Disclaimer:
        -"Car Wars", "Autoduel Quarterly" (ADQ), "Midville" and
"Americain Autoduel Association" (AADA)  are all registered trade
marks of Steve Jackson Games.
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        U.S. 1 has been put on hold for an issue, now I know how this
is going to disappoint a couple of you out there, but with CJB going
on holiday a little while ago we thought it better to hold it back and
get all the little errors out.  Than to send it out now, rushing and
leaving a lesser quality story.  Don't worry however pt. III will be
definately coming out next issue, so stay tuned.

        On a happier note I have another offer of fiction which has
just come in, this ones from Guiseppe (an Italian living in Africa)
and I thought I was away from the Car Wars scene.  So more serialised
fiction is promised, who can complain.  Guiseppe is also a professional
writer and I'd just like to take this time to thank him for putting
together something for this CWML, if you are American and that will
be most of you - try to enjoy it without getting uptight.  Also no
rough stuff in regards to comments.

        However for this issue we have a brief look at a computer
programme, Interstate '76.  Duelling in the 70's, similair to the
Chassis and Crossbows idea of Car Wars by all accounts.  I haven't had
a chance to look at this one, but I'm looking forward to.

        Just like to add for some of our readers that I missed the
last session of the Ashes test IV and I am somewhat dark about that.
That wont' mean much to most of you, but anyway.

        All these links can be found at
  http://www.sjgames.com/HVD/lnk.html

        Any contributions, news or questions can be sent to.
  mailto:dbarton@racp.edu.au

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NEWS:

PBEM:
        Well the destructive mayhem of Duel #1 has finally come to an
end, congratulations to Wik the Mighty (WTM) and Mortis / Roliing
Thunder (MOR/RT) for winning the last man standing and points battles
respectively.  Duels #4, #5 and #6 are also about to start, so check
into the pages and have a look.

HVD:
        HVD-7 will be out in the next few days, around 20-AUG.  This
ones a racing special, with a lot of the work being done by James
Leasure, hope you all check on in and enjoy.

ADQ:
        I've removed the specialised news section, as nothing seems to
be happening, I will find out soon what is happening, it's joining
that big to-do list in the sky.
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AADA CHAPTERS:

NOVA:                                                   OLD
        Yet again more updates, every chapter needs a web master like
NOVA.
                                                Last Mod: -AUG
 

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OTHER CW PAGES:

        Nothing new...

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INTERSTATE '76 INTODUCTION:
        This ones by Skull N. Bone 'mailto:skull@frontiernet.net'.

I first want to say I enjoyed reading you webzine very much, and it
makes me miss playing Car Wars.

Secondly, I dont know how much you keep up with the computer gaming
industry but I think you and your readers might like to know there is
a computer game out on the market that is very much like Car Wars.
This game is called Interstate 76 and is made by Activision.

It is pretty much a chassis and crossbow type of game though, because
it is based on early 70's USA muscle cars and fixed mounted weapons.
There are turrets available but they seem kind of primitive. There
are guns, (30cal, 50cal, 7.62) Cannons,(20,25, and 30mm) 3 kinds of
rockets, (dumb fire, heat seakers, and radar guided) vehicle mounted
mortors, oil, mine, flame, and blox(junk) droppers too.  About 30
different chassis types, each with their own unique weapon location
options.

There have already been chapters and gangs set up ADA style with
division duelling in use to level the playing field for competitions.

For more information you can visit the Interstate 76homepage at
http://www.activision.com/i76/

        (DOC- I couldn't resist putting in the bit that says how good
HVD is. :-)).

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                                TAXI DRIVER
                                    by
               Giuseppe Filotto - russellp@iafrica.com
                                   PART I

Americans.
  They think they have it tough. I guess no-one told them that their
worst grain blight riots were really just a minor disturbance compared
to the stuff we had over here in the appropriately named dark
continent. South Africa has always had a violent history, littered
with wars throughout its colonial period and urban guerrilla warfare
throughout its Apartheid era. Course that changed back in the late 90s
for a little while. It didn't last of course. Hell, the whole world
went down the toilet; only makes sense SA would lead that particular
charge.

  The Americans, Euros and even Asians might have everything ‘bigger
and better' and butter too as the local saying goes (as in: with their
ass in it) but they just can't hold a candle to us when it comes down
to casualties tho'.

  South Africa went from having some 40 million people at the turn of
the millennium to just some 10 million today, of course in the last
10 years or so the population has actually been increasing, so that's
not even telling the worst of it. But enough of the History lesson I
guess. The reason I'm writing this stuff is ‘cause I finally got
myself a link up to the world grid and playing with it gives me
something to do when I can't sleep. I got no one to call either, and
the hundred bucks per article is attractive too. Specially since it's
dollars. You wouldn't believe the exchange rate. But don't expect a
lullaby or for me to pander to your Yankee tastes or nothing like
that.

  Real Life Point of View: your auto-duelling stories from around the
world. You lived them, you tell them.

  That's what the ad said and that's what I aim to do. Exactly. And
the truth of it is I just plain DON'T like Yanks. You're loud for one,
and braggarts for another. And you've always been that way, and my
guess is you'll be that way a long while still. Course it probably
don't help that it was one of your kind that went and crippled my life
some. Before I get into that tho' I guess I have to explain (real slow
like) that we don't have a lot of fancy stuff down by these parts.
That despite the fact that Cape Town is still the busiest port on the
whole of the Sub-Saharan continent, with Durban, on the East Coast,
running a close second. We get magazines. Plenty of those, mostly
from Europe, but Yank mags too. Like this HVD, which is about as good
as they get I suppose. But that's it. Pictures are one thing, but to
import the real thing is quite another. And we just don't have as
self-sufficient an economy as we used to nowadays, if you know what I
mean. Since the secession of the Zulu nation, which still results in
conflicts all along the Kwa-Zulu-Natal border (which now incorporates
3 of the original 9 provinces of South Africa expansionists at heart
the Zulus really) not a lot of goods make it out of Durban (which for
the uneducated, is the main port of coastal entry to Kwa-Zulu-Natal)
so all the latest Japanese imports and the rare but much sought after
Saudi stuff remains on the East coast, and we have to make do with
what we can import from the US or occasionally Europe. Of course the
prices tend to be a little higher for us. Your average Gauss Gun (I'm
told by HVD price lists) sells for around $10,000 back in
Yank-land-USA. We can import one for 5,000 Kruggerands (unlike the
rest of the country, the Western Cape decided to change its monetary
unit base back to real gold coin) which I'd like to point out is solid
gold and converts to about $40,000 on the open market. But that
doesn't include duty tax, which is another 1,000 KR.
Which explains why ram plates and gas engines are a favourite out
here. Small they may be, but the oil reserves in SA were sufficient
that despite all the other problems, we at least can still afford to
pollute our atmosphere with good old fashioned exhaust fumes (tho' I
suppose they are clean enough and really can't hold a torch to all the
dilapidated power plants you guys dump off the East coast. Fish in New
York must be real popular for romantic dinners. Save on the candle,
eat Yank seafood).

  It's what saved us I guess. Patenting the formula for crude oil
separation enzymes and defending that patent with what was left of
our Rekkies (Special Forces) by ensuring that anyone that tried to
use it without paying their dues got visited by them was the only way
that South Africa could trade for the food that was so badly needed
here.

  Some 10 million people died as a direct result of starvation in
just 5 years here. I'm not gonna bother to detail what else went on
here as a result of the food shortages and general chaos. I was a kid
then and it's not a part of my history I necessarily like to think
about. Besides, some Hollywood producer with the originality of a
fruit fly might just take liberties with it and make a cheap B movie
out of that story. He'd probably have Rhinoceros in it and half naked
savages brandishing spears. I wonder if you've been told that Rhinos
no longer exist. That we have only three specimens of Elephant left
(and two of those are clones) in the whole of Africa and that
thousands of other species have just been plain wiped out. Including
cattle. They were the first to go. Which is understandable I suppose,
since the cow has been a staple of African diet for as long as it
walked these parts. We have been importing a few specimens lately,
but that's on the way out I hear. The few domesticated buffalo that
are here are taxing the land enough as it is. Most of the food here
is from algae farms. We have some of the world's top guys in that
field. Bioengineering in general I guess. I suppose they learned from
the mistakes they made during the bad times. Back when they were so
desperate to find a cure for the grain blight that they accidentally
let loose a biological agent that killed off most of the population
under the age of 7. For some reason seven was a cut off point. That's
what made the Zulus secede incidentally. It was bad times indeed for
white folk in the East back then. This was back in the late 20s of
course. Nowadays Kwa-Zulu-Natal is as racially integrated as the rest
of the country. Except they don't think of themselves as part of this
country anymore. But it's not a colour thing anymore, so I guess
that's OK then. Tough to explain to the Zulus that not every white
person was directly and personally responsible for the death of their
children I suppose. Personally I put it down to racial Karma. Course
it's a bitch if you had nothing to do with all that segregation stuff
of some 50 years back and just happen to be passing through, like my
family was in 2012, just before the grain blight broke out globally.

  I'm European, and I don't mean that the way some of the rednecks
down here mean it. I mean I was born in United Europe. I was 7 when my
family was stranded in this God forsaken country. I lost my dad before
I was ten. And let me tell you, the natives here most definitely don't
use spears anymore, they prefer AK-47 assault rifles. I'm not sure
why, but there IS a definite division along racial lines on the small
arms here. No Zulu or Xhosa worth his salt would be seen dead with an
assault rifle that wasn't an AK-47. On the other hand the white
landowners would rather go unarmed than use what they regard as a
‘commie' weapon. They stick to the lethal R4 assault rifles or more
archaic game rifles like 30-06 or 7mm and corporate executives (of
every shade) have recently taken a liking to Saudi Uzis, although
they are not used by Indians for some reason.

  Personally I don't care one way or the other, I stick by the old
principle of Myamoto Mushashi (1584-1645)  "At every turn the
objective is to cut down the enemy with any means at your disposal."
I killed a man with a Parker pen once, I had run out of ammo, my
sister was shot and I thought my brother had been killed already and
although I completely ruined it and scarred the palm of my hand in
the process I am eternally grateful for this unbiased attitude I have
towards weapon use. That was a bad day for everyone. I will never
forget the look on my brother's face when 3 years later we spent most
of what we owned (against his knowledge at first and will later we
had to sedate him) to buy him a cloned left arm. He still feels ‘in
debt', I can tell, which is kinda dumb ‘cause it's only the two of us
now. We managed to buy my sister passage back to Europe, but we don't
come across 50,000 KR every day, and neither of us will leave without
the other. But I keep digressing. The point of this article is to
tell you about one of my auto duelling experiences, and I suppose
it's about due.

  This happened in 2032 or maybe ‘33 I spent a long time not really
knowing which day of the week or which month of the year it was, so
I'm not too clear on the date. I had just about begun to cool down
from the events of 2021 (I lost family there and I don't want to write
about it) and we'd just seen my sister off about a week earlier (so I
guess it was '33 after all) and that day my brother Alan and I had
received the news that sis made it back to Turin safely.

  Alan turned to me after I read the e-gram we'd paid almost a week's
food worth to receive and looked at me expectantly. I knew what he
wanted. He knew me well enough not to speak of it, but I still got
angry. At him, I thought for a few seconds, then realised it was at
myself really. As usual. As for the last 12 years. I said I didn't
want to write about it, but maybe it's therapeutic.

  I wouldn't know. We don't have psychoanalysts here. Since we lost
our mother on that really shitty day (the day of the Parker pen as it
happens) I've made it a ritual to bring death to every S.O.B. I can
lay my sights on that sports colours.

  I don't care what band it is. You sport colours I nail you. You
wanna ride around on bikes and old pickups way I see it you can do it
alone for a start and not as a pack of dogs, and you don't need to
sport colours. My bro was into it too for a while, but he's a soft
soul at heart I guess and since about 2029 or so he just wasn't into
it that much anymore. He asked me when we might stop. I suppose I
should say that over the years I have grown to hate myself for what
I've put him through, and I know I'm doing it ‘cause I feel so damn
guilty about not having had enough ammo. Not enough weapons. Not
enough barricade between us and those bastards. Not enough strength
to carry the mutilated body of the woman who gave me birth to a
hospital fast enough. I know there's not much more that I could've
done that day. But it don't make any difference. Knowing the reason
for your psychoses is one thing. Stopping is quite another.

  Admittedly gangs had been pretty scarce of late anyway, and no one
had even flown the colours of that particular gang in some ten years,
but I also knew that at least one of those scum had yet to join the
tally marks Alan and I keep on the side of our Dragon.

  It irked. It felt like giving up. On the other hand I guess you
can't spend your life chasing bikers. Bikers and ghosts. Then again
maybe I could, but it wasn't right anymore to make Alan do it. Hell
it hadn't been right for a long time. Maybe from day one. So I turned
to him and just like that said: "It's over." I sounded flat, no
different from many other times I spoke, but I guess he knew exactly
what I was talking about, ‘cause he immediately hugged me and started
to sob into my shoulder. I guess the damn stuff running out of my eyes
was a dead giveaway. At least I could feel he was relieved. Happy, in
a sad kinda way. Me I couldn't feel a thing. Just couldn't feel a
damned thing.

  Since this nightmare started I'd been the one that decided on how
and when we did things from day to day. Now I was just numb. Didn't
know what the hell to do or say. Didn't even think of it till Alan
asked me about that about ten minutes later.

  "So what now?" he said simply, brightly.
  "I don't know" I replied dully. I just wished I could feel
something.
  "I was thinking..."
  He did this a lot. Testing to see if it was OK to speak I guess. I
just felt heavier.
  "We sell the Dragon." He was looking at me intently.

  A distant part of my brain wondered what I looked like to him. I had
the distinct impression that I might have seemed like one of the
shell-shocked guys you see just sitting on the side of the road from
time to time. They just sit there. Some of them drool. Some of them
die of exposure too.

  I said nothing. Felt nothing. Wondered if this is what advanced
hypothermia felt like except it was 30 degrees in the shade (Celsius
that is. You do your own conversions.)

  And just like that Alan took over. He spoke and I listened and I
didn't disagree with anything. The kid has heart. And thank God for
that cause I'm not sure where I lost mine. He asked me if I was OK
and I said yes and I knew I was lying but I didn't know what was wrong
so I just said yes cause not feeling anything isn't a disease and it's
not something you die from I guess. Just my luck.

  "We sell the Dragon and we should have just enough to get ourselves
a taxi. There's money to be made in that business now that the new
Airport is becoming busier and the Cargo ships sometimes have people
on them too. In a couple of years we should be able to have enough
saved up for maybe ...ship fare..."

  Taxi. There used to be taxi wars here in the ‘90s. I remembered that
from the history lessons before we got here. When dad was still alive.
I hadn't seen a taxi here ever. If you didn't have your own wheels
around here you were dead meat. Then again we spent our time mostly
out of the city. We went in for food and ammo and to sell the salvage
or collect bounty, but I never paid a damn bit of attention to what
happened inside the walls. Didn't care. Only cared about getting out
again.

  "OK" I said. Then: "I'll miss it."
  "Yeah Joe, so will I, but it's over now, you said so."
  "Yeah. It's over."
  Alan just looked at me for a bit. Maybe he was a little sad. I only
figured out much later it was for me and not for the Dragon.
  "I'll look for a buyer, I think I may already have one."
  "Yeah, OK. I'm...I'm just a bit...tired. If you can take care of the
details of this for now..."
  "Don't worry bro." He was serious. No smile.
  "OK, thanks. Guess you're tired too though..."
  He cut me off "I've never felt better!"

  Well...I thought...well, at least he looks it. I smiled a little.
Not sure why. Still couldn't feel a thing. My body was doing its own
thing I guess. But I couldn't feel a damn thing. Just heavy. I just
felt tired.

Part two next week...

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        The Taxi Driver will be continuing in the not to distant
future, it won't be next week however - sorry U.S. 1 is back.  As
editor of HVD I'd just like to say that while HVD appears in the U.S,
it is actually 90% an Australian production.

        Well I'll hopefully get my hands on a copy of interstate
'76 in the next few days and tell you what I think in the next CWML,
in issue 2.17 U.S. pt III will be definately out.  I've seen an
advanced version and it looks pretty good, so until next issue
goodbye and goodnight.
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