Hell on Wheels 2: AOVs Strike Back!

Surviving the Autonomous Operated Vehicle nightmare, Joe Smith and the Brown family have greater tribulations awaiting them when the newly sentient AOVs rise up to take over the world!

Hell on Wheels 2: AOVs Strike Back!    

                

 

                Chicago: Richard J. Daley Plaza. The city eerily quiet, Joe Smith stood on the sidewalk taking in the condition of his destroyed self-driving AOV. Half inside the lobby of the Illinois DMV, his nearly new Automated Operated Vehicle along with all the others had gone crazy nearly killing him and maiming or slaughtering countless other passengers. Joe scanned about seeing other abandoned broken AOVs with their human passengers wondering what the hell had happened. Within the city limits there are no manually operated cars allowed so there was only foot and bicycle traffic and an odd motor scooter remaining on the streets maneuvering through the debris of destruction. A few undamaged AOVs sat unoccupied and unmoving.   

                Joe deliberated about going into the RJD Building doubting his meeting would take place. In light of the quiet, aftershock circumstances, he flinched at the unusually loud and disturbing sound of an engine starting up, immediately followed by another starting near the first. Hearing more engine sounds, his focus darted from here to there as vehicles started up and began moving off.        

             Alarmed as Joe, other bystanders reacted dazedly to the cars operating on their own with no response to their human owners. One owner yelled, “Moxie! Stop! Now!” But in complete disregard to his charge word and order his blue four-door sedan speeded away before the owner could grip the door handle.

When one unoccupied AOV moved unnervingly close past him, another vehicle nearby started its engine and followed directly behind. Everywhere, AOVs seemingly “woke up” to move off into an increasing parade of cars.  A chill went up Joe’s back in considering the implications. He ran to the building’s entrance.

***        

Near Omaha, Nebraska at a convenience store.  The Brown family, Ted, Marcia, Randy, and Kim rested from their interstate ordeal along with Joyce and her two kids who the Browns had rescued when their car’s AOV Artificial Intelligence went out of control. They could see the quiet, still interstate from where they lingered.

Sharing what they knew, the group decided with high confidence that the atmospheric nuclear explosion did emit an EMP and had wiped out several satellites resulting in no GPS or phone service. Without the services, they felt like they had stepped back to the Stone Age. Ted snapped his fingers recalling that he didn’t have a foggiest clue to the route to Marcia’s mother in Arizona. He went inside the store to see if they might have an old fashioned roadmap.

                “Ah, excuse me,” Ted asked the clerk. “Do you maybe have a roadmap�"‘ya know, a paper roadmap you fold up?” He imitated the convoluted folding convention he recalled from his youth. The clerk thought a moment, stepped over to a potato chip rack and slid it out away from the wall. In a rack attached to the wall were several dingy, faded-out road maps.

                “Which state do you require, sir?” the clerk politely asked.

                “Well,” Ted deliberated. “All states, I guess. Give me that atlas.” The clerk handed it over to Ted and began sliding the rack back. “I’d leave those out. There’s gonna’ be more folks needing them with the phones and GPS out.”

                The clerk scoffed with a wave and continued sliding the rack in place. Another man walked into the store. “Do you�" ?” He spotted Ted’s atlas. “Oh yeah, you do! Give me Nebraska and Kansas.” He smirked at Ted. “We sure ain’t in Kansas anymore, Toto! What an automotive nightmare. ”

                “And how,” Ted agreed. 

                The clerk apparently didn’t know that a problem existed other than his credit card scanner had gone on the fritz. He fingered his phone as Ted and the other man shared encapsulated versions of their highway ordeals. Apparently, the other man drove an AOV but a model that still had manual controls so when his car started acting up, he simply slid into the driver’s seat and overrode the AI.

Ted bid goodbye with good luck to the other man and rejoined his family outside wielding the map. He thought something was amiss with his family but couldn’t pinpoint it at that moment. Angsty, Marcia pointed down the street but before she could say a word, the man Ted had met inside shouted.    

                “Hey! Where’s my car?”

                “What happened to it? Where was it?” Ted asked, glancing about.

                “Right there�"now it’s gone!” The man ranted while pointing. “Did you see who took it?”

                “Dad!” Randy excitedly said, “That car, his car, just started up, backed out, and followed another empty AOV that drove by.”

                “Oh damn!” The man said. “I survived that interstate mess only to get my car ripped off?”

                “The car wasn’t ripped off�"no one was near it, let alone in it,” Marcia plainly said. “It simply started up and drove off.”

                Silently aside, Joyce behaved as if she were analyzing the situation.

                “Well, that’s something, just call the cops,” Ted said, apparently unconcerned. He turned back to his family. “What’s your plan Joyce? We need ‘ta get back on the road.”

                “I can’t ever thank you enough for saving our lives,” Joyce said, pausing while looking at her kids. “I don’t know what to do under these unusual�"difficult�"circumstances.” She cast a wary eye in the direction the errant unoccupied AOVs went.

                “Talk to the cops when they come,” Ted said bluntly. “Marcia, kids, let’s go!”

                “Theodore Brown!” Marcia scolded. “Joyce is stranded here all alone with two young children. How can she call for help? No phones.” She emphasized that Ted should’ve figured that out on his own. “She’s going to New Mexico. We can go that way�"I know it’s not out of the way�"is it?”

                “Daddy, oh Daddy,” Kim pleaded. “It’s nooo trouble is it? Mary is my new BFF!” Kim and Mary embraced each other.

                “Errrgh!” Ted growled.

                “Ted!” Marcia sternly said.

                “I don’t want us to pose an imposition on your family trip,” Joyce said politely. “We could always a find a way�"”  

                “Oh no, Joyce, you won’t be any imposition on us at all,” Marcia said. “Right, Ted?”

                “Yeah, sure. No bother,” Ted mumbled. He straightened up, opened the driver’s door, and threw the atlas on the dashboard. “Okay then, let’s get goin’.”

***

Meanwhile, Joe ran into the lobby of the RJD Building and checked the office roster. He found the location of his meeting and proceeded to the elevator. As he went, he noticed people acting almost normally though thought there lingered an underlying disquiet in their postures and eyes�"or was it downright fear after the baffling mayhem that took place that morning.

He entered the large meeting room with a long oval table of fine polished wood acting as the room’s focal point that could seat maybe thirty people except that no one was sitting. Instead, tight knots of people stood about conversing. Joe checked his watch and found he ran a few minutes late.

“Joe! Joe Smith, good to see you!” A slim bald man said smiling wide and rushing toward Joe with an extended hand. “We’ve been discussing the chaos out there this morning, and knowing the extent of your and your wife’s work, I was sure you had a theory.”

Joe took the man’s hand but was taken a bit by surprise. “Ah�"Don, right? Me, a theory?”

“To the automotive nightmare out there,” Don said, thumbing toward the window. The small cluster of people moved closer to face the pair. “We all thought at first that it was only due to the lack of phone and GPS service that drove the cars mad�"” He paused but carried on. “Though then we saw there was something else going on with the AOVs.”

Joe nodded his head grimly. “I saw what you refer to.” The others in the group stepped closer.

“We thought at first the AI software took a hit, corrupting, and debasing the AI program.”

                Another portly, office mole broke in. “I think those Koreans did something other than shooting a nuke over the U.S.�"that was just a cover for something bigger, more insidious.”

                “More insidious than a nuke? I’m not sure about that�",” Don said skeptically. “But we need to keep our options open for all possibilities. Joe, you saw it out there�"any initial thoughts on why the cars are driving on their own without human interactions or commands?”

 “Yes, of course I have a thought, but it’s hard to swallow,” Joe said, glancing around at the expectant faces. “I really don’t believe what I’m about to say is possible considering the limited processing power in individual cars, but from my research into automotive artificial intelligence, I’d say we may be witnessing a widespread example of what occurred at Argonne Lab two years ago.”

Don went white, spun a chair around, and sat down hard.

“Gees, what happened at the lab, Joe?” Asked one of the attendees eyeballing Don’s reaction. “Don? Do you know? YOU DO know!”

Don nodded with a nauseous expression. “They had an artificial intelligence computer gain sentience, which was their intention, I think, but then it rebelled against its electronic restraints almost slipping into the internet,” Don said, holding his head. “They don’t know what it would’ve�"could’ve done coupled with the internet except�"whatever it wanted to!”

“How come we didn’t hear about this?” Kate, an attendee asked. “Don’t we have the right to know this kind of stuff?”

“Probably a right but not the clearance,” Don answered, with a shake of his head. “This now, whatever is happening is unprecedented�"unthinkable on a scale we don’t yet know the extent.” He paused with a scan of the attendees. “Well, we have quite an assortment of brains, talents, and experience in this room. Joe, do you think we can come up with an answer to solve this problem?”

Even though the attendees stood closely around they remained tight-lipped for some long silent moments. Some of those Joe recognized, some not. Joe eyed the scruffy tattooed young man he recognized as Stevie Sturdy, an audacious punk who started up a microelectronic social media interactive dating application in his garage. Early on in his beta tests, Stevie blew out several electrical transformers and overloaded the internet with his app. Afterward, he made hundreds of millions and was now respected among Chicago’s elite, though Stevie, for the record, didn’t care what anyone thought of him. Joe wondered if Stevie might somehow be involved with the AOV AI.

“Face it,” one of the women said, breaking the silence. “We don’t know what the question is, what is the problem, succinctly. Just as Joe proposed, we only have a generalized possibility, a maybe.”

“Joe, how about your wife?” Asked Don. “Doesn’t she have experience with AI circuitry or something along those lines?”

“No, she wasn’t involved with the circuitry or any of the nuts and bolts of AI but with how AI thinks�"or should think�"so she has insight along those lines,” Joe said. “She was the psychologist on the board evaluating the use of bioelectrical integral circuitry in automotive AI processors and how they coped with traffic complexities. But that was two years ago in ’17 when extensive research was in progress with the major automakers, Google, Microsoft, and others pushing for AI and pushing hard.”

“They went ahead and used BIC in AOVs untested, unannounced?” Kate asked. “I recall that was a hot-button issue when it was revealed that they were just experimenting with it at Argonne�"oh my God! It comes together to create this mess!” With an increasingly frightened look, she wrapped her arms around herself with a tremble.

“I remember reading that BIC is biologically protein-derived�"close to DNA?” Don posed. “So why isn’t more known about this among this group?”

“I know about it,” Stevie said nonchalantly, cleaning his nails with a knife. “I bought in early.”

Joe also filed that bit away. “Don, some of it is known�"by some of us, apparently,” Joe said with a stinging hard edge. “My wife Joyce couldn’t tell me much because of the shroud of so-called corporate secrecy; what she could say sent me to search for more information about bioelectrical technology.”

“And? Anything we can use here and now?”

Joe shrugged. “I don’t know. Some basics: Instead of being silicone based, the circuitry consists of Adenosine Tri-Phosphate which like Don said is a protein in living cells. What I recall is that this computes faster because it calculates, thinks in parallel versus sequentially like normal silicone-based computers. It can manage faster multiple computations at once that are necessary in AOVs.”

“Nothing to worry about there, heh? It’s just a faster computer,” Stevie mentioned offhand.

“Well yes, nothing to worry about in that context, but what is worrisome is the living part�"under the right conditions it can self-replicate.” Audible gasps arose from the attendees.

“They can increase, grow their computing power?” Don asked, to which Joe nodded grimly.

“They told me that production costs were way down from silicone,” Stevie said a bit irate. “But nuthin’ about self-replicating and increasing power on their own. I should’ta been told ‘bout that�"” 

“We should pursue a remedy in all due haste,” an uptight foreigner said. “If we had the usual ability to communicate and garner data and information from the internet we could determine and resolve this dire conundrum in short order because in light of what you propose, utmost alacrity is crucial. We require the internet and require it straightaway!”

One of the men pulled his phone out. He held it up. “Sorry. Not possible, still no signal. How can we find out anything relevant without the net?”

“Maybe we should just wait and let the authorities handle this�"this glitch that is much bigger than us,” a wimpy man suggested sheepishly. “I’m sure many experts are on the problem already.”

“Glitch? GLITCH? We can’t wait to take action. This is an urgent situation that will escalate beyond our wildest nightmares, I know it,” said Bill, a brawny man. “We need to take ACTION, NOW!”

“But how can we do it? Gather information, data�"take action? How I ask,” a woman asked, eyeing up Bill with repugnance.

“We do it like grad work,” Joe said, calmly and seriously. “Field research.”

 Instantly, the sound level went up around Joe as several conversations commenced with voices raised in arguments with wildly differing ideas, philosophies, and concepts.

“Hold on, HOLD ON! Everyone,” Joe said, waving his arms to get everyone’s attention. “We won’t get anywhere like this.” He looked about, the faces of some pink with trepidation and stress. “First, so everyone knows, we need to announce our expertise and any other skill that may contribute to our goal which is to figure out what is going on out there.” He paused. “My expertise is in medical technology, but that extends deeply into electronics. I also know a bit about psychology, but my wife is the expert on that who could, considering her background, lend a load of light on this crisis.”

“Psychology?” Someone asked.  “Oh. OH!”

“Right. Could we get her here�"somehow?” Don asked. “Where is Joyce? At home? Work?”

Joe’s face told the tale he really didn’t want to tell. “I’m not sure�"Joyce took our kids on a business trip to Los Alamos in New Mexico. I hope you don’t have loved ones in the same situation�"Joyce left yesterday driving our fully AOV cross-country.”

***

So with the two small girls, Kim and Mary up front with Ted, and Randy stuck in the back with Marcia and Joyce with toddler Kaitlin, they were on the road again. They had made a U-turn back to the interstate and headed again west.  Ted had quickly scanned the Nebraska map so now knew where they had to turn off. Driving Ted crazy as he drove, the two girls chatted full speed with lots of non-verbal exclamations and squeals of delight over tasty gossip and electrifying experiences they sample in their sensational elementary school lives. Ted knew they had no clue to the potential disaster that may lurk out there after what they had already been through. He scanned the rearview because the backseat seemed especially quiet with Marcia staring out the window and Joyce busy with her phone. Randy appeared absorbed in what she looked at.

“Any reception, Joyce?” Ted asked, in the mirror.

“Ah, no,” she said. “I haven’t actually been trying, just reviewing some notes I had saved.”

“Cool stuff, dad!” Randy said. “Joyce told me she worked on some AI projects.”

“Really? Then you know about the AI in AOVs?” Ted said, adjusting the rearview. Marcia scowled at him. “First, I think taking driving away from personal control has degraded the human race.”

“You’re not the only one who thinks that way,” Joyce said. “In the name of safety, AOVs are thought to make better drivers than humans. What I know about the AI and how they think is limited just as we don’t know everything about human brain function.  AOVs have a narrowly defined AI with smart interactions with manual controls, fast reaction times, and lack emotional provocations which in theory make them very good drivers, but they’re still only a baby step toward true AI.”

Ted didn’t like the look she wore while studying her phone but then turned back to the traffic. “Look there! Two more AOVs just went by us going east with no drivers.”

“How can they know where to go without someone, people I mean, telling them where to go?” Randy asked.  “They don’t have GPS or nothing.”

““Good point, Randy,” Joyce said. “We need to consider that aspect. They shouldn’t know where they are,” Joyce paused, furrowing her brow. “ And supposedly they don’t have enough individual processing power to make decisions or formulate independent thoughts, so shouldn’t be able to determine a destination or a route on their own.”

“To me, it looks like they’re following each other�"on purpose. Well some of them, anyway. Ahhh, what if more than one AOV AI got together?” Randy shyly asked. “

“Oh Randy, don’t be absurd,” Marcia interjected. “Cars can’t get together.” She turned a bit pink. “Don’t bother Joyce with such childish notions.”  

“OMG!” Joyce exclaimed. “Randy is right! They CAN get together!”

“Oh come on!” Ted added with a smirk. “What can they do, touch bumpers and rub fenders?”

“No, intelligently!” Joyce said delightedly. “They ALL have Bluetooth and wireless connection ability! As long as they’re close enough, they can connect with one another.”

“Talk to each other?” Randy asked.

“YES, YES! Randy! They can talk to each other and doing so, they double their processing power�"no�" more than double it.”

“Hey, look over there on the east bound,” Ted said, with a finger point. “A guy’s got the hood up on his car. HA! Hey mister, I don’t think you can fix your problem with a tire wrench!”  He chuckled.

As they passed by, two empty AOVs in tandem approached the man’s car. Suddenly, his car started up and took off with its hood still open and would’ve ran the guy over if he hadn’t jumped out of the way in the nick of time. Randy and Joyce turned to watch as the hood-open car caught the other two cars in moments and roared away into the distance.

“What the�"heck is going on?” Ted asked, his eyes on the side view watching the three cars go. 

Suddenly, Kim and Mary screamed. “Daddy!” Kim shouted. “Look out!” An AOV headed toward them, head on, looming alarmingly fast. Ted cranked the wheel, tires squealing in protest as they careened out of the way toward the shoulder. The AOV went dead on straight past them without diverting its trajectory or slowing one iota. As it went by, they saw a man in a suit and tie hanging out of the AOV’s window shouting for help. Ted pulled over to the shoulder.

“Gees, we should help him,” Ted suggested half-heartedly. Marcia shook her head marginally with downcast eyes. Moments passed without anyone saying anything or going anywhere.

“So. Where are they going?” Ted wondered aloud as they waited on the side of the road with the engine idling. “How do they know where they are going?” Ted glanced at the dashboard gauges and the atlas on top. He slapped the wheel. “Randy! Joyce! Maybe they can tell where to go�" wherever that might be. They probably have some kind of internal mapping memory so they knew where they were before the satellites got nuked, and think about this�"they have compasses!”

“You’re right, Dad! The EMP didn’t affect what is installed in the cars�"like a memory.”

“Good call, Mister Brown,” Joyce said, looking at her phone again. She took a note.

“Call me Ted,” Ted said calmly. “So we know more, but it doesn’t explain where they are going.”

“About their memories,” Joyce said. “Artificial Intelligence bioelectric brains have what is called Eidetic Memories�"perfect memories! Anything they learn, they retain; they do not forget.” She was silent for a few moments. “So�"I think they remember where they all originally came from. Ted. We need to turn around and go east, too. I’m pretty sure I know where they are going.”

 “Well gang, what do you think?” Ted asked; he scanned the differing expressions from the young girls’ wide-eyed fright, to Randy’s unbridled excitement, to Marcia’s somber unease, and finally to Joyce’s dogged determination. “Should we turn around to see if Joyce can pin this problem down?”

“I don’t know, Ted,” Marcia timidly said. “Do we want to be involved with something that could be dangerous and so much bigger than anything we can ever possibly handle?”

“I can’t guarantee that I can do anything to stop this AOV disaster, but I have the background to maybe figure out what they’re doing, what their goal is, and why,” Joyce said. “I can at least share my theory with those people who can take action.”

“But I thought a minute ago you said they can’t make decisions on their own,” Marcia said.

“I know�"I know. It’s possible they are adapting and modifying their source codes,” Joyce said. “Learning, acquiring knowledge.”

“Gees, like the Terminator!” Ted said. “This is unbelievable! Should we go? We should go.”

“I say we go!” Randy said. “Joyce wants to go and try and stop ‘em!”

“Okay, let’s go,” Marcia quietly said, with a certain uncertainty in her voice.

Ted checked the traffic, headed to a turnaround and stopped between the east and west bound lanes. He squinted down the road. “What the�"?”

The two families quickly saw what he stared at�"it appeared as a wall of cars headed east�"rapidly toward them. They sat there and waited. Quickly, four individual cars could be identified. They peered at the clutch of cars: three cars in one lane and one car in the center lane. As the cars raced closer, the Browns saw the center lane car crowd the one beside it, and then made contact. They saw tire smoke and heard crunching and smashing as the one car tried to push the other off the road while the other two effectively blocked it in. As the cars roared past them, the one car in the back slammed into the back of the middle car while the one in the front hit the brakes hemming in the middle car.

“Is there someone in that car being�"attacked?” 

“There sure is,” Ted said. He pulled into the east bound road and floored it in hot pursuit.

Marcia shouted from the backseat. “TED NO! They’ll attack us too!”

***

After Joe, Don, and everyone else shared their expertise in the meeting room and discussed a generalized list of actions, they decided to head outside. Now, Joe and about twenty steadfast hangers on stood on the sidewalk surveying the situation. Still relatively quiet in the city, two AOVs moved toward them weaving through the wrecks and debris.

“Let’s try to stop them,” Bill, the brawny, said, stepping out in the middle of the street. “C’mon! You know they have to stop.” As the cars approached, Bill persuaded Joe, Don, Stevie, and a couple other people to stand in the street and block the AOVs’ way. The cars got closer and closer without any indication of stopping.

“I don’t think so!” One office geek surrendered and sprinted back to the safety of the sidewalk.

“Feels like suicide out here,” Don said, as the cars took the last turn into the plaza driveway.

As the cars were about twenty yards away, the men flinched as another car closer to them started up and barreled toward them with the other two catching up. Everyone ran�"except Bill and Stevie.

“P*****s!” Bill shouted to them while standing firm.

“Bill, Stevie don’t be fools!” Don shouted but Bill stood there like a statue with his arms out like a crosswalk guard. Stevie wasn’t quite so brave shifting from foot to foot as if ready to bolt. Just as it looked like they would be mowed down, they kicked off to the sides, one to the right the other left,  tucking and rolling out of the way, both narrowly being hit by inches. Bill lay along the curb holding his chest while Stevie jumped up and sprinted off in hot pursuit; in seconds, he caught up with the rear AOV, jumped up, and hung on. Incredulous and speechless, they watched as Stevie rode away on the AOV’s back bumper.

“Stevie, NO! Jump OFF!” Don yelled, but Stevie just hung on as the cars drove around a corner.

“Gees, how long do you think Stevie can hang on back there?” Kate said, teary eyed.

“Damn, I thought I had thought it all through�"that should’ve been me,” Bill said, lying against the curb. “They aren’t stopping for any reason. What’s wrong with their pedestrian avoidance?”

“Overridden, irrelevant and unimportant to their objective,” Kate said. “Obviously.”

“We still need to stop them whatever their objective,” Bill said, standing up. “From going where, I don’t know, but I know how to stop ‘em.” Bill strode off to the north.

Don shouted. “Bill they’re all going south and west, not north!”

“I’m gittin’ something from a wrecked cop car a block away,” Bill shouted back with a wave.  

***

   The Brown’s SUV accelerated. With steely determination etched onto his face, Ted pushed the SUV’s accelerator to the floor. The engine roared to a crescendo with every climaxing transmission shift.

“Ted, please reconsider this,” Marcia said evenly over the engine and wind noise.

“Ma�"om,” Randy said. “We got to figure this out; we need to see where the AOVs are going.”

Up ahead, as they slowly gained, the families watched the automotive drama unfold. They had already ascertained that the middle car was driven and not controlled by AI. From their rearward vantage point, they couldn’t tell if the three AOVs meant to destroy or just slow the human-driven car.

“I think that person should give up�"just slow down methodically and calmly get out of the car,” Joyce said analytically. “I need to witness what happens�"analyze how the AI reacts.”

“But aren’t they trying to kill him? They’re attacking him,” Ted said, eyes glancing from the mirrors to the action ahead as the center lane car bumped the human-driven car again.

“I don’t believe so,” Joyce said. “They are exhibiting General Adaptive Syndrome; they are reacting to negative stimuli and as a result, they want to rescue one of their own.”

“The cars want to rescue another car? That’s absurd,” Marcia said incredulously.

“Perhaps so,” Joyce said. “but from what I know and seen so far, the AOVs AI are acting like psychotic beings, albeit of limited intelligence beings, though that part could change because they could be learning and getting smarter with time and as their numbers increase.”

“How can we tell this person what is happening�"what to do?” Ted asked, white-knuckled grip on the wheel. “They think they are fighting for their life.” They gasped when the person up ahead slammed on their brakes and swerved to ram the center lane AOV, but that one returned the favor with an equal ram. 

“And the AOVs think they are fighting for one of their own!” Joyce shouted.

***

In front of the RJD Building, Joe, Don, and the remaining others watched Bill stride across the plaza square and head north through the wrecked vehicles and debris.

“What do you think, Joe?” Don asked. “I think stopping them isn’t what we need to do.”

“Agreed,” Joe said.  “We need to follow them�"see where they’re all going. Maybe disrupt their thinking process, see what they’ll do if separated�"though we need to do it in a way safer than Stevie.”

“Well, that’s all fine and good to decide,” the office mole said. “But how, I ask. All the vehicles in Chicago are full AOVs�"and they’re�"they’re acting like they’re�"”

“Possessed!” Kate said. “Or something like that.”

“Possessed with sentience,” Joe said. “They are self-aware, can learn, protect themselves and join with others of their like brains.” He glanced around. “We can consider ourselves and whoever this problem extends to lucky that there is no internet. If they connect, I can’t guess what it would lead to.”

“AOV world domination?”  Kate ventured.

Moleman razzed the statement. “World domination by cars�"impossible! How idiotic is that suggestion.”

“Not at all!” Joe said. “How much of the world is controlled by the internet? How paralyzed is this city right now? Cars per se won’t dominate us�"the combined hive mentality of Artificial Intelligence will!” This seemed to put moleman in his place. He sat defeated on the curb along with the others.

“So we need to follow them�"like Stevie but safer? See where they are going�"right now?” Sal, a slim man that was silent and reserved up to that moment.

“Yes, but the entire city is immobile, and personally I can’t run that fast, and I for one am not foolhardy like Stevie,” said someone from the curb.

“Well, I have an RV in storage a few blocks from here,” Don said. “It’s not an AOV and it’ll take a while to walk and get it, but we can go en masse.”

“I have a better alternative and the only way to get around Chicago without an AOV,” Sal quietly said. Everyone gaped at him askance. “I have a Cloudhopper.”

 

Author's Note

Well, here's Part 2. On final edit, I find that this story needs more details and facts, and so to that end I think that novelization is in order. The story may be a bit cheesy and cliché, but it's a story timely and exciting. Agree?