She put it back in her bag and glanced over to where several reporters and camerapeople were gathered. Lisa Carver, who’d waited a few minutes for attendees to finish stuffing their faces, was demonstrating the car’s advanced features.
The CEO, standing alongside a cherry-red Arrival, said, “The car understands both simple and complex commands.” A wide smile. “I call mine Rudolph, even though that is a boy’s name, and the voice of the car is female, but the color just reminds me of that very famous reindeer’s nose.”
Ruskin, standing a few feet away, led the crowd with some minor chuckles.
“So, Rudolph, open the door, please,” Lisa said.
The door on what would, in any other car, be the driver’s side, popped out an inch, then slid back on its track.
“I still like to sit up front,” Lisa said, “even though I could get in the back if I wanted.” She settled into the front seat, half in and half out of the car, her left foot still touching the pavement. She waved her hand gracefully in front of the broad, horizontal black touch screen that was the dash.
“Everything you want to know is right here,” she said as the various gauges and navigational arrays lit up. “You do have the option of touching the screens, but Rudolph responds to voice commands. Just as well, too, because who wants a bunch of ugly fingerprints all over this, am I right?”
The reporters were clustered close to the open door.
“Rudolph,” Lisa said, “can you tell me how long it would take to go from, say, Lewiston, Maine, to Cleveland, Ohio?”
The screen lit up randomly. Red lights, green lights, white lights, dancing from one end of the dash to the other. The reporters made “oohs” and “aahs” but Lisa did not look particularly impressed.
“It should be going straight to navigation,” she said. “But maybe—”
Before she could offer a reason for the light show, the car had something to say. As with the other Arrivals, even with a male name, the voice was female.
“Lisa, please restate. Did you say Cleveland?”
Lisa Carver scowled at the dashboard, as if it were an insolent child. “Yes, Rudolph. Cleveland.”
Rudolph was momentarily quiet. Lisa grinned awkwardly at the reporters. “Calculating,” she said.
Finally, Rudolph spoke.
“I can suggest some nicer destinations.”
The reporters erupted with laughter.
Lisa, however, did not find the response amusing. “I’m not asking for travel advice,” she said to the car. “Just a mileage calculation, thank you.”
Lisa smiled nervously, then looked pleadingly at Ruskin. “Um, Albert, do you think we might have another display vehicle we could—”
“Regardless of distance,” Rudolph said, “it’s not worth the drive.”
Sandra took several steps closer. This was not normal behavior for an Arrival. The cars were programmed to offer different routes, but not alternate destinations.
“Let’s try another car,” Lisa said to Ruskin. “Do we have another demo vehicle ready?”
“Don’t go,” Rudolph said. “Stay awhile.”
And then the door suddenly began to close. It whipped along the track so quickly that reporters standing the closest jumped back.
There was a collective gasp from the crowd. And then screams. They noticed that the door had not been able to close the entire way.
Lisa’s bare leg was in the way.
Her limb was pinned, the door holding it just below the knee, creating a sizable gash in the process. Lisa screamed as rivulets of blood ran down her leg to her high-heeled shoe.
“Jesus!” Ruskin cried.
“Open the door!” Lisa screamed. “Rudolph! Open the door!”
Rudolph did not open the door. A soft, whirring mechanical noise could be heard as the mechanism that powered the door struggled to close the remaining three-inch gap.
“Oh my God,” Sandra whispered. She went back into her bag for her phone, glanced away from the horror show playing out in front of her long enough to tap in 911 and put the phone to her ear.
Ruskin rushed forward and got his fingers around the edge of the door in a bid to retract it. “Help me!” he shouted at the reporters, most of whom were standing there dumbstruck, except for the two or three who were filming the incident with their phones. Two other men stepped forward, huddling with Ruskin, struggling to get the door open far enough to allow Lisa to either draw her leg in, or bolt from the vehicle altogether.
Blood continued to run down her leg and pool on the asphalt around her foot.
Sandra was watching the three men pulling on the door when some movement in the parking lot caught her attention. It was filled, of course, with other Arrivals, in enough different colors that if you’d put them all in a glass jar, you’d have something that looked like the world’s biggest gumball dispenser.
The Arrivals — all unoccupied — were starting to look like a Broadway marquee. Taillights and headlights began to flash on and off. A chorus of horns rose from them, adding to the sense of pandemonium.
It was as if they were... excited.
“Emergency. How may I direct your call? Fire, police, or ambulance?”
Sandra was so distracted by the cars’ collective behavior that she’d forgotten she had the phone to her ear.
“Uh, all of them!” she shouted at the female emergency operator. “To the community center! Her leg... her leg is trapped in the — oh, shit, I don’t believe it.”
The Arrival chomping down on Lisa Carver’s leg had started to move, with the woman still trapped inside, her leg caught in the door. The front tires turned sharply, sending the car into a tight circle.
Ruskin and the two other men who’d been trying to pry the door open had no choice but to release their grip and jump back. Other members of the media scattered to avoid being run over.
The wheels remained turned, and the red Arrival zipped around in a tight circle like a top, holding a screaming Lisa captive.
“Hello?” said the 911 dispatcher. “Hello?”
But Sandra had already lowered the phone and let it fall from her fingers back into her purse. “This is not happening,” she whispered. “This is... insane.”
“Smash a window!” someone shouted.
“Jump on it!” yelled another.
But as quickly as Rudolph the Red-Painted Arrival had gone into its circular frenzy, it abruptly stopped. Ruskin and the others froze, viewing the car as one might a tiger brought down by a tranquilizer gun. Was the beast really asleep, or just waiting to pounce again?
Ruskin and the two men who’d been helping him earlier tentatively approached the car and tried once again to pry open the door. To their amazement, it retracted almost immediately.
“Yes!” Ruskin said.
Lisa Carver was leaning across the seat, thrown there by the centrifugal force created when the car was doing donuts. From where Sandra stood, Lisa appeared to be unconscious. Perhaps she’d lapsed into shock. Her leg, from about two inches below the knee and down to her toes — she’d lost her one shoe at some point — was a bloody mess.
Sandra shivered. “Dear God,” she said to herself. She had no love for Lisa Carver, but she’d never have wished anything like this on the woman.
“Lisa!” Ruskin shouted. “Can you hear me? We’re going to lift you out of the—”
The door whipped shut, more quickly, and with more force, than before.
Enough to slice through flesh, and bone.
Lisa’s left leg, below the knee, dropped onto the pavement.
Sandra turned away and swiftly put a hand to her mouth. She was instantly light-headed and believed she was going to be sick.