Not part of the buffet crowd, of course, were Lisa Carver and Albert Ruskin. They’d gone outside to do a demo with one of the Arrivals. The media wanted some good video clips.

Sandra did not want to hang around here any longer. She would return, once Lisa and Albert had left the island, to do the windup. Pay the caterers the balance of what she owed them, make sure the gym was cleared of media equipment. She hoped Ruskin didn’t balk at paying the rest of her bill. He seemed like the type who’d try to get out of it.

As she walked out the front doors, she took her phone from her purse and brought up the Arrival app. The car she’d been provided would start itself and come right to her location once she sent the command. God, she wondered. How long would she still have the vehicle? The demonstration was supposed to last another couple of weeks, after which everyone would get their regular cars back from the mainland. But would Lisa and Albert take her car back immediately, as some sort of punishment? If they did, how was Sandra supposed to get around?

Just let them try. She’d work a little PR magic on her own behalf. Put out a release about how a big, multi-million-dollar conglomerate like Arrival was using all its powers to bankrupt an independent businesswoman. She was already preparing the statement in her head, working in a phrase about how one would have thought that a female CEO would be the last one you’d think would ruin a single mom’s livelihood. She’d play the widow card if she had to.

She tapped the Arrival app—a stylized A that leaned to the right, as though moving swiftly into the wind. Once it was open, Sandra was connected directly, by voice, to her vehicle.

“Hey, Gracie,” she said.

“Hello, Sandra,” Gracie said. “How may I help you?”

“Time to go home.”

“I’ll take you there,” the car said. “I will be at your location in three minutes.”

Sandra, of course, did not have to tell the car where to find her. Gracie’s navigational systems would have pinpointed the location of the phone in her hand.

She put it back in her bag and glanced over to where several reporters and camerapeople were gathered. Lisa Carver, who’d waited a few minutes for attendees to finish stuffing their faces, was demonstrating the car’s advanced features.

The CEO, standing alongside a cherry-red Arrival, said, “The car understands both simple and complex commands.” A wide smile. “I call mine Rudolph, even though that is a boy’s name, and the voice of the car is female, but the color just reminds me of that very famous reindeer’s nose.”

Ruskin, standing a few feet away, led the crowd with some minor chuckles.

“So, Rudolph, open the door, please,” Lisa said.