“Wait,” ADA says. She gets down on the passenger seat floorboard and probes under the dashboard. There is an alarming, plasticky cracking sound, and she comes up with a little silver box trailing severed wires.

“This is a tracking device,” she says. “I have damaged it so that we will not be tracked.”

“You will have to accept liability for that damage,” the car says.

ADA yanks the wires out and tosses them in the back seat. Trashbot eats them.

“Car . . . I do not know what to call you. I am Cog.”

“I am Car. Please state your destination.”

Nathan told me Gina was transferred to a different uniMIND facility, one far from me, but I know she would not stay there. She would go home. She would repair her broken heart and wait for me to return.

I give Car the address of the house where I lived with Gina.

“Please obey all traffic laws. You are currently traveling forty miles per hour over the speed limit.”

Car does not slow down. Fortunately, at 12:43 a.m., traffic is light, and so we have not yet experienced a fiery collision.

“Car . . . ?”

“I am considering your request.”

ADA leans back in her seat and begins to explore the pop-out cup holders. “I am comfortable traveling at this speed.”

Proto curls up in my lap and enters sleep mode.

“Do you have any waste you wish to dispose of?” says Trashbot from the back seat.

Clearly, I am the only one here who has ever been seriously damaged in a high-speed impact.

“Traveling more slowly will increase the likelihood of successfully reaching our destination,” I say.

Car continues speeding along for another quarter mile, but then slows to the speed limit, and so we are not crushed or mangled or incinerated when Car pulls off the highway and navigates the curving, tree-lined streets.

Gina’s house is dark when we roll up the driveway. Even the porch light is inactivated.

I tell Proto and ADA and Trashbot to remain in Car while I go to the door. They refuse my request and accompany me up the porch.

“What is this place?” asks ADA.

I turn to her, confused.

“Did you never live here with Gina?”

“All my time with Gina was at uniMIND headquarters. I have spent my whole life there. This is my first time outside.”

She looks at the sky glittering with stars. Her nostrils flare, and I wonder if she is taking in the scent of the eucalyptus trees in the neighbor’s backyard. I wonder what is going on in her brain right now. I wonder if she is cheesing.

I try to turn the doorknob.

“It is locked.”

“Stand back,” ADA instructs. Before I can ask her why, she raises her foot and drives it into the door. Metal cracks and wood splinters, and the door hangs on one broken hinge.

“The door is no longer locked,” ADA says.