Sara’s Killer App

“Liar!”

“No, really! It only took 32 minutes!”

“There is no way you got from Norcross to Marietta that fast at 8 o’clock on a Monday morning!”

“I give all the credit to this navigation app I just bought.”

God, but Sarah loved her apps. She would scour the Internet for quirky, obscure software to install on her ever present iPhone. With the daughter in college now, she had more time on her hands, but she never got out of the single Mom habit of zipping from one errand to the next. She drove her 2010 Honda CRV like a Ferrari, even if she was just going to the store for milk. As her friend and neighbor, I knew better than to step off the curb if she was coming. Don’t get me wrong – she’s aggressive, but not a menace, really. Although there are a few complaints with the HOA from neighbors who don’t know her like I do.

“I’ll prove it to you – get in. I’ll bet you a pedicure I can get us to Joanne’s Nails in Sandy Springs in 20 minutes or less!”

“No way! Not with traffic and school zones - I’ll take that bet.” Sandy Springs was only about 12 miles away, but there are way too many traffic lights and such to make it in less than 30 minutes, even if she broke a slew of speed limits. I was curious to see if she could pull this off.

Sarah fired up her phone, and called up the “Warp Speed” app. She set the location, and selected “shortest time”. She looked over at me, her eyes beaming with mischief and a big grin on her face. I checked my phone, mentally logged 2:21pm, and said “Go!”

The baby SUV chirped the tires a tiny bit as she accelerated out of the neighborhood. A gentle male voice with a vague European accent started giving precise but crazy directions, and Sarah followed them in rapid succession.

“Gentle left turn in 150 feet. Follow signs for Holcomb Bridge Road”

“Avoid red light through Citgo gas station and continue on Peachtree Industrial Parkway.”

“Hard right turn in .2 miles through Bank Of America parking lot. Go 350 feet and take another hard right onto Shallowford Road.”

My college roommate used to watch world cup Rally racing, and the synchronicity between Sarah and that cool, digital voice was wildly similar to those professional teams. I barely had time to brace for the next turn as each command was delivered, but somehow Sarah seemed to know intuitively what was coming next, even before the words were spoken. She would instinctively set herself up in the correct lane for the next maneuver while working between slower cars.

I hoped a cop didn’t observe one of our “shortcuts”, and I feared for some woman pushing a baby carriage being forced to leap for her life at the last moment, like in practically every Hollywood chase scene. But we *were* making incredible time.

This software was incredible. It knew when traffic lights were about to turn red and direct us around them. And as if to answer my mental worry about hapless pedestrians, it routed us around a mom with 5 kids trying to co-ordinate a safe street crossing before the light changed again.

“What the…?” I involuntarily muttered.

“This app uses real-time images from satellites, traffic cams, and security cams to give you up to the millisecond updates on what’s around you.” Sarah explained, sensing my amazement. “So no surprises from traffic cops, and no running over pedestrians.” She winked, “Because that would just slow us down.”

We slotted into a parking space in front of Joanne’s, and I checked the time. 2:39pm – just 18 minutes from when we left!

“Looks like pedicures are on me.” I said with true wonder and appreciation. She had found something truly amazing here.

A few weeks later, I ran into Sarah at the grocery store, but I almost walked right past her. She was pale and thinning, and I’m pretty sure she had traded her auburn locks with a few gray hairs for a medium ash brown from a bottle of Clairol. The forty-something laugh lines around her eyes and the corner of her mouth has developed into full-blown wrinkles, and her eyes looked tired and weepy. She looked… old!

“Are you feeling OK?”

“I’m fine I guess - just feeling a bit achy. My hip and knees are killing me lately. It seems like middle-age has finally caught up with me. I’m just going to have to stop partying until dawn.” She said with a mischievous smile. Now THAT was the Sarah I knew.

As we were walking out of the grocery, I asked if she had found any new apps for her phone, trying to keep the conversation light and off of my concerns, which she clearly did not want to talk about anymore. I couldn’t help but think it might be cancer. God, I hope not…

“Not really – but I upgraded to the Diamond level of Warp Speed!” she said, interrupting my morbid train of thought.

“You mean that GPS software that had you surfing through parking lots to save time? What in the world would you get with an upgrade?!”

“I’ll show you – get in!” She said, now bursting to share the secret.

“If you don’t mind, I’m uncomfortable with some of the maneuvers you made on our last ride. Why don’t you just tell me?”

“Nope. I’ve got to show you. But I have an idea. Do you have five minutes to wait for me while you load your groceries?”

“Sure – I guess.” It would only take a couple of minutes to load my groceries, but I felt like I should humor her. Maybe she would finally tell me what was really happening.

“By the way, where did you take those surfing lessons on your honeymoon?”

“Huh? Ummm, California - Huntington Beach. Why?”

“You’ll see!”

As I popped the trunk on my car, she backed out of her parking spot and took off. I wondered what she was going to do. I wondered why she looked so sickly. And I wondered if there was a connection between any of this and her high speed obsession.

I guess I wondered a lot of things, because as I pushed my cart to the return area, Sarah was pulling back into the parking lot. She parked in the space next to me, and I could smell that the tires, brakes, oil, and antifreeze were all at the high end of their temperature tolerance. As soon as she cut the motor off, the engine started to tick like a scared clock as the hot metal began to cool.

Sarah stepped out of the weary machine and handed me a slip of paper. “I’d have been back sooner, but there was an old man who needed change in front of me.”

I looked at the parking lot receipt she had handed me – “Huntington State Beach, California”. It was dated that same day, and almost exactly 3 time zones earlier. She had covered over 4000 miles round trip in five minutes!

“But how…?”

“The Diamond level includes access to some leaked top secret military info on space/time vortex locations. Pick the right wormhole, and poof - you’re there!”

As I stood there with my jaw hanging open, she went into an extended description of the physics of travelling between the folds of time and space, and the strange and beautiful things you see along the way. Once, her shortcut took her through what looked like an endless underwater reef, with colorful fish and an honest-to-goodness mermaid who came in for a closer look at Sarah and her rubber-finned vehicle. Another brought her through a dark forest populated by oversized wolves, led by a huge monster with red eyes and three heads. But “Warp Speed” steered her around any inter-dimensional threats as easily as the lesser versions steered her around traffic cops.

While she talked, I gradually became aware that she had indeed been dying her hair since in the light of the parking lot I could see a line of grey at the roots. I thought it odd I hadn’t noticed that before - maybe it was the angle of the sun? So I looked closer, and I detected lines where her fingernail polish had grown out from the cuticles as well. I can’t believe I missed both of those details in the supermarket. It was as if a month had passed since she left that parking lot. Was that why she appeared to be aging prematurely?

“If I were you, I wouldn’t mess with the space/time continuum. It always seems to spell trouble for Dr. Who…” I chuckled a little, but I was beginning to be concerned.

“I’ll just paint my trusty Tardis blue!” as she hopped back into her little CRV.

It was no surprise to me when Sarah went missing. News crews camped out in front of her house, their white-hot video lights blazing in the faces of concerned-looking field reporters wearing thick coats of make-up. With grave faces, they performed their live satellite feeds in front of Sarah’s plain, empty, suburban house, calling it a grim crime scene. But there were no leads, nor even any signs of foul play. As the days passed into weeks with no new information, this neighborhood mystery became stale and other more exciting news stories grabbed the attention of the press. Secretly, I hoped Sarah had found someplace amazing to stop and stay on one of her adventures. But I feared that something had gone wrong and she would never be seen again. At least, not in this world.

It’s been twenty-five years since the last report aired about Sarah’s disappearance. Her daughter sold the house, got married, and moved to Chapel Hill with her college sweetheart. I’m still in the same house, which like me, seems to need a lot of fixing these days. It’s just me and the cats since Ed passed away a few years ago. I’ve set a steadfast limit of two cats, since I never want to be known as the crazy cat lady. But after today, I think I may just be crazy after all…

I’ve taken to walking around the neighborhood for exercise since I retired. It’s not as pretty as it used to be, and a few houses that got converted to rentals during the last housing bust are in disrepair, with yards that grow wild and beat up old cars leaking oil on cracked and sinking driveways. During one of these strolls, I spied a decrepit old car that looked like it had been dumped overnight on the street. The paint was worn and faded, and rust-cicles hung from the fender wells. It had a thick layer of dirt all over it, like it had been stored in a barn for years.

Curious, I used my sleeve to wipe a portal in one of the dust covered windows. Only partially successful, I peered inside where I could discern a vague human shape strapped in the driver’s seat. Cautiously, I opened the door, which screeched loudly with an arthritic stiffness. A sudden squeak of surprise escaped my throat as I realized I was looking at a mummified corpse.

A mummified corpse with a vintage iPhone plugged prominently in the dash.