John Adams - Wastelands - Stories of the Apocalipse

It was like an Indian summer, that’s what I meant to say, like three years of Indian summer. Bobby went on with his resurch. La Plata. Sociological background etc. You remember the local Sheriff? Fat old Republican with a good Rodney Youngblood imitashun? How Bobby said he had the preliminary simptoms of Rodney’s Disease?

Concentrate Asshole

Wasn’t just him; turned out like there was a lot of that going around in that part of Texas. All’s Hallows Disease is what I meen. For three yerz me and Bobby were down there. Created a new program. New graff of circkles. I saw what was happen and came back here. Bobby and his to asistants stayed on. One shot hisself Boby said when he showed up here. Wait one more bias

All right. Last time. Heart beating so fast I can hardly breeve. The new graph, the last graph, really only whammed you when it was laid over the calmquake graft. The calmquake graff showed ax of vilence going down as you approached La Plata in the muddle; the Alzheimer’s graff showed incidence of premature seenullity going up as you approached La Plata. People there were getting very silly very yung.

Me and Bobo were careful as we could be for next three years, drink only Par-rier Water and wor big long sleekers in the ran. so no war and when everybobby started to get seely we din and I came back here because he my brother I cant remember what his name—

Bobby.

Bobby when he came here tonight cryeen and I sed Bobby I luv you Bobby sed Ime sorry Bowwow Ime sorry I made the hole world fill of foals and dumbbels and I sed better fouls and bells than a big black sinder in spaz and he cryed and I cryed Bobby I luv you and he sed will you give me a shot of the spacial wadder and I sed yez and he said wil you ride it down and I sed yez an I think I did but I

cant reely remember I see wurds but dont no what they mean

I have a Bobby his nayme is bruther and I theen I an dun riding and I have a bocks to put this into thats Bobby sd full of quiyet air to last a milyun yrz so gudboy gudboy every—brother, Im goin to stob gudboy bobby i love you it wuz not yor fait i love you

forgivyu

loveyu

Orson Scott Card is the best-selling author of Ender’s Game , which was a winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. The sequel to Ender’s Game , Speaker for the Dead , also won both awards, making Card the only author to have captured the field’s two most coveted prizes in consecutive years. Card is also the winner of the World Fantasy Award, eight Locus Awards, and a slew of other honors.

In addition to Ender’s Game and the other books in the Enderverse , Card is the author of dozens of other novels, including the books in the Tales of Alvin Maker saga and the Homecoming series. He has also published more than 80 short stories, which have been collected in several volumes, most notably in Maps in a Mirror .

“Salvage” was one of the first stories in which Card openly explored his religion, and was among his first forays into post-apocalyptic SF. This tale, one of Card’s “Mormon Sea” stories, originally appeared in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine and was later included in Folk of the Fringe , a collection of stories set in the post-apocalyptic state of Deseret. There, on the shores of a flooded Great Salt Lake, the remnants of a ruined civilization rely on their faith—and each other—to carry on and rebuild…

The road began to climb steeply right from the ferry, so the truck couldn’t build up any speed. Deaver just kept shifting down, wincing as he listened to the grinding of the gears. Sounded like the transmission was chewing itself to gravel. He’d been nursing it all the way across Nevada, and if the Wendover ferry hadn’t carried him these last miles over the Mormon Sea, he would have had a nice long hike. Lucky. It was a good sign. Things were going to go Deaver’s way for a while.

The mechanic frowned at him when he rattled in to the loading dock. "You been ridin the clutch, boy?"

Deaver got down from the cab. "Clutch? What’s a clutch?"

The mechanic didn’t smile. "Couldn’t you hear the transmission was shot?"

"I had mechanics all the way across Nevada askin to fix it for me, but I told em I was savin it for you."

The mechanic looked at him like he was crazy. "There ain’t no mechanics in Nevada."

If you wasn’t dumb as your thumb, thought Deaver, you’d know I was joking. These old Mormons were so straight they couldn’t sit down, some of them. But Deaver didn’t say anything, just smiled.

"This truck’s gonna stay here a few days," said the mechanic.

Fine with me, thought Deaver. I got plans. "How many days you figure?"

"Take three for now, I’ll sign you off."

"My names Deaver Teague."

"Tell the foreman, he’ll write it up." The mechanic lifted the hood to begin the routine checks while the dock boys loaded off the old washing machines and refrigerators and other stuff Deaver had picked up on this trip. Deaver took his mileage reading to the window and the foreman paid him off.

Seven dollars for five days of driving and loading, sleeping in the cab and eating whatever the farmers could spare. It was better than a lot of people lived on, but there wasn’t any future in it. Salvage wouldn’t go on forever. Someday he’d pick up the last broken-down dishwasher left from the old days, and then he’d be out of a job.

Well, Deaver Teague wasn’t going to wait around for that. He knew where the gold was, he’d been planning how to get it for weeks, and if Lehi had got the diving equipment like he promised then tomorrow morning they’d do a little freelance salvage work. If they were lucky they’d come home rich.

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."