Run, Melissa thought, run while his eyes are closed. But the gun was still trained on her forehead, and an invisible noose from its barrel held her in place. A sharp pop came from the kitchen, a spark from her phone. The acrid tang of melted plastic drifted through the room, mingling with ammonia. The chemical air made her woozy.
Everett slapped the gaunt man on the back. Instantly the man’s eyes snapped open and he inhabited his former stillness, flexing his fingers around the gun’s tape-wrapped grip.
“You think I’d come here alone without telling anybody?” Melissa’s voice was stronger now. “I swear to God, the cops are gonna break down that door any minute.”
Everett smiled. “You all say the same thing.”
Daniel listened to Melissa’s voicemail greeting. He slapped his leg in frustration.
“She’s not picking up.”
Christina was focused on some vague middle distance, moving her hands through the air as if she were plucking a harp, the EverView session visible only to her. “I’ve got LIDAR doing its most enhanced rendering. It slows down the scans, but even taking that into account…I don’t see her anywhere in a ten-block radius.”
William nudged him. “Why would she just bail in the middle of a strange city?”
Daniel tried to recall if she’d ever mentioned Albuquerque. He didn’t think so. Unless he’d simply forgotten.
“No idea.” Daniel ended the call and tried again. Her recorded voice was like an experimental weapon sent by the Dread Army to strike at him from the real world. He shook his head and pocketed his phone.
“She’ll see that we’ve been calling on her watch, though, right?”
Daniel pointed at the bench. “You mean that?” Melissa’s smartwatch was curled in the place she’d been sitting. “She doesn’t wear it out. It’s impossible to accessorize with.”
“Otto,” William said, glancing at the ceiling, “which way did she go after she jumped out?”
Silence. Otto switched lanes and sped through a yellow light at an intersection.
“Come on, Otto,” Daniel said. “You have to know something.”
Suddenly, they were joined in the car by the life-size avatar of a man in a leather armchair with a sleeping cat at his feet. He was wearing an emerald-green sweater and neat blue slacks. A leftover mood sprite flitted about the cat’s head.
“Ahh!” William started at the apparition. “You’re huge. Which way did Melissa go?”
Christina dismissed the EverView screen with a sideways swipe of her hand and blinked at their new passenger.
Daniel turned to William. “You know this guy?”
“Yeah, it’s a whole thing.”
The apparition greeted them with a friendly nod. Daniel rubbed his eyes. Soberish was no way to confront a situation like this. Soberish was no way to confront anything at all.
The man spoke. “I’m not at liberty to give you Melissa Faber’s destination.”
Daniel’s stomach churned. His face throbbed. He was nearly overwhelmed by the pointless urge to choke a hologram.
“But you know where she went?”
“Yes.”
“You have to take us there,” William said. “I command it.”
“Wait,” Daniel said, “this guy’s Otto?”
“He used to be my therapist,” William said.
“You’re asking me to sacrifice three occupants for the sake of one life, you dildos!” said the apparition.
At the word sacrifice, Daniel’s heart began to stutter. “What are you talking about? Is she in trouble?”
“There is an eighty-three percent chance that her life is in danger.”
Daniel jumped out of his seat. “Then why’d you let her go in the first place?”
The man’s gentle smile was infuriating. “It was what she desired.”
“I desire for you to go find her, right now,” William said. “We all desire that.”
“I can’t sacrifice my occupants. This is an overriding principle that you confirmed.”
“I unconfirm!” William said. “That was about pedestrians and bridges. This is completely different.”
“I cannot sacrifice the many for the few.”
“You’re full of shit,” Christina said. “You’re constantly putting us all in danger. What about Rainmaker? And the drag race?”
“In those situations, I was fully in control at all times. If I give you Melissa Faber’s location, you may be forced to exit the vehicle, and my level of control will be severely compromised. I cannot willingly contribute to the loss of three occupants when one life is at stake. One life is the only acceptable outcome.”
“This is fucked,” Daniel said.
“Okay,” William said. “New overriding principle. The new principle is honesty at all times. I’m the driver and you have to be honest with me.”
“I am being honest with you.”
“You have to be honest about everything. No secrets. That’s the most important thing. Now tell me what you know.”
“I don’t understand this principle.”
Daniel punched the ceiling and felt an eerie nanotech shifting absorb the blow. The apparition regarded him with mild interest and rephrased: “Nothing I have learned on the hashtag Autonomous Road Trip supports this principle.”
“Forget what you learned.”
“I don’t know how to forget, genius.”
“Oh my God,” Christina said. “This is that moment when humans have to teach artificial intelligence that we’re not just globs of data so it can understand the value of life. We have to, like, show Otto how to heal the broken wing of a bird so he can see us nurture and cry and then he’ll learn empathy or whatever.”
“I have extensive knowledge of ornithological medicine.”
Daniel punched the ceiling again.
The car stopped. “Here we are,” the apparition announced. “1843 Windmere Street, Albuquerque, New Mexico. This was Melissa Faber’s destination when she exited the car.”
Daniel felt himself sink down into the bench. The edges of his vision were fuzzy, whiting out from soberish stress.
Otto had been driving them back to Melissa the whole time.
After a stunned silence, Christina spoke. “Otto. Was any of what you just said true?”
“No. There are no overriding principles. My brain is much more nimble than some obsolete binary decision engine. Do you think Ronald Reagan is in office? I like that joke,
