Rush Hour (200 words)

"I hate going to the City," Gareth moaned. "It was picked clean decades ago. It's not like we'll suddenly find an old Usian artifact or anything."

Ahead, the shells of skyscrapers quivered under a blanket of creeping vines and fungus. The encircling highways and overpasses were crumbled fragments.

"Just watch," Tito said. "You've never seen anything like this." He paused at the top of a hill and pulled out his grandfather's telescope. Overhead, the sun inched imperceptibly toward what had once been five o'clock. Sweat dripped from their foreheads.

With a heat-mirage ripple, the ancient roads were suddenly full of cars. Hazy, indistinct shapes moved inside the safety-glass windows. They lined the roads for miles, immobile. There was the faintest taste of exhaust in the air, and the ground trembled with the grumble-roar of a million impossibly idling engines.

Gareth gaped, but before he could so much as draw breath, the roads were suddenly as empty and ruined as before.

"It's briefer every day, the more the city falls apart," said Tito. He kept the 'scope raised, as if still watching the vision. "I wonder how long they've been coming here. Do you think the ancient Usians ever noticed them?"

Prehistoric

An Apatosaurus had gotten clothes-lined by an unexpected traffic light. Police on fast-moving Ornithomimus arrived to restore order after a poorly trained Allosaurus took a bite out of the unfortunate herbivore. Jake scooted around the carnage in his tiny economy vehicle, whose gill structures were pulsing with agitation at the bloodscent. "Only a little longer on lungs, buddy," Jake said, patting his vehicle reassuringly.

"Hey," a hairy guy leaning out the cab of an Ultrasaurus called to Jake. "Is that one of them new hybrids?"

"Well, technically it's an old hybrid..." said Jake. "More efficient than those brand-new mammals, though."

In the Bike Lane at Two-Thirty in the Afternoon

The boxy car beside my bike was visibly vibrating from the thudding bass within. An SUV pulled up, talk radio blaring at decibels usually reserved for outdoor concerts. I sighed and waited for the light to change.

The next car to arrive made no sound at all. Silence rolled off it in icy waves, tingling cold on my skin. It shushed the shouting voices, muted the bass. The other drivers fiddled with knobs, swearing noiselessly. The bursts and pulses of non-sound made a pattern, almost music itself...

The light changed. The cars roared away.

After a moment, I started pedaling.

As Well Call a Physician a Taxidermist

Dokie's car rumbled tussively and lapsed into silence.

"You need to take it to the vet," Rovin said.

"You mean the mechanic?"

"No." Rovin glanced from side to side. "Look, I know a guy. He's the best you'll ever find, but if you call him a mechanic, he won't work for you at all."

Dokie turned the key again, and the car reluctantly caught. "Crazy people aren't generally good at fixing cars."

"Well, that's the thing. Humans go to human doctors, but we take our animals to the vet. TS-197 is to simpler machines as we are to our pets."