The first indication of civilization that she could see was a tower that rose at least fifty meters. Out in the open, it would have been easy to notice but with the hilly terrain and the tree cover, they could almost have missed it if they hadn’t been both cautious and alert.
The other buildings were a little easier to see. They had been assembled with a patchwork of materials obviously scavenged out of necessity. Most had actually been arranged rather ingeniously, she noted as she zoomed her HUD in on a few of them. Sections had been set up to keep the houses away from those that appeared to be used for storage by the rest of the town.
Most of the storage structures had been erected using what looked like sheets of aluminum, even the roofs. Not much thought had been put into them aside from putting them on stilts, likely to keep rodents and other pests away. After a moment’s consideration, she wondered if it was maybe because the area flooded with enough regularity for it to be considered a real problem for the locals.
The homes had a little more thought put into them. Small windmills had been erected around them, either to push water to the towers nearby or maybe to draw it up from the ground. Another possibility that Mini brought up on the screen was that they attempted to generate electricity. A little intrigued by that possibility, she made another careful scrutiny and determined that there were no buildings that might store the nuclear reactors that would otherwise power the location.
The buildings themselves were interesting, aside from the stilts, with some sections made out of simple wood and a little more elegant than the aluminum used for the barns and storage buildings. Other sections were cut with rudimentary steel posts to reinforce concrete walls and their roofs were made of ceramic plates.
It looked like the people were genuinely committed to building a future in the location and had put both thought and effort into having a decent place to live.
The fields were equally impressive. The lack of electrical power to run the entire operation had been overcome and a variety of tools was used to bring water up and keep the fields around the area watered and fertilized. Neat rows of what looked like grain plants were in evidence, for the most part, but there was also a handful of crudely assembled greenhouses that suggested there were a variety of plants under cultivation.
A group of older steel structures—Mini pointed out that they had been vehicles in the past—were used to construct plant beds, and smaller aluminum wheels were set up around the houses. These grew brightly colored flowers that he was unable to find information on in his database.
A rebellious part of Jessica13 liked the idea that their only purpose was to brighten the area. They certainly lent the town a sense of cheerfulness and hope, but her more sensible Sanctuary-taught self told her that their visual appeal was most likely coincidental. The chances were that each one of them was functional for medicinal or food-based use.
There were also fenced-off sections near the houses where smaller flightless birds mingled with four-legged creatures of various types. Some looked similar to the fox she'd seen in the city, while others had hooves and tall, pointed ears as well as bright pink skin.
"What are those?" she asked as she settled into the location Windchime had chosen for them to use as an overwatch position.
"The furry, smaller ones appear to be domesticated dogs," Mini said and zoomed in on one that had black fur over one eye and white fur over the other. "The rounder, longer ones with bristly hair are pigs, grown for their meat, and the birds are chickens, raised for their meat as well as their eggs."
Despite her earlier discussion with Windchime, she still had difficulty in fully accepting the idea of animals as a food source. It made sense on a purely superficial level but it had been a foreign concept in the bunker and even the Knights Mechanica didn’t have them. She’d grown up with the firmly entrenched belief that feeding animals only to eat them was considered a waste of resources, although part of her now wondered if that hadn’t been a way to avoid explaining why they didn’t have them.
Still, Windchime had explained that the animals could produce more nutritious food and therefore there was no real waste of resources. Not only that, they might survive and even thrive where it wasn’t possible to actually grow crops. Now, as she studied the actual evidence in front of here, it seemed to support what he’d said.
These people obviously didn’t have unlimited resources—the scavenged building supplies indicated that very clearly—and if they thought it was important and worthwhile to raise animals, maybe the problem was yet another of Sanctuary’s deceptions.
"Although I doubt the domesticated dogs are eaten," Mini continued when a few children came out to play with the animals. A low hum indicated that he was either searching or updating his database or perhaps both. "It would appear that there are still significant gaps in my database, which I shall continue to attempt to restore or update as we encounter new information. I do, however, find some records of certain situations where they were consumed, but these seem to be the exception rather than the rule. From what I can see, their abilities enable them to help to herd and hunt other animals, which is considered more valuable than being used as a food source."
"That is interesting," Jessica13 responded as she zoomed in a little closer to watch the children interact with the animals like it was the most natural thing in the world. “Those children appear to be playing with them.”
“Indeed,” Mini said. “It appears their value extends to their ability
