“Are you recording this for future human generations REC4?” asked Laura.
“Yes, madam,” answered the camera drone from one of the back seats.
A rock song had come up on the car's radio, and her husband Jorge had started a sing-along.
Their son Nikos had joined in soon after. Then, both started air-playing with their hands.
Jorge vigorously pretended to play the guitar while little Nikos shook imaginary drumsticks.
Then, finally, their 7-year-old son started showing devil horns to nearby vehicles with his hands while putting his tongue out.
Jorge, not hearing his son singing anymore, turned to look backward from his front passenger seat.
“Ahah, what is he doing?” chuckled Jorge.
Laura looked in the smaller rear-view mirror of their minivan and pointed at the back seat where the child and the drone were located. Then she quickly resumed looking forward along the curvy mountain road panoramically headed for their lake house.
“Oh, he has been doing that for weeks. He learned it in Archeology class!” explained the Mom.
“Ah, wow, they restored more music footage from the ancient times?” asked Jorge.
“Yes, they did. I remember when we were in high school, that was the only part of the Archaeology class where you were not sleeping,” laughed Laura.
“Outrageous lies!” joked Jorge.
The conversation was interrupted when the song stopped, replaced by a ringtone.
The sizeable front display of the vehicle showed Lars Lim was calling her.
“Car resume autonomous driving,” said Laura.
“Autonomous driving resumed,” announced the car.
Laura’s hands left the wheel, and then she muted the call without rejecting it.
She had enjoyed the immediacy of driving manually. For once in a while, she didn’t have to plan for decades in advance. She had just taken one turn at a time.
“Lars Lim is your direct boss, the Captain of the ship on which we are going to travel for five decades, right?” asked Jorge knowingly, full well.
Nikos heard the name and started to chant, “Captain Lars! Captain Lars!”.
Lars was practically an uncle to him and the largest donor to his collection of spacecraft toys.
“Yes, he is! He is also a bit of a party pooper sometimes. We are having so much fun!” she replied while picking up her personal device.
“And aren’t you like, sort of, the Master of the Guild of the Geometrés on the same colony ship?” teased Jorge again.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“Guild Master Mom! Guild Master Mom!” chanted Nikos with pride.
“If you need to go, we can go too and wait somewhere. You know Nikos loves the construction site”.
“I’m trying to figure out if there is a new work message so I can know if it’s important, " Laura clarified, scrolling through work messages.
“It’s okay to answer, Laura,” said Jorge.
“No, no, there hasn’t been a single weekend in the past year where I hadn’t jumped in a call, or we all 3 spent meals picnicking at the cafeteria,” stated Laura tiredly.
“Picnicking? The place has one of the most advanced food synthesizers in the solar system. You can ask for literally anything!” said Jorge.
“I told them this weekend I was off the grid with my family, which I should not have to announce in the first place since it’s a weekend by definition,” clarified Laura, a bit angry.
“Is the colony ship behind schedule?” asked confused Jorge.
“Wake up Laura?” Laura read aloud, ignoring her husband for a moment.
Then she raised her head from her personal device and explained to Jorge: “The construction is on time. We are even in advance on some sections… Lars sent me a message with written: Wake up Laura” explained the confused woman.
“Ahah, so this one is literally a wake-up call,” Jorge laughed at his pun.
“Wait, there are hundreds of emails like this,” continued Laura, scrolling on her device.
“Maybe you have been hacked by some pranksters,” suggested Jorge.
“You are right. I better answer this one. Thank you for understanding J,” said Laura to her husband.
Jorge winked at her and said: “Car isolate audio and video for driver seat and call back Lars Lim.” He made devil horns hands and said just before vanishing: “We’ll keep busy.”
Holographic wall divisions activated around Laura, and her husband and son disappeared. She could see the road in all directions, but the archaeological music performed by her family was invisible and inaudible to her.
The call was answered automatically with a click.
Lars Lim's voice said abruptly: “You need to wake up, Laura.”
Laura spent a moment in confusion, then replied: “Captain Lars, is this your funny way to check on my family’s weekend and say hi?”.
The captain answered, “No, Laura, we need you now. You need to wake up”.
“Do you need me at the launch site?” asked Laura.
“There is no launch site, no family vacation; you need to wake up, or everyone will die,” said Lars.
“Lars, I don’t understand. You know the car would never let me fall asleep while driving. You are worrying me,” pleaded Laura.
“You are driving,” brightened the captain's voice with a realization. “Car, drive through the crash barrier into the cliff now,” he commanded to the car.
“WHAT?! You can’t do that, and it’s not funny. I'm with my family. Who are you, you sick bastard?!”.
She knew that level of hacking was practically impossible. Given her crucial role in the future of the colony ship, all her devices’ security was hardened to the highest practical amount. The guy didn’t even know she was in a car until a moment ago. He was definitely bluffing, she thought.
The vehicle went full throttle. The steering wheel turned left towards the cliff.
She reacted quickly, even though she was in massive shock. She firmly gripped the wheel with her hands and pressed the brake flat. She could only partially counter the deadly course set by the autonomous vehicle.
The car started drifting forward at a 30% angle relative to the usual traffic movement.
No one else was visible on the road with them.
“CODE RED PEG! CODE RED PEG,” she yelled, trying to summon the AI's emergency response. PEG had already been trained and deployed. She was made for this type of situation. PEG would save them, she thought.
The car hit a pothole. She compensated too much and lost control.
The car crashed through the barrier and flew out of the cliff.
Laura yelled, “Car, remove divisions!”
The white barrier instantly disappeared, showing her family.
The air was filled with ear-damaging rock music.
Jorge's seat had turned and was facing Nikos towards the back of the vehicle.
They were both air-playing the song, shaking their heads with closed eyes.
The long blond hairs of Nikos were floating due to the car being in free fall. They were too distracted to notice what was happening.
The drone REC4 spasmed into alertness in nanoseconds and quickly started recording all angles. He also attempted to alert PEG, broadcasting an emergency signal.
“Jorge! Nikos!“ screamed Laura, moving towards them and remaining stuck in the locked seat belt.
They didn’t hear her. They were both screaming at the top of their lungs, “Highway to hell!! I’m on a highway to hell!!”.
Then the car hit the ground.
Laura woke up and surged from underwater, gasping for air.
Just a vivid dream turned into a nightmare, she reassured herself quickly.
She turned around but didn’t see her candles in the darkness. She wasn’t in the bathtub of her house and had fallen asleep once again.
She was in the hibernation pod of the spaceship, traveling through the wormhole that would lead them to their future colony.