Intro
Fog clothes the roadside trees, making them seem as ghosts. Four lanes of black tarmac stretch on. The reflective road markers move by in a steady stream. My interior guages echo this motion with their precision read-outs. The energy transfer rate of the conversion tanks hovers around 5 Megawatts, the speedometer shows 250 KPH. Despite all the peaceful glory, my glorious friend, I drive listening to the most disturbing modern quartet music that Lutoslawski can muster.
As front, back, and side viewcams all report no traffic, I set the steering wheel on auto-steer. My hands at my side, I lean back in the cockpit and relax while watching the soft-green hue of the conversion tanks. I'd just had the conversion tanks reworked. They've been cleaned, resealed, and filled with the cleanest water I could buy. This time I had them filled with the top-of-the-line bio-engine: Salk-Cohine Diving-Bell Algae.
My friends laughed when they found I'd paid $45,000 for converter algae. Now they're all back in the metro, breathing foul air and cursing the congestion on the trams. Don't they realize that when I bought these diving-bell algae, I was buying my ticket out of the metro?
I watch the trees and road reflectors swish by, as the cool vent air shifts my hair. The discordant music becomes harmonious and soft. I'm surprised how much I do not miss those cretins back in the metro, dear reader, but they are truly cretins and deserve no long-term remembrance: a flock of naysayers and jokers, left coughing in the bottom layers of the urban atmosphere. Like a circus car filled with soot-covered clowns, the city is full of the like.
I smile again as I think of this stinking refuse being safely behind me. Not yet do I realize the depths of darkness that wait for me in the next town. Naked horror and abject screams test the mettle of any would-be-vacationer.