Author: Erin Penn

Photo by Sweet Life on Unsplash

“Alright, it is time to get this done,” Georgia stalked through the house to where the dining room table and their laptop.

Frank looked up from his crossword, peering at her over his readers. “Hmm?”

“It is two days after we got back from our fiftieth anniversary last year which should cover that quarter day and a little extra if they stop counting the excess travel surcharge from the month the vacation stops, which they most likely do. Anything to screw over the little man.” She pulled out her phone and wallet from her purse and booted up the computer. While waiting, she continued to mutter. “February is one of the four discounted months according to the IITD website. January, February, May, and October. We are going to damn well see our grandchildren. Surcharge this and kiss my ass, travel agent.”

“Ah.” Her husband nodded and returned to his puzzle.

The room grew quiet with the angry clicking, until the muttering restarted. “Right, you want my citizen verification again, can’t just use the password and a passcode like a normal website. I got you covered. Send me a text.” Georgia switched to her phone when the ding came in. From her wallet she pulled out her citizen identification card and took a picture using the app linked through the text. “There you go, now to get this done.”

After three minutes of computers and A.I.s talking to each other, verifying Georgia Andrews’ identity, while she huffed, muttered, and rearranged things in the bill-paying work area, a screen blinked at the Intra and Interstate Travel Division website, red reflecting on the sixty-nine-year-olds face.

Stunned, she stopped moving long enough for her husband to look up again. Just in time for her to screech, “What do you mean I’ve exceeding the Lifetime Travel Limit?!?”

Frank sighed and set aside his crossword booklet, leveraging out of his recliner to join his wife at the table. Sure enough, blinking on the website, “Lifetime Travel Limit exceeded, no further Interstate Travel Vouchers allowed.”

“Interesting.”

“This has got to be wrong.” Her brown eyes met his, terror and sorrow tumbling through them. “Right?”

“Scoot over and let me look.” Frank took over the laptop seat with its special cushion to help with her replaced hips. It felt good against his arthritis.

She moved into the seat he vacated.

After passing over her purse and wallet, phone and ID, so she would put everything back where they belonged before forgetting, Frank opened up a second window and search on Lifetime Travel Limit. Passed in 2034 and implemented in January 2036, so it had only been active for twenty-four days, the Balanced and Fair Travel Law included a Lifetime Limit on Travel to twenty-five thousand miles, just a little more that once around the globe to free up resources for everyone to have a chance to travel. Military are forgiven for station assignments, and in occupations where travel is considered common and necessary like trucking, travel is counted at a tenth normal rate.

Frank narrowed his eyes behind his readers. Military spouses and children were not covered under the law as exempt from mileage related to changing stations. He grunted and returned to the first screen to click on his wife’s profile.

Sure enough. His twelve different deployments impacted her because she followed him to Germany, Australia, and Korea, as well as stations in Texas (twice), Alaska, the Carolinas, and California (four times). It had been a crazy six years with her packing up house with two small children and moving as many as four times a year following him around the globe. The government recreated that in their file of her movements accurately. Also listed were the two childhood moves she had with her parents, and the four they had for his job before they finally settled in Alabama in their late fifties. Those moves had been submitted as part of the process of applying for citizen identification back in 2030. Last year’s trip to Florida for their anniversary, and two other trips made since the IITD had been added to Homeland Security appeared at the top of the list, since it was in reverse date order with a cumulative total.

Just the move to Australia and back would have pushed her over the edge since it was halfway around the world. As it was, her mileage total pushed triple the Lifetime Limit. Both Danny and Marge would not be far behind. Luckily, Margaret was a homebody like him, but Danny took after Georgia. The only thing saving everyone’s sanity with the new citizen identification requirements was both their children being born on American soil, Texas during basic training for Margaret and California three weeks after moving back from Korea for Danny. Some of his buddies reported their kiddos being sent back to the countries of their birth. It wasn’t bad for the Germany and Australian babies, but those born in Korea had it rough establishing themselves in a new country where they didn’t even speak the language nearly forty years after being born there.

He returned to the search results to read more about the Lifetime Limit. No grandfather clauses, literally. The Government Unified Records combined all moves, change of driver’s licenses, military services, governmental positions, medical records, jobs verified under social security payments counted as moves. Frank flipped back as he remember something he had saw which had confused him and grunted upon seeing her temporary Amazon job worked during the Christmas 2020 season being recorded as a move to Seattle Washington; he supposed they would fight that, but it wouldn’t change anything.

Back to the research, he searched for anything to help them.

For a population that moves over eleven times in their lives (they were overachievers), plus were part of a generation “wastefully” encouraged to travel, … blah, blah, blah – commute average about a quarter million miles, another quarter million miles for errands like groceries, and the final quarter million miles for entertainment purposes. Most peopled traveled over three quarter of a million miles in their lifetime.

The cap is now twenty-five thousand. Though errands and commute dozen count, unless you were in situation like when he had been stationed in South Carolina and Georgia had moved in with her brother in North Carolina, only ten miles from the base. A whole lot of people in cities which straddled borders were screwed. Or had long commutes like most of the Eastern seaboard…ah, blue states. Moving on. He knew better than let his thoughts linger on topics like that.

Interesting. only interstate travel counted as that fell under federal control. Intrastate commerce and travel fell under state rights. They could still apply for county travel vouchers, only state crossing vouchers and plane travel would be denied.

Frank grunted. His father still lived in Texas, and he wanted to bury the old man when the time came.

“What does that mean?” Georgia asked. “What is happening?”

“We can still see Margaret.” Frank opened another window to the IITD website and pulled out his phone to run an ID check.

“I want to see Danny and his kids. Even that witch, Eva, would be welcome. Plus my brother.”

“I’m checking.” Frank clicked a picture of his ID. “And Eva is fine. Just because her job made them move is no reason to malign her.”

“We will agree to disagree there. Why couldn’t they have stayed here in Alabama? They had perfectly good jobs in Montgomery.” Georgia crossed her arms and sat upright like she had a stick up her ass.

“Because her new job paid three times as much, and he found a job that let him stay home with the children while they were in elementary school.” Frank repeated the long-time argument distractedly as his portfolio opened on the government website.

Same travel and moves, most not counted since ninety percent of them happened while he had been in the military. The moves afterwards put him at nearly five thousand miles. He scrolled down. They hadn’t downloaded his trucker years from when he first got out of the military; the company was thirty-years defunct and the files likely shredded or demagnetized. And his four moves as a kid following his father’s military service were missing because he had forgotten to include them during the citizenship paperwork. That would come back and bite him if they figured it out. He was easily passed the Lifetime Limit too; the Miller administration just didn’t know it yet.

“There is no way for me to umbrella you in by my applying for the vouchers.” Frank frowned. “Vouchers are now done individually starting this year, including for intrastate travel.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, you cannot go out of state, except for medical emergency transferred from one of the three State Hospitals to an out-of-state location which will be processed by medical staff. At least according to this website. I’ll need to do more research, but right now, it looks like the Alabama state line is our limit.”

Georgia turned her big brown eyes on him. “Why?”

Frank thought of a dozen reasons his officers explained to him from when he checked travel vouchers in various parts of the world and shrugged. None of them were exactly flag-waving freedom justifications. “Don’t know.” He stared at the screen and considered various responses he would like to apply to the present situation.

A mistake. They were deep, deep into a mistake.

He had been released from his enlistment oath to America when he mustered out, not that the Constitution was still a thing, and each day he debated how to fix something he helped create. The world he was leaving his children was not a better one, but would the responses he could organize make them safer?

He didn’t know.

But as his wife fell on his shoulder crying, yet again, tears of frustration, fear, and hopelessness, he knew he was a step closer to hitting his lifetime limit on this bullshit.

(words 1,671; first published 9/13/2026)

Two attempts / Taxing Dreams Series

1. Taxing Dreams Version 1 (8/23/2026)
2. Taxing Dreams Version 2 (9/6/2026)
3. Taxing Dreams Part 3: Lifetime Travel Limit (9/13/2026)