Kyto got to work. He had to remove the old gears and then spent time manually drilling some new holes into the casing to allow for the vehicle gears to be fitted to the pump. He had been working on it for an hour or so when one of the men he had seen in the trading post walked up to him with a woman and a small boy.
"If you are good at repairing things, maybe you should visit the factory." He said.
"Factory?" Kyto asked.
"Yeah. Montgomery's. They took damage from the recent storm and one of their machines is broken by all accounts. They could use someone like you to fix it." He stated.
"OK, thanks. I am unsure how long I will be in the area, but if I have time, I may call in." Kyto said.
"No problem." The man replied.
He walked off with his wife and son towards one of the houses on the side street and went inside. Kyto watched him go and wondered how these people could be so nonchalant about what happened at the factory. Kyto finished his repairs and refitted the pump's outer casing a while later. He operated the handle, and after a few pumps, the water started to flow out of the tap. Wendy had left him to it, and he was unsure where she had gone, so he called a woman who was busy beating a rug outside one of the homes.
"Mayor's office", she replied when Kyto asked her where Wendy would be.
"Mayor's office?" Kyto replied.
"Yes, Wendy is our town mayor." She replied.
"Oh, where is it?" He said.
"Third building, first street, by the gate." She said.
"Thank you." He called, heading off in the direction given.
He found Wendy leaving the entrance to the building as he approached. "I was just coming to check on you." She said.
"All done." He replied.
"Really? That's great. Well, as promised, let's get you some clothes and that salve."
Kyto followed Wendy back to the main square, where she confirmed that the pump was working correctly. Then, she escorted him to the doctor and the clothes shop. He picked up the salve and the bandage he needed and then spent time choosing a pair of sweatpants, three tops, two pairs of socks, a sweatshirt, and a small pair of boots after receiving guidance from Wendy, as he had no idea what she would need. Wendy enjoyed shopping for clothes and told the owner to add them to her monthly bill. She obviously visited the shop often.
Once Kyto had what he needed, Wendy escorted him back towards the main gate.
"Thank you for your time." He said as he left.
"No problem, and if you are in the area again, feel free to call in," she said.
It was afternoon, and he returned to the farm to check on Tabs.
∆∆∆
Kyto had left several hours earlier. He had stated he would be getting to the township and back a short time, and she was getting anxious being stuck in the building with no way to move quickly. She did not know if she could trust him and considered trying to escape while he was not there. She knew that even if she got downstairs and tried to leave, she would not get far on her damaged ankle not long after she heard a soft whistle. She must have been daydreaming as it startled her and made her jump. She peeked from the window and saw Kyto walking the last few feet towards the farmhouse wall. He scaled the wall in a few seconds and jumped in through the window, landing silently. He removed his backpack and started digging through what he had got. He pulled out the clothes he had secured in town. "Where did you manage to get all this?" Tabs asked.
"When I got to town, I had traded for food, and then the water pump had packed in from the main square, so I offered to fix it in exchange for some clothes and the medicine." He pulled some packs of dried fruit and a small bag containing more meat strips from his backpack.
"Wow."
"I have no idea if the clothes will fit you, but they must be better than what you are 'not' wearing." He said with a chuckle.
Tabs thanked him for the clothes and started to move towards the bathroom area. "Oh, hang on." He dug further into his backpack and pulled out a roughly square block. "Here, use this." throwing the block to her.
She caught the hard block, which had a waxy feel to its surface. "What is it?" she said quizzically.
"It's soap they make from some Beeswax they harvest. I'll grab some water from the bucket outside, and you can clean yourself up." Kyto lowered a rope down from the window and then dropped out of sight, descending the wall. Tabs made her way to the bathroom area, and it was only a minute or so before he walked in with a large bucket of water. "There you go." he placed it down and left the room, closing the door behind him.
Tabs picked up the waxy block she had been given and dipped it into the bucket, creating a soft, bubbly lather on her hands; it smelt divine, a sweet smell of honey. She rubbed it into her hands, and the grime she thought was now permanent disappeared slowly. Underneath the layers of dirt and grime, she gradually managed to turn her hands to a pinkish hue. She smiled and then proceeded to scrub every inch of her body. She spent what seemed like an age cleaning herself and had to request three more buckets of water before feeling happy and clean. She had scrubbed the soap into her hair, which squeaked when she ran her hand through it. The discarded water had changed in colour from black in the first bucket to virtually clean water by the last bucket as more and more of the years of grime had been scrubbed away.
It was the cleanest she had been since her capture, and she felt amazing, her skin tingling all over, and she could feel all her cuts and scrapes that she had for the first time as the soap stung them and in the strangest of ways, it felt good. Her feet had taken a long time to scrub; she had not had a pair of shoes for at least three years since her last pair had fallen apart, and the soles of her feet were thick like leather but black as a starless night in colour. Once she was happy, she pulled on the joggers. They had been a little long, so she rolled the waist over, pulled on one of the tops and put on the sweatshirt. She felt warm, clean, and comfortable for the first time in a very long time.
She hobbled into the bedroom area and found Kyto sitting cross-legged on the floor, working on a strange-looking item. It was full of wires and had a small display on it. "What's that?" she asked, entering the room.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Kyto looked up and was taken back by the woman standing before him. Tab's beauty radiated outwardly as it was now free from the years of dirt and grime hidden underneath its veil. Her hair shined in the light, and the auburn colour drew his gaze further towards her deep brown eyes. He felt his heart skip a beat and couldn't help but notice the soft glow of her skin. He could have sworn she was illuminating the room and area around him, as her presence left him believing she was of a royal family from the richest of estates. The only item which told of her past was her slightly sunken cheeks and the collar still latched around her neck. He swallowed deeply as he finally found the words to answer her.
"It's supposed to be a radio, but it can sometimes be temperamental, and I keep needing to tweak it. I assembled it from an old one I found and have been trying to get it to work properly." He looked back down at what he was doing.
"Radio?"
"Yeah, sorry, I should explain," he didn't look up from his work, "radios are used to talk to each other, the larger townships use them to talk over long distances, and some vehicles have them installed in them, they discuss trade routes and similar, and it can be useful to find out which townships have what supplies or what certain ones may be short of, it can help with what I am aiming to scavenge in an area. There is no point in visiting a township with a hoard of wire if it needs something different. Only some townships have them, but they are growing in popularity. This one is portable, so I can listen to what is happening."
Kyto attached a small handle to the side of the little metal box and started turning the handle. After a few turns, a soft crackling sound could be heard coming from it. He twiddled a dial on the front of the box, and the tone changed. He tutted and took the side off, working on it again.
She was dumbstruck by the device. She had never heard of people talking over a distance or heard of a radio before. The homestead she had lived at with her mother and sister had been isolated from the township in the valley, and she had never seen one there. Thinking of the homestead made her feel for her mother and father. Her father had died when she was five; his name had been Paul, and she had been bitten by a wild one when out hunting, and the wound had gotten infected. Her mother had tried every treatment that she knew, and he had fought the illness for several days but eventually succumbed. They had buried him at the end of the pasture, and every year, they had visited his grave and laid fresh flowers. Her mother would never have known what happened to her and Crystal. They just never returned from their daily foraging trip. She hoped that her mum and sister were still alive, although she had no idea where the valley had been that they had left.
Tabs made her way back over to the window and sat down, staring into the late afternoon sun; she felt tears welling up in her eyes from the memory of her mother and father. The sky continued to brighten as the day went on, and a large round sun shone onto the mountain range in the distance. The peaks glistened from its rays as a tear rolled down her cheek, and she sobbed quietly.
Eventually, Kyto finished what he was doing and packed the device back away again. He nearly had it and needed to make a few more tweaks. It had been a few months since the last time he had the chance to repair one of the larger radios in a township. The township radios were massive, though, with a large mast connected via a thick antenna cable. Generators powered them due to their power-hungry needs to transmit. He just had a small aerial on his version, and it was only a receiver he could not transmit by it; the wind-up mechanism he had used did not provide sufficient power. The radio may even be something that he could sell eventually. When he turned and looked over at Tabs, he could see damp streaks on her face where it looked like she had been crying. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah, sorry, just memories."
"Oh, I almost forgot." Kyto rummaged through his backpack again and pulled out a fresh bandage and a small pot. He then dragged out a pair of socks and a small pair of boots. "Here you go, although I am not sure the boots will fit you just yet due to your ankle."
She pulled on one of the socks and then pushed her good foot into the boot; it was a surprisingly good fit. She looked over at Kyto in appreciation. "Thank you. You didn't need to do what you did for me."
Kyto shrugged his shoulders. "Nanna always told me that you must look after your women, so that's what I do."
"So, I am one of your women, then?" Tabs asked.
Kyto stammered, flustered, "No, you're not mine. Sorry, it was just a saying my Nanna said." Kyto looked away, his cheeks reddening with embarrassment, and Tabs smiled. She could not remember the last time she genuinely smiled, which felt good.
"Can I check your ankle and strap it properly?" Kyto stated, changing the topic rapidly.
"Please", she replied.
She placed her foot onto the stool, and he started re-strapping her ankle. He opened the pot of salve he had brought back from town, and one of the most pungent smells she had ever known hit her nostrils. "What the hell is that?"
"Spylore urine and various plants. I'm not sure which types, but they make a salve that reduces swelling and pain together."
"Spylore urine! You are kidding me." She barked.
"Nope," Kyto scooped a dollop on his finger and gently massaged it into her ankle.
She winced at the pressure he applied, but amazingly, within a few seconds, the throbbing started to subside, and for the first time since she had woken up this morning, the pain felt less. "That stuff's amazing. I can already feel a difference."
"Yeah, if you use it sparingly. If you use too much, it can apparently cause serious numbness, and due to it, you can cause yourself more damage as you are unaware of any pain. The problem is that because it contains Spylore urine, it has the possible side effect of attracting ones within the area."
"What the hell!"
"Don't worry, we are safe here. I shutter the window at night, and the ground floor is secure. A Spylore could climb or easily jump in if it wanted to, but they are unlikely to enter a building. They usually only stay outside. Anyway, I will keep an eye out for the next couple of hours, and since it's still daylight, it is unlikely there will be any out just yet. They are more nocturnal." Kyto resealed the small pot and returned the salve to his backpack.
"Nocturnal?" Tabs queried.
"Out at night," Kyto replied.
"Where did you learn all these words, and is there anything you don't know? You seem to know a lot about most things."
"Only what I don't know," he chuckled. "I read a lot, any books I find, and I have a book called a dictionary."
"What is a dictionary?" she asked.
"It tells you what different words mean. I found it years ago and keep it in my backpack." Kyto reached into the top flap of his backpack, pulled out a small but thick book, and handed it to Tabs. She carefully took it and opened it; the words were tiny, and it seemed there were hundreds on each page. She could not understand them, and they seemed to blur together. She handed the book back to him.
"I cannot read." She stated.
"Oh, sorry", Kyto replied; he had not even considered that she could not read. He knew that not all townsfolk could read and write well, but most understood the basics.
Kyto made some food, which Tabs once again ate every morsel. She had not realised how hungry she had been. The strangest thing had happened to her retina display over the last few hours: the outline had always been a yellow colour ever since her coming of age, but apart from her ankle still being red, the remainder of the outline had started to change colour slightly and had a very faint green hue to it. She had never experienced this and had no idea what it meant. Not long after they had eaten, Tabs had felt sleepy again and drifted off in the chair.
Kyto had eventually noticed after looking up from the book he had been reading, and he once again draped the blanket over her where she sat. He had been reading a telecommunications engineering book he had found a few months ago and had just finished the chapter about signal transmissions. As he concluded the chapter, a message appeared on his ocular display.
Congratulations. You have increased your knowledge of Telecommunications Engineering and opened the sub-category Signal Transmissions to level 1. Signal Transmissions lets you understand the basic process for sending or propagating signals via a medium. At level 1, you understand analogue signal transmissions across wired and wireless networks.
He smiled at the update and checked against his skill tree. He had been working towards reaching the skill tree for communication systems, but he still needed two further base skills before it would be accessible: amplification and modulation. From the description given for communication systems, he knew that with the knowledge, he could start understanding networks and potentially even move towards digital systems at some point, allowing him to branch into computing later. He had read about computers in one of the books he had discovered, and from what he could understand, they used to be some of the most amazing things ever created. They apparently had unlimited capabilities depending upon what they were told to do. He had been fascinated by their potential but knew that it would take him a very long time to understand, and that was only if he could find the books to support his learning.