Solarpunk Collective

ONE Contrary to popular imagination, velomobiles are not silent. Rushing air whistled over the enclosed cockpit. Autumn leaves crunched under the tires and Cassiopeia’s own breathing echoed in the cramped space of the vehicle as she labored over the pedals. Trees rushed by either side as she drove deeper and deeper in to the Great Midland Forest. Cassie hit a downhill stretch and took a breather. She watched the speedometer slowly tick up to 60kph. If she turned on the power assist now and added her own effort to the pedals, it was possible to get it up to a hundred. But it was terrifying to travel so fast in such a fragile shell, so she just sat back and enjoyed the short rest the slope afforded her. Eventually the road turned in to a narrow, grassy track, and then to a barely traveled, weed choked path. The last kilometer to the outpost she had to use the power assist and raise the suspension. As the little composite shelled vehicle trundled over the mounds of weedy grass, ...

Itzel stepped forward and let Quetzal enfold the command couch around her body. The nictitating membrane of the canopy snicked closed as she grasped the controls and shuffled the big bird off of the ledge. For a moment, her sensations were confused, latent human body image merging with the biomechanical ornithopter as it fell towards the jungle canopy. She had done this hundreds of times before though, and even through the conflicting signals she was able to spread her wings and arrest her flight before it became terminal. She felt the hot thermals coming up off the jungle as they buoyed her wings, lofting her upwards. Men had once built a city down there, and the ruins were still to be seen. You couldn’t survive for long without a suit or body modification now though if you wanted to slog through that jungle. “Get back here sister! You won’t beat me this time!” Akna’s voice intruded in to her inner monologue, broadcast from her own ornithopter, several hundred meters u...