The Passengers(2)
‘Why did you do this to us?’ she wept. ‘Why now?’
Claire wiped her eyes and cheeks with her palms, turned the music off and remained in an apprehensive silence as the car continued its journey. She ran through the to-do list again; there was so much she needed to complete by the afternoon for this to work. She kept reminding herself that everything she was doing was for the right reasons; it was all for Tate. And as much as she longed to meet him, a tiny part of her wanted him to remain safe inside her forever, where she could continue to protect him from the cruelty of the world.
She glanced out from the windscreen just as the vehicle turned an unexpected right instead of left, the opposite direction to Ben’s office on the outskirts of Peterborough. Claire squinted at the route map on the navigation system, sure that she had programmed it correctly. Then she remembered Ben telling her that, sometimes, driverless cars take alternative routes if they learn of delays ahead. She hoped it wouldn’t add much more time to the journey. The sooner she could get out of that car the better.
Suddenly the console went blank. Claire hesitated, then poked at it, jabbing random icons and searching for a way to reboot it. It made no difference.
‘Damn it,’ she muttered. Of all the days, this was not the one to be inside a faulty vehicle. The car chose another route, this time travelling along a slip road and on to a dual carriageway that she knew would take her even further from her destination.
She began to feel uneasy. ‘What’s going on?’ she asked and cursed Ben’s decision to talk her into a car with no manual override. She poked more buttons in the hope something might happen to allow her to regain control and order the car to pull over.
‘Alternative destination being programmed,’ came a softly spoken female voice that Claire recognised as the vehicle’s operating system. ‘Route being recalculated. Two hours and thirty minutes until chosen destination reached.’
‘What?’ Claire responded. ‘No! Where are we going?’
As the car pulled up at traffic lights, she spotted her chance to leave. Quickly, she unclipped her seatbelt and hit the door release button. Once outside, she would compose herself and rethink her plan. She knew that whatever alternative she came up with, she could not leave the car unattended, not under any circumstances. However, the door held firm. Over and over again she pushed it, harder and harder, but it wouldn’t budge. Her baby kicked again.
‘It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay,’ she repeated, trying to convince them both she could find a way out.
Claire’s head turned towards the car next to hers at the traffic lights and she waved her hands to catch the driver’s attention. But he was too distracted by a film playing on his Smart windscreen. Her wave became more and more frantic until, finally, she caught his eye. He turned his head towards her, but within the speed of a heartbeat, her windows switched from transparent to opaque. The privacy control had been set remotely so that no one could witness her desperation.
Terror overtook her when she finally realised what was happening – someone else was controlling her car.
‘Good morning, Claire,’ a male voice began through the speakers.
She let out an involuntary scream. The voice was calm and relaxed, friendly almost, but most definitely unwelcome. ‘It may have come to your attention that your vehicle is no longer under your management,’ it continued. ‘From here on in, I am in charge of your destination.’
‘Who are you?’ Claire asked. ‘What do you want?’
‘Neither of those things matter right now,’ the voice replied. ‘The only thing you need to know at this point is that in two hours and thirty minutes from now, it is highly likely that you will be dead.’
Chapter 2
JUDE HARRISON
Jude Harrison’s eyes were fixed on the charger leading from the wall and plugged into the grille of his car.
He couldn’t be sure for how long he had been sitting in the vehicle, staring at the charging point or why it had captured his attention. Realising he’d lost all track of time, he checked the clock on his dashboard. To remain on schedule, he would need to start moving soon. His eyes flicked towards the battery cell light – ten minutes remained before it reached its capacity. The distance he was to travel wouldn’t require a complete charge, but anything less than at least three-quarters full made him jittery.
Most other vehicles in the supermarket car park charged in smarter ways than his. They topped up using on-the-go over-chargers embedded in the asphalt of traffic lights, roundabouts, parking spaces or even drive-thru fast-food outlets. Jude had purchased his driverless car at the beginning of the Government’s much hyped ‘road revolution’. Overnight, he went from a driver to a Passenger – someone whose vehicle contained no manual override. The car made all the decisions itself. Compared to many, his model was now outdated and soon it would cease to automatically download the software that operated it, thus forcing him to upgrade. He’d been offered financial incentives to purchase a more advanced, hi-tech model but he’d refused. It was pointless spending money on something he would not need for much longer.
Jude’s belly made a deep, guttural rumbling, reminding him it wanted to be fed. He knew that he must eat to keep his energy levels up and get him through the morning. But he had little appetite, not even for the chocolatey snacks he kept in the side pouches of the luggage on the seats behind him. Exiting the car, he made his way into the supermarket, but towards the bathroom, not the food aisles. There, he emptied his bowels in the toilet, washed his hands and face and dried them under the wall-mounted machine. He removed from his pocket a disposable toothbrush containing paste that foamed up once it mixed with his saliva and began to clean his teeth.