Brandon turned the engine back on and the shudder-machine roared to life, rattling its occupants around like popcorn in a pan. They slowly drove off, careful to adhere to the speed limit.
They were completely unaware that they were already being watched, a close network of spies feeding back all their moves thanks to the connection the Elite had made to Ben and Danny. The friendly old woman across the road had been assigned the task of sitting and looking out the window, monitoring their actions. What she saw, the Elite saw, and yet she herself never even knew she had seen it. Brandon slowly continued to the East side of the city to the pickup point. The whole thing was starting to seem surreal; around him everyone was going about their daily business completely oblivious to the absurdity of their current existence. It was a sad sight to see, people stripped of their own full identity, mindlessly obeying the whims of the few. Brandon went to turn around the next corner, but the steering wheel was locked in place.
“What the?” he said surprised.
“What is it?” Samir asked.
Brandon tried turning the steering wheel again, but it wouldn't budge.
“I can't turn it, something's controlling the car” He shouted.
They all looked at each other worried; this meant that the Elite knew what they were up to. Panic set in instantly, they had all deluded themselves into thinking it would be plain sailing, and it was now dawning on them it wasn't.
“Is there anything you can do?” Samir asked frightened, to which Brandon shook his head in a defying no.
This was the problem with cars, they all had computers on board, as it was now the done thing. It made the whole system work better, from the wipers to the locks, but it meant cars could be hacked. They were essentially just another type of computer.
“I don't understand” said Brandon, “I made sure the cars system wasn't connected to any internet signal. I disabled it all, how can they have hacked it?”
Mateo was frantically typing away on his laptop, seeing if he could access the cars' system and override the hackers.
“It looks like there is a Trojan file buried deep in the system that the hackers knew was there” Mateo said, “I'm going to try and override their instructions. How long have you had this system installed?”
Brandon couldn't quite remember, he knew it was the last year or so, as the last one kept failing. He had such an old car that the computers that were integral to most new vehicles struggled with his antiquated set up, and often crashed. His last system locked him out of his car numerous times and often the engine failed to respond at all, so he had no choice but to buy the newest build.
“This year some time I guess” he replied, “why?”
Mateo continued typing away, shaking his head every few seconds, which alarmed everyone else, but not him.
“Well it looks like it was put there deliberately during manufacture, so my best guess is that it's another control mechanism. You disabled the system but the Trojan was unaffected, so all they had to do was locate you and, well, here we are” Mateo said, “Okay, I think I'm in”.
The car juddered from side to side, even more than it normally did and Brandon tried the steering wheel again. This time he could turn it and he quickly spun the car round, narrowly avoiding a series of cars. He turned back to get to the exit he needed, laughing hysterically and thanking Mateo.
“I have to keep continually overriding them though, these guys are damn good” Mateo said, sounding a little frustrated, “I haven't got time to work on removing the Trojan; I'm constantly fighting these guys off”.
Brandon turned the corner finally and let out a large 'whoop'.
“You just keep doing what you're doing” he shouted to Mateo, “and I will get us there”.
“I'll do my best” he replied.
Mariam and Samir had nothing to do other than hold on, as Brandon increased the speed. They were already known about, so any form of keeping a low profile seemed rather pointless now.
“Mari” Mateo said to Mariam, “Could you reach into my pocket and pull my mobile out, I need you to let Sheryl know we have company. There's an icon on the screen that says 'photos', if you click on that it will connect you directly to an encrypted server that pings straight through to her”
“Okay” she said reaching over into his pocket looking confused.
“Other pocket, sorry” Mateo said.
She found the phone and promptly contacted Sheryl.
“Is there anything I can do?” Samir asked.
“You can stop chewing on your fingernails” Said Brandon, “That's so damn distracting in the corner of my eye”.
Brandon increased the speed again, trying not to give away that he was as panicked as everyone else. A car next to them suddenly swerved to crash into the side of them.
“Jesus” Brandon shouted, steering better than he thought he could manage to avoid it, “It looks like they've taken control of those cars too”.
He looked in his rear-view mirror to find a procession of cars following them, all speeding towards their rear. The people inside the cars all had blank expressions on their faces and didn't seem to be steering the cars.
“Yeah I can't do anything about them I'm kind of busy here” Mateo said.
Mariam got off the phone after shouting their current predicament to Sheryl. She had told them
