[DH] Motheboard,, Part 2, Scene 1

 

THE NIGHT LAND

Part Two: The Wastes

Scene One

The Wastes began where Salvation stopped repairing things.

There was no wall marking the boundary. No gate. No line painted across the ground.

The settlement simply thinned behind them.

Workshops became scattered structures of corrugated metal and salvaged concrete. Then those disappeared. The road beneath their boots broke into cracked slabs, each one pushed apart by roots, frost, or the slow violence of subsidence. Rusted conduits emerged from the earth and vanished again beneath drifts of ash-grey soil.

Beyond them stood the remains of the old world.

A transmission tower leaned over the horizon, its upper framework missing. A line of dead utility poles followed the road for several hundred metres before collapsing into a heap of cable and splintered wood. Farther north, an industrial complex occupied the valley like the skeleton of some enormous animal, its roof long gone and its walls blackened by ancient fire.

The four salvagers walked beneath it.

Theris led.

Her shield was strapped across her back, its battered metal surface catching the weak daylight. She carried herself heavily, but not slowly. Every step was measured. Her eyes moved between the ground ahead and the structures around them.

She knew what the others sometimes forgot.

The Wastes did not need to attack.

They only needed to give someone one bad place to put a foot.

Elorin walked behind her, his pack already heavier than Theris had wanted.

He kept looking sideways.

Not at the ruins.

At the machines inside them.

A broken pump protruded from one wall. A bank of old junction boxes hung beneath a collapsed walkway. A length of thick conduit disappeared into the earth.

He slowed.

Theris did not turn.

"Keep moving."

"I was looking."

"Look while walking."

Elorin gave the machinery one last glance.

Then obeyed.

Yosef walked beside him, tablet secured beneath his coat.

"The route bends north here."

Theris looked back.

"Certain?"

"Enough."

"That's becoming a habit."

"It is an accurate word."

Shinjo said nothing.

He had been quiet since they left.

His red hair moved in the dry wind. One hand rested loosely against his battlestaff while his eyes travelled across the ruins.

He stopped.

The others took another two steps before noticing.

Theris turned.

"What?"

Shinjo looked toward a mound of broken concrete.

"There."

Elorin followed his gaze.

"What?"

"Something's underneath."

Elorin's expression changed immediately.

He started toward it.

Theris caught the back of his coat.

"No."

"I didn't say anything."

"You were about to dig."

"I was going to inspect it."

"Same thing."

Shinjo crouched.

He brushed dust from a small section of exposed metal.

It was an old service conduit.

Theris looked at it.

"Useful?"

Shinjo shook his head.

"Dead."

Elorin crouched beside him despite Theris's warning.

He touched the metal.

Cold.

Pitted.

Nothing.

"How did you know it was there?"

Shinjo stood.

"I saw it."

Elorin looked at the untouched ground.

"You didn't."

Shinjo shrugged.

Yosef glanced toward the north.

"We're losing time."

Theris nodded.

"Move."

They continued.

The wind carried the smell of old insulation from somewhere beyond the industrial ruins. There was a faint metallic tang in it, mixed with dust and something sharper.

Ozone.

Elorin noticed.

He stopped.

This time Theris stopped too.

The smell was stronger here.

Ahead, beneath the broken silhouette of the old industrial complex, a line of ancient machinery disappeared into the earth.

Heavy housings.

Conduit.

Reinforced pylons.

And beneath all of it, something vibrated.

Very faintly.

A deep iron tremor.

Shinjo looked toward the buried system.

Yosef lowered his tablet.

Theris stared at the ruins.

Elorin smiled despite himself.

Not because it was safe.

Because it was machinery.

Still working.

After all this time.

The Wastes had begun to answer the question that brought them out here.

The missing scout was somewhere ahead.

And whatever they had found was still drawing power.