The Last Cabbie at Level Zero

Two clocks run out in 2045.

The money system built after World War II turns 100 that year.

And it's the year many futurists circle for the Singularity… the point where machines outthink us.

We live in the gap between those two dates.

So imagine it's 2045. You land in a strange city at midnight, and nobody drives you. A pod finds you with a blink of light and a soft chime. It knows your name, and it never asks for a tip.

It sounds like science fiction. But every piece of it is already being built.

Waymo alone gives about half a million paid rides a week.

A car with no steering wheel just started giving public rides in Austin.

And McKinsey says 70% of US workers will see their jobs reshaped.

Here's the thing. We are living in the last twenty years of the old world.

Each issue opens with a letter from someone living in 2045. Then we snap back to today… and show you the proof.

Level 0. Terminal 1.

That's where they keep me now, one floor below baggage claim, where the pods pull in.

They're quiet and clean, and they glow like slot machines.

I drove a cab in this town for 26 years. Silver Sage Cab, car 1142.

I knew every back road from the airport to Fremont Street.

I knew which casino hosts tipped in chips, and which tourists wanted the long way… and which ones would check.

Now I'm a Curb Steward, Grade 2.

In other words, I help people who can't figure out the robots.

And it's not a bad job.

A lady from Ohio lands at 1 am with a dead phone, and the pod won't open without one. So she cries. I walk her to the kiosk, print her a pass, and lift her bag in myself.

A man in a wheelchair needs a van, not a pod, so I call one up and stay with him till it comes.

A bachelor party gets sick in pod 88,412. I tag it out, and a cleaning bot takes it from there.

That's the job. The odd stuff, the human stuff, the stuff the machines leave on the curb.

Back in the day, the app guys said the robots would get the scraps.

Short rides. Easy rides. We'd keep the good fares.

That lasted maybe five years.

Then it flipped, and the pods got the good fares while we got the scraps.

There are 11,000 pods on the Strip now.

When I started, there were about 3,500 cabs in the whole valley, and that was the fleet.

My best year, I made $450 on a Saturday. My last year, I made $190 on the same Saturday.

So guys I'd known for decades quit by the dozen.

In '37, I got my Transfer Voucher, which was $14,000 toward any new trade.

Most guys took solar, and a few took code, but I took a six-week course in passenger assist.

My daughter laughed. So did I.

But I'll tell you what I miss. The talk.

You sit with a stranger in the dark for twenty minutes, and they tell you things.

Divorces. Big wins. One night a man told me he'd lost his house at the craps table, so I drove him around for an hour with no meter running.

A pod can't do that, though it'll play you soft music.

And here's what's better.

Nobody drives drunk on the Strip now.

My nephew got hit on Flamingo Road in 2031, and he still walks with a limp.

That doesn't happen here anymore.

Plus I'm home by six, and my knees thank me.

Last week a kid got off the plane, maybe nineteen, first time in Vegas.

He looked at the pods, then at me.

“Can you just take me?” he said.

I told him I don't drive anymore, and nobody does.

But he got in the pod, and I watched it pull away… and I waved like a fool.

Old habit.