Traffic Was Heavy...

         Traffic was heavy. It was three cars across and billion deep of bumper to bumper traffic. It was 5:45 on a Tuesday and he was on his way home from work, following the millions of other worker-zombies trapped in the same ritual. In his peripheral vision he caught a glimpse of a Medusa Drone in the rear-view mirror. He could see the floating sphere. A 100 or so animated and writhing sensor arms disappeared into his passenger side rear blind spot. He caught again it in the passenger side door mirror. The sphere of tentacles seemed perfectly still, aside from the swarming mass of eyes, matching his vehicle’s pace. The eyes moved in chaotic but fluid motion, searching.
         Tension darted upwards in his car and he knew his road mates would be sharing the same intense nervous rush. In unison, each driver would assess their compliance. Speedometer glanced at, mental inventory of compliance licenses checked, radios turned down or off. Eyes on the road, no mistakes.
         Pins and needles.
         Despite the pounding heart and sweaty hands, he struggled to appear calm and indifferent. Any driving error at this point—a missed turn signal, a reach to the cup holder at the wrong time, even creeping a mile or two above or below the speed limit—would be seen by the Drone’s searching tentacles and fed into its processing unit housed within the spherical hull beneath the Medusa eyes. Nanoseconds is all it would take for a Medusa Drone to see and process deviant behavior.          
         It was rumored that dissenters were spotted and removed so fast that they often weren’t even aware they had rebelled against the law until later, when they were shown their crime on tape during the audit.
         Pins and needles.
         It was pins and needles when the Drone was about. And this Drone seemed determined to bring him down. It seemed intent on finding his deviant behavior even though, intellectually, he knew the Drone was simultaneously processing the actions and behaviors of any person within a 100 meter radius. It had simply picked his passenger side door for a vantage point this afternoon. Nothing to worry about.
         Pins and needles.
         He and his fellow road-mates would all be sharing the heightened awareness of each action he/she took. The minutiae impact of behavior and action would be overwhelming them in these tension filled moments. Hearts raced. Sweat trickled down necks. Breath became metallic. Muscles quivered from the rush of stress hormones to the blood stream.
         The cabin of his vehicle was suddenly extremely hot. His entire body was wrapped in a cocoon of cold sweat. He didn’t dare reach to adjust the air temperature controls. Any movement in his cabin would attract the Eyes. Any movement could cause him to swerve. Even worse, if there were a sudden stop in traffic, not having both hands on the wheels was an infraction: grounds for immediate Removal.
         He shuddered and felt a drop of sweat trickle down his forehead into his right eyebrow, collect for a moment, then bead up and fall to his cheek. The sweat bead ran into the channel between his cheekbone and his nose and nestled its way to the base of his right nostril.
         It began to tickle his nose.
         Pins and needles.
         He tried a sharp exhale to blow it out of the way, but all that happened was the sweat entered his nostril during the subsequent inhale.
         It was tickling now with urgency. He would need to reach up and wipe his nose or face other consequences such as a violent sneeze.
         The tension in his cab was building, and in addition to the maddening tickle in his nose, more sweat was falling from his forehead. He now began to fear that the Drone would see the sweat and categorize it as a GDMS (Guilt Driven Metabolism Surge).
         He was pretty much fucked and was ready to simply slam on the breaks and began itching his nose in a frenzy, despite what the Drone would do. Anything to end this tension.
         In the same instant that he made his mind up to attempt a nonchalant nose rub, the Medusa Drone streaked ahead at alarming speed, danced through the traffic and was gone.
         A moment later he heard the high frequency mechanical scream of the Drone indicating it had found a dissenter. The Drone would now be fastening itself to the hood of the offender’s vehicle and commandeering the controls. He had seen this happen in front of him many times before. Each episode was equally terrifying as the efficient machine performed its programmed procedure. To watch the Medusa Drone was to doubt whether it was in fact machine. It had such purpose and such…freedom to act out its job with viciousness that no other creature was allowed. It did not worry or fear. It was fear.
         After the Drone linked itself to the vehicles electronic brain, a needle thin proboscis would penetrate the roof and inject a cocktail of adrenal-thiopental into the neck of the dissenter putting him/her into an immediate induced coma.
         The entire process took less than a second and no doubt the dissenter had not had time to wonder where the Drone had come from.
         Pins and needles.
         His hand sprang to his nose and began to itch violently finally getting rid of the irritation. He took in a deep breath and turned up the air. As he exhaled he glanced to his right at the car next to him just in time to see the driver in the last stages of a mighty exhale.
         Their eyes not so much met, but crossed, like two photons that may cross paths in the intense nuclear fission of the Sun yet never actually meet and join. The crossing of eyes was quick but enough for each of them to read the others fear filled, thankful, could’ve been me this time, thoughts.
         Pins and needles.