Consignment

In 1954, Alan Edward Nourse imagined a future where massive automated highways, the Rolling Roads, crisscross America, carrying freight and passengers in a seamless web of steel and momentum. Into this world of chrome and speed walks John Krenner, a man who has just served 27 years for murder and has exactly one thing on his mind: finding Jerome Markson, the partner who framed him for his wife's death. Krenner breaks out with a gun and a grudge, plunging into a society he no longer recognizes. The Rolling Roads are a marvel, self-driving trucks, automated everything, but they're also a labyrinth, and Krenner must navigate them like a ghost, chasing down the man who stole his life while staying ahead of the authorities. His pursuit leads him toward Markson's empire, a towering steel foundry that represents everything Krenner lost. The confrontation seems inevitable. The reckoning seems certain. But fate has a crueler sense of humor: Krenner becomes entangled in the automated coal delivery system, caught in the machinery of the very world that replaced him. He is sent hurtling into the foundry's furnace, a spectacularly ironic end for a man who thought he was the one in control. It's the 1950s pulp answer to Oedipus: you can chase your destiny all you want, but the road does what it wants with you.