Anger rose, hot and useless. He could bang doors, call stations, and ignite an immediate war. Or he could think. The house was his engineering sandbox, with redundant systems, discreet sensors, networked lights, and geofenced locks. It responded to his phone, voice, and schedule. Somewhere inside, it still responded to him and nobody else.
He opened his laptop. The driveway knew his MAC address; the mesh network recognized a silent friend. He authenticated through a backdoor he had never documented because, honestly, how was he to know he would need to? Status lights marched across his screen.