Hope's Ruin

2 | Angaarspear 4

Pepper's tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Dry was an understatement. With the next water rations still hours away she'd have to soldier on. She was sat beneath a khaki canvas tent. Two metal poles held the tent aloft and stretched the material across Pepper's work space to the roof of a weather-damaged Airstream trailer.

She'd named it The Millennium Kestrel.

Fisk wasn't keen.

The Kestrel's flattened tyres were buried in the sand, making it more a static caravan than the recreational vehicle it had been design as. Either way, it had become home after they'd abandoned the underground outpost of Silver Hollow more than a year ago and struck out into The Great Waste.

Water here was scarce. She'd always known it would be. She thought about Silver Hollow most days, wondering if she'd made a huge mistake leaving the shelter and the abundant water supply for fresh air and freedom.

No one had come with her. No one other than Fisk.

Sucking on a stone—a strange cure for thirst that she'd seen in a movie years ago—Pepper considered a peculiar-looking creature slumped before her. She'd found him out in The Great Wastes, lying face down in the dust and sand. Against Fisk's protestations, she'd taken her hybrid quad bike—that she'd Frankenstein'd together out of scavenged parts—and carted him back to The Kestrel.

Essentially, he was a robot. But little more than a collection of broken tech, bolted together in no discernible way. His limbs were fashioned from parts of an old drum kit. Cymbal stands and tom-tom holders had been welded together with industrial hinges for ankles and knees. His torso was a doorless beer fridge with beverage company logos plastered to all sides. Inside sat a collection of electronic devices including an iPod, a sound-bank module, an Atari games console, and a ZX Spectrum keypad, all linked together with brightly coloured wires.

He only had one arm.

Pepper presumed the other had been ripped off somewhere in The Great Wastes. Perhaps taken by the vicious tides, scavenged by circling birds, or stolen by nomads. The one that remained was made of the same welded metal but, bolted to the end, was a green plastic hand shaped to hold soda cans. The logo for SolarCola and the strap line—The Delicious Delicacy That's Out Of This World!—were emblazoned on the side.

The robot's head was an Apple Mackintosh from the early 90s—square, boxy, beige—complete with a 3.25in drive and cracked, dusty screen. Wires and cables ran from the robot's torso to its head and back down again. None of it worked. At least, nothing that Pepper had been able to understand.

She'd seen pictures of all this tech before The Savage Storm and The Big Gulp.

Before the world had changed.

Twice.

Stuck to both sides of the robot's head, positioned where its ears should be, were two stickers. One pink, the other green. Both had a white number nine printed on them.

Ninety-nine.

Flake 99.

Fisk appeared in the doorway to The Kestrel. Hair a lopsided mess. Eyes groggy with sleep. "What time is it?"

Pepper checked her bare wrist. "Two hairs past a freckle."

Fisk groaned. "Dad jokes? Really? Don't you ever get tired of yourself?"

Pepper stared at her brother and blinked slowly.

"I guess not," Fisk said, trudging down the short flight of steps to the hot, sandy earth. "Still working on C-3PO?"

"He's not called—"

"I know, I know. Flake. How's Flake looking?"

"Still nothing. I've routed power from the hybrid battery in his backpack and on to the motherboard, display, and audio outputs, but still nothing. Perhaps there's just too much sand in his joints."