Not a pleasant image does this create for me, and most likely many others.
And if you have read “1984”... no helmet cage needed in the subterranean pits of NYC.
Of course being born in 1952, I didn't read them when they were published, but probably 20+ years after they were published. My thinking was that if they hadn't come true after all these years, they never would. But then youth always makes you more of an optimist. As you age you become more of a pessimist, at least I did. Besides that I have proven to myself that I wasn't much of a visionary back in my youth. That has changed somewhat, as well, as I aged. 8>)