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"My feeling is that the chance of our surviving into the twenty-first century as working civilization is less than fifty percent but greater than zero."
- Isaac Asimov

Speedcap  
  Short for speed capsule (?); sometimes, going ballistic is the fastest way to get there.  

This is an interesting way to get across town. One of the advantages is that it requires minimal infrastructure between "stations." And it sounds like more fun.

I reached the speedcaps and got into one. I punched in the code for the Gate, sank into the padding and took a deep breath, then me and the capsule arched out over the city like a high pop fly to centerfield.

Faster than that I cannot hurry....My capsule was fielded by the retarder rings.

Technovelgy from Millennium, by John Varley.
Published by Berkley Books in 1983
Additional resources -

So, all those tables calculated by the first human "calculators" are finally coming in handy for the commuter…

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Millennium
  More Ideas and Technology by John Varley
  Tech news articles related to Millennium
  Tech news articles related to works by John Varley

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