“Boss wants to see you.”

Ugh. Words a policy analyst never wants to hear. I went down the corridor and into the office of the State Transportation Policy Unit director. Then it got worse.

“Close the Door.

“These folks are federal agents and have some questions for you. This is Malcolm Hombre…”

“Call me Mal” says Six Foot Tall Air Force Haircut, like that overeager IT salesman who chats you up on the golf links for insider tidbits. Mal commandeers the conversation while the boss sits back and the other fed puffs on an almond-scented e-cigarette. Mal asks me “What do you know about Project Tucker?” One thing I know is that Project Tucker is classified. I look at the boss, who nods permission to answer.

“Project Tucker is named after a revolutionary, safe, affordable car that was such a threat to the auto industry that they killed it.”

“Partial credit,” says Mal. “Tucker made his money turning out gun turrets for the war, he owed us. We just wanted him to add one little box to his fancy cars, but Tucker didn’t see the need. It wasn’t automakers, though — it was the War Assets Administration, Justice, and the SEC that broke him.”

In fact, Tucker had been stunned by the carnage his patriotic handiwork had created, just as Nobel, Einstein, and Loghman came to question what they had done. Sort of a… Turrets Syndrome?

I stifle that thought and plunge ahead. “You didn’t just choke Tucker, you poisoned the field for domestic car starts. In the mid-1950s, Ford, General Motors and Chrysler manufactured 95 percent of American cars. By 1980 the Japanese and Europeans owned our marketplace.”

They stare at me, but no one says anything, so I keep going. “Project Tucker is an auto industry program sold as “no crashes, no traffic lights, no parking” saving $200 billion in medical, property, and productivity losses annually. It’s secretly NSA funded and controlled to usher in the age of autonomous cars. NSA tracks the cybercars and diverts, shuts down, or terminates the terrorist-controlled vehicles. We’ve anticipated potential hacks and developed countermeasures. Privacy is a non-issue.

The problem is we’re wrong on the real impact on civilization. Self-driving cars available on call any time put a lot of drivers out of work, traditionally an easy entry level job. Ride time is productive so suburban sprawl expands and the incentive for carpooling is gone. People whose maids take the bus switch to more reliable cybercars, suburban riders switch for the convenience and comfort, transit and its public support evaporate or are replaced by autonomous buses, a zero sum game. These cars won’t replace today’s cars unless those are outlawed, so they will be added to traffic without reducing congestion or emissions. There’s no market for used ones because the obsolete software is unsupported so they are stored, abandoned, or landfilled. It’s the Eastland all over again. Then, to address liability you extend legal personhood to robotic cars. It’s RUR. It’s the day democratic government dies.”

Mal asks my boss, “A word with you in the hall, please?” As the door closes, the Vapist sucks on that stupid e-cig, looking right at me so I’m staring down its barrel, only instead of pulling it out to exhale… what the