MACCAS

Life has been strange since it opened. The full-auto Maccas, no humans needed to operate. The convenience of having it right near my house is great, but I don't tend to go anyway. It's too unnerving. I usually pick something up near my work instead, just before or after the tedious train ride.
But the strangest part, is the one time I happened to be up late, Saturday night, drinking with a few friends on the porch, and we noticed the cars.
Now, it's not unusual to see cars in the drivethru at all hours of the day and night; not even unusual for them to be self-driving cars, what with the rave that is now.
But it is unusual when the cars are empty.

The very next day I spoke to the neighbours, they'd all seen it on occasion too. It was sporadic at first, but became more frequent. So we set up shifts; every night of the week, one person would be up to witness it, and note the plates of all of them. It was immediately obvious that the number of cars was growing. But why?

Tonight, we find out. We're all properly creeped out by now, but we have to know. We're going to stand right there and see what happens. Maybe even try to get in them and look inside. We don't know yet.
So here we are, standing out in the hot, summer air - we picked the holiday season to make it easier on all of us, but damn if I'm not missing my aircon right now. In just three minutes, the cars should arrive. We've already cased the whole driveway, but we can't see anything strange.

Ah, I can see the first one now, ol' *TX80. Sleek looking thing. Flimsy looking thing. John says it wouldn't survive five minutes in the outback, and I believe him. But why would you want to go out there anyway?
It's pulled around, into the driveway... And here it rolls up to the window. There's still no sign of activity in the building; Raymond and Rose are inside watching there, we've got walkies but it's not buzzing.
It just passed the window. Ignored it entirely. They usually stop there.
"Now *that's* worrying.", I say, before pulling up the talkie. "Hey, Raymond, 56TX80 just pulled in and skipped through."
Raymond's voice comes straight back. "How odd. Get Blair to swap with me, I want to see it myself."
I relay the message and soon enough Blair is replaced by Raymond on the driveway. He's looking at the carpark where 56TX80 is now sitting.
He walks right up beside it and looks carefully inside, but it shows no response.
As he does, 01KD30 shows up; a big hunk of a 4WD, terrible waste of petrol. It doesn't skip the window, though. The WT buzzes, and Rose screams "it's alive!", before Blair cuts in with "well, it's active..."
A moment later, a sealed bag is *tossed* out of the window, and lands in the car, which then drives off again, leaving properly.
The next ten minutes turn into a flurry of cars, all collecting a bag and leaving. We all wandered around a bit during this time, *TX80 still hasn't left. But we did notice that it's incredibly warm; the aircon can't be on.
Eventually it comes and collects its food and goes on its way, in amongst the many other vehicles still coming and going - it has only been 20 minutes and yet, from experience, we know this will last for the next two hours; flat-out, no sign of slowing until it finally vanishes.
Not long after *TX80 leaves, while we've been checking the heat of each vehicle, Raymond gives us a solution.
"They're preordered meals - taking advantage of the quietest time of day to collect and store the meals, kept well-heated, for when the occupant simply gets in and eats breakfast on their way to work. The pinnacle of today's convenience."
Almost as one our group reacts, a well-audible "oooooooooo" from our mouths, as all the pieces fall into place. Satisfied, we all went home and got a proper rest.

The next day, on my lunch break, I did a bit of investigating, and found out about the system - ordering all your day's meals from your phone, and scheduling them to always be ready when you want them. Raymond had been on the money. That evening, we gathered to discuss - though most of us had looked it up ourselves - and all agreed that even with the mystery solved, we weren't about to get a good night's sleep given all the engines running. We tried to petition Maccas to disable the service, at least for our area - why they even thought putting in residential space was a good idea escapes us - but they never replied at all.

Nowadays, I go to the full-auto Maccas more often. And I take a 2*4. The repair bills still haven't given them the message.