I wrote this story some time ago, thinking about how today’s cars will one day be something to be really nostalgic about. Would we have automobile reenactment societies, driving cars with hands on their wheels, like in the good old days?
## 1 ##
Everyone knew what they were missing, even before the words came to their lips.
“Clutch” was the best place within several charges, if you were into that sort of thing. Glenn made damn sure of that, and we all helped – then the grapevine helped us get more helpers. Those who remembered and cared enough to share, volunteer, donate.
An old couple would carefully climb inside a Cadillac, spend their hour with his arm round her shoulders, just like they used to. Then they’d tip and leave a stack of mix tapes. Glenn would “go the extra mile” (a term he used even though it no longer meant a thing) to digitize them, and have them waiting for the old folks when they came back.
A retired trucker would spend his half-shift inside his cabin, and then regale us with a story of the best portion of ribs he’d ever had. Louis would pounce upon him, and casually reverse-engineer the recipe from the old man’s half-forgotten taste-bud fantasy. Sunday nights were drive-in nights, and the trucker guy would blush to see a new menu item named after him.
I was touch. Always have been. Give me textures, bumps, warmth, and I’ll steal them for you. I’m the girl you’d kick out of your garage sale for fondling and massaging everything with a strange look on her face. Glenn appreciated that, and he paid well. In return, he got metal – even when no metal was Viable any more; he got the closest thing to wood within five charges; he got leather and rubber, their secret shared by me, my Mum and her Foreman grill. He paid more – and we sat through endless nights, transposing engine revs to vibrations, translating video tarmac into bumps and rumbles, making the cabins touch you back.
That’s what made “Clutch” what it was. That’s what all patrons paid for, that’s why they’d endure being driven from many charges away. We had the best models, the truest driving experience and the tastiest VR reels. We had the sights, the sounds, the taste, the touch – curated to perfection. “Clutch” was a meeting place for those who still remembered.
The missing bit was all the more obvious.
## 2 ##
The Viability Wars were more than just another videoreel – how could you distance yourself from something like that? How could you peel away something so fresh, so fast-moving, so deep-seated? Everyone kept telling us we were lucky – that the previous Wars had the nasty habit of targeting civilians, which the VWs largely avoided. But still, everyone remembered, even if the videoreel were all they had to remember.
The Solars, with their crowd-funded SPARKs, turning any tanker or oil train into a flaming mess within a minute. Their press conferences always ending with the same slogan, “Sun Don’t Burn”. The open-sourced suicide drone flotilla video feeds, as they descended upon the frack wells and self-ignited. And then the Slicks, sticking to the old-fashioned sledgehammer-wielding militias. Where the oil burned, they came back and smashed the solarworks: towns in darkness and cold, surrounded by hot and bright wastelands.
And then it was all over, and the Solars won. Slicks were finally declared bankrupt, and their products – all of them – no longer viable. It was a viral war, and a viral victory – changing everything overnight. The defeat went viral as well, but this was harder to live with. Supply chains were cut off half-way, and new components took a while to develop. After a while, the grid took over and we all returned to normal. Mostly.
No cars were allowed to be human-driven after the Viability Wars. Steering wheels, brakes, gears – all gone.
And with the grid, another thing was gone forever, banned from America, banned soon from the whole planet: gasoline. You couldn’t produce it, you couldn’t extract it, you couldn’t buy or sell it.
If you were in “Clutch”, you sure as hell couldn’t smell it. No, Ma’am. No can do. Don’t even ask.
## 3 ##
Someone was driven by, early in the morning. They must have tricked their fume detector somehow. Glenn says he only heard the car doors clicking, and the metallic sound of two heavy canisters clunking on the concrete porch, then the whizz of the electric pulling away. No face, no CCTV match, no nothing, he said, “so we’d better stop asking questions and put this to work somehow”.
We did the maths, Louis and I. There were 10 liters of Standard and 10 liters of Diesel. No matter how we tried, we couldn’t afford to use them each day – not even each Saturday night. It was decided that a new, extra-special night was to be organized each month. Only for the regulars, the vetted ones, the otaku. That way, we could be sure to keep this under wraps.
My Mum was told (in greatest secrecy) to get in cahoots with Louis. She married her level-headed kitchen skills with his atomic-cuisine mumbo-jumbo, and they jury-rigged something together. The spare room was finally cleaned out and put to better use.
It was like a military operation, or assisted suicide; nobody was sure what the other people were doing, and nobody was foolish enough to ask. Glenn re-did the sounds and the sights. I did a thing with a corrugated piece of hose and a garden spray gun; it felt warm and dusty and dirty and metallic, I was quite proud. Louis and Mum’s contraption was discreet enough – we could hire our regular electrician and AC team to re-do the cabin wires and vents, and they were none the wiser.
The first night came and went. Then the news spread, and not even three price hikes could scare the patrons away. Somewhere behind layers of encryption was a waiting list for a waiting list. “Clutch” became legendary.
I joined Glenn one night in the control room – a small, blacked-out cabin facing all the models. I watched people’s faces change as he flicked the vent switch. This was what we’d missed, this was it, and we all knew it.
## 4 ##
Trucker Ben ruined it for everyone, but you could hardly blame him. Glenn said once that “once we got all the five senses, it was natural for people’s sixth to kick in.” We saw how fumes worked on our folks – it wasn’t always a nice sight.
So what Trucker Ben did was nothing much, really. He just paid for a whole half-shift, and chose a lovely sunset ride, with a drive-by hot-dog and a nap in the cabin berth included. Then, still half-dozing, he pushed the cabin window open (“like I always did”) and lit a cigarette. The fantasy was complete; the smoke alarms went off; the fire brigade searched all “Clutch” and found whatever was to be found in the spare room.
## 5 ##
Two suits jumped out of their car before it was even done parking itself. Glenn watched them from his porch, he let them in as soon as he saw the warrant.
They were all ticks and boxes to his theatrics and pleas – all forms and procedures to his fury and passion. Glenn was found guilty of possessing, storing and unlawfully using a non-Viable substance. He got the whole welcome pack: a Cease&Desist, a Penalty Notice, and a court summons.
As their car wiggled and wrestled itself back into traffic, I took his hand and tried to talk sense into him. It was easy to just go back to what we did, I said. It’s not the end of the world. He’ll bounce back, he’s strong like that. He looked at me and saw right through it all.
## R ##
The paramedics’ searchlights scored silver lines into the tiny cubic-shaped sea of fumes in the spare room, and there, sat cross-legged on a mat on the floor, was Glenn, our Glenn, his right hand still clutching a genuine wooden gear shift knob he got from me, and a cheap cardboard VR still beaming some road – any old road – into his calm, wide-open eyes.
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Photo Credit: AndyArmstrong Flickr via Compfight cc