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One of those times was when she went with Brian Nelson, her boyfriend, to a frat party. Kathy had met Brian a year earlier and liked him; nothing amazing, but he was cute and he went to college, something Kathy could not afford at that point in her life and something she envied. Kathy’s situation at home was pretty bleak; her father barely had enough money to pay his mortgage, so when she graduated high school, furthering her education was not even discussed. She went to work in a restaurant, which was miserable, but at least it brought in some income. She was determined to get a real estate license one day and made that her goal, but for now her life was all about tips and dreams.

That night, waiting for Brian, Kathy came downstairs dressed in a short black skirt, high heels, and ruby red lipstick. Her father almost had a heart attack. “Where are you going?” he asked, already knowing, but that was all he could blurt out.

“You know where.”

Stewart had mixed emotions. He wanted to tell her never to dress like that again and to always dress like that again. He knew Kathy was no girly girl and sometimes he even wondered if she liked boys at all. But when he saw this side of her, he was amazed. She looked like someone else’s daughter. “You look beautiful, Kathy. You look beautiful and mature.”

“Thanks.”

“Has Brian seen you dressed up like this before?”

“Yes.”

“Has he seen you undressed?”

“What?” Kathy heard it but couldn’t believe this would be the time for that discussion.

“I just meant…”

“I know what you meant. Don’t worry about that. I’m the last woman on the planet that wants to bring a kid into this world.”

Her father said nothing. It’s funny how an answer can relieve you and bother you at the same time. He knew she was saying that she hated the thought of being a mother and wouldn’t have a baby no matter what. And yet he didn’t understand her dark side and felt helpless that he couldn’t do anything about it. This was one of the big disadvantages of not having a woman in the house. But Kathy’s mother had never had a clue how to raise a kid, so neither Stewart nor Kathy were really surprised when she left. Someone else might have been nice, but her father had never met that person.

At that moment the door announced who was there. Stewart opened it and looked at Brian Nelson. Another angry prick, he thought, but he had to admit Brian was not as bad as some of the others.

“Hello, Mr. Bernard.”

“Hello, Brian.”

“Is Kathy here?”

“No, you’re going with me.” Brian just looked at him.

“What?”

“That’s a joke, Brian.”

“Oh. That’s a good one.”

Before Brian had to think of something else to say, Kathy came out from the kitchen. “Holy shit!” was what Brian almost blurted out. Fortunately, all he managed was “Hi. You look very nice.”

“What time are you going to be home?”

“Late,” Kathy said. “And don’t track us. Please.”

“Don’t be silly,” her father answered, but of course he would. GPS had been embedded for years into every gadget and appliance in the world. You had to make an effort not to know where people were.

Brian put his Chinese sports car in “D” and floored it. The whine of the electric motor replaced the eight-cylinder growl of years back. These cars could do zero to sixty in under three seconds.

After years of accident rates declining in America, the dominance of the electric car reversed that. They were so fast off the line that many of them came with governors on the motor to reduce speeds from a standing start, but guys would remove those for three hundred bucks. As Kathy was forced back into her seat, she asked, “What’s the difference between this and the Japanese one?”

“Twenty thousand dollars.”

“Jesus, so why would anyone buy the other?”

“They’re not.”

The difference between Japanese, Chinese, Korean, German, and the one American nameplate was negligible. You could still pay more for finer leather and real wood, but the basics were the same. The robots that built them were all alike and the parts were