Driverless, Pt. 1

No one knows the value of a good driving playlist any more. I mean, sure, people still make playlists to listen to while on car rides. But I’m talking about the type of playlist that’ll carry you across deserts, over mountains, and to the edge of the sea.
Like, say, on those mornings when you’d wake up before the sun, kiss your sleeping wife, and feel the car turn over under you before starting out on the road from Riverside to Long Beach. Desert winding through the canyons and hills before emerging at the ocean.
You’ve got to have a special playlist to guide you through these places. The sounds that give you hope amidst the bleak, if dramatic, environs. The words that will encourage you to haul over that last hill. The voice that will call you to that blissful view of the water and back home.
No one appreciates those lists anymore cause no one drives any more.

I get the call earlier than I expect. Usually, delivery runs happen in that sweet spot between 3 am and 5am. Most people are home - from the bars, their jobs, their other families - and the roads are clear. That’s a part of it: traffic, though significantly improved with the help Chad Stossel’s revolutionary rollout of the Zuck Truck - the first driverless car released back in 2027 - hasn’t been totally eliminated.
What’s happened, then, is that drive times are quite efficient though still quite long if you’re making a run from the Inland Empire to the beach. The thing is that, unlike me those long years ago, people can now climb into their cars and finish their slumber, work on the things they neglected in search of sleep, or just do anything leisurely.
Accidents are pretty nullified cause everyone has one and that’s probably the thing that made the drive times drop so precipitously. The government mandated all car manufacturers to adopt Stossel’s tech pretty quickly, and almost over night, accidents disappeared.
But that’s why I have to do my runs so late: since we’re not allowed to drive, I’m technically a criminal. And the reason you want me driving and not the robots is because I’ve worked around the other little tech-y boost: in order for Stossel to earn that government seal of approval ahead of his competitors from Toyota, Tesla, and Hyundai, he had to agree to designing a kill-switch in each unit.
The argument was that it would ensure fugitives could not lead police on any more high speed chases. The reality is that the police can stop you literally any time they want. And then, when the Swarms began, the instantaneous extra-judicial killings.
The interiors would burst into flames. And since the cars were designed to be as safe for everyone else, they were designed to retain fires. A perfect way to assassinate someone without harming others.
I’m not really one for politics - not even then. But given that I’m usually pretty skeptical of the feds anyway - and not to mention that I loved my Toyota Tacoma - I decided pretty early on that I’d need to figure out a way to put one of those Zuck Truck shells over a Tacoma chassis and keep the manual drive option. Luckily enough, Stossel ended up buying out Toyota and the Zuck Truck ended up being built at the old Tacoma plant. Luck was on my side.
So, it was a simple bit of automotive surgery coupled with 8 months worth of runs to the local pick-a-part to complete The FrankenZuck: Zuck up top, Tacoma underneath.
At any rate, here I am at 11am and waiting in the parking lot of Fairmount Park in Riverside, waiting for the drop off. The two man-made lakes have improved a bit since my wife and I would take walks here. Ex-wife. Gotta remember that. And the health of the lake seems on the up. I’ve even noticed that they’ve removed the warnings against eating some of the fish caught in the lake. Must be great for the local anglers, though I’ve never gotten over the weirdness of prepping and cleaning a whole fish myself to ever try.
I’m thinking about how this time of year - Mother’s Day - ducklings tend to hatch, when a red Zuck coupe pulls up alongside me. They raise and lower their antenna twice, signaling that it’s my client. When I open the door and step out, I’m knocked back: the package I’m delivering is a human, and she can’t be more than 10 years old.

I pull my contact aside, a brunette woman named Claire, and try to keep my cool when I ask what in the world is going on.
"Look, “ she says, with a sigh. “I’m sorry, to spring this on you, but she’s my niece and she needs to be reunited with her parents.”
I look at her, stunned, because I do see the family resemblance. But also a bit miffed.
"Do you think I’m stupid?” I hiss back. “That’s Winnie Galang. You know, daughter of the exiled senators? The Ones Who Got Away? Your own husband is the one that sent them off and separated the family. For treason! I knew it might be you on the other line but I figured the package might be a little care thing - a note from Winnie or maybe some avocados to remember their time in California while in Anchorage. But a whole human? Are you out of your mind?”
"I know that this is a lot to ask. But you have no idea how bad things could get.”
"You don’t say?” I’m basically growling through my teeth at this point. My eyes look past Claire and fall on a bench. I wince at the memories built there.
“I know what this place means to you,” Claire offers up, suggestively. “There’s a reason I asked you, specifically, to take on this task.”
What does she mean? She doesn’t even know my name - only refers to me as Ferryman when we’ve talked.
"Your daughter, Bobby. You used to go here, with her and your wife, right? Before the curfews and the bad stuff? Befo-“
“Ok. Ok. So, you know-“
"I know you loved your family. And that’s why you ended up where you are. I heard you were the best at this, but when I figured out who you were, I knew you were the only one to do this. Please. She needs to be with her family.”
I look back at Winnie, who’s kept her eyes down this whole time.
"I don’t do political things, Claire. You should know that,” I plead - more with myself than with her.
She knows.
"Staying on the sidelines and opting to be silent is also a political act, Ferryman.”
I lock eyes with Claire. Now, I know.
"Ok,” I say. “I’ll do it.”

After going over a few of the have-tos with Claire and Winnie, we arrive at the last pieces of information and the final bomb - though, not exactly a surprise given who I’m transporting: the trip is through three states and part of Canada. It’s 61 hours of pure driving on a good trip.
"I can’t trust anyone to pick up a relay, Bobby. You know that. And you’re the only one who knows California well enough to get her out of the toughest part of it. I’m sorry that I hid it from you, but I’m also willing to double the payout. And,” Claire pauses, “I don’t know…maybe…maybe it can be a fresh start for you. That kind of cash out there? You’d be able to build any life you want.”
I think of my ex-wife. Not every life.
"Ok. So, any other surprises, then?”
"No.”
"Ok. Well, I’m glad you at least showed up early, it means that the route to get out of LA is going to at least be full. We won’t look too weird being out on the road. Puts us at the Grapevine towards rush hour, which could be touch and go, but would mean that we’re chasing the moon when we approach the Bay. I’m probably gonna stick to 5, and the only places to sleep that I even trust may be ou-“
"I’ve got that covered. We have family all across this trip willing to shelter. They know this is happening and have agreed,” Claire spreads out a paper atlas with spaces marked. “Obviously, don’t get caught with this. But each stop will allow you some time to recover. Do you think you can do 15 hours a day? That’ll help keep the stops at 4.”
"I mean, I can do it provided nothing goes wrong. But I’d like that fifth stop available just in case.”
"I was worried you’d say that,” Claire took out her pen and furrowed her brow. She marked off a spot in Vancouver. “This house is a little less safe. Not because they’re not family, but because they’re a little more flaky than the others.”
"Who is it?”
"Winnie’s biological dad. He’s a good guy, but I think he’s still smarting at the divorce. He’s agreed to this because he’ll be a little bit closer, making the opportunity for visits to increase. But, you know…’a man scorned…’”
I’ve got a whole family epic broiling here. I look over at Winnie, who’s taken to talking to the ducks. I smile a little. The memories aren’t all bad.
Turning to Claire, I realize there’s really not much else to worry about. As she’s about to walk over to Winnie and say her last goodbyes, when I ask one last question. “Family all up and down the coast, huh?”
She smiles at me, “Oh you know how us Filipinos are.”

Winnie is relatively quiet for most of the start. I offer her the opportunity to mess with the radio or to turn on a movie. Since we’re undertaking this mission during the day, I’ll need to engage my auto driving modules. It’s a necessary risk but I don’t much like it.
She opts, instead, to lie down and sleep. When I notice that she’s completely dozed, a gentle snore creeping from her seat, I sit up to observe where we are. Glendale.
Not too far off, I suppose, to where things will slow down some. And maybe I can disengage the auto driver. But also, not close enough. I turn to see most cars with no drivers in the window. I remember having to make the trip from Riverside to Glendale for work. I was always so exhausted. But getting home to my family, just a bolt of energy.
Well, no use in staying up. I’m planning on disengaging the auto-driver in a couple of hours, anyway. So, I set the radio to some rain, black out the windows, and fall asleep.

I wake up to something jabbing me in the shoulder. It’s pretty insistent, if not necessarily forceful. When I try to swat it away, I hear a little voice.
"Mr. Bobby? Can you please wake up?”
Winnie. Shit. How long have I been asleep?
When I sit up, I look outside, we’re in standstill traffic, but it’s no longer the Grapevine. In fact, we’re pretty far north of that and are much closer to King City. That means I slept for 5 hours. Not good.
"Uh…sorry, kid. I was hoping to wake up in a couple of hours but I guess I was more tired than I expected. Thankfully,” I turn my gaze to the trail of brake lights ahead of us, “it looks like traffic was a bit worse than we expected.”
I press the AUX button on my radio and feel the car die momentarily before jerking back to life. The steering wheel regains some resistance. And the seat gets warm. That last one was a personal upgrade. I mean, it gets really cold in the Inland Empire at 3am.
As I try to look at the scanner for any insight on things, Winnie nudges me again.
"Mr. Bobby? I kind of need to eat and use the bathroom. Can we pull over somewhere?”
"Uh…sorry, kiddo. We can’t pullover. But, I do have an option for you. I installed a little portable bathroom. Just hop to the backseat and press the seatbelt release for the seat on the passenger side. When you’re done, you can come back up here and we’ve got some food that your aunt left for us. Sound good?”
Winnie gives it a thought and nods. She heads back. Hopefully, her determination to be reunited with her parents will mean that’ll be open to these inconveniences. I personally hate using the built in bathroom, but when you’re doing long hauls, it’s unavoidable. Thankfully, I had it thoroughly cleaned before this.
While Winnie’s away, I pull out the basket that Claire made up. Baon, she said. For the trip. Made me smile; hadn’t heard those words since my mother had passed. It brought me a bit of comfort. The note for instruction just said I could take as much as half of everything in the basket, except for the three boxes left specifically for Winnie.
I set aside nearly everything for Winnie. I eat pretty light and, besides, I keep my own stash of food in a separate section. Couldn’t even imagine taking food from this little one. Though, I did see two boxes of Pocky sticks, so I grabbed one for myself.
When Winnie comes back, I set everything out in front of her and let her choose. I do explain that she might want to eat the ultra perishable stuff first, and save the more shelf-stable foods for emergencies later down the road.
She silently nods while taking in all of the options. She decides on some spam musubi and then closes up the basket. I place the basket in the foot well of the passenger seat - her legs are so short, they don’t even reach that space.
We eat in silence.