Taking the Highway

by M. H. Mead

  Andre peered around the hostess into the restaurant and saw several empty tables, most of them set for single diners. Nobody had to eat alone when they could bring their virtual friends with them. But was it truly worse than the tables of two and four and six? The bigger the group, the more blips, egrams and phone calls it took to pick a restaurant. Then they used GPS to find the place, and when they finally sat down, they reveled in the incredible tangibility of it all, patting themselves on the back for keeping it real.

  He focused on the hostess. “We’ll wait for non-tech.”

  Then he heard it. Through the closed windows, over the sound of the rain, came the unmistakable roar of an internal combustion engine. He snatched up his drip hat and ducked back outside. He ran into the lot, where his brother was nosing the Dodge Challenger into a double-wide parking spot near the front door. Andre rapped on the driver’s side. “What the hell are you doing?”

  Oliver cracked the window. “Parking.”

  “You drove it? In the rain?”

  “Easiest way to transport a car is to drive it, kid.”

  Andre’s hand dove into his pocket and closed into a fist over the key he kept there. He watched beads of water trail over the Challenger’s hand-rubbed finish, pooling in the lines of the creased hood. Mud and other road grime covered the tires and had splashed onto the rims. “You could have brought it to me tomorrow. My date isn’t until—”

  “I’m bringing it to Greenfield Village. The classic car show?” Oliver straightened his arms and put on an announcer’s voice. “‘The September Spectacular: Steel and Speed.’ I told you about this.” He eased himself out of the driver’s seat, tested the rain with his palm, and put on his drip hat.

  Andre gripped the top edge of the car door, preventing Oliver from closing it. “What about Brittany?”

  “Brittany? Is that the seventy-nine? I thought her name was Emma.”

  “No, Emma is the seventy-nine. You gave Brittany a solid ninety-three percent.”

  Oliver lifted his palms. “I can’t keep them all straight.”

  “The point is, you know I have a date.” Or would, if he had the car.

  Oliver shrugged. “Believe it or not, my little brother’s romantic conquests aren’t my first consideration when I schedule car shows.”

  “You just don’t want me driving it. I’m surprised I get to sit in it.”

  “Want to get in?” Oliver gestured to the passenger side. “Be my guest. I’ll drive you around the block. I’ll take you anywhere you want to go.”

  He shouldered Oliver out of the way and climbed into the driver’s seat, which was already pre-warmed from Oliver’s backside. Andre shut the door behind him, silencing his brother and the rest of the world.

  He ran his hands over the steering wheel, feeling the ridges on its underside. His Raven and the Challenger were both made by Dodge, but the Raven was all rolling soft surfaces, the comm system a series of dancing lights, a modern look that added up to exactly nothing. The Challenger, however, oozed style. The analog speedometer showed speed in miles, the fuel gauge was simply a single hand that dipped lower as gasoline was consumed, and everything from the windshield wipers to the navigation system had its own button, most of them with cunning pictures showing their function. There were no optimizers, no stabilizers, and certainly no Overdrive sensors. You didn’t ride in a machine like this, you drove it. His one year old Raven, with its smooth suspension and dashboard lights, felt ethereal, as if it were floating above the road. Not this car. The Challenger met the pavement with the physicality of a rampaging bull.

  The rain was coming down heavier now, and Andre looked up through the moon roof. No, not rain. Oliver was drumming his fingers on top of the car. “Are we going to eat or not?” he called through the window.

  Andre opened the door. “I don’t like leaving the Challenger here.”

  “Outside of a restaurant with a cop in it?” Oliver flung his arm toward Bella Trattoria. “We’ll get a table up front. You can keep an eye on it the whole time.”

  Andre closed his hand over the key in his pocket, running his thumb over the alarm buttons, staring at the matching buttons on the dash. Oliver had installed two alarms and a tracker. They could abandon it in the oh-zone at midnight and nothing would happen to it. He knew the Challenger was safe, but that didn’t mean he wanted to walk away and leave it.

  Several people had gathered at Bella Trattoria’s window, staring and pointing. Why shouldn’t they? It wasn’t every day that you saw a screaming red 2008 Dodge Challenger in perfect condition. Oliver played to the crowd, throwing a smile over his shoulder, then using overly-expansive gestures to coax Andre out.

  And that was the problem, right there. Oliver wanted everyone in the restaurant to know whose car this was. The longer Andre sat in it, the more people might assume that the brothers shared the Challenger, or even worse, that it belonged to the younger LaCroix.

  He got out of the car and slammed the door. “I hope you and your mechanical date enjoy your lunch.” He turned and walked away.

  “What? Come on. Don’t.” A pause while Oliver locked the car, then footsteps behind him. “Andre, you’re being an asshole. Come back.”

  Across the street was an Aqua Taco franchise. Andre stormed through the door without holding it for Oliver and shed his hat. Unlike Bella Trattoria, Aqua Taco had bright lights, upbeat music, and video monitors in the corners. The monitors showed the noon news shows, local feed—weather, sports, puppy stories—a comfortable background hum. More importantly, it had windows into the parking lot. He could still see the Challenger across the street.

  He marched to the counter and ordered a halibut taco plate, extra spicy, and iced tea.

  “I’ll have the same.” Oliver reached from behind and slid his multicard through the cashier slot before Andre could stop him. They waited in silence for their order, which Oliver took possession of and carried toward a table. Andre would have preferred a booth near the window, but Oliver marched to a four-top right in the center of the room. He planted the tray in the middle of the table and used an empty chair for his drip hat. “You’re welcome for the tacos.”

  “Big spender.” Andre sat in the chair opposite and put his hat on top of Oliver’s. He added lemon to his tea and bit into a taco. The mild fish mellowed the sting from the hot sauce. The second bite was just as satisfying as the first.

  “Nice suit,” Oliver said. “Brooks Brothers?”

  “Markson.”

  Oliver picked at his coleslaw with a plastic fork. “Maybe if you spent less on clothes and books and girlfriends—”

  “Maybe if you spent more on clothes and books, you’d actually keep a girlfriend.” Or a wife.

  Oliver put his elbows on the table, claiming territory. “It takes more than clothes to keep a girlfriend.”

  Andre brought his eyes above Oliver’s head, looking at the video monitor in the corner, but only for a moment. Just enough to piss Oliver off. “You’re right. It takes a lot more than clothes. It might even take a classic car.”

  “Why do you have to be like that?” Oliver asked. “Every time I even think about driving the Challenger—”

  “You didn’t even ask me.”

  “So now I’m asking. Do you mind if I show Dad’s car?”

  Andre raised his eyebrows. “You mean our car?”

  “I’m showing the Challenger in the September Spectacular at Greenfield Village. Is that all right with you?”

  “A whole month?”

  “More like two weeks.”

  “Two weeks?”

  “It’s under a pavilion. There is security. It will be fine. You can check on the car when you come to my fundraiser at the Village this weekend.”

  “Oh, hell no,” Andre said. “The last fundraiser I attended for you was a disaster.”

  “The one at my house? I raised half a million bucks at that dinner.”

  “Good for you.”

  “Everyone thought you planned that plun
ge into the pool.”

  “I ruined my leather jacket.”

  “So show up in a bathing suit this time, I’ll raise even more.”

  “Isn’t that sinking fairly low? Even for you?”

  “I’m kidding,” Oliver said. “You’ll be safe at Greenfield Village. There’s no pool there. People barely bathed back then, much less went swimming.”

  The video in the corner showed local weather. Rain for the rest of the day and into the night. Andre bit into his second taco while waiting for the weekend forecast.

  Oliver snapped his fingers in front of Andre’s face. He blinked.

  “I’m over here, kid.”

  “I heard every word you said. Greenfield Village. Probably cost you a fortune. And stop calling me ‘kid.’“

  “I only rented part of it. We get the central green for six hours.”

  Andre grunted and took a bite of taco. We get the central green, as if he’d already agreed to come. He was never sure if Oliver wanted him to show up at these things as a brother, a cop, or a fourth. Maybe all three. And what was the new fascination with Greenfield Village? Every politician claimed to love the place, as if the fastest path to authenticity was to turn back the clock to 1890. They were even holding pre-parties there for all the bigwigs coming in for the economic summit.

  Andre put down his taco and wiped his hands. He stared at Oliver across the table. “Wait a minute. I get it. You’re trying to bask in the glow from the summit. You want to look like the candidate who brought businesses to Detroit.”

  “Of course that’s what I want. That’s what we all want. Detroit is only Detroit because people believe in it.”

  “People believe in money,” Andre said.

  “That’s what I’m saying. They’re coming to us. The economic summit is here—”

  “Because ‘Detroit is the economic summit.’ I remember the speech.”

  “Wrote that one myself.” Oliver took a bite of coleslaw. “And I happen to like Greenfield Village. I like fourths, too. I’ve got a few on the payroll, but I could use a few more. I could use you.”

  Because you get me for free. Andre pushed his plate aside and sipped his tea. “Why can’t Nikhil pretty up your party?” As Oliver’s son, Nikhil would have no choice but to attend. Plus, he qualified as a fourth. Barely.

  Oliver leaned back in his chair and sighed. “I’m trying to help you, kid. I’ve invited people who are important to know. People who could be beneficial to your career.”

  “Like who, the police commissioner?”

  “No, just the mayor.”

  Andre spit a chip of ice back into his glass. “The mayor isn’t coming to a city councilman’s fundraiser.”

  Oliver lifted his own glass. “Someone from her office,” he said into his tea.

  “How stupid are you? The mayor’s office will send an intern looking for free beer. Maybe I’d better make an appearance to class up your—” He stopped when a flash on the video monitor caught his eye. Smoke. Flame. Cars.

  Oliver was watching the other monitor, over Andre’s head. He pushed back his chair and got to his feet. “Holy shit, is that on the highway?” Patrons hushed each other as everyone listened for the audio.

  The smiling spinner was gone from the screen, replaced by a scene of tangled, burning metal and jagged splinters of plastic. The camera shook. It was probably a hand-held job, the first to spot the scene and start uploading. The shaking and panning blurred the background, and Andre couldn’t see where it was or what was going on. A bomb? Footage from yet another overseas war? And what was with all the cars? The camera paused for the split second and he recognized the unmistakable outline of the 555 art gallery. Whatever was happening, it was happening less than ten kilometers from here. He grabbed for his datapad, hoping to get a better picture than this amateur reporting.

  The audio blared into the room, a voiceover narrating the now-looping footage. “. . . failure in the Overdrive system on Interstate 96 at West Grand, in an area covering eight square kilometers.”

  Oliver turned back to Andre, his eyes wide, and then he was scrambling in his pocket for his pad.

  Audio screamed from the phone in Andre’s head. [ATTENTION! ATTENTION! ALL NEARBY UNITS REPORT IN FOR REROUTING.] He clicked in a response, giving his current location and waited for the department AI to figure out where to send him.

  Oliver waved at the monitors. “I gotta—”

  “Yeah.”

  Oliver laid a hand on Andre’s shoulder and steered him toward the door. “Let’s go.”

  On the street outside Aqua Taco, pedestrians, bikes, and cars flowed in disturbingly normal patterns. Andre still didn’t know where he was going—he doubted the traffic router could see anything in that mess—but wherever it was, he’d need his car. He shot down the sidewalk toward Bella Trattoria, belatedly realizing he’d left his hat at the restaurant and was now getting soaked. The chatter in his head was starting to jumble together with cross-talk, but still no official instructions.

  The Raven sensed the key in his pocket and unlocked itself. He jumped in and already had the car in gear when the passenger door opened and Oliver climbed in beside him. Andre stared at him. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Oliver held up his datapad. “It’s a mess out there. Can’t take the Challenger into that.”

  Andre nodded and drove into the street. The Raven’s police seal made it exempt from the minimum passenger laws, but Andre wasn’t supposed to carry civilians in an on-duty car. Supposed to or not, Oliver was here, and he might be useful. “Get me some information,” Andre said. “News, spins, someone has to know something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Location! I need exact coordinates.” He upped the volume in his implant and strained to make out anything that would help him find the fastest way to the scene. The service drives would be mobbed, but if he could hit the right cross street, he might be able to find a way onto the highway.

  Oliver held up his datapad and said something, but Andre couldn’t make it out. He swore, and instructed his implant to mute everything except official instructions. “What?”

  “I said, Overdrive is down in several places.”

  “Wrong! It’s just a single node. The system automatically slows everything else down.” He listened to his head. “They’ve red-lighted a bunch of eastbound on-ramps, trying to stop the flow of traffic.” He turned onto Joy Road and immediately regretted it. Cars were slamming on the brakes or turning down alleys to avoid gridlock. Andre jammed the wheel to the right and took the narrow shoulder.

  Oliver gripped the door handle. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know! Maybe if you find me a location of some kind—”

  [ATTENTION! ATTENTION!] Finally, the damn AI had found him. “Sergeant LaCroix, please report to Eastbound Interstate 96 via Livernois Avenue.”

  Andre tapped the dash and told the car where to go. He found an empty alley to make his turn and let the GPS calculate his route. “I got the place,” he told Oliver. “Find out what’s going on.”

  “They’re saying it’s a bomb. Terrorists.”

  Andre took a corner that splashed an arc of puddle water onto the sidewalk. “God, I hope so.”

  Oliver gasped. “Are you crazy? How can you hope for that?”

  “What’s the last big highway pileup you can remember?” In his peripheral vision he could see Oliver tapping fingers to thumb, counting.

  “There was that thing in Phoenix before Arizona agreed to go Overdrive. But that was . . . six? Seven years ago?”

  “Not in Detroit,” Andre said.

  The Overdrive system, essentially an overlapping series of AIs, was able to monitor and control any vehicle produced in the last twelve years. Every federally-funded highway was lined with sensors that pinpointed every car’s speed, trajectory, and proximity to other vehicles. The data was communicated to control towers perched on berms and buildings above the highways. A series of lights on the dashboard s
ignaled the driver when the system made an adjustment, overriding manual control. Detroit had been the pilot city, the first with autonomous highways. Building the system brought jobs. Jobs brought confidence. Detroiters marked the return to economic prosperity from the beginning of that program.

  Now, they took it for granted. It was funny how quickly drivers had embraced behaving like passengers during commuting time. Andre did it at least once a week, reading behind the wheel, unable to keep from imagining his father’s horror. Papa LaCroix had not been a man who liked to entrust his destiny to others. Cruise control was bad enough. The proximity that the Overdrive system allowed—at speeds approaching 200 KPH—would have sent him scurrying to the surface streets.

  The system had originally been designed to keep a following distance of twelve meters between every car, but after only three months of operation, the system’s designers had reduced the margin to only four meters without incident. Everyone got used to it because the safety record was perfect. A mechanical failure of a single car meant that every other vehicle was automatically maneuvered away—signal lights flaring across their dashboards and emergency services notified. Auto accidents were low-speed crashes on surface streets, never on the highways, not with Overdrive in charge.

  “Everybody hurtles along nodding out their windows to everyone else,” Andre said. “That’s why I hope this was some kind of deliberate act. If it’s a malfunction, nobody will trust the highways.”

  The dashboard told him to take the on-ramp at Livernois. He made the turn and came out onto the service drive, packed with four-passenger vehicles, none of which were getting on the highway, since their cars would not let them pass a red-lighted ramp.

  Andre wrenched the wheel to the left, slipped between two stopped cars, and hurled down the on-ramp onto the eerily empty highway. He noted the absence of the Overdrive greeting and realized how quickly he’d become used to it himself.

  Oliver looked over his shoulder, craning to see behind them. “I’ve never run a red light before.”

  “It loses its thrill.” Andre gritted his teeth and hit the accelerator. Warning lights swept across the dash. Please take manual control. Overdrive malfunction. Please take manual control.