“What the hell happened to the two of you?” demanded the gruff giant Jonas Williams.
The police officer in the midnight black uniform of the Baltimore Police had stopped by the detectives’ bullpen to drop off some paperwork. There he found the only two detectives who worked the nightshift sitting dolefully at their desks. Both Niles Gule and his partner, Mariella Cruz, wore clothing that had obviously been soaked in muddy water at some point during the evening, but which was now beginning to dry. Cruz’s normally buoyant, curly black hair clung sodden against her cheeks. Niles’ expensive, custom tailored, Italian suit hung limp and ruined, bits of seaweed sticking to the buttons and pockets. Cruz’s demeanor was unusually subdued and morose. Niles, meanwhile, was chewing nails.
“Car accident,” the vampire snapped without looking up from his computer.
“Seriously?” Williams’ smirking smile faded. “Are you hurt?”
“Just our pride and Niles’ imported suit,” Cruz sighed. She rubbed her face tiredly. “Plus one rental car that won’t be back to work in the morning.”
Williams hitched a large ass cheek on her desk while he gazed down at her with a chiding expression. “I can’t be the only person to tell you the way you drive is going to kill you.”
Cruz shot him a hateful look. “I wasn’t driving.”
Williams started. His gray eyes flicked in Niles’ direction. “You let the Ghoul drive? No wonder you crashed.”
Cruz didn’t have the energy to swat the big man. “Niles wasn’t driving either.”
Williams blinked. “Then who was?”
“Good question,” Niles growled. He sat staring at his computer monitor with an intense expression.
“Come on,” Williams prodded. “Out with it. What happened?”
Cruz heaved a deep sigh. “Niles and I drove out to Catonsville to track down the aunt of one of our missing girls. Thought she might add some data to the case. Since Fifi is in the shop, I rented a car. As we were driving, the car took over.”
Williams frowned. “What does that mean?”
Cruz snarled. “It means it took over. It started driving itself. Took off doing ninety in a forty-five zone. Blasted us with the radio and the heat. Started careening all over the road. We’re lucky we didn’t hit anyone.”
“Why didn’t you stop it?”
“I tried!” Cruz almost leaped from her chair. “I stomped but no brakes.”
“Did you consider turning it off?”
Cruz froze, her dark eyes staring at the big man tormenting her. “Um.. no. We didn’t think of that.”
“Next time, you might want to consider it.”
“Eff you, Jonas.” Cruz sank back into her chair. “Like you wouldn’t have freaked out when the car you’re driving is possessed by demons.”
Williams chewed on that information. “Demons. Got it. Ok. Assuming what you say is true, how did you stop it?”
“We didn’t.” Cruz sighed again. “It jumped the guardrail and plunged down a ravine. Ended up nose first in the sluice behind the old Union Dam.”
Williams pointed vaguely to his left. “The one out there by Patapsco State Park?”
“That would be the one.”
Williams whistled. “Damn! I know where you must have gone off. The ground’s really steep and wooded.”
“Tell us about it,” Cruz sighed.
Niles sat back from his computer. His brilliant blue eyes raked his frenemy. “We could have been killed, Jonas.”
Williams bucked off the desk at the dark tone from the vampire. “Hey now! You sound like you think I had something to do with it.”
“Did you?” Niles demanded.
“Hell no!” Williams scowled, affronted at the accusation. “Why would I? Better question. How would I?”
Niles stabbed a taloned finger at his computer screen. “That exactly what I was researching.”
Williams frowned. “What did you find?”
Just as interested, Cruz leaned forward eagerly.
Niles sat back in his chair with a disgusted huff. “That car was brand new. Only had a handful of miles on it. So the idea that it could have done this by itself is ridiculous.”
“Demons?” Cruz asked.
Niles’ blue eyes softened when he gazed at her before hardening again. “No, not demons. But something just as insidious. Someone tried to kill us, Mari.”
Cruz drew her breath.
Williams scowled. “That’s a bit of a stretch, don’t ya think, Ghoul?”
Niles adjusted his monitor so that Williams could read what he’d found. “Like I said,” he explained. “The car was brand new. Loaded with all the latest computer gadgetry. Bluetooth enabled. Internet capable. Electronic everything. Can park itself. It can even drive itself if you choose the right settings.”
“So you think someone at the factory set it up to kill us?” Cruz asked.
Niles shook his head. “Nope. That would be the act of a random nutcase hoping to kill persons he didn’t know. I think this was a deliberate attack on us.”
Williams huffed. “How’s that? You think someone took control of your car?”
Niles nodded. “Exactly.” He jabbed a talon at the computer screen. “This article talks about how hackers can access a car’s onboard systems. Normally, they work in pairs. One handles the hacking from a distance. A second person locates the subject car, informs the hacker of the VIN number, and the hacker unlocks the car. The second person climbs in and drives off with it.”
“Damn!” Williams scratched behind his ear. “I figured all this high-tech stuff was bad news. Talk about easy pickings for car thieves.”
“Bingo.” Niles ran his eyes down the webpage. “But not only can a hacker unlock a car remotely, nowadays these cars are so interlinked with their manufacturers, that a knowledgeable person can completely control the car. This article links to a story where the police were tracking a man who’d kidnapped a small child. They traced the car, called its manufacturer, and asked them to shut the car down. It stopped so the alleged kidnapper couldn’t drive it any further. He was arrested with the kid in the car.”
“Oh wow!” Cruz leaned in to read the story. “That’s amazing.”
Williams folded his arms. “So you think someone inside this department asked the car’s manufacturer to hack into the car and drive it off a cliff?”
Niles pursed his lips and ran a talon across them. “Honestly? I’m not sure.” His blue eyes glittered as they glared at Williams. “I wouldn’t put it past certain members of this precinct.”
Williams’ hand flew to his heart. “Ghoul! No way! Okay, I’ll admit, if you were alone in the car and I had some way of hacking into it, I might be tempted to mess with you a bit. But I wouldn’t try to kill you. And I certainly wouldn’t mess with a car Cruz was driving.”
Niles gazed hard at the officer. Much as he would love to pin the attack on his nemesis, he didn’t doubt Williams’ sincerity. The big galoot had a crush on Cruz. No way he would do anything to injure her.
“So what does this mean?” Cruz whispered.
“It means,” Niles intoned, his face hard. “Some is trying to kill us.”
© 2022 Newmin
Niles comments: The above statements are true. New vehicles can be controlled by the manufacturer and several times the police have used this ability to capture wanted individuals. So far, no cases of private individuals attacking each other have been reported but it’s only a matter of time. If you can protect yourself from such tampering, I don’t know. When you purchase a new vehicle, you might want to discuss with the dealer how to shut down as much of the remote-control functions as possible. We enter yet another scary, future world. Good luck.