The fall might have been coincidence-Ashley was breaking in a new pair of six-inch platform heels tonight that felt much taller than they should on her 5'2" body, and she had already stumbled a few times even before her three glasses of wine. But it definitely tipped the scales in favor of getting a taxi. She picked herself up off the pavement and walked gingerly back into the bar, scanning the bulletin board by the entrance for a service that was still running at this time of night. The waitstaff gave her a bit of a surly glance, but she responded with a sheepish grin and nodded toward the bulletin board. "Better to be safe than sorry!" she called out.
They still didn't seem exactly thrilled that she was hanging out in the bar this close to closing time, but they left her alone while she skimmed the collection of business cards. Ashley could have just pulled out her phone and gone into one of the three or four rideshare apps she had, but she knew from experience that surge pricing usually pushed the bill into the triple digits at this time of night. At least with a cab, you knew how much they were going to gouge you right off the bat.
As she looked, Ashley's gaze was immediately drawn to a bright yellow card that looked almost brand-new. It appeared to be a bit larger than the rest, and made of some sort of plastic instead of the usual paper. Two bright blue arrows pointed in at a blue circle in the center, and thick black lettering at the top of the card said, 'LAZY RIDER TAXI SERVICE'. Additional lettering on the circle, this time in white, said, 'PRESS HERE'. Ashley almost reached out and pressed her thumb against the surface just to see what would happen, but she decided to look them up on her smartphone first. She'd had too many experiences with cabbies that ran up the meter or acted like creeps to just go with the first outfit that had a gimmick.
A cool gimmick, though. Ashley was already drawing schematics in her head as she did a search for the company, picturing in her mind a wafer-thin microprocessor designed to send a location signal through the bar's wifi to the company's dispatcher. Probably had a lithium button cell for the battery-it wouldn't need much power, not if it just needed to get a little 'here I am!' data packet out to the nearest network. She wondered how many they had to replace because people walked off with them in the drunken belief that they had found a magical taxi genie.
She found a few reviews of the company, all pretty positive. The reviewers mentioned fast service, clean cabs, and...Ashley's bright blue eyes widened in surprise. She brought the phone a little closer to her face; she had put on her contacts to go clubbing, a tiny concession to vanity (well, that and the sleeveless black mini-skirt and fishnets, but really, who didn't dress up nice for a night of dancing and drinking?) and she thought that maybe her vision was playing tricks on her.
It wasn't. Ashley reached out and stabbed the button so fast her fake nail popped off (acrylics were really the only option when you knew you'd be soldering microprocessors the next morning) and stumbled out onto the street as fast as her platforms would carry her. She felt her pulse racing, and a buzz of adrenaline coursing through her bloodstream in anticipation as she looked up and down the street for the cab. She tried to tell herself that there was absolutely no way this was a real thing; of course it had to be some sort of marketing bullshit or a couple of reviewers pranking people or a planned rollout that they were beta testing. There were all sorts of rules and regulations that still needed to be sorted out, even if the technology had been perfected and she'd somehow missed hearing about it. But Ashley couldn't resist calling the taxi anyway. Just on the off-chance that it was real. Just in case she could really ride in a-
The taxi pulled up to the curb, 'Lazy Rider' logo prominently featured on the side. For a moment Ashley's heart sank when she saw the driver sitting behind the wheel, staring intently at the traffic in front of him. It confirmed everything she thought she knew about the current state of the technology, and she couldn't rightfully expect anything else, but it was still a little bit like tearing off the wrapping on Christmas morning and seeing a package of socks staring back at you. She opened the passenger door...and gaped in astonishment at what she saw.
The driver that she saw from the outside simply wasn't there. The interior of the cab was smooth, clean, and spacious, with a low reclining couch that took up most of the center of the vehicle, but there were no seats in the front. No driver. No steering wheel. No pedals. Ashley leaned out again, then back in, comparing the view from the outside to the one inside. She let out a low whistle of amazement. It was absolutely real. A genuine self-driving car. Ashley felt like she was about to cream her panties.
On one level, she suspected it had to be at least a little sketchy. They were clearly using plasma screens instead of windows to simulate the appearance of a driver, and while Ashley could think of a number of good, perfectly legitimate reasons not to alarm people into erratic driving by presenting them with what they expected to see, she could also think of a number of reasons that involved staying under the radar while people worked out the legality of auto-driving.
But still, all the disguises in the world wouldn't save their asses if the things were accident-prone. And anyone who could invest in a fleet-oh God, an actual fucking fleet of these things, oh holy shit that was so fucking cool!!-they wouldn't be able to just skip town to avoid the law. It had to be safe, at least. Which meant she could get in, maybe get a first-hand look at the technology in action...it was a paper-thin rationalization for insatiable curiosity, but Ashley didn't fucking care. She couldn't just ignore the future when it was sitting right there in front of her. She climbed inside and closed the door.
Before she sat down on the reclining couch, though, Ashley got down on her hands and knees and made a thorough inspection of the front of the vehicle. She was a little surprised to see that there was no manual control interface at all, even as a backup-this car ran entirely on autopilot. It made sense, given the function and the other design concessions; the company probably didn't want some panicky drunk trying to wrest control away from the AI, and it wasn't like anyone would be able to drive particularly well without a driver's seat anyway. But still, it was a pretty bold choice for first-generation technology. She ran her fingers across the smooth surface where the dashboard should be, lost for a moment in quiet awe.
The car itself interrupted her techno-trance. "Hello," it said, in a voice that was carefully pitched to be androgynous and mellow. "Please move to your seat and secure yourself for the ride. The vehicle cannot embark until all passengers are seated." Ashley paused, just to see what would happen. "Para espanol, dico 'espanol'," the car continued. "Please move to your seat and secure yourself for the ride. The vehicle cannot embark until all passengers are seated. Wei zhongwen..."
Ashley flopped out onto the couch, which reclined at about a seventy-degree angle-nice and comfy, with a perfect view out the front. She glanced from side to side, noting that the back walls of the cabin on either side seemed thicker than usual. Probably additional couches that could fold out, just in case there was more than one passenger. She wriggled around a bit while she got the harness over her shoulders and attached to the buckle around her waist, grateful that she'd just gotten her blonde hair cut short. Trying to do something like this would have turned it into a bird's nest a few weeks ago.
Once she was buckled in, the car said, "Please state your destination." Ashley almost wanted to clam up for a minute, just to see what would happen, but this kind of speech recognition technology was nothing new, and it was almost one in the morning. She decided she could always go for a taxi ride tomorrow if she wanted to beta test.
