text: Paused surveillance footage at the downtown intersection of Park and Highland Avenue shows three teens mid stride wearing matching checkered hoodies. The next frame shows a red velvet spaghetti spiral. Unraveled rings of gore intersecting rings, each with splatter flare edges. A crime scene kaleidoscope seen through the cullet of a round brilliant cut diamond. Response teams are activated. Alert notifications are pushed. Individual contributors commuting to their home offices are automatically rerouted back for an emergency all-hands meeting. It had been eight years since car steering was centralized and driving fully automated. After a series of passive voice apologies, a consortium of manufacturers and industry partners was formed. They determined that the self-driving problem was a lot easier if vehicles could only go straight. Turning was where most of the complexity hid. Low slurred muttering about fuel efficiency, safety, the environment was smeared together and repeated by professionally charismatic people. Cars became fixed axles that could only move forward into the future. Asphalt disks, like engraved vinyl records, were embedded at intersections and corners. Trampoline sized Lazy Susans capable of 10,000 rotations per minute. Cars moving at highway pace could be redirected in any direction, instantly, without losing speed. Unmitigated, the G-Forces would be powerful enough to burst a fighter pilot. World class engineers solved the problem by filling car cabins with breathable liquid fluorocarbons. Internal documents describe the new driving experience like being a drowning fetus in the womb of a tumbling gymnast and completely safe. Commutes shortened and traffic jams become a memory. Focus groups reiterated decreased road trip satisfaction scores due to the perpetual sensation of drowning. The vehicles of essential personnel begin arriving at the offices of YouTurn. Park automatically engaged, occupants crown through driver and passenger side semi permeable membranes. One by one they fall unceremoniously onto the ground of the dirty parking garage, coughing and bleary eyed. Jelly covered men and women make their way to the main conference room, sprinkled with rock salt and gravel. In the cloud, automatic diagnostic systems begin root cause analysis of the company adjacent pedestrian liquefaction event. Artificial intelligence adjusts navigation routes to detour area cars towards Park and Highland. YouTurn regularly utilizes privately owned cars as mobile information gathering platforms. “Did you hear what happened?” “Yeah, some kids were crossing the street. They were wearing checkered hoodies a traffic camera thought was a QR code. It started a max speed test while they were standing on it... It’s still spinning. Just grisly. QA’s looking at it tomorrow.” An authoritative voice signals an end to small talk. “Thanks everyone for getting back here so fast. A pedestrian event near one of our downtown car routers is trending. Apparently the people of the land think this was some kind of religious thing. We need to react.” “Do they think we’re God?” “No. It looks like a surreal bandwagon thing. We should try to shape it. That’s what this brainstorming session is about.” “People are saying the splatter pattern looks like... according to my notes... They’re saying it looks like something called a \`Metatron’s Cube\`, I guess.” “Guy Madson here, remember when that chemical fire autopsy photo leak became a meme? From that chocolate milk plant. The crispy thing.” “I think I remember. Captions like \`crispiestiest\` over charred bodies?” “That’s the one. My team was in charge of the response.” Guy Madson laces his fingers and leans back in his ergonomic conference chair. “At first we were in a blind panic. Constant notifications, my phone chimed nonstop for days. It was a real battlefield. Ultimately we cut our ad spend for a while, it went away. That was that.” “Alright Guy, I want you to take point on this.” Guy Madson stretches his laced fingers to full extension, signaling his readiness to work. “Just in case this gets any worse, I’ll have my team start making memes.” “Thanks Guy, It’s good to be proactive. See to it. Meeting adjourned everyone. As a reminder, I’m out tomorrow so have a great weekend.” Guy Madson puts his palms on the long table to stand but they slip in thick breathable liquid. Startled by the lurch, for a fraction of a second his expression wavers. Everyone is still greasy with embryonic car fluid. It’s on everything. It’s just too much to clean. “It’s in my nose and my hair and it always will be.” Guy thinks to himself before pushing down the panic and refortifying his smile for the drowning home. Meanwhile, at Park and Highland cars converge from every direction as if drawn by the human sacrifice. None of the sensor data transmissions will reach the diagnostic system. All the relays are down while the car router runs an endless test. All night, request timeouts cascade into more and more diverted navigation routes. A mountain of fused metal, vitrified windshields and fiberglass erupts skyward as cars wantonly plunge themselves into an inferno of molten lithium.