Skyship Engineering for Dummies, Engineer Solstice (B)

-begin excerpt-

One of the key factors in this new world is to trust your skills. The System gifted us with skills that will allow us to do things we may not otherwise understand. Or fully follow the pre-Fall concepts of engineering, physics, chemistry, or many of the sciences.

I have used tools that would require a forklift to maneuver in the old world. I have handled alloys not even dreamt of on an everyday basis. My skills are the key to my success.

There is an instinctual understanding that comes with specific skills, and others come with a knowledge dump. My ‘Master of Metals’ skill is what allows me to make alloys that are nonsensical to chemists and engineers that have pre-Fall knowledge. I should not be able to mix some of the chemicals I use in making the engines that keep the city aloft. But somehow, I knew that mixing Hafnium, Zinc, and Iodine with the heart blood of a Rotter would make a resin that is both completely transparent and stronger than steel while remaining flexible as a cotton string. None of that makes sense, but it works due to my skill.

We do not tell the groundlings why we need the bones of mutant cattle. They might steal that technology if they knew we slow-cooked the marrow and mixed it into simple steel to make Sky Steel, a simple D-grade material. They would never challenge us up here with D-Grade steel, but what would happen if one of them made a suit of power armor and went on a rampage?

What I’m trying to say is that technology is a primary fulcrum of power. Be careful with what information you share.

That’s enough blathering about. On with the engineering diagrams and theory.

-end excerpt-

I spent the next day gathering information. There were three areas where I could put my skills to the best use. West of the city is another factory that got hit by a dirty bomb, a computer chip factory. The Android Hivemind had long since cleaned it out, but their trash might be my treasure. It was a common haunt for Rotters and other nasties.

Southeast of the city was a region where toxic pollutants had been released in mass from a collection of chemical plants and refineries. Old Parkersburg had been abandoned after the Fall due to the toxic fallout from these facilities burning, and the area had not been resettled. The river was less toxic now and had stopped openly burning sometime ago. Less toxic meant poisonous, not eat your skin off poisonous. All sorts of mutants apparently survived in the mess down there.

Then there was the city of Old Cleveland, a half-flooded toxic mire. Parts of the city still burned after almost a hundred years. When the lake rose with the ice caps melting, much of the city flooded. The water never receded, and enough heavy metals and other toxic crap floated around in the lake to make it even more polluted. A moderate-sized nuke had also obliterated much of the city’s northwestern side. It hadn’t been a direct hit, but the fallout and remaining radioactivity had cleared out the folks in the area.

So the choices were: Local but picked through by the Android already, toxic and wet, or radioactive, toxic and wet. I’m a man for challenges, so I packed up several days’ worth of rations and ammo and headed north.

After a day of rolling north, I finally reached the city's southern side. There were miles and miles of wrecked and abandoned towns and suburbia I had passed through on my way here. Want to know how I know it’s the right place?

*ting*

[Radiation Exposure] [Immune]

That message meant I was in the right place, and then I saw my experience begin to climb too. I already had a ton from just pedaling my way up here. My explorer experience still worked fine; I had never been out this way. I looked out over the city from the hillside I was perched on. Cleveland was ugly. I could see the wreckage of six big buildings that had once made the skyline. The pointy one closest to me was the most intact despite looking like a steel skeleton of a building that had been picked apart.

Well, I wanted to get down into the city and find a hidey-hole for a few days. There had to be an apartment building or something that wasn’t too fucked up. I looked to the east and looked for a hill. A building at the bottom of a hill on the western face would be my best bet.

I rolled down from the hill I was on into the city. Notifications started to ping faster as the radiation intensified. Good, I headed closer to the bomb site and started looking for candidates.

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The air smelled oddly in the city; old sewage, hot steel, and ozone were the heaviest smells. It was terrible, but I pressed on. If it was truly toxic, I’d get a notifica-

*ting*

[Toxic Gas Exposure] [Resisted]

There it is. Cool. I watched my experience ping up. Sadly at the same rate as before. Conservator experience is an on-or-off switch and doesn’t go up with the intensity of exposure. Boo, lame. Oh, well.

I splashed through puddles and through the broken streets. I found a decent-looking building on the backside of a short ridge that ran north-south. It was elevated enough to be out of the water that stagnated in pools. It was a two-story brown brick building that looked like an old five-unit apartment block. It was mostly overgrown with ivy, and the left side unit was halfway caved in. I started from the right and slowly walked around the building.

I hadn’t really seen much life or activity in the area yet. Bugs the size of my forearm had dive-bombed me a mile or so back, but they swatted easily. They also weren’t worth much experience. I stepped up to the wall and pushed my hand through the ivy. Ouch, fuck, my hand went numb for a moment.

*ting*

[Numbing Nettle Toxin Exposure] [Resisted]

Holy shit, the ivy was poisonous. That explains why the area was clear of bugs. I bet it ate the unwary ones. I took out my replacement machete and cleared a patch of wall. I put my hand on the wall and felt for anything inside. Nothing moved, just the rustling of the leaves. I tapped my machete on the wall and felt the vibrations move through the walls. Nothing stirred. I stepped back and looked for the doorway. I was already mapping the basics of the area. I tapped the machete with the steel ring I now wore for that purpose. The clear ringing noise pulsed out away from me, and I moved my attention to the second flat from the right.

This one had a front door that seemed whole. I went up to the door and found it to be warped and stuck in the frame. The ivy kept trying to bite me, but I was more careful now.

It wasn’t moving on its own. No, it was just a plant. It was like a six-inch deep thick carpet of oily green leaves that covered everything.

Since I didn’t want to kick in the door, I pushed through and phased into the house. I almost backed back out as the stench hit me. Old dry mildew and mold assaulted my nose. Actual fungi were growing along the floorboards and walls. Some of them visibly puffed out clouds of smoky black spores as I entered.

*ting*

[Black Almometta Spore Toxin Exposure] [Resisted]

I turned and kicked the door open, ignoring the temporary numbness as I went back outside. Dusk was on me now. I needed a semi-safe place to sleep. Door number 3? I went inside, and there weren’t mushrooms. This building must have brick and cinderblock walls between the units. The front windows had been smashed in, but the place was dry and empty. I moved through the narrow front room, shotgun in hand.

Through the hall and into the kitchen in the back. Nothing, no furniture, no mold, no carpet either. Tile the whole way through. I moved up the creaking stairs to check out the rooms. One was once someone’s hidey-hole. The room was closed up, and the skeletal remains lying in a pile of old dried-out debris were a signifier. Rats and bugs had been at it, but those were long gone. I closed the door and left the grave for what it was. The other room was clean and dry, in any case. Someone had installed storm shutters on this room long ago, and they sat closed. I considered, and this would do for today at least.

I moved my pack and bike upstairs to the room, laid out an ancient foam mat, and rolled up a t-shirt for a pillow. Tomorrow I’d start hunting in earnest. I was absorbing radiation and toxic air and churning out experience. Shit, I could nap here for a couple of weeks and achieve my goal.

I wasn’t that lazy, however. There had to be some good things to extract from the area, items to take home and sell to Freddie for some extra cash.

I was almost asleep in the silent night when I first felt the scratching on my vibration sense. Something was in the basement, something moving around very slowly. I only felt it scrape along one of the support beams that ran up to the roof. Something hard and bumpy had been dragged against the side of the post and rang in my senses. I was up and tying my boots on in a moment. I felt the thing moving around below me.

I tossed on my goggles and hard hat. If it fits in the basement, how’d it get in there? I hadn’t sensed anything from down there until now. I hadn’t looked all that hard, in any case. Now, something was moving around, and it could be a threat.

After checking my shotgun and the 9mm pistol I borrowed from Tukey, I took up my mace. Both were loaded and ready to fire. I crept through the darkness, my stealth skill guiding my steps and shrouding me. When I got to the ground floor, I paused and put my hand on the floor. I felt something down there, No heartbeat though, more of a whoosh-whoosh than a thump thump thump. What the fuck?

I moved to the cellar door in the kitchen. When I touched it, the door disintegrated. The paint that had held the rotten wood together for decades had given up. Tick-tick-tick, my watch sounded as the remains of the rotten door tumbled down the stairs, breaking apart as it went.

I suddenly had a much clearer picture. The basement was a communal space under the building, with no actual walls. Refuse was strewn everywhere and more of the mold was evident down here.

Next to one of the walls was a giant bug. An ant as tall as my knee and easily fifty pounds was peering around. It looked up at me and scuttled off down the tunnel in the wall. Ah, shit. Ants. Why does it need to be ants? I hate ants. These buggers are going to be a problem. I sure hope they aren’t infesting the entire city. I take some of the refuse and throw it into the hole. As much as I can throw in there to make noise when they come out. Some rusty old bikes, some sheet metal, and rotten wood. Anything coming out would have to push this aside, and that would wake me up.