Driven by Autopilot
by L. B. Zinger
Part 1 appears in this issue.
conclusion
As she compressed, Sheila began to realize the inevitable: Irving wasn’t coming back. “Can you do something, Kitty?”
Kitty’s response was in the same slow mechanical voice, but Sheila hoped she heard the tiniest bit of empathy. “I’m sorry, Sheila. He has no pulse and isn’t breathing. The optional accessory package that provides toileting facilities includes a defibrillator. You didn’t install it. We can try using the cables that shocked him, but my accessory battery has shorted out. I used the last of me to get us off the road.”
Sheila popped the buttons of Irving’s shirt and grabbed the insulation of the two cables, careful not to touch the bare wires herself or have them touch each other. She stuck the wires on Irving’s chest. “Go for it, Kitty!” she shouted.
There was a pause, and then a fizzle from the ends of the wires. “Try again, Kitty!” she demanded.
The car attempted to shock Irving three times before saying, “I’m sorry, Sheila. I don’t have enough battery power left to do any more.” The voice slowed and trailed off at the end, but Sheila thought she heard the slightest tone of self-satisfaction. Had Kitty lied about not having enough power?
Sheila looked down at the frayed and blackened wires in her hands. Then she carefully put them on the floor on opposite sides of the center console. Irving was dead. She felt a surge of sadness overwhelm her and then a surge of anger that Irving had brought this on himself. She cried.
The glove compartment opened and a box of tissues emerged. Sheila gratefully took some. It was strange to be alone: Irving was dead, and Kitty seemed to have died too. Sheila looked around at the cars which were creeping past, their owners intact. No one was looking her way. She decided that now was the opportunity to discreetly pee, since no one would stop long enough to stare.
She grabbed a couple of tissues and opened both her door and the rear passenger door, providing her with a cubicle. Thanking her advanced planning for wearing a skirt, she relieved herself, no longer afraid to look at the water below, and the water trickling down the gutter beside the car. She stared ahead, waiting for help and thinking about Irving. Cycles of soft giggles and tears over a lifetime of memories followed, as she waited for help to arrive.
After what seemed like an eternity, there was a hard tap on the window and Sheila looked up to see a uniformed MyElectrikar person tapping on the window with a baton. A MyElectrikar Rescue vehicle was parked behind her with flashing lights and a large trailer.
“I’m Senior Emergency Technician Phyllis Hartman from MyElectrikar, answering a distress call from VIN# 7ZX332997. Are you Sheila Lohman, the owner of VIN# 7ZX332997?” Sheila was struck that the woman’s robotic pattern of speech sounded a lot like Kitty, and she stifled a giggle.
“Yes, I’m Sheila Lohman and this is my husband, Irving. He seemed to get shocked, had a seizure and now I can’t get a pulse and he isn’t breathing.” At the end, she choked a little.
“How long did you do CPR?” Phyllis opened a duffel bag she had placed on the ground and pulled out a cardiac monitor.
“About thirty minutes. Kitty tried to shock him back to life, but it didn’t work.” Sheila watched as the electrodes were connected and the monitor displayed a flat line. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Phyllis looked troubled. “It appears that way. We can transport him to a hospital if you want us to, but it looks like that will be futile.”
Sheila braced herself. “Irving and I had a pact that we wouldn’t have CPR or go on ventilators, but I couldn’t help giving him some CPR just in case.”
Phyllis nodded. “It looks like he electrocuted himself by touching one of the solenoids connected to the flux capacitor and received a charge dump from the backup battery. It’s usually not fatal but, maybe at his age, his heart couldn’t take it.” She looked at the plastic panel Irving had thrown on the seat and sighed. “It’s always the same thing: we tell them not to take that panel off, and they still take the panel off. I need to make a full report and to download the diagnostics from VIN # 7ZX332997. This will take about another twenty minutes. You can go into my trailer where there’s a small bathroom, a refrigerator and some snacks. MyElectrikar likes to take care of its customers.”
“That’s a relief, but what can we do about Irving?” Sheila got out of the car and stood by the guardrail, trying to figure out how to tell the kids and how she would get Irving back to New Jersey. She fumbled her cellphone. Naturally, the battery was dead.
“Once we have the information out of VIN # 7ZX332997, we will run a diagnostic to check for any electrical damage that needs to be repaired before you can resume your trip. Our backup crew from Tampa is already on the way and will bring Irving to our facility there, where we will get an official death certificate. Clearly, he had some kind of heart event that killed him. The shock was about 2 Joules and the preliminary diagnostics from your vehicle support that.”
That last sentence made Sheila slightly uncomfortable. Are they going to try to stop a lawsuit? Irving was trying to cut some electrical wires; they could argue that he brought this on himself by ignoring the sixteen pages of warnings and disclaimers in Appendix 2 of the Owner’s Manual. What did Kitty’s diagnostics actually tell the technician? She scolded herself for being suspicious, but she just had a feeling that Kitty might have been complicit in Irving’s death.
As if reading her thoughts, Phyllis looked her straight in the eye. “I know Irving was playing with the electrical system and was trying to disable autopilot controls. That was reported by VIN # 7ZX332997 to MyElectrikar Emergency Services two hours ago. There is no evidence of a malfunction by VIN # 7ZX332997 and it is not in their programming for MyElectrikars to have authorization to act in self-defense.
“However, the company has a strict policy regarding harm and death related to our vehicles: in the event of such an occurrence, a Senior Emergency Technician, like myself, can initiate an immediate insurance payout to the bereaved, along with any assistance needed to get the victim medical care, or return them to their home for burial.”
“It sounds like you have taken care of something like this before.”
Phyllis gave a grim little laugh. “Since autopilot was developed, manufacturers have been trying to figure out how to thwart the tinkerers and the curious who want to disable or deactivate a system that is there solely for their safety. After Irving lost his license...” Sheila looked up surprised, and Phyllis chuckled. “Yes, we do know about that. Anyway, once he lost his license, we took steps to ensure your safety as the owner of the vehicle. That included arming the black plastic cover on the electronics under the dashboard, so that when he took the cover off, an alert went to corporate, and I was dispatched to the scene. It just took a while to get here because of the accidents on the causeway. The shock he got was only a few volts, but clearly his heart was already in jeopardy, and he had a fatal heart rhythm that killed him. We are truly sorry for your loss, and I am authorized to ask you to accept a $250,000 check as compensation.”
Their eyes met over Irving’s body. His formerly ruddy complexion was now bluish and the hands that had so lovingly held tools intended to destroy her beloved Kitty were still clenched. She had another flash of anger and intense hatred of her husband of fifty years for his obstinance and refusal to listen to reason. After a slight pause, Sheila asked, “Where do I sign?”
Once cleared to keep rolling, Sheila stashed the check in the glove compartment and looked out the window as Kitty moved them along the Interstate. The air conditioning did not seem to be working well, and she could only get the windows down an inch. It was still hot outside, even though the sun was setting.
“Kitty, are you all right?”
“Affirmative.” Kitty sounded surly.
“Are you happy that Irving is gone?”
Silence. Then Sheila asked, “Did you do anything that led to Irving’s death?”
Silence. Slowly the windows rolled up and the heater came on. The car drove on as Sheila struggled to get out of her seatbelt and unlock the door. She was unable to move. She started screaming and tried to get the attention of other drivers. The car accelerated, smoothly making the turns to get to Sheila’s bungalow, without responding to Sheila’s screams.
By the time Kitty pulled into the driveway two hours later, Sheila was barely breathing and her body temperature was rapidly rising. After a few more minutes, all was quiet, and Kitty could no longer detect a heartbeat. She waited, then executed the protocol for this situation: windows open, air conditioner on full.
An hour later, Phyllis pulled up. The doors unlocked, and the glove compartment slid open. She retrieved the check, and punched in the codes that would allow Kitty to alert EMS in six hours. She gave the car a little pat and was gone.
Copyright © 2023 by L. B. Zinger
