Photo by Jonas Jacobsson on Unsplash
After cracking his neck to release the tension, Tom left his pretend cubicle, the walls were just under four and a half feet tall based on some metric unit or other, anyone could look over them, and made his way through the maze to the waiting area. Jennifer handed him the next number with the bar code to scan once he was back at his desk.
“Number 37,” he projected, his tone government-drone-dead. He remembered when he loved his job, helping people have adventures of a lifetime. He was a travel agent, damn it. People should travel, see the world, explore, meet, cross-pollinate. When did it all go so bad?
An older couple stood, both white-haired, and shuffled through the twenty or so people sitting in the plastic chairs.
“Number 37,” he repeated when they finally reached him. They nodded, a little numb from the, he looked at the small printoff in his hand for the time stamp and then looked at the digital clock on the wall, two-hour forty-minute wait. “Follow me.”
Tom made his way back and slipped through the narrow space on one side of his desk to get behind it. As they sat down in another set of molded seats, he scanned the bar code to call up the information the front desk had entered. More accurately, the couple had filled out online, then refilled out when they arrived, then scanned by the AI reader, and compared to what had been entered before with the differences flagged for his review, and everything else that got tagged in when their citizen identifications had been scanned at the front desk.
Ex-military for the husband; both a bonus and a detriment for whatever type of travel they were shooting for. Ten different stations during his six years. Two children – very socially responsible of them. Each of their children had the recently mandated two children, the grandchildren in their early teens. Ah, they wanted to visit them for the winter holidays, that is a reasonable travel, but holiday travel did come at a premium pricing…one was local and the other out-of-state. He winced when he saw the couple’s ages. Sixty-eight and seventy-two.
Forcing a smile on his face, he turned to the couple. “How can I help you today?”
“You can help us by approving our travel vouchers.” The woman pushed the generic paperwork some websites provided to “aid” in making travel arrangements.
“Well, first I need to find out a little more about the travel.” The smile didn’t waver. “Mrs. Andrews, where, when, and why do you want to leave Lauderdale County?”
“We already filled out all of that, four times since the computer timed-out during a rolling brownout.” She shoved the papers closer to him. “Just stamp these and we will be on our way.”
Tom looked back to the screen and touched a few keys on the virtual keyboard. “Ah, I see, you want to travel from Tuesday November 20th until Friday December 28th to visit family in Huntsville and in Stillwater, Oklahoma, with a small side trip to Jackson, Tennessee.”
“Yes, to visit my brother,” Mrs. Andres confirmed.
“That would be a total of five state border crossings.”
“I know that.” She tapped the pile in front of her. “That is why there are five travel vouchers here.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, you might not be aware of the recent changes implemented. While the climate change travel tax is for crossing state borders, the non-renewable resource tax is charged by county crossings and you will need travel vouchers for each county you will be passing through.”
The man frowned at that. “When did that happen?”
“Two years ago now. I see your last travel was by plane in…January, so the county travel vouchers would have been unnecessary.”
They already traveled this year. It is going to be a nightmare.
“The law passed as part of the Terrorist and Immigration Control Bill in 2029 and parts have been gradually rolled out ever since. The county travel vouchers are the last measure to be implemented and it is still being worked on; Alabama hasn’t been enforcing it for people traveling locally, but, really, every time you have visited your daughter in Huntsville you should have been applying to cross through Limestone and go into Madison.”
Mr. Andrews grunted.
“Are you kidding me?” his wife exploded beside him. “Go through this every time we go see Margaret?”
“If your vehicle was an electric, then no, but with the gasoline personal transport you say you will be using, then yes. The tax stamps on the county travel vouchers underwrite the oil and petroleum companies maintain their infrastructure.”
“I told you we should have gotten the Honda instead of the truck.” Margaret snapped at her husband. She turned back to Tom. “But with the subsidies to Buy America, the tariffs for the lithium battery, and all that, the truck had been half the price at the time.” She huffed. “Fine, so what’s the damage to get the stamps?”
“Well, I need to create a map of your travel and get a list of all the counties you will be crossing.”
“Yes, yes, I understand.”
“And do you also understand that each state crossing comes with a charge.”
“Of course, we’ve traveled before.” Mrs. Andrews resettled in her chair. “They lumped it all together for our trip to Disney to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary.”
“Very good. If you could pull out your phones and download the travel app.” Tom pointed out the QR code to scan at the edge of his desk, “I’ll show the most likely route based on the information you have provided.”
The woman pulled out her phone and scanned it in, flipping through the pages of accepting the app and spoke a few words to finalize the transaction. Once the confirmation popped up on his screen, Tom transferred the route and dates to her phone based on what they had entered on the website.
“This looks right.” The woman passed her phone to her husband. “Frank, double-check this please.”
He scrolled through the travel and itinerary and passed it back with a nod.
“Very good, now I will start the general recording.” Tom activated the video and audio recording for his office. “Thomas Ducan, certified and licensed Travel Agent located at the Florence Alabama Federal Office for the Intra and Interstate Travel Division of Immigration and Custom Enforcement Agency within the United State Department of Homeland Security. I am with Mr. Franklin Andrews and Mrs. Georgia Andrews who are applying for Winter Holiday travel by personal vehicle. Mr. and Mrs. Andrews, you understand this meeting will be recorded.”
“We do.” Georgia said, and Frank nodded, frowning.
“Sir, we need you to confirm verbally.”
“Yes, I understand,” the man said, his frown deepening.
“Very good. Now, the travel being applied for is during the Winter Holiday season and for entertainment purposes, so surge pricing applies and no company is underwriting the travel. The vehicle is gasoline therefore both the non-renewable resource tax applies when crossing counties and climate change mitigation tax applies when crossing state borders. Mr. Andrews is seventy-two, so the senior surcharge applies. Mrs. Andrews is sixty-eight, so the senior surcharge applies. These surcharges stack.”
“The what now?” Georgia interrupted Tom’s recitation.
“There is a five percent surcharge on all travel voucher crossings for people over sixty-two or who are disabled. As you are receiving welfare substitutes, travel for entertainment purposes is considered a luxury so various luxury surcharges apply.”
“Social security is not welfare,” growled Frank. “I damn well paid into it since I was fourteen and got my first job. I still remember the FICA hit shocking me.”
“Many people feel that way, but the Congress specifically defined all types of welfare in the Even Better Big Beautiful Bill in 2028, and I have to work within the law.”
“So we have to pay 5% over surge pricing for both of us?” Pink tinged Georgia’s cheeks.
“Yes. Shall I continue?”
She waved her hand regally. “Please do, asshole boot-licker.”
Tom clicked out of curiosity over to their voting record, and internally shrugged, not surprised by the verbal abuse with those choices. You get the laws you get by who you elect. Two more swipes returned him back to the charges.
“As this is your second trip across state lines this year, there is an excess travel surcharge.”
Frank’s nostrils flared. “How much?”
“Only twenty percent. It increases by fifty percent for every additional trip.” Tom looked up from his screen. It was off-script and his supervisor could ding him, especially since this was on the record, but he couldn’t not give the warning. He was a travel agent. “The excess travel surcharge is based on being less than 365 and a quarter days since your last trip. The excess travel surcharge continues to stack, and the date of the counting restarts from the date of the trip. So if you decide to take a summer trip next year, you will still be within the 365-day window of this trip and the excess travel surcharge will be seventy percent.”
“Are they trying to keep us locked up in our homes?” The pink tinge was completely red and racing up and down Georgia’s neck.
Yes, yes they are. They don’t want citizens comparing notes. They don’t want people creating networks in case they need to run. And they love old people becoming bored and inactive as they die faster, getting them off welfare faster. And, most especially, isolation makes compliance easier. But Tom wouldn’t say anything like that aloud, especially to party loyalists.
“I almost forgot to mention the luxury surcharge for entertainment travel, but the five percent veteran discount applies to that, so only another seventeen percent. The total for all the crossing taxes and the surcharge as applied is being transferred to your screen…now.” Tom heard the ding on the travel app.
The words that followed from the old lady proved her status at the upper edge of the Gen-X generation, eventually it ended with “Hell, no.”
“Very good.” Tom responded without raising his voice. “If you would click the ‘no’ option on the app, rejecting the travel, we can move on to see if other options would be better.”
Georgia struggled to stand. “I just want to visit the grandbabies while I can, you motherfucker. How dare you!”
Standing more quickly than his wife, Frank grabbed his wife’s arm before she did something everyone in the cubicle would regret. “Do we get a refund of the application?”
“No, the application fee is non-refundable as indicated on the website.” Tom remain seated. “Let me just close out the recording, and I can escort you out.”
“No, you can just stay there, you worthless piece of trash.” Georgia huffed out of the cubicle toward the door, her husband following in her wake.
Security had a walkway above to observe and a sniper ready for people on both the intra-interstate travel side and the Department of Motor Vehicle side of the building. Escorting customers out had been removed from the metrics, but filing out the paperwork was still required if Tom wanted kept this shit job in an economy with 20% unemployment. “Mr. and Mrs. Andrews have withdrawn their travel request.” He time-stamped the file and moved to save it. With it, he watched the appropriate flags get generated for various agencies monitor the couple for traveling illegally during the holidays. Only three, since they were party loyalists.
People who continued to buck the system, got an addition four, including one to generate a visit by ICE within a week to investigate the less politically savvy, searching the house for packed bags and the like.
After throwing the Andrews number into the trashcan, Tom took a deep breath, rotated his neck, exhaled, then stood. He edged around his desk and went to the waiting area.
(words 1,987; first published 9/6/2026)
Two attempts