Vehicular Homicide
Maddi Davidson
T
he first hint of quirkiness in my new DLCx crept in on a pleasant May evening.
My rugby-playing coworker, Ryan, and I planned to meet friends of his at a sports bar,
but my DLCx, the designated driver for the evening, wouldn’t start, even though the
battery indicator registered a charge of eighty percent.
Ryan, who’d already downed two beers, opined “maybe your egg-mobile doesn’t want
me along: remembers I spilled beer on her seat last week.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” I replied. “My car smelled like a frat party for three days.”
We took a cab to the bar where, as a consequence of his loutish behavior, I spilled wine on
Ryan’s lap and departed in a Syrah-induced snit.
The next morning my car started right up.
I loved having a driverless car: not having to contend with the legions of loony drivers
populating the nation’s capital. My daily commuting battles (and swearing sessions) were in
the past and I only took the wheel for parking; although my DLCx was equipped with a NAPS
program, which used security and drone videos to find the Nearest Available Parking Space
to my destination, I preferred to stash the DLCx in remote spots, away from dinging doors
and bumper bangers.
A week after the Ryan incident, I was engrossed in a tele-chat and neglected to take
control of the DLCx when I arrived at work. The car, bypassing its NAPS programming, parked
itself in a lonesome spot in the garage: not another car for twenty spaces. Strange. Had the
recent DLCx software update had incorporated artificial intelligence that allowed the DLCx
to “learn” my parking preference? But if so, why hadn’t the manufacturer, DriveTek, mentioned
it? Puzzled, I nevertheless let the DLCx park itself from then on, and it continued to ignore
NAPS in favor of safer spots.
On a rare Sunday in July — cool breeze, a bright blue sky, and no place I had to be — I slipped
into the black leather seat and gave the DLCx instructions to “just tootle around”— a phrase
I’d picked up from Nani Clive. Much to my surprise, the car responded by taking a pleasant
drive along the Potomac River to Mount Vernon. As the car continued its meandering route
through leafy neighborhoods, I checked the on-line owner’s manual, but found no mention
of a “tootle” command. An Internet search revealed a subculture of enthusiasts who
attributed strange powers to their driverless cars; a DLCx in New Mexico had the uncanny
ability to sense an alien presence and take evasive action to protect its owner from
abduction and anal probing. In other words, a slew of tall tales that required one to believe
in magic, aliens, and mystical powers.
I hadn’t believed in anything for a long time.
When I was eight, my parents were killed in a drunk driving accident. My grandmother
moved from Yorkshire to Northern Virginia to raise me in my childhood home. Uncle Amit,
Summer/Fall 2015
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