Page 13 of Smart Ass

Ben

Something was rattling in the car, making a rapid thunk-a, thunk-a, thunk-a sound, like it was trying to outpace Ben’s fears. He looked around for the offending object and found that it was his leg twitching against the car door, and he’d left an empty coffee cup in the holder.

Stupid cup without any fresh coffee in it.

Stupid leg.

He tried to make it stop, but then his fingers started tapping, and if he was going to be jittery anyway, he might as well play a whole Latin beat. He never used the steering wheel for driving—everyone knew it was safer to let the autonav do its thing—which meant he had a whole drum set in front of him.

Bam chaka chaka tap tap, bam chaka tap ba-bing!He got really into it, which was good. Really good.

Mostly because it was better than thinking about how he didn’t know if Evan and Quincy were alright, and how he was driving to the hospital to see Evan, and how it was the same hospital where his grandmother had been, and how frail she’d looked in those last few weeks with the tremors in her hands, and how he hoped Evan wouldn’t look that frail and…

He missed the dashboard and jammed his finger in the air vent.

It didn’t hurt that much, but he stuck it in his mouth, because it looked like it should have hurt.

“Ben?” That was Max’s honey-smooth voice coming through the car’s speakers.

Ben suppressed a shiver. Obviously, Max’s voice sounded good. Ben had chosen it because he liked the sound. There was a warm sensuality to it. A depth that suggested it came from a large chest, maybe from some guy reclining on a chair, leather-clad legs spread open to…

“You’re here?” Ben asked. Which was dumb. He hated when people said obvious things like that. Max had called the car from its parking spot to get him and programmed in the destination. It made sense that he could connect to the speakers, too.

“I’m here,” Max answered simply. But it felt like a promise. Like it really meant something.

Hearing Maxamillion right now was more reassuring than Ben wanted to admit.

Max’s voice continued, smooth and soothing. “Take a deep breath.”

Ben glared at the dashboard even though Max was obviously miles away and only using the car speakers to communicate. But he had to glare at something.

People always told you to do that breathing shit when you were upset, and no doubt Max had found it in a dozen movies and blogs and whatnot. This was exactly why AIs were so believable—they did the most likely thing a person would do in the same situation.

Even if the stupid take a deep breath thing never worked.

What was the point?

“Ben.” Max’s voice was sharper now. Maybe a little Dom-y. “Take a deep breath.”

Okay, okay. Whatever. Just because Max’s deep voice had been programmed to make Ben think about hot leather daddies holding him down and making him behave, didn’t mean it was real.

Still, Ben sucked in a deep breath, held it until he thought his lungs would pop, and blew it all out. “Better?”

“Not yet. Take another breath. Your heart rate is still elevated, and your muscles are tight.”

“Uh, yeah. Because my best friend is in the hospital and I don’t even know where Quincy is and… Wait. How do you know what my heart rate is?”

“I always monitor your heartbeat and respiration.”

Ben squinted at the speakers. “What the actual fuck?”

“I always monitor your heartbeat and respiration,” Max repeated. “I have audio scrubbers that can isolate the sounds when you are in your office, and they also work in this environment.”

Alright, cool tech that should probably get a patent, but that was seriously an example of one of the seven E’s of sentience that made someone a SPARK. Ben could never remember them, but that one was… whatever the weirdly named one was. Engagement? Max was making his own decisions and following his own interests, even if he wasn’t fully cognizant of them.

His interests just happened to be… a little quirky.

It would just figure that Ben’s own personal spark was an obsessive weirdo.