The sun had set less than six hours ago over the world-spanning urban sprawl. The billions of homeless in New York City, alone, were sound asleep at 4:00 AM when an alarm clock woke Den out of a deep sleep. With a yawn, he put on his glasses and crawled out of his bunk and shuffled down to the bathroom.

Joanne was sitting on a toilet and called out to him as he walked past, "Hey four-eyes, sleep alone again last night?"

"Fuck you," he muttered as he walked past.

"Not if you were the last man on Earth!" she yelled back.

Den grabbed a towel and a bar of soap and walked into the shower room. Bill, a big black man, was showering at one end of the room. Den immediately noticed that Bill had a huge hard-on, and quickly looked away, but not quick enough. "Yo! Big trucker dude!" Bill called out. "Don't you wish you had this package!"

Den ignored him. No wonder he had a hard on. Cheryl was showering at the other end of the room. Cheryl was a large woman, not fat by any means, but tall, muscular, and big-boned.

At least Cheryl kept to herself and had never hassled him. They had never said a single word to each other, which was just fine with Den.

Den, on the other hand, was a tall skinny geek whom no one would ever mistake for a truck driver. After the total economic collapse of 2123 he lost his job as a Latte v2.0 developer for Megatelco, but was smart enough to have ignored the advice of endless lawyers and tax accountants, and had built up his savings in a regular savings account, rare as they were these days, instead of one of those tax-deferred retirement accounts.

So with the fair amount of newdollars he had saved up, he paid for truck-driving school. He also had enough saved up to support himself for the six months it took to pass the hundreds of written tests and two dozen driving tests to get his Commercial Drivers License, and then pass a battery of state-mandated physicals and drug-screening tests before he could get a job. After graduation, the school held a job fair, and Den signed on with Big Mutha Truckers.

After his shower, Den rooted through the clean laundry bin and found a cargo-jumpsuit in his size. He walked down the darkly-lit corridor to the cafeteria where he dropped some newquarters into the coin slot, swiped his Social Security card through the card reader to prove to the machine that the newquarters he used were acquired by him in a legitimate previous money exchange, and keyed in his order for a synth-muffin and a squeeze tube of synth-orange juice. He stashed his breakfast in one of his cargo-pockets and then took a lift down to the sub-basement and got in line at the dispatcher's window.

He took the manila folder given him and then headed own the hallway to the garage.

Inside the huge cavernous room, hundreds of trucks were waiting for their day to begin. He found his truck, plate number BZ-2649. He walked around the truck doing his pre-trip inspection. Inspecting a 40-wheeler big-rig was a time consuming task, and had completed the inspection by 5:30. He opened the door, and entered. He rode the elevator up to the uppermost level, entered the cockpit, and started the truck. He waited as the pressure as the air brakes slowly built to 120 PSI when the air compressor would sneeze, telling him that the air brake system was charging normally.

He checked his route plan. His final destination was Chicago. His first stop was at the Port Authority Bus Terminal to pick up his passengers who would ride in the upper passenger level. Then he would take the Thruway up to Pine Bush to load up with fresh apples to be taken to Chicago.

He marked the start of his shift in his logbook. Then, tuning the radio to channel 19, he picked up the microphone and announced, "Breaker 19. This is Mutha Bravo Zulu twenty six forty niner heavy requesting clearance to depart."

The dispatcher replied with detailed directions to take his truck through the massive underground parking complex and out onto 98th street.

He pushed in the red and yellow knobs on the tractor protection valve to release the air brakes, pressed the 1st gear button on the keypad, and began rolling.

At this early in the morning, hardly anyone was out. The homeless sleeping shoulder-to-shoulder on the sidewalk sometime overflowed onto the street, which made his job extremely difficult for they refused to move an inch even as the 72 inch tires of a 40-wheeler rolled just inches past their heads.

He turned onto 7th avenue and made his way through block after block of decay and destruction. While, yes, there were still some few well-to-do people amidst the utter indigence, their domiciles carefully hidden--no doubt one or two of the seemingly burnt-out slums he passed on his way was a shell for an elegant mansion inside.

He quickly made his way to the Terminal, or what was left of it. The burnt out ruins of the original Port Authority Bus Terminal, bombed by terrorists back in 2018, served only as a landmark. Despite the wee hours of the morning, several trucks were taking on or discharging passengers. There were also land-ships waiting -- as big as a truck but for passengers only, they were meant for more long distance travel, such as to California or even South America.

He pulled up to the sidewalk, locked the steel-reinforced door to the cockpit, rode the elevator down, and went through a door to the passenger entry area. He rooted through the bin of magnetic signs and found one that said, "Chicago," and exited the passenger door.

This was the part of the job he hated the most--dealing with the public. As a computer geek, he never had to deal with the public. One scrappy woman and a child walked up to him and asked, "Where are you going?"

"Chicago," he answered as he slapped the magnetic sign to the side of the truck.

"You know anyone who's going to Montreal?"

"Nope. Sorry," Den replied.

He checked his watch--6:00 AM. Per company policy, he would wait here for a half an hour to load passengers, then head upstate for his freight load.

A couple of gay men approached, hand in hand. "Going to Chicago?" they asked.

"Yes. Do you have tickets?"

"No, I thought we could buy them from the driver."

"It's cheaper to buy them online, but, sure, I can sell you tickets. $150 newdollars apiece."

They bought the tickets and boarded the truck, taking the elevator up to the passenger deck.

A naked old man walked up to him, "Can you spare some change for the homeless, young man?"

"Sorry," Den replied.

It wasn't that Den was unsympathetic to the homeless, but he just didn't want to pay the fines for money laundering and deal with the tax hassles. He had some change in his pocket that he would have gladly given the poor guy, but he knew the moment that the homeless guy tried to spend them, all kinds of alarms would go off in some local FBI office. Den knew that he would be the one to explain how he was involved in money laundering. Then the IRS would get involved and want their share of the income taxes from the exchange of currency. The state would probably want to collect sales tax. He even knew that he could end up charged with conspiracy of terrorism by the Homeland Security Office if that pocket change ultimately ended up in the wrong hands.

Also, on his first time out, he had given his muffin to just such a homeless man. Within minutes, a crowd of homeless people begging for food enveloped him. He had no choice but to get back in his truck and head out, empty of passengers. His supervisor wasn't pleased, but chalked it up to inexperience from a new guy, and warned him that the company could even be sued if that homeless guy had become sick after eating his handout--even if the handout wasn't the reason for his sickness.

Over the next half-hour, his truck gradually filled with passengers headed to Chicago--Gay couples, straight couples, threesomes that were obviously romantically intertwined, single women with children, single men with children, even children alone. But, oddly enough, not a single complete traditional family.

"Welcome aboard," he said with a smile to one particularly attractive woman with a child as she handed him her tickets, but she just scowled back at him as she boarded the truck.

At 6:30, he closed the door and rode the elevator up to the upper level.

Back in the driver's seat, he keyed the microphone to the PA system, "Welcome aboard Big Mutha Truckers six thirty to Chicago. There is a restroom and a vending machine next to the elevator. Emergency stairs and exit is to the rear. Please remain in your seats while the truck is in motion. Have a nice trip."

He pulled out onto the avenue and past the barricaded entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, flooded by a terrorist bomb since around 2040 or so. Rumor has it that the victims are still down there, still in their cars that became their coffins. He drove around the block and headed north on 8th avenue. He continued up past the wreckage of the George Washington Bridge and up across one of the smaller street bridges across the East River into the Bronx.

He continued north, past the wreckage of the Tappan Zee Bridge until he reached I-84. Then, he headed west across the lesser-known Newburgh-Beacon Bridge that the myriad of Palestinian, Israeli, Irish, South American, African, German, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese terrorist groups somehow missed. The good side, if it could be called a good side, is after they completely bombed the US into ruins, all they had left was to bomb each other into ruins.

It was a slow drive along the non-maintained pothole-littered highway through the continuous urban sprawl.

He pushed the button to put the truck into 18th gear, set the cruise control, and took the opportunity to eat his synth-muffin and drink his synth-orange juice.

At around 9 AM he exited the highway at the Middletown exit. As he drove down 211, a decrepit ancient sign declared it to be the "Miracle Mile." But to Den, it was just one more decrepit city avenue lined with abandoned burnt-out hi-rise office buildings adorned with sidewalks jam-packed with homeless people still sleeping shoulder to shoulder.

He made his way through the city streets to the section of the city called Pine Bush, visibly no different than the rest of the bleak and gritty urban landscape.

He turned into an alley and stopped at a guard station. He pushed a button to fax his papers over to the guard in the booth, then continued on his way after the chain-link gate opened to admit his truck.

He pulled into a yard and backed up to an empty loading dock. Keying the mike for the PA system, "Attention passengers, this is a brief stop to take on some cargo. Feel free to use the lavatory or buy some snacks from the vending machine. Under no circumstances attempt to leave the truck to stretch your legs, I understand the attack dogs haven't been fed yet."

He released the microphone and chuckled. He knew that some passenger would complain and he'd get chewed out for having a sense of humor. But if he didn't say something, invariably some passenger would take the elevator down and figure out how to open the door, then he'd get chewed out anyway.

He stepped out onto the loading dock to stretch his legs as he watched the forklifts drop crate after crate full of apples into the lower deck of the truck.

"Den!" a familiar voice called out.

"Hey Jim!" Den called back to the man walking over from the dispatcher's office.

They talked like two old friends while the truck was being loaded.

Den was glad that Jim happened to be on duty. He usually gave Den a basket of fresh apples under the table. Only the obscenely rich could afford to buy a fresh apple, or fresh anything else for that matter. So being a truck driver had its privileges.

Finally, his cargo of apples was loaded (where do they grow apples amidst this urban blight anyway? he wondered), and he was soon back the interstate headed west.