“What do we do now?” the detective asked, gazing up as the first stars started to appear. There was a hopeless tone to her voice, and Simon didn’t fail to notice it.
“Don’t worry, I’ve already begun,” he reassured her.
She looked over at him. “What does that mean?” she asked.
“I’m using some of the back-door Internet methods the Liberators have developed to reach out,” Simon explained. “I’m trying to see if I can find someone.”
“Find who?”
“Someone friendly,” he replied. He turned his gaze down to the fire pit he was working on. “Though it may take some time.”
“You think there’s anyone friendly left out there?” Beth asked.
“Of course,” Simon said. “Friends lurk in as many nooks and crannies as enemies do. You just have to look for them.”
“And where are you looking for them?”
“Amongst some old Liberator contacts,” Simon answered. “People who might know of defectors. People who might even defect themselves, with the right push.”
“You sound hopeful,” Beth observed.
“I am, detective,” he said. “I have no doubt that someone else in there hates Tarov as much as I do. And if they’re willing to listen to our claims, they may be persuaded to help us.”
Beth folded her arms. She felt determined to remain in a sour mood.
“Well, good luck with that,” she said. “You’re probably going to need it.”
“Thanks,” Simon said.
Beth stared back up at the sky. The sun had sunk completely below the horizon now, leaving behind only a yellow tint in the clouds nearest to it before surrounding the world in a velvety blanket of night. Her eyes widened as she took in the scene. She had never seen so many lights coming from above before, at least, not ones that weren’t trying to advertise something to her. The sky in the city was always a pallid slate of colorless uniformity, even in the deep of night. Out here, it felt like she could see entire galaxies. Every patch of the sky seemed to have its own personality.
She watched the heavens for almost an hour before she felt the rumbling in her tummy signaling her for dinner. She set everything up and Simon lit the fire while she relaxed, but it was time to actually get something warm in her stomach before she could call it a night.
She rummaged in the cooler they had acquired at the same store they bought the tent. It was big enough to store almost an entire refrigerator of food and was lined with its own cooling cells, so it wasn’t like ice would melt and they’d have to go get more — as long as the power stayed active.
The generator they picked up was a little noisy, but much quieter than models that existed in the past. It didn’t run off gasoline, but instead could use a variety of clean and easily obtainable fuel sources, from the flow in a river to the beam of the sun. It would generate and produce its power throughout the day for Beth and Simon to use during the night. It seemed a bit counterintuitive to bring their own power source when their goal was to get off the grid, but Simon’s impressive bodyshell could only power itself for so long. It was designed to last days without rest, but eventually, a charge was needed. Just like everyone needed to sleep to allow their bodies to recover from the day’s labor, so did his mechanical shell.
Beth started heating up some of the ground hamburger they had several tubes of, trying to get the insides to turn brown at about the same rate the insides were. She used a small, chisel-like spatula to break the meat apart into small crumbles as it started to cook. It blew her mind how difficult a rather simple, nutritious meal was to produce from scratch. She had been so used to her ready-to-make meals that self-heated while she went over the day’s news and was ready to eat in a matter of seconds. Now, she found she was trying to cook simple beef for over forty minutes. The fire was so inconsistent of a heat source that she kept having to pull the pan away from the flames, only to realize she had let it cool too much and needed to heat it all over again.
How did people live like this? she wondered. Did they find pleasure in the monotony of such tasks? Did they not feel obliged to give up significant chunks of their time just to devote to the task of survival?
Then she thought about how the old village system used to work. It wasn’t every man cooking by himself, looking over his shoulders to make sure no one saw him work. It was a group of people playing their role for a common interest. A cook would work on the food all day, while the hunter would be tracking it down. There would be people who spent all of their time weaving baskets to store the food, or even people to take care of and educate the children, so they could one day grow up and work hard for their survival as well.
She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Things were going to get tough if she ran out of basic food in the cooler and had to start searching. Perhaps she would become a hunter, get really good at it, and start bringing back entire deer. Maybe she’d even become a Luddite herself. Just abandon the modern world for the struggle of a simple existence. One based out of necessity instead of desire.
The real life, she thought.
There would be another time for such daydreams, she realized. She finished burning the beef into an edible state and wrapped it in a couple tortillas. She enjoyed
