The diplomatic car is driving them down Broadway, and Madison has the box on her lap, and Lydia can’t believe they’ve got out of the station and feels something must have gone wrong.
A siren sounds from a couple of streets away. This was inevitable: the cops were never going to shrug and leave them to it. They got a good head start on the ones from the station, but the cops must be mobilizing other units.
They can’t stop a diplomatic car, says Madison.
But they can stop us when we get out of it, can’t they?
After the business at NYNU I’d like to see them try.
But all they need to do is take the box back. They could stop you long enough to do that.
If we’re on embassy property they won’t be able to get near us.
Is that where we’re going?
Of course.
Lydia looks in the rearview mirror. A police car is following them a few cars behind, but its lights and siren are off. As Madison said, there’s nothing they can legally do to make them stop, and they must have guessed where they’re heading, so Lydia wonders what they’re planning to—
A shock of lights and sirens surges into the road in front of them as another police car pulls out of a junction, making an illegal maneuver and forcing other cars to stop and swerve.
“Fucking hell!” Lydia blurts out loud.
What did you just say? asks Madison.
Lydia explains what she said.
Fair comment. They’re trying to block us off.
Indeed, the other cars on the road automatically slow and move to the side, as they’re programmed to do when an emergency vehicle is coming up behind. The diplomatic car has no such programming and follows in the wake of the police car: meanwhile its interface politely suggests they slow down and move to the side, though they are not obliged to do so.
What do we do? asks Lydia, who assumes Madison has anticipated this.
I don’t know.
The police car in front of them begins to slow, forcing them to slow too. The one following behind is now tailgating them. A thick line of cars has stopped on either side, almost bumper-to-bumper. In moments they’ll be boxed in.
Right, says Madison as their car slows to a halt. When they tell us to get out, here’s what we do.
But Lydia has just seen a movement out of the corner of her eye: the car to their right has reached a junction and is taking the opportunity to turn and escape the traffic. The occupant isn’t even looking at what’s happening—he’s on his scroll—and the car will have simply calculated a quicker route to his destination. The cars behind it will do the same when they process the movement of this car—but right now a gap is opening up and will not stay open for long. Lydia makes this calculation in a couple of seconds, and a couple of seconds is all she has.
Lydia pulls open the hatch in the dashboard and the emergency steering wheel pops out, a skinny thing made of metal and coated with rubber: it’s less satisfying to hold than a proper one, in fact she immediately hates it. She releases the safety catch, overriding the Smartsteer and allowing the wheel to turn. Her feet search the floor of the car and find the pedals—they’re not proper pedals, just pressure studs on the floor, and she doesn’t like those either, you lose a lot of fine control. On top of all this she’s out of practice and has never driven a left-hander. But apart from that this is a terrific plan.
What are you doing? asks Madison, her puzzlement so marked that Lydia feels sure she has never seen anyone physically drive a car before.
It’s very important you don’t talk to me while I’m doing this, Lydia replies.
Lydia turns the wheel sharply and the diplomatic car lurches into the space vacated by the car to their right. The next in the queue, a purple Innoson, is also trying to take that space but Lydia cuts across it, forcing it to brake abruptly. Lydia glances up and sees the occupants jolted into awareness of their surroundings, looking back at her, outraged and perplexed by her unorthodox maneuver. She can see them starting to berate her, their silent faces staring out through the windshield mouthing What the fuck are you doing? It’s a fair question but she hasn’t time to apologize, she needs to concentrate on the road.
Because of the weird angle she’s taken, Lydia is forced to cut the corner: the diplomatic car bumps as it hits the curb and she remembers just in time to check there are no cyclists or pedestrians in the way. In the places back home where she used to drive there was never anyone around so she never had to worry about that stuff. At least she’s judged the height of the curb correctly and doesn’t break the axle. The wheels hit the surface of the next street and Lydia steers sharply to ensure she doesn’t crash into the car waiting at the crosswalk. She glances in the rearview and sees the purple Innoson moving up to the junction, its Smartsteer having deemed it safe to do so, and the gap she just used is closed. The cops can’t follow.
Yes! thinks Lydia.
What? Madison replies.
I told you not to talk to me. Distantly she can hear sirens: the cops will be deploying other units, of course. She wonders if they’re allowed to do manual high-speed pursuit, or even know how. Halifax cops weren’t trained for it, they just had a pursuit setting on the Smartsteer, which the police preferred because it meant no one was directly responsible if they ran anyone down. It might be different in America—but even so, they won’t have seen anyone drive like her before. Also the streets here are all really straight and going fast down these should be easy. She’s literally on Easy Street.
Thanks to the traffic jam clogging Broadway, the road ahead is clear. Lydia has only a rough idea where the embassy is—she’s been there only a few times and never had to pay attention to the route. She knows she needs to make a left turn but she’s not sure where. More sirens are sounding—cops heading for the street she’s driving down. She looks up ahead and sees a gap in the traffic coming the other way and she watches to see if it lines up with the next junction. Back in the day, one of her favorite things to do was to take corners without slowing down or losing control—but the thing about corners is they don’t move, and traffic unfortunately does. She needs to be decisive: either make the turn or keep going. The worst thing she can do is hesitate.
She arrives at the junction and there’s a truck coming the other way but she judges the gap is plenty big enough. Trucks are meant to drive slowly and carefully, make sure stock isn’t damaged—she thinks she read that somewhere once.
Lydia turns the wheel hard to the left—it’s not a smooth action, these shitty emergency wheels bend slightly when you turn them too hard and the steering column resists sharp movements, and she has to hold it longer than expected to make the turn. The wheels skid and the car drifts into the other lane, but Lydia steers back to compensate before they hit anything. Despite the limitations of the controls the car itself is a classy product and a good weight for this sort of driving, neither so heavy as to be sluggish nor so light as to risk overturning.
Madison isn’t speaking, but Lydia’s aware of a furious muttering radiating out of her. She is not happy. But Lydia didn’t expect her to be.
Lydia can see Central Park up ahead. More sirens echo around the streets, coming from somewhere she can’t see. She comes to a box junction, throws the wheel to the right, then accelerates to eighty. This isn’t necessarily the quickest route to the embassy but her aim is to drive in an unpredictable manner, and she’s certainly achieving this if nothing else.
She’d love to stick some tunes on. Doesn’t feel right driving without music. She could tell the sys to hook up to her scroll and find one of her old driving playlists. But she doubts Madison would appreciate it, and it might undermine confidence in her driving skills.
I know I said don’t talk to me but I need you to give me directions, says Lydia.
You don’t know where we’re going?
I vaguely know where we’re going, says Lydia, making another turn. She sees this street is free of traffic and drives straight up the middle before turning again onto Fifth Avenue. A cop car swings out of a side street and tries to cut them off, but Lydia goes up on the sidewalk before turning sharply.
Next left, says Madison.
Lydia takes the next left. A barrier announces this street is closed for resurfacing: she drives into the barrier, knocking it aside. This is not purely because she enjoys driving into things, though she does enjoy it: the noise of the collision ensures the construction drones immediately notice and retreat to the side of the road, making it easy to steer around them.
This is fun. She feels like she shouldn’t be having fun doing it, which makes it even more fun.
Keep going, says Madison. It’s on this street.
Lydia is both relieved they’ve almost made it and disappointed it’s almost over. Just tell me when I need to stop.
Cops are approaching in the rearview. Surely they’ve guessed where the car’s heading? Yes—up ahead she sees more cop cars, three of them bumper-to-bumper, blocking the road. Lydia recognizes the street now and knows the embassy is just beyond the line. They’re so close and yet they’re about to be boxed in again. What can she do? Is the sidewalk clear enough or wide enough to drive down?
Turn right, says Madison. Now.
Lydia doesn’t understand this instruction, yet she has complete confidence in it. She believes it’s the right thing to do, and that the logic behind it will become clear.
This confidence lasts just long enough for her to turn the wheel, then she wonders how the hell this helps them reach the embassy. Is Madison thinking they can approach from the opposite direction? The cops will have thought of that—surely they’ll block that route too?
Now left, says Madison.
Lydia feels the confidence return as she steers left, glances over her shoulder to see if they’re being followed, and very nearly crashes into a cleaning truck.
Down there, says Madison, pointing at a ramp that leads into the basement of a gray office building coming up on their left.
A cop car speeds towards them from the opposite direction. In moments it’ll cut off the route to the ramp. Lydia swings the car across the street towards the building, cutting it a little too fine and grazing the wall of the entrance with the right-hand side of the front bumper—
Careful!
Lydia rights the car and the ramp takes them below street level and she slows right down because there’s a hairpin bend coming up and she doesn’t want to smash into the wall. Where the hell are they? How come Madison knows about it? More urgently, what about the shiny, yet rough-textured, dark gray wall up ahead that entirely blocks their way? There’s no way Lydia can get back around that hairpin, reversing is not her strong point. Flashes of red light up the tunnel and a siren echoes around as the cop car drives down the ramp behind them. Why did Madison lead them into this underground dead end?
Don’t stop, says Madison. Keep going.
As with Madison’s directions, Lydia finds this assurance completely overrides her own instincts. She knows they are driving towards a solid surface but there’s an absolute conviction in Madison’s voice that this will be fine. It’s almost scary how, in this moment, she trusts Madison over and above the evidence of her own senses.
Lydia takes her foot off the brake—they have not yet quite stopped moving—and instead she accelerates.
Careful, says Madison. We don’t want to hurt it.
The dark gray wall parts easily as the car makes contact—it seems to have a thick viscous consistency—but Lydia can see its edges remain stuck fast to the bodywork, forming a seal. The car passes through and nothing else passes through with it, not even an air molecule.
It’s like a perfect air lock, says Lydia.
Very good, says Madison: she seems impressed by Lydia’s description. Yes, it’s a version of the technology we use on air locks. Usually they’re transparent, but this breed enables greater privacy.
The car completes its journey through the wall and Lydia sees they are in a branch of Hertz car rental, which is something of an anticlimax. Or at least, the signage says it’s a Hertz: notably there are very few cars here, maybe four or five, and the place doesn’t seem to be staffed. Lydia pulls into a parking space and turns to look at the wall they just drove through.
The wall has closed up behind them. Dully, Lydia can hear the siren through it.
Don’t worry, says Madison. The membrane won’t let them through.
Won’t let them?
It parted for us because I told it to. They won’t be able to talk to it.
It’s alive? Lydia gets out of the car and walks towards the wall. It looks like a huge slab of jelly candy. She reaches her hand out and touches its surface: it’s soft and a little warm, but absolutely does not give way under pressure.
Madison gets out of the car and walks towards Lydia, carrying the evidence box. Careful. They can sting if they decide they don’t like you.
It seems OK, Lydia replies. In fact she feels a faint vibration coming from the wall, like the purr of a cat. Can I talk to it?
Potentially, yes—but you’d have to learn their language. It’s very different from ours.
Wow. I never knew you had anything like this.
One has to be responsible with one’s technology on other planets.
Lydia listens out for a moment. I can hear the cops talking on the other side. They’re bloody furious. Ha-ha.
We need to go.
Go where?