Benign commercial gadgets or full-frontal attack?

Suburbia. The Strip-Mall Zone. I was passing through it on my escape from the City, heading back to the Open Road. Traffic was beginning to thin, the pace was picking up.

V1 was showing multiple alarms, but they were off to the sides: automatic door openers, no problem. Nice to know where they are though

Suddenly, a heavy Ka burst ahead. The truck in front had been irradiated, but I couldn’t see the source. Off the gas and on the brake, and I drop back out of warp…

Then I saw him, the Revenue Collector, skulking in the median, hiding behind the crash barrier around a bridge support. He lit his lights, pulled onto the road ahead of me, and made his quota on the pickup driver’s misery, not mine.

If not for the V1’s directional arrows, and its different sounds for different radar bands, I couldn’t have distinguished the frontal attack from the benign commercial gadgets to the sides.

Thanks, V1!

Bob Sutterfield
Aurora, Colorado