Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalipse

Deaver’s legs were stiff but he loosened them up pretty quick and broke into an easy, loping run down the corridors of the Salvage Centre. He took a flight of stairs two or three steps at a time, bounded down a hall, and when he reached a sign that said SMALL COMPUTER SALVAGE, he pushed off the doorframe and rebounded into the room. "Hey Lehi!" he said. "Hey it’s quittin time!"

Lehi McKay paid no attention. He was sitting in front of a TV screen, jerking at a black box he held on his lap.

"You do that and you’ll go blind," said Deaver.

"Shut up, carpface." Lehi never took his eyes off the screen. He jabbed at a button on the black box and twisted on the stick that jutted up from it. A colored blob on the screen blew up and split into four smaller blobs.

"I got three days off while they do the transmission on the truck," said Deaver. "So tomorrow’s the temple expedition."

Lehi got the last blob off the screen. More blobs appeared.

"That’s real fun," said Deaver, "like sweepin the street and then they bring along another troop of horses."

"It’s an Atari. From the sixties or seventies or something. Eighties. Old. Can’t do much with the pieces, it’s only eight-bit stuff. All these years in somebody’s attic in Logan, and the sucker still runs."

"Old guys probably didn’t even know they had it."

"Probably."

Deaver watched the game. Same thing over and over again. "How much a thing like this use to cost?"

"A lot. Maybe fifteen, twenty bucks."

"Makes you want to barf. And here sits Lehi McKay, toodling his noodle like the old guys use to. All it ever got them was a sore noodle, Lehi. And slag for brains."

"Drown it. I’m trying to concentrate."

The game finally ended. Lehi set the black box up on the workbench, turned off the machine, and stood up.

"You got everything ready to go underwater tomorrow?" asked Deaver.

"That was a good game. Having fun mustVe took up a lot of their time in the old days. Mom says the kids used to not even be able to get jobs till they was sixteen. It was the law."

"Don t you wish," said Deaver.

"It’s true."

"You don’t know your tongue from dung, Lehi. You don’t know your heart from a fart."

"You want to get us both kicked out of here, talkin like that?"

"I don’t have to follow school rules now, I graduated sixth grade, I’m nineteen years old, I been on my own for five years." He pulled his seven dollars out of his pocket, waved them once, stuffed them back in carelessly. "I do OK, and I talk like I want to talk. Think I’m afraid of the Bishop?"

"Bishop don’t scare me. I don’t even go to church except to make Mom happy. It’s a bunch of bunny turds."

Lehi laughed, but Deaver could see that he was a little scared to talk like that. Sixteen years old, thought Deaver, he’s big and he’s smart but he’s such a little kid. He don’t understand how it’s like to be a man. "Rain’s comin."

"Rain’s always comin. What the hell do you think filled up the lake?" Lehi smirked as he unplugged everything on the workbench.

"I meant Lorraine Wilson."

"I know what you meant. She’s got her boat?"

"And she’s got a mean set of fenders." Deaver cupped his hands. "Just need a little polishing."

"Why do you always talk dirty? Ever since you started driving salvage, Deaver, you got a gutter mouth. Besides, she’s built like a sack."

"She’s near fifty, what do you expect?" It occurred to Deaver that Lehi seemed to be stalling. Which probably meant he botched up again as usual. "Can you get the diving stuff?"

"I already got it. You thought I’d screw up." Lehi smirked again.

"You? Screw up? You can be trusted with anything" Deaver started for the door. He could hear Lehi behind him, still shutting a few things off. They got to use a lot of electricity in here. Of course they had to, because they needed computers all the time, and salvage was the only way to get them. But when Deaver saw all that electricity getting used up at once, to him it looked like his own future. All the machines he could ever want, new ones, and all the power they needed. Clothes that nobody else ever wore, his own horse and wagon or even a car. Maybe he’d be the guy who started making cars again. He didn’t need stupid blob-smashing games from the past. "That stuff’s dead and gone, duck lips, dead and gone."

" What’re you talking about?" asked Lehi. "Dead and gone. All your computer things."

It was enough to set Lehi off, as it always did. Deaver grinned and felt wicked and strong as Lehi babbled along behind him. About how we use the computers more than they ever did in the old days, the computers kept everything going, on and on and on, it was cute, Deaver liked him, the boy was so intense. Like everything was the end of the world. Deaver knew better. The world was dead, it had already ended, so none of it mattered, you could sink all this stuff in the lake.