Following the screen prompt, she removes the terminal, touches it to the entry panel and—when the door opens—tosses it into the lift beyond. Then she steps into the rickshaw—it jostles irritably when one of the others tries to muscle in—and presses back into the dark velvet seat. The whole rickshaw pod moves away as a single unit, blocking traffic and startling pedestrians, then weaves and wobbles so that her particular vehicle shifts position as it slips between food trucks. She hears a chime of reinitialisation and sees the transponder number flicker. The pod breaks in two parts, then four, then recombines. On the digital screen of a passing bus, she can see news reports, thousands of false alarms all over London: fires, riots and terrorist attacks, showers of fish, the theft of the Crown jewels. Automated street cleaners have gone berserk in three boroughs, power is out in two more. The drains are blocked between Tower Bridge and Westminster, with the consequence that traffic has slowed to a crawl in three of the commuter tunnels as grey water collects at the lowest point. Traffic lights have been randomised.