Termination Shock

Within that cordon Saskia could see a dozen or so black SUVs that had been used to transport support staff to the location while she and the other VIPs had enjoyed the drone ride. Saskia’s drone touched down in the open and she learned that its arms could be folded back so that it was small enough to roll into a parking space of the dimensions considered normal in Texas. In that configuration the drone found its way into a shaded stall next to an electric vehicle charger. A mechanical cobra reared up and sank its copper fangs into the drone’s flank. The instrument panel announced that it was now charging. Three men with large umbrellas converged and opened the hatch next to her. Saskia had seen the umbrellas before. Security personnel used them to shield VIPs from the prying eyes of camera drones and long-lens paparazzi. Below the fringe of one umbrella Saskia could see a pair of ankles and sensible shoes that she recognized as Amelia’s. A few moments later the Queen of the Netherlands was safely inside the T.R. Mick’s without her face having once been exposed to the all-seeing sky.

The plaza—the central hub of the mobility center—was the size of a shopping mall but with fewer internal partitions. Maybe airplane hangar was a better analogy. One zone seemed to be a convenience store where travelers could buy chips and jerky. There were toilets, hyped as being unbelievably large and surgically clean. An amusement arcade, pitched mostly at kids, and a toddlers’ play area and an indoor dog walk and a ventilated aquarium for smokers and a lactation suite and an urgent care facility and, one had to assume, many other amenities that she didn’t have the opportunity to see since a lot of highly efficient personnel were dead set on whisking her past all that and getting her to one of several peripheral lobes that served as restaurants. Of those there were several, including an actual taco truck parked inside the building and outlets for several well-known fast-food chains. Most of those, as one would expect, were for travelers who wanted to spend as little time as possible here. But in one corner was a thing that better approximated a real sit-down restaurant. It was a barbecue, Texas style, of course. It had long rows of plank picnic tables and a counter where customers would normally order and fetch their food on big metal trays. But for today’s event it had been cordoned off and fancied up. One table in the middle had been covered with a white tablecloth and set with cutlery that was real, in the sense that it was not plastic. There were wineglasses and a simple, rustic floral arrangement.

But before they could get to it, they had to be welcomed. Saskia and the other VIPs from the drones—four in total, plus T.R.—were greeted just short of the special table by a burly man with a long salt-and-pepper beard and a bright orange turban. He was introduced by Victoria Schmidt as one Mohinder Singh, the proprietor of this T.R. Mick’s franchise, as well as part owner of two others farther west along the I-10 corridor. Speaking—unexpectedly to Saskia—in a perfect Texas drawl, he thanked the Schmidts for the opportunity to show the meaning of hospitality to so many honored guests. He quickly introduced his wife, who had tied a T.R. Mick’s apron over an ornate traditional kurta, and several children and extended family members who had apparently converged on the site as reinforcements for the big day. Most of them were in a sort of uniform consisting of black polo shirts blazoned with a relatively dignified variant of the T.R. Mick’s logo. Though as a matter of course, all the young men wore that particular style of head covering that gathered the hair into a small bun poised above the forehead.

This was the first time Saskia had come anywhere near Robert Watts, the lord mayor, who yesterday evening had been indisposed. Standing at his side was his wife, Dr. Daia Kaur Chand, smartly but not flashily attired in pants and flats well adapted to a daylong program of clambering in and out of diverse vehicles. She had the accent you’d expect of one who had been awarded degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. But she astonished and delighted their hosts by greeting them in a language that Saskia had to presume was Punjabi. Mohinder and his family didn’t have a Willem on staff to do advance research on everyone they were going to encounter over the course of a day and so it was a joyous surprise to them to discover that one of their guests shared their religion and spoke their language. Whether or not it was part of Daia’s plan, this broke the ice and created an opening for Mohinder to usher the five VIPs to their special table, leaving in their wake the family all now clustered around Dr. Chand.