by Abi Silver
‘I go to all the cybersecurity events and work closely with the team the government set up.’
‘It’s not enough.’
‘So, what, now you want us and Tesla and Google and all the others to allow you access to our most secret information? You’re not serious,’ James muttered through clenched teeth.
‘Not me. Alan. And the PM. I am afraid I was not as convincing this time in my pleas on your behalf, although I will continue to try. But at the moment they are deadly serious,’ Peter said. ‘And, in all honesty, I really don’t see what the fuss is all about. It’s just the processes they…we want to oversee. I can tell you, without naming names, that at least two other manufacturers have already agreed to be audited in this way.’
‘And the list?’
‘Assuming we are satisfied with the security of your systems, we are looking at a few weeks only for publication of the list of approved manufacturers; October I would say. And there is no reason, for the time being, to think that SEDA would not be on the list.’
‘October this year?’
‘Yes.’
‘For the Bill to pass and the list to be published?’
‘Yes.’
‘Thank the Lord.’
‘Well there’s no need to be rude.’
‘Is that it?’
‘No.’
‘I didn’t think so.’
‘I would love another cup of coffee, but you know I like it piping hot. Could you see if someone can bring a fresh pot?’
6
IT WAS TUESDAY and that meant it was Neil Layton’s day to assume responsibility for the morning routine. For the first month, when Ruby was tiny, he had been in charge of breakfast for their other two children every day, but they had now settled into this routine, where he was boss on Tuesdays and Thursdays and Therese managed the rest of the week.
This morning he was feeling particularly perky as Therese had only disturbed him once, around 2am, when she had fed Ruby. He had even slept soundly enough to dream, although it was a weird mash-up of wailing babies, fleeing something large and frightening and having his face licked by a large, slobbering dog.
Breakfast was challenging when he had to orchestrate it one-handed, but if he used the sling for Ruby he had learned that he could work twice as fast. Of course, that meant that he had to postpone his own breakfast, either that or risk dripping it all over his baby daughter, but that was a small price to pay for relative normality in the kitchen. And it was worth a few minutes of discomfort for the look of relief on Therese’s face when he took Ruby from her arms and shepherded Bertie and Georgia down the stairs.
Today Bertie demanded his Coco Pops warmed up. Neil placed Bertie’s bowl in the microwave for twenty-five seconds, just how he liked it and, as he had anticipated, when Georgia saw him serve Bertie, she asked for hers to be heated too.
‘Look. Turns the milk brown,’ Bertie declared proudly. ‘Can I show Ruby, dad?’
‘You can try. She’s a bit muffled up in here, but I’ll turn her head for you.’
So Neil had manoeuvred his way over to perch next to his son and Ruby had patiently endured Bertie prodding her cheek and pointing out his breakfast. And she had hardly flinched when Bertie attempted to prise her eyelids open, ever so gently, just to ensure she really could see.
The microwave pinged and Neil took the opportunity to leap away and collect Georgia’s cereal. But, in his haste, he must have pressed the wrong combination of buttons. The bowl was staggeringly hot. He dropped it back onto the worktop with a shriek, sloshing soggy Coco Pops and brown milk all over and raced to the sink where he ran his hand under the cold tap, swearing under his breath. Ruby smacked her lips. Bertie laughed hysterically. Georgia began to cry.
‘Just one minute, Georgie. Daddy just needs one minute to save his fingers. Not sure there’s a plastic surgeon on hand today, so I need to sort this out myself. Then I’ll get you a fresh bowl. Are you sure you want them warm? It turns the milk brown you know?’
Georgia’s face was screwed up tightly and her sobs were wracking her entire frame, but Neil believed he detected a shallow nod among the shudders. As a parent you had to be able to develop a whole new set of observation skills. Switching off the tap earlier than the recommended two minutes and kissing the top of Ruby’s head for no reason other than relief that she, at least, was not demanding anything of him, he lifted a clean bowl down from the cupboard, shovelled some Coco Pops in and tried, once more, to feed his elder daughter.
This time he watched the seconds tick down on the microwave, tested the temperature with a teaspoon and then set the bowl down ceremoniously in front of Georgia. Her face was so awash with tears and snot that he could hardly tell if she was happy or not. He tugged at some kitchen roll and wiped her down.
‘Thank you, Daddy,’ she croaked.
Neil was dying for a cup of coffee, but Therese wouldn’t allow him hot drinks around the children, and certainly not when he had the youngest strapped to his chest. Staring out of the window at next door’s cat oozing its way along the fence distracted him for now.
There was a loud plop behind him, followed by a scream from Georgia. He turned abruptly to find that someone, presumably Bertie, had lobbed a spoon into Georgia’s bowl and it had landed with a titanic splash, sending half the contents spilling out over Georgia’s face, clothes and the table.
‘Bertie!’ he yelled, then remembered that Therese had told him not to shout at Bertie.
Bertie giggled.
‘Georgie looks funny.’ He pointed at his Thomas the Tank Engine toy, which he had smuggled onto the table. ‘It wasn’t me, Daddy,’ he said.
‘What? Thomas used his special springboard to launch a missile at Princess Georgia’s breakfast?’ Neil was no longer shouting.
Georgia screamed again.
‘Neil?’ Therese was calling from the top of the stairs. He heard the creaking of the floorboards, as she manoeuvred herself around in bed.
Neil swore for the second time that morning, this time more audibly than the last. Bertie clapped his hand over his mouth and Georgia stopped crying.
‘It’s OK,’ Neil called back into the upstairs void. ‘Thomas the Tank Engine had a little accident. I’m just cleaning him up.’ He put his finger to his lips. ‘Shh,’ he said. Both children laughed.
He dabbed at Georgia’s face with the soft hand towel and cleaned the spilled milk off the table. Then he examined her t-shirt. It was khaki-coloured anyway and only spattered around the neck. She sometimes came home from school dirty, so Therese would never know, as long as they could escape from the house without her scrutiny.
‘Georgia, sweetie. Finish up your Coco Pops and then I’ll just dry your t-shirt with some tissue.’
She nodded obediently. As he yanked another paper sheet off the roll, she leaned forward and planted a kiss on the back of his hand. ‘Thank you, Daddy. I don’t agree with Grandma. I think you’re a very good daddy,’ she said.
7
JAMES WAS standing at the wash basin in his ensuite bathroom at 2am. He was not a vain man, but there were definitely two additional lines radiating out from his left eye, which he had not noticed before and, following his jaw line down, he questioned if that was the beginning of a double chin. He stepped onto the scales and squinted at the reading. No. Still exactly twelve stone. That didn’t necessarily mean everything was precisely the same, though. He knew that he might have lost some muscle tone recently and it could easily have been replaced by body fat.
He opened the top drawer of the bathroom cabinet and surveyed the array of beauty products which Martine utilised on a daily basis. There was an entire row of nail polish, with white at one end, black at the other and every imaginable colour in between. Her lipsticks were less varied, around twenty different shades of red. Then the creams and ointments began; moisturisers, toners, scrubs, clea
nsers. He ran his fingers along the tubes and jars but balked at opening any. And he certainly couldn’t ask Martine for advice, even though he knew she would be delighted to provide it – not after the many occasions on which he had teased her for buying the products in the first place. He would ask Jane at work instead. She was nearer his age and very discreet.
Settling back down underneath the covers, he let out a deep sigh.
‘What is it?’ Martine asked, her hair splayed out across her copper-infused pillow, her latest aid to clean sleeping.
‘Nothing. Just can’t switch off,’ James replied, gazing at the ceiling.
Martine turned over, shuffled her body in closer and ran her fingers down his arm.
‘What are you so worried about? Are the others causing trouble?’
‘They’re all after what they can get for themselves.’ James leaned back against the velvet headboard. ‘Jeremy, he’s the insurance guy. He’s going to be allowed to make a killing by keeping premiums at current rates when no one will ever have an accident, but he wants more. Will, he’s the cyclist, he gets big investment in cycling lanes, but he’s still not satisfied. He wants all lorries banned during daylight hours. Alan, he’s the minister, he must love it when Peter reports back. Divide and conquer. He doesn’t even have to try. We do it for him.’
‘And what is it you want?’
‘What I’ve always wanted. To sell my cars. To improve people’s lives.’
‘So why aren’t they all on your side? What you want will benefit millions of people,’ Martine said.
‘Alan doesn’t see it that way, apparently. I could sense he wasn’t happy when I spoke at that committee meeting at the House of Commons last week. Oh, there was lots of effusive thanks and “We love you for taking all these risks and having a vision”, but then some counter-terrorist idiot spoke after me and convinced them all that autonomous vehicles were awful, because they could be hacked and taken over and that people’s personal data could be stolen. Now Alan wants to send someone to vet our data controls. God, Peter sounded just like Tony Blair today, going on about “national security”. Spineless, they are. No trust. No imagination. No vision.’
‘Well, no one could compare with you.’
‘You might just be my only fan at the moment.’ He stroked her arm. ‘If only we could have some progress, something tangible, anything, rather than all this delay. There was a moment, at the government meeting, when I thought I had them. I thought they felt it too. Embrace the positives. Eradicate the negatives. The whole room was rising with me. But as soon as I left and the next guy came and talked “terror” and “opaque systems” it was all washed away. I might as well have never existed.
‘You know, I feel like one of those hamsters on a treadmill, running, running, running, but never getting anywhere. In the end I think my heart will burst and I’ll fall down dead and then another hamster will take my place and no one will notice that it has a black splodge behind its ear when I don’t.’
Martine laughed. ‘No one could take your place. Can you imagine Toby trying? What did you tell me he asked the other day? Oh yes. He thought someone was joking when they said a cow gave off as much pollution as a car. He never knew they farted methane.’
‘He’s young. He’ll learn.’
‘You think? By his age I had two regional titles and I was running my own business.’
‘You were very…advanced. And you weren’t born with a silver spoon.’
‘You shouldn’t let them push you around so much,’ Martine said. ‘Peter and the others.’
‘I shouldn’t shoot the messenger, either. I know it’s not Peter’s fault. He’s very supportive, if a little annoying. It’s Alan who’s pulling the strings.’
‘So talk to Alan, then. Ignore Peter. He can’t be so terrifying.’
‘It’s not as simple as that. You don’t understand. There’s a protocol. Oh it’s just so…pathetic! I’ve played by all the rules. They’ve had the royal visit, the business plan, five years of collaboration and strategic thinking and they’re still too scared to publish the list. God if I have to sit through another one of those endless meetings with obstacles being thrown in my path again and again…’
‘Maybe you could ask Alan to come to the office. He’s never been, has he? I could organise some lunch.’
‘I doubt a lunch, however enticing, is going to change Alan’s mind, and I’m trying to keep them out, not invite them in! I’ll have to talk to the other manufacturers. I’m seeing them next week. Maybe if we all fight it, they’ll realise they have to drop it. I’m not sure it’s legal anyway. I’ll ask Bruce. Must be against some data privacy rules. They’re just all so weak, these politicians, that’s the real problem. And the lawyers make them nervous. No one wants to go down in history as the person who got it spectacularly wrong. You’d think we were talking about “weapons of mass destruction” not autonomous cars.’
‘So is that what you’re going to do? Fight it? Fight the government?’
James laughed. ‘You make it sound very dramatic,’ he said. ‘Maybe Peter has brought Alan around already. He did hint that he would try again. Then there won’t need to be any fight.’
Martine turned her back on James and plumped her pillow. James was right that something needed to happen to shake things up. She understood his frustration at being undervalued in this way, after all his years of hard work. Every time he capitulated, he was asked for more and more, the goalposts constantly shifting.
She drew her knees up to her chest – her thinking position – and listened to James muttering to himself as he finally drifted off to sleep.
8
JUAN HERRERA sat at his computer screen in the technology lab at SEDA’s Essex factory, concentrating hard. He had connected first to one of their test vehicles, which was stuck in traffic in Islington. It was dull watching how SEDA’s cars behaved in the rush hour, but important, too. One thing he had already noted to report to James was that the other drivers were clearly nervous at how close behind them the SEDAs regularly travelled. That wouldn’t be a problem once every car was autonomous, but the last thing James would want was any bad publicity at this crucial testing stage, so Juan would mention it at the next opportunity. In any event, the driver was keeping his own log and was scheduled to come into the lab for a debrief tomorrow, so they could compare notes on his driving experience.
Juan looked at the road ahead, to anticipate any particular obstacles the car would need to navigate. Now the SEDA car was first in line at the traffic lights. The lights changed, the two lanes of traffic immediately to the SEDA’s left began to move, but the SEDA was stuck in its blocks. Had it stalled? Juan urged it on. Then he saw why it was waiting.
Just as the lights turned to green, a cyclist with a death wish crossed the junction from left to right. None of the other cars could see her, as she was hidden, until the last minute, by a vehicle which had not completely cleared the junction. Each of the regular vehicles slammed on their brakes and swerved to miss the cyclist who, miraculously, emerged unscathed and pedalled off intact. Only the SEDA had remained stationary, anticipating her approach. Once the cyclist had escaped, the SEDA moved smoothly off.
Juan switched on his left-hand screen, which provided him with the view of the road the car itself could ‘see’, via its combination of sensors. The images appeared as coloured shapes against a black background, each car was represented by an orange square, although all SEDA cars were green to help distinguish them easily, pedestrians were purple rectangles and other obstacles covered the spectrum from red to blue, according to their status. He rewound a few screens and then he understood what had happened.
‘Perfecto!’ he mouthed as he watched the cyclist, a yellow circle, appear at the far left of the screen twenty seconds earlier. None of the human drivers could see her, but the SEDA knew she was there, its sensors turning through 360 degrees,
those high frequency radio waves bouncing off her, even at a distance of some thirty-five metres. This was the kind of snapshot the public would love; James could spin it as his cars exhibiting some kind of ‘sixth sense’. He made a careful note of the vehicle ID and the precise reference for the footage before sitting back and rubbing his eyes. Then he pulled out a bag from under the desk and extracted a crumpled white t-shirt, a pair of boxer shorts and a toothbrush. He was just heading for the toilets when Toby walked in.
‘Hi Juan. Why’re you in so early?’ Toby asked.
Juan shrugged and folded his hands behind his back, so as to hide his clothes. ‘Lots to do on the new project. Thought I’d get a head start.’
‘New project?’
‘Well the new initiative. I suppose it’s all still part of Connect, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose it is, yes.’
‘When does James need my report?’
‘I’m to see it first,’ Toby said a little too quickly, ‘and I’d love an update.’
‘OK. I could get you something by Friday, just in outline. I’m waiting to hear back from one of the big US guys. I think it would be best to do that before I write it up.’
‘Sure,’ Toby said. ‘Oh, did you see there’s going to be a new James Bond movie, after all. Do you get James Bond in Mexico?’ he continued.
‘I think James Bond gets most places,’ Juan said, ‘and before I came here, I was in the US for five years, and he definitely gets there.’ Juan smiled and a dimple hollowed out his right cheek.
Toby’s nose twitched. Then he marched over to the recycling bin in the corner and opened it up. A pungent mix of turmeric and coriander wafted its way through the holes in the top of a small cardboard box.
‘Were you here late too?’
‘There’s a lot to do. I’m not just evaluating our own vehicles. I need to review all the systems the other car manufacturers are using, compare them with ours. Then I can assess compatibility.’
