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Barton Clay was an idiot, and it wasn’t going to work.

Worse, he risked them all spending their lives in jail! Yes, they had clients who were brilliant at manipulating AI. They were amazing at artificial intelligence, but the plan Barton wanted…

Crazy.

It was really his need to impress and obey Celia Smith, and Celia was always trying to prove how important she was to Nathaniel Wharton and so the game went on and on. But no matter—Barton thought his and his wife’s friendship with Celia meant he could talk to her and…

No, no, no!

Marci Warden was angered by the whole ridiculous thing, and she slammed the door after entering her house. Right! Slam the door. That’ll help. Take it out on the house!

She smiled briefly. Time to chill, to relax. Not only could her house’s artificial intelligence system open and close doors for her, turn lights on and off, control the TV, even run the faucets…

The house could even behave like a real friend!

It could give her answers about movies, about the weather, the state of the world, and more, so much more! She’d given her personal AI system one of her favorite names and even chosen the voice.

“Chrissie!” she commanded the house’s AI, “Turn the lights on. And go ahead and get the TV going, too, any news channel!”

Lights came on; the television sprang to life presenting the weather.

“Lights, TV. Welcome home, Marci!” Chrissie said.

“Thanks!”

Of course, AI didn’t care if it was thanked or not, but what the heck? She should stay in practice for dealing with the human world.

Yep. She loved Chrissie. She hated Barton Clay.

Shaking her head, Marci headed on into the kitchen.

She was hungry. She looked around at the oven, the range, the toaster, mixer, coffeepot, cutting board, electric knife…

There were all kinds of things she could find in the refrigerator, but first…

Her eyes went to the bar, set up on the marble-topped counter between the kitchen and the dining room.

After the day she’d had…

A drink.

She poured herself a large whiskey, swallowed it in a single gulp, and went for another.

Then she was ready for the rest of the kitchen. She was, she knew , very hungry and at the rate she was drinking, food was going to be necessary, even if she was hoping the whiskey would help her sleep, close her eyes, and black out the day.

So…

“Chrissie, open the fridge,” she said.

Obediently, the refrigerator door slowly swung open. She began to peruse the contents thoughtfully. A salad would be good, but not filling. But it could go with some toaster pastries. Easy. Fast.

She was vaguely aware of the weather making way for the news. Wall Street was at it again. Well, of course. The world had become a place that could be so easily manipulated!

Setting her drink down, she reached for the lettuce and grabbed the box of toaster pastries from the pantry. The fridge automatically whooshed shut behind her.

Walking past the sink, she set the food down on the large cutting board on the counter and put the pastries into the toaster.

“Chrissie, start the toaster, please,” she said. “Not too well done!”

She frowned. That was all she said, but the electric knife had suddenly started whirring.

“Hey, Chrissie—hey! What’s going on? I said toaster, not knife!”

But Chrissie wasn’t listening.

The knife was on high, flopping all around on the counter, almost flipping about like an excited puppy. She tried to reach past it to pull the plug, but her hand hit the toaster—which was red-hot! The metal burned her and she instinctively jumped back, only for the automated refrigerator door to swing open, throwing her forward toward the counter and the wildly hopping knife.

She managed to grab it, only for the toaster to sizzle and burn with such a vengeance that it was jiggling on the counter, moving toward her, and from the nearby sink, the water suddenly began to spray wildly from the kitchen spigot.

Her stereo system suddenly came on, the music incredibly loud.

Her lights began to flash!

“Chrissie, what the heck? Stop! Shut it all off!” she screamed.

But it would be her last command. The water spray reached the outlet, and a sizzle of electricity went surging through her body, her arm spasming and slamming the knife and its serrated edges into her chest and up to her throat.

She was going to sleep all right, closing her eyes…

But she knew, even as the world turned to darkness, that she hadn’t truly been killed by the evils of artificial intelligence gone awry.

For artificial intelligence to exist…

There had to be a human mind behind it.

A human mind…filled with evil, and evil that could fester, grow, and within this new world of AI, explode into bloodshed and murder and so much more…

The darkness came. And her thoughts about the day were finally and absolutely set to rest with her last one being that yes…

The house was just like a friend.

Chrissie could and would do just about anything.

Including kill.