The barn had its doors blown off at the hinges. There was some rotten hay inside, and the skeletons of a few horses, but that was it. The vehicle shed fared no better—the husks of two dismantled farm machines lay within, their most valuable parts missing.
“So much for a new route offering fresh salvage,” Horatio commented. “We’ve been traveling for almost a week and almost have nothing to show for it. In previous years, we would’ve found at least one high ticket item by now. I always knew this day would come.”
Rhea frowned. “What day is that?”
“The day the Outlands had been entirely looted,” the robot answered.
“No way, dude,” Will said. “That day will never come. There are too many nooks and crannies out here. Not just in the wilderness, but in the fallen cities.”
“I was attempting sarcasm,” Horatio said.
“And you know something else?” Will continued as if he hadn’t heard. “Bricked satellites drop from orbit all the time. No, there’s enough junk up there to last a few lifetimes, my friend.”
“Didn’t I already say I was going for sarcasm?” Horatio asked.
“Good attempt,” Will told the robot.
“We should save up to buy a shuttle sometime,” Rhea said. “Go direct to the source.”
“Some salvagers have shuttles,” Will admitted. “Unfortunately, the cost is just a little bit out of reach for us at the moment.”
After a quick check of the guesthouse, they went to the main manor. The door was kicked in, and the windows broken.
“All right, let’s split up,” Will said.
They entered the main hall. The entrance rug was chewed up, as if by rodents or insects. The group separated.
Rhea took a hall that led to what looked like the kitchen. All of the appliances were looted. Dead flies littered the floor and tabletops. Mouse droppings were strewn across everything. She saw balls of fur as well, with the skeletons of the mice that had once owned the fur at their centers.
“What’s with the flies and mice?” Rhea asked. “I thought everything was supposed to be dead in the Outlands? Other than bioweapons…”
“Well, the flies fed off the corpses of the mice obviously,” Horatio replied. “And as for the mice themselves, they probably found a hidden food source somewhere in the house. Maybe supplies buried under the kitchen floorboards.”
“Enough to last them thirty years?” Rhea pressed.
“Could be,” Horatio said. “What would last humans two years, would keep mice for thirty.”
“Life always finds a way,” Will agreed. “Who knows? Maybe they’ve mutated just like the bioweapons, and they’re able to generate some of their daily energy requirements from the sun.”
Rhea waved a dismissive hand, even though Will couldn’t see it from where he was. “Pfft, I doubt it.”
“There are certainly hardy insect species that still exist in the Outlands,” Horatio added. “Some of them have even evolved to have a parasitic relationship with the bioweapons. For instance, did you know Werangs have lice?”
“Thanks for that image,” Rhea said.
She stepped fastidiously across the floor, avoiding the dead mice and flies, and began checking the cupboards and drawers one by one. The windows of the kitchen were intact, but black flies crawled along the frames. Dark dots littered the surface—fly eggs. She wrinkled her nose in disgust and went on to the next drawer. She found utensils. The metal had some small value, but in truth, the kitchenware would merely take up space in her pack that was better saved for something more expensive. Then again, at the rate they were finding salvage, she might be better off just grabbing the utensils so that she ended up reducing her debt by at least some amount by the next settlement. She could get rid of the cheap items when something better presented itself. Assuming Will or Horatio didn’t beat her to it, again. They liked to remind her about the salvager’s first rule all the time: Finders Keepers.
Screwing up her nose, she scooped up the dirty, dropping-caked utensils and shoved them into a side pocket in the backpack.
She turned toward a cupboard, her gaze passing over a window next to it. She stared into the dirty pane of glass, her eyes flitting past the abandoned outbuildings to linger on the dead trees that lined the estate’s perimeter. Black and gray trunks, all claws and talons.
The same fate awaits us all. To lie abandoned. Forgotten. Even cyborgs must die, one day.
She blinked, returning to the task at hand. She opened the cupboard and cringed. More dead flies. The insects had penetrated courtesy of a crack in the side.
“You ever think of doing something else?” Rhea transmitted. “Something that isn’t so… dirty?”
Will laughed over the comm. “Dirty? Hey, everything in this life is dirty.”
“Not everything,” Rhea said. “Love, for example.”
“Love?” Will said. “I hate to call you out as naive, but love is one of the dirtiest things around. People always get hurt. Always. Doesn’t matter the type of relationship. Lovers. A parent and child. Friends. Love is dirty. Not to mention sex, it’s physical counterpart. Think about it. When you kiss, you exchange saliva, and all the mouth bacteria that goes along with it. Your cheeks touch? Well, now you’ve got facial microorganisms jumping ship as well. And we’re not even talking about the actual sex act. Rubbing your genitals together? You’re transferring not only fluids that are crawling with potential viruses, but also dead skin, and the colonies of bacteria that live on and inside the reproductive organs themselves… yuck.”
“If it’s so dirty and gross like the way you make it sound, why did you spend your three days in the city doing nothing but mating all day?” she asked.
“Because I like dirty,” he said. “The same way I like salvaging. That’s cute, by the way. How you say the word ‘mating,’ giving it a cute inflection. Kind of a jealous infection, actually.”
Rhea paused in the act of opening another cupboard. “Jealous?”
“Yeah,” Will said. “Which is understandable, seeing as
