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    Toll Booth
    Toll Booth
    Toll Booth
    Ebook54 pages44 minutes

    Toll Booth

    By M.L. Humphrey

    ()

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    About this ebook

    In the near future, there will be a network of parking garage type buildings in all of the major cities of the world containing a matter transfer apparatus that can quickly move vehicles, and their contents, to any selected worldwide outlet and back again.
    All this being handled by the workings of Commuter Central, a computer controlled mass transfer unit where ordinary people can commute from one side of the country to the other; or vacation in Hawaii or a Greek villa by automobile.
    But! What if?
    As all of the workings of the Commuter Central are run by computers, what would happen if there was a computer glitch, or worse yet, a computer virus?
    Pay the toll to arrive in Los Angeles and end up in Athens, Greece. Or, worse yet, leave Boston and end up in Tucson, Arizona, 1859!
    Read on.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherM. L. Humphrey
    Release dateDec 2, 2012
    ISBN9781301465675
    Toll Booth
    Author

    M.L. Humphrey

    Hi there Sci Fi fans, my name is Maurice Humphrey.I am a Vermont native, husband, father, grandfather, well over 60, Navy veteran, retired IBM engineer, retired printer repairman, Graduated: Goddard Jr. College, VT Technical College, and Trinity College. Over the years I’ve written technical articles, taught technical classes, and presented at technical conventions.I’ve been reading science fiction for over 50 years now. First books were “Journey to the Centre of the Earth” by Jules Verne and “The Stars Are Ours” by Andre Norton. I’ve read and collected many great stories, and a considerable amount of junk ones as well. I’d say by now that I probably have a good idea of what I consider a good story.

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      Book preview

      Toll Booth - M.L. Humphrey

      TOLL BOOTH

      By M. L. Humphrey

      Copyright © September 2012

      Published by: Maurice Humphrey

      Smashwords edition

      All Rights Reserved

      This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. Cover art is sole property of the author.

      Table of Contents

      Authors Forward

      Toll Booth

      Book One: The Golden Ticket

      Book Two: Honeymoon in Paradise

      Book Three: Looper

      Book Four: Mr. Golden's Magic House

      Book Five: Haywire

      Authors Forward

      There is much to be said about taking a small idea and expanding it into a group of stories that express variations on that idea. It's the old what-if or which branch of the road do you take. Toll Booth is more the explanation of the theme and the following stories are the variations, each with their own little twist at the end. What happens when you mix bureaucrats and computers with other stuff? There's sure to be some glitches along the way. Perhaps it's that uncertainty that makes it so interesting.

      Toll Booth

      Package Central was a small startup company that used a proprietary form of matter transporter to move packages between the major cities of the world. Actually, it was more like a wormhole but that's a moot point as a package would enter one terminal and seconds later emerge at its destination. All of these world-wide terminals were connected to the central terminal in Saint Louis.

      Enter Marcus Golden, a young entrepreneur hired to run Package Central. His big dream was to broaden the scope of the company.

      Why can't we offer our services to the commuting public He asked the board of directors. They were baffled by his proposal. What's wrong with just expanding our package services? They replied.

      Because that market is nearly saturated Golden replied. We need to expand into avenues where no one else has ever gone before.

      He eventually won the board over and the next several years were spent in upgrading their infrastructure. Early experiments showed that the present automobile wasn't really suitable. In the process there had been some very spectacular experiments gone wrong before they pinned down the problem. After all, the last thing they wanted to have was a situation like the movie 'The Fly'.

      It had taken ten years to rebuild their network and introduce the safer Commuter Connection line of vehicles in a wide array of colors, and push through legislation allowing them to connect their private access roads to the interstate system.

      Like the toll roads of the 50's and 60's, they put a toll booth at each entrance and sold block passes for a specific period of time or uses. They even did gift cards.

      But, what does it take to run all of these facilities and synchronize them together? Well, first it took money and lots of it. Next it took a crew of engineers and a whole pile of computers. And they made it work. And it was a huge success. Commuter Connections LLC was now a reality.

      But no company is without its bureaucracy, or highly paid idiots. What do you think would happen if any combination of those computers and bureaucrats goof up? Read on and find out.

      Book One: The Golden Ticket

      Reuben awoke as usual

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