Ken turned to look Bob in the eyes. "You and I both know this is not poaching, Bob. They called me over of their own volition, without prompting from me. And it's obvious that they are not enamored of your presence."
Bob looked between Jack and Kenneth, said, "We'll see," then stomped off.
"My apologies," said Kenneth. "Did you still want to test drive the GR Supra and GR 86?"
"Yes please," replied Madison.
"Great. If you wish, I can get you set up to test drive the GR Supra first. Then while you're doing that, I can get our team started on prepping your Land cruiser."
"That sound great," replied Jack.
Because Madison didn't have car insurance, the dealership wouldn't sign out the car to her. But, because Jack had already paid for a Land cruiser, they were okay with him taking the car out by himself, without the salesman riding along. It only took a few minutes for the salesman to arrange the GR Supra for a test drive and soon Jack and Madison were seated in a nearly new GR Supra.
Jack pulled out of the sales lot and headed for the highway entrance. The car was a massive improvement over his aging Sentra. With nearly destroyed shocks, his old Sentra wallowed about like a barge and would keep bouncing after going over a speed bump. But the Supra rode like it was on rails. He could feel the road again. When he reached the highway entrance, he floored it and shot up the ramp like a bullet.
Madison screamed, mostly in excitement, as the car reached one hundred fifty kilometers per hour before they even reached the highway. That zero to one hundred in three point six seconds they advertised was no joke. He slowed down as he merged into lite, late Saturday morning traffic.
"That was fun," she exclaimed, "do it again!"
"No. Sorry, I don't want to get pulled over for speeding."
"What about-" she started, then cut off. Then in his soul space her parallel self walked into his chemistry lab and said, "simulation!"
Even before he'd done the last lottery simulation, he'd realized he had wasted EP. Light traveled at 300 thousand kilometers per second. So, for even a two hour simulation, he didn't need to include the whole solar system, just the nearest two light hours worth. For the lottery, he had been unwilling to risk the possibility that he was wrong, but for this situation, he had no problem experimenting.
So, he created a simulation where the nearest fourteen thousand kilometers were at Nominal detail, and the remaining 270 million kilometers were at Approximate detail. Then while physical world Jack drove the car leisurely down the highway, parallel Jack took the car on a joy ride.
In the simulation, parallel Jack floored it and the Supra shot forward, and soon he was swerving between cars like a maniac. He had always wanted to try driving like this but had never dared to in the real world. The consequences were too dire.
Madison whooped with glee as they shot past cars and swerved in front of trucks. More than once, they heard angry horns blaring behind them. His speed increased as he gained a feel for how the car handled. When he could feel the car drift as he swerved between the late morning weekend commuters, he checked his speed and was surprised to see that he was going over a hundred and sixty kilometers per hour. This was far from the Supra's top speed, but was insanely fast for swerving between cars.
He could feel his heart pounding as his eyes searched for the optimal path around the cars ahead. Madison braced against the door on her right and tried to find a grip on the center console on her left as the car rushed left and right between cars.
After what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes, Jack realized he still had seen no cops. Were they all on a coffee and donut break or something? There was an exit approaching, so he darted towards it, tires squealing as he took the exit curve.
Madison screamed in terror when they were nearly struck by a delivery truck as they blasted through the intersection. Then he continued to weave through cars, or dart through parking lots to bypass traffic.
Finally, he heard sirens in the distance and decided he'd had enough fun. He'd given the car a good test and found it handled like a dream, at least compared to his old Sentra.
When he ended the simulation, Madison asked, "My turn, right?"
"Sure," he said.
Then he started a new simulation, and in the simulation pulled over so he and Madison could switch.
As soon as Madison floored it, the car fishtailed, and she almost ran into the guard rail bordering the road shoulder before she got it under control. Gaining speed, she swerved onto the highway, almost clipping a Prius as she did. He could hear the Prius honk in pretentious anger behind them as Madison accelerated and swerved into the next lane.
With each lane change, Madison would yank the wheel left or right, causing the very responsive Supra to leap from lane to lane. After one especially forceful lane change caused the car to briefly lose traction and drift across the lane, Jack offered Madison some advice.
"Smoothly! Turn the wheel smoothly. When you jerk the wheel, you increase your likely hood of losing traction."
"But it feels faster when I do it that way!" she objected.
"Sure, it may feel faster, but that's just because of higher lateral G forces. If you want to actually go faster, you need to minimize lateral G forces. And that means turning the wheel smoothly. Smoother is faster."
He had half-expected her to object to his advice, but she immediately began experimenting with how she changed lanes, and soon she was making smooth curves around the cars. She began going faster and faster and was soon approaching the same speeds he had achieved. Like him, she took the same highway exit and continued weaving between cars on the surface streets. But, unlike him, when she heard the sirens, she kept going. Grinning like a demon.
As she drove, she yelled, "It's just like GTA! How long to do you think before we hit five stars?"
He just shook his head. Why not? It was just a sim. What's the worst that could happen? A few minutes later, they found out when Madison took a turn too fast, over corrected, crossed into the opposite lane, and crashed head-on into a delivery truck.
The world exploded in sound and sensation, all too fast and intense to even process. Before he could muster a coherent thought, he found himself back in his soul space. His memory synced with his physical self and he learned that it was his physical self that had ended the simulation. His simulation self had not died from the impact but was badly mangled, concussed, and rapidly losing blood.
"Uh, what just happened?" asked Madison, standing next to him.
"You crashed head on into a truck."
"Oh. Um, I think that might have been fatal."
"Yah think?" he replied sarcastically.
"So, GR86?" she asked.
This girl, he thought. Just died in a car crash, and she wants to go again.
He looked at her, and she shrugged.
"What?" she said. "It was just a simulation. It didn't even hurt."
He rolled his eyes and his physical self headed back to the dealership. When they returned, Jack noticed a blue Land cruiser parked in front of the sales building. I bet that's mine, he thought.
"So, how was it?" asked Kenneth when Jack handed him the Supra's keys.
"Handles like a dream. Makes my Sentra feel like a barge in comparison."
"Old shocks?" asked Kenneth.
"Very," replied Jack.
"So, I'm sure you noticed we have your Land cruiser ready. Do you want to inspect it now, or wait until after your test drive of the GR86?"
"Let's finish the test drive first."
Kenneth handed Jack a new set of keys and pointed out the window at a black GR86.
This time, Jack pulled over into a Chicken-Shack parking lot before starting the simulation, so Madison could also try racing up the highway entrance ramp. They repeated the same "test" with the GR86 as they did with the GR Supra and found that it handled a little worse, but was still fun to drive. And this time, Madison managed to avoid killing them in a head-on collision.
As they were returning to the dealership, he asked, "So, I guess the real question is which is more important, speed or number of seats?"
"Why not just buy both? It's not like you can't afford it."
"True, but I don't want to look like I can afford it. So, we need to limit ourselves to two cars. The Land cruiser and one other."
"Okay. Let's get the Supra. I really liked driving it and if we need more seats, we'll just take the Land cruiser. I want to practice driving in simulations. Maybe we can take it up into the mountains. I bet there are some really fun roads to drive on up there."
As they were walking back into the dealership and neared for Kenneth's office, they heard a raised voice.
"...don't care, you snot-nosed brat. You know the rules. It's my sale." It sounded like the older man that had insulted Jack.
When Jack entered Kenneth's office, he saw Kenneth standing behind his desk, the older man standing in front of the desk and a middle-aged man standing to the side, arms crossed.
"What's all this?" ask Jack as he stopped in the doorway.
The older man turned, sneered and said, "Stay out of it, boy. The adults are talking."
Is he an idiot? Jack thought. It seemed like the older man was trying to claim the commission on any sale made to Jack, and there was no way in hell he was going to let that happen.
Jack turned to the middle-aged man and asked, "And you are?"
The middle-aged man stuck his hand out and said, "Jack, right?"
As they shook, Jack replied, "Yes."
"I'm Hank, the sales manager. It seems there's been a mix-up concerning who's-"
"No, there hasn't," Jack interrupted firmly. Then pointing at the rude salesman, "This man was rude to us and I refuse to work with him." Then, pointing at Kenneth, "I saw Kenneth and waved him over, hoping he was also a salesperson. Kenneth did not initiate, I did. If you try to take the commission away from him and give it to this... person," he waved his hand disdainfully at the idiot salesman, "I'll walk and take my business elsewhere."
Hank glared and the older man. "Bob, you said Kenneth poached your sale."
"He lied," both Jack and Kenneth spoke at the same time. They looked at each other and grinned.
"I was there first," said the old man mulishly.
"My office, now," said Hank sternly while glaring at the old man. Turning to Jack, he said, "I apologize sincerely. This won't happen again." Then, looking at Kenneth, he said, "Give them a ten percent discount. I'll sign off on it."
Jack backed out of the doorway so the old man and Hank could leave.
As the old man walked past, he muttered, "It was my sale."
After the old man exited the office, Hank stopped next to Jack and said quietly, "I really am sorry about this. If it was up to me, I'd fire him on the spot, but he's related to the owner, so we're stuck with him." Then he turned and walked down the hallway.
When Jack and Madison finally entered his office, Kenneth chuckled and said, "Sorry about that. I honestly didn't expect him to drag the sales manager into it."
"That's all right," Jack said with a smile. "It got me a ten percent discount!"
"True, true. A few more of these, and maybe the owners will change their minds about Bob's status."
"Money talks, bullshit gets fired," muttered Madison.
"So," Kenneth said, "have you decided?"
"Yes," said Jack, "We'll go with the Supra."
"Great," replied Kenneth. "Did you want to finance, or were you going to pay cash like you did with the Land cruiser?"
"Cash," replied Jack. "Oh, and my Sentra as trade-in. I'm sure it's worth a few credits."
"Great. And we can give you blue-book value on your Sentra. Did you bring the title with you?"
"Yep."
"Perfect," replied Kenneth, then handed Jack a piece of paper. "Here's the VIN number for the Supra. While I draw up the paperwork, why don't you contact your insurance company and get it added to your policy? Maybe we can get you out of here in less than an hour."
An hour later, keys in hand, Jack headed to his Land cruiser and Madison to his Supra.
As they headed to their respective vehicles, Jack said to her in his soul space, "Remember, this isn't a simulation, so no grill-to-grill merging this time."