Death Drive

Chapter 2

"Battery almost empty. Would you like to stop at the nearest recharging station?" The synthetic voice shook Lucas back to reality. He had been surfing the net with his smartglasses, letting his Ampere do the driving. With a flick of his finger, he checked the car status app: Battery level at 7%. Two years until next inspection. Tire pressure nominal. Mileage 75 053 miles. Current driver: Lucas Beckett. Passenger(s): None. This and various other info flowed past his field of vision on the glass lenses. The battery level alert was flashing red.

"Good idea, you do that." He sunk back to the virtual world, unmuting the stream he had been watching. As he watched a team of humans combat a team of AIs on the digital fields of a multiplayer first person shooter, the Ampere dutifully switched lanes and turned to the recharging station. It stopped next to a vacant recharging unit, out of which snaked an automated electricity cable which—thanks to its many joints and a targeting sensor on its head—easily found its way to the opened socket near the front bumper of the car. When this type of automated recharging station was still a novelty the tube worming its way to the car's opened port had given rise to many tongue-in-cheek comparisons and Lucas, too, had used to joke if the car felt no shame for doing such a thing out in the open. At first the AI had reminded Lucas of its incapability of feeling but later it had ceased to deign him with an answer.

"Well, of course that's not really what happened," Lucas reconsidered, checking his thoughts as he raised his eyes to watch the recharging cable slowly sway in the air as it locked in place, "it's not like it actually deemed me to be beneath its notice. Most likely it just learned not to answer questions meant to poke fun at it. I mean, isn't that the whole point of the cloud?"

His train of though was interrupted by a blinking call request popping on the lenses in the middle of his field of vision. He saw it was from his friend and colleague Barry and accepted the call.

In the window opening before his eyes, he could see Barry's unshaven face, brown curly hair pointing everywhere like he had been just electrocuted. He was at his home, facing a webcam.

"Dude, you're stopping for a recharge now?" You were supposed to be here twenty minutes ago. The pizzas have gotten cold already."

Barry was following him through his social media account which displayed his live location data 24/7, collected from the various devices which had to be logged on to facilitate use. Lucas was all for this type of data hoarding: not only did he feel closer to his friends and acquaintances, but it also built the AI's a profile for him, meaning he was recommended products, services and other interesting things before he even knew he needed them. Lucas checked the car status app again; the recharge would take about 15 minutes to complete.

"Just start without me," Lucas said. "I'll bring something to eat." He linked Barry a feed of the status of the car so he could follow his progress.

"Fine. But I'm leaving the bug testing and fixing to you." Barry closed the line.

Lucas and Barry were software engineers, most of the time working from home. Lately they had worked more and more together, visiting each other's apartments. Their current employer was Ampere Inc. itself, but he hadn't visited their offices in months. He felt he was living the dream; doing world-class research work on a subject that had captivated his mind since childhood for one of the most successful corporations in the world without being tied down by punching cards and stuck-up middle management. As long as the work progressed at a steady pace they could work where they wanted and when they wanted.

Lucas alighted, stretching his gangly legs and his chronically forward-craned neck, one of the side effects of having spent most of his free time hunched over a screen of one type or another.