Chapter 11

Jack Larsson raised his right hand into the air and lowered his index finger to signal to one of his two assistants.

‘Case number three hundred and twenty-two,’ he began, and footage from a moving vehicle appeared on the jurors’ tablets. A street was also projected as a three-dimensional moving hologram, coming from wall-attached lasers that were directed towards a table in the centre of the room.

Moving vehicles could be seen from every angle.

On her tablet, Libby assumed that from the positioning and close proximity to the road, footage had been taken from high-definition cameras integrated into the front grille of the vehicle. The corner of the screen displayed various statistics, including its speed, the weather conditions, road gradient and geographical coordinates.

‘The location of this incident was a new town development just outside Hemel Hempstead,’ continued Jack. ‘The car is a Howley ET, a Level 5

autonomous vehicle manufactured like most, from graphene and carbon-reinforced plastic. One owner, no previous incidents recorded, the road tax and insurance details are up to date and the latest software had been downloaded.’

Libby watched her tablet’s screen as the car maintained a steady pace, travelling at 25 mph. The footage switched to a dashboard lens.

‘The temperature outside was a steady twenty-two degrees,’ continued Jack. ‘There was no precipitation, the vehicle was journeying five miles under the speed limit on a dry asphalt dual carriageway, which had seen resurfacing work three months prior. There is one Passenger inside and the vehicle has been on the road in moderate two-way traffic for twenty-two consecutive minutes.’

Out of nowhere, a white moped appeared and attempted to overtake the car. Libby pushed back in her seat, anxious at what was to come. Her eyes moved towards the hologram images and watched as the moped weaved its way into the gap between the Howley and the truck ahead, clipping the car’s front right bumper. Suddenly, the moped lurched to its left and as the motorcyclist attempted to take control of it, it spun around in a half-circle.

Behind it, the autonomous car braked sharply but failed to swerve to avoid it. Then, as quickly as the moped appeared, it toppled to one side and both it and the rider slipped out of view and under the car.

Jack lifted his hand again to give a second signal. Without warning, the camera was replaced by another affixed to the car’s chassis. On the jurors’

tablets and the largest of the wall screens, a young woman lay motionless on the road, her limbs protruding at awkward angles and the left-hand side of her skull crushed. Next to her was her helmet. Libby looked away from her tablet, only to be confronted by the same, much larger image, frozen on the wall.

She became overwhelmed by a feeling of nausea when, for a moment, she was transported back two years ago to Birmingham’s Monroe Street.

She could see herself standing in the road, utterly helpless, inhaling the odour of rubber tyres, recalling the crunch of broken glass under the soles of her trainers and staring at her hands, wrists and shirt cuffs, all stained by blood. She blinked the memory away.

Of the six cases presented to the inquest yesterday, none had been as graphic as what she had just witnessed. She turned her head to look at her colleagues but their faces showed no flickers of emotion. They had been doing this for so long, they were immune to death. Libby was not.

Especially as it had followed her all her life.

The dark-haired, dark-eyed man representing the General Medical Council rose to his feet and pointed a laser pen towards the wall. A red dot

appeared as the clip was repeated in slow motion. Libby held her eyelids shut.

‘As you can see,’ he began, ‘when the motorcyclist appears, there is very little the vehicle can do to avoid it. It does as it is programmed to do and brakes sharply but a collision is inevitable.’

‘What was the cause of death?’ Jack asked.

‘The results of the autopsy reveal it was a result of severe cranial injuries to the brain stem, limbic cortex and skull. It’s likely her death would have been instant.’

‘What happened to her crash helmet?’ asked the woman in plaid. ‘Did the impact knock it off?’

‘Yes, it wasn’t fastened properly. It was independently tested and there were no hairline cracks in its shell, no issues with the chin strap or flaws in its manufacture.’

Jack sniffed sharply. ‘Vanity. That will be the root cause of this, mark my words. A silly girl less concerned with her own safety than her appearance.’

Libby opened her eyes and mouth to protest but quickly lost her nerve.

‘What do we know about the Passenger?’ asked the religion rep.

‘Male, thirty-seven years old, works in the financial district of London, has no criminal record or convictions,’ Jack explained. ‘He has two children under five years of age and is the sole breadwinner in the house. Obviously, he was left very shaken by this and out of pocket following the repairs that needed to be carried out to his vehicle.’

‘And the victim?’

Jack shot her a warning glance. ‘You know very well that we don’t ever refer to the deceased as “victims”,’ he said. ‘There are no victims here unless we judge they have been unlawfully killed.’ The religion rep’s head fell like that of a scolded dog as Jack continued. ‘The motorcyclist was nineteen years old, with a similarly clean criminal record, a theatre studies student in her first year of university. No dependents of note.’

Libby reflected upon her own late teenage years, specifically how her attitude towards her life changed the day her brother took his. Nothing would ever be the same again after she found Nicky’s body hanging from a light fitting in his bedroom. The cracks in her family were instant, then grew longer and wider as the years progressed. It was her fault that he had died and she would never forgive herself for letting it happen. Failure to use

her voice and speak of her concerns would always be Libby’s biggest regret. She would not let it happen again.

Suddenly, the urge to defend the motorcyclist got the better of her. The girl’s life was worth more than a case number.

‘What was her name?’ Libby asked gingerly.

‘Does it matter?’ the woman in plaid replied, tilting her head forward so her glasses slid down her nose again.

‘Yes, because I’d like to know.’

She rolled her eyes and looked to one of the assistants in the corner of the room. He swiped his screen and something appeared on the plaid woman’s tablet. She was about to answer when Jack interrupted.

‘That’s classified,’ he replied.

‘What were her grades?’

‘Again, classified information, Miss Dixon.’

Libby was reluctant to give up. ‘You said she had no dependents of note. Precisely what relatives did she have?’

‘Classified.’

This time he shrugged as if to apologise. But everyone in the room knew better than to believe him.

‘What about the name of the driver whose vehicle killed her?’

Jack shook his head. ‘I appreciate you have a curious nature, somewhat like an excitable puppy; however, none of this is of any consequence to the outcome of our decision, I’m afraid.’ He looked to the woman in plaid.

‘Any faults reported within the vehicle?’

‘The black box was given the standard examination along with a full diagnostic check and there were no errors reported,’ she replied. ‘From a legal perspective, I have no doubt that this is human error caused by the motorcyclist.’

‘Why didn’t the car try to avoid her?’ Libby continued. ‘All it does is brake.’

Jack looked at the others and rolled his eyes, offering another fake smile. ‘Are you not aware of how an autonomous vehicle makes a decision in a life or death scenario, Miss Dixon?’

‘Yes, of course but …’ However, Jack had little interest in Libby’s reply and spoke over her.

‘Then you will know that if a vehicle, like the one we have just watched, brakes without swerving then it has calculated the risk cost and

makes its choice for a very, very good reason.’

‘Look to the left-and right-hand sides of hologram,’ added the dark-haired man. He was less condescending than Jack but still had yet to make eye contact with her. ‘On one side are parked cars, and on the other there’s a stream of moving vehicles. Swerving into the path of moving traffic could have caused more fatalities. Next to the parked vehicles is a pavement –

from this angle you can see there are at least twelve pedestrians. Colliding with any of those cars could have pushed them into their path.’

‘ Could have,’ Libby repeated. ‘That’s by no means a certainty though, is it?’

The room fell silent and she became aware that even Jack’s assistants were looking at each other nervously. But Libby wasn’t prepared to back down now. ‘Do you have a projection of exactly which cars it could have hit, the materials they’re made of and the force required to push them onto the pavement?’ she asked.

‘I … I … don’t believe we have …’ said the woman in plaid.

‘Shouldn’t we have that kind of information before we can make a judgement?’

‘Miss Dixon …’ began Jack and walked towards Libby, stopping in front of her. She felt small and insignificant as he towered above her.

‘Would you have preferred it if the vehicle had calculated a course of action that sacrificed the life of the driver and pedestrians to save one foolish girl?

Should more people have been made to pay with their lives because of her idiocy?’

Libby bit the inside of her bottom lip to stop it quivering. ‘I thought that’s what these inquests were about, to discuss what happened and to make that decision together?’ she said. ‘Today is turning out to be just like yesterday – you’ve already decided on a verdict and it’s never the fault of the car.’

Jack took a step back and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘This is what, your second day here? I don’t expect someone like you to grasp the ins and outs of software development. I do, however, expect you to trust what your Government has told you. The software used in AI has been embedded with human principles to help to guide the vehicle’s decision-making process.’

The more condescending Jack became, the more it spurred Libby’s defiance. ‘Are you trying to make me believe AI has the same cognitive

abilities as you or I? A car can’t feel sympathy and empathy or operate with a moral code like we do.’

‘We have a lot to get through so perhaps it’s best we move on,’ said Jack. ‘Unless anyone has anything else to add that is pertinent to this case, then shall we take a vote?’ The others, with the exception of Libby, voiced their agreement.

‘If you could please tick one of the two boxes in the corner of the screen

…’

A ringing phone coming from the corner of the room interrupted him.

One of his assistants answered and Libby noticed the colour draining quickly from his face.

‘Sir,’ he directed towards Jack, ‘we will need to suspend proceedings for the time being.’ The hologram disappeared and at a beeping sound, all heads turned towards the large double doors as they unlocked and opened wide. The two bulky security operatives who had searched Libby on her arrival hurried inside, followed by their colleagues.

‘Will someone please explain to me what is happening?’ Jack asked.

‘I’m sorry to interrupt,’ the shorter of the two security men began sternly, ‘but a situation has arisen that requires your immediate attention.’

With his own tablet he swiped the screen until a television news channel appeared. He projected it on to one of the television screens on the large wall. It showed a rolling news channel and what appeared to be a distressed woman inside her moving vehicle, scrambling from window to window, banging on the glass with her fists. Libby immediately noticed she was pregnant.

‘Who is this?’ asked the religious rep. Around the image of the distressed stranger, four smaller screens flickered to life. Each appeared to contain other Passengers inside more vehicles, and all were clearly scared and confused.

‘Jack?’ asked the woman in plaid, looking to him for answers. Libby assumed by his blank expression that he had no more knowledge than she did.

‘Turn the volume up,’ he said, as a female news anchor spoke.

‘For those viewers just joining us, we are still trying to verify the validity of this live feed. But if what we are being told is correct, then it appears that four driverless vehicles are no longer under the control of their

Passengers. We are still awaiting an official statement but there is speculation that the vehicles you are watching have been hacked.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Jack said dismissively. ‘It’s not possible.’

‘They’re scaremongering,’ the woman in plaid replied. ‘How can they broadcast this? It’s irresponsible.’

Jack turned to the shorter of the security operatives. ‘Get me Westminster on a secure line now.’

Libby’s eyes moved from Passenger to Passenger, each of them responding to what was happening to them in contrasting ways. Suddenly, as a fifth screen appeared, her jaw dropped and she struggled to catch her breath.