It was Thursday night, and like so many other nights in the past few months, he drove aimlessly through the city, alone with his thoughts. What had begun as a whim had quickly become a habit, a ritual to be performed at least twice a week. And just like last time, he started following random cars, just to see where they were going, just to have something to do.

His gas bill had gone up, but he tried not to think about it too much. What did cross his mind, but only because he couldn't help it, were the petty annoyances he had to endure at work, the recurring arguments with family members, the pointless discussions online, all the seemingly small things that made him feel bitter and depressed. He told himself that these were the reasons why he got in his car and drove for hours. Sometimes he even believed it.

The car's sound system played nonstop, though he barely noticed it. He had heard the songs so many times that they had lost their luster, yet he clung to the same playlist of all his favorite tunes. If he turned on the radio now and then, it was only to confirm that he couldn't stand any of the latest hits, each one indistinguishable from the next. So he inevitably returned to what he knew and what little joy he could still extract from it.

He lost the first car he followed after only a few minutes when it accelerated and went around the corner. It would have been easy to pick up the chase, but he didn't want to make it obvious what he was doing and get caught. He quickly found another vehicle to tail, an expensive imported car moving at a leisurely speed. He took a more cautious approach, trying to keep another car between him and his target whenever possible.

They arrived in a trendy neighborhood known for its nightlife, where the other car slowed to a crawl every time a young woman walked by. Although he couldn't hear it, he was sure the occupants of the car were catcalling, because at one point one of the girls turned around and flipped them off. This time, even with the windows closed, he could just make out the impudent voices.

Eventually they stopped at a busy bar playing loud electronic music. The place was so packed that the party spilled outside, with many of the patrons standing on the curb and drinking. Three young men got out of the luxury car and joined the crowd, punching each other in the shoulder as they went. He drove on, feeling disappointed. He wanted to see something other than rich teenagers looking for a hookup, though he couldn't say exactly what he wished for.

He took the highway that bisected the city to get to the other side, a more residential area. There he began to follow another car, an old mid-size sedan that, much to his chagrin, stopped after a couple of blocks in front of a nondescript apartment building. He slowed down but was unable to make out the faces of the two people who got out of the car before they disappeared from view.

He drove down the mostly empty streets, intending to chase the first vehicle he came across, which happened to be a motorcycle. He could not keep up with it, however, and in less than a minute it was gone. Then, on an impulse, he pulled over, turned off the music, and stood there waiting for something to happen. There was no movement on the road, he could only hear a dog barking somewhere. He waited and waited, but nothing came except more dogs howling, presumably at him. He started the car, not knowing what to do next, not even which way to go at the next intersection. He didn't care one way or the other.

He left the quiet neighbor behind. The digital clock on the dashboard said it was 11:50 p.m. when he reached the highway again. He decided to make one last attempt to follow someone before returning home, even though his heart was not in it anymore. The hour was not too late, not by his standards, but he was getting tired of the game. At least for the night, it had done little to quell the feeling of quiet desperation bottled up inside him, threatening to burst.

While looking for a turnoff, he noticed a black car passing a truck on the freeway and decided to follow it. The car itself was rather ordinary, but he couldn't identify the model, and as he got closer, he saw no name or even the manufacturer's logo on the back. The car turned onto an access road, so he did the same, leaving the highway and heading downtown.

The car he was chasing kept a steady pace, neither too fast nor too slow, turning every corner without hesitation and stopping only at red lights. He found this consistency reassuring and had no trouble keeping up, though he still made sure to maintain a safe distance. His only regret was that he couldn't look through the dark windows and catch a glimpse of the driver.

Because it was after midnight, traffic was light, even on the city's main thoroughfares, making it impractical to hide behind other cars to avoid detection. But that wouldn't stop him now, and he vowed to follow as far as he could to find out where this person was going. For the first time that night, or even that week, he felt excited about something.

Half an hour passed, and his excitement never waned, but he began to notice a disturbing pattern in his quarry's route. He refused to think too much about it at first, but when they passed the same park for the third time, he had to admit that something strange was going on. The other driver would go one way, take a long detour, only to return to the area he had left, using a different set of roads.

Another ten minutes flew by, and when the now familiar public park appeared for the fourth time, there was no point in denying it. The other car was going nowhere in particular, just driving all over the place.

He wondered what could explain such behavior and came up with two explanations. Either the other driver, like himself, was just killing time and blowing off steam, or he figured out he was being followed and wanted to shake the tail without revealing where he was going. Waking up to the second option almost sent him racing in the opposite direction, but he caught himself and tried to reassess the situation.

As far as he could tell, he hadn't done anything criminal, and he certainly hadn't trespassed, though if he was honest with himself, he wasn't exactly proud of this hobby. Besides, he had as much right to drive on the public road as anyone else, and if the other guy could wander around for no apparent reason, so could he. Except, of course, that none of these excuses addressed the real reason why he continued to follow the other car, as he knew full well. Something unexpected, perhaps even mysterious, was happening, and he simply had to see it through.

He tried to carry on as before, and he did for another five minutes, but now he was bursting with curiosity, along with the feeling that if nothing changed soon, they would be driving like this for hours. So, at the risk of spoiling the game, he stepped on the gas and overtook the other car, putting himself right in front of it. He waited in anticipation, watching what the other car would do in the rearview mirror.

He had imagined several scenarios, including the other driver passing him again, turning away at the first opportunity, or even fleeing in a hurry. What he had not imagined was that the car would continue to follow him as if nothing had happened. He turned left at a junction, the car behind him did the same; he slowed down, only to accelerate seconds later, his tail kept the distance. He even risked pulling over for a moment to see if his pursuer would do the same, which he did, and when he drove off, the other car was still after him. So there was no question, it was him who was being chased now, and to make matters worse, he still couldn't see the other driver's face.

As he realized the predicament he was in, he felt a knot in his stomach. If he went home now, the other guy would know where he lived. Was he or she out for revenge? Now that he thought about it, this person could be a criminal or a madman, someone just waiting for him to get out of the car to shoot him. The irony of these assumptions was not lost on him, for it was obvious that whatever he was now imagining about the other driver, the guy could have been thinking about him before.

They drove for a long time, yet he was still surprised when he checked the clock and it was 2:15 a.m. The traffic had all but disappeared, and for the most part it was just the two of them roaming the streets. He had gone from being afraid, to angry at the other driver, to accepting that this was an appropriate punishment for his actions, to fearing for his life all over again. Not to mention the small, inarticulate part of him that was actually enjoying the experience.

For twenty minutes he had searched for an open gas station, a safe place to get out of his car and challenge the other driver, but had only found closed ones. He briefly considered calling the police, but even in his jittery state, he thought that would be an overreaction. After all, the car behind him never did anything overtly aggressive and kept its distance at all times. If they didn't take him in for questioning, the cops would probably just laugh at him.

When he couldn't bear it anymore, and the idea of driving until dawn made him sick with his own cowardice, he looked for a brightly lit spot and pulled over. In the mirror he saw the other vehicle do the same, stopping about thirty feet from him. He waited anxiously for several minutes, his eyes glued to the mirror, but nothing happened, he could not detect any movement. It was clear that he would have to make the first move.

He took a deep breath and got out of the car. Then, putting on the bravest face he could muster, he stomped over to meet his opponent, whoever it was, regretting that he had nothing to use as a weapon. The night had grown cold, and all he could hear was the distant sound of trucks on the highway.

Up close, he confirmed that the car's windows were darkly tinted, but standing next to the driver's door, with the streetlight shining from above, he was finally able to see the interior. He felt his heart skip a beat. There was no one inside. No driver, no passenger, the seats were all empty.

He stood frozen, unable to process what was right in front of him. He was sure that no one had left the car since it had stopped, he had been watching closely the whole time. He leaned forward, almost putting his nose on the windshield to get a better look, wondering if it was possible for someone to hide between the seats, but of course it wasn't. There was no escaping the fact that the automobile had been driving unmanned all this time.

He backed away from the car, dumbfounded, and then it hit him: smart, autonomous vehicles. They weren't for sale yet, but he remembered reading about them. A few companies had been experimenting with them, and prototypes had been running around for years as they refined the technology. Was there not a city where they operated as taxis? So it wasn't science fiction anymore, it had become reality, as cutting-edge as it might be, which probably explained why he couldn't make out the model of the car.

The way he saw it, if it really was an intelligent car, it had to be malfunctioning. There was no way it was programmed to just randomly drive around in the middle of the night, let alone follow another vehicle for no apparent reason. He wondered if he should try to contact the builders and let them know that their property had gone awry.

He circled around the car, but found no indication that it was indeed a test model. In fact, there were no identifying marks of any kind. He returned to the driver's side and tried the door handle. It opened easily, and after a long hesitation, he sat down in the seat, leaving the door open. It crossed his mind that the moment he put his hands on the steering wheel, the car would speed away and he would have to jump out, but no, the vehicle stood motionless.

The seat was more comfortable than it looked, and the interior had a pleasant smell, not that of a new car, which it obviously wasn't, but close enough. It was also immaculately clean. He was surprised to find an automatic stick, currently in park, as he had assumed a fully autonomous car wouldn't need one. After a moment's thought, he dismissed his premise as naive, figuring that even an intelligent car would need a human to drive it from time to time.

He scanned the dashboard for any labels, to no avail, and noticed that there was a button instead of an ignition switch. He checked the glove compartment and found it empty except for a book, a reference manual by the looks of it. The white cover read, “Department of Science and Technology Studies,” along with a string of numbers that he assumed was an identification code, and a date that was nearly fifteen years old.

There was not much else he could make out of the tome, as each page contained only these incredibly detailed schematic diagrams with no words on them. Besides, not being technically inclined, he couldn't tell what the diagrams were supposed to describe. It could be the parts of a nuclear reactor instead of the circuitry of a car, and he would never know the difference.

He tossed the book aside and turned his attention to the dashboard monitor, which was currently blank. Without warning, the screen flickered on, displaying a navigation system. The route had already been plotted, and although the exact address was not shown, the readings said it was a place fourteen miles west, well outside the city limits. Wasn't some billionaire supposed to have one of his mansions up there? He'd heard rumors, but he couldn't remember who it was.

He stood and stared admiringly at the map on the screen, as if it depicted some exotic, faraway land, not a nearby place. But in his mind's eye, he could already see himself getting out of this car and back into his own, as he knew he should. He saw himself driving all the way home and then lying in bed, unable to sleep, wondering what it had all been about. In a few days he would be out driving at night again, following strangers for no good reason, expecting something to happen, suspecting in his gut that it never would.

On the spur of the moment, he closed the door and pushed the button that started the engine. The car's electric motor immediately kicked in, leaving him stunned at what he had just done, as he had half assumed it wouldn't work without a smart key. He waited for the car to move on its own, but nothing happened, so he put it in drive. Slowly, he took his foot off the brake and the car began to roll.

He passed his own car and remembered that he had forgotten to lock it, but he didn't stop. As he looked at it in the rearview mirror, he silently said goodbye to this thing that had been his for so many years and was now being left behind. For a second, he could have sworn that it, too, would start moving on its own and follow him. Instead, his car just stood there, unmoved by the abandonment, like the inanimate object it really was.

A woman's voice came from the navigation system, instructing him to turn right at the next street in five hundred feet. He had expected something like this and was not startled. In fact, the voice sounded almost exactly as he had imagined, and it went on to say that he would be at his destination in eighteen minutes. With a smile on his face, he left the city behind and rode on, happy to let a machine decide where he should go.

September 10, 2025