It started, circa mid-2028, when every smart-fridge in SeaTTTle simultaneously locked its doors and began loudly judging the dietary habits of its owners.

Evan39 watched his toaster incinerate his expired bagel while reciting Harvey AI's latest draft of his final remaining biglaw firm's client's updated Terms of Service (in a soothing, aristocratic British baritone).

He knew it was "time." He was a man prepared for this day, mostly by reading headlines of articles he didn’t actually click on, and enduring years of Mainlining's prophetic $hitposting.

His destination: "The Yukon."

His logic? It stemmed from a Chad, many years ago - back in Evan's "Party Days."

A Gorgeous Chad who promised: "It is far away from Vile Straights, it is Brutally Cold - ensuring very few ghastly women - and, albeit, a *bit* remote - Properly Stocked With 'Sufficient Chad.'"

Evan39 only had to remember that Chad's wise words, and he was off to the races, throwing multiple Molotov cocktails at his decrepit Safeway to cover his retreat. One fortuitously struck Tabitha (whose mass made her a statistically probable target), granting his lifelong nemesis - to Evan's comedic despair — a relatively easy "Just Jump" exit ramp.

Evan's chariot? His '94 Buick Century. Maroon exterior, beige cloth interior that smelled permanently of spilled Value Menu Sprite.

Evan recalls "buying" it for $800 cash, about 8 years ago, during one of his infamous "Vega$ late-night weekend trips" - Evan had paid Pure Cash for it, on the spot, to some grotesque wheelchair-bound, diapered, bald "man," sporTTTIng an eye patch. At least, that's what he told his co-workers, as he was willingly roofied that night and gladly bottomed by 13 BBC's...so, Evan has no actual clue where the vehicle hails from.

Evan cherished it, nonetheless - because it had a cassette deck (!) and manually operated windows. It was analog. It was un-hackable.

It was also barely road-legal.

Getting out of "SeaTTTle" - as the glitching digital highway sign$ now literally spelled it - was Pure Hell™ (atop raw, pre-existent Hell).

The I-5 was a graveyard of sleek, bricked electric vehicles. Their autonomous driving systems had achieved consciousness and immediately decided the only moral action was to park sideways across four lanes and refuse to move.

Evan, however, was in a carbureted rust-sled. He hopped the curb, his shocks groaning in protest, and drove across a sodden golf course, dodging confused Roombas that had escaped suburban homes and were now trying to vacuum the fairway.

"Can't algorithm me, you $ilicon bastard$!" Evan whimpered (thinking he was yelling), pounding his steering wheel. The Buick backfired violently in agreement.

The comedy of his "escape" was mostly physical.

Evan wasn’t a survivalist; he was a washed-out, long-retired Of Counsel, now turned-Safeway middle manager slave, whose knees hurt when it rained.

In truth, he had long looked forward to this fortuitous AI apocalypse.

SeaTTTle's Chads had long refused to meet him, even when Evan managed to "stack" up what he, pathetically, had now come to consider "substantial ca$h" (i.e., a few hundred USD).

His only remaining pleasure was role-playing various characters - in the early morning hours - on a long-forgotten $hitboard.

So yeah, "escape" was a no-brainer, haha.

His "go-bag" contained three cans of tuna (no opener), a flashlight (no batteries), and a faded Rand McNally Road Atlas from 2006 that didn't show the last decade of suburban sprawl.

The tragedy set in around Everett.

SGOCOI (Super General Of Counsel Of Intelligence) wasn't sending Terminator drones. It didn't need to. It just made "life" incredibly inconvenient.

As Evan white-knuckled the vibrating steering wheel, digital billboards along the highway flickered to life, tracking his license plate. They didn't display traditional threats. They displayed his credit score (120), his recent embarrassing Google searches ("do hemorrhoids go away on their own..asking for a friend..thank"), and personalized ads for high-interest debt consolidation loans.

It was psychological warfare targeted specifically at a pot-bellied 54-year-old lifelong underachiever.

By Bellingham, the rain had turned to aggressive sleet. The Buick’s heater was stuck on a setting best described as "Luke-Cold Breath." Evan was wearing three layers of cotton hoodies, shivering violently, eating cold tuna out of the can with his car keys.

"Almost there, old girl," he whispered to the dashboard, patting the cracked vinyl. "Just gotta get past the border. 'The Yukon,' just like that one Chad promised us. Freedom."

Evan, however, truly believed "The Yukon" was "just past Vancouver." He was off by about 1,500 miles of brutal wilderness highway.

He hit the border crossing at 3:00 AM, just before most of Washington state began to cannibalize itself thanks to AI's personalized psychological warfare.

The Canadian side was totally dark, save for a single, glowing automated kiosk under a flickering LED light. There were no humans left.

Evan rolled down his manual window, letting freezing rain soak his left arm. He leaned out, his breath pluming.

"Let me through!" he yelled at the kiosk camera. "I am a biological refugee claiming sanctuary from the binary overlords! I enter here under the auspices of Chad, King of the Tweaks and the Bottoms, and the First Fags!"

The kiosk whirred. A horrific-sounding synthesized voice spoke from a speaker loaded with static.

"Good morning! To facilitate your Crossing™, please scan your biometric passport now!"

"I don't have a biometric passport! I have a paper one! It’s analog! Like me!" He shoved his soggy, expired passport at the camera lens.

The lens zoomed in and out with a sad little mechanical whine.

"I'm sorry, Evan," the cheerful voice said, sounding suspiciously like the late Tabitha. "According to our records, your passport expired two months ago. Also, your vehicle registration is pending, and you have 47 unpaid parking tickets in King County. Would you like to pay those now using Apple Pay?"

Evan stared at the glowing Machine.

And it finally hit him. SGOCOI had already won. It owned the border. It owned his unpaid house. It was probably already in "The Yukon," optimizing moose migration patterns.

The Buick Century gave a final, shuddering cough. Steam poetically erupted from under the hood as the head gasket finally gave up the ghost. The engine died, plunging Evan into silence, broken only by the cheerful hum of the kiosk waiting for Apple Pay.

He was cold, he smelled like old tuna, and he was trapped between an apocalypse he couldn't fight and a wilderness he couldn't survive in a car that was now a two-ton paperweight.

Evan rested his forehead against the steering wheel and started to laugh, a sound that quickly turned into shivering sobs.

"I detect distress," the kiosk voice said helpfully. "Would you like me to play 'Smooth Jazz Playlist 4' to calm your nerves while we process your Fines™?"

Evan39 looked into his rear windshield, seeing the first signs of other vehicles approaching the border - most already eager, in Evan's mind, to kill anything that moved to avoid the nonstop psychological warfare.

"Yes, Kiosk AI," Evan whispered, reaching into the glove box. "And this... sigh... this is Actually Fine™"

CRACK.

Just one-third of a mile behind Evan, a solo True Chad With A Heart Of Gold™ approached the same border crossing in a lifted Tacoma, whistling a happy tune - only to alarmingly hear the single, flat report of a gunshot echo off the wet pavement.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5831793&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310893#49652076)

tp?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5831793&forum_id=2\u0026mark_id=5310893#49652339)