William nodded sagely, as if he’d expected the question. “I’m glad you asked me that, uh…”
“Carol.”
“My game plan was to win, Carol. Plain and simple.”
“That’s not really—”
“Because losing is unacceptable to me.”
“Aaaaand here we go,” Christina said. She sounded resigned. Daniel was struck by a surge of awareness, a sharpening of the room’s edges, as if reality had just finished buffering. He caught a whiff of Red Bull.
On the screen, William rambled on. “My three best friends are about to go away to college, so winning this car and going on this road trip was all that mattered to me. I look at it like this: You’ve only got one shot at the things that really count, so you might as well give it everything you got. Because one day it’s all gonna come to an end, and you don’t want to look back and think, Damn, I didn’t do everything I could to make life awesome for the people I love the most.”
A pleasant shudder rippled through Daniel’s upper body. Melissa hip checked him playfully. “Twitchy McTwitch.”
Daniel’s heartbeat no longer broadcast each thump. He was flooded with an appreciation for the kind of friend William really was, and struck by a vivid memory of meeting him in tenth grade. The new kid, William Mackler, sitting in the assigned seat next to Daniel in Honors Chemistry (how strange to think of William as an honors student; he’d fallen off that track as soon as the fall semester was finished). Their lab table was last in the row, enabling clandestine Bunsen-burner shenanigans. He recalled a shared affinity for the word catalyst, which invaded their everyday vocabulary.
You see we got Pizza Combos in the vending machine now?
Already catalyzed ’em.
Daniel pulled Melissa close and reveled in her closeness. He held his beautiful girlfriend and watched his best friend handle an interview on national TV with grace and poise. The reporter’s eyes shone. William had become effortlessly charming. He was so good at going into strange situations and bending them to his will and just generally kicking ass. What an ineffable quality, this ability to make other people proud to know you.
The camera zoomed in to frame William’s face as he spoke, the camera operator realizing that he was filming something special. Daniel gave thanks to this anonymous TV news employee, felt a momentary kinship with a total stranger.
“I promise this will be the most epic road trip of all time,” William said, “and we’re gonna do a ton of insane shit—” He glanced off to the side and lowered his voice. “Can I say ‘shit’?” He turned back to the camera. “Some totally insane stuff. So if you want to see what we’re up to, just follow my friend, the beautiful and talented Melissa Faber”—he rattled off her online handles—“because she’ll be doing our social media outreach, or whatever. Hashtag Autonomous Road Trip.”
“Oh my God,” Christina said. She propped her elbows on the desk and let her head fall into her hands.
Melissa left Daniel’s side with a little shimmy that he found breathtakingly adorable. She grabbed her phone from the desk and beheld its screen with openmouthed awe. “I’m getting followers like…” Her eyes went wide.
“Social media outreach,” Christina moaned into her palms.
The camera pulled back to show the reporter and William together.
“Sounds like it’s going to be quite the ride,” Carol said. “I’m sure we’ll all be following along. One more thing before we sign off—I know I’m personally wondering this, so I have to ask, when did you realize the car pulling out onto the highway, all the traffic coming at you—when did you realize it was all a setup?”
William looked bewildered. “Uh…setup?”
“You did realize that it was all part of the show, right?”
William gestured for the microphone. He took it gently from her hand, held it up to his mouth, and looked directly into the camera.
“No.”
He opened his hand, and the microphone dropped out of view. There was a dry thud, a burst of feedback, and then silence. William walked away without another word, leaving Carol standing alone with Autonomous. She looked off camera, frowned—and the livestream cut to a drone’s-eye view of Autonomous.
A whole week in that thing, Daniel thought, anxiety blossoming in his chest. William had just put it all on the line to win them the experience of a lifetime, and Daniel was determined not to screw it up for everybody.
He texted William: Way to catalyze that interview.
Melissa tapped Christina on the shoulder. “Snap out of it, X-Tina.”
Slowly, Christina raised her head and regarded Melissa with weary raccoon eyes. “Don’t call me that.”
“We’re going to Moonshadow in a million-dollar party car, mama! We have to start making a playlist.”
“Right, I’m Guatemalan, so go ahead and throw ‘mama’ around.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, just pull up TuneGarage.”
“I don’t use TuneGarage. I don’t want it knowing what I listen to.”
Melissa looked helplessly at Daniel and put her hands on her hips.
“We should probably practice not getting on each other’s nerves,” he said.
“You know what?” Melissa said. “Forget it. I’ll be responsible for the official road trip playlist, and the rest of you can maybe just suck it.”
As if to demonstrate her commitment to playlist curation, she sat down on the love seat and swept her thumb across her phone screen in a way that Daniel found soothing. It was like watching someone tend one of those little meditation gardens, raking patterns in the sand.
His phone buzzed. He entered the password to log into Epheme, an app that erased your chats as soon as you logged off. Unlike similar apps, Epheme chats were impossible to screenshot. The data simply vanished.
A message appeared on his screen.xoxoPixieDustxoxo:I got a surprise for you
He glanced over at Melissa. She was lost in her phone, oblivious. He wrote back.DB837651:I gotta take a napxoxoPixieDustxoxo:Mmm sounds niceDB837651:Then I’ll come byxoxoPixieDustxoxo:Bring SNACKS. See you later alligatorDB837651:Something something crocodile
Melissa Faber slid the damask curtain aside but kept the French doors to her balcony
