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March 7, 2007

3.07.07

Your word of the day is scavenge.

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David: Everything Old Is New Again

“I’m back,” the boy called out.

“And what have you brought for Ludmilla?” replied the crone.

The boy put a burlap sack on the floor and started pulling items from it. “I got… three cans of creamed corn… a 1986 cat calendar… and a set of sparkplugs from a Camaro GT.”

“Large block or small?”

“Um, it was a V8? Looked like it used to be sex on four wheels.”

“Very good. Put them in the bucket.” He did so. “You have paid Ludmilla’s price. Make your request. You want love? Health? Money?”

“I want to learn your art, scrap-shaman.”

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Jim: In The Beginning

With a swinging bison femur, One Ear taught the People how to chase away the other scavengers from fresh kills. Then he began to scare away the Hunters themselves.

For many seasons, One Ear was the first to dine at stolen kills and held the right to mate with any of the People’s females.

Then Lip Scar challenged him for dominance. One Ear, defeated, limped away from the People. In a flurry of teeth and claws, a Hunter soon brought the banished Leader down.

Swinging bison femurs, Lip Scar and the People chased the Hunter away from the fresh meat.

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Stacy: Rebirth

Under cover of darkness the grubbers always came by the hundreds. The guards watched idly via infrared cameras, not paid enough to care, and really only there for show - salve to a nation’s guilty conscience. The agency had been defunct so long it hardly mattered what the grubbers were after anyway. Anything of value was surely long gone. Yet they always found something, gathered up bits and pieces into rickety trundles, before fading back into the darkness.

Then one night a roar shook the night and something climbed into the heavens on a tail of flame. NASA lived again.

Read more from Stacy's .

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Jeff R.:We Prefer to Call it 'Recycling'

It's amazing what some people will just throw away.

I mean, after the Victory Alliance reunited to destroy the Uberwheel, they left loads of stuff lying around, including more than enough Stellarite alloy to set this business up.

Just the other week, the Young Olympians beat back an attempted trans-temporal invasion from 2844's NeoTexan Empire. Let me tell you, those guys carried all kinds of neat guns.

We just outfitted the Crimson Terror. Slap a bit of red spraypaint on a Jovian mindhelmet and a couple of Lemurian vibro-flails, and she's good to go, ready to take on Juror #13.

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Tanya: Untitled

He was aware of the vultures circling above him, as he dug into the sand beneath the joshua tree. Ironically, they were interested in him, and not the bundle that he was burying. When he hit tree roots, he burrowed between them, and tucked the cotton-shrouded parcel into the niche, bending to kiss it one last time before covering it.

The vultures dropped lower as he stumbled away, delirious. He’d run out of water nearly two hours ago. Yet he sketched a map to this site, before his eyesight faltered. Such a massive desert, such a tiny packet of diamonds.

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Ted: Last Gasp

The handlers had pulled the breatheable air that was available in the now closed hull. The ship was two days away from help: with one day of oxygen.

"Parker's in stasis, hopefully revivable. Carstairs, we'll draw lots to see who takes the walk."

"Cap, I'd love to, but I can't land this bird with one eye and one foot gone. I'll be taking the walk, sir."

"I won't argue with you, Steve. But I need to be able to look Sue in the eyes and answer her questions."

"Of course, Jer. Sue's a trooper. She'll understand. Give her this letter."

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