Page 74 of Even Robots Die
A jet is waiting for us right next to the entry door.
Daniel helps me inside and then we both buckle in.
I toy with the jet commands and look at which destination Brice asked to be input. It’s the exact address of my home. I’m tempted to change it to my sisters' school, knowing that normally a few, if not all, of them should be there at this time of the day, but I stop myself.
There is no way they went to school if Dad is missing.
Amélie probably didn’t go because she’s worried sick. Juliette maybe a bit too. Coralie might be the only one actually there.
And Elodie? She probably used it as an excuse to skip school and find other activities to occupy herself. Or tried to drive the others mad, or in this instance, even madder.
I leave the address as is and try to relax. It shouldn’t take more than twenty minutes to arrive home, but I better enjoy the calm before the storm.
Except I don’t.
Or more precisely, Daniel doesn’t. I can see him fidgeting in the seat in front of me and I don’t know if it’s the lighting, but I could swear that he looks a bit greenish. He’s also looking very pointedly at the ground, like he’s avoiding the huge windows that make up the two ‘walls’ at our sides at all costs.
“Are you alright?” I ask him just to make sure.
Maybe it’s wrong of me, but I don’t want to be covered in puke in the jet. Yes, it would be better for him if he was okay, comfy or whatever, but the only thing I can focus on now that I’ve started to think about it is that I don’t have time to deal with changing once I arrive home.
“I don’t like flying,” he tells me, and the look I give him in answer—dumbfounded for sure—prompts him to add a bit more.
“I don’t like heights.”
“That doesn’t make much more sense,” I say. “You’re a bat. It’s in your DNA to fly. How on earth, or maybe I should say how in the sky, can you fly if you don’t like flying or heights?”
Daniel raises his head to look at me, but drops his eyes quickly.
The jet is basically made of windows, the only part that isn’t a window consists of the ground under our feet, the bench-style seats we’re currently sitting on, and what’s under them—the engine under mine if I believe the sweet rumbling sound I can hear, and the luggage compartment under Daniel’s.
“It’s not the same. I’m in control when I shift. Now we’re just in a glass can that could drop at any moment,” he says, and his voice reaches a high pitch I’ve never heard from him.
This is hilarious, but I refrain from laughing out loud.
“Do you know why we have flying cars and jets?” I ask him.
He shakes his head and I have a feeling he thinks they are just made to annoy or unsettle him.
“In the past they realized there were way fewer accidents from airplanes than from cars. The ones that could be driven on roads. So instead of trying to make the ground cars safer, they decided to bring the cars to the sky with the same safety rules that were implemented for planes. There is nothing safer than these flying cars and jets. They’re all linked together in a system that knows exactly where each of them are in the sky. What level, what speed, what autonomy, and how many passengers, all of this is in a database, and there is absolutely no way one could fall or crash into another.”
As I explain everything, I can see that he doesn’t believe me, but it’s okay. At least he’s listening to me and is focused on my words and what he can say to refute what I’ve just said.
He can’t. Well, he could, but I’ll have an answer for any of his questions.
Why?
Because I hacked the central database for flying cars—jets are basically just faster cars—in Europe three years ago and I will never be able to unsee how beautiful the coding was and how any and all scenarios were accounted for within it.
“I’ll still feel better when we’re on the ground,” Daniel says.
“No one is forcing you to fly inside the jet, you know,” I tell him.
He looks at me like I’ve grown a second head. I choose to believe he’s slow to comprehend what I mean only because he still looks a bit greenish and unsettled, despite me keeping his mind busy.
“You could shift and follow the jet,” I tell him with a shrug.
Brice would probably think that I’m trying to ditch Daniel, but this is really just me trying to help him. I have no desire to land covered in puke, but I don’t plan on trying to lose Daniel, either.
