The United States Portal Transport Sytem (U.S.P.T.S) had
evolved into a robust mode of transportation by the year
2017. Portal 77, or the “pipe” as it came to be known,
looped from West Hollywood to downtown Chicago like a
2,000 mile electromagnetic ring. Peter still had a car, like
most other suburbanites, for local travel. But the slim solar
vehicle had distance limitations, and the portal system had
proven to be reliable and safe.

Once the government had removed regulatory controls from
the portal industry, large businesses, most in Silicon
Valley, lobbied aggressively for a piece of the pie. Key
among these was Apple Corp. Ironically, Apple had actually
fought the hardest to prevent the construction of this next
generation transport sytem in the first place, claiming that the
extremely high voltages generated by the portals created
health risks. How could we have ever know that Apple was
planning to inject the chips into our brains as we passed
through portals with our iPhones?