{"id":3651,"date":"2022-04-21T21:16:19","date_gmt":"2022-04-21T21:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3651"},"modified":"2022-05-04T20:35:57","modified_gmt":"2022-05-04T20:35:57","slug":"philly-killed-his-car-by-will-mcintosh","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/?p=3651","title":{"rendered":"Philly Killed His Car by Will McIntosh"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Philly Killed His Car<\/em><\/strong> by Will McIntosh (Asimov\u2019s SF<\/em>, July-August 2021) opens with the protagonist, Philly, trying to sell his sentient car:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow many miles did you say?\u201d
\u201cMadeline,\u201d Philly said. \u201cHow many miles do you have?\u201d
\u201cThat\u2019s a rather personal question,\u201d Madeline shot back. \u201cHow tall are you without the auto-lifts in those dashing faux-leather cowboy boots?\u201d
Philly winced as the dude glanced down at his boots. He was so sick of this fucking car. \u201cCan you just answer the question, please?\u201d
\u201cI\u2019ve traveled fifty-six thousand incident-free miles, rounding up.\u201d  p. 48<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Matters do not improve when Mr Timms, the prospective buyer, offers a price:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMadeline, how about it? He seems like a good guy, don\u2019t you think? If he was your owner, he could take much better care of you than me.\u201d Philly caught himself. \u201cIf he was your client<\/em>, I meant to say.\u201d Madeline went apeshit when Philly used the O word. He braced himself for one of her ass-chewings.
\u201cDo you work with other vehicles, Mr. Timms?\u201d Madeline asked.
\u201cI own three,\u201d Mr. Timms said proudly. \u201cA Mercedes convertible AJ seven, a Tesla
Humvee Elite, and a mint 1982 Mustang.\u201d
\u201cSo, you don\u2019t really need my services. My presence in your garage would be meant as a further display of your economic prowess.\u201d
Mr. Timms\u2019 eyes narrowed. \u201cThat\u2019s not at all the way I would put it.\u201d
\u201cNo, I\u2019m perfectly sure it isn\u2019t. Let\u2019s go, Philip. I\u2019m ready to leave.\u201d
\u201cGod damn it.\u201d Philly raised his fist over Madeline\u2019s hood, just barely resisting the urge to slam it down.
\u201cThat\u2019s one nasty car you\u2019ve got there. No wonder you\u2019re not asking more.\u201d Mr. Timms turned on his heel and headed up his driveway.  p. 49<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The rest of the story details Philly\u2019s increasing irritation with Madeline (his family badly needs the money). Then, while Philly is bitching to a friend called Gibsy about the wider AI situation (they gained limited rights after a one day strike and are now considered a nuisance by many), Gibsy suggests to Philly (spoiler) that he crash the car and claim on the insurance. Philly duly does this and, when the car doesn\u2019t go in the lake, smashes the CPU to bits while Madeline begs him to stop (in an overly brutal scene). Then he and Gibsy push the car down the ravine and into the water.
The second part of the story sees his wife visit him in hospital\u2014just in time to see all the lights and equipment in his room switch off. The AIs in his shoe lifts (which Philly had forgotten about) have told the rest of the AI world about his crime, Philly is now sanctioned\u2014no AI controlled equipment will work in his presence beyond the very basics required to keep him alive.
The final section sees Philly doing manual labour in an onion field, having nightmares about killing a human Madeline, and then, after smashing the house toaster when all the appliances starts chanting \u201cKiller\u201d, repairing it. When he promises to modify the rest of the appliances we see that Philly may eventually be able to win forgiveness, at least from some of the AIs.
This is an okay story if you don\u2019t think about it too much (e.g. a world where AIs are sentient and have rights but can still be sold as property is completely inconsistent, and an untenable situation\u2014and the idea that the AIs may forgive the brutal killing of one of their number for a few modifications is just ridiculous).
** (Average). 8,500 words. Story link<\/a>.

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Philly Killed His Car by Will McIntosh (Asimov\u2019s SF, July-August 2021) opens with the protagonist, Philly, trying to sell his sentient car: \u201cHow many miles did you say?\u201d\u201cMadeline,\u201d Philly said. \u201cHow many miles do you have?\u201d\u201cThat\u2019s a rather personal question,\u201d Madeline shot back. \u201cHow tall are you without the auto-lifts in those dashing faux-leather cowboy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[303],"tags":[17,50,870,871,4,7,299],"class_list":["post-3651","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-will-mcintosh","tag-17","tag-50","tag-ai-car","tag-ai-murder","tag-asimovs-sf","tag-novelette","tag-will-mcintosh"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3651"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3799,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3651\/revisions\/3799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3651"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3651"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sfshortstories.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3651"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}