Chapter Two - The Scrounger

“People used to mock preppers a lot. To be fair, the entire culture around the movement--if you can even call it a movement--was pretty strange. Paranoia that was being acted upon, lots of conspiracy theories and strange people with too much time on their hands.

Then the aliens actually showed up, and the entire thing changed. Now it’s less a fringe group, and more just... something everyone with a lick of common sense does.”

--Interview with Liz Maybirb, Director of the Ready Community group, 2029

***

“Hey boss!”

I jumped at the sound and turned to find a familiar face bouncing over to me. Raccoon looked healthy. Dirty, but healthy. She had overalls on, stained and covered in cuts and wrinkles. She was lugging around a backpack that looked like it would have been big on an adult man; it was huge on her, and entirely filled with a clanging assortment of metal trash.

“Hey Rac,” I said. I placed the metal ingot I had back onto the pile and reached down to rub the kid’s head.

She ducked under my hand and shot me a look that was soon replaced by a nearly feral grin. “You like my work so far?” she asked.

I glanced back at the stacks of metal. “So far you’ve been doing great,” I said. “Is this all you’ve been doing?”

“Pretty much, yeah. Started with the trash in this building, and I’ve been expanding out. The best thing about trash is that it’s a renewable resource. In a couple of days I can return to where I started, and there’ll be a whole new heap of it to dive through, you know?”

“Sounds... handy?” I tried. Dumpster diving didn’t sound like what I’d call a fun past-time. Or a safe one, for that matter. Then again, lately my newest hobby was making things trying to eat me explode, so I was going to keep my stone collection firmly inside my glass house. “I came over to see how you were doing, and to, ah, give you some news, I guess.”

“What sort?” Rac asked. She slid past me and to the large machine dominating the end of the room. With practised ease she opened the hopper at the back of it, slid her back pack off, then started filling the empty receptacle up with scrap. The machine hummed, and a large progress bar appeared on its main screen, with smaller bars beneath labelled with the names of metals.

“Well, first, we’re going to tear apart most of the top floor of this building. I’m going to buy a new one outright. It’ll be teleported in place. Should be pretty neat.”

“Whoa,” Rac said. “That does sound kind of awesome. Like just... zap-bang and there’s a new building?”

“Part of a building,” I said. “Just the topmost floors. I asked the building crew to move the matter reconfiguration machine over to the room where Longbow’s gun is stored. I... need to send him a text about that, actually. Anyway, it should be safe.”

“Am I gonna be out of work then?” Rac asked.

“For a few hours, maybe,” I said. “You have a place to sleep?”

“Usually just sleep there,” Rac said. She gestured to a corner of the room. I hadn’t really noticed the blankets in the corner. I’d kind of just assumed they were some random junk left behind. “I can find a place, don’t worry.”

“Right,” I said. “You’re welcome to stay here once everything’s in place. Ah, that’s the other thing. We’re going to start producing prosthetics. Like, cheap but functional ones. I still need to talk to someone about that, but we’ll probably start production tomorrow. It’ll likely use up a lot of the materials you’ve collected.”

The machine hissed, and the front opened to reveal a neat stack of bars next to some small, squarish tubes. Not all of them were metal. In fact, about half the ingots looked like they were plastic, and the tubes were clearly filled with some sort of liquid, or maybe gasses?

It kind of made sense, if the machine was breaking scrap down to basic elements, then it would have to deal with some elements being liquid or gaseous or whatever.

“I can always collect more,” Rac said. “It’s not a big deal.”

“Cool,” I said. “Besides, it’s for a good cause. You know, giving poor folk new limbs and shit?”

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Rac nodded. I couldn’t tell if she was happy about that or not, not while she was meticulously placing the ingots she got into neat stacks.

“One other thing, the world’s going to end in like, thirty-ish hours.”

Rac’s stack of plastic ingots crashed to the floor with a clatter. “It’s gonna what?” she asked.

“Turns out the aliens have been building a lot of hidden hives, and they’re all going to activate at about the same time. So we’ll be dealing with a massive surge of antithesis trying to attack... pretty much everyone everywhere, all at the same time.”

“That’s seriously fucked.”

“I know,” I agreed. “We’re going to stop it, of course, but it’s going to ruin a bunch of plans, I bet. It’s why I want to fortify this place before we get flooded with aliens.”

“Shit,” Rac said. “You need help with anything?”

I was about to shake my head when I paused. “I might. Can you take care of shit here for me? At least until Lucy and the kittens move over? Also, I wouldn’t mind one more person keeping the kittens safe.”

Rac nodded, but her eyes narrowed and she looked at me judgingly. “You’re not just saying that so that I’ll stay with the other kids where I‘ll be safe, right?”

“No?”

“Uh-huh.”

I grinned and jerked my head towards the door. “I’ve got some calls to make, and some shit to look into. Stay safe, alright?”

“Yeah yeah, no worries,” Rac said. “I think I’ve got time for another scrap run before I need to find food.”

We didn’t really say goodbye. Neither of us were formal enough for that kind of thing. I just headed out and paused in the corridor just outside of the room.

“I need to make a call,” I muttered as I opened up a phone app from my augs. I paused. “Or maybe just send an email?”

To whom?

“Peter Silverbloom, the non-profit guy.”

He’d been pretty nice during our last meeting. Even if that meeting had lasted all of a few minutes. If he was as legit as he wanted to appear, then he’d be willing to bend a bit to let me help him better. Also, he knew a lot of the more community-based groups in the city. If anyone would know how to get people ready for the oncoming apocalypse, then it would be him.

I decided to call him. It was less impersonal than an email or a message. That, and I wasn’t so great with words.

The line rang twice before Peter answered. “Hello?” he asked. He sounded out of breath.

“Hey, Peter, it’s Cat,” I said. “You alright?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. I had to jog a bit to catch the train. Sorry. I’m fine now. How can I help? Is this about the clinic?”

“Yeah, a bit,” I said. “I’m getting things ready for that on my end, but we might have a bit of a problem.”

“What sort?” Peter asked.

“You know those aliens that like eating people? We’re about to get swarmed by a fuckload of them from all sides across the entire planet, all at once. We have maybe a day to really prepare for it. So I was thinking that maybe we should focus on that kind of thing. I still want to set up a clinic, but I was thinking of maybe having it be at my place? It’ll be safer. I think a lot more people will be needing medical attention in the coming weeks.”

“Uh,” Peter said. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly, yeah.”

“...Dang.”

I blinked. Dang? Really? This guy needed to be less nice. “Look, just call up whomever you think can help with this shit. I don’t imagine things getting better anytime soon, but maybe we can soften the blow a bit.”

“Will you be fighting?” he asked.

“Yeah. I don’t know the details on that yet. We might need volunteers to man the walls.. Or to build walls to man. It’s going to be a whole thing.”

“Alright. I’ll do what I can. Thanks for reaching out.”

“You’re welcome,” I said. “Get me the stuff for that clinic... say tomorrow afternoon? My place should be built by then.”

“Alright. Thank you, Stray Cat.”

I shut the line, then leaned against the nearest wall, just basking in the sounds of the construction crew tearing the place apart. There were so many things to take care of at once.

I couldn’t wait for the antithesis to arrive. At least then some of the weight on my shoulders would be lifted.

***