by Greg Juhn
“Put three defenders on Jake. Surround him to intercept passes. Put four on their other attackers. We’ll keep four on offense. That will give us a fighting chance.”
Roberto shrugged. “It’s worth considering,” he said.
“Last year, the Frackers beat the Furious with a similar tactic,” Josh said. “They brag about it on their website.”
Roberto asked Josh a few questions, then said, “Let’s give it a try.”
“Our team isn’t familiar with this strategy,” I protested.
Josh brushed me off with a wave. “It’s a simple plan. We’re just looking for a disruptive effect on the Frackers.”
The boys returned to the bench, demoralized.
Josh stood in front of them and got their surprised attention with a sharp crack of his fingers. Roberto started a pep talk. “Don’t be intimidated by these guys. Sure, they got three goals in the first half. You will get four in the second.”
I heard one of the boys scoff, followed by snickers.
Roberto continued. “Listen up. This is a much closer game than it looks. We’ve held them for the last 30 minutes. You are the team to put an end to their winning streak.”
“How?” Tajo asked.
Roberto gave them a few simple instructions. “Got it? Surround number 10. Nothing gets to him. Guard their other three attackers. And four take it to the net, favoring the left side. If we need to adjust this later, we’ll still have time.”
Jonsy, our goalie, led them in a rousing cheer and they broke for the field.
They ran out, re-invigorated and ready to play the best half of their lives.
We didn’t score a single goal.
We were crushed, razed, shat upon, utterly owned and destroyed.
Final score: 7-0.
With the last horn, our boys came back, defeated and downtrodden. Roberto passed by without saying a word.
I turned to Josh. “Your plan didn’t work.”
I was angry and disappointed, but part of me felt a little smug.
Josh shrugged. “They didn’t do what I said. Besides, it was a close game.”
“Close? Seven to nothing?”
“Yes, we only needed small adjustments to tilt the odds in our favor. If we had made enough of those small adjustments, we could have won. Like a card counter at a casino – she doesn’t win every hand, but she has an edge and wins in the long run.”
While Josh was babbling away, I made a mental note: after the game, ask him about card counting.
Josh continued. “I couldn’t control their execution on the field. Now, if robots were playing...” He took a ball from my hands.
“No human team would stand a chance,” I finished.
“Here’s the thing, TJ. By the 2020s, professional soccer games had hundreds of cameras aimed at the field. It wasn’t cost effective to use human operators to track the ball with that many cameras. Intelligent systems had to be created that could predict where the ball was going at any point, so each camera could track it fluidly. Once software got to the point where it could accurately predict where the ball was going 99.99% of the time, the whole game changed. It’s just that no one knows it yet. A game making use of all this intelligence hasn’t actually been played yet. If you put a team of Perfectus robots out there, they would intercept the ball every time. If they played another team of Perfectus robots, the predictions and counter-predictions would escalate infinitely until–"
“Yeah, I know, a flawless game.”
“Something like that.” Josh juggled the ball as he walked. “Imagine a goalie who can score by throwing a soccer ball across the entire field into the opponent’s goal. Imagine that he can throw as fast as a cannon blast, and the only thing that can prevent the score is a goalie who is fast enough and strong enough to deflect it. Imagine–"
I cut him off. “Look, Josh, the point is, we simply won’t watch a game like that. We’d rather watch people playing.”
“We’ll see,” he answered.
We walked in silence across the field. The sun was setting on my perfect day.
“By the way,” Josh said, not letting it rest. “You guys are going to be half robotic in another 30 years anyway.”
As I gathered up equipment, I noticed a crowd had coalesced around something, and I drew closer to see what was happening. Everyone appeared to be in a trance. No one moved or spoke. Mouths hung open.
I pushed into their midst and stood tall for a better view.
They were gathered around Josh, who juggled a ball with such rapid legwork that it hung nearly motionless in the air in front of him, suspended like a drone hovering above the ground.
His irises flicked back and forth as he watched the ball. I knew that he had determined the object’s exact size, its shape, its weight. He owned the physics. I watched him make that ball do his bidding. Now he swung his feet over the ball, one foot, then the other. He let the ball slide down his leg to the foot, let it rest briefly.
He flipped the ball over his head, bounced it off his back, caught it on the bottom of one of his new cross-trainers. When had he practiced all this? He tapped it up, swung around, caught it on the side of his shoe. Let it drop to the ground. Flipped it backward. Stopped it, kicked it forward, stopped it, then kicked it up to one of our boys watching.
“How long have you been playing soccer?” the kid asked.
“Almost my whole life.”
“Maybe I’ll be able to do that some day.”
“Sure, maybe,” Josh said. “And maybe baboy ay lumipad."
“Josh,” I called through the crowd. “We have to go.”
He nodded and the crowd parted as he emerged.
We walked out to the lot, where the ElloCars were lining up.
Zach was taking a car to a friend’s house, and I went over to say goodbye. He believed Josh was out of earshot and said, “Dad, do you think Josh would help me learn some of those tricks?”
“He’s pretty busy.”
“Can you ask him?”
Behind Zach, his friend was nodding enthusiastically.
“We’ll see.”
I was in an even suckier mood when I rejoined Josh. We selected an unclaimed car and I instructed it to pop the back. I threw the soccer stuff in, then Josh and I slid inside. Silently, the car began moving.
Once on the highway and off to a good clip, I turned to Josh. “Listen. I appreciate your helping Zach with his homework and being a well-meaning soccer coach and all. That’s great. But I don’t want you making me look stupid in front of my son.”
Josh was quiet a moment. “That’s going to be hard.”
“And I don’t need all your sarcastic, wise-ass remarks, either.”
“I’m not being sarcastic. I hate to tell you this, but you are in big trouble.”
I almost told the car to stop and open the door, so I could shove Josh out. Then it occurred to me that getting him out of the car might be kind of tricky if he didn’t want to go. The moment passed. I didn’t need him wandering around town by himself. Like it or not I was stuck with him.
Josh clarified. “When I say you are in trouble, I mean everyone. Humans are becoming helpless. You don’t even understand how anything works any more. As the world gets more complex, you grow more ignorant with each passing day. Meanwhile, software is getting smarter. Two opposite trajectories. Your human brain gets sick and worn out. Software knows all that is known and doesn’t forget a thing.”
“I think you’re exaggerating. I happen to think software sucks.”
“Let me give you a little test. What model car is this?”
“I don’t know. It’s an ElloCar.”
“This is a model 3657 ElloCar,” Josh said. “Built in 2032. Did you know it is one of the last models with human override capability?”
“No.”
“Here’s the thing about this particular model. It is the only one with the override button placed out of the way down here, before they removed it all together.”
&nbs
p; I looked where he was pointing, under the dashboard. I had never noticed a button there before. The Me button.
Josh continued, “If the steering software stopped working and you had to drive yourself around, what would you do? Have you ever driven a car?”
“I tried it a few times, as a teenager. I didn’t think it was that hard.”
Josh instructed the car to pull into the nearest available lot. After a moment it glided into a small industrial park and drifted to a stop. “Go ahead, then.”
“Um...”
“Tell the car you want to drive.”
“Car, I want to drive.” My seat moved forward, positioning me at the dashboard. Two pedals popped up from the floor. I reached down and tapped the button. Nothing happened.
“You need to tap it three times.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“I know. The pedal on the right is the accelerator. The pedal on the left is the brake. Rest two fingers on the navigation indicators. Slide them to make the car move left or right. Ready? Let’s give it a shot.”
I tapped the Me button two more times.
Josh sighed. “Too much time has passed. Do it again. Three times, quickly.”
I had always wanted to do this. Every now and then I still saw someone driving an ancient car, usually a rebel or an old-timer, and I envied their apparent freedom. I suppose the first people riding around in self-driving cars felt like they were no longer slaves to the wheel. I’m sure it was liberating. But at what cost? I didn’t want to admit it, but Josh was right. Once you don’t know how something works, you are dependent on it, pure and simple. I was going to master this machine.
I pressed Me three times and the dashboard changed color, from a dim blue to a bright orange. DRIVER OVERRIDE, it said in big letters at the top. Underneath that was a long paragraph of legal disclaimers, explaining that by operating this car under human navigation, I assumed all risk and held the manufacturer of this ElloCar completely free of any and all liability with regards to any bodily harm or physical destruction that might occur during the operation of the vehicle in this mode. I placed my fingertip on the signature box and when the warning disappeared, I officially became a dangerous man.
Josh encouraged me to press the accelerator.
I moved my foot over it and pressed down a tad. Nothing. I pressed a little more, ever so gently. Nothing.
“For God’s sake, press the pedal,” Josh said.
I pressed harder and the car lurched forward like a horse kicked in the ass. I immediately lifted off the pedal, and the car rolled to a stop.
“Okay, I think I’ve got the hang of this,” I said cheerfully.
I pressed down more smoothly and aggressively, and the car moved forward. I slid my fingers down the left navigator to pull out of our space and heard an ear-blasting screech as a car slammed on its brakes next to us. I swung my head and saw that it had stopped to allow me to move in front of it. Several people in the back seat were waving their hands and yelling at me. I flipped them off.
As I turned back to watch where we were going, we continued across the access road and into the grass on the other side. The main highway was about 10 feet in front of us. My fingers fidgeted on the navigators and we veered back onto the access road, then continued across it again and into the grass on the other side.
Swinging back once more, I managed to get the car pointed basically in a straight direction.
“Car,” Josh said, “Whatever situation we might encounter, don’t let us hit anything.”
The dashboard changed color again. PARTIAL OVERRIDE, it said.
I didn’t argue. One step at a time.
The navigators were a little harder to control than I expected. They offered no resistance, gliding with any subtle touch. If I moved one too far, the car would oversteer; if I adjusted by going too far in the other direction, the car would nearly lift off the ground to attempt the maneuver.
We merged onto the highway. Thankfully, light traffic allowed an easy entrance. My relief was short-lived. We were approaching an intersection about 500 yards ahead, and our dashboard lit up red. I had to stop.
I pressed the brake and we stopped with plenty of room to spare. As we waited, cars lined up behind us.
Our dash flashed green and I pressed the accelerator. Cars swerved around us – knowing there was a human in charge, they properly interpreted my slowness as fickle and unpredictable behavior. Off they went.
I pressed on the navigators. This wasn’t so bad.
“Trouble,” Josh said.
“What? Where?” I looked in my rearview mirror. Several large trucks had merged from another road and were growing larger. Container trucks, two abreast.
“Rapid approach,” Josh said. “Don’t panic.”
One behemoth rumbled up to my rear fender. The other rolled up alongside, the wall of spinning rubber edging into my peripheral vision. I clenched my jaw and fought to keep my arms frozen in place. What if my arms went limp and my hands slid off the dashboard? What if I inexplicably swerved left? What if I passed out?
“There’s the horn button if you need it,” Josh hinted.
I drifted onto the shoulder in an effort to give myself space from the nearest truck. In doing so, I placed a light pole in our path. Josh twitched. I swerved left to avoid a collision with the pole and angled too sharply. To avoid flattening our car under the Wall of Wheels I punched the accelerator. The semi behind me kept pace, still inches behind. We angled across the road and missed the truck on the left by several inches.
“Whoa,” Josh said.
The truck on my left slowed, realizing that an insane vehicle was consuming the road. With a final swerve I shot along the shoulder, careened down an access road, saw parked cars ahead, and slammed on the brakes. The car screeched and slid sideways and came to a complete stop.
“Whew,” Josh said. “I’ve never driven a car before, but I’m pretty sure I can do better than you.”
I shrugged and gestured at the navigators to indicate that he should go for it. My body was shaking like crazy, but I don’t think he could see that. (On the other hand, maybe he could.) I didn’t speak, fearful my voice might tremble.
Josh slid into the front seat. I sat in back. He suggested I move the seat to the front for a better view, but I declined.
“Let’s see what this car can do,” he said and hit the power.
The car lurched forward and headed for the highway. We sped down the merge lane and slid into position in the traffic.
“Take it easy,” I said.
“Relax. All of the car’s data is right here.” He patted his stomach and pulled into the fast lane.
We approached Rt. 90, a turnpike from Boston to Worcester.
“Let’s take 90 and see how fast this junk heap can go,” Josh said and swerved to head up the on-ramp.
“I don’t like this idea at all,” I answered, but it was too late. We were already merging into the blur of traffic.
Most of the cars were doing 80-90. Josh pushed the pedal all the way down and turned back to me and smiled. I watched the speed rise from 55 to 60 to 70 to 90...
I fumbled for the seatbelt and tightened it.
We passed 100 and zig-zagged across three lanes, weaving back and forth in traffic. The expressway was packed with vehicles zooming along in tight formation, every machine coordinated with the others around it as they adjusted position with the elegance of a choreographed dance. They changed lanes with only feet to spare.
Josh flicked the navigators and swerved into the lane of an adjacent car. That car shifted immediately to the left, and the car next to it did the same. Three lanes of cars swerved out in unison, then drew back in complete synchronicity. “I can’t mess with them too much,” Josh said. “If I do it again, I’ll get flagged for erratic behavior.”
He soon found himself behind two lanes of slower cars. Our path was blocked. Instead of waiting patiently at the back of the pack, Josh pulled to an inch behind the rear-gua
rd car, the one directly ahead of us. That car moved forward to compensate, and the car in front of that one did the same, as did the rest, all the way up. Josh pulled close to the rear car again, almost knocking the bumper, which forced the chain of cars to go faster forward. He repeated this maneuver several times until the lane next to ours opened up. Josh made a slingshot pass from behind the trailing car and accelerated past the whole group. We were free. He punched the power again.
He had one hand on the dashboard as he turned to look back at me. “Want to place a bet on this car’s maximum speed?”
“For god’s sake watch the road!"
“No need,” he said. “I’m getting better data from the vehicle positioning network.” To prove his point, he closed his eyes. Still turned toward me, he swerved between two cars at 115 miles an hour with only enough space to fit a pinky.
“Look where you’re going! Are you crazy?”
He opened his eyes but had rolled them back to display only the whites. “Can’t. My motors are stuck.”
“Please look where you’re going,” I begged. “It would make me feel a lot better. And please get off the expressway.”
He pretended to fumble around, neither hand on the dashboard. “We haven’t hit this car’s top speed yet. Guesses?”
“I don’t care.”
“C’mon. The exit is coming up in 256 seconds. We don’t have much time left to find out.”
“130 miles an hour,” I said, just to get it over with.
“Decent guess. This car was designed to max out at 140. I don’t think it will reach that given its age and shoddy maintenance schedule. I predict 134.”
We hit 129... Then 130...
131...
“Not looking good for you,” Josh said.
133...
134...
The speedometer maxed out at 136.
“That’s it,” Josh said. “I win. Hold on, we’re there.”
He braked and pulled sharply to the right. I clutched my armrest and stared grimly out the window as we rocketed onto the exit and seemed to rise onto two wheels. We shot toward a wall of slow-moving cars. He braked harder. Our speed plummeted and my body strained against the seatbelt.