Off The Grid

OFF THE GRID

E. DENISE BILLUPS

Contents

Acknowledgments

Knock, Knock, Anyone Home

Life Before Digital

No Cell Phones Allowed

Gone, But Still Here

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About the Author

Copyright (C) 2020 E. Denise Billups

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Cover art by CoverMint

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my Beta Reader, John Darryl Winston,

for his fantastic editorial advice.

Technology is a useful servant but a dangerous master.

– Christian Lous Lange

Knock, Knock, Anyone Home

DANA, my android digital companion, activates at 8:30 AM, waking me with a brisk, melodious chord inside my bedroom walls and ceiling. When the wall-integrated TV powers on, the window shades glide open, the air-conditioner hums, and coffee beans grind in the kitchen.

Good morning, Justine, DANA greets in a masculine voice set to my liking, sounding much too human for a computer. It’s a brilliant spring day. The temperature is seventy-nine, rising to eighty-five degrees. I’ve run your shower, and the coffee is brewing. A replenishment drink is ready to restore low electrolytes in your body. Would you care for today’s news headlines?

No, thank you, DANA, I reply to my twenty-four hours, 365 days a year digital companion always attuned to my breath, heartbeat, and emotions. Like an extra limb, DANA senses my health, needs, desires, and dreams. I wonder how people survived without the Android assistant in the past and worry we’ve become too reliant on technology. Have we lost autonomy? Can we cope without our digital companion? Of late, I craved privacy and unplugged from the digital world