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1. Beginning

Michael woke up to an alarm clock. Alarm clocks of the day were a lot gentler. This alarm clock did not start beeping at maximum loudness at the exact minute it was told to go off. Michael's alarm clock was measuring his sleeping rhythm. A light sleep period happened to coincide with the suggested awake time, and the alarm clock chimed (not beeped) softly to see if the human would wake up. It detected movement on the bed, but no buttons were pressed to indicate the human woke up. Since the alarm clock knew it was a Saturday, it did not persist and did not chime any louder at this time. Michael owned this alarm clock for two years now, and the alarm clock got to know Michael very well. The clock waited another half an hour, and chimed again, starting softly, and increasing in volume. The sleep pattern indicated the human would very much like to keep sleeping deeply, but would probably regret it later. So, chimes increased in volume until so much movement on the bed was detected, even the room sensor picked it up. It was going to be a day with many plans, some tasks bound to run out of time budget and overtake other tasks equally important.

First task of the day - a fifteen minute walk outside around the house. Second task: pick vegetables from the greenhouse for the breakfast.

Greenhouse had only basics in common with greenhouses of the past 20th century. Greenhouses of the past were about mass production of disposable things like plants for sale (which could die after a month as a surprise to the women who liked the large, colorful plants that they saw in the store), flowers (shipped around on trucks for cheapest price but a useable life measuring in less than a day), and vegetables which were encouraged to ripen fast with methods super market shoppers shouldn't know.

This one was an automated house greenhouse. It did enjoy humans to roam around in its tightly packed insides, but it was just as well off if noone felt like working inside for a week. It's only task was to provide ideal growing conditions for the many types of plants inside, not to push them to grow fast. Because making plants growing fast was the easy part. This was a high pressure CO2 greenhouse, of course. When no humans were inside, it was pressurized with air of increased carbon dioxide concentration to several times the atmospheric pressure. Plants laughed when humans considered the CO2 a "bad thing" - they loved it! Plants looked nothing like plants from the CO2 - starved outside. Vegetable plants became bushes and vines. All plants were huge and grew fast and tall. Fitting many different vegetables therefore was an interesting task in itself given the limited greenhouse volume.

So, it would be one tomato from the tomato tree in the center, Michael thought. That huge tomato is enough for a big bowl of a salad. The Saturday was just beginning...

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