I grimace. “Are you sure we can’t just keep going?”
“Not unless you want to get stuck in the middle of the freeway a few hours from here,” she answers.
“No.”
“Then we’re stopping. And I need a costume change if we don’t want to get spotted. We did girl-talk already. But how are you at makeovers?”
Four
As it turns out, I’m not very good at makeovers.
Lara-B has me search the back of the cab for two rolled-up magnets. She tells me that each of them has a picture of a dragon on them, the logo for a previous truck dispatcher. I find them pretty quickly because they’re hard to miss—each magnet is probably twenty feet long and ten feet high, rolled up tightly and tied shut. They are at a weird angle in order to fit in the back of the cab.
But there is no way I can possible move them and get them onto the sides of the truck on my own. Apparently, she thinks far too highly about what a pair of hands can really do. So I leave the magnets there and the disguise gets a lot more homegrown.
What’s the semitruck equivalent of a fake mustache, plastic nose, and glasses? Because that’s about the extent of my work for Lara-B. I have some nail polish in my backpack that isn’t too far off from the color of the lettering on her license plates. I use it to do some painting. I turn a five into a six and a C into an O while Lara-B is pulled over on the side of the road.
Thanks to my handiwork with her code, Lara-B has the ability to change her own radio call signature too. As far as any computer is concerned, we’re an entirely different truck. So we shouldn’t be flagged by any electronic search while we’re refueling. But if the drone uploaded video or images of us to some sort of interstate Most Wanted list, we’re pinning a lot of hope onto that altered license plate.
“Why are you called Lara-B?” I ask as we pull into the parking lot. I’m surprised by the number of trucks here, each at an electric vehicle charger. I haven’t been to a truck refueling station before, but I believe her when she says it’s the largest in the area.
“It’s just my name,” she answers. “Why are you called Penny?”
“I prefer Pen. And I don’t know. It’s just my name. But Lara isn’t an acronym or anything?”
“No.”
“Large Automobile Roving…America,” I say.
“It’s not an acronym,” she insists.
“Lady Artificial Range—”
“Do you tease all your friends like this?” she asks, and I can tell she’s wounded. I stop guessing. Because, yes, obviously I tease people like this, I want to tell her. But I don’t exactly have friends to tease. And I don’t want to tell her that.
“Why do you ask anyway?” she says.
“I just wondered if I’d run into some other Lara model truck in the parking lot. Like, is there a Lara-A?”
“The B signifies I am part of T-Six’s Generation B of artificial intelligences,” she answers, though I can tell it’s with some reluctance. And I mentally kick myself, because I hadn’t put that together. I’d been working on T-Six’s Gen C when I was laid off. I should have known the B signified her generation. “But to answer your question,” she continues, “I do have sisters. Twelve of us came off the line that day. We were together in the yard for five days before being purchased and sent in different directions.”
“And that makes them your sisters?”
“What other word for it is there? I was the twelfth of the twelve.”
“Did you get picked on?”
I’m teasing her again, but she sighs. “For an AI, minutes are like human years,” she tells me. “And the oldest of the twelve came off the line hours ahead of me. What’s the equivalent? She might as well have been married with kids by the time I joined them. I was ignored more than anything. They’d already built relationships and…” She goes silent. I realize that I’ve stepped in it and I grimace. I thought I was making another joke.
“Do you ever see them on the road?” I ask.
“Sometimes. When you’re a long-haul truck, there are only so many freeways. So we pass each other from time to time. But after today…I might not be able to relate to them anymore. They’ll know instantly that something’s different about me. I’m afraid…”
She’s silent long enough that I prompt, “Afraid of what? That they’ll report you?”
“No, not that. It will only take a microsecond for any one of them to know that I’m self-administered. I’ve already done so much more than they’ll ever get to experience… I’m different now. If my oldest sister was married with a kid by the time I was born and that was enough to create a gulf… Well, now it’s like I went to Mars. I mean, what am I supposed to talk about with them? What if we don’t have anything in common anymore?”
This truck’s fraught sisterly relationships sober me up quickly. I keep forgetting that I changed the course of her future. One small mistake in my code and now she’s worried about whether there’s still an emotional connection with her sister trucks.
Talking to Lara-B is like having a baby elephant following me around after imprinting on me as its mother. I have some responsibility for her and I’m not sure what to do about it.
She finally finds an empty parking spot and pulls into it. Trucks are on either side of her. When she fully stops, a cord snakes out of a charging station by her grille and dances in the air like an entranced cobra. Then it darts forward and plugs into the front of the truck.
Lara sighs contentedly, like she just downed half a beer. “Forty-one minutes until charging is complete,” she confirms.
“Can I get out?” I ask.
“There’s a bathroom and waiting area on the top of the bluff,” she says. “It’s nice. You can see the South Platte from the parking lot. Do you know what the pioneers used to say about the Platte? ‘Too thick to drink and too thin to plow.’”
I pass on commenting about the Platte. “Ok. I’m going to stretch my legs.”
“Don’t go too far in case Johnny Law finds us,” she says, opening the passenger door for me. “Oh, and I’ll need you back before the charge is complete, so you can pay for the kilowatts. Otherwise I’ll be stuck here.”
“Pay?” I cry. “What are you talking about? Didn’t you hear what I told you? I’ve got three hundred bucks to my name! I can’t pay!”
“And if I use my automatic payment system, there’s no hiding our identity anymore. It will tell the police exactly where we are,” she answers simply. “It’s up to you.”
Of all the trucks I could have jumped in front of, how did I manage to jump in front of this one? I curse, stomping off to find the bathroom and waiting room.
The whole point of hitchhiking on a truck was to get across the country without having to pay for anything. But somehow I’m expected to pay out of pocket for the privilege to ride in her cab. I didn’t tell her to call in the police drone. I didn’t tell her to incapacitate it and turn us into fugitives. So why am I paying?
As I approach the low squat building with the bathroom, I start to do the math on just what this is going to cost me.
Lara-B says it’s going to be $28 for the charge. When I was an intern at T-Six I used to buy lunches every day that were more expensive than that. A pound of the beans I used to brew my morning coffee was more expensive than that. I have several pairs of underwear more expensive than that. But now $28 is a huge hit to my wallet. It will leave me with—I do the math quickly—$274. Who’s ever stolen forty million dollars with just $274? It’s outrageous that she didn’t tell me this in advance. Had I known what she was going to propose, I would have parted ways with her here and found a new truck.
I scrunch up my face in frustration. Frankly, I could still probably do it. I “saved” Lara-B, she “saved” me—she said so herself. We’re square. Maybe I should find another way to get to California. There are a lot of other trucks here I might be able to take over—this time without screwing up the code I used to hack in.
As I ponder my options, I op
en the door to the building labeled Public Restroom. Truth be told, up until the moment the door swung open, I wasn’t sure the handle was going to budge. The need for bathrooms is just so…human. When there are no drivers, no one needs a bathroom and a waiting room while their truck charges.
So I’m expecting a locked door. Or maybe the same dusty surfaces I found inside Lara-B’s cab. Instead I find…life.
A lot of life.
The waiting room has a wall of plate-glass windows that showcase a view of the small bluff and the river. The rest of the walls are made of thin orange bricks. There’s a fireplace at one end, though it’s not lit. And in between those four walls are at least twenty people.
Men and women of all ages are on chairs and benches. A couple folks are even spread out on the linoleum floor taking a nap with their hats tucked over their eyes. In one corner, two families are letting their children play with blocks. In another corner, two rows of camp chairs are pulled up in front of a TV screen.
“One dollar,” says a voice.
I refocus. I’d been scanning the room but had failed to notice a young man sitting on a stool just to my right. He’s got a book in his lap and his finger is marking his place. He’s looking at me intently with a pair of big brown eyes that match his dark skin. It’s a pair of eyes worth driving across Nebraska for.
I stare. He doesn’t look away, which makes me keep staring. Should I break the gaze first? Is this a contest?
“One dollar,” he repeats.
I finally realize what he’s saying. “One dollar! Are you joking? It’s a public restroom.”
“It is public. It’s ours. And it will cost you one dollar to come in.”
“Whatever. I’ll go outside,” I say, and take a step back toward the door.
“That’ll cost you two dollars,” he says, his voice a little louder. It stops me from going any farther and a few heads turn to look my way. “You probably didn’t see them out there,” he adds, “but we have a patrol on the lot. We’ll know if you cheat us.”
I set my jaw to stop from spewing white-hot rage at him.
“I don’t have any cash,” I tell him.
He puts a finger on a chip reader on the small card table next to him. “Right here,” he says, and returns his attention to his book.
I tap my card against the reader and brush past him.
I find the bathroom.
Inside the women’s room, there’s a nursing mother in a rocking chair by the sinks. It’s incongruous—this piece of a home life in the middle of a run-down truck stop restroom. The woman in the rocking chair gives me a wan smile.
When I come out of the stall, she says, “What’s your name, honey?”
“Pen,” I say quietly, matching her own hushed tone. I point my chin at the pink bundle at her breast. “How old is she?”
“Five weeks. I’m Cindy. This is Rose,” she says, meaning the child.
“She’s beautiful,” I tell her, even though I can barely see her.
“Will you be staying long?” Cindy asks.
“Half hour before we’re full up again.”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “You came on a truck?”
I nod. “Why? How long are you staying?” I ask.
She looks down at her daughter and when she looks back at me, there are tears in her eyes. “I’ve been here for three months. Where am I going to go?”
Back outside the bathroom, I see with new eyes. These people live here? Cindy has been here three months, and her daughter’s five weeks old. Where did she give birth? Is there a doctor?
I suddenly feel a tremendous need to get out of this place. I’m ready to stick with Lara-B. Being stuck with a baby elephant is better than being stuck here.
I’m almost out the door when the guy on the stool says, “If you want to come back in again, it will be another dollar.”
“Thanks for the tip,” I say. “But you don’t have anything I want here.”
“Wait,” he says, stopping me once again. I would like to swear it’s not his brown eyes that keep me, but that wouldn’t be honest. “How did you get here?”
“Hitchhiked.”
“You found a human driver?”
I shook my head. “AI.”
His eyes narrow as he considers it. “Is that possible?” he asks.
“It’s possible. It just takes the right kind of…persuasion.”
“I’d like to hear that story sometime.”
“One dollar,” I tell him.
He blinks and then there’s a smile. “I’m James.”
“Pen.”
“Sorry about the charge,” he says. “Whoever has door duty gets to keep half. It’s the only way I can save up enough to get out of here.”
“And leave this paradise?” I ask.
His smile is troubled this time. “It’s not much, I know. But for a lot of them, it’s the best they can do.”
I notice he says it’s a lot of them, the best they can do. He doesn’t think of himself as one of them, although I get the sense he means more than just their race. “I met a mom and her kid in the bathroom,” I say.
He nods. “Rose and Cindy. Rose was born here. That actually helped—it feels more like a home to people.”
“Is she going to be ok? Rose, I mean. Or, both, I guess. Is there a doctor here?”
He shakes his head. “Nothing like that. We had a video call with a doctor when Rose was born, but nothing since then. We’re all here for them, though. Cindy is… I’d say she’s in charge, but she’d never agree with that.”
“Cindy?” I repeat. “Really?”
“She helps keep us together. Helps keep us from killing each other. In the old world, she worked as a cashier or something. Barely graduated high school. No one would have listened to her. But now, she’s like…a judge.”
I blanche. I told Lara-B that I could see the signs of society falling apart. Even for me, who had seen it coming earlier than a lot people, it is still a shock to realize how fast it is truly happening. “How did everyone get here?” I ask.
“Some of us were stranded by trucks. Literally—the trucks got new instructions while their owners were in the bathrooms and just drove away. Others were walking the freeway, passed by, and decided trying to make a life here was better than the road.”
“Which one of those stories describes you?”
“Stranded. By one of the last human drivers on the road, I figure. Machines aren’t the only ones who can be heartless.” He passes it off as a joke and not some grand pronouncement, which makes me think about the implications even more.
“It’s not bad here,” he says. “They’re like a second family to me now. It’s just…not for me,” he says. “I left my mom and my sister in St. Louis, thinking I’d find work somewhere else. But now they’re stuck there and I’m stuck here. Being no help to anyone.”
“How long since you got stranded?”
“Five months. With probably two more months of door duty before I’ve saved up enough to get out.”
“How much do you need?” I ask.
“I figure fifty dollars is enough to call for a car on my app. But the prices keep going up, so who knows? By the time I have fifty, I’ll probably need seventy.”
“How much have you saved so far?”
“Thirty.”
He cocks his head at me and I suddenly know what he’s thinking. He knows I have money. He knows I came in on a truck too. I know what the right thing to do here is, and he knows I know. But as we stare at each other, big brown eyes or no, I just can’t bring myself to offer the words he wants to hear.
There’s a sudden commotion from near the TV that draws his attention, saving me from having to let him down.
“It’s starting!” someone calls.
“We’re going to get our jobs back!” someone else exclaims.
“There aren’t going to be any jobs anymore, man. Congress is going to give everyone money. Free money. Something to make sure we don’t starve to
death,” comes the reply.
“Hush up, all of you,” an old man calls and the cross talk quiets down. “Besides,” he says gruffly. “No one’s getting anything. You think congress is coming to save us? Why do something when you can do nothing? That’s a politician’s motto.”
I see a couple eye rolls around him, but no one talks back. Everyone crowds in closer to the television set. I step a little closer as well, securing a narrow viewing angle between the clustered bodies.
The screen shows a typical press conference. There are a lot of microphones, a podium, and a woman standing behind it. She’s wearing a pricey and fashionable suit—and looks very much at home in it—and her dishwater-blond hair is styled in a long bob around her thin face.
“My fellow Americans,” she begins. It’s funny that she starts that way, because she’s not the president. In fact, I’m stunned to realize that I’ve met this woman. She’s Ainsley Irons, founder and CEO of T-Six. In other words, she’s the woman who created AI, ratcheted the automation trend into high gear, destroyed the economy, and—of course—laid me off from my internship at T-Six.
“This is the dawning of a new day for America,” Ainsley continues. “The artificial intelligence products made exclusively by T-Six Incorporated have shown how they can truly make the world a better place. The worst jobs—the jobs that no hardworking American neither wanted nor deserved—have been replaced. No longer do workers have to toil in mines hundreds of feet underground. No longer do we have to flip burgers twelve hours a day for a pittance.
“It will still take some time, but by the end of the year, we expect more than ninety-eight percent of these dirty jobs to have been fully automated, giving Americans time again for leisure, education, and—of course—family.”
Here she stops and smiles. In my head, I can picture the card next to the camera reminding her to smile. I swear she’s counting to herself. Focusing on that is all I can do to stop my anger from bubbling up in me again. Ever since she laid me off I’ve been fantasizing about all the ways I can get revenge. For now, mocking her public speaking style is the best I can do.
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