JUNKYARD BARGAIN
Buck Harlan—my friend, the closest thing I had left to a father—was dead because of me.
Dead protecting me.
My first thought in the morning, every morning.
Before coffee. Before breakfast. Every. Single. Morning.
His face, half eaten away by a swarm of genetically modified ants. His Outlaw Militia Warrior tattoos left untouched. The note warning me, clutched in his fingers.
I deliberately recalled everything, including tossing a half-empty gallon of Maltodine into the old Tesla fuselage, the vehicle that delivered Harlan. The accelerant burned his body to ash, obliterated the mutated ants that were eating him, and destroyed any evidence that might suggest I had killed my only friend in the world.
I studied his face, the position of his fingers, in my memory. Every detail was seared into my soul like a prayer for vengeance. The memories of death and debts owed.
I stared at the ceiling of my office, the smooth metal alloy reflecting the faint lights. So many secrets to hide. And three things to do: carry on my father’s legacy, keep myself hidden from the people who would try to use me, and take revenge on Harlan’s killers.
The weight of all that was heavy, even this early, still in my bed, and my memory darted back to Pops shouting to get me up in the mornings after Little Mama died and the war still raged. “Get your ass outta bed, Little Girl! We got PRC to kill!” Every morning.
The smell of coffee was fresh and potent in the filtered air, the trickle of water into the pot what awakened me. Coffee meant work, weapons to obtain, weapons that could take down my enemy—the queen who killed Harlan and sent his body to me, then followed it here to Smith’s Junk and Scrap and attacked me and mine.
I had won that first battle, but if I waited until that queen, Clarisse Warhammer, attacked me again, I would end up as dead as Harlan. I needed to go to war against her and her thralls. Soon. As soon as I had possession of the weapons to make victory possible. As soon as I found her nest, I’d go to war. For Harlan.
Satisfied that I had done my daily penance, I climbed out of bed. It was two hours before dawn, in the cool perfection of a desert morning, and I had work to do. I let the two cat queens of the junkyard prides out of the airlocks, used the waterless personal toilette compartment, yawned, scratched my fingernails through my short hair, and smeared on the first layer of moisturizers and sunscreens.
I sniffed my work clothes from the day before yesterday and decided they weren’t too rank, so I pulled them on. Draping clothes across hot scrap metal in the midday sun helped to make the stench bearable, though nothing got rid of stains and sweat stink like detergent and water. But water was pricy. I lived quarter-to-quarter, which meant I was always broke. Decent now, I poured a cup of coffee and turned to face the airlock hatch, waiting.
Exactly five minutes and fifteen seconds after I rolled from bed, Cupcake tapped on the office door. Just like every morning. After the first couple of mornings, I figured she had learned how to access the chrono and the supply inventory functions of the office to better serve me, so she could get here with my food faster. I hated losing my morning private time, but I hadn’t figured out what to do with my unwanted guest, and Cupcake needed to be useful. A thrall’s desire to please was a little like having a dog that needed to herd, or fetch, or guard. Cupcake needed a job, and when I didn’t give her one, she gave herself one. She had taken over half the meal prep and gardening from Mateo. She cleaned my living area. She had begun organizing the business’s financial records. She was making a detailed map of the property and what scrap was where. She was organizing everything. She was driving me crazy.
I pressed a small spot on the command board to unlock the hatch and said, “Come.”
Cupcake entered through the outer, then inner, airlock doors, backing in with a breakfast tray. “Good morning, Sunshine!” she called. “We have pancakes with stevia, an MRE of fake scrambled eggy goo made with habanero peppers, and roasted beets with garlic. And you got a package in the mail! Look!” She waved a padded brown envelope that crinkled from the pressure of her fingers.
I held in a sigh and a curse. Cupcake was one of those repulsive morning people, and when I didn’t appreciate her efforts, she was also weepy. She was mentally and emotionally geared to ruin my morning, every morning, and nothing I had done except stay silent had stopped her tears.
“It smells kinda funky, but it sat in the hot mailbox all day yesterday,” she informed me, smiling happily, the envelope and flimsy hemp-paper fliers in one hand, the tray in the other.
“Funky how?” I asked, sniffing the air. The only thing I smelled was the habaneros and garlic.
“Rotten meat funky,” she said, waving it again.
My eyes landed on the envelope.
Cupcake placed the food tray and mail on the dinette bench, snapped open a tablecloth, and unloaded the china and sterling silver onto the cheap laminated table. I had no idea which outer shed she had raided for the expensive fancy dinnerware and the sterling, but on the final day of her transitioning to a thrall, I was eating off fancy porcelain. “Sit, sit, sit, sit, sit,” she said, holding out the package. Gingerly, I accepted it, and caught a whiff of stink.
In dark blue marker was my name. My real name. Shining Smith, care of Smith’s Junk and Scrap, Near Naoma, West Virginia. Accurate as far as addresses went in the post-World War III world. Too accurate.
I held the package away from me as if it would explode if I moved. Because it might.
Staring at the envelope, I placed my mug on the table, and sat as Cupcake put a linen square across my lap. She brought more coffee.
“I’m betting we’ll have broccoli coming up in a week or so,” she chattered, “and soon we’ll havewatermelon.” Which was difficult but not impossible in a desert greenhouse. She plopped down, sitting across from me at the repurposed RV dinette.
Carefully, I tore open the envelope, and the stench flooded into the room. Rotten meat for real. Gently, I pulled out the crinkly old bubble wrap. Bubble wrap wasn’t made anymore, not anywhere, but there were tons of the old stuff, and it was used to ship delicate things like jewelry. But this bubble wrap was damp and sticky, coated inside with a wet brown residue.
Cupcake asked, “Shining? Don’t you like the breakfast?”
I looked at her and knew my eyes were too big. She didn’t seem to care about the reek, but I hadn’t eaten her offering, and that was bad.
