I grunt.

Maria rattles off a list of items for my approval. Organization for the demonstration tomorrow morning. She might as well be talking to my desk. I grunt now and then, nod, and taste ash in my mouth. The arms of my chair tremble briefly as I choke them, release, choke them again. Maria doesn't seem to notice my demeanor.

"Sir?"

"We've been planning this for six months. Everything is in place already. Deal with it. Out."

"Sir," she says, patiently, "there are last-minute details, and you emphasized how important this is…"

"I said out," I snap, wincing at my own petulance. “I don’t want to be in a room alone with you.”

“I have something very important I need to say…”

I’m on my feet, hammering my hand into my desk so hard I fear one or the other will shatter.

“Get. Out. Get out of my sight. I expect a resignation letter on my desk after this damned demonstration is over. I’ll accept four weeks’ notice. I’ll give you a severance package. Just be gone.”

"Very well," she says.

"I'll be leaving for the day. Inform anyone that needs to know."

I wait for her to leave, then rush to the elevator and storm through the lobby. I need outside air, but there is none in the city. Outside, I fight down the urge to scream. I've been dialing Lilah's number for two days. No answer. I don't know what else to do. Hire a skywriter? Send a singing telegram? Put on a suit of shining armor and go rescue her?

As I descend into the garage, the phone buzzes in my pocket. It's not Lilah. It's her father.

"What do you want?"

"Checking to see if everything is on track for tomorrow, heh," he says, laughing at his own pun. "I am a shareholder, after all. I'm looking forward to it. I'll be joining you, of course."

I shudder.

Lilah? Will Lilah be with him?

Would he be so foolish? After the demonstration, after it works, it won't matter. I'll be golden. I can finish what I started. I can say: this is enough.

"Very good, Roland. I look forward to a successful demonstration."

"You'd better. Too much riding on this. If you botch this I'll have no choice but to step in. I'm sure the other shareholders will see eye to eye with me at last."

"It will work. This isn't a test, it's a demonstration. Do you think I'd broadcast it if I didn't know the outcome?"

"I see you learned something from me after all. I look forward to my visit, boy. Be seeing you."

I jam my thumb hard on the end call button and throw the phone into the passenger's seat. It skips into the footwell and thumps on the floor. I jam the start button so hard I almost put my finger through it. The car switches on, and the smooth electric engine doesn't offer me a growl, so I give it one of my own, a throaty sound of fury in my chest.

When I walk into my apartment, I find it dark and quiet. The boys, my sons, knew something was wrong when I walked in on Friday night and have been all but avoiding me ever since. They're still here; they've cluttered the kitchen. I'll have to throw out this saucepan; Jason fried macaroni and cheese to the bottom.

"Dad?"

I wheel around to find my elder boy walking into the living room on bare feet, his voice small and reedy. "Where did Lilah go?"

"She went home," I say bitterly. "She's not coming back."

"Why?"

"We had a disagreement."

"Did she dump you?"

I lean on the counter and dig my fingers into the granite top. Or try to, anyway. It hurts my fingers more than the stone.

"Yes. She did."

"What did you do?"

My head snaps up, and a roar forms in my throat, but I catch it before it escapes, deflating instead. I sag against the counter and sink to the floor, stretching out my legs before me.

Jason sits down on one side. Tim joins him, flanking me on the other. The three of us sit there and stare at our reflections in the refrigerator.

How did they get so big? How did I get so old? God, there's gray in my beard. I need to shave. I scratch at the stubble, and wince in horror as Jason does the same, imitating me by rubbing at peach fuzz he shouldn't have yet.

Where did my life go?

"Someone told her father I was seeing her. He told us to break it off or he'd destroy the company."

Jason's voice is horrified. "You did it?"

"No, I refused. She left. She said she wouldn't let me kill my dreams over her."

"That sucks," Tim says, sagely. He rests his tiny hand on my arm.

"So what, you just let her go?" Jason demands.

"What was I supposed to do? Tie her up? I tried to make her understand. I—"

"You have to fix this," Jason says, his voice rising in anger. "Why didn't you fix this?"

He surges up and out of the room. I rise to my feet, staring after him. Not two weeks ago he couldn't stand her.

"He wants you to be happy again," Tim explains. "It was like having you back."

I look down at my youngest and put my hand on his shoulder.

"You're right. You're both right."

It's hot. Summer has finally decided to get up and properly kick in, and there's sweat pouring down my skin under my formal blouse. Thank God I skipped wearing stockings. I think if I did, I'd have a heat stroke. As it is, I'm sweating like mad, and it feels like I'm trying to cough something up all the time.

Hot coffee doesn't help, but it's the only way I can tolerate my father. I still have an urge to throw it in his face.

"What a shithole," he mutters, seated in his power chair.

Despite the heat he has a black silk blanket over his legs, and he's in a full suit. His waxen features, thin lips, and oversized aviator shades make him look like a skull. I sit beside him, smelling the hydrogen peroxide he swirls in his mouth instead of mouthwash, and fight down the urge to vomit. His nurse, a voluptuous woman of dubious qualifications, barely older than I am, stands behind him in a cleavage-baring outfit that would earn me a tongue lashing if I tried to wear it in public.

He's already called me slut, whore, and every other invective he could think of. He was definitely scraping the bottom of the barrel when he called me a slattern, of all things. I almost had to look that one up.

I hate him. I hate what he's done to me. I hate what he did to us, to Aiden. He's a sick, tormented, twisted half-corpse that feeds on the misery of everyone around him. I've always known it, but now I really see him.

He's just pathetic.

So am I.

I did his bidding, after all that. Here I sit, and I know I am present at this demonstration for one reason and one reason only: It's not enough for my father to tear my heart out of my chest and emotionally destroy his so-called friend, he has to rub our noses in it. If I didn't voluntarily join him on the train from Manhattan he'd have had me bound wrist and ankle and thrown in the baggage compartment.

I want to scream at him, argue with him, tell him off. You don't own me, old man.

He does though, doesn't he?

I'm so glad for the bright sun. No one can see my blurry, irritated eyes or puffy tear-stained cheeks beneath the sunglasses and broad-brimmed hat I wear.

I hate everything about this, even the clothes he makes me wear. I want to tear off my own skin and go running across the road.

A large section of the redevelopment area has been cleared out, and grandstands set up. Philadelphia police in spotless uniforms stand guard with their hands resting on their broad duty belts, eyeing everyone beneath the visors of their caps, sweat streaming down their arms. There are three thousand people in the crowd. My father and I are on the bottom row. A few seats down, Jason and Tim are eyeing me expectantly.

Aiden is nowhere to be seen.

Screens are set up all around so we can watch the action as the automated, self-driving car Aiden's company has developed weaves through obstacles and challenges to demonstrate its safety and reliability.

A hush falls over the crowd. My father grunts, a sound like dust being squeezed out of a desiccated fruit. A car rolls up, and every head swings to track it. It's not the cutesy little pod car I saw earlier. This is one of Aiden's other prototypes, I think. A luxury model. Long and black and sleek, it doesn't quite look like a car, with its wheels hidden behind smooth skirts that blend into the body panels.

Moving in near silence, it comes to a stop and the gull-wing door lifts. Aiden steps out and reaches in his pocket and the car's door smoothly closes. The vehicle glides off on its own.

"Don't mind me," he says, his voice caught by the microphone on his lapel. His voice hitches just a fraction when he spots me, but he rolls right over it.

He doesn't look at my father.

Maria, his assistant, sits down on the other side of my father's chair and leans in his ear, whispering something. She jumps up and runs off, doing that half-bent crabwalk people do to try not to bother other patrons at a movie theater. It doesn't work.

Aiden pats the car. "You're all familiar with the B26. As I'm sure you're all aware, this model is a little out of reach of middle America—lack of charging stations, dealerships, and of course, price."

Father chortles, a sick, wet sound soon drowned out by forced laughter from the audience.

"The luxury line was always intended to be a test bed—we took a standard practice in American auto manufacturing and refined it. Luxury cars have always been a way to recoup costs for testing advanced features, and that's what we've done here."

Tim and Jason are starting to look bored. Jason scratches at himself, constantly looking at me.

The car behind Aiden rolls away, out of sight.

"Today represents the dawn of a new spring in America. Unfortunately we didn't make actual spring. I apologize for the heat."

More nervous laughter.

"You've heard enough from me. You're all here for the real star of the show. Come on, Lilah."

Father flinches. The crowd goes quiet. I feel eyes on the back of my neck. I shift in my seat, wondering if he's calling me, and then the car wheels around the corner…by itself.

It's the same cutesy shape I saw in the concepts, painted white and a bright, cheery blue, with big buggy headlights and a bumper that makes it look like it's smiling in anticipation of approval, without a hint of slyness. It rolls up, and its door swings open silently on automatic hinges.

A mechanical voice, in a cutesy tone, calls out, "Your ride has arrived! Your ride has arrived!"

A glance around the crowd tells me they love it. Laughter, smiles, hushed conversations. It's surprisingly adorable, a big four-seater bubble with lots of glass, very open and airy.

"This is Lilah," Aiden says, looking right at me. "The most important thing in my life these days. Technically she's LIL-36-12, but she doesn’t look like an LIL-36-12 to me. Does she?"

The crowd laughs, genuinely this time.

"As you can see, I've set up some cameras around the course we've set up through the neighborhood. I'm sure you've all reviewed the materials and seen the redevelopment plans. The city government has been most cooperative and gracious, and entirely too generous with us in bringing my dream to life. This is where my life's work begins in earnest: A safe, secure, clean neighborhood. No emissions, no busses chugging along coughing out smog and… There I go talking to myself again.."

No one is looking at me anymore, but I feel heat creeping up my cheeks anyway. Father's chair lets out a little whirring sound as his hand jerks against the control stick as he closes his fist.

"Thinks he can tweak my ear, does he?" he mutters. "I'll show him. They'll eat out of his hand today but—"

"You know what?" I say, my voice low and hard. "Just. Shut. Up."

He looks at me angrily, though more than a little surprised.

Out on the street, Aiden steps into the car, and the door swings shut. He appears on the big screens.

"Now, you can see that this car has a wheel and pedals. Full production models will have an emergency manual control system locked behind a door, but for safety reasons this unit has ordinary controls. However, I won't be touching them. If you look at the bottom corner of the monitors you'll see my feet and… Look, Ma, no hands."

The crowd laughs softly. Aiden beams.

"Now, we could be accused of having a pre-planned route. I assure you I have nothing up my sleeve, and I'm going to tell the car where to go right now." He starts tapping the screen. "First, it'll take me to the midpoint of the trip, then smoothly bring me back here. Let's go!"

He taps a big green button and Lilah, the car, starts rolling.

"Okay, so far, so good."

One screen shows Aiden, another shows the car processing the route, drawing lines on a map, and the others show the car progressing down the street.

"Oh, what's that?"

A bouncing rubber ball bops out into the street, followed by a scientist in a lab coat.

"Warning," the car's cutesy voice announces, inside and out. "Warning. Pedestrian."

The car comes to a smooth stop as the demonstrator stands in front of it. He waves to the camera and runs off, dribbling the ball.

The car rolls forward. “Resuming route. Caution."

It starts rolling again. "Lilah is very polite. She doesn't want you to spill your coffee, so she'll—oh no, a pothole!"

"Warning, evasive maneuver," the car chirps out, swerving around a crater that punches all the way through the asphalt to gravel .

"Lilah, how long until we reach our destination?

"Six minutes."

"Lilah is a full-service system, not just a car. Lilah, what's the weather today?"

"Today it will be eighty-seven degrees and sunny with a chance of thunderstorms later tonight. Looks like a beautiful day, Mr. Byrne!"

"Thanks, Lilah. What else can you do for me?"

"I can read the news, access your account settings, or play videos for your children on my backseat monitors if you have a connected streaming account."

The crowd is entranced. Father's chair jerks slightly every time he flexes his hand and mutters under his breath.

The demonstration goes on. Aiden's testers throw things at the car, run out in front of it, swerve in the way in other cars, and it handles it all flawlessly.

"Lilah has an enhanced gyroscopic suspension system."

I swallow, hard, hoping no one is looking my way.

"We're about halfway now, starting back."

The demonstration continues. The car brings Aiden around, and he sits back in the seat. "I think that was a success," he says.

Something blinks on the touchpad inside the car, and it slows to a stop.

"Lilah?" he says, a mild agitation in his voice. "What are you doing?"

"Processing new route. There has been an accident on the road."

The crowd looks around nervously. Aiden wasn't expecting this. I can see it in his eyes.

The car backs up and turns until it's pointed straight at the stands. A dozen warning lights go off at once. The front wheels lock, and the back wheels begin to turn, the skinny tires kicking up dust, then smoke as they start to burn out, gripping the road.

"Ah, I guess we'll take a look at the emergency override," Aiden says, smoothly, trying to play it off. "If there's an emergency, it's easy to…"

He's jamming the emergency override button on the panel, and nothing is happening.

"Have to do it manually," he says, pulling open a panel beneath the steering wheel.

The car rockets forward.

"Lilah," he shouts, meaning me, not the car. "Get the kids!"

Aiden grabs the wheel. In the chaos I hear a screech, and the car's cutesy voice wailing.

"Warning: Excessive maneuver! Overriding manual control!"

"What?" Aiden bellows.

The crowd is going insane. I bat my father's clawing hand and run to Tim and Jason, taking their hands. I break into a run.

The onlookers clear the stands just in time. "Lilah" clips the corner and sends wood and metal flying, turning sharply as Aiden wrestles the wheel.

"Everyone clear the area," he barks, his voice echoing over screams and shouts.

The entire scene is chaos. The police are directing protesters away. My heart skips a beat when I see one draw his gun, maybe thinking he'll shoot out the tires on the driverless car.

Aiden is kicking at something under the dashboard. He rips a fistful of wires loose and turns the wheel sharply, spinning it almost all the way around. The wheel turns in his sweat-slick hands and comes spinning around, and brings the car with it. Aimed right at us.

I shove the boys into the back of Aiden's car and clamber into the front seat. The whole interior lights up.

"Enter destination," a smooth baritone says.

"Shut up," I blurt, grabbing the wheel.

"Manual control," it drones.

I jam down on the pedal and the all-electric car surges forward. I make the turn hard, and Aiden just misses us, zooming past the tail end in the prototype. It screeches around, ignoring his desperate attempts to regain control.

"Lilah, can you hear me?"

"Yeah," I blurt out, wheeling around the corner.

"I can't stop it. It keeps taking control away from me. I'm going to have to disable it."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean I have to crash it."

"What?" Aiden wait, you can't—"

"I'm sorry," he says.

He gains control just long enough, and physics take over. The little car doesn't turn very sharply, so it can't avoid smashing right into the stoop of a vacant house.

I watch in horror, my chest clenching like a fist. The prototype leaps up over the brick stoop in a shower of dust and debris and turns halfway over in midair. It lands hard on the driver's side—Aiden's side—and skids across the road in a shower of sparks before it rolls again onto its back, the mostly glass roof crushing inwards.

"Don't look!" I scream at his sons, too late.

The car only stops its momentum when, still on its ruined roof, it wraps itself around a decrepit lamppost that teeters for a moment before topping right into the body of the car, crushing it in further.

It barely looks like a car anymore except for one spinning wheel. Distorted and tinny, a bleating voice calls out, "Collision alert. Collision alert. Collision alert…" in an endless loop before it fades into a demonic “Coollllission allerrrrrrr” and finally shuts off.

I step out of the car, my head swimming. I have enough instinct to grab the boys and hold them back as an army of paramedics run from the ambulances to the car, joined by a fire crew and police. Tim sobs into my side, and Jason stares in mute, broken horror, tears steaming down his face.

It takes half an hour to pry him out. He's alive. I can see him breathing, and he looks at me through a sheet of blood on his face, but his arm is broken, and they have to strap him down.

"We'll follow," I tell the ambulance driver.

I take a half turn, and something happens. Like a first thumping my chest, followed by a lightheaded swirl in my skull. I grab my throat, feeling my pulse under both fingers. It’s like a hand closing inside my ribcage, squeezing.

Beat. Pause. Beat beat beat beat, pause. Beatbeatbeat…pause. Beat. Pause.

I'm on my knees, before I realize it, then I'm on the ground, and Jason is cradling my head in his lap.

"Help her!" he's screaming, somebody is screaming, and then it goes black.