By the following Wednesday, the lot was full, and a digital waitlist had formed. Leo expanded into the adjacent lot—the old “Overflow” section, which his uncle had used to store dead lawnmowers and a single, tragic Corvette.
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? auto place
He launched the beta test on a Tuesday.
Not a three-point turn. A slow, continuous pivot. The sedan spun on its own axis, tires squeaking like mice. As it turned, the other cars began to move. Not by magic—by hydraulics. The system was responding. Auto Place was re-placing. By the following Wednesday, the lot was full,
He sat in the gutted office, surrounded by empty oil-can shelves and calendars from the Clinton administration. On his laptop screen, a new program was compiling. He called it AutoPlace v.1 . It crept past the broken sign