Like all days, at 5:00pm, Mr. Andrews stopped what he was doing and excused himself from his dinky cubicle. As he walked by his boss’s brightly lit office, Mr. Andrews made sure to shift his gaze away from the picture of his boss’s wife, which was displayed proudly on his desk. Her smile disgusted him. Her teeth were yellow, and far too small, he thought, and to look at them made the hair stick up on the back of his neck. So he trained himself to focus on other things, like getting to the elevator before Brenda. Oh, how he despised elevator rides with her. Brenda, the name itself made him cringe. Sometimes he wondered if her parents had chosen it with the intention of repulsing the people their daughter would encounter. Her small talk was unbearably dull. She would pepper him with  him questions either far too personal or far too ridiculous to answer. The last thing he wanted was his coworkers to know about his personal life outside of work or worse, that they would find out that he didn’t have much of one. But to his delight, when he arrived at the elevator, he was greeted with a vacant box. Solace. He slid swiftly into the elevator, and pressed the door close button with his knuckle. Subsequently, he tapped the P button. The elevator rapidly descended; Mr. Andrews’ stomach felt weightless, and he smiled; it was a feeling he frequently longed for. Just before the elevator came to rest, he squatted down and forced himself upward into the air. He felt weightless, if only for a second, and he savored the feeling. He could not enjoy this maneuver if Brenda (or frankly if anyone else) were present, but to his delight, he was alone. He stuck the landing just as the elevator doors opened. As usual, a crisp white sedan was waiting for him, with the trunk open, four yards from the elevator. He strolled  to the trunk, tossed his briefcase into the well, and then slid into the passenger side seat.

         “Hi Tess.” he said.

         “Hello, Ron. How has your day-?” 

“It went well. Quite well. Quite well, indeed.” he proclaimed cutting her off, “The General Motors account is proceeding as it should. If all continues well, I’ll be able to close the deal at the end of this week.”

         “Congratulations, Ron.”

The sedan let out an electric whir as it cruised up the exit ramp of the garage. Once its wheels touched the sidewalk, It was no longer under the protection of the garage. The sound of rain dancing on the vehicle’s hood echoed through the car’s interior.

         “Tess, since when does it rain in July?” Ron inquired.

         “I apologize, Ron , but was that a rhetorical question? Or are you seriously interested?”

         “ It was rhetorical, Tess, but do enlighten me”. As Ron spoke, the rain transitioned from a moderate drizzle to a torrent of percussion.

         “The last time it rained in Los Angeles in July was 2031, but the last time it rained here on July 15, was in 2027” Tess said without hesitation.

         “I figured it would have been longer ago,” Ron murmured.

         By now, the car had already navigated the side streets and was accelerating onto the freeway. Ron had always loved the freeway, though he could never pin-point exactly what was so enticing about it. Maybe it was the clear sense of order that allowed the roadway to function so efficiently. Possibly it was the fact that it was an almost infinite display of humanity’s dominance over nature. Regardless, Ron mainly liked that it got him home in time to watch CNN and enjoy a warm meal a 6 p.m. A ritual that he had grown accustomed to.

         “There seems to be a slowdown up ahead” Tess said, interrupting Ron’s focus from watching streaks of rain flow down the window.

         “You’ve got to be kidding me” Ron exclaimed, “after the new road infrastructure, there wasn’t supposed to be any more traffic.”

         “It will only add five minutes to your trip. This is still the fastest route.”

         “Alright.” He said, reverting his attention back to raindrops that were racing down the window. He wondered about the cause for the slow down.

         The car, following the rest of the pack, slowed gracefully and came to rest . It waited for a few moments, until movement on the roadway resumed. As the car began to pick up speed, Ron’s focus shifted from the foreground of the window to the mass of crumpled metal compressed into the center divider.

         “Tess, what type of car was that?” Ron asked.

         “It must have been a 1995 Ford Mustang” Tess responded.

“Tess, how much would it cost to insure a human-piloted vehicle?”

“Not many insurance companies offer that anymore, but on average, about $20,000 a year.”

“What a waste.” Ron said. “Tess, you sure are saving me a lot of money”

“Well, when my operating failure rate is 0%. If insurance was not mandatory, there wouldn’t be a need for it” Tess responded, as the vehicle flew up a cloverleaf and onto the residential streets of Ron’s neighborhood. Ron looked out the window at the passing houses, each one a copy of the one before it. Solar panels, which caught the evening drizzle lined each of the rooftops. The homes’ gray color complimented the day’s weather, Ron thought. He shifted his attention to the blinking screen on his watch. The time was 5:57, just three minutes until his favorite program and meal. Just as he figured, he might miss Anderson Cooper’s opening monologue. The sedan rounded a corner, cruised three quarters down the street and pulled into the driveway of Ron’s drab home. “You have arrived at the destination” Tess said, as the car door swung open automatically, which was followed by the trunk.

“Tess, please stop saying that every time we arrive somewhere.” Ron said as he got up from his seat. As he rounded the back of the car, he heard Tess say what he assumed was a confirmation that he would no longer be notified of his arrival at future destinations. Ron grabbed his briefcase from the trunk, raised his arm above his head, pawing at the trunk-door handle, and slammed the trunk shut. The force from Ron’s trunk closing caused his license plate to rattle vigorously. He set his hand on the plate to settle it. As he pulled back his hand, which was now covered in wet dirt, he read the plate out loud. “Tess”. He regretted buying that plate. Not only did it cost $100, but he was tired of the name. While it would have been easy to change his car’s name from his phone, he felt wrong changing her name, then forcing her to wear an incorrect name tag. As walked up the concrete path to his front door, which slid open once he got within a few feet of it, he watched as Tess rolled into the garage and plugged herself in.