Road Rage part 1

Emotion Crime...

 It's been another bad day in a very bad week. My auto and those around me speed over the crowded hoverway at 80 miles per hour.

    On these long stretches, I tend to turn on my auto-guide and let my mind wander. I think back to earlier today, when my spouse and I'd had an argument. I don't know what started it. It ended up being about the same old subject: money. Fifty years ago a person could rent an apartment for as little as $800.00. Now we're lucky to pay less than $4000 for our one-bedroom. I really have tried to support my husband's desire to be a Net novelist, but his part time energy station job is barely paying his own fuel bill. He stormed out again. I don't know if he's coming back.

    I come out of my reverie to see a pearly BMW Glider slide into the auto-sized space between me and the auto in front of me. I slam on my brakes and spin to the edge of the hoverway, barely avoiding rear-ending her vehicle. I pound my fist into my steering wheel as a surge of adrenaline hits me. My horn sounds, but it is pitifully tame to my ears. It's all just too much.  My heart is pounding, my head throbbing. As I pull back into the lane and accelerate to hoverway speed, the BMW moves to the lane beside me and I find myself next to her. I give her a dangerous fake smile and a few choice epithets I'd only ever heard in my husband's banned classic movies like Goodfellas and Scarface. "F**k you, b***h." I know it's not smart, but what the hell. I don't think I can take much more today.

    Too late,  I see that she has read my lips and intends to do something about my verbal assault. She pushed a button on her cell ear piece. S**t. She's calling the police. She's reading my license number from my driver's side door. I want to accelerate and escape through the traffic, but I'm trapped in the uniform flow of traffic.With no exit in sight, the vehicle won't allow me to accend or decend unless I pull over.  My engine suddenly goes silent and my auto glides to the shoulder again, this time more slowly, and without my help. It lands, the gears lowering automatically. This is bad. This is very bad. The police have activated the remote shut-off and are on their way. The doors lock around me. I'm trapped.

    I sit staring, hands on the wheel. The careless driver in the fancy car is nowhere to be seen. There is no getting out of this one. I look up at the tiny camera/microphone below my rear-view mirror. I never paid attention to it before, figuring it's for jackers or other crimes. But the police would review the recording and know that I had used illegal words, a much worse crime than mere rude driving.

    The summer heat is permeating my auto. Sweat is running down the middle of my back.

    I see the police auto pull up on the shoulder in front of me. An officer and a Partnerbot disc exit the vehicle. The officer is also sweating under the thin layer of armor, and the Partnerbot keeps its gun aimed at me as it floats near him. My door finally unlocks, as the automated voice of my vehicle instructs me to exit the vehicle with my hands in sight. I start to do so, but the officer isn't taking any chances.

    "Get out slow," he yells. "Hands on your head! Now!" I don't know why he's yelling. My hands are already on my head. As I step out of my vehicle, he grabs me and spins me around so I face my auto, pulling my hands behind my back and securing them with zip cuffs. I am shaking. The shock of my situation is hitting me.

    I've never been arrested before. The drive seems long, surreal, as I gaze out the window at the massive structures of our society. Everything has changed so rapidly in the last decade. I never thought the price would be so high.

    The station is busy, full of the accused being hauled in and hauled back out to Quick Trials. They take my cell earpiece and everything I have with me. I try calling my husband when I'm led to a phone, but he's not answering his cell.  My case doesn't warrant a full trial, so after a few hours in a hot, crowded cell, a female officer escorts me to the Quick Court in an adjoining building. I know I have the right to an attorney, but who can afford that luxury these days?
 

Author's Note

This is a re-post of deleted work, with some minor corrections, so you may have read it before. I'm still working out the details to the next scene, but I have the ending in my head.

Reviews

[Jasmine Thousand]

*waiting*

[TL Boehm]

wow this is nicely done. Its awesome to see 'pre crash' work being posted again - gives me hope that the Cafe will fully recover. Great premise to this story.