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"This is a predictive tool I've used: There are goals we've sought for ten thousand years, and we'll go on seeking them. Instant transport and travel, immortality (or at least longevity and miracle cures.), instant learning …"
- Larry Niven

Bubble-Gum Pylon  
  Device used to capture entire vehicles in car chases.  

Puffs of red and purple trailed the Impala as it sprinted toward freedom, belching gray smoke. It had reached thirty miles an hour when loud bangs and ear-piercing shrieks echoed between the brick buildings. Long ropes of steaming pink shot from between the buildings. Team four... had set up bubblegum pylons at the end of the block. The gum net had wrapped around the Impala, sizzling and popping. Its trailing edges grabbed at the asphalt and stuck, spinning the car around, while the span of the net slapped across the windshield and gelled to the consistency of tire rubber. The car jounced on its shocks and rolled on for fifty feet, dragging both pylons sparking and clanging down the street.
Technovelgy from Quantico, by Greg Bear.
Published by Vanguard in 2007
Additional resources -

Compare to the tanglefoot field from Robert Heinlein's novel The Star Beast and the tangler from Logan's Run (1967) by Nolan and Johnson.

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  More Ideas and Technology from Quantico
  More Ideas and Technology by Greg Bear
  Tech news articles related to Quantico
  Tech news articles related to works by Greg Bear

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