- Thread starter diverdon
- Start date
For big cities he is probably right, or close to it. But it will be along time until Uber picks me up to go hunting/camping.
Does BBC know what BBC stands for? You'd think they would change their name
British broadcasting Corporation
Having a car that is powered by a fuel that is easily stored, saved up and transported. That can go as you direct it by your own will without say so from some other person or computer is one of the very important freedoms we still have.
They want to try to destroy that as fast as they can so that you are all little slaves being herded around by your betters with the help of their computers.
Just this week it was announced that Uber was busy spending millions to try to lobby cities in the USA to tax cars going into the city to try to make it so that you have to ride their services...
The global elites are dying to take away your freedom of movement that you accidentally got by a slip up.
I'm sure they are lusting after banning human drivers because once they do... you are their slave and you are caught in their net for good.
They want to try to destroy that as fast as they can so that you are all little slaves being herded around by your betters with the help of their computers.
Just this week it was announced that Uber was busy spending millions to try to lobby cities in the USA to tax cars going into the city to try to make it so that you have to ride their services...
The global elites are dying to take away your freedom of movement that you accidentally got by a slip up.
I'm sure they are lusting after banning human drivers because once they do... you are their slave and you are caught in their net for good.
I'm pretty sure the amateur homemade cougar milf was NOT destroyed by a british broadcasting corp
First off I agree.
Second what most fail to understand that years ago (4-6) the car manufacturers got legislation passed to set the ground work that they are NOT liable for any accidents. Even with a vehicle with no driver inputs (pedals or steering wheel). They claimed without the legislation it would stiffle innovation.
Think about that. A vehicle you have no control of what so ever and you will still be responsible for its actions.
I googled it. All i got was British broadcasting Corporation
But according to the propaganda put out by the Tech Utopians... nothing will ever go wrong once you surrender all your control and will and ability to their wonderful "AI" that will be so much better than you...
I'm looking forward to the holy crusade to destroy all thinking machines and make men have to go back to using their minds....
I'm glad to be able to say that I have no idea which news porn sites promote.
Somebody needs to spend some serious time on Tumblr to get an education
(sorry can't give you any links, you might never be the same again).
Okay I did some extra google "porn bbc" and I have to ask. Why in the fuck would I have any interest in anything involving Big Black Cocks.
First I dont like cocks in any way shape or form.
Second Big Black ones may make me feel "not up to the task" so to speak. My ego doesn't need a hit like that
Third I am not racist so, big black, big white, big asian is all the same, see #2 about my tender ego.
I gotta say, I am kinda disappointed you actually had to look that up
You know, I am aware of BIG BLACK COCK. Just never put it to BBC.
Married 26 years, there is only one cock I worry about. It gets taken well care of.
Should've kept my mouth shut.
considering the revealed meaning of the subject matter at hand I suggest we keep all holes closed.
Buncha prudes in here.... and you call yourself men?
I'm taking it then you probably didn't get to the actual racist BBC stuff that openly calls for BBCs to be the only Cs that are allowed...
Oh yes... the SJW progressives have even taken over porn and promote their hatred of us via porn...
I apologize for the huge post to follow but this is the only format for this short story I could find on line.
The story is "The Tunnel Ahead" by Alice Glaser
Its a short story I read in grade school. The type of shit we used to learn about to warn us of Dystopian Utopias
The story haunted me as a kid, hadnt really thought about it until driverless cars became the rage.
Sorry again for the horrible cut and paste.....
This story of a family outing in the not too distant overpopu-
lated future purports to be science fiction; there are those, toe
believe, who would consider it a fair report on the present.
The author writes about herself: “I was born on Long Island;
graduated from Radcliffe College; spent several years in
Paris in an expatriate FirSF colony where all of us dropped
whatever we were doing as soon as a new issue appeared.
Now back in New York, Vm an editorial associate at Esquire
magazine. I’ve written articles, but this is my first try at fic-
tion. I have a lot more planned— as soon as somebody figures
out where time goes to when it hits Manhattan.” Which last
might be a good story in itself ....
THE TUNNEL AHEAD
by Alice Glaser
The floor of the topolino
was full of sand. There was sand
in Tom’s undershorts, too, and
damp sand rubbing between his
toes. Damn it, he thought, here
they build you six-lane highways
right on down to the ocean, a
giant three-hundred car turntable
to keep traffic moving over the
beach, efficiency and organization
and mechanization and coopera-
tion and what does it get you?
Sand. And inside the car, in spite
of the air-conditioning, the sour
smell of sun-dried salt water.
Tom’s muscles ached with their
familiar cramp. He ran his hands
uselessly around the steering
wheel, wishing he had something
to do, or that there were room to
stretch in the tiny car, then felt
instantly ashamed of his antisocial
wish. Naturally there was nothing
for him to do because the drive,
as on all highways, was set at
“Automatic”. That was the law.
And although he had to sit
hunched over so that his knees
were drawn nearly to his chin,
and the roof of the car pressed
down on the back of his neck like
the lid of a box, and his four kids
crammed into the rear seat seemed
to be breathing down his shirt
collar — well, that was something
you simply had to adjust to, and
besides, the Topolino had all the
five-foot wheelbase the law al-
lowed. So there was nothing to
complain about.
Besides, it hadn’t been a bad
day, all things considered. Five
hours to cover the forty miles out
to the beach, then of course a
couple of hours waiting in line at
the beach for their turn in the
water. The trip home was talcing
a little longer: it always did. The
Tunnel, too, was unpredictable.
Say ten o’clock, for getting home.
Pretty good time. As good a way
as any of killing a leisureday, he
guessed. Sometimes there seemed
to be an awful lot of leisuretime to
kill.
Jeannie, in tlie seat beside him,
was staring through the wind-
shield. Her hair, almost as fair as
the kids’, was pulled back into
pigtails, and although she was
pregnant again she didn’t look
very much older than she had ten
years before. But she had stopped
knitting, and her mind was on the
Tunnel. He could always tell.
*'Ouchr Something slammed
into the back of Tom’s neck and
he ducked forward, banging his
forehead on the windshield.
''Hey!” He half-turned and
clutched at the spade that four-
year old Pattie was waving.
"I swimmed”, she announced,
blue eyes round. "I swimmed good
and I din’t hit nobody.”
"Anybody”, Tom corrected. He
confiscated the spade, thinking
tiredly that "swim” these days
meant "tread water”, all there was
room to do in the crowded bath-
ing-area.
Jeannie had turned too, and
was glowing at her daughter, but
Tom shook his head.
"Over and out”, he said briefly.
He knew a car ride was an extra
strain on kids, and lord knew he
saw them seldom enough, what
with their school-shifts and play-
shifts and his own job-shift. But
his brood was going to be properly
brought up. See a sign of extrover-
sion, squelch it at the beginning,
that was his theory. Save them a
lot of pain later on.
Jeannie leaned forward and
pressed a dashboard button. The
tranquillizer drawer slid open;
Jeannie selected a pink one, but
by the time she had turned around
Pattie had subsided with her
hands folded patiently in her lap
and her eyes fixed on the rear seat
TV screen. Jeannie sighed and
slipped the pill into Pattie’s half-
open mouth anyway.
The other three hadn’t spoken
for hours which, of course, was as
it should be. Jeannie had fed them
a purposely heavy lunch in the
car, steakopop and a hot, steaming
bowl of rehydrated algaesoup from
the thermos, and they had each
had an extra dose of tranquillizers
for the trip. Six-year old David,
who was having a particularly
hard time learning to * introvert,
v^^as watching the TV screen and
breathing hard. David, his first-
born son, born in the supermarket
delivery booth in the year twenty-
one hundred on the third of April
at 8:32 in the morning. The year
the population of the United
States hit the billion mark. And
the fifth child to arrive in that
booth that morning. But his own
son. The tow-headed twins, Susan
and Pattie, sat upright and
watched the screen with expres-
sions of great seriousness on their
faces, and the baby, two-year-old
Betsy, had her fat legs stuck
straight out in front of her and
was obviously going to be asleep
in minutes.
The car crawled forward at its
allotted ten mph, just one in a
ribbon of identical bright bubble
cars, like candy buttons, that
stretched along the New Pulaski
Skyway under a setting sun. The
distance between them, strictly
rationed by Autodrive, never
changed.
Tom felt the dull ache of ten-
sion settled behind his eyes. All of
his muscles were protesting now
with individual stabs of cramp. He
glanced apologetically at Jeannie,
who disliked sports, and switched
on the dashboard TV. Third game
in the World Series, and the game
had already begun. Malenkovsky
on red. Malenkovsky moved a
checker and sat back. The cam-
eras moved to Saito, on black. It
was going to be a good game.
Faster than most.
They were less than a mile
from the Tunnel when the line of
cars came to a halt. Tom said
nothing for a minute. It might
just be an accident, or even some-
body, driving illegally on Manual,
out of line. Another minute
passed. Jeannies hands were
tense on the yellow blanket she
was knitting.
It was a definite halt. Jeannie
regarded the motionless lines of
cars, frowning a little.
"Fm glad its happening now.
That gives us a better chance of
getting through, doesn’t it?”
Her question was rhetorical,
and Tom felt his usual stir of
irritation. Jeannie was an intelli-
gent girl; he couldn’t have loved
her so much otherwise. But ex-
plaining the laws of chance to her
was hopeless. The Tunnel aver-
aged ten closings a week. All ten
could happen within seconds of
each other, or on the hour, or not
at all on a given day. That was
how things were. The closing now
affected their own chance of get-
ting through not one iota.
Jeannie said, thoughtfully,
*We’ll be caught sometime, Tom.”
He shrugged without answer-
ing. Whatever might happen in
the future, they were obviously
going to be held up for a good
half hour now.
David was wriggling a little,
his face apologetic.
“Can I get out, Daddy, if the
Tunnels closed? I ache/'
Tom bit his lip. He could sym-
pathize asi well as anyone, remem-
bering the cramped misery of the
years when his own body was
growing and all he wanted to do
was run fast, just run headlong,
an}^lace. Kids. Extros, all of
them. Maybe you could get away
with that kind of wildness back
in the Tw^entieth century, when
there were no crowds and plenty
of space, but not these days. David
was just going to have to learn to
sit still like everybody else.
David had begun to flex his
muscles rhythmically. Passive ex-
ercise, it was called, one of the
new pseudo-sports that took up no
room, and it was very scientifically
taught in the playshifts. Tom eyed
his son enviously. Great to be in
condition like that. No need to
wait in line to get your ration of
g}Tn time when you could depend
on yourself like that.
“Dad, no kidding, now I gotta
go.'’ David WTiggled in his seat
again. Well, that sounded valid.
Tom looked tlirough the wind-
shield. The thousands of cars in
sight were still motionless, so he
swung die door open. Luckily
there was a chemjohn a few yards
away, and only a short line in
front of it. David slid quickly out
of the car. Tom watched him start
to stretch his arms over his head,
released from the low roof, then
sheepishly remember decent be-
havior and tighten into the ap-
proved intro-walk. “He’s getting
tall”, Tom thought, with a sudden
accession of hopelessness. He had
been praying that David would
inherit Jeannie’s height instead of
his own six feet. The more area
you took up the harder ever}^thing
was, and it was getting worse:
Tom had noticed that, already,
people would sometimes stare re-
sentfully at him in the street.
There was an Italian family in
the bright blue Topolino behind
his own; they too had a car full of
children. Two of the boys, seeing
David in front of the chemjohn,
burst out and dashed into the line
behind him. The father was grin-
ning; Tom caught his eye and
looked away. He remembered see-
ing them pass a large bottle of ex-
pensive reclaimed-water around
the car, the whole family guzzling
it as though water grew on trees.
Extros, that whole family. Almost
criminal, the way people like that
were allowed to run loose and in-
crease the discomfort of everyone
else. Now the father had left the
car too. He had curly black hair;
he was very plump. ^Vhen he saw
Tom watching him he grinned
broadly, wav^ed towards the Tunnel
and lifted his shoulders with a
kind of humorous resignation.
Tom drummed on the wheel.
The extros were lucky. You’d never
catch them worrying unduly
about the Tunnel. They had to
get the kids out of the city, once
in a while, like everybody else;
the Tunnel was the only way in
and out, so they shrugged and
took it. Besides, there were so
many rules and regulations now
that it was hard to question them
any more. You can't fight City
Hall. The extros would neither
dread the trip, the way Jeannie
did, nor . . . Tom s fingers were
rigid on the wheel. He clamped
down, hard, on the thought in his
mind. He had been about to say,
needed it, the way he did.
David emerged from the chem-
john and slid back into his seat.
The cars had just begun to move;
in a moment they had resumed
their crawl.
On the left of the Skyway they
were coming to the development
that was already called, facetious-
ly, *'Beer Can Mountain." So far
there was nothing there except
the mountainous stacks of shiny
bricks, the metal bricks that had
once been tin cans, and would
soon be constructed into another
badly-needed housing develop-
ment. Probably with even lower
ceilings and thinner walls, Tom
winced, involuntarily. Even at
home, in a much older residential
section, the ceilings were so low
that he could never stand up with-
out bending his head. Individual
area-space was being cut down
and cut down, all the time.
On the flatlands, to the right of
the Skyway, stretched mile after
garish mile of apartment build-
ings, interspersed with gasoline
stations and parking lots. And
beyond these flatlands were the
suburbs of Long Island, cement-
floored and stacked with gay-col-
ored skyscrapers.
Here, as they approached the
city, the air was raucous with the
noise of transistor radios and TV
sets. Privacy and quiet had dis-
appeared everywhere, of course,
but this was a lower-class unit and
so noisy that the blare penetrated
even the closed windows of the
car. The immense apartment build-
ings, cement block and neonJit,
came almost to the edge of the
Skyway, with ramps between
them at all levels. The ramps, orig-
inally built for cars, were swarm-
ing now with people returning
from their routine job-shifts or
from marketing, or just carrying
on the interminable business of
leisuretime. They looked pretty
apathetic, Tom thought. You
couldn't blame them. There was
so much security that none of the
work anybody did was really nec-
essary, and they knew it. Their
jobs were probably even more
monotonous and futile than his
own. All he did, on his own job-
shift, was verify figures in a ledger,
then copy them into another
ledger. Time-killing, like every-
thing else. These people looked as
though they didn't care, one way
or the other.
But as he watched there was a
quick scuffle in the crowd, a sud-
den, brief outbreak of violence.
One man s shoe had scraped the
heel of the woman ahead of him;
she turned and swung her shop-
ping bag, scraping a bloody gash
down his cheek. He slammed his
fist at her stomach. She kicked. xV
man behind them rammed his way
past, his face contorted. The pair
separated, both muttering. Around
them other knots of people were
beginning to mutter. The irrita-
tion was spreading, as it seemed
to do from time to time, as though
nobody wanted anything so much
as the chance to strike out.
Jeannie had seen the explosion
too. She gasped and turned away
from the window, looking quickly
back at the children, who were all
asleep now. Tom pulled one of
her pigtails, gently.
The skyline loomed ahead of
them, one vast unified glass-
walled cube of Manhattan. Light
rays shot from it into the sunset;
the spots of foliage that were the
carefully planned block gardens,
one at each level of the ninety-
eight floors of the Unit, glowed
dark green. Tom, as he always,
did, blessed the foresight that had
put them there. Each one of his
children had been allotted his or
her weekly hour on the grass and
a chance to play near the tree.
There was even a zoo on each
level, not the kind of elaborate
one they had in Washington and
London and Moscow, of course,
but at least it had a cat and a dog
and a really large tank of gold-
fish. When you came down to it,
luxuries like that almost made up
for the crowds and the noise and
tiny rooms and feeling that there
was never quite enough air to
breathe.
They were just outside the Tun-
nel. Jeannie had put her knitting
down; she was looking intently
ahead, but as though she were
hstening rather than looking. In
spite of his own arguments, Tom
felt his fingers thudding on the
dashboard. On the TV screen,
Malenkovsky triumphantly moved
a king.
They had reached the Tunnel
entrance. Jeannie was silent. She
glanced at her watch, irrationally.
Tom pressed the tranquillizer but-
ton and the drawer shot out, but
Jeannie shook her head.
'‘I hate this, Tom. I think it’s
an absolutely lousy idea.”
Her voice sounded almost sav-
age, for Jeannie, and Tom felt a
little shocked.
‘Its the fairest thing”, he ar-
gued. “You know it perfectly well.”
Jeannie’s mouth had set in a
stubborn line. “I don’t care. There
must be another way.”
“This is the only fair way”, Tom
said again. ‘We take our chances
along with everybody else.”
His own heart was pounding,
now, and his hands felt cold. It
was the feeling he always had on
entering the Tunnel, and he had
never decided whether it was
dread or elation, or both. He was
no longer bored. He glanced at
the children on the back seat.
David was watching television
again and gnawing on a finger-
nail; the three little ones were still
asleep, sitting up as they had been
taught to do, hands folded prop-
erly in their laps. Three blind
mice.
The Tunnel was echoing and
cold. White light slipped off the
white tile w'alls that were clean
and polished and air-tight. Wind
rushed past, sounding as though
the car were moving faster than it
actually was. The Italian family
was still behind them, following
at a constant speed. Huge fans
were set into the Tunnel ceiling;
their roar reverberated over the
roar of the giant invisible air-con-
ditioning units, over the slow
wind of the moving cars.
jeannie had put her head down
on the seat back as though she
were asleep. The cars stopped for
an instant, started again. Tom
w^ondered if Jeannie felt the same
vivid thrill that he felt. Then he
looked at the line of her mouth
and saw the fear.
The Tunnel was 8500 feet
long. Each car took up seven feet,
bumper to bumper. Allow five feet
between cars. About seven hun-
dred cars in the tunnel, then:
more than three thousand people.
It w^ould take each car about fif-
teen minutes to go through. Their
car was halfway through now.
They were three-quarters of the
way through. Automatic signal
lights were flashing at them from
the catwalk under the Tunnel
roof. Tom s foot moved to the gas
pedal before he remembered the
car was set on Automatic. It was
an atavistic gesture: his hands
and feet wanted a job to do. His
body, for a minute, wanted to con-
trol the direction of its plunge. It
was the way he always felt, in the
Tunnel.
They were almost through. His
scalp felt as though tiny ants w^ere
running along the hairs. He
moved his toes, feeling the scratch
of sand on the nerves betw^een
them. He could see the far end of
the Tunnel. Maybe two minutes
more. A minute.
They stopped again. A car,
somewhere ahead, had swerved
out of line to search for the right
exit. Once out of the Tunnel it
was legal to switch back to Man-
ual drive, since it w^as necessary
to pick the right exit out of ten,
and all too easy to find yourself
carried to the top level of Man-
hattan Unit before finding a
place to turn off.
Toms hand drummed at the
w^heel. The maverick ahead had
edged back into line. They started
movement again. They picked up
speed. They were out of the Tun-
nel.
Jeannie picked up her knitting
and shook it, sharply. Then she
dropped it as though it had bitten
her fingers. A bell was clanging
over their heads, not too loud, but
clear. Just behind their rear bump-
er a gate swung smoothly into
place.
Jeannie turned to look back at
the space behind them where the
Italian family in the bright blue
car, and others, had been. There
were no cars there now. She
turned back, to stare whitely
through the windshield.
Tom was figuring. Two min-
utes for the ceiling sprays to work.
Then the seven hundred cars in
the Tunnel would be hauled out
and emptied. Ten minutes for
that, say. He wondered how long
it was supposed to take for the
giant fans to blow the cyanide gas
away.
'‘Depopulation without Dis-
crimination”, they called it at elec-
tion time. Nobody would ever ad-
mit voting for it, but almost ev-
erybody did. Aloud, you had to
rationalize: it was the fairest way
to do a necessary thing. But in the
unadmitted places of your mind
you knew it was more than that.
A gamble, the one unpredictable
element in the long, dreary proc-
ess of survival. A game. Russian
Roulette. A game you played to
win? Or, maybe, to lose? The an-
swer didn’t matter, because the
Tunnel was excitement. The only
excitement left.
Tom felt, suddenly, remarkably
wide awake. He switched to Man-
ual Drive and angled the round
nose of the Topolino over to the
Fourth Level exit.
He began to whistle between
his teeth. "Beach again next week-
end, sweetie, huh?”
Jeannie’s eyes were on his face.
Defensively, he added, "Good for
all of us, get out of the city, get a
little fresh air once in a while.”
He nudged her and pulled a
pigtail gently, with affection.
The story is "The Tunnel Ahead" by Alice Glaser
Its a short story I read in grade school. The type of shit we used to learn about to warn us of Dystopian Utopias
The story haunted me as a kid, hadnt really thought about it until driverless cars became the rage.
Sorry again for the horrible cut and paste.....
This story of a family outing in the not too distant overpopu-
lated future purports to be science fiction; there are those, toe
believe, who would consider it a fair report on the present.
The author writes about herself: “I was born on Long Island;
graduated from Radcliffe College; spent several years in
Paris in an expatriate FirSF colony where all of us dropped
whatever we were doing as soon as a new issue appeared.
Now back in New York, Vm an editorial associate at Esquire
magazine. I’ve written articles, but this is my first try at fic-
tion. I have a lot more planned— as soon as somebody figures
out where time goes to when it hits Manhattan.” Which last
might be a good story in itself ....
THE TUNNEL AHEAD
by Alice Glaser
The floor of the topolino
was full of sand. There was sand
in Tom’s undershorts, too, and
damp sand rubbing between his
toes. Damn it, he thought, here
they build you six-lane highways
right on down to the ocean, a
giant three-hundred car turntable
to keep traffic moving over the
beach, efficiency and organization
and mechanization and coopera-
tion and what does it get you?
Sand. And inside the car, in spite
of the air-conditioning, the sour
smell of sun-dried salt water.
Tom’s muscles ached with their
familiar cramp. He ran his hands
uselessly around the steering
wheel, wishing he had something
to do, or that there were room to
stretch in the tiny car, then felt
instantly ashamed of his antisocial
wish. Naturally there was nothing
for him to do because the drive,
as on all highways, was set at
“Automatic”. That was the law.
And although he had to sit
hunched over so that his knees
were drawn nearly to his chin,
and the roof of the car pressed
down on the back of his neck like
the lid of a box, and his four kids
crammed into the rear seat seemed
to be breathing down his shirt
collar — well, that was something
you simply had to adjust to, and
besides, the Topolino had all the
five-foot wheelbase the law al-
lowed. So there was nothing to
complain about.
Besides, it hadn’t been a bad
day, all things considered. Five
hours to cover the forty miles out
to the beach, then of course a
couple of hours waiting in line at
the beach for their turn in the
water. The trip home was talcing
a little longer: it always did. The
Tunnel, too, was unpredictable.
Say ten o’clock, for getting home.
Pretty good time. As good a way
as any of killing a leisureday, he
guessed. Sometimes there seemed
to be an awful lot of leisuretime to
kill.
Jeannie, in tlie seat beside him,
was staring through the wind-
shield. Her hair, almost as fair as
the kids’, was pulled back into
pigtails, and although she was
pregnant again she didn’t look
very much older than she had ten
years before. But she had stopped
knitting, and her mind was on the
Tunnel. He could always tell.
*'Ouchr Something slammed
into the back of Tom’s neck and
he ducked forward, banging his
forehead on the windshield.
''Hey!” He half-turned and
clutched at the spade that four-
year old Pattie was waving.
"I swimmed”, she announced,
blue eyes round. "I swimmed good
and I din’t hit nobody.”
"Anybody”, Tom corrected. He
confiscated the spade, thinking
tiredly that "swim” these days
meant "tread water”, all there was
room to do in the crowded bath-
ing-area.
Jeannie had turned too, and
was glowing at her daughter, but
Tom shook his head.
"Over and out”, he said briefly.
He knew a car ride was an extra
strain on kids, and lord knew he
saw them seldom enough, what
with their school-shifts and play-
shifts and his own job-shift. But
his brood was going to be properly
brought up. See a sign of extrover-
sion, squelch it at the beginning,
that was his theory. Save them a
lot of pain later on.
Jeannie leaned forward and
pressed a dashboard button. The
tranquillizer drawer slid open;
Jeannie selected a pink one, but
by the time she had turned around
Pattie had subsided with her
hands folded patiently in her lap
and her eyes fixed on the rear seat
TV screen. Jeannie sighed and
slipped the pill into Pattie’s half-
open mouth anyway.
The other three hadn’t spoken
for hours which, of course, was as
it should be. Jeannie had fed them
a purposely heavy lunch in the
car, steakopop and a hot, steaming
bowl of rehydrated algaesoup from
the thermos, and they had each
had an extra dose of tranquillizers
for the trip. Six-year old David,
who was having a particularly
hard time learning to * introvert,
v^^as watching the TV screen and
breathing hard. David, his first-
born son, born in the supermarket
delivery booth in the year twenty-
one hundred on the third of April
at 8:32 in the morning. The year
the population of the United
States hit the billion mark. And
the fifth child to arrive in that
booth that morning. But his own
son. The tow-headed twins, Susan
and Pattie, sat upright and
watched the screen with expres-
sions of great seriousness on their
faces, and the baby, two-year-old
Betsy, had her fat legs stuck
straight out in front of her and
was obviously going to be asleep
in minutes.
The car crawled forward at its
allotted ten mph, just one in a
ribbon of identical bright bubble
cars, like candy buttons, that
stretched along the New Pulaski
Skyway under a setting sun. The
distance between them, strictly
rationed by Autodrive, never
changed.
Tom felt the dull ache of ten-
sion settled behind his eyes. All of
his muscles were protesting now
with individual stabs of cramp. He
glanced apologetically at Jeannie,
who disliked sports, and switched
on the dashboard TV. Third game
in the World Series, and the game
had already begun. Malenkovsky
on red. Malenkovsky moved a
checker and sat back. The cam-
eras moved to Saito, on black. It
was going to be a good game.
Faster than most.
They were less than a mile
from the Tunnel when the line of
cars came to a halt. Tom said
nothing for a minute. It might
just be an accident, or even some-
body, driving illegally on Manual,
out of line. Another minute
passed. Jeannies hands were
tense on the yellow blanket she
was knitting.
It was a definite halt. Jeannie
regarded the motionless lines of
cars, frowning a little.
"Fm glad its happening now.
That gives us a better chance of
getting through, doesn’t it?”
Her question was rhetorical,
and Tom felt his usual stir of
irritation. Jeannie was an intelli-
gent girl; he couldn’t have loved
her so much otherwise. But ex-
plaining the laws of chance to her
was hopeless. The Tunnel aver-
aged ten closings a week. All ten
could happen within seconds of
each other, or on the hour, or not
at all on a given day. That was
how things were. The closing now
affected their own chance of get-
ting through not one iota.
Jeannie said, thoughtfully,
*We’ll be caught sometime, Tom.”
He shrugged without answer-
ing. Whatever might happen in
the future, they were obviously
going to be held up for a good
half hour now.
David was wriggling a little,
his face apologetic.
“Can I get out, Daddy, if the
Tunnels closed? I ache/'
Tom bit his lip. He could sym-
pathize asi well as anyone, remem-
bering the cramped misery of the
years when his own body was
growing and all he wanted to do
was run fast, just run headlong,
an}^lace. Kids. Extros, all of
them. Maybe you could get away
with that kind of wildness back
in the Tw^entieth century, when
there were no crowds and plenty
of space, but not these days. David
was just going to have to learn to
sit still like everybody else.
David had begun to flex his
muscles rhythmically. Passive ex-
ercise, it was called, one of the
new pseudo-sports that took up no
room, and it was very scientifically
taught in the playshifts. Tom eyed
his son enviously. Great to be in
condition like that. No need to
wait in line to get your ration of
g}Tn time when you could depend
on yourself like that.
“Dad, no kidding, now I gotta
go.'’ David WTiggled in his seat
again. Well, that sounded valid.
Tom looked tlirough the wind-
shield. The thousands of cars in
sight were still motionless, so he
swung die door open. Luckily
there was a chemjohn a few yards
away, and only a short line in
front of it. David slid quickly out
of the car. Tom watched him start
to stretch his arms over his head,
released from the low roof, then
sheepishly remember decent be-
havior and tighten into the ap-
proved intro-walk. “He’s getting
tall”, Tom thought, with a sudden
accession of hopelessness. He had
been praying that David would
inherit Jeannie’s height instead of
his own six feet. The more area
you took up the harder ever}^thing
was, and it was getting worse:
Tom had noticed that, already,
people would sometimes stare re-
sentfully at him in the street.
There was an Italian family in
the bright blue Topolino behind
his own; they too had a car full of
children. Two of the boys, seeing
David in front of the chemjohn,
burst out and dashed into the line
behind him. The father was grin-
ning; Tom caught his eye and
looked away. He remembered see-
ing them pass a large bottle of ex-
pensive reclaimed-water around
the car, the whole family guzzling
it as though water grew on trees.
Extros, that whole family. Almost
criminal, the way people like that
were allowed to run loose and in-
crease the discomfort of everyone
else. Now the father had left the
car too. He had curly black hair;
he was very plump. ^Vhen he saw
Tom watching him he grinned
broadly, wav^ed towards the Tunnel
and lifted his shoulders with a
kind of humorous resignation.
Tom drummed on the wheel.
The extros were lucky. You’d never
catch them worrying unduly
about the Tunnel. They had to
get the kids out of the city, once
in a while, like everybody else;
the Tunnel was the only way in
and out, so they shrugged and
took it. Besides, there were so
many rules and regulations now
that it was hard to question them
any more. You can't fight City
Hall. The extros would neither
dread the trip, the way Jeannie
did, nor . . . Tom s fingers were
rigid on the wheel. He clamped
down, hard, on the thought in his
mind. He had been about to say,
needed it, the way he did.
David emerged from the chem-
john and slid back into his seat.
The cars had just begun to move;
in a moment they had resumed
their crawl.
On the left of the Skyway they
were coming to the development
that was already called, facetious-
ly, *'Beer Can Mountain." So far
there was nothing there except
the mountainous stacks of shiny
bricks, the metal bricks that had
once been tin cans, and would
soon be constructed into another
badly-needed housing develop-
ment. Probably with even lower
ceilings and thinner walls, Tom
winced, involuntarily. Even at
home, in a much older residential
section, the ceilings were so low
that he could never stand up with-
out bending his head. Individual
area-space was being cut down
and cut down, all the time.
On the flatlands, to the right of
the Skyway, stretched mile after
garish mile of apartment build-
ings, interspersed with gasoline
stations and parking lots. And
beyond these flatlands were the
suburbs of Long Island, cement-
floored and stacked with gay-col-
ored skyscrapers.
Here, as they approached the
city, the air was raucous with the
noise of transistor radios and TV
sets. Privacy and quiet had dis-
appeared everywhere, of course,
but this was a lower-class unit and
so noisy that the blare penetrated
even the closed windows of the
car. The immense apartment build-
ings, cement block and neonJit,
came almost to the edge of the
Skyway, with ramps between
them at all levels. The ramps, orig-
inally built for cars, were swarm-
ing now with people returning
from their routine job-shifts or
from marketing, or just carrying
on the interminable business of
leisuretime. They looked pretty
apathetic, Tom thought. You
couldn't blame them. There was
so much security that none of the
work anybody did was really nec-
essary, and they knew it. Their
jobs were probably even more
monotonous and futile than his
own. All he did, on his own job-
shift, was verify figures in a ledger,
then copy them into another
ledger. Time-killing, like every-
thing else. These people looked as
though they didn't care, one way
or the other.
But as he watched there was a
quick scuffle in the crowd, a sud-
den, brief outbreak of violence.
One man s shoe had scraped the
heel of the woman ahead of him;
she turned and swung her shop-
ping bag, scraping a bloody gash
down his cheek. He slammed his
fist at her stomach. She kicked. xV
man behind them rammed his way
past, his face contorted. The pair
separated, both muttering. Around
them other knots of people were
beginning to mutter. The irrita-
tion was spreading, as it seemed
to do from time to time, as though
nobody wanted anything so much
as the chance to strike out.
Jeannie had seen the explosion
too. She gasped and turned away
from the window, looking quickly
back at the children, who were all
asleep now. Tom pulled one of
her pigtails, gently.
The skyline loomed ahead of
them, one vast unified glass-
walled cube of Manhattan. Light
rays shot from it into the sunset;
the spots of foliage that were the
carefully planned block gardens,
one at each level of the ninety-
eight floors of the Unit, glowed
dark green. Tom, as he always,
did, blessed the foresight that had
put them there. Each one of his
children had been allotted his or
her weekly hour on the grass and
a chance to play near the tree.
There was even a zoo on each
level, not the kind of elaborate
one they had in Washington and
London and Moscow, of course,
but at least it had a cat and a dog
and a really large tank of gold-
fish. When you came down to it,
luxuries like that almost made up
for the crowds and the noise and
tiny rooms and feeling that there
was never quite enough air to
breathe.
They were just outside the Tun-
nel. Jeannie had put her knitting
down; she was looking intently
ahead, but as though she were
hstening rather than looking. In
spite of his own arguments, Tom
felt his fingers thudding on the
dashboard. On the TV screen,
Malenkovsky triumphantly moved
a king.
They had reached the Tunnel
entrance. Jeannie was silent. She
glanced at her watch, irrationally.
Tom pressed the tranquillizer but-
ton and the drawer shot out, but
Jeannie shook her head.
'‘I hate this, Tom. I think it’s
an absolutely lousy idea.”
Her voice sounded almost sav-
age, for Jeannie, and Tom felt a
little shocked.
‘Its the fairest thing”, he ar-
gued. “You know it perfectly well.”
Jeannie’s mouth had set in a
stubborn line. “I don’t care. There
must be another way.”
“This is the only fair way”, Tom
said again. ‘We take our chances
along with everybody else.”
His own heart was pounding,
now, and his hands felt cold. It
was the feeling he always had on
entering the Tunnel, and he had
never decided whether it was
dread or elation, or both. He was
no longer bored. He glanced at
the children on the back seat.
David was watching television
again and gnawing on a finger-
nail; the three little ones were still
asleep, sitting up as they had been
taught to do, hands folded prop-
erly in their laps. Three blind
mice.
The Tunnel was echoing and
cold. White light slipped off the
white tile w'alls that were clean
and polished and air-tight. Wind
rushed past, sounding as though
the car were moving faster than it
actually was. The Italian family
was still behind them, following
at a constant speed. Huge fans
were set into the Tunnel ceiling;
their roar reverberated over the
roar of the giant invisible air-con-
ditioning units, over the slow
wind of the moving cars.
jeannie had put her head down
on the seat back as though she
were asleep. The cars stopped for
an instant, started again. Tom
w^ondered if Jeannie felt the same
vivid thrill that he felt. Then he
looked at the line of her mouth
and saw the fear.
The Tunnel was 8500 feet
long. Each car took up seven feet,
bumper to bumper. Allow five feet
between cars. About seven hun-
dred cars in the tunnel, then:
more than three thousand people.
It w^ould take each car about fif-
teen minutes to go through. Their
car was halfway through now.
They were three-quarters of the
way through. Automatic signal
lights were flashing at them from
the catwalk under the Tunnel
roof. Tom s foot moved to the gas
pedal before he remembered the
car was set on Automatic. It was
an atavistic gesture: his hands
and feet wanted a job to do. His
body, for a minute, wanted to con-
trol the direction of its plunge. It
was the way he always felt, in the
Tunnel.
They were almost through. His
scalp felt as though tiny ants w^ere
running along the hairs. He
moved his toes, feeling the scratch
of sand on the nerves betw^een
them. He could see the far end of
the Tunnel. Maybe two minutes
more. A minute.
They stopped again. A car,
somewhere ahead, had swerved
out of line to search for the right
exit. Once out of the Tunnel it
was legal to switch back to Man-
ual drive, since it w^as necessary
to pick the right exit out of ten,
and all too easy to find yourself
carried to the top level of Man-
hattan Unit before finding a
place to turn off.
Toms hand drummed at the
w^heel. The maverick ahead had
edged back into line. They started
movement again. They picked up
speed. They were out of the Tun-
nel.
Jeannie picked up her knitting
and shook it, sharply. Then she
dropped it as though it had bitten
her fingers. A bell was clanging
over their heads, not too loud, but
clear. Just behind their rear bump-
er a gate swung smoothly into
place.
Jeannie turned to look back at
the space behind them where the
Italian family in the bright blue
car, and others, had been. There
were no cars there now. She
turned back, to stare whitely
through the windshield.
Tom was figuring. Two min-
utes for the ceiling sprays to work.
Then the seven hundred cars in
the Tunnel would be hauled out
and emptied. Ten minutes for
that, say. He wondered how long
it was supposed to take for the
giant fans to blow the cyanide gas
away.
'‘Depopulation without Dis-
crimination”, they called it at elec-
tion time. Nobody would ever ad-
mit voting for it, but almost ev-
erybody did. Aloud, you had to
rationalize: it was the fairest way
to do a necessary thing. But in the
unadmitted places of your mind
you knew it was more than that.
A gamble, the one unpredictable
element in the long, dreary proc-
ess of survival. A game. Russian
Roulette. A game you played to
win? Or, maybe, to lose? The an-
swer didn’t matter, because the
Tunnel was excitement. The only
excitement left.
Tom felt, suddenly, remarkably
wide awake. He switched to Man-
ual Drive and angled the round
nose of the Topolino over to the
Fourth Level exit.
He began to whistle between
his teeth. "Beach again next week-
end, sweetie, huh?”
Jeannie’s eyes were on his face.
Defensively, he added, "Good for
all of us, get out of the city, get a
little fresh air once in a while.”
He nudged her and pulled a
pigtail gently, with affection.
Bwahahahahaha!!!!!
booooooooooooooooooo!!!
This article is a perfect example of how people who live in cities and Europe, especially those on the US coasts and/or who work in tech, are completely oblivious to how real people live and function on a daily basis in the rest of the US. Flyover America is a weird land of big round circles and straight roads cutting boxes out of the land to them, interjected by occasional cities they saw on TV once or are home to a sports team they heard of. Otherwise, they think we're just like them with a Whole Foods in every town, one hour Amazon shipping, Uber'ing everywhere we go in a tiny hybrid car on paved roads, and have sidewalks as wide as our roadways. They're couldn't possibly be more mistaken.
The personal vehicle will never die out in the next century for those of us in middle America. If anything, we're regressing from modern culture in comparison to the big cities, thanks to many liberal policies put in place over the last decade. Small town hospitals are closing left and right because they can't make enough money to keep their doors open, with predominantly self employed blue collar folks who can't afford today's skyrocketing insurance rates or poor rural communities using Medicaid as a primary insurer in an area not paying enough to keep the lights on even in communities of tens of thousands. As infant mortality rises in America because of widening geographical separation from medical care, somehow those same people are supposed to take the Boring tube and Lyft to the doctor three counties away. According to the tech experts and big city media, anyhow...
Clueless fucks are all they are. I welcome them to come visit some of these places and see what reality is in comparison to their gross misperceptions. Seeing natural wonders that are found in places like flyover America will make for some great selfies for their Insta-nit-twit pages to say the least, and maybe they will realize how far off they are in their predictions.
I now leave the rest of you talking about your favorite size and color of cocks.
The personal vehicle will never die out in the next century for those of us in middle America. If anything, we're regressing from modern culture in comparison to the big cities, thanks to many liberal policies put in place over the last decade. Small town hospitals are closing left and right because they can't make enough money to keep their doors open, with predominantly self employed blue collar folks who can't afford today's skyrocketing insurance rates or poor rural communities using Medicaid as a primary insurer in an area not paying enough to keep the lights on even in communities of tens of thousands. As infant mortality rises in America because of widening geographical separation from medical care, somehow those same people are supposed to take the Boring tube and Lyft to the doctor three counties away. According to the tech experts and big city media, anyhow...
Clueless fucks are all they are. I welcome them to come visit some of these places and see what reality is in comparison to their gross misperceptions. Seeing natural wonders that are found in places like flyover America will make for some great selfies for their Insta-nit-twit pages to say the least, and maybe they will realize how far off they are in their predictions.
I now leave the rest of you talking about your favorite size and color of cocks.
I would just as soon all the big city dwellers be afraid to come over to flyover country.
I no shit have a SIL who is afraid to leave Miami and will not vacation anywhere in the US. She literally thinks any place north of Broward County is full of klansmen and rednecks.
I no shit have a SIL who is afraid to leave Miami and will not vacation anywhere in the US. She literally thinks any place north of Broward County is full of klansmen and rednecks.
I take it that means she never bothers you?
Might be a win...
Just like when Europeans talk about how Texas is like crazy and everybody shoots everybody & they execute you for anything... I'm like... sure.. all true... best just stay over there....
Now we're talking about some mythical shit.
It's hard to have a serious conversation when something like that is said.
Even more so the above. Is he one of those self-loathing individuals? He may not like his, but I sure like mine.
Believe me, my bung-hole wouldn't feel up to the task either, least of all when talking about a BBC.
Dave
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I would not worry about that story at all. There are Four Horsemen who will never let it get to that point. Look at how unhinged the left has become. A nudge and they’ll go full retard.
Be it Plague, Pesilence, War, or plain old Death they will always keep whatever population in check.
We’re due for both another global pandemic/global war and maybe even another dark age (past due).
None of which would surprise me.
Be it Plague, Pesilence, War, or plain old Death they will always keep whatever population in check.
We’re due for both another global pandemic/global war and maybe even another dark age (past due).
None of which would surprise me.
Dicks...somehow?
Bet those dry sockets felt great
www.epautos.com is an automotive blog run by a libertarian auto journalist named Eric Peters. His articles are regularly featured on Lew Rockwell’s website. He used to write for some big-name publications but has since left them due to refusing to play by their b.s. rules. He’s got a lot of interesting thoughts about freedom, cars, and politics and how tech, government, and the enviros are basically trying to do what was stated above: ultimately put an end to wide-scale ownership of private vehicles for the sake of controlling people. I’m not a gearhead, by any means, but I find much of his material to be thought provoking.
Private ownership of transportation and the freedom to move about freely is as ingrained in american culture as anything.
Not too long ago an American would shudder at the idea of travel passes or getting approval from govt to move about.
Likewise we would not have allowed govt to track our movements.
Now, an accepted practice.
Not too long ago an American would shudder at the idea of travel passes or getting approval from govt to move about.
Likewise we would not have allowed govt to track our movements.
Now, an accepted practice.
It is? If you don’t want the government to have the ability to track your movements it’s pretty simple — just leave your phone at home and don’t post on the bookface where you’re going and upload pics of your surroundings to instachat.
The government doesn’t need to spy on 90% of people these days; they spy on themselves.
I’m going to shoot it out with somebody that comes for my Duramax same as I would my arsenal. They won’t need to, though, they’ll just make diesel/gas so expensive that common folks can’t go anywhere.
Hook, line and sinker! ?
Perhaps it's not common around your area.
But not that long ago cameras sprung up on just about all the intersections around our area, covering all traffic directions.
It's now super easy to feed those data streams to an image processing program, that will capture and log each license plate with date/time and direction of travel. Nothing really special needed computer wise to do it.
Other countries are a bit more open about their just making a big database of who went where, but I would be hard pressed to believe that with the level of domestic surveillance the government seems to be enamored with, that somewhere somebody, probably at several levels is not doing the same thing.
There is a huge amount of domestic surveillance going on in this country that we allowed to be put into place for the sake of "terrorists"...
It's only going to get worse, especially since so many big technocrats and their evil companies see the advantage in being able to track each individual as to where they go and what they do for their own commercial data farm ideas, so you have the government and big industry both working to eliminate any idea of privacy.
Now if you are way out in the country and not a big city, it's probably a lot different... but keep an eye out for "traffic cameras" suddenly showing up at your town's intersections.
Is your Duramax old enough that you can run it off veggie oil or boiled down "animal" fats mixed with a bit of other fuel?
If so, hang on to it tightly.
Yep social changes wrought by the Model T are real.
Eroded sexual mores, got the kids moving away from Mom and Dad, created a boom in the economy, allowed for faster expansion of the west......
Taking that away would be stifling. The truth be told the world has gotten so much smaller over the last hundred years the ability to "get away" has dwindled.
Agreed people willingly offer their juglar to the predator.
and as for your vehicle.......its tracked just as tightly as your cell phone and etc.
Good luck with not being tracked. .gov is out of control. The servant has become the master
