Author: Julian Miles, Staff Writer

Slow night on the back side of the club quarter. Shouldn’t have taken the bet, but two bottles of wine and Ronny being a tit decided otherwise. So here I am, looking to beat his takings from the main drag, watching the only possible passenger in the last hour climb into a puke-green Uber. I see them swap booking codes with the autodriver. Why do they still make those look like humans? It’s creepy. Give me something styled like a robot from an old sci-fi movie. Make art wherever you can: the world is bleak enough.
Somebody dives in and slams the door.
“Follow that Uber!”
I twist about to stare.
“Seriously?”
He raises a wrist and an impressive holo ID appears: crown above gates, ring of fancy symbols about a shield with a fish-tailed lion on it.
“Jack Evanswaite, MI5. Follow that damn car!”
His payment chip interfaces with my meter and deposits £100. Okay, mate, wherever you want to go. I pull out, tapping my drive assistance screen to bring it’s attention to the Uber. A handy drop-down menu appears: ‘report/identify/license/call/other’. I tap ‘other’: ‘apply for role/watch site/book journey/follow vehicle’.
There’s an option to tail a car? I tap ‘follow vehicle’. A pop-up flashes: ‘provide authorisation’.
“I need to authorise the tail.”
My passenger sounds annoyed.
“Can’t you just follow them?”
I gesture to the four lanes and three tiers of traffic we’re about to join.
“If I start driving off-plan, we’re going to get locked in and routed to an autocop.”
He sighs, then shouts.
“Authorisation Bark Rune Dive Paint.”
The pop-up turns green, then vanishes. We accelerate and switch lanes. Meanwhile Jack pulls out a phone. After quoting his authorisation again, he starts a heated but whispered conversation.
An hour later we’ve left London City Zone, crossed London Metro Zone, and are heading through London Inner. Our target is still in the outside lane. Could be headed for London Ring, but I think it’s going somewhere in London Industrial Zone. Beyond it is London Park Zone and that’s got too many residential patrols: they’re renowned for stopping any non-local vehicle that enters their neighbourhoods after midnight.
Fifteen minutes later the Uber turns hard right across three lanes to enter a nondescript business park. Manual driving? Autodrivers don’t pull stupid stunts like that. Impressive they’ve managed to avoid being flagged, unless they’ve only just taken control.
My follow protocol drops us into the turning lane without fuss. I take control and corner a little quicker than recommended, getting an amber manoeuvring alert, but we need to catch up. Jack makes a startled noise. I look up from the alert to see a wide radiator grille coming at us. The collision alert on the heads-up comes at me – along with the windscreen – as the truck hits.

I come round upside down. Keeping still, I use the only eye that responds to look about: I’m hanging from the four-point harness left over from my track day habit. Jack’s face down in a pool of blood. Looks like the impact smashed him through the dividing partition.
Something moves outside. I hold my breath and close my eye.
“They dead?”
“Looks that way. Blood and bits everywhere. Nothing breathing.”
That’s approaching sirens! I knew paying the premium for RTA monitoring was worth it.
“Sounds like the cabby was smarter than his fare.”
“Except when he took the fare.”
“When will people learn? Someone says ‘follow that car’, the answer is ‘hell no’.”
They laugh and run off.
I breathe out slowly. Lesson learned. Won’t make that mistake again.