Long Drive

Perfect. Perfect. It was all perfect.

She drummed her fingers in flawless rhythm against the cracked, sun-blistered skin of the steering wheel. The car she had chosen smelled like a dog left outside and cheap vacuums sucking up cigarette ash from an old shitty carpet. It wasn’t hers. She didn’t need a car, before.

Broken. They took it. They took it from me.

She had been stuck in this traffic for two days. It was her first time in traffic, ever.

The heart-shaped locket dangled from her rearview, wobbling with the vibrations of her ride. She glanced at it, and her mouth tasted bitter.

“Fuck ‘em,” she grunted. Her teeth scraped against each other in spite of this, and she turned her attention out her window.

She was surrounded on all sides by others sitting in this endless bumper-to-bumper shit. Stop and go. Stop and go. Stop and go. There was nearly enough time between stop and go to put the very ancient Bronco in park, but every time she thought she would do that, the car in front of her moved an inch.

The last time she had decided to wait a little before pulling right up behind the (is it an Accord? I can’t read the thingy) little silver sedan in front of her, someone to her right nosed their front bumper into her lane.

Bastards.

The four-lane highway only traveled in one direction. If you were on it, you were on your way out of the towering, gleaming metropolis to her right. If you were on it, you were probably not there because you wanted to be—and there was no returning.

Assuming you were able to exit the highway before you died of thirst.

Anya allowed herself to stare at the skyline of her former home.

You have been replaced.

Her teeth squeaked against one another, and she inhaled, deeply, the scent of scorched carpet fibers and the cloud of toxic emissions smothering her. She was beginning to get hungry. The sun was hidden behind the line of skyscrapers, but that wouldn’t last all day. In a few hours it would crest, and the heat—breaking records every summer, now, for a century—would beat into her car and age her skin without relent. First her right, then her left as it would sink below the flat, desolate horizon.

It was already ninety-six degrees in the car—the digital reader on the dash said so. Her air conditioning vents blew air slightly cooler than this onto her face. It didn’t matter; she could feel the soaked fabric of her grey shirt beneath her armpits and her back sticking to her skin.

Someone behind her and in a lane to her left ran out of patience, and leaned on their horn. When it went on for more than three seconds, Anya thumped the back of her skull against her headrest in agitation. All around her, people began shouting back at the driver, leaning out of windows and raging at them, shaking their fists, and slamming on their own horns. A wave of noise rose like a swirl of angry wasps and hung for a moment, before the long bellow of the car ended at last. The shouting and residual noise died shortly after, only being replaced by the steady rumbling of idling engines.

The locket on the rearview. It meandered back into Anya’s line of sight, the gold heart pendant twisting slowly. Inside, two pictures, miniature faces. One was of her, and was probably the last photograph of Anya that existed.

You. Have been. Replaced.

Not that she had ever worried about Replacement before. It was more of an urban legend among the Sweet-Heads—the slang term for the elite social class she had been chosen to be born into. Sweet-Heads were referred to as such, because they alone resided in the top-level, ultra-luxury penthouse suits that made up the skyline.

Class selection occurred, usually, in the embryonic stage of development. A married couple would obtain a Child License, and according to their financial status, education, psychology, and health, would be shown varying arrays of potential.

Sweet-Heads seeking a child were usually allowed to select from any range of embryo, and had a division of embryo available exclusively for their perusal.

Replacement was allegedly what happened to a Sweet-Head when someone of a lower class proved themselves to be what that Sweet-Head was, and more.

Anya worked her jaw and rubbed her forehead vigorously. She moved her car forward a couple of inches. She had been picked out in her test tube and lived all of her life in her station. She had friends. Memories. Love.

Her teeth grated together, and a loud cackle crawled up her throat. She coughed, and surreptitiously looked around her. No one stared at her. They didn’t care. Good.

That bitch. Tanis. Her Replacement. You have been

She didn’t know Tanis was her Replacement. She didn’t even believe in Replacement at the time.

The sun’s rays burst from the top of the silhouetted buildings, and she grunted, leaning over and slamming the passenger side sun visor against the window. It barely covered the glaring light, and would be useless before too long.

Just like me.

Already are.

Tanis had simply shown up at the rooftop lounge that Anya and her social circle occupied one night. Anya and her partner invited her into the group’s conversation, and Tanis melded easily within the dynamic. She began attending the lounge with them regularly, and gotten close with Anya. They had so many things in common, and Anya had begrudgingly noticed that things just seemed a little more effortless and innate to Tanis. But that was okay, because Anya knew that it was simply impossible for her to be the best at everything. It was unrealistic. And Anya had always been a little paranoid.

She leaned forward in her car and flicked the golden locket. It was heavier than she had anticipated, and her finger throbbed slightly. It swung wildly, the sunlight glinting off of it. She moved her car forward another few inches. She wondered how far she had gotten since she had encountered this traffic, and how far she would get before she died.

Anya didn’t know what came after the highway. She had never cared. Why should she?

When her partner began having conversations with Tanis regarding Anya while Anya wasn’t there, she began to feel paranoid again. And suddenly, Tanis was in their suite for dinner. Then twice a week. Then Tanis appeared at Anya’s workplace. She was hired on to the same department, same team that she was. There were no empty offices. Anya didn’t know where Tanis was going to work.

Her partner, without breaking pace, began transferring their attention to Tanis. Always Tanis.

Then, Anya got the letter on her welcome mat, and her key no longer worked in the lock.

We regret to inform you that you have been Replaced. A more suitable candidate has been found. Due to overcrowding in the Lower and circumstances beyond anyone’s control, unfortunately, we cannot allow you to reside in Malaise any longer, effective immediately.

Upon completion of reading this letter, your attendance is required at Exit Education Building 770.

--The Management.

She had walked down the hall of the residential building in a daze, feeling simultaneously as though she had swallowed a ball of lead, and like she was going to float out of her body at any moment, when the elevator chimed, the doors slid open, and Tanis stepped into the hall, a box clutched in her arms. She spotted Anya, and grinned at her.

Anya had vomited on the carpet, and stumbled away, shrinking into the closing doors of the elevator. She rode, uninterrupted, down seventy floors. Her ears popped several times. Her mind was empty, and she was numb. Her armed escort was waiting for her in the lobby.

Now, she inched her car forward again. The jarring repetition was increasingly maddening, and she was really getting hungry now. She swiped the back of her hand across her forehead, and it came away wet.

In front of her, to her right, motion caught her eye. Some guy in a green jalopy was agitated, jerking his car forward inch by inch until it was kissing the bumper of the black four-door in front of it. The old lady driving that turned around nervously, jerking back around to face forward in an instant.

The guy revved his engine, and blue smoke poured from his rear tires. The little car jerked forward, slamming into the black sedan in front of him. He screamed, a loud open-mouth cry of hysterical triumph known only to him, but loud enough to be heard by Anya in her own vehicle, several cars away. She watched in fascination as his hands fluttered to his head like little birds, and grabbed fistfuls of curly brown hair, before ripping them out in bloody bunches. He threw his head forward and it bounced off of his steering wheel twice. Her fascination rapidly morphed into aghast, captive horror as she watched him open the door to his car and leap out.

He stumbled to the blistering asphalt before springing back to his feet. His dark eyes darted wildly around, and he hesitated for only a moment before sprinting forward, away from the city.

Shocked cries went up all around the man as he ran as fast as he could across the bloated highway, leaping onto the hoods of cars and skidding across them. He was moving as if he was drunk. Anya figured lethargy: he was just as dehydrated and hungry as anyone else there, and probably more so.

He was at the last lane on the left when the shot rang out, and the sniper posted one hundred yards away exploded the head of the rouge exile in a cloud of vulgar mist.

His body dropped heavily onto the hood of the Sonata that he had been atop. Anya couldn’t see the driver from where she was, and wished she could. She bet whoever it was, was freaking out. She was. It was good to see other people freaking out. It helped her. Misery loves company.

A few moments later, a jeep with a gun mounted on top of it and four men sitting next to it pulled alongside the Sonata on the shoulder of the vast desert. One of the men jumped down from the truck, gripped the dead leg of the exile, and pulled it off of the car. He hoisted the body over his shoulder, got it in the jeep, climbed up after it. The man sitting closest to the driver thumped him on the shoulder twice, and they drove off, kicking up a cloud of dust. It clung thickly to the puddles on the affected cars.

There was no mystery of what would be done with his body. The headless crucifixions dotting the shoulder of the road indicated perfectly what would happen. He would be made example of.

Anya touched the second of three water bottles she had been provided with faint disgust. She had never been forced to drink from plastic before, and despised the way it felt on her lips. She swore she could almost taste the plastic itself, and thought with longing of the vegan h2o pods she kept in her refrigerator. Tanis’s refrigerator.

She had been Replaced.

The locket swung lazily, and finally, Anya snatched it and yanked it from the rearview, breaking the thin gold chain. She had to see.

She popped open the heart.

The miniature portrait on the left was of her partner. Her eyes watered at the sight of them, quickly replaced by harsh bitterness—and so she looked at where her picture should have been.

A glossy piece of photo paper cut into a crude heart stared back at her. She could hardly make out the text imprinted upon it.

We regret to inform you…