Feed the Machine (2 page)

“It’s clear,” he called and walked into the shade.

Raj and Ash followed. Under the wing the temperature dropped a good five degrees. It wasn’t much but it felt like entering an air-conditioned room. Ash closed his eyes in relief and for a moment was in the Wire Pub. They had cooling—not full strength and amazing like the rich end of Cago—but good enough to put a chill in the air. Ash opened his eyes and licked his lips, wanting a cold golden beer more than anything.

He put his pack down and settled for mouthfuls of tepid water. His canteens were all rough gray plastic with near zero insulating ability. It was one of many dreams to own self-chill canteens. Of course, it was a stupid dream in light of the ultimate treasure that filled the mind of every scavenger: to find a sourcecube. Such things were the nights of hungry children and adults alike filled with. To find a cube filled with plans no one else had. Or even if they did, you got the plans for free, an infinite supply of whatever it was. Beer maybe. Ice cream. Beef, wetly red and laced with delicious fat. Tools, weapons, clothes.

To find a cube meant wealth unending. Why would you want a self-chill canteen? You’d just send your five hundred bugs out for you. Run your hasdee day and night making everything you ever wanted.

Ash sat down on the dirt and opened the top of his pack, careful not to pull on it too much, and took out the top block of pap.

“You know, the missile is probably like a few ton. Might be filled with hot stuff or it cut down in the pile so we can find hot stuff,” Raj said, showing Ash a mouthful of yellow pap.

Ash looked down at his own pap. It was white with a few traces of yellow, slight additions of vitamins. Their hasdee was the lowest weakest and worst model—all exposed wires and chunky extrusion tubes with only the basic plans in it. Pap you could live on but not really. Pap you could die on.

He put it in his mouth and chewed it anyway.

The missile was all they’d talked about since yesterday. Most days they went out together but yesterday Raj had gone northwest and Ash had hit the east, heading towards the town of Char on a hunch he couldn’t ignore. It had come to nothing—he’d collected the usual plastic and metal—but when he’d returned to Cago Raj had been waiting there, jumping around more than that idiot bird of his. He’d been out far, digging around, when a “giant fucking missile” dropped right out of the sky. Chirp had flown up and marked a crash site but it was too far for Raj to get to before dark.

Raj had already scouted out other scavengers, listening in on conversations and found no one else had seen it. Or if they had, they were keeping quiet. Ash and Raj conspired to keep it that way, swearing to tell no one except their families in vague terms and made their plan.

It was least a whole day march out. They’d have to hollow out into the pile and seal up for the night. Next day keep walking until they hit the crash site. Most of a day searching, finding treasure, another night sealed up, a day back. Three days all in, walking back into town with plenty of time before Feed. Cash in their finds, pay out the quotas and maybe even buy some meat from Fat Man. End the year warm with a belly full of food.

The missile hadn’t detonated as far as Raj could tell. That was good from the finding-a-deep-smooth-hole-no-one-else-knew-about angle but bad from the exploding-to-death side. Once they pulled out as much good stuff as they could they’d try to blow it. It’d pull in scavengers and Scabs like crazy but everyone knew a bomb going off was the best way to find a cube. Half the legends around rich men started with dead missiles falling from the sky.

They sat there for a while, not talking much, chewing pap and sipping water, feeling their feet throb and their backs decompress freed from the weight of their packs. Ash broke off some pieces of pap for Kin who swallowed them down and then sniffed around for more. Chirp fluttered down to peck at some pieces Raj put out, keeping half an eye on Kin and half on his food.

Ash stood, feeling it in his feet and grabbed his pack. Raj followed. They both knew the danger of too much rest. Sit down too long on a march and soon you couldn’t stand again.

“Time, Kin?”

“Two ten.”

About four hours until dark. At three and a half hours they’d have to stop no matter how far they’d come and carve out a hole to seal up in.

Ash pulled his pack on, feeling the straps dig into his shoulders. He should have padded them with cardboard but they just didn’t have enough to spare. It was all going into their hasdee to keep them fed or going into the quota to keep them free of Fat Man’s sweaty grasp.

Ash looked at his friend as Raj pulled his pack on and got himself ready. His family was poor too—not quite as poor as the Rose family who was not just scraping the bottom of the barrel but milling it down too. Anyone rich wouldn’t see the differences but to Ash they stood out. One of Raj’s canteens was metal rimmed and could keep things hot or cold for a long time. The strips of his clothes were wider than Ash’s because their hasdee was bigger. Wider strips meant less sewing by bugs which meant less fabric overall and less chances to rip. His pap was yellow, loaded with vitamins and minerals. You could live on yellow pap, preventing scurvy and every other deficit disease. His shoes were thicker, his pack was newer and the cutter hanging from his belt had a longer and stronger beam, allowing him to cut more easily through the junk. Even Chirp, a dolt of a pet when it came to conversation, carried sophisticated scanners.

They’d been friends for a long time, standing as close as two people on adjacent steps. It stung Ash was always on the lower step in every measure that mattered.

Raj swallowed some water and then hooked his canteen on his belt (a metal clip rather than plastic Ash noticed).

Then they kept walking.

Chapter 3

Three and a half hours later they stopped in place and started looking for a strong hole. The sun was setting, the shadows getting longer and soon the hazels and other deadly things of the Deep Scour would come out to fight, fuck, eat and play.

“This looks good,” Ash called out, standing in front of a twisted mess of steel rebar. It was the strut of a collapsed building, which meant they could get under it and weld themselves in. It was strong and wasn’t likely to collapse in the night.

Chirp fluttered down and gave it a quick scan.

“Fuck yes!” he said and flew up to keep watch.

“Sounds good,” Raj said, dropping his pack. They took out their cutters, turning them up high for quick and dirty slicing and started hacking into the pile. Soon they’d dug down under the pillar, pulling out any smooth flat pieces of metal they could find. There were always flat pieces of metal siding scattered under collapsed buildings. Once the hole was big enough and far enough in, they lined the hole with metal siding and welded it closed, making a somewhat sealed metal cocoon.

“Need to hurry,” Kin commented from the ledge he’d perched on, looking around with his luminous green eyes.

A faint yowl carried over the Scour moments later and was answered by others that seemed far too close.

“We’re done. C’mon,” Ash said, pulling his pack into the hole.

Raj followed, Chirp fluttering down to sit on his shoulder as he crawled in. Kin jumped down from the ledge, landing in a jingle of loose washers and bolts piled ankle deep in this area. He slipped past Ash, rubbing against him and walked to the back of the hole. Ash and Raj pulled junk down, obscuring the hole they’d cut before pulling the final piece of metal into place and welding themselves in.

Any hazel wanting in to eat them would have to dig through spiky metal to pierce their sealed container. Apart from some airholes, there was no way for anything to get at them.

“The hazels are coming,” Kin whispered, his whiskers pressed against the metal wall, feeling the vibrations through the pile.

Ash and Raj had stayed out overnight before but not for a year at least. Most of the time you sealed yourself in, the hazels either didn’t find you or were too lazy to bother. Even if they decided to scratch their way through you could fight them off with your cutter, swiping at their paws. If it got bad you’d burn your way out the back and dig further down into the pile, welding it shut behind you.

Ash sat there feeling his heart thud in his chest as the yowls of the hazels grew louder. The metal cocoon echoed with the sound of their heavy feet as they bounded over the pile and came closer. There were oils and scents you could buy to mask your position or draw the hazels elsewhere but neither of them could afford that cost.

There came a low growl that sounded like it was directly outside. The sound of digging. Metal clinking against sharp claws as the hazel scratched at the ground, following their scent but unable to get closer to them.

Soon there was another yowl from outside, then silence before an explosion of fighting and high-pitched screaming. Something heavy thudded against the pile and it creaked ominously around them. In the pitch dark, Ash couldn’t see Raj’s face but he knew his already pale skin would be turning even whiter. As the pile moved, cavities could open and you could drop hundreds of meters. Or your metal cocoon would start to crumple and then collapse under the pressure.

“Stupid hazels,” Kin whispered to himself.

There came another thud and scream and then it was gone as the hazels outside bolted.

Ash and Raj sat in the silent dark, waiting for them to come back. After a long possibly forever, Ash relaxed and opened his pack. He pulled out his bedroll and unfurled it. As soon as it was out, Kin made himself at home down the tail end.

They ate pap in silence before Raj took a deck of luminescent cards out of his pack and started dealing.

Chapter 4

Ash awoke in darkness with Kin nuzzling against his face, a low purr rumbling through his body. He reached around his cat and pulled him close, stroking down his back and scratching under his chin.

“Nearly day,” Kin said, his voice distorted by the purring.

Ash heard Raj stirring, Chirp no doubt fluttering against him to wake him. Today they would find the fallen missile. Today they would find a fortune.

Or if not a fortune, enough to meet the quota.

Lies I tell myself
thought Ash.

He stroked the back of Kin’s neck as he snuggled closer, pushing his small face under Ash’s chin, kneading his chest with his paws. When he was six, his father had made Kin and he’d been awakened on that birthday like this—with a tiny bundle of fur purring and kneading at him.

Well, not
exactly
like this
Ash thought. When he was six they lived in an actual house on the rich side of town, hundreds of bugs at their command with multiple hasdees printing whatever they wanted. They were never behind on their quota—their number green on the first day of the year, paid well ahead of time. Now, ten years later, he was in a metal cocoon buried in the pile deep in the Scour, down low on the quota in a family fallen far from grace. A father who’d walked off into the Scour taking all their bugs and wealth with him, pushing them into poverty, vanishing. A mother who carted shit and piss for a living, a younger sister who tended bar, drinking so she could bear it and the youngest sister, Silver, sick as always, coughing and sneezing on a good day, hardly breathing on another, burning alive with streaks of red corruption creeping across her skin.

At the thought of his sisters, the cold tendrils of fear slipped around his heart again. Nola would be at home after staggering in from her late shift at the Wire Pub. Customers bought her drinks or she served herself when Burl wasn’t paying careful attention.

Maybe Silver would be asleep, curled in a ball of bones, her skin stretched tight over her skinny frame. Or perhaps she’d be awake, messing around with scavenged electronics. Trying to repair or rebuild or program something from scratch. There was some business to it but not much. Families with a broken toaster might pay her to fix it because it was cheaper than paying for the toaster tempcube or trading for a new one. But that was a thin slice of people. Rich enough to own a toaster, poor enough to not just mill it to make a new one.

Their mother would be getting ready for the day, eating pap for her meager breakfast if the bloody hasdee hadn’t broken down. So close to Feed they couldn’t lose a day instructing their bugs to mill it down and make them a new one. Despite it slowing down, shuddering and leaking, they kept it running, hoping to get through.

She’d be eating fast, no time to waste between sleep and day, shoving the small amount of food in her mouth before bolting out the door, grabbing her squeaking cart and pulling it off to the first house of the day.

Ash would be up at the same time, eating pap, gathering at the gates with everyone else, waiting for the light and another day of scavenging, hoping today was a good find day but they almost never were. With all the bugs flowing out of Cago, nibbling and carrying, you had to go further and further to get good find. But the more time you spent walking, the less time you had digging so a trip out too far might only result in a half-pack full.

Ash opened his eyes and saw the darkness had taken on a lighter gray. Light was leaking in through a small airhole at the front of the cocoon.