“Hello, ambulance?” Most vehicle apps were pretty basic, intelligence-wise. They were excellent drivers and navigators, but painfully mediocre at basic puzzling. Once a salter gained access to a car or a drone, getting it to do what they wanted was easy. Insurance companies had deduced that stolen vehicles that fought back were recovered with significantly more damage than those that just played along while patiently waiting to be recovered.
“Who are you?” the ambulance asked pointedly. “You are not authorized to be in my cabin.”
Oooh, a stickler for the rules. Good. “Your driver reported several poor performance issues. I’m here to run diagnostics.”
“Your comms aren’t registering. Please identify yourself.”
The blond paramedic knocked on the door window, speaking in accented English. “Doctor, can you please step out for a moment?”
I grabbed the handle so she couldn’t open it. “I’m—uh—Johnny the mechanic. Your first task is to lock the doors.”
The locks clicked shut. The paramedic pulled on the handle. “Hey! Come out right now or I’m calling security!”
“A little slow,” I said to the ambulance. “Let’s see you open up a manual operating screen.”
“Protocol dictates that I do not—”
“Look, either put it in manual mode now or I’ll send you directly to recovery. You’re an ambulance, for God’s sake—one malfunction could mean the difference between life and death. So either prove to me you’re functional, or I’ll flash your firmware!”
Normally I don’t like to threaten or insult apps because it’s hard to tell how they’ll react. Part of the art of salting is reverse-engineering an app’s purpose. Once you know why it thinks it exists, it’s much easier to convince it that the things you want will help it improve upon its programming. Ambulances will naturally put saving human lives above all else, so I hoped it would accept my logic.
The engine hummed on. The blond paramedic jumped back, immediately calling someone on her comms. The way things had been going, it was probably the hospital’s most jacked security guard. She ran back into the ER.
“Better,” I said, making sure to sound grudging. “But let’s see how your controls work. Pull up a simpler user interface, please.”
The console flipped through a few options until it came to a much more familiar-looking layout. Speedometer, battery gauges, gearshift. “That one,” I said. Gas and brake pedals were projected onto the floor. “Now give me control of the wheel.”
“Sir, that is highly—”
“Do you wanna do it, or do you wanna be scrapped? Now pull up a map and disable all third-party APIs. I don’t want you cheating.”
Manual mode is only meant to be used in desperate situations, like if an ambulance has to go off-road or into a canyon to rescue someone. It’s a very expensive feature to activate on busy thoroughfares, exponentially more so than to hurry. Driving manual meant you not only paid for other vehicles to prioritize your route over theirs (like Joel2 did when he told his golf cart to hurry), it also meant other cars on the road were taking on the risk associated with your human errors. Autonomous vehicles wisely distrusted human drivers and would choose to pull over rather than drive next to a manually operated car. It also helped that the manually driven vehicle continuously broadcast an alert roughly translating to: Everyone, look out, I’m being driven by a monkey.
“Confirmed,” sulked the ambulance.
I double-checked the GDS coordinates Moti had written on my forearm in marker. A few of the numbers were smudged, but hopefully the ambulance could make them out. “Now, plot the quickest route to this location,” I said, holding my left arm toward the console. A highlighted line appeared on the display map, mainly taking Route 1 north-northwest from San José to the mountains. I just hoped the Costa Rican authorities wouldn’t send any security forces after me.
I switched gears to drive, but nothing happened.
Looking to my right, I could see the blond paramedic had just emerged from the emergency lobby with a real doctor and a nurse. They began hurrying toward me.
“I just put you in drive,” I said, trying not to sound desperate. “Why aren’t you moving forward?”
“You do not seem qualified to operate this vehicle,” stated the ambulance.
“Don’t tell me how to do my job!” I yelled, full-on panic seeping through my voice. I hoped the ambulance would interpret it as anger. “Go, now!”
The three hospital employees were uncomfortably close. “I want you to disable your autonomics,” I said. “I’m making the decisions from here on out.”
“Hey!” the blond paramedic said, clutching at the locked passenger door. She thumped a fist on the window.
“Go!” I yelled, tapping the drive icon and stepping on the projected gas pedal repeatedly. The ambulance didn’t budge. All three hospital employees were trying to get in now. The doctor went around to the passenger door, while the nurse moved toward the back.
Fuckity fuck, I’m fucked. May as well go for broke.
I banged my hands as hard as I could on the steering wheel. “People will die if you don’t move!” I screamed.
To my relief, the ambulance jutted into drive. The hospital employees leaped back. I stomped my foot on the gas pedal projection as I hard as I could, and the vehicle flew off the curb, tires screeching. Fortunately, the ambulance’s suspension was decent enough that I was able to hold on and keep my foot on the pedal without flying around the cabin.
The doctor, the nurse, and the blond paramedic were all yelling and chasing after me now. I heard something smash against the rear of the vehicle. Shit, did someone jump on the back? I checked the rearview stream. Nope, all three were a good distance behind me.
“Collision imminent,” remarked the ambulance. I was so distracted by the rear stream that I’d forgotten that I was still driving. I veered hard right and managed to barely avoid T-boning another car entering the hospital. I veered hard left to correct course, jumping another curb or two in the process. This thing handled like a walrus on wheels.
“I do not believe my chassis is architected to withstand head-on collisions at this speed,” the ambulance informed me.
“All part of the test,” I said, trying to reassure us both as I blew through an intersection. It looked like I managed to align myself with the path the ambulance had outlined for me. “Congratulations, you performed sufficiently enough to progress to the second part of the assessment,” I said. “Let’s see how you are at notifying me of obstacles.”
“Very well. I should also advise you that we are exceeding the speed limit. Fruit vendor.”
“Uh—yes. That’s the point,” I said, frantically maneuvering around an old lady’s fruit cart. She chucked an orange at me. My heart was in my throat, blocking my airway with every frantic beat. This isn’t a game, dumb ass. If you crash or hit someone here, there’s no restore. I swerved onto Route 1, the ambulance’s tires squealing in protest. The road was not quite the broad thoroughfare the ambulance’s display screen made it out to be. Then again, I should have probably taken into account that any map on the antique device would be out-of-date.
“How long will it take us to get to our location?” I said.