Looking Forward by Kenneth Jr. (snow like ashes .txt) 📗

apartment is maintained and cleaned continually by automatic mechanisms silently operated by the cybernator. No brooms, vacuum cleaners, or other manual paraphernalia are needed. It is almost completely dust-free. All surfaces are gracefully contoured so that there are no cracks or corners to permit dust to gather. Most surfaces have an electrostatic charge that repels dust and keeps it floating in the air to be filtered out. Since the air pressure in the apartment is slightly higher than outside, no dust flows in.

All materials and mechanisms in the living area are designed to last over one hundred years. Scott and Hella probably cannot recall any inconvenience due to a mechanical failure. The outside walls and roof of the apartment building are made of ceramic-like materials which require no painting or maintenance and have a life expectancy in excess of 500 years.

The versatile living areas are the focal points of the intelligence of the world environment. They are connected electronically with the Correlation Center, which, in turn, is connected with practically everything on the planet. When Scott wishes, he can contact any region in the world. He can talk with almost anyone in the world at any time. It is possible for him to attend any conference, to observe almost everything going on in the world in three-dimensional, color teleprojection without leaving his apartment.

Not only does their apartment enjoy two-way communication throughout the world, but it is also connected to receive anything they want directly from any part of the globe. Stores and shopping centers are regarded as inconvenient folkways of pre-twenty-first-century civilizations. When Scott and Hella want any personal item or any apparatus, they need only order their cybernator to produce three-dimensional models for their selection. Sometimes a basic model may have hundreds of optional attachments. This gives them an opportunity to order a customized version that meet their needs exactly.

When they select what they want, their cybernator immediately communicates this to the Correlation Center. In less than a second the order is registered at the nearest industrial complex. Within minutes this item is fabricated, packaged, and sent on its way in a high-speed system of tubes twenty feet in diameter. This high-speed package is electronically guided by the symbols representing Scott and Hella’s address. Their package travels at the rate of 250 miles per hour until it arrives at their apartment.

During the entire process not one human hand or brain has been involved in filling their order. It is possible that the object they have ordered is unique in the entire world, for perhaps no one else has ordered that particular combination.

There is no scarcity of anything. Scott and Hella are free to order as much as they wish, for no human lives are consumed in meeting their needs. Whatever they want results only in a momentary blip in the cybernated machine complex of the twenty-first century.

Living room of Scott and Hella’s apartment. The group is watching a three-dimensional teleprojection. The panel on the right contains facilities for shopping and rapid delivery, delicious instant food, sending and receiving information, etc.

Linear-acceleration train. This train is magnetically propelled on a cushion of air at 2,000 miles per hour. It has no engine or wheels. The electrostatically charged point reduces air resistance. Its safe cybernated operation requires no personnel.

Floating research vessel. Children as young as five years participate in interesting research projects such as this oceanographic research vessel’s analysis of currents near the Bering Strait dam. Trains connecting the continents travel through the upper tube.

Cybernated freighters. These rust-free titanium vessels load and unload themselves and navigate to any port without captain, crew, or dock workers. They carry enough atomic fuel to power the ship for fifty years.

A twenty-first-century car. These wheelless cars glide quietly and safely while people relax. You state where you want to go, and they guide themselves without attention. They are refueled every five years and usually operate twenty years without repairs.

Ion-propelled aircraft. This pilotless aircraft picks up Scott and Hella from the top of their apartment and cybernetically transports them to the Exuma Islands. It is equipped with the comforts and conveniences of the twenty-first-century apartments.

Power and research center. The nuclear power plant that Hella visits lies 300 feet below the central dome that contains the computer complex. Domed laboratories branch off from the center and are conveniently interconnected.

City design. Each of these spaciously designed fifteen-story living complexes overlooks natural areas of forests and lakes that are a minimum of one-half mile wide by one mile long. Transportation is handled in underground raceways.

Industrial production. A continuous stream of levicars is silently electroformed in one of the 1,000-foot flow lines. All objects are formed molecularly as a whole instead of being fabricated in parts and then assembled as in the pre-cybernated age.

Corcen. This six-foot sphere which serves as the world correlation and knowledge bank has trillions of inputs from all over the globe that enable it to serve every individual and coordinate the humanized man-machine symbiosis.

From the Moon. Scott and Bella’s observation dome overlooks the laser-cut excavation in the rock which protectively encloses the multi-level interior environment. In place of exterior doors, there is a system of translucent thermal barriers.

Suburban home. This home (including terrace) is electroformed in one piece and set in place by a cargo levicraft. Although cybernetically produced, the limitless choice of design elements and equipment make it uniquely individual.

Fulfilling Interests

Scott has strong interest in medical engineering. A writer in the twentieth century would have said that medicine was Scott’s “profession.” In the new world, this terminology is not appropriate since the primitive system of jobs, wages, fees, and money has been outgrown. Scott finds the human body and its myriad mechanisms particularly fascinating. He enjoys playing a part in experiments designed to yield data that helps people