The Passengers

by John Marrs

  He looked to his wrist for the time, forgetting he had long discarded his watch. It had gathered details from his pulse and temperature to reveal his metabolism, blood pressure, and many other metrics he didn’t care to be informed about. He didn’t need to read the digits on a display to know his stress levels were soaring.

  Jude returned to his car, and once satisfied the battery was now full, he unplugged the charger and took the first of a handful of deep breaths before climbing inside and informing the vehicle’s voice-activated operating system of his next destination.

  The car began cruising the suburban roads at no more than twenty-five miles an hour as Jude recalled how much he used to enjoy being in sole control of a vehicle. He passed his driving test on his seventeenth birthday, and at the time, it had felt like the greatest achievement in the world, giving him the freedom he craved. He could leave at will the confines of the village in which he was born and raised. He was no longer reliant on irregular bus timetables, or his parents or older brother, to give him glimpses of the outside world. It didn’t sit comfortably with him that nowadays, children of fourteen were Passengers in fully autonomous vehicles. It was as if they were cheating.

  Jude also remembered a time when roads like these were to be avoided at that time of the morning. They used to be gridlocked with rush hour, bumper-to-bumper traffic. Now, cars glided smoothly through the streets, conversing with one another through a network of internal communication systems to reduce bottlenecks and congestion. As much as he resented these cars, there were some benefits to having one.

  Much of his dashboard was taken up by a soundbar and large interactive OLED screen in which he could control everything from his choice of television viewing to emails, social media, and reading material. He scrolled downwards until he located a blue folder labelled “Family Holidays.” Inside, he checked a subfolder which read “Greece,” and a selection of videos appeared. He opted for the one titled “Restaurant” and clicked play.

  The super-high-definition picture was so crystal clear it was like he was there, relaxing on a restaurant terrace’s lounger, lying by Stephenie’s side and wrapped in a warm jumper as they enjoyed the setting sun over the vast vista. The camera panned slowly from left to right, zooming over the crescent bay and uninhabited islands ahead. The few clouds above them were illuminated with blues and oranges but cast the islands in shadows.

  “Can you see the boat in the distance?” he heard her ask. “Over there, behind the island. The stern is just poking out.”

  “Ah yes, I see it now,” Jude repeated aloud and over the recorded voice. He knew it off by heart and silently mouthed her reply too.

  “One day we should book a trip on a round-the-world cruise ship,” she said, “then we can spend our retirement seeing the sun set from every ocean and every continent. How does that sound?”

  “Perfect,” Jude replied. “Just perfect.” It was only in recent years that he understood perfect was an impossible concept.

  He closed the folder and used the screen to turn down the car’s temperature. The spring morning was proving warmer than weather forecasters predicted. However, the display remained at a stubborn twenty-seven degrees.

  “Car,” he began, not having personalised his operating system by giving it a name like most owners. “Turn on the air con.”

  Nothing happened. The vehicle typically obeyed each task asked of it, and his was the only voice it was programmed to recognise. “Car,” he repeated more firmly. “Acknowledge my request.” Again there was nothing.

  He cursed the software glitch and rolled up his shirtsleeves instead. Then, removing a wireless keyboard from the side pocket of the door, he logged on and began to compose an email. He chose to type it, preferring the old-fashioned means rather than dictating it or sending it via a videogram.

  “Dear all,” he began. “Apologies for the impersonal nature of this email but . . .”

  “Good morning, Jude.”

  “Shit!” Jude blurted out loud, and dropped his keyboard into the footwell. He looked around his vehicle as if he were expecting to find a second Passenger hiding.

  “How are you today?” the voice continued.

  “Good . . . thanks,” Jude replied. “Who is this and how did you get my number?” He examined the phone icon on the screen but it was switched off.

  “I need you to listen carefully, Jude,” the voice continued calmly. “In approximately two and half hours’ time, you are going to die.”

  Jude blinked quickly. “What did you say?”

  “The destination you programmed into your GPS is about to be replaced with an alternative location of my choosing.”

  His eyes darted towards his dashboard, where new coordinates appeared on-screen. “Seriously, what is going on?” asked Jude. “Who are you?”

  “More details will follow soon, but for now, please sit back and make the most of this beautiful spring morning, as it will likely be your last.”

  Suddenly, the car’s privacy windows switched from clear to opaque, meaning no one outside could see he was trapped inside.

  CHAPTER 3

  | | | ESSEX HERALD & POST ONLINE

  One of Britain’s best-loved actresses is set to visit young cancer patients at an Essex hospital today.

  Sofia Bradbury, 78, will be visiting the recently opened wing of Princess Charlotte Hospital that she has helped to raise millions of pounds for during a three-year fundraising campaign.

  SOFIA BRADBURY

  Tell me where I’m supposed to be going because I can’t bloody remember,” Sofia Bradbury snapped.

  “Again?” Rupert replied, exasperated.

  Sofia was in no mood to be patronised. The painkillers and anti-inflammatory tablets she’d swallowed at breakfast along with a tumbler of brandy were doing little to ease the discomfort of the spinal osteoarthritis in her lower back. It also didn’t help that her hearing aids were malfunctioning, making some words hard to hear.

  “The hospital, remember?” he continued with a note of weariness. “Please assure me you’re in the car now?”

  “No, I’m in a bloody spaceship. Where do you think I am?”

  “I’ll send the address to your GPS.”

  “My what?”

  “Oh Jesus. The map on your screen.”

  Sofia watched as coordinates appeared on the centre console and calculated the route her vehicle was to take from her home in Richmond, London. The car’s gull-wing doors automatically locked, and the vehicle began its journey, the only sound coming from the gravel of her lengthy driveway crunching under the thick tread of the tyres.

  “And why am I going there again?” Sofia asked.

  “I’ve already told her once this morning,” she could just about hear Rupert saying. She assumed he was addressing the boy with the effeminate mannerisms interning in his office. Rupert went through assistants with alarming regularity, she thought, and they always shared a similar appearance—skinny T-shirts, skinny jeans, and skinny torsos.

  “Rupert, you’re my agent and my PR; if I ask you a question, I expect an answer.”

  “It’s the meet and greet with the young cancer patients.”

  “Oh yes.” A concern sprang to mind, causing her brow to furrow. However, her facial muscles were still too paralysed from last week’s visit to the dermatologist to feel anything move above her mouth. “This is not going to be one of these events where nobody knows who the hell I am, is it?”

  “No, of course it’s not.”

  “Don’t ‘of course it’s not’ me like it’s never happened before. Remember when I went to that school in Coventry and they were all too young to recognise me? It was humiliating. They thought I was Father Christmas’s wife.”

  “No, as I explained to you earlier, this group are patients in their early teens, and I’ve been assured they are all huge fans of Space & Time.”r />
  “I finished filming that a decade ago,” Sofia dismissed.

  “No, it hasn’t been that long, has it?”

  “I may be seventy-eight, but I’m not bloody senile yet. I remember it as clear as day because it was the last time you got me an acting job on prime-time television. I’m hardly likely to forget it, am I?”

  Despite reading the script a dozen times, even while filming, Sofia had no idea what the storyline was to the popular sci-fi show. All she grasped while acting against a green screen—and running away from an off-camera man with a tennis ball attached to a stick—was that an alien’s head would be added to the shot in post-production. Not that Sofia had ever watched the finished version. She rarely viewed her own work, especially in her advancing years. She didn’t take any satisfaction in seeing herself age.

  Lately, her acting work had become sporadic and the parts offered, stale. Sofia had tried to remain relevant by waiving her fee for a handful of film student projects, and she’d toured the country in acclaimed regional productions of Macbeth and The Tempest. She had also been offered huge sums of money to join the casts of two long-running soap operas. But she didn’t relish playing grandmothers clad in charity shop costumes and little make-up, and turned down both parts without hesitation.

  Instead, she lifted her spirits by lifting her chin and her breasts with the help of a Harley Street surgeon’s knife. Now, the wrinkles and creases on the backs of her hands were the only telltale signs of her true age.

  “Oh, Oscar, what have you eaten?” she scolded the sleeping white Pomeranian lapdog lying by her side, and tried to waft away the toxic smell he omitted with her hands. He briefly opened one brown eye, shuffled his body further towards her thigh, then closed it again.

  Sofia unhooked the clasp of her vintage Chanel handbag and removed a compact mirror. She applied another coat of her trademark crimson colour to her lips and watched, displeased, as it bled into vertical lines under her nose. She squinted at how pale her grey eyes had become, and made a mental note to ask Rupert’s assistant to research medical procedures that might reduce their milky hue. With her veneers, enhanced cheekbones, hairpieces, and breast augmentations, she momentarily wondered if all that was left of the original Sofia Bradbury was her ambition.

  “Do you have any new scripts for me to read?” she asked Rupert.

  “A couple have appeared but I don’t think they’re right for you.”

  “Surely I should be the judge of that?”

  “Well, one is playing an aging prostitute with terminal cancer in a long–running hospital drama, and the other is in a music video for a girl group. You would be . . . playing a ghost.”

  “Oh, for the love of God,” Sofia sighed. “So they want me either on my deathbed with my legs apart or returning from beyond the grave. Sometimes I wonder what the bloody point of it all is.”

  “I’ll send the treatments to the car now, and you can read them en route.”

  By the time Sofia had rolled her eyes, the characters’ outlines were available to view on her windscreen, which at the flick of a switch became a panoramic monitor and television. She only needed to read the first couple of lines of each character description before dismissing them.

  It wasn’t a wage that she needed; it was recognition and appreciation. And annual appearances at sci-fi conventions or TV chat shows would not suffice. It riled her that the British Academy of Film and Television Arts had yet to offer her a lifetime membership despite her having first trod the boards at the age of seven.

  Do they know? she asked herself suddenly. Have there been rumours? Does BAFTA know what you’ve done so they’re punishing you? She hated that voice. It had haunted her for almost four decades. She shook it from her head as quickly as it had appeared.

  Sofia sank her aching back into the seats and pressed a button to massage it with deep, penetrating vibrations. She poured herself another brandy from the refrigerated armrest. She decided the best thing about driverless cars was being able to drink and drive legally. She ran her manicured fingernails across the plush calfskin. Then she tapped the Macassar ebony panelling and dipped her bare feet into the thick vicuña-wool carpeting. By dispensing with her driver, she could afford a top-of-the-range Imperial GX70, the most expensive autonomous vehicle in production. She had no idea how a driverless car operated and she didn’t care—as long as Rupert ensured she got from A to B remotely and on time, that was all that mattered.

  “Rupert?” she asked tentatively. “Are you still there?”

  “Of course. How can I help?”

  “Will my . . . will . . . Patrick . . . be joining me today?”

  “Yes, his account is still linked to your diary. He expressed an interest in attending, so I’ve a car booked to pick him up from the golf course. He’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  Sofia let Rupert’s response hang in the air, knowing the complications her husband’s appearance might bring. “I’ll speak to you later,” she said quietly, not waiting for his reply before hanging up. Her nails were embedded in the palm of her hand before she realised she was close to drawing blood.

  “Good morning, Sofia,” a male voice she didn’t recognise began.

  She glared at the console, assuming she had touched something accidentally and answered a phone call. “Rupert? Why are you putting on a silly voice?”

  “It’s not Rupert,” the voice replied. “And it might surprise you to learn that your vehicle is no longer under your control.”

  Sofia laughed. “It’s never under my control, darling. That’s why I have people. To make sure things are controlled for me.”

  “Alas, I am not one of your people. However, I am in charge of your destination.”

  “Good for you. Now can you stop playing silly beggars and put Rupert on, please.”

  “Rupert has nothing to do with this, Sofia. I have programmed your car to take you on an alternative route this morning. And in two hours and thirty minutes, it is likely that you will be dead.”

  Sofia sighed. “I’ve read the script, darling, I’m not playing a bloody dying whore on a Saturday-night hospital drama. I am Sofia Bradbury, and I think Sofia Bradbury is worth a little more than that.”

  “You will hear from me again soon.”

  The car fell silent again.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Sofia glanced at the map on her windscreen, and it was only when she saw icons for the M25 and M1 that she realised she was leaving London and heading north, and not towards a hospital in Essex.

  “Rupert?” she said. “Rupert? What in God’s name is going on?”

  Suddenly, Sofia narrowed her eyes and cocked her head to one side like a penny had dropped. A broad smile spread across her face. “Rupert, you sneaky little devil, you did it, didn’t you? You got me on that programme.”

  She felt a twinge in her back when she moved to the edge of her seat. She winced as she looked around. “Where have they hidden the cameras, or are they just using the one in the dashboard?”

  There were just three television reality shows that Sofia had ever considered participating in. However, Rupert’s attempts to organise meetings with producers had been repeatedly rebuffed. Sofia had been judged too unfit to dance and too old to stay in a Peruvian jungle for a month. But Celebs Against the Odds was the new water-cooler show that everyone was talking about and which every entertainer whose career had stalled was desperate to appear on.

  In the opening episode of each series, ten famous faces were snatched without warning from their day-to-day routine. They were whisked away to an unknown destination to compete in a series of physical and mental tasks. Cameras recorded their every move for a week. A year earlier, Sofia had watched in envy as Tracy Fenton, her acting rival for more than four decades, had been one of the chosen few. She too had been taken while in her car, and her popularity resurgence led to her being cast in t
wo high-profile network dramas. Now it appeared the Celebs Against the Odds producers wanted Sofia.

  She balled her fists to contain her excitement—her comeback was imminent; she could feel it. It wasn’t going to be by playing aging grandmothers in soaps. It was by being herself, beamed into homes, vehicles, and telephones and onto tablets every night of the week.

  Sofia removed the mirror from her handbag again and checked her make-up from all angles, dabbing, smoothing, and contouring where necessary. Then she took another painkiller and washed it down with a swig of brandy.

  “This is it, Oscar,” she said proudly as she petted his head. “Mummy’s on her way back to the top. Just you wait and see.”

  She held her smile firm and looked directly into the camera, and for the first time in years, she wasn’t afraid to stare at her own image as it appeared on the screen before her.

  CHAPTER 4

  SAM & HEIDI COLE

  Are you sure your parents have kept the date free?” asked Sam. “Your mum’s hopeless when it comes to remembering she’s volunteered to babysit.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” Heidi replied. “I’ve already put the date into the family calendar so she’ll get a text alert every day in the run-up to it. What about you? You’ll definitely be back in Luton by then?”

  “Uh-huh. Should be.”

  “So when are you going to tell me what you’ve organised?”

  “I’m not. Like I keep saying, it’s a surprise.”

  “You know I hate surprises.”

  “Most women love them.”

  “Most women aren’t police officers, and in my job, surprises are rarely a good thing.”

  “Then let this be the exception. For once, have some faith in your husband.”

  Heidi wanted to laugh but she held herself back. Instead, she finished filing her fingernails and recalled last year’s effort—a fish supper at their local pub. Money had been tight so she hadn’t vocalised her disappointment. Many months later, she had stumbled across the real reason why they were struggling financially. But she had chosen to keep it to herself.