Slot 11 rotated ninety degrees. Slot 9 slid backward three feet. Slot 17 lifted two inches, then settled. The grey sedan completed its rotation and faced the exit. Then it stopped.

The lot was called “Auto Place,” but no one had parked a car there in twenty years. The faded sign, bolted to a rusted archway, still flickered at dusk:

Then came the grey sedan.

The sedan did not hold. It crept past the broken sign. The sensor rails lit up like a runway. The system, in its infinite logic, attempted a classification: Sedan. Four-door. No driver. Then: Threat? Malfunction? Ghost?

It arrived at 2:17 AM on a Sunday. Leo was asleep in the office’s back room, on a stained couch that smelled of gear oil. The sedan’s owner hadn’t used the QR code. The gate recognized no plate, no signal. And yet, the sedan rolled forward—slow, silent, electric.

He launched the beta test on a Tuesday.