The Syndicated Series I-98 Is On Hiatus

Several federal and one Illinois state agency have asked me to put the acclaimed I-98 series on hold until the investigation is complete.

For those unfamiliar with the I-98 series, here are the relevant links:

• the background
• the pilot, opening episode
• the inferno, the second episode
• the chase, the third episode

Although the series is set in the future (2040 - 2049), it is being written, and if Hollywood picks it up, filmed in the present.

The series began with two Bakken oil men traveling down I-98 near Rugby when they chanced to see a WBC&R CBR derailment. They stopped to help, and in the commotion their yellow Lamborghini was stolen.

The drones tracked the yellow Lamborghini to Minot where the two self-called Thelma and Louise women stopped for fuel. It was an electric vehicle, and charging took about an hour. The North Dakota WASP teams were called in and had the charging station surrounded.

[That is not a typo: in much of the US, SWAT teams had been banned by Homeland Security as part of the successful gun-control initiative funded by the Cameron Diaz Stop The Madness campaign. North Dakota never saw the need for SWAT until the state annexed three eastern Montana counties. But to confuse the Feds, the state called their special weapons and tactics teams, the wide-area-special-patrol (WASP) teams. WASPs were already on the Federally-endangered-species list, and North Dakotans felt that, like the western sage grouse, WASPs were protected.]

The WASPs had the charging station and the yellow Lamborghini surrounded. Earlier in the day, the Minot hazmat folks (paid for by the Legacy Fund) had been clearing up the most recent derailment. There was still a bit of legendary highly combustible Bakken oil in the ditch near the charging station but it was considered not to be a problem.

Thelma was standing by the EV Lamborghini smoking a cigarette. Only 15 years old, she would not have been allowed to smoke "real" cigarettes and was, no doubt, smoking a Marlboro e-Cig.

"No doubt" is a phrase best not used by WASP teams responding to a potentially explosive situation. It turned out, as luck would have it, Thelma was smoking a "real" cigarette, not an electric cigarette that would have been, under similar circumstances, completely harmless.

Negotiations began. And continued. The Canadian Mounted Police were on their way. The United States Air Force was sending in their suicide-prevention team from the Grand Forks Air Force Base to negotiate -- it wasn't the best choice, but, as the lead mishap investigator said some months later, "it was close. It was all we had. What does it matter?"

In fact, that was the Fargo Informed headline some months later:

"What Does It matter?" -- Deputy Commander, ND WASP

Meanwhile, back at "the situation" as it began to be called, Louise said to Thelma, "Get in, the car is charged. And get rid of the cig. No smoking in the car."

Well, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together. Unfortunately, the WASP commander WAS a rocket scientist. She had been laid off when the Obama administration eliminated the USAF missile program to help pay for the highly successful national health care system. Now that health care was adequately funded, it was a rousing success. But the omniscient narrator digresses.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to put two and two together to guess what happened next.

Thelma tossed the "real" cigarette into the ditch containing the legendary highly flammable Bakken crude oil.

In the ensuing inferno, the second inferno in less than 24 hours, Thelma and Louise confounded authorities when they made a 540-degree turn and headed east. Later, when asked why they headed east, they said they knew they would have been held up in a six-hour traffic jam in Stanley (North Dakota).  WBC&R ran 90 CBR trains across I-98 daily resulting in traffic jams never imagined in 2014.

The state had planned to place an overpass over the WBC&R railroad running north/south connecting the CBR terminals north and south of the city. But at the last minute the Fargo contingent objected to Legacy Fund money being spent on highways in the Bakken when the money was needed to widen the bridges across the Red River to accommodate the Minnesotans still flowing into the state.

Louise, with "pedal to the metal" headed back towards Rugby.

Fast forward. Louise and Thelma sped through North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and had gotten to Chicago. They refueled along the way, evading authorities.

It was in Chicago that things came to an end. Thelma and Louise were not hurt. At least they were not hurt physically.

The end was caught on video, which went viral on YouTube. And that brings us to the "here and now." Until the investigation is complete, several federal agencies and one Illinois state agency have asked that the syndicated I-98 series be put on hold. My lawyers are in contact with their lawyers.

Oh, for those interested, here is the video of Thelma and Louise in Chicago:

Lamborghini Crashes in Chicago Suburbs