Machine Man (serial)

Lola gave a shriek. The Better Future van’s rear doors banged open. Carl would be in there. I knew it. We would try to squeeze past and Carl’s metal arm would shoot out and grab our bumper. Our little hybrid wheels would smoke, the engine would shriek, and I would turn to see vengeance burning in his eyes.

“Go. Drive.” I braced myself against the impending acceleration. But there was no acceleration. I looked at Lola. Her eyes were closed. “Lola?”

“Zero, one, one, two, three. Five. Eight. Thirteen.”

“Are you reciting Fibonacci?”

“Twenty-one. Thirty-four. Fifty-five.”

“Oh. Focusing on calculations to avoid thinking about the stressful situation we find ourselves in.” Guards popped out of the van, grim-faced and armed. “That’s good, I guess.”

“Eighty-nine. One hundred thirty-four.”

“One hundred forty-four.”

“Shut up!” Her eyes opened, took in the guards, and squeezed shut again. “Oh God!”

“Sorry. Sorry. It’s just, if you’re going to do Fibonacci…” I forced myself to stop this sentence. “Okay. You recite arbitrary numbers. I’ll figure out how we operate a motor vehicle when one of us can’t see and the other can’t reach the pedals.” Five guards, now. But still no Carl.

“Tibialis anterior. Extensor hallucis longus. Extensor digitorum longus. Fibularis tertius.”

I glanced at her, because I suspected she was now reciting muscles I didn’t have. But this helped me solve our problem. I shouldn’t think of us as two people. It was more useful to consider us a collection of body parts. Combined, we were one pair of eyes, two feet, three hands, two brains; everything we needed. It was just a matter of resource allocation.

I took hold of the steering wheel. “This is how we’ll do it. I steer. You keep your eyes closed and work the pedals when I tell you.”

“Triceps surae!”

“I know. But please depress the accelerator as far as it will go.”

The guards began to close in. “Plantaris,” said Lola, and stepped on the gas.

131.