This is cool. I’m reading JXIIH’s novel, The Dark River, the sequel to The Traveler, and just finished a part describing free runners in London. “Ever hear of the Vast Machine?” one of the London characters asks. “It’s the computer systen that watches us with scanner programs and surveillance cameras. The Free Runners refuse to be part of the Vast Machine. We run above it all.”

Now I see an article on an actual free runner climbing walls and jumping between buildings. “Free running,” reports Brendan O’Neill, “or ‘le parkour,’ its original French name, is all about overcoming obstacles.” Sadly, these men and women give themselves to overcoming constructed obstacles when real, harder obstacles abound, but I don’t really blame them. I do the same thing in a quieter way.