You begin to dig for your phone--hoping to pull up an online map or something--when you remember you no longer have one.

You tossed yours out the window somewhere between here and Addersfield.

As you start to turn back toward the relative safety of your house and your computer that knows everything, a flyer on the fence catches your eye.

You glance one way, then the other.

No one's out walking their dog or anything, so you won't look like a weirdo standing out in your yard and staring at a paper on the fence. You're pretty sure this is partly your fence now anyway.

You approach the flyer. It's advertising a concert from a local band, Biggest Shrug, in someone's garage tomorrow night. It also lists the address of said stranger's garage.

...

You know what, screw going back inside for an online map. You're in a new town, no one's going to hold it over your head if you get lost. You head straight to the sidewalk and wait for a bus to arrive.


Not for very long, though.

A bus pulls up. You board it, and immediately discover that it's empty.


As in, it doesn't even have a driver.


A series of screens throughout the bus blink on, showing the Chariot MT logo; the voice of a calm, mature sounding woman resonates throughout the vehicle.

"Welcome, Plaire Stevens. This is a Chariot MT self driving bus, one of five in the area networked to the same AI slave. Do you know where you'd like to go?"

"Oh, uh, weird," you mutter. "The Chariots in my last town had... um. People drivers."

"It's an initiative that Chariot MT is deploying in select locations across the state," the voice replies. "I can detect when a pass holder is waiting in the vicinity of a Chariot MT bus stop. Trained algorithms allow me to optimize the routes for all my buses instantly. As a result, I have neither a set schedule nor a fixed route; the bus will make stops only when necessary."

"Do... you..." you hesitate a little, trying to decide which monitor you should be making eye contact with. "Do you know anything about what's in town? Like, can you do recommendations, or-- like..."

The bus picks up roughly where you trailed off. "Well, I am an AI. I do regular analysis of businesses that are along my potential route, which includes customer reviews and any other publicly available information about the company. I also log all word of mouth. I can only take you to Chariot MT bus stops, but I can offer directions and advice to get you beyond that."