Chapter Text
White Tesla.
Red Tesla.
Another white.
God, but did the dealership in town pull a close-out sale or something recently? Maybe a whole tech bro fraternity took over the apartment complex across the street.
“Uh-huh,” Harry tells his earbuds. Hermione doesn’t need the encouragement, but he feels bad just sitting silent on the other end of the line for minutes on end while she talks.
“I really think staggering our applications will be our best bet. I’ve got it all figured out. Yours will go in with the very first wave, so you’ll look punctual and eager. Then mine will go through slightly later, but it’ll stand out thanks to my essay. They’re sure to accept us both, I just know it. And don’t worry, I’ve got all kinds of ideas to make your application shine, too.”
“All the pretty words in the world aren’t going to make mine shine like yours, but thanks.”
The mic crackles with her sharp sigh. “Oh, stop it. With all those volunteer hours you’re going to put in—you have signed up at the shelter, right?—we’ll both be guaranteed approval letters. I’m just glad that Ron…um.”
Harry gives her a minute to stew in her own guilt, then says, “Good thing he’s going to trade school, right?”
White Tesla.
Black Tesla.
Is that a fucking cybertruck? Either way, it’s got the same stupid reflective window treatments as the rest of those Teslas. That’s supposed to be illegal around here.
He glances around, then horks up a glob of gunk and spits it at the next hood he passes.
He lets his fingers trail along the posts of the tall fence surrounding his neighborhood. Why the hell they built a gated community in this area when the crime’s not even that bad is beyond him. As far as he’s aware, the gate’s only purpose is to delay pizza deliveries and annoy house guests with bad memories.
Hermione’s going on about their essays again. Despite how positive she is that they’re both getting into their Dream College, she’s probably got both draft copies of their admission applications open on her computer right now, one to each monitor, scrolling haphazardly and hunting for the misplaced comma that’ll kick one of them from the running.
Frankly, he would’ve been fine feeding his heartfelt qualifications to ChatGPT and submitting that slop to the cheapest community college around here. That’d be fine for crossing his generals off the list, but Hermione somehow convinced him to aim higher. Said if he didn’t shoot for what he could feasibly achieve, then it’s all a big waste.
She’s probably right. Just like she was right to turn her nose up at the ChatGPT idea, which was technically Ron’s idea. He loves that damned app.
Hermione’s voice cuts off mid-word. Harry gives it a sec, then shoves his earbuds in his pocket and switches his phone to speaker.
“Sorry,” he tells her, but she hasn’t even noticed the break in him listening.
He reaches the front gate. There’s the big one with the intake and outtake for cars, plus a billion signs talking about NO SOLICITORS and GATE OPENS OUTWARD and blah-blah. Harry shuffles to the pedestrian gate, already groping at his pocket for his keys.
The shiny new screen on the lock lights up when he’s close enough for the sensor to catch him. Oh, yeah. No keys needed, not anymore.
Harry sighs and crouches a little so the camera can see him smack-square in the middle of its stupid lens. He breathes on it and gives it a wipe with the tail of his shirt.
Nothing. No click of the lock. No shrill chime of success, no big smiley face on the screen right above a WELCOME HOME! animation.
He pushes his hair out of his face and gives it a smile, then a frown.
No luck, but the screen pops up with a message: Sorry! You must be a guest. Please call a resident to let you in.
For fuck’s sake, what was the point of feeding ten different pictures of his stupid face in different stupid lighting if it’s not going to remember him?
Guess how many times his metal key failed when he would stick it in the old lock? The right answer is never.
From the palm of his hand, Hermione’s gabbing on about electives and connections and whatever the hell.
Harry cuts through her chatter with a groan. “I gotta go. Sorry.”
“Is it the gate again?” his phone squawks.
All he gives her is a sigh, which sets her giggling.
“Alright, but call me when you make it past the robot overlord, because I really wanted to re-review this paragraph with you just one more time, because I think I found—”
“Okay, cool. Later.”
He hangs up. She’ll forgive him for that.
If he says the right words to the smart lock, it’ll give him a phone number to call for troubleshooting. Harry tried that route once, just to see what would happen. He spent a full twenty minutes navigating through some broken robo-menu, only to get sent to Hold Music Purgatory.
On his phone, he pulls up the app for the smart lock and hits the button labeled ‘Manual Access’.
That means he has to plug in a password, then a two-factor authentication code from another app, then try the face ID nonsense yet again, but his phone’s eyeball must be a little more advanced, because with a click, the gate unlocks. He lunges for it before the lock can change its mind.
If not for the HOA president living right next to the gate, he’d probably just try his best to scale the thing.
As he turns the corner, houses block out the lingering glow of the sunset. Ahead of him it’s nothing but deep blue night rolling in.
He should’ve planned something. Maybe invited Ron over. He’s got that pizza job, but they don’t normally have him working Thursday nights, or if they do, it’s usually slow enough that he can skip off early…
He shoots Ron a text to that effect, then sends an apology to Hermione. She must be kissing that essay on her computer screen, because normally she’d be text-yelling at him for the sudden hangup.
Just as his phone vibrates, a loud creak announces the gate opening. The main gate, the one cars use. Sure, there’s money for a smart lock, but nothing for a little grease at the hinges?
It’s okay, Hermione says. I’d be frustrated too. Why fix what isn’t broken? And frankly, what with how brand new the technology is, I’d hazard that switching to smart locks is more of a security risk than anything else. Pretty short-sighted in my opinion.
Harry’s ear tickles. It takes him a second to figure out that it’s because he never heard the creak of the gate closing.
Ugh. Speaking of security risks, it probably opened on its own and now it’s just sitting like that, confused by some bird that kind-of-sort-of-maybe looks like a person’s face if you’re ninety percent blind.
they just want to come off fancy, he types. it’s like my mom putting up those stupid smart bulbs in all of our outside lights bc all the neighbors did.
Well, they’re going to regret it someday when the niche manufacturer who made the thing cuts all support and drops the app. May as well be a broken piece of trash at that point.
Harry snorts. Still no creak, and he knows for a fact that he should still be able to hear it from here.
we might already be there lol. think it’s broken already. like broken broken.
He listens for a car’s motor, or maybe the stomping of another poor idiot like him who got stuck behind the pedestrian gate’s sensor and went for the car gate instead.
Nothing. It really must be broken. He considers turning around to check, but instead pushes himself faster. Maybe he’s come to appreciate the gate after all, even if its lock is crap. The thought of it sitting open like that gives him the willies for some reason.
Thankfully there’s no one around to watch his strides go longer until he’s about one hop-skip from an actual sprint. His phone buzzes in his hand but he ignores it until he’s jammed the code into his front door and locked himself inside.
Only now does he laugh at himself. He checks his phone.
Be careful, Hermione’s text says. The gate might be malfunctioning, but the motor is probably quite powerful. It could suddenly swing shut and leave you with a concussion or worse if you’re standing in the wrong spot.
He sighs and fumbles a couple scathing responses before settling on, lol I get it, thx mom.
It’s like Ron’s always saying: her anxiety rubs off, and suddenly he’s basically running home just because the front gate won’t close. Like she’s putting out pollen for everyone to suck up and then they freak out about anything just like she is. She probably gets off on it. Makes her feel justified in her own freaking out about nothing.
He sighs again, and he’s considering typing up another apology when outside, someone yells. Or maybe screams? Either a little kid or a woman.
The longer he chews the sound, the less he can really remember—until it happens again. Different voice. A man’s scream.
Men don’t scream like that for nothing.
Harry skirts through his house, yanking the curtains closed and checking all the window locks. He’s imagining some crackhead wandering through the open gate and chasing the neighborhood’s cutest family of four, complete with their signature golden, all the way back to their house.
He lingers in the kitchen, fiddling with the cord on the blinds in there, then goes for the knife drawer. Those big chopping knives tempt him, but he settles on a smaller one that he can awkwardly tuck in his pants pocket when he needs both hands. He’ll just have to remember not to crouch lest he jab a hole in his thigh.
Another scream out there, this one a woman’s. It sounds closer than the last.
Could be a family playing. Maybe someone’s going trashy and having a public fight with their cheating husband. His parents are always gabbing about how the neighborhood’s going downhill.
Knife in one hand and his phone in the other, Harry creeps up to the front door and presses his eye to the glass peephole.
He sees nothing, just his own front yard and the neighbor’s yard reflecting it like a mirror, because everyone in this damn place has to have the same color grass and plant the same stupid species of flowers. His neighbor’s lights are on, but only the upstairs.
He’s about to go for the doorknob when a car rolls by at about a half a mile per hour. It makes not a single sound.
He gets a closer look at the call-center-curve of its cab. It’s one of those fucking Teslas, a white one, the windows all tinted. Maybe he even passed it on his way up to the complex, except it’s got no license plate. Wouldn’t he have noticed that?
The car inches past. It’s almost out of view when it stops, then rolls right back and parks in front of his neighbor’s house. The man that climbs out wears a pale pink collared shirt with the sleeves cut high enough to show off the dark hair crawling up his arms.
He walks like he’s in his final year of college and he’s already got a job lined up. Middle management, probably at the company of a friend of his dad’s. That’s the wide-kneed swagger of a man with everything. A man who cracks a smirk straight out of bed and only drops it when his hot girlfriend sucks the life out of him every night.
But Harry can’t see that smirk, because the guy’s wearing a neck gaiter that covers him up to the bottom eyelids, then a white baseball cap to block out the rest.
He strolls around his car to the trunk, which he opens.
Harry thinks, not a gun. Please not a gun.
And it’s not. It’s a pair of hedge trimmers. He snaps the blades open and shut a couple times, making the thing talk, then strides towards the house. A fresh price tag dangles from one of the handles.
Just as he stops at the front door opposite, the guy turns. His hat lifts just enough for Harry to make out his eyes, the shadows of them, as the guy stares straight at Harry’s front door.
His lips and jaw and jutting chin warp the fat black number 17 painted on the front of his gaiter.
Harry stumbles backwards. He checks the locks on his front door again, then fumbles at his phone. The message thread with Hermione pops up, so he starts to type.
hey so I think somebody is actually trying to
But as he types, the app wigs out. It closes, and when he opens it up again, his keyboard keeps dropping so he can’t get the words out.
“Shit,” he whispers, then thinks, what the hell am I doing?!
He gives up on Hermione and does what he should’ve done to start, which is call the cops. Obviously. Maybe it’s some stupid spooky prank going on out there, but if a stranger wanders up to your neighbor’s house with a pair of garden shears, that’s sort of a better-safe-than-sorry situation.
But when he pulls up the call screen, the numbers aren’t registering. It’s the same thing, his keyboard popping up and down like it’s a damn wack-a-mole, his input blinking out of existence the second he manages to get that evil little 9 to enter.
Out of nowhere, his AI assistant pops up. Something from the recent update, but he hasn’t used it much.
How can I help? it asks.
Harry puts his lips up to the mic and says, “Call 9-1-1. It’s an emergency.”
A cacophony hits him from behind. Takes him a second to recognize it as canned laughter blasted so hard his ears ring.
On the entryway side table, that ugly little lamp with the grandma shade blinks awake to full brightness.
Harry nearly drops the phone in his haste to sprint to the next room, which is bathed in red. One of those fourth wall sitcoms plays on the TV, blasting the nasally lead actor’s whining through the whole house, loud enough that someone could probably hear it from the street if they stood still.
He shuts off the TV, then looks up. The ceiling lights spew hot red. His dad must’ve been screwing with the smart settings on those again. Who the hell knows where the remote is, so Harry just shuts off the switch, then runs back to the lamp in the entryway and yanks the plug from the wall.
On his phone: Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that! How can I help you?
“Call 9-1-1,” he says. “Can you make calls? Call the police.”
The little AI thinks and thinks, and then like a miracle, the call screen pops up with 9-1-1 already entered. Harry hits the green button and presses the phone to his ear, his heart beating into his tongue.
“What’s your emergency?”
The air whooshes out of Harry and he half-collapses against the front door. He spits out his address rapid fire.
“Sir, our connection is bad. Can you repeat that?”
He holds the phone closer to his mouth and says his address again. A flickering light catches the corner of his eye, and he goes bounding upstairs. It’s all those smart lights going berzerk.
“That’s my address,” he says, “but the emergency is across the street. I think someone just broke into my neighbors house with a weapon. They were wearing a mask.”
He’s unplugging lamps and flicking switches for the overheads. His computer monitor screams the bright orange of his wallpaper as he sprints by his bedroom. He backtracks to yank the cord from the wall.
“Would you mind if I ask you to—”
“He’s got a gun!” Harry hisses. It’s a lie, but honestly, that guy likely does have a gun somewhere. Even if he doesn’t, it’ll get the police to hurry the fuck up if they think a mass shooting is about to go down out here in the quaint suburbs.
He all but tumbles downstairs. The cascade of thumps has him rethinking all this running, so he slips off his shoes.
“A gun,” he repeats. “Hello? Are you sending someone?”
Just checking, but the garage door is closed. The back door is locked, as is the front. All the windows, too. Everything.
The phone crackles, and the guy on the other line goes mumbly behind all that static. From what Harry can catch of his voice, he’s asking another question, so Harry spits out his address with his voice raised as loud as he dares, which isn’t much. He also repeats the gun thing a few more times for good measure.
Outside, someone else screams.
Eyeball to the peephole going through his front door, Harry says, “I think there’s a bunch of them. This is an actual attack. Like a terrorist attack.”
The Tesla sits there with its windows reflecting Harry’s own house back at him. Nobody trawls the lawn dragging hedgeclippers, but both upstairs windows have gone dark.
“A terrorist attack,” he says again. “Can you hear me? Please tell me you can hear me. I don’t have much for weapons so I can’t really—”
The voice returns, clear as a damn bell in his ear, so loud he cringes away from his phone.
“For security reasons, may I ask you to complete a verbal puzzle? Don’t be alarmed. I just need to ensure the validity of our call.”
“I—what?” Harry scampers to check the back door again. Still locked. “What? A puzzle? What are you talking about? Do you think I’m a bot or something? Wait—are you a bot?!”
“Please calm down sir. This will only take a moment of your time, and it’ll help me direct your call appropriately. Now, what is four plus three?”
Somewhere way, way too close, a gun rattles off. He counts thirteen shots, but after the first few he’s breathing too hard to be sure of the number.
“What is four plus three?” the phone asks again.
Harry rubs his face and says, “Seven.”
His leg feels wet. Ah—he’d forgotten that stupid knife in his pocket. He yanks the thing from his pants, which is a very bad call if the sudden rush of new warmth flooding his thigh is anything to go by.
“I’m afraid I didn’t catch that,” the phone says.
Harry fumbles his pants open and peels them down far enough to get a good luck at the cut. “Seven,” he repeats.
It’s about as wide as a quarter, the cut. Not too bad. The blood trickles instead of pours, so the sudden rush must’ve been from his adrenaline or something. Not great, but he’s not dying of blood loss anytime soon.
“I’m sorry,” the phone says. “It seems we have a poor connection.”
“Seven,” Harry tells it as he stuffs one of his mom’s good napkins against his thigh and yanks his pants back up.
“Seven,” he says, but it comes out a little skittery, because he’s busy rushing to the stove, where all four burners have just blazed to life. He jabs at the buttons until the whole thing shuts off.
“Seven!”
“Seven!”
The refrigerator spits out a deluge of water and ice, both crushed and cubed. Their smart dishwasher with the touchpad panel floods with water, adding to what the fridge had spit() out everywhere.
In the living room, the TV roars awake. A harried wife nags her husband.
“Seven! Seven! Fuck!”
He hangs up the phone and calls again. A different patient voice answers him—male this time—but it’s a bot just the same. AI or something.
More screaming outside, now with deep laughter trailing after it. Harry sweats his phone screen slippery and peers through the front peep hole.
Almost flat dark now. Darker than it should be, actually, because the street lamps stand dead, as do the neighbor’s outside lights, which by this time of night should beam their blue LEDs into Harry’s own bedroom window, making sideways jail bars through the slats in the blinds.
A shape—someone stumbles down the street. A woman, maybe. She’s limping bad.
Her glasses glint as she turns her head to look behind her. She screams.
Harry’s got his hand on the knob when the car hits her.