When his grandparents decided to move to the city, they did so for the future of their children. The farm kept them fed and clothed, but the lifestyle seemed stagnant enough to keep their children's children's children poor. It was a growing issue when compared to the rising wealth of the cities, where they decided life offered more opportunity. They moved as a family, three generations together. The grandparents watched the children when the parents worked jobs that paid enough for the back half of a small apartment they shared with friends of friends they had never met until the day they shared a roof.

The women squabbled over the kitchen and visitors coming to the wrong door, while the men nodded sagely and kept the peace. His grandparents had wanted the back door for access to the small yard it offered - a yard with a short wall around it they had to cross using a folding ladder system the men engineered and eventually grew into a ramp when the grandmother could no longer climb.

It wasn't happiness, but it worked and gave the children a chance. They spent the week on school and homework, running errands on the weekends to make spare change. With their lessons behind them, his father had become a butcher. Using what he learned from his father and grandfather, he made a career of it and even opened his own store in his later years. It was his hope to pass it on, but his son was to go onto better things through a scholarship to college. A bit of a math wiz, he did well enough at his courses to earn a job as an engineer at a small firm that developed new designs - most of them stealing other companies intellectual property - and selling them for thousandths of a Solarcoin compared to the originals. They made enough on each before the corporate AI's sniffed them out and forced them offline to pay livable wages.

He had watched the city grow since his birth, a bit outwards and ever upwards - reaching towards a blue sky that faded into narrowing strips as the wealthy moved higher above the crowds living in neo-poverty - until even renting a hovel was difficult for an engineer who was good at ripping off designs.

Just as it looked as though he would have to consider smaller cities or even other nations within his countries Econopact, a new option was introduced: vehicularhomes. Autonomous vehicles had been around since his birth, but the crowds of cars in the city had made ownership difficult due to outrageous taxes on both ownership and use. As the elite moved higher, the new Skyrail system had shifted transportation to the 30th floor and above. The streets were suddenly empty, though maintained for some reasons that no longer made sense.

Looking to reignite the auto industry, manufacturers cut a deal with many governments to reclaim ground level. Older models were retrofitted with cheap copies of the Familyspace concepts used in newer vehicles. He was able to afford an eight year old Siesta outfitted with window displays and modded seats. It wasn't as nice as he'd like, but it was less expensive than the loft he shared with three others. He moved out and never looked back - except for when he needed clothes from the trunk.

It was a new way of life, well documented in the digisphere of the time. Familyspace became a trend interior designers welcomed around the world. Cities added wireless charging to more parking spaces when they printed new pavement. The next generation of vehicles adapted, adding more and more functions at lower prices as economies of scale came into effect.

One winter day, while hiking the megamall to save electricity on heating the car and looking for instadeals to pop up on his phone, he came on a display. A showgirl - a real one, not one of the hotbots that pervs could rent on the spot to be replaced by a cleaned up version that didn't miss a beat - was selling tickets for a raffle. For a small Solarcoin donation and likes on three social networks, an entry was yours. So he did, dropping the encrypted number on his phone and walking on without really looking at the car.

A week later, his phone beeped and a message popped up on his retina:

Congratulations!

You're the winner of a  new Mimo!

Open/store/delete.

He almost hit delete, having forgot about the raffle, but noticed it was tagged as a Realmail sending. He selected open and the showgirl appeared on his retina. She smiled and yelled, "Congratulations! Your ticket was selected as the winner for the new Sofaloafer two door from Mimo. Please return this message and we will contact you to collect your new ride!"

Two days later, he was shaking hands with the sales manager at the Mimo outlet. A small drone fluttered around taking pictures and feeding the dialogue onto their Flitter feed, showing off his big smile and delight as they gave him a tour.

Check out the styling. Three millimeter printed exterior with econoplastic sandwiching a heat shielding/returning membrane. The roof is lined with four layers of solar crystals, capable of fully powering you on a sunny day and energy for parked time when cloudy (Not that the city offered a lot of sunlight, but every little bit counted). The manager tapped the door and motioned for the big winner to make a display of taking ownership by setting all eleven fingers on the window. Red bubbles appeared around each, blinking as they recorded his prints. His face appeared and the system identified him by features. A smile at the car and it opened as he reached for the door.

The manager settled in the passenger seat and began the tour: blackout windows and clear-roof with 4K video overlay and surround sound; ergonomic seating switching to mattress mode in less than a minute; center console with coffee/tea maker; dash printer with trunk feeds for object or food on demand; trunk outlets for remote filling of printing materials (including a complementary year of carbohydrate and protein fueling - spice, oil and lipid refills not included); and a fourteen gallon filtered water reservoir. It was, truly, a home on wheels. Scanning his phone for his favorite spots, it drove him out of the lot and across town to show it off to the few friends he ever met in realtime.

A few years went by and the city continued to change around him. The vehicularhomes craze was catching on for those living on ground level and new services to support them. Quickshower stalls in minimarts and even a few diners. Drive by food joints reopened. Drop off clothes cleaning trucks rolled around the city. New markets, too. Suitjamas for the Familyspacer who liked to get dressed for work before he went to bed. Sexbots that folded into a briefcase for easy storage and transport - for those Familyspacers who needed room and companionship until more women grew to love vehicularhomes as much as he did (though he never bought one).

Not that he didn't think about it. It wasn't a rare thing to meet a woman who showed promise until she saw his car. He even considered giving it up a few times, driving to one of the smaller, coastal cities and selling it to start a new life. But he never did and the wait was worth it when he met her. They took to each other right away and she even had a slightly older version of his Mimo. Once the relationship took hold, they rented spaces next to each other - taking turns hanging out in each others cars and finding new tantric postures in the limited space.

Settling into a new way of co-living, they came to love each other and both, having new hope, found new jobs making more money. Not enough to move to the 30th floor, but maybe the 18th in an older building. But they lived at ground level and their mobility kept them happy, so they stayed where they were. Admitting love to one another, they moved in together and became engaged. They sold her car, banking the money and saving towards a better future.

It took awhile to save, but one day their budget apps showed green dollars. It signaled they had saved to their minimum and she decided to give up on birth control. They got married in front of the priest and, taking the "on" pill, her body changed and eggs began to descend once again. A few months later, they were pregnant. Their families were ecstatic about the marriage and upcoming grandchild. The push was on for them to move out of the car and up in the towers.

They debated the move, wondering what kind of life they could give their children. As the months passed, some of their investments paid off and their savings grew. He hunted for options when she was napping, hands on her swollen belly. She woke one afternoon, a few weeks before her due date, to find them parked at a Mimo dealer. He was out of the car, speaking with someone inside the showroom. Straightening her hair and clothes, she joined them. He met her with a hug and took her hand, leading her towards a new mini-van model: the Golden Yurt.

The door swung open and he helped her inside before following. The salesman climbed into the driver's seat and clicked a few buttons. The sofa, futon really, they sat in shifted as the two walls separated to present an amazing expanse of carpet. Another switch and new options rolled out of the walls and floor and ceilings and even from behind their legs. A small refrigerator for dairy, a baby chair, a fastsnap printer spit out toys as quickly as you could hit icons on the screen, a small sink that used supercleansed water for a baby bath. Even, though she couldn't believe it, an actual toilet after all those years of awkward moments forcing someone out of the car so the seat could modify, seal and vent any odor. An actual toilet with an actual door.

She was sold, so they argued price for the new model after trade-in. They didn't get quite as good a deal as they wanted, but even in the future men are still slightly cowed by a pregnant woman threatening tears if she doesn't get her way. So they did better than the salesman wanted as well.

A year later, he finishes a jog, relaxing on the foldout bench in the front bumper. Awakened by his knock, she climbs out with their daughter in her arms. She takes a seat and they watch the sun rise from the fifth level of the new Familyspacer parking garage overlooking Waterbreak Park. They hadn't moved to the 18th floor, but they had moved up a bit. They would enjoy the spot for years, spending free time watching their child play in the park or going for walks on the beach.