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  I40. Westbound.

  Josie and Novik stood beside their camper. The Old-fashioned Boys’ car was locked onto their rear tow bar by its front fender.

  Empty mesquite landscape stretched away in all directions. The interstate was deserted.

  Novik did not understand. How was it possible to accidentally steal a car? How could anyone do that? One more strike made him a three-time loser. They were supposed to be on holiday; this trip was their fresh start. Now it was a disaster.

  He rubbed the parole transponder clamped round his neck. Back in the diner Jimmy had talked about the pleasures of his profession. Beyond good and evil there was only truth, and the acceptance of truth. The dreadful things the Old-fashioned Boys did for money were simply events. At the time they had been protected by a golden light. Here on the hard shoulder that tranquillity was replaced by a grimy, trembling dread.

  ‘You ran the tow hook under it in the diner parking lot,’ Josie said.

  ‘I – I’m sorry, Josie, I don’t remember.’

  Between pulling in to the Cheese-a-Swede and about five minutes ago he only remembered fragments. That wasn’t right.

  ‘Why am I not surprised?’

  Novik saw how fear made Josie angry. ‘Somebody spiked my burger.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ she exclaimed, then hesitated – one thing Novik didn’t do was lie. ‘Really, hon? That’s what really happened?’

  ‘Something synthetic, radical, maybe a cocktail. A fast burn, like Briefstacy, but with more mind-fuckery.’

  He had screwed up again. These things just happened to him, he didn’t know how. He’d spent his life doing his best to impress, trying to be as smart as she was, eternally worried she’d leave him for someone more together.

  He needed to fix this. ‘I’ll let down the rear tyres and jack up the front of the Caddy.’

  He wriggled under the big car with the old bottle jack from the camper. With most of the air out of the van’s back tyres the Cadillac would only need lifting three or four inches. As he offered up the squat, blue metal jack it transformed into a smiling, pot-bellied Buddha.

  ‘I’m too short,’ the jack said.

  Novik blinked and the jack was a jack again. Under him the road was hard and cold, above him an electric eye watched him from the Cadillac’s floor pan. He crawled out from under the car and tossed the jack back into the camper.

  ‘Unbolt the fender,’ Josie said.

  ‘These new cars are single-piece extrusions. There’s nothing to unbolt.’

  ‘Actually, I was printed,’ the car said, in a polite mid-western drawl.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Novik leaped away from the car.

  ‘Detroit engineering, sir,’ the car said.

  Novik waved his fingers in front of his eyes. ‘I thought I was coming down.’

  ‘I heard it too,’ Josie said.

  Novik studied the car, goggle-eyed. ‘You’re a real talking car?’

  ‘Yes, sir, I am.’

  ‘Wow. That is so cool.’

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  ‘Please don’t call me sir.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘How big are those printers?’ Josie said.

  ‘I don’t know, ma’am,’ the car replied. ‘I wasn’t there.’

  ‘You could print your own spare parts.’

  ‘Then I would be a printer instead of a car.’

  ‘You’d last forever.’

  ‘My substrate is photo-unstable, a deliberate design decision.’

  ‘I can fix that.’ Novik dashed back to the camper, rummaged in the foot well, and returned with a bottle of sun block. ‘Factor forty,’ he said as he sprayed a film of white cream onto the Cadillac’s wing.

  Josie and the car exchanged a look.

  ‘A considerate gesture,’ the car said. ‘Unfortunately, few people will want last year’s model.’

  Novik peered through the tinted windshield at the empty driver’s seat. ‘Mr Car, your fender’s locked onto my rig. Can you pop your trunk so I can get your jack?’

  ‘Technically, no. I may only grant ingress for the owner, or his or her designated associates.’

  ‘The Old-fashioned Boys? The three men at the diner?’ Josie said.

  ‘No, ma’am.’

  ‘Who is your owner?’ Novik said.

  ‘Technically, nobody, sir.’

  ‘You’re stolen?’

  ‘Technically, no, sir.’

  ‘Stop calling me sir.’

  ‘My apologies. I have a speech-pattern modifier request timeout. My firmware needs patching.’

  ‘You opened up for those Old-fashioned Boys,’ Josie said.

  ‘They acquired me via a method which evaded legal niceties.’

  ‘So have we.’

  Mr Car thought about it. ‘I concur. I let them put things in, you can take things out.’

  Josie and Novik walked round to the trunk. ‘What kind of things?’

  ‘Money, mostly.’

  The lock clicked open, the lid swung up. Josie and Novik looked into a trunk filled with lidless boxes stacked with used ten, twenty, and hundred-dollar bills.

  During that tumbleweed moment a distant look came into Novik’s eye.

  One of the boxes contained a packet of latex gloves, a pair of filter masks and ten fist-sized packages of white powder. Some packs had burst open, a fine layer of powder coated the money and had seeped down into, and between, the cash-filled boxes.

  ‘Please note the currency is contaminated with fluorinated LSD, mammalian Oxytocin, trans-PTTH and brominated ketamine, mixed with an inert carrier in a ratio of 100,000:1,’ said Mr Car.

  Josie pulled on a pair of the gloves and picked up the bundle of notes behind the burst packets. A hole ran part way through. She flicked through the sheaf and extracted a flattened bullet. She held it up for Novik to see. ‘Black lied when he said he had forgotten his wallet, he just didn’t want to spend his own money. He used some of this cash and we all got spaced. How do you know about the drugs, Mr Car?’

  ‘The Cadillac AFC-16 is not only the model of choice for senators and chief executives, it is also popular with other gangsters and hoodlums. BFBM magazine says this is because I am Awesomely Fucking Cool. As required by legislation, I am fitted with an integrated air analyser interfaced to GPS and law enforcement agencies.’

  Josie tossed the money back into the trunk. ‘Novik, get the cars unhitched. We’re out of here.’

  ‘Stress not. My GPS uplink was disabled by a bullet fired from a handgun. The very round you are holding,’ Mr Car said.

  Novik looked at the car open-mouthed. ‘They shot you?’

  ‘In actual fact, yes, they did. It was why I decided to take your tow.’ A speculative tone entered the car’s voice, ‘I always wondered what it felt like to be a hitcher.’

  The wind blew damp, gusting from the south-east. Unseasonal rain clouds swept up from the distant gulf and gathered over the hills. Powder from the split packet lifted on the breeze and settled in shallow drifts over the money.

  Novik didn’t like hard drugs, he didn’t like the way they ate people’s lives. Ambitions became daydreams, daydreams became could-have-beens. Home became memories, and your home became the street. He had seen it too many times. In prison it was a way of life, and it was encouraged.

  ‘Stand upwind, Josie.’ Novik snapped on a pair of gloves and fitted a filter mask. He took each packet, tore it open, and emptied it onto the road. A plume of white dust swirled away, a few hundred-dollar bills spun up into the air.

  ‘Be careful, babe. That stuff goes through your skin.’

  Novik watched the dust cloud dissipate. When it next rained desert flowers would bloom strange new colours and coyotes would form rock-and-roll bands. He affectionately ran his hand over the rust-pocked rear wheel arch of the camper. ‘We’ll put her in storage. When things are quieter I’ll fix her up.’

  It was an old mantra, a prelude to every big idea Novik had. Josie did not like it at
all. ‘This is a bad place, babe. We need to go.’

  Novik stuck out his chin. ‘And leave all this money here? We can do something with it. Something good.’

  She grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and shook him like an old rug. ‘I don’t know whether to slug you or get on my knees and beg. Two years I’ve waited for you and now this? If you break parole you’ll go back inside for four more. Any ideas about doing good, about making a difference, just forget it.’

  Novik gently took hold of her hands. ‘Two years for me too.’

  She broke away, still angry. ‘You don’t think things through. You do something crazy like stealing a car full of drugs and money and it will be ten times that–’

  ‘We haven’t done anything wrong, Josie. We’ve taken a stolen car from some very bad people. That money doesn’t belong to them, it’s not set for a good purpose, just more misery.’

  ‘Then burn it.’ Josie gestured wildly at the car, ‘Burn it all.’

  ‘I’d prefer a different solution,’ Mr Car said hastily.

  ‘You keep out of it,’ Josie snapped. ‘Whose side are you on?’

  ‘The side of not getting burned, ma’am.’

  ‘And you can’t just burn a talking car,’ Novik said.

  She challenged him, hands on hips. ‘Why not?’

  Good question. Novik gave the thinnest of answers: ‘It’s a talking car.’

  ‘I just meant the money,’ Josie said. The anger drained out of her, she gave Novik an unhappy, tearful smile. ‘I’ve just got you back. Don’t make me wait again, babe. I can’t do it.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Novik reached out. ‘Hey.’

  She came into his arms, held him tight. ‘I hate arguing.’

  ‘Me too.’ It made him feel so fragile. ‘Listen, it won’t be like last time. I promise.’

  Josie traced the scar that ran from just below his hairline back across his scalp. She rapped the steel band of the parole transponder with her knuckle. ‘What are you going to do about that?’

  President Guinevere Snarlow came to office on a promise to revitalise the economy and end the protests.

  ‘Hard times, tough love,’ she told them. ‘People want a liberal, socialist government, they can cross the pond.’

  People didn’t like what she did but they tolerated it. Once it was all over, the prison population had doubled and everybody knew somebody in jail. Quite a few knew someone who was dead.

  Citizens kept their heads down; the country was quieter than it had been for a decade. The malls stayed open.

  ‘When I was inside, people said you’re OK if you cut it off under water,’ Novik said. ‘Lie in a bath, breath through a tube.’

  While they talked the two cars separated. The Cadillac’s fender slowly flowed back and over the tow hook.

  ‘Did I see that?’ Novik said.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Fender-morph technology,’ Mr Car said. ‘Memory Kevlar means I never have a scratch or a dent.’

  ‘And no bullet holes,’ Novik said.

  ‘It’s a gift.’

  The sight of all that money had re-kindled a spark in Novik. President Snarlow had beaten him once, now he had another chance. ‘Josie, think about it. We could really do something.’

  They had been together since high school recycling club. They camped with the Occupy protests, joined the flashmobs, signed up to the networks and petitions. For a season it felt like something was going to happen, things were going to change. An American Spring.

  Then Snarlow was elected. Novik went to jail and Josie worked for nickels and dimes. They were the lucky ones. All Josie wanted now was to stay out of trouble.

  And now Novik had that look in his eye.

  ‘You really want to try again?’ Josie said.

  Novik swallowed hard. He had already made up his mind: he was ready to break his promise. ‘Yes, I do.’

  Josie punched his shoulder, thumped his chest, each blow punctuating her words. ‘So how’s it going to work?’ Thump. ‘What’s this good thing we’re going to do?’ Thump. ‘I’m not going to try unless there’s a plan, so you tell me a good one.’

  Put on the spot, Novik hadn’t a clue. Josie was the smart one. He had dreams and enthusiasm; she thought things through and made them happen.

  It came to him: ‘We’ll just buy everything up before anyone else does.’

  ‘Then what?’

  He had it. So perfect he had to laugh. ‘We’ll give it away.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ Josie said, but she laughed too.

  ‘We can’t get arrested for shopping. We’re doing what they want us to do.’

  Right away she could see the utter impracticality of the idea – they would never have enough money. As usual, Novik simply hadn’t thought that far ahead. Josie looked into his eyes and for a moment she was back in high school, seeing him for the first time, his taut muscular body, the change from uncertainty to happiness when he knew he’d said something that made her laugh.

  The concept was ridiculous but he was right about it being safe. Purchasing commodities was the one thing Snarlow’s government wanted them to do. She closed the Cadillac’s trunk. ‘We still need to move. You take the Caddy, these cars can half drive themselves.’

  ‘Ma’am, I can completely drive myself if the driver is incapacitated or distracted by drugs, blood loss or amorous intent,’ Mr Car said.

  Novik saw the change in Josie. He didn’t understand why, all he knew was he couldn’t do this without her and was glad. Guilt twinged inside. He’d finagled Josie into another of his schemes and, despite his explanations, it was a highly dangerous one. If those Old-fashioned Boys caught them – People like that killed without hesitation.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘One condition – when the money’s gone, if everything’s still the same, we’ll walk away and never look back. No regrets.’

  She’d take this chance, she’d stand by him while he tried one last time. Then he would be with her for good. No more waiting. She’d have her man.

  Like he said, shopping wasn’t illegal.

  ‘No regrets,’ Novik said.

  ‘Then let’s start shopping.’

  Call it love.

  - 3 -

  Singularity? Schmingularity.

  Trust me on this – tomorrow the world will roll along exactly as it did yesterday. And the day before.

  Why is that? Because humanity has already transcended itself with technology. It happened in places like Catalhoyuk and Göbekli Tepe when we bootstrapped ourselves out of Homo sapiens and into human beings. It was so long ago we forgot about it.

  Big change is coming for sure, but one thing is certain – it won’t be an extrapolation of what we’re already doing, it will be brand new. Just like when we stopped being smart apes with a line in sticks and pebbles, and settled down for some serious play with what we invented.

  Nothing changed ‘Out There’. We changed how we behaved, how we were organised. How we thought. If ever there was a Singularity that was it. The world we knew ended, we woke up the next day and moved on.

  Today the only question is: ‘Can we do it again?’

  –T. Hank Yousomuch, guest blog, KUWjones.org

  Jimmy was spitting blood. He was drunk, stoned, tripped out, paranoid and totally, like totally freaked.

  He groped for his cell phone with one hand and gingerly prodded his upper incisors with the other. Teeth moved all over the place. It was a bad, bad feeling.

  ‘Oh, like, totally fucked, man,’ he muttered. Part of him was frightened, the rest was appalled at the whine that had crept into his voice.

  What most freaked Jimmy out was that he was using phrases such as ‘totally fucked, man’ as if he said them every day. Everything, absolutely everything had gone wrong, from the drugs stewing in his cranium to Morgan face down in the lemon meringue pie, and that shithead Black clutching his nuts and puking on the ground where the car should have been.

  And that wa
s it. In a nutshell, on a stick, and in a bun. Where the car should have been. That smart-assed talking Cadillac was nowhere to be seen.

  Jimmy’s boot sent a rusted can skittering across the blacktop of the interstate. He was not normally a poetic man but the hormone analogues and para-hallucinogens cruising his bloodstream made him see the road as a physical metaphor of his own future. Somewhere on the blacktop the Juggernaut of Destiny thundered towards him with Mitchell Gould, THE Mitchell Gould, in the driving seat.

  Gould was going to want his money back, and he, Jimmy, was going to have to tell him.

  Jimmy looked down at the cell phone and shuddered. His tongue worried at his top front teeth. His mouth was filling with blood but he was afraid to spit in case his bridgework hitched a ride. Across the parking lot, Black had stopped puking. Jimmy pocketed the phone and walked over.

  He’d slugged Black in sheer frustration when they’d staggered out of the diner and seen the car had gone. Instead of just taking it, the stupid little gay punk shithead had slugged him back. So Jimmy had kicked him in the nuts. Twice.

  Still on his hands and knees, Black mutely looked up at Jimmy. His expression was that of a man in intense pain who would do much to avoid more.

  Jimmy kicked Black in the face. ‘Fifteen thousand dollars of bridgework, you fuck.’ He followed up with a few more kicks to the body. Groaning, Black slumped on his side and curled into a ball.

  It felt good stomping Black, it helped clear Jimmy’s head. They were the Old-fashioned Boys and at times like these it was important to do things the old-fashioned way. Morgan was steady, but Black had always been a punk. The sonofabitch had shot the car, for Christ’s sakes.

  If there was one thing Jimmy knew, it was the importance of having a scapegoat.

  Jimmy propped Black up against a dumpster, lit two cigarettes and put one between Black’s split and bleeding lips.

  ‘It’s all right, compadre,’ Jimmy told him. ‘We’re nearly through.’

  Black grunted, inhaled smoke and blew it out through his mashed and purpling nose. ‘Ere der car?’

  All at once Jimmy felt very tired. ‘Damned if I know.’