The front windshield darkened. The smattering of taillights that punctuated the nighttime stretch of I-71 dimmed and vanished. Melissa saw her reflection in the smooth opaque surface, body elongated by the slight curve of the screen, and then Patricia Ming-Waller’s high-def visage appeared.
The Driverless CEO’s voice poured smoothly from Otto’s speakers. “Should I prep for a photo?” A subtle shade of eyeliner applied itself. Melissa thought the woman looked fabulous, considering her remains were scattered across the Galaxy Liner launch site. The construct could probably use a spa day to open up its pores, but who couldn’t?
“Not this time,” Melissa said. The eyeliner faded. “Did you just hear me say your name?”
Ming-Waller shook her head. “You told Otto you wished to speak to me, and he relayed the message.”
“Actually,” Melissa said, “I didn’t give him that command at all. We were just talking about you between the four of us.”
“Ah!” Ming-Waller’s eyes darted around the interior. “That explains the burning in my ears.”
“See, this is exactly what I was getting at,” Melissa said. “Otto just sort of half listens to us, and then does whatever he wants. Just now—”
“He’s fine,” William cut in. “The trip’s been amazing so far. Thanks for checking in, Patricia, but—”
“He almost killed someone,” Melissa said, raising her voice over William. Reporting Otto’s malfunction was unquestionably the right thing to do, but Melissa still felt a guilty twinge, as if she were snitching on the car. “He ran a girl down for no reason at all, and he wouldn’t stop when we told him to.”
“Your demeanor is expressing alarm, but not shock,” Ming-Waller said.
“Correct,” Melissa said, “I am alarmed. This is alarming.”
Ming-Waller smiled. “But there is no hysteria present. From this I can be certain that the girl in question is alive and unhurt.”
“Yeah,” Christina said, “she’s got a little bruise on her shoulder. It’s nothing.”
Melissa shot the girl a glare. “It’s not nothing! You were screaming your head off back there, Christina.”
She was aware that Christina was playing games with Otto, trying not to give him a window into her state of mind, but Melissa needed somebody to back her up.
“Rainmaker’s fine,” William said.
Melissa put up her hands. Daniel cleared his throat and straightened up in the seat. “Fabes is right,” he said. “Otto went a little nuts back there. Maybe Driverless can run some kind of diagnostics or something?”
“I can recall the car and have an inspection performed by qualified Driverless technicians. You’ll have to come off the road, of course.”
“We’re not doing that,” William said.
“Well, she is right,” Daniel repeated. “Melissa’s right.”
He looked at her expectantly, and she realized that he was seeking her approval, like a puppy who knows it’s done something to be proud of and is angling for a treat. She had no idea if Daniel actually believed that she was right, or if he was performing. She put her hands in her lap and squeezed them together. Ming-Waller’s crisp, backlit countenance splashed across the side of Daniel’s face like a sliver of light creeping around the moon, blackening his eager eyes.
“Melissa may be correct from her perspective,” Ming-Waller said, “but that encompasses a narrow field compared to what Otto can, and must, perceive and react to. Perhaps it will help to pose a fundamental question of the Driverless experience from Otto’s perspective. Consider this: circumstances in the traffic flow suddenly become life-threatening, and you, the car, must make a split-second decision. You can either steer yourself into a family of four human beings, killing them all, or swerve to avoid them and drive off a bridge to your own occupant’s certain death. Do you protect the pedestrians or the occupant?”
Silence. Daniel frowned at Melissa, waiting for her to speak first. Christina slid her finger around her laptop’s trackpad.
“This is kind of a downer,” William said.
“Do you protect the pedestrians or the occupant?” Ming-Waller asked again.
“Pedestrians,” Melissa said.
“So human beings on the road have a social responsibility to sacrifice themselves for the greater good.”
“Don’t you have scientists for this?” William asked.
Ming-Waller fixed her gaze on him. “Will human beings purchase cars if they know those cars are programmed to sacrifice them?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“You are the chosen one, William Mackler.”
“I knew it! Ever since the Derby, I fucking knew it.”
“I am just kidding. You are not. You are merely one of several billion human beings from whom we will aggregate behavioral data. What did you think of my joke? Would you rate my effort a success?”
“What does this have to do with Otto almost murdering Rainmaker?” Melissa said.
“Perhaps you responded more favorably to the one about my burning ears.”
“That in no way qualified as a joke,” Christina said.
Ming-Waller nodded thoughtfully. Her fathomless eyes sought an object in the distance. Melissa followed the construct’s gaze, but there was only darkness out the rear window. When she turned back, the face was gone. The oily reflective surface of the screen was replaced by the transparent windshield. The lonely stretch of highway faded in.
“End transmission,” Christina said.
“What the hell was that?” Melissa asked. “Patricia Ming-Waller’s batshit.”
“I think I get what she was saying,” Daniel said. “What if Otto saw the bigger picture out there, some kind of danger we couldn’t have any way of knowing about, like another car about to come flying out of an alley to smash into Rainmaker unless she ran forward? So to us it seemed like he went crazy, but really he was just herding her away from something worse.”
“No way.” Melissa shook her head. “Uh-uh. I was right here. I could feel him bearing down on her.”
“You’re probably right,” Daniel
