The New Future of Speed

In the future, daring couriers resurrect battered and discarded status symbols of the past. They modify old Lamborghinis and Ferraris, or other high powered old cars or ‘bikes, and then set off in search of thrills and fortune. They become despised by society, hounded by the law, and barely tolerated by the corporations that begrudgingly come to depend on them.

Jupiter has this recurring dream, a story, something that could become a book, a film, a game, all of those things, or just a blip on this blog.

The story is set in an imminent future, a flawed utopia some twenty or thirty years out from now. Most people are getting around by shared and driverless electric vehicles. These ‘cars’ pick up power from the road surface, which is controlled by the government, who can then ensure that speed limits and traffic laws are rigidly enforced. 

Old internal combustion driven cars still exist, but even though they are not illegal, they are socially despised. They are usually driven by eccentric throwbacks, and those too poor to afford the latest whirring blobs. The World is clean, safe, connected, and anodyne. However, there is a new problem in this paradise, and it’s huge. The World’s online data is no longer secure. Cryptography has been irrevocably hacked, and electronic connections are no longer discrete ways to transmit information. Anyone needing to move data around securely now has to revert to the crude methods of the past; they have to put it onto physical media, and physically carry it to where it needs to be. This spawns a new, dangerous, and exciting industry; high speed transit by road.

So this is the scene, and the story starts like this:

The two men sit in the office, weighing each other up across a sparse desk. One is in his late thirties, sleeves rolled up on his white shirt, tie at half-mast. The other is younger, wearing a leather jacket, a t-shirt underneath.

“So Mr Jones, why am I talking to you again?” he asked, simultaneously pulling a document out of a white envelope with ‘delivered by hand’ stamped on it. “It says here that your company can get a hard drive from Boydton to here in Manhattan in three hours?”

“That’s right, yes we can.” 

“Boydton, Virginia? For this amount of money?” The shirted man twisted the document around so Jones could see, pointing at a number written on it.

“Yes.”

“OK, Jones…”

“Call me Edan, Frank…”

“OK Edan… we’ve tried air travel before. What with check in-times and taking cabs it’s not that quick, and we don’t like the couriers changing around like that, and…”

“It’s by road. We use the road.”

“By road!? How on earth can you do that? And is what you are proposing legal?”

“Do you really want to know about legal or not?”

Frank gave a long pause, staring directly at Edan.

“I suppose not” he said after a while “but I still don’t see how it’s possible.”

“Hmmm… OK, c’mon, I’ll show you what we use”

The two men stepped out of the office, the opening door revealing a basement area that appeared to have been hurriedly transformed into a post-room. They made their way past a few frantic and tired looking employees, busy stuffing boxes and envelopes, to a door and steel staircase that took them up to street level.

Out on the sidewalk  Edan pointed, unnecessarily, to a parked vehicle.

“That’s the kind of thing we use”

The car was low and sleek, crudely painted matt-black. There had obviously been an attempt to clean it up, but the body looked ragged, and damaged in some areas. Instead of being upright and glassy, it sat almost moulded to the floor, and what appeared to be the passenger compartment seemed inhuman and inaccessible. Passers-by glanced at the thing in a mix of wonderment and disgust, some even changed course so as not to walk close by. It seemed animate and menacing.

“It’s a Lamborghini Huracan” said Edan, unprompted. Frank wondered at Edan’s tone. He sounded

proud of this thing. “It will do 202 mph, and it has extra fuel tanks to give a longer range”

“Internal combustion engine?” Frank asked quietly, not wanting to appear to condone Edan’s enthusiasm.

“Yep, absolutely” replied Edan with a grin. He walked up to the driver’s side, Frank stayed back.

“Want to come for a spin?” He yelled across as he swung up the door.

Frank was wide eyed with incredulity. Come for a spin!?! Edan might as well have yelled a public invite to a bestial sex orgy. Frank looked around to see if he knew any of the people on the sidewalk, some of whom were now looking at him in open disgust. Edan looked like he might call again, so Frank rushed over to get in, simply in order to keep him quiet. After what seemed an age frantically wrestling with the incomprehensible door, he was able to sling himself into the vehicle, slamming the door shut and moving low in the seat, thankful for the darkened windows.

   

Edan was flipping up a red flap on the center consol. Underneath was a button marked start, but before Frank could comprehend what it was, Eban pressed it. Frank instinctively twisted in his seat as a sudden roar erupted from behind them, a twitch from Edan’s right foot sending it briefly up into a crescendo. The engine, Frank now realised what it was, sent a tingle throughout the car. Even before it had begun moving, this machine felt alive, expectant.

“These… these… things have a transponder-limiter, don’t they?” Asked Frank nervously.

“Yeah”, responded Edan darkly, “but it’s an old car. Things stop working”

Oh God, oh God, Oh God, thought Frank. The car began to move.