“Where to?” the CabBot asks.
“Just head toward South Boston. I’ll tell you when I want off.”
“Yes, sir.”
I immediately see he’s not chatty the way Dot was. I hope I made the right choice and he’s not a CabBot in search of a bounty and legs.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“BobBot#124, sir.”
“Mind if I just call you Bob?”
“That would be fine.” He glances at me suspiciously in his rear viewing glass.
“Did you ever meet a CabBot named Dot Jefferson, Bob?”
His brows rise and he hesitates. “No,” he finally answers. He knew her. But it could be he’s afraid to admit it—or he’s planning on turning me in for points, but there’s no going back now.
“There’s a story I heard about Dot. You might like to hear it?”
“If it pleases you. But we’re quickly nearing your destination.”
He’s right. Traffic has thinned. Cars headed toward this part of Boston are few. “The story won’t take long,” I tell him and I jump right in. “Dot used to drive for Star Transportation just like you. She was DotBot#88 but said she hated that name so she named herself Dot Jefferson. The way I heard it, one day she got a customer who needed to Escape. She decided to help him even though it meant she might be released or even recycled. You ever hear of Escape, Bob?”
“No, sir.”
“Really? That surprises me.” He doesn’t respond. “Well, Dot had and she risked everything to help this customer she didn’t even know because she understood what it was like to have no future. She retooled her cab and drove him and his friend halfway across the country but Star Security found the cab signal anyway and disabled the vehicle.”
“They got her?”
At least I know he’s listening. “Almost, but the guy she was helping couldn’t just leave her in the disabled cab after all she had done for him so he yanked her out and gave her some temporary wheels to get around. She continued on the journey with him and then went off in another direction to act as a decoy. She saw more of the world, more than she said she ever hoped to see—Texas, Mexico, California. When she met up with this guy again, she told him about seeing the mystic orange sunsets of Santa Fe, and the jewel blue sea of the Gulf. Jewel blue. That’s just how she described it. Can you believe that?
“She told him a lot of other things too. She told him she had hopes and dreams. She said as a CabBot she had always imagined where her customers went and what they did. She imagined their secret worlds and dreamed that those worlds would one day be hers too. She told him that Escape was not about moving from one place to another but about becoming more. She said she would do anything to help an Escapee—that it was her chance to be somebody too—the most she could ever hope to be. She said she would be able to share the story of Escape with others like her, and if for some reason she didn’t make it, then stories would be told about her because it might help other Escapees. That’s what I’m doing now, Bob, telling stories about her just like she wanted.”
“She didn’t make it?”
I shake my head. “Her last act was to save this guy and her last words were, ‘Mission accomplished.’ She was buried beneath a tree and given a marker with the full name she chose, including her title. Officer Dot Jefferson, Liberator.”
“A marker for a Bot. That’s quite a story,” he says.
“Yes. It is.”
“Have you told this story to anyone else?”
“No. You’re the first, Bob.”
He stops the car and swivels in his seat to look at me. “We’re at your destination.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have to say?”
“That’s all.”
I reach into my pocket for my money card. I’m not sure anything I said sunk in or if the story will be passed on, but there are other CabBots. There have to be others like Dot. I’ll find them.
I lean forward to wave the card over the scanner and he grabs my wrist. I freeze. The last time a CabBot grabbed my wrist, I tore off his arm. Restraint, Locke, but I keep thinking of Karden’s knife in my pack on the seat beside me and how fast I can get to it. Our eyes are locked on each other. I’m not sure what I’m seeing. “Are you going to let go of my wrist?”
“I suppose I’d be a fool not to, wouldn’t I?”