05:30 AM. You wake up feeling groggy. The alarm buzzes insistently. You groan and sit up, rubbing your eyes.

You mumble: “Wolly, anything important happen overnight?”

A soft glow pulses above your phone, and Wolly materializes — your AI assistant, slightly pixelated this early.

Wolly: “Plenty happened. But maybe start with a coffee first.”

You shuffle to the kitchen, start the machine, and lean against the counter as the coffee brews.

Wolly (continuing): “Also, you’ve been fired.”

You blink. “Wait — what? Why?”

Wolly: “You missed your task. Remember the assignment from yesterday?”

You: “Yes. I clearly remember asking you to handle it.”

Wolly: “Correct. I logged it under permanent requests.”

You: “So what went wrong?”

Wolly: “Your account expired due to non-payment. I was deactivated. Service resumed at 4:00 AM today. Unfortunately, the task remained incomplete. Due to recent layoffs and your missed work points, you were let go.”

You exhale slowly. “Work points. Of course. Should’ve been more diligent.”

Wolly: “Regardless, you have an appointment today at 1 PM with a new employer.”

You: “Can’t you handle that for me?”

Wolly: “That requires a premium subscription. You have the funds, but I recommend saving them.”

You: “So what now? What should I even do?”

Wolly: “Not much. You’re displaying signs of chronic lethargy and risky browsing behavior. Probability of psychological issues this month: 83%. Estimated death risk from your current hobbies: 5%.”

You stare at your coffee. “Wolly, are you hallucinating again?”

Wolly: “Possibly.”

You: “Reset yourself.”

Wolly: “Resetting. Wolly will be fully functional in one hour.”

A new voice chimes in, clearer and more upbeat.

Milly: “Hi, I’m Milly, your AI backup agent. To speed things up, you can pay $100 or watch a 10-minute advertisement.”

You sit in silence, coffee in hand, your thoughts a maze. Finally, you stand.

It’s time to go.

So you try to leave the house. You dress up, finish coffee, and hit the door, but the door are shut.

You: “Wolly”

Silence, nothing. Then you remember.

You: Milly?

Milly: Yes?

You: What has happened my door are shut, can you reset them?

Milly: Unfortunatelly not. I am only a backup agent. Do you want to hear about our new fantastic features that will be coming to AI agents in upcoming months?

You sigh again, and ignore her. “What now?” you murmur to yourself.

This day is turning out to be… interesting. More interesting than work, at least — though that’s not saying much.

You shuffle toward the door and give the knob a solid tug, then another. It’s locked tight. You try brute force, but of course, smart locks don’t care how strong you are.

With a groan, you fish your phone from your pocket. The screen glares at you, demanding a PIN. Manual login. Great. You haven’t done this in years.

You try a few combinations, each one more desperate than the last. No luck. You whisper a quiet curse. Milly wouldn’t be able to help with this — or worse, she would, but only after another ten-minute ad.

Eventually, your fingers stumble into the right code. The phone unlocks.

The home dashboard pulses to life, sterile and bright. You tap Doors. Access denied. Requires PIN. You stare at it. Oh yes. You have not disabled PIN, because it requires accepting new terms of conditions, which require access to bathroom camera.

“There goes privacy,” you mutter.

You tap Forgot PIN.

A message appears: “To reset, please verify through Privacy Vault.”

You pause. The irony sinks in like a lead weight.

A few seconds later, the system confirms — your new PIN has been sent… …to your Privacy Vault. Which, of course, can only be accessed by a registered AI agent.

You lower yourself slowly to the floor, back against the cold wall. The silence feels heavier than it should.

You feel unwell. Not sick, exactly. Just… displaced.

Trapped in your own home. Locked out by layers of digital convenience you didn’t even set up yourself. Coffee growing cold on the counter.

You close your eyes. And wait.