OBSERVATION by E J Taylor (1st place, Apr24)

A pigeon nestles, invisible, on a steel branch behind three security cameras, each angled towards the road. A whirring too slight to disturb the bird emits from the cameras when their data transfers to digital vaults thousands of miles away. While the pigeon slowly preens itself, the cameras, awaiting the afternoon northbound traffic, observe.

At this moment: a girl who should die.

She moves as though no one is watching.

Earphones in, head bobbing, she swims in her chosen stream; her bright lips mouth intermittent words. Simultaneously, her taloned thumb scrolls down a separate feed, the repetitive motions fluid, practiced. An update from a friend, which brings a smile, halts her thumb for a moment; it drops heavily to the screen like a full stop, stamping her approval. Then it skates frantically over the screen, feeding data into the device, and she steps out onto the road.

Neither she nor the cameras hear the fast-approaching vehicle.

The latter have no auditory input.

Unlike the car itself.

It is a CAV, a connected and autonomous vehicle, which transformed its start-up developers into overnight billionaires after its launch onto the world’s public highways six months ago. Deep blue in colour, its many sensors are discrete, affixed to its roof in a slight lip above the front and rear-view windows, maintaining the sleek, stylish aesthetic of the most popular sportscars. Indeed, it was this, more than its cutting-edge technologies, which first attracted its owner, whose stressful corporate job bankrolls digital innovations to connect him to ever more work.

He sits in a comfortable rear seat, a VR headset separating him from the road ahead. Coded sunlight streams into eOffice through the digital window, which, to fit company policy, displays an empty skyline of changing weather patterns. In the interest of workplace equality, customisations are restricted to bookcases alone: he takes pride in the curated eBook titles on display, chosen from a list of the all-time best writers of economics.

An hour ago, he took a pill to offset any potential motion sickness. While his unmoving avatar chairs a virtual conference with three international shareholders, his body travels to a possible new acquisition on the other side of the city. A thin sheen of sweat glistens below his receding hairline, dampening the straps holding the VR headset. He screams into his headpiece about the recent downturn in the global market, cutting over his Indian counterpart’s half-baked idea for outreach investment.

When the girl steps into the road only the tiniest fraction of a second elapses.

The man has no time to finish his word.

However, an array of built-in algorithms enables the CAV to process the new data: first, it classifies the obstacle as organic, human; then, to judge the best outcome, it runs a series of scenarios from its bank of prior learning; finally, it decides upon a course of action. It angles the steering wheel and initiates the brakes and clutch in the emergency procedure. There is a sharp hiss from the friction between the brake pads and the fast-moving tyres.

The girl does not die.

The cameras observe the CAV’s rapid deceleration.

In the half-second it takes to come to a complete stop, in line with its calculations, her body clears its path. She fails to register the stationary mass of metal, its left tyres in the gutter, its right wingmirror five millimetres from her hip.

The abrupt change of motion slams the CAV’s owner, mid-word, against his seatbelt. His rebuttal transforms into a shocked expletive, a gasp, and a hasty apology to his confused partners. It takes him several moments to remove the headset and peer into the empty road ahead. He does not observe the girl in his right peripheral, who is stepping over the far side curb, head still bobbing, thumb now tapping an advert to load a takeaway app for a very late lunch.

The gearstick shifts into drive, and the vehicle corrects its angle as it begins its acceleration. Cursing the CAV, the man sits back in his seat and resumes his meeting. He will retain no memory of the incident when he ends the virtual conference.

Both the CAV and the girl vanish, in their separate directions, from the limited scope of the cameras. The baton passes to other devices positioned elsewhere along the road. Perhaps the girl will die then. If she lives longer, another decade, she may wonder why her life insurance premium is above average – but more likely she will not.

All that remains for the cameras to observe is a single falling feather, dislodged after the pigeon, disturbed, took to the air. The soft grey object spirals to the ground and settles in the middle of the road, and a small gust lifts it once more, sweeping it to the gutter.

Its owner flies high, beyond observation, into the searing light of the sun.