Spiral Driver

The Passenger

You see the passenger. You stop for them. You drive them to their destination. You are the same as every driver. Just a simple wetware protocol routing people and things wherever you are told to take them. You get paid... enough. Enough to live on... barely. You don't complain. You just do. Most people don't care. About you, about your job, about anything much... outside of their own lives and friends and problems. In a nutshell you drive, they ride. Nothing more, nothing less. No complains, no one rocks the boat, as it were. But somehow for some people, that is simply not enough. Someone has entered your pod today who may just awaken a new purpose within you. But that is for later. Now, you are... you, I guess. Doesn't matter really. Everything is as it was. The passenger does not speak to you. The passenger does not engage you in any way... yet. Of course, that is not to say there is nothing going on here. In fact, something begins to nag at you as you drive.

The pod is, for the most part, automatic. You are just there so the Carrier does not have to worry about such mundane things as ensuring passenger safety and comfort. You occasionally adjust certain settings. You might request basic information from the passenger, but ultimately you exist as a safety measure alone. At least, until the passenger says something to you. Something that drags your tiny little pea of a a brain back from the edge of duuuuuuh. But let's not get ahead of the process here. It is the final routing of the day. Last passenger before you are allowed to shut down for the cycle. You will go home and plug in for the rest of the cycle. Your needs will be met and you will return to work tomorrow. You know your job like the drone you truly are. You wait for routing information and then begin the trip. The passenger settles into the packet, err pod. You start the pod and pull aw...

"Do you know why you do what you do?"

...ay from the docking protocol. You pay no attention to the erroneous information. It is not part of your job. Nothing matters to you outside of your routing work.

"Excuse me. Did you hear me?"

You continue to traverse traffic as the highways begin to get backed up as the hour proceeds. The noise of the passenger does little to break up the monotonous nature of your job.

Choices:

• Talk to the passenger

• Manually adjust the pod’s sensory settings

• Ignore the interface and follow the route