It can’t be in my home.”

I didn’t know if I believed it when I said it.

The avatar responded, “I’ll run a diagnostic. And… Our servers are running at one-hundred percent. No glitches or alterations are occurring. Whatever you’re seeing is in your home, but I can assure you everything is fine.”

“How can you assure me of that! I see a, an alien, in my house!”

“Impossible. Diagnostics only detect one living person in your home at the moment. Is there any other way I can assist you this evening?”

I didn’t know what to say to him, so I hung up the call, and went back into the file. My eye was darting quickly back and forth as I opened the settings again, and turned up the brightness of the room a little further. There was, without a doubt, a creature there. What chilled me the most was that I felt I had seen the face before. Laying down at night, when I had trouble sleeping, maybe I had seen it at a glance. Maybe I had assumed it was part of a shadow? The cracks and rugged surface of my ceiling making something out of nothing. Had it always been there? It seemed like an old kind of familiar.

I searched for species that had pitch-black skin and sharp teeth and found nothing that looked remotely close. My eyes became dry and irritated, as I struggled to blink with my frantic searching. They moved back and forth in desperate search of something that could explain this.

I found nothing, except for myself having only one option. I called Sarah. I looked to her digital recreation, as I waited for a response. The mass of blankets was shed away and a small woman emerged from inside. She arched her back to stretch as she blinked to accept my call, “Hey baby, are you OK? Did you find a hotel? It’s not a sex-bot one is it?”

“I’m fine, beautiful. And I don’t want you to be alarmed but I need you to leave the house.

“That’s kind of an alarming thing to say. Is something going on?”

“I… think someone might be in the house.”

I looked at the figure on our ceiling as I said it. It still hadn’t moved in any way.

“Are the police on the way? A scan of an intruder would have been picked up.”

“I don’t think so.”

“I’ll leave if you want, but I think it’s okay here. Everything’s quiet, except the tram as always. What’s going on?”

I knew I shouldn’t have told her details. I should have just told her to leave and sent her money to find her own hotel. But I said it anyway.

“Baby, do you see anything on the ceiling?”

I watched her react in real-time. Her eyes struggled to see it beyond the darkness. I thought for a moment she finally did, but her look of confusion returned. Eventually she whispered, “Am I supposed to see something?”

I was at a loss. How could she not see it?

Then the chills of realization returned to me. I refused to look towards it, as I hung up on Damaris and pulled up my room key file yet again. I was patched through to the front desk once again, “Good evening! Is everything satisfactory now in your home away from home?”

“It’s wonderful. I was just wondering if you could check one last thing for me. Can you do a scan of my room here at the hotel?”

“No need. We constantly monitor those.”

“How many people are in my room?”

“Only you.”

“Thank you. That will be everything.”

“Excellent! Sleep tight, and welcome home.”

I laid back down. It greeted me again with a fresh twinkle in its eye.

I spoke to it directly, my muscles clenching in fear as the words left me, “You’re here, aren’t you?”

It’s grin turned into a full-fledged jester-like smile, and it’s sharp teeth glistened in the artificial contrast the room was emanating. I continued to stare as I opened the settings, and slowly turned down the brightness.

“And you’ve been there, haven’t you?”

He didn’t move. He just kept smiling.

“Well, I guess this is home, then.”

I turned the darkness down to normal, as a call from Sarah pinged in the corner of my vision. I ignored it. I needed to sleep.

It would be hard to come by, but I tried anyway.