One Weird Day

Sylvia

"Prepare to turn right in five hundred feet."

"Right my ass," Marcus murmured, engaging his left blinker.

"Just do as it says," Bo said. "We are lost."

"No we aren't."

"I told you to take the highway."

"Yeah, and hit all the traffic jams? Relax, we'll be there in a minute."

The headlights splashed over the bushes and the trees by the turn and settled on the dark country road ahead of them.

"Recalculating route," the GPS said. "Continue on main road for two miles."

Marcus clutched the wheel in his big hands and cast a concerned glance at his companion. "Just relax, okay? We lost them. We made it."

"They must have sent a helicopter," Bo said. "If it spots us, we are done, you get it? I said highway, I said get lost in the traffic, I've planned the whole thing! Why on earth would you change plans at the last moment? I swear, it's the last time we ever--"

"Rob a bank together?"

"Last time we do anything together!"

Bo pressed his forehead to the window, watching the shades and shapes of the night forest passing by. They'd lost the last police car about half an hour ago, but he was still waiting for something to go wrong. It had been too easy for the first timers they were.

"Come on," Marcus said. "You've planned it well. Now let me do my part, okay?"

"Prepare to turn right in eight hundred feet," the GPS said.

"If you don't listen to this shit, switch it off," Bo snapped.

"Don't call her that."

"What should I call her?"

"Sylvia."

Bo rolled his eyes. "Just to let you know, naming a GPS after your ex is pathetic."

"Why, it's actually fun," Marcus said, drumming his fingers on the wheel. "She says right, I turn left. She thinks she knows better, like the real one did, but I show her who's the boss."

Bo stared at him. "Do you even realize how crazy that sounds?"

"I'm not doing it now, of course," Marcus said. "I'm not fooling around, I just know a better way than the one she wants."

"Recalculating route," Sylvia said in her soft voice. "Prepare to turn right in three hundred feet."

"She wants that new road, I'm telling you," Marcus said. "We'll take the old one around the hills. Just relax."

"I'll relax when I see that freaking house and lock the door and lay low while they are looking for us."

"Almost there," Marcus assured him, turning the wheel.

Bo let out a long sigh and buried his face in his hands, feeling that maybe he was too much of a nerd for all this unhealthy excitement. Not nerdy enough to invent a new social network or something, that's for sure, only enough to study dozens of crime movies and books and transform the acquired knowledge into a perfect robbery plan. Still, he knew very well that in life, just like in software he'd been writing at work, even the seemingly perfect solutions could surprise with nasty bugs.

Marcus, in his turn, wasn't bothered by such possibility. Bo's neighbor and friend since age six, he now worked in a garage, and was upset only by his income being lower than what he thought he deserved. After years of hanging out together, their roles were well defined: Bo came up with ideas, and Marcus was always ready to contribute to their execution.

"Turn left at the light," Sylvia said.

"What light?" Marcus wondered.

The road before them looked as dark and empty as before, though not as straight now it was circling the hill.

"That's it, you've broken it." Bo placed his hands behind his head and glimpsed at his companion not without satisfaction.

"Stop the car at the next intersection," Sylvia said indifferently.

The road stretched out ahead of them, dark trees on both sides barely visible on the periphery of their headlights.

"Turn it off," Bo said. "There's too much going on without a fucked-up GPS."

"Stop by a tree and take a nap," Sylvia said.

They glanced at each other, then at the small, brightly lit device attached to their windshield. Bo leaned forward to examine it closely.

"Since when are they programmed to say such things?"

"You tell me," Marcus said. "You're the computer guy."

"Stop by a tree and take a piss," Sylvia proposed.

Bo frowned. "Anything else to do by the tree?"

"Stop by a tree and hang yourself," Sylvia replied.

"Turn it off," Bo said after a stunned pause. "Seriously, man, it gives me the creeps."

Marcus shot a quick glance at the navigator. "You do it. I'm driving."

"But it's yours!"

"Are you afraid to touch it?"

"Just turn it off!"

Sylvia paused, and then proceeded to shoot the words out like an automatic gun, fast and indifferent:

"Leave sooner, drive slower, live longer. Normal speed meets every need. Alert today, alive tomorrow."

"Holy shit! It speaks in slogans now." Bo reached for the GPS, but it went quiet, and he stopped his hand in the air.

It was quiet for a while, and Bo had started to lower his hand when Sylvia spoke again.

"Turn left," she said, and then the monotone road in front of them suddenly unwrapped into a t-shaped intersection.

"Shit!" Marcus swung the wheel right, barely negotiating the corner, and smashed into the orange road safety barriers blocking the road.

The car flew through them and rolled down the slope. Out of control, it turned over twice before coming to a halt at the bottom of the hill. For a few seconds nothing moved, including the two unconscious men inside the car. Then, an indifferent female voice said: "Jerks."

The little screen blinked and went black, and the only sound that remained was the wind in the trees and the distant sound of an approaching helicopter.