Repairs in the Wasteland

by Luc Reid

A harsh wind buffeted him as he emerged from the hut, a squat, stone structure without windows. All around him the wasteland stretched, black rock in sharp ridges pocked with sulfurous pits that steamed and smoked, stretching into the distance, mile after desolate mile. The sun, barely risen, glowered red through the haze.

He set down a clanking leather satchel of tools and set off across the rocks with a pair of old wooden buckets. These he carried across the wasteland for most of an hour to a pit where he filled both with steaming tar. Then he carried them laboriously back to the hut.

At the hut he used worn tools to scrape out sections of the walls that were crumbling and refill them with carefully-fitted stones chipped from a nearby outcropping. Wth brushes long congealed stiff, he plastered tar over new stonework and cracks. He worked methodically, scrutinizing every square inch.

The work went slowly. Twice more he trekked out to the tar pit and hauled back his buckets, heavy and steaming. By the time he was finished, the sun was beginning to set. He was exhausted, dusty, aching with cold, and smeared all over with tar, but the hut was as perfect as he could make it and wouldn’t need his attention again for a month or so. Gratefully, he gathered his tools, lifted his buckets, pried open the door, and ducked back inside.

The interior was larger. A startled shriek of “Daddy!” frightened gem-colored birds out of the bushes. His wife and three children ran to him along the riverbank, made colorful by the purple and orange and golden sunset over the distant hills. The children had been picking fruit, and from over a fire nearby he smelled some kind of forest bird roasting.

His daughter and young sons threw their arms around him when they reached him, ignoring his commands not to get themselves dirty. His wife leaned over them and kissed him on the lips. “How is it?” she said.

“Still pretty solid,” he murmured to her. “It will last for some time yet, I think.” Then he reached down to hug the children, but they were already chasing each other through the trees in some new game.

Make Room

by Ken Brady

The first wave came through fragile and could hardly stand on their own. A few dozen of them from each makerbot, barely half a meter tall, gray, unfinished. They opened their mouths slowly, closed them again, as if in anguish, but no sounds escaped the holes where their mouths should have been. When they raised swords above their heads, their arms could not bear the weight, and snapped off.

Once we figured out their ill intent we were able to stop them with a well-placed boot, a whack with a broom. We dropped a few in the fire just to be sure they were no more than simple resin.

But they learned quickly.

In moments, the next wave through were bigger, sturdier. Fast, less brittle, still resin but flossed through with fibers. They carried rifles that looked convincingly like AK-47s. They shot and killed several security guards before we were able to set fire to the lot.

And then the onslaught. Wave upon wave, each bigger, faster, meaner, and more solid, until they were unstoppable.

Turning off the breakers did no good, and the reservoirs of resin were empty regardless. Power and materials were coming through from the other side.

They were made of carbon, glowing liquid, scrap metal, garbage. Those who didn’t shoot or hack at us simply sat down, piling up in the corners, in the alleyways, in the ditches, in the gaps between cars.

And then there were no gaps. On our side at least.

Resources, we learned, were not everything. Sometimes you just run out of places to put things.