Marino - Autonomous

The first thing William Mackler noticed upon sliding into the hermetic silence of Autonomous was that the car seemed bigger on the inside than on the outside. There was no steering wheel, dashboard, or gearshift, no gas pedal or brake. Instead of seats, a single limousine-style bench made of RenderLux curled all the way around the interior, powered by ass-conforming nanotechnology. There was enough room inside Autonomous for four people to recline comfortably.

There was also a privacy setting in case two people decided to recline together.

Floating in the center of the cars interior was the bathroom-break timer, a holographic projection of a digital clock with soothing blue numbers.

2:37

2:36

2:35

William implored time to slow down. The thought of stepping back out onto the scorching blacktop in full view of the crowd, the camera drones, and the reporters made him feel trapped in some kind of strange hell. He struggled to remember distinct aspects of the Driverless Derby, but it was all a washed-out haze with no beginning and no end.

Twenty-seven hours.

That was how long hed been standing in the parking lot of Indianas largest mall with his palm mashed against the tinted passenger-side window of the latest Driverless prototype car alongside twenty-nine other semifinalists.

William sat cross-legged in the middle of the car and pressed his hand against the front of the bench, where the RenderLux curved down to meet the floor. A warm red light blinked on at his touch, illuminating a stainless steel fridge. He slid his hand to the right. The red light followed, and a cooler for champagne bottles appeared. He moved his hand along the row of hidden treasures that made Autonomous a fully livable space: espresso machine, mini bar, ice-cream maker, industrial-grade blender, dishwasher, microwave, vintage record player, juice extractor, vitamin dispenser.

A 687-comment thread on talk/driverless speculated that a family of four could survive without leaving Autonomous for over a year if the car had been properly stocked. And yet, these domestic comforts felt like a nod to Williams parents generation. Convenient and perfectly designed, they would come in handy on an epic road trip. But they barely hinted at the true nature of Autonomous.

The whole point of allowing contestants in the Driverless Derby to use the waste-disintegrating bathroom built into the car instead of the porta-potties in the cooldown tent was to give them a glimpse of what theyd be losing if they gave up and walked away. William had to admit that it worked, even if Autonomouss brain was essentially dormant. Contestants couldnt sync with the cars navigation systems, adjust the climate or life-support features, stream music, watch videos, go online, boot up the gaming engine, or explore the interiors virtual areas.

Those things were reserved for the winner.

Driverless held eighty-two patents on Autonomous. Its LIDAR systemthe radarlike laser mapping that allowed Autonomous to see its environmenthad been developed in conjunction with an experimental branch of the US Air Force. William wouldnt be surprised to find a weapons-guidance system among the cars features. The fully loaded model probably offered nuclear launch codes.

There was no price tag on the prototype, but moderators on talk/driverless had crowdsourced an estimate. The best guess of dozens of extremely devoted car nerds: $1.8 million.

The blue countdown clock transferred itself to the opaque window glass in front of his face.

1:09

1:08

1:07

William squeezed his eyes shut and took a few deep breaths. He imagined his body storing frigid air for later, as if his lungs were equipped with pouches like a squirrels cheeks.

His thoughts drifted until he was flooded with a familiar sort of sickly sweet hurt, pining for things he had not yet done, things he could do only if he won the car and the all-expenses-paid trip to the Moonshadow Festival in Arizona.

He saw himself with his friends, passing bottles in the belly of Autonomous as cornfields blurred into the trailer-strewn outskirts of Midwestern cities. The late-night talks they would have, uninhibited and free. Cruising up New Yorks Fifth Avenue or LAs Sunset Boulevard, getting out to stretch their legs in New Orleans, stumbling arm in arm down Bourbon Street.

He saw himself looking back on these stray moments from his frost-rimed bedroom window, many months from now, while his friends woke up in dorm rooms hundreds of miles apart, awash in memories of their last great road trip, all of them thinking