The Passengers

by John Marrs

  “Does it look like there’s a bloody procedure?” Jack replied. “Do you not think that if we had, we’d be carrying it out right now?”

  “I don’t know anything about programming, but I do know that when a computer is involved, nothing is completely safe. Anything can be exploited with the right know-how and motivation.”

  Jack gave Libby a stare so aggressive it made her want to melt like snow. “Why are you still here, Miss Dixon?” he asked, his change of subject throwing her off course.

  “Because . . . I . . .”

  “None of what is happening here concerns you, does it? In case it’s not clear to you, this is a national security incident; therefore you are no longer required to serve on my jury. Now get out.”

  Libby surveyed the room. With no one stepping up to defend her inclusion, she rose to her feet. But as she reached for her bag, she was overcome by concern for what might happen to Jude if she were not in that room. There was nothing she could do to help him, but circumstance and coincidence had made their paths cross for a second time, and she felt duty bound to remain until the threat was over. Not being present scared her much more than Jack ever could.

  “No,” she said, and dropped her bag back upon the table. “I didn’t ask to be on this jury; in fact, I fought not to be a part of it. But the laws you created forced me here against my will, so this is where I’m staying. If there’s no precedent for what’s happening, there is no reason you can have me removed.”

  Libby placed her hands on her hips, more determined than she could remember. No one noticed that behind the desk her legs were trembling like a leaf.

  “Miss Dixon!” Jack bellowed. “Kindly get the hell out of my inquest now before I throw you out myself.”

  He marched towards her as the dark-haired man leaped from his seat to come between them. “Stop it, Jack, Miss Dixon is not the problem here.” He looked at Libby for the first time—almost bashfully—as if to apologise for his colleague’s behaviour. “If she wants to stay, let her. We have more important things to worry about.”

  The moment the voice came from the speakers, a chill spread through the air. They recognised it from the clips when he warned each Passenger of their fate. It was deep and honeyed, oozing calm that undermined the severity of his words.

  “You should listen to him, Jack,” the Hacker began. “You have more crucial matters to deal with than trying to omit Miss Dixon from this process.”

  Jack turned his head sharply, looking towards his team for an explanation. “Who patched him through?”

  “I let myself in,” the Hacker replied. “If I can hijack eight random cars and broadcast them live for the world to see, then it stands to reason I can find my way under your roof, doesn’t it?”

  “Who the hell is he, and how does he know I am here?” continued Jack, his top lip curled, like a snarling dog backed into a corner. He turned to Libby and pointed his finger towards her. “Is this your doing? I trust the others, but you are the cuckoo in my nest.”

  “Of course not!” she replied.

  “I’m well versed with you all,” the Hacker continued. “There’s Fiona Prentice, a Scottish-born barrister at Rogers and Freemouth Solicitors, mother to daughter Tabitha and married to husband George for twenty-five years. Then there’s Muriel Davidson, Religious Pluralist, married to wife of six years Laura, expecting their first child together in July. To your right is Dr. Matthew Nelson, a pathologist and recent divorcé with no children, and finally, member of Parliament and transport minister Jack Larsson, twice married and twice divorced, with no children.”

  The jurors turned to one another and then to Jack, as if he might offer assurances that their identities didn’t matter. He gave them nothing. Instead, he lifted his head skywards, his eyes facing the ceiling as if he were talking to God.

  “What you are doing is an act of terror,” he said. “You are attacking our country and threatening to murder our people.”

  “You misunderstand me. I’m not threatening to murder our people. I am giving you my word that I will murder our people before the morning is through. And there’s not a thing you can do to stop me. So please, take a seat, so that we can discuss what is going to happen next. Miss Dixon, pull up a chair and make yourself at home.”

  Jack tried to remain defiant, remaining where he was standing, his chest puffed out and his deep nasal breaths rippling across the room. Eventually, and without looking at anyone, he backed down and returned to his seat.

  CHAPTER 15

  | | | GLOBAL NEWS ONLINE

  CAR HACK: 14 COUNTRIES FEAR THEY ARE NEXT.

  Spain, Japan, France, and 11 other countries that bought the UK’s driverless-car operating system fear they could be targeted next by terrorists. They were scheduled to go live with Level Five autonomous vehicles next year.

  The silence in the inquest room among jurors, security operatives, and backroom staff was palpable as each person absorbed the enormity of the Hacker’s threat.

  “What do you want from us?” Jack asked. He clasped his hands together as if in prayer.

  “Now, now, Jack, all in good time,” said the Hacker. “Why hurry things? That’s the trouble with men like you, isn’t it? Always wanting to get somewhere faster, always reluctant to sit back and appreciate the now. What you’re witnessing is history in the making, something the world has never seen the likes of before. Today is going to be a moment in time that people will remember for decades to come. And you and your team are at the heart of it. If I can turn your attention back towards the wall.”

  Jack hesitated before his gaze reluctantly followed everyone else’s. There were bewildered gasps when they saw their own faces reflected on-screen. From somewhere in the classified room, a camera was pointed at them, and, specifically, Jack.

  “You’re a covert little group, aren’t you?” the Hacker continued. “Shifting from location to location the one week a month you sit; the public don’t know who you are; you aren’t legally bound to offer an explanation as to the decisions you make; you threaten the token member of the public with prosecution if they refuse to participate, then when they do take part, you belittle them so much that they’re too frightened to ask a question or offer an opinion. Quite the little autocracy. Well, that’s all in the past now, Jack. It ends today. You are being broadcast globally. There is no corner of the world where your face does not have a presence.”

  The jurors watched as Jack’s team sprang to life, fanning out across the room with photographic image locators to find the position of the camera. “Over here!” yelled one as his gadget beeped. “It’s above the door!” Jack leaped from his seat and when he reached the doorframe, he grabbed a chair and climbed upon it. He balanced precariously, running his fingertips across the walls’ uneven surfaces until he touched upon something slightly raised. The large screen suddenly darkened as Jack’s fingers picked at the tiny lens, no more than half a centimetre in diameter, before he prised it from the plaster. He glowered at the object in the palm of his hand before dropping it to the floor and climbing off the chair. He raised his foot.

  “I’d think twice before I did that,” said the Hacker. “It wouldn’t be the wisest decision you’ve ever made. For every one of your actions today, there will be a reaction.”

  “Jack,” whispered Muriel anxiously, “perhaps you should listen . . .”

  “They know what we look like and who we are,” Jack replied stubbornly. “We must nip this in the bud. We cannot be seen to be kow-towing.”

  Jack offered a smile to the lens below before stamping upon on it and twisting the heel of his shoe for good measure. The screen went blank. However, the image was hastily replaced by another view of the room and its people, this time from a different angle. The smile slipped from Jack’s face.

  “Do you think I installed just one camera?” asked the Hacker. “I’m a little aggrieved if you think I’m
that lazy. There are, in fact, dozens of lenses scattered around this room, some of which you might be able to reach, others that you won’t. But they are the least of your problems right now. Do you understand?”

  Jack gave an almost imperceptible nod.

  “So on to the business of the day. I have taken over eight of your autonomous cars—the same vehicles your government promised were impossible to penetrate or corrupt—to operate as I see fit. These Passengers represent different walks of modern British life. Some are parents, others are childless. The youngest is in her twenties, the eldest are in their seventies. Some are employed, others are not. Some have been born and raised here, others have gravitated towards this once great, but alas now fractured, country. Six of them have been purposefully chosen, and the other two have unfortunately found themselves in the wrong place at the wrong time because they needed a cab and are just as much strangers to me as they are to you. However, the one thing that every face on this wall has in common is that I have programmed each of their vehicles with an identical location.

  “In approximately two hours and ten minutes from now, they will come together and, travelling at speeds of approximately seventy miles an hour, these eight vehicles will collide with one another, head-on.”

  CHAPTER 16

  The sound feed from the Passengers’ cars immediately returned; a chorus of shock, fear, and desperation at the Hacker’s threat.

  Libby wanted to slap her hands over her ears to try to block out their voices as they begged for their lives. Instead, they remained clasped tightly together on the tabletop. While her life was not in danger, she was as much a part of this as they were. And she owed it to them to hear and feel their pain, not to shy away from it.

  It was the reaction of the pregnant woman that chilled her the most. Claire, as the caption on-screen named her, was inconsolable. “What about my baby?” she wept. “Please don’t kill my son.” Libby looked to another screen, where a dark-skinned woman wearing a colourful hijab had closed her eyes and was either chanting or praying in a different language. Then Libby’s gaze returned to Jude. His chest slowly rose and fell, his expression blank. Of the seventy million people in the country, why are you caught up in this? she asked herself. But then, why not him? Why not any of them?

  Without warning, one of the Passenger’s voices rang out through the room. “Libby, is that you?”

  All heads turned to face her as Jude stared directly into his dashboard camera. Libby gazed at him, her heart racing. She wanted to give him the same warm smile she had the moment their eyes locked across the pub. Instead, she chose a more fitting, sympathetic one. “Yes, it is.” She raised her hand to wave at him, then thought better of it.

  “Libby, oh my God!” he replied as if equally as grateful to see her as she was to see him. “What are you doing there?” he asked.

  “I was picked for jury duty.”

  “How . . . how are you?”

  “I’m good . . . well, I was until you appeared on the screen.”

  “You two know each other?” said Jack. His surprise quickly turned accusatory. “I told you she had something to do with this. I want her removed and held until the police—”

  “Now, now, Jack,” the Hacker interrupted. “Calm yourself and let them continue.”

  “Why didn’t you mention you knew him?” asked Muriel. She sounded as suspicious of Libby as Jack.

  “I couldn’t be sure until I heard his voice. We only met once, a few months ago at a bar in Manchester.”

  “Do you know how hard I tried to find you after that night?” Jude asked.

  Libby’s heart fluttered. “I tried to find you too,” she replied. “The music was too loud to hear your name, so it’s been like trying to find a needle in a haystack.”

  Jude appeared about to reply when the Hacker interrupted. “There will be an opportunity for you sweethearts to catch up later. But time waits for no man and certainly not for you, Jack.”

  Jack redirected his eyes up towards the speakers.

  “You can spend the rest of the morning playing I spy and searching for where in the room I’ve placed my beady little eyes, or I can draw your attention towards car number eight.”

  The largest of the screens switched from a shot of the jurors to the most elderly of Passengers. He sported a head of thick, white hair, had milky blue eyes, and wore a relaxed expression. Colourful medals were pinned above his jacket pocket. The inside trim of his vehicle was plastic, and Contra Vision advertisements were spread across the windows, suggesting he was inside a taxi. He spotted himself on the dashboard monitor and cleared his throat.

  “Hello?” he asked.

  “Good morning, sir,” began the Hacker. “Can you tell us who you are?”

  He sat up straight, leaned forwards, and stared directly into the lens. “My name is Victor Patterson,” he said slowly and a little louder than necessary. “That’s P-A-T-T-E-R-S-O-N.”

  “Can you tell us a little about yourself, Mr. Patterson?” said the Hacker.

  “I’m seventy-five years old and a retired printer. I have three children and seven grandchildren. Who are you? Did my daughter give the car the wrong address?”

  “I see by your medals that you’ve served in the armed forces?”

  “Oh yes,” Victor replied proudly. “Twenty-Nine Commando Regiment Royal Artillery in the Falklands War, then two tours of duty in Afghanistan before the landmine got me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. Can you tell me what happened?”

  “What do you think happens when a landmine gets you, son?” He chuckled. “It blew my bloody arm and leg off.” He tapped his right knee with his right hand, and both made hollow thumps. “But there’s no use in complaining, is there? You just get on with it. And I enjoyed a good twenty years driving the buses before they got rid of us all.”

  “Who got rid of you all?”

  “The council did when they brought in the driverless ones. There was no need for the likes of me, was there?”

  “And where are you going today, Mr. Patterson?”

  “Well, this taxi picked me up and was supposed to be taking me to a hospital appointment. And then I started hearing all these voices telling me about a car crash that hasn’t happened yet. So I’m a bit confused.”

  “What are you attending hospital for, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Radiotherapy, son. I have prostate cancer. The doctors tell me the treatment will give me another eight to ten years. That’ll be enough.”

  Victor reminded Libby of her late grandfather, a man she had rarely seen without a smile on his face until the death of her brother. Soon after, he too had died. She could still remember him as though he’d disappeared from her life only yesterday. It was the same for everyone she had loved and lost; it was as if she remembered the dead better than those they left behind. She pulled at the ring on her finger, this time revealing a tattoo underneath. “Nicky,” it read in a five-point font. She had a larger one across her left collarbone written in a bigger font, and the words “Don’t carry the world upon your shoulders” from the Beatles song he loved.

  Suddenly, the camera left Victor’s face and switched to one outside the taxi, which appeared to be following his car along a busy city centre street.

  “Jack,” said the Hacker calmly. “Do you remember earlier when I told you that for every one of your actions, there will be a reaction from me? Well, when I ask you not to do something, such as touch my cameras, it is best that you listen.”

  Without warning, Victor’s car suddenly exploded into a giant fireball, with huge plumes of black smoke and bright orange flames shooting high up into the morning sky.

  CHAPTER 17

  FinancialHeadlines.com

  Driverless cars to have massive impact on UK workforce when they become mandatory.

  New report reveals wi
thin the decade 320,000 jobs to be created in field of autonomous vehicles.

  However, 270,000 expected to be lost in trucking, driving schools, crash repairs, valet parking, parking wardens, and taxi drivers.

  Experts warn: “More needs to be done so we are future-ready.”

  SOFIA BRADBURY

  I’m quite impressed by the special effects,” Sofia whispered to her dog, Oscar. “It looks like they’ve invested some money into this show.”

  She watched on her monitor with interest as Victor’s car “exploded.” She was relieved that one of her competitors in the reality TV programme she assumed she was a part of had exited so swiftly. She rolled her eyes as the other contestants reacted with loud screams and obscenities. “They’re a bit over the top, aren’t they?” Her dog rolled from his side and onto his back, kicking her arm with his paw until she rubbed his belly. “I wonder if they still pay the full fee even if you’ve been voted off after half an hour? Doesn’t seem fair if they don’t.”

  Oscar let out a noxious odour, which Sofia turned her nose up at. “Sometimes you are a disgusting little beast,” she muttered, and went to press the button that wound the window down. Nothing happened. Then she remembered that the producers from Celebs Against the Odds were now in charge of everything. “It must be for the realism . . . Making us feel like we’re trapped probably adds to the tension.” She dipped into her handbag and removed an almost empty bottle of Chanel No. 5, spraying it around the car.

  “What are they expecting of me now? Am I supposed to scream too, or do I sit here grinning to camera like a Cheshire cat until the car reaches the studio? This lighting is a little harsh, isn’t it?”

  In an age when appointment television was a thing of the past and viewers watched what they wanted, when they wanted, and how they wanted to, Celebs Against the Odds was a phenomenon. It wiped the floor with the competition as celebrities were put through their paces in activities as varied as Formula 1 racing to assisting a surgeon during an actual operation. None of it was faked. And most participants came out the other side with their reputations intact and their popularity soaring. Sofia was thrilled to be a part of it.