Ever since she was little, Christina had suspected that if she could cross to the other side of a mirror, she’d find herself in a better place.
She crawled inside the second Otto. The benches assisted the program in creating the impression of a familiar car, slightly skewed. William was there alone, waiting for her. She understood that this mirror-world road trip was only for the two of them.
“Hey.” He reached out his hand and she took it. His skin felt real, calloused and rough from a summer of hauling scrap at Tanski’s. He put his other hand in the air, fingers splayed. She did the same with hers, so that the pads of their fingertips were gently pressed together. The sensation was not quite real, the memory of touch. Like this, they mirrored each other, and Christina felt as if she’d been prodded with a mild electric current. Was this part of the game? She had successfully doubled him. Mirrored him. Was she supposed to get points this way?
He leaned his head toward her, and she shifted her weight nervously. How far did this game go? What would happen if they kissed? She glanced down at his hands, and her eyes began to move up his arms, past the blood….
She broke contact, jumped back.
William’s wrists had ugly razor marks. The flesh was sliced open at the base of his palm, and vertical wounds traveled up his forearms.
Most people don’t slit their wrists the right way, he’d told her once in their booth at Hilda’s. You have to slice up and down, not across.
There were hesitation marks too, horrible little nicks from when he was steeling his courage.
She jabbed a finger into the air next to her right eye and paused the game. A menu appeared and she selected Quit. Instantly she was back in the real car. A debate was in progress, Katy Perry was blasting, and Daniel was sitting on the floor, surrounded by snacks that he had freed from hidden cabinets.
“Just let me do it,” Daniel said, menacing William into silence with a half-eaten Rice Krispie Treat. “Okay. So.” He pointed at Melissa. “You’re the fixer of the group. You’ve got a head for logic and organization, and you’re supermotivated. You get things done. If anything goes wrong, you know how to make it right. And you’re also extremely hot. So you’ve got all that going for you.”
Daniel poked a thumb into his chest. “I’m the muscle by default. I mean, not to be weird about it, but—”
“You do have the most muscles,” William said.
“Well, I mean, I work out the most,” Daniel said. “But we all have the same number of muscles. Do you not know that? How do you think human anatomy works?”
William chomped a Twizzler.
Daniel pointed at Christina. “You’re obviously the team’s resident tech genius. You can hack into systems and stuff. That’ll come in handy when shit goes down.”
“What shit?”
Daniel turned to William. “And you’re the wild card. The loose cannon. When everything seems hopeless, you pull some crazy stunt to save the day.”
William shook his head. “No, no, no. I don’t want to be the wild card, because that means I have no other skills.”
“No, it doesn’t, it just means your skill set is totally unique.”
William munched his Twizzler and considered this.
“So we’ve got the fixer, the muscle, the tech genius, and the wild card,” Christina said. “But you left out the brains.”
“Otto’s the brains of the whole operation,” Daniel said.
“I don’t like him being included in this,” William said.
Christina eyed his wrists, reassuring herself that they were unscarred. “I don’t either.”
“I’ll be the brains,” William said. “Braaaiiiiins.”
“You can’t self-apply a role,” Daniel said.
“You did!”
“Well, I’m obviously the muscle.”
“You know what?” William said. “Fine. Otto, get into the fast lane.” Otto slid efficiently into the left lane. “Okay, Otto. Now speed up and pass every single car ahead of us.”
Daniel hoisted himself up from the floor to hold Melissa’s hand on the bench. They looked out the front window with interest as Otto rode up on a BMW and flashed the brights—the universal signal for get the hell out of the way. When the BMW didn’t budge, Otto slid back into the right lane, accelerated past the enemy car, and swung back into the left lane just ahead of it. The Driverless car’s movements were crisp and precise.
“We get what you’re doing,” Christina said. “So you can stop.”
“Passing every single car is a bit much,” Melissa said.
“It’s a question of infinity,” Daniel said.
“Just get around this Prius, Otto,” William said, “and then you’ve got some open road.”
Christina had to admit that she didn’t feel remotely unsafe. She trusted the car’s instinct for self-preservation. But she was curious how it would handle conflicting directions.
“Slow down, Otto,” Christina said. Melissa whispered into Daniel’s ear. A new Katy Perry song came on. Were they just listening to the entire album? As if to answer her silent question, the playlist displayed itself in a loop like a news ticker: Melissa’s Kitty Purry Road Trip Mix #1.
Otto sped up until the Prius swerved into the right lane, avoiding the unhinged silver beast that was about to run it over.
“Good boy, Otto,” William said. “Now tear up this fucking road.”
The volume of Katy Perry’s voice increased with Otto’s speed. Christina watched out the front windshield. No screen, no overlay, no LIDAR map. Just pure unfiltered glass and the stretch of empty highway. Her face absorbed mild g-force pressure as the car leaned into the
