Days Gone Chapter 1: Plastic

 

Plastic

It looked like it was going to rain acid again. The non-greenhouse trees were covered in plastic tarps, forged by the plasmith. Everyone either put on their helmets or rushed for cover.

I remained at the mine, thinking that this would be my chance to find something good while all the other miners were running. I dug through the rot-bags and the metal bits, sifting through some broken shiny discs, until I found a geebie. In fact, there were several of them. One was of a green man driving a “cayr” and another was of a yellow man with a red hat. They were made of plastic. Precious plastic. I put them into my sack and looked up at the sky to see if the acid rain was going to end any time soon. After a few more similar finds, I ducked into the rain and headed back to the village.

When I entered the plastic broker’s hut, he got up from his chair and walked to the counter.

“What did you find, Brick?”

I dumped my sack onto the counter. “Take a look at this.”

“Ooh.” The plastic broker, whose name was Luck, sorted through the plastic bits. “These will sell well. I’d melt down this and this. These here I’d sell to the geebies collector.”

“They’re not very good geebies.” I picked up one of the small plastic men. “Kind of broken.”

“Owen will buy them anyways. There are a lot of merchants asking for geebies like this.”

“You mean there’s merchants in town right now?”

“Yeah. I’ll buy your stuff for ten caps. How about it?”

“Eleven.”

“Deal.” Luck scooped up the geebies and bits and put them into a basket. “Go buy yourself something nice from the merchants. Careful about the acid rain. This time it’s pretty nasty.”

“I’ve got my helmet.”

“Good lad.”

I got paid, left Luck’s broker house, and walked across town. The acid rain was still coming down, though not as hard as before. I found the merchants underneath a large plastic tarp. The patter of rain on it underscored the conversations happening.

I entered the market. It looked like these merchants were from a far away place. I didn’t recognize the style of their clothing. They had a few cayrs, wheeled vehicles from the past time, though the wheels they had now were made of wood. The horses that pulled them were stabled nearby.

I wandered through the market for a bit, handling the caps in my pocket. I had a significant amount of money on me. Not more than I’d ever held, not by a long shot, but it was enough to get me something nice.

I saw Rathe walking around the market looking as discombobulated as always. She was a short, skinny girl with dirty blonde hair and suspiciously good teeth. She was the resident doctor, which was quite remarkable considering that she was only seventeen. Her knowledge of medicine was among the best in the surrounding countryside. Today she was wearing an old, faded shirt and recycled denim jeans. She wore a pair of glasses that she had probably fashioned herself.

She approached me. “Brick. Nice to see you’re here. I need someone to talk to about something.”

“Sure, go ahead.” I walked up to a food vendor and bought rat meat stew. “Two servings.”

I gave Rathe the second bowl. The soup was watery, with a couple vegetables and rat meat in it. Meat of any kind was pricy, and I paid four caps for the two bowls.

Rathe and I sat down on a stone bench near the edge of the market.

“What’s up?” I took a bite of soup.

Rathe leaned close to me. “I’ve discovered something.”

“Yeah?”

“I was recovering old data and discovered something amazing. The method to produce plastic from common reagents.”

“Oh come on, now.” I put the bowl of soup down. “You know that’s a myth. Plastic came from the sky on the day of judgement.”

“No. It was created by man.” Rathe leaned closer. “I’ve discovered a method to turn corn-based products into new plastic. Virgin plastic.”

“You’re crazy.”

Rathe raised an eyebrow. “Do you want to come see?”

“Sure.” I stood up. We both finished our food and I followed Rathe across the village and to the outskirts, where she had her hut. The space around the hut was covered in old devices from the time before, none of which were functioning.

Rathe ducked into the hut and I followed. When I got inside, I stopped.

“What is that?”

“It’s called a PC.”

“What? Um, Peecee?”

“Right, you can’t read.” Rathe sat down at a chair that faced what looked like a window attached to a box. She pressed a button on the side and the window lit up.

“What’s that?”

Rathe grinned. “This is a computing device. It runs those shiny discs that you find in the mines.”

“You know if the inquisition finds that you’re using stuff from the time before, they’ll kill you.”

Rathe shook her head. “No. I know they won’t because even they don’t know that things like this exist.”

“Rathe, you’re crazy.”

“People often tell me that.” Rathe pressed a bunch of buttons in quick succession. “Here’s the deal. Plastic is comprised of polymers, which when reacted right can change forms and fulfill different niches.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

“What I mean is, that plastic didn’t come from the sky. It was created. By people.”

“No. The church says that plastic came from god and fell from the sky.”

“That’s what they say.” Rathe stood up and poked me in the forehead. “You’ve been lied to your entire life. The time before was so much more advanced than we give them credit for.”

“Okay. Why are you telling me this?”

Rathe grinned. “Because I’m going to need a traveling partner. One who is familiar with the badlands.”

“Rathe, I know that I came from the badlands, but it was so long ago that I don’t remember much about it.”

“But you were there. You might have old memories that will help us.”

“Where are you going?”

“Across the continent. To New York.”

“New York? That place is two thousand miles away! Why do you need to go there?”

“Because there’s a group of scientists who still study the old ways. I contacted them on my ham radio.”

“Ham? I don’t see any pigs around here.”

“No, ham radio. It’s a device that allows you to talk with people all around the world. Science isn’t dead, Brick. It’s alive and we need to preserve it.”

“So you need to get to New York. How are you going to make the journey?”

“That’s why I was asking you!”

I shook my head. “I don’t think I can take you on this journey. I have a job here and I like it.”

“Okay. Then you’re going to have to promise not to tell anyone about this.” Rathe sighed. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Brick.”

The next morning the town bell rang, calling for an assembly. I got out of bed and left the small hut where I lived and headed for the main square.

As soon as I got there, I was taken aback. Rathe was standing on the trial stone. Her hands were bound and she had bruises on her face.

“Rathe!” I pushed my way through the crowd and to the front.

Rathe looked down at me. “Sorry, Brick.”

I turned to the church man. “Why do you have her? Why is she here? She hasn’t done anything wrong!”

“She’s been experimenting with witchcraft. She needs to be executed for her crimes.”

“Aren’t you even going to give her a chance to defend herself?”

“This doesn’t involve you, miner.”

I scrambled up onto the platform. “She’s a good person!”

The church man pushed me back. “Stay away, Brick. You’re not welcome here.”

I gritted my teeth. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”

“Then are you willing to stand trial for her?” The church man showed his rotten teeth.

I made a decision. I socked the church man in the head and grabbed Rathe by the arm. With her in tow, I rushed off the platform, rolled on the ground, and started running.

Rathe ran behind me, stumbling, but I was able to keep her on her feet. We left the village outskirts and headed onto the mine mound. The ground was soft and squishy and our feet threw up mud as we ran.

“Are we going in the right direction?” Rathe yelled.

“I think so!” I continued to pull Rathe along with me. “Do you have what you need?”

Rathe pulled a small boxy thing from her pocket. “Yes!” It was about the size of two bottle caps. She put it back in her pocket.

“Good! Because we’re out of here!” I knew a good place to hide while our pursuit cooled off. There was an old city from the time beyond, a cursed location. It was normally off-limits to anyone without church authorization, but these were exceptional times. We entered the city’s outskirts. Our pursuit began fading away. I pulled Rathe into a tall building that looked reasonably intact. Acid rain began to fall. We sheltered on the third floor of the building as our pursuit was forced into hiding.

I gathered the materials to start a fire. “Rathe. Do you really believe that what you have can change the world?”

“Definitely. There is no doubt about that fact.” Rathe coughed. “Man, this place is dusty. Probably still radioactive too.”

“Radio? Active?”

“It means that the air is poisonous, essentially. If we stay here too long we could suffer consequences.”

“Is that why the church doesn’t allow anyone in here?”

“Yes. And everything has already been picked clean, so no one even bothers to come here anymore. All that’s left are skeletons.”

“You know about the time before, right? You keep using all these words.”

Rathe leaned back against a pillar. “The time before was amazing, Brick. There were so many different things. The church was only a small part of the world back then. The world was ruled by science. That’s how plastic was made.”

“So what happened?”

“Their hubris brought them down. They developed a weapon that could destroy entire cities at once and used them against each other. When that happened, the Earth’s population was cut by ninety-nine percent.”

“And you’re sure that you have the solution?”

“Not the solution.” Rathe sighed. “The answer to a question. The question of the origin of the magical material known as plastic.”

“So humans made it. Humans created plastic.”

“They created steel and ceramics as well. They created so many cool things. It’s the worst tragedy that all the knowledge used to make these things was lost.”

I shook my head. “I don’t believe it, but I saved you, so now I’m going where you’re going.”

“Great. You’re my best friend.”

“Yeah.” I looked out the window at the street below. “It looks like they aren’t hunting for us anymore.”

“Probably because it’s about to be nightfall.”

“Oh.” I quickly lowered my head from where it was, visible from the street. The night beasts. Terrible animals that prowled the cities at night. I had survived among them before, but I had let my training get sloppy.

Rathe nodded. “Yeah.” She took off her coat and held it up over the fire. “We’re going to have to extinguish this until morning.”

I began to hear the howls of the night beasts. They were like that of wolves, but different, more feline and brutal. The sound of the beasts roaming the streets echoed as the last light of day dissapeared. Rathe and I looked at each other.

Rathe extinguished the fire. As the darkness enveloped everything, Rathe spoke.

“Thanks.” Her voice was low. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

“Repay me by keeping us alive.”