Feed the Machine Read online

  Contents

  Copyright

  PART ONE

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  PART TWO

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  PART THREE

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  PART FOUR

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  PART FIVE

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Afterword

  Feed the Machine Copyright 2015 Mathew Ferguson. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author.

  Mathew Ferguson

  mathewferguson.com

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  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Ash

  “Look at that motherfucker,” Raj whispered into the freezing predawn air, a plume of steam erupting from his mouth.

  A few heads turned, people frowning. Ash nodded, not willing to speak, seeing people looking at him as though it was his fault his friend talked too much. He could feel Kin’s warm breath against his ear, his cat’s comforting weight on the top of his pack, his fur brushing his neck, watching. Even Chirp, Raj’s idiot sparrow who only knew two phrases (Fuck yes! Fuck no!) had enough sense to stay silent.

  The hazel stalking around outside the three fences protecting Cago was like Kin in shape and color but ten times the size, muscles bulging through black fur. This one was young—only half the size of a full-grown, pushing maybe fifty kilograms.

  Everyone stood watching it as it moved around, waiting for it to leave. There had been fighting in the night and an adult hazel had been killed. Its mauled body lay a few meters past the gates, a hundred-kilo bloody mound of flesh and circuitry, wires glistening in the fence lights. As soon as the gates opened, bugs would stream out and reduce it to nothing—not even a bloody smear—collecting the precious organic material.

  The hazel stalked over to the bloody mess and sniffed at it, opening its mouth and showing white teeth tipped with glints of silver. Because it was young, its teeth were not fully metal, its saliva still only very weakly acidic.

  “Stupid hazel,” Kin whispered in Ash’s ear, low enough so no one else heard and showered him in glares. They hated the sun but sometimes would hide out in any shadow they could find if they were interested in prey. The guards couldn’t open the gates until the hazels were gone and hours of searching lost while you waited for a hazel to walk off couldn’t be recovered.

  Ash reached up and scratched his cat’s ears, Kin pushing his head against his fingers. It was a comforting feeling—his warm fur, the brush of his whiskers, the touch of his breath on his hand—but not enough to shake off the chill that seemed to have settled deep in his bones.

  The cold morning was to blame, his crappy hasdee-printed clothes doing little to keep him warm but it was mostly how far subzero his family was on the quota that was pulling him down. With only days until Feed when the quotas would reset and Fat Man would possibly buy all the debts, he and Raj had to have a fucking miracle out in the Scour to get warm. Raj needed less of a miracle though—his family was only minus seven hundred or so.

  Ash shook himself out of these thoughts and glanced around at the mass of poor people, plumes of breath steaming from their mouths. He knew their quota debts almost by sight. Hefnan, scrawny and sunburned, his nose blistered red from sun outside and too much alcohol inside was down deep chill, heading to absolute zero. Somewhere down at minus eight hundred. He went cold eight years ago their mother said, spending most of the year paying off last year, never getting ahead because every time he found something worth anything, he went to the pub with it rather than the Machine to trade. Fat Man owned him forever. He was barefoot, his clothes ragged gray, the strips of fabric pulling apart, so far down he couldn’t even print off the cheapest thin-sole shoe. Even the silver collar around his neck seemed dull and worn out.

  Ash let his gaze drift past Hefnan to the Los Tantos brothers. They were minus five and they’d clear their quota today. It was easy to get jealous about it. Their friends would be clapping them on the back in celebration, smiling through gritted teeth. It was hard for the cold to be happy for the warm, even if tradition dictated their first day over they’d hand out the day’s finds in little gifts. A screw here, a piece of wire there. Just a drop to pull the quota up. Their dogs sat curled up at their feet.

  Ash looked back at the hazel. It was sniffing and prodding at the bloody mess with its paw. As he watched it pulled on a thread of wire with its claws, tugging at it, jumping away, looking so much like Kin playing Ash nearly laughed aloud. Unlike Kin who only gave you light scratches and maybe a bite if he became too excited, the hazel would rip your arm off, lodge its teeth in your throat. It was no pet to sit purring on your lap. It danced around, swatting at the dead hazel, playing with it before walking off to a darker spot of shadow under an overhang to sit and stare at the crowd with its yellow eyes. Some of the junk and rubble had moved in the night and a piece of metal was sticking out. It was pockmarked with holes and it was the collective wish of everyone watching the hazel that it wouldn’t be able to put up with the beams of light streaming through once the sun came up. As soon as it vanished and the gates opened a guard would have to cut the overhang away.

  Something brushed against Ash’s foot. A red-striped bug, one of many, making its way to mass at the gate. They were getting ready to travel unaccompanied out into the Scour. As the bugs trickle
d around them, Ash saw many people look down and the same idea flicker across their minds: stomp them into a paste of metal and goo. It was forbidden to do so of course but out of sight of others, bugs went missing all the time. The rich didn’t care much. When you had five hundred bugs working for you, fifty lost a day was no problem. Especially not with a top-of-the-line hasdee to churn replacements.

  At the sight of bugs, Ash touched the bag hanging from his belt. It had ten bugs in it—half their family’s entire stock. His sister Nola had the other ten and they were on strict pap duty, collecting any organic material they could find to make food. Counting them by touch and weight, Ash relaxed. He hadn’t lost a bug for months and he didn’t intend to start now.

  Time ticked by, the dark sky lightening, changing to hues of pink and orange and the crowd and the hazel stared off at each other. Finally the hazel stood up and strolled out to the dead hazel, sniffing at it again before jerking its head up as though it had heard something. In an instant it was off, sprinting away from Cago and into the Scour, disappearing over a mound of rubble and junk.

  Ash let out a quiet relieved sigh with the other residents.

  “Wow, did you see that motherfucker run?” Raj said, earning himself more glares.

  Before someone could tell him to shut his face, the sun climbed over the hill of junk and rubble, the sentry with the binoculars waved his hand and the three gates buzzed open.

  The people of Cago trudged out to start another day in the Scour.

  Chapter 2

  Ash knelt on the sunbaked earth and pulled at the threads holding his pack together, ignoring the sound of Chirp diving at Kin and repeating “Fuck yes!” over and again. Kin was sitting there stoic but lashing his black tail back and forth.

  “If he dives me again, I’m going to eat him,” Kin said. It was directed more at Raj than Ash. Raj clicked his fingers at Chirp who peeled off from another dive and landed on his pack.

  “Fuck no!” Chirp said and started preening his wings.

  “You right?” Raj asked.

  He’d lodged himself under a junk overhang in the only shade he could find. A smooth sheet of aluminum, flecked with white. Probably the side of a fridge long ago.

  “Just a sec,” Ash muttered, trying to pull the threads in just the right way to keep the pack together. It had been his father’s pack long ago, kept preserved, hidden away by his mother even through the tough times when selling it would have fed them more than pap. She’d kept it until he started scavenging out in the Cago Scour. It was used, rough and worn but it was strong leather and heavy fabric, tough and waterproof.

  Now it was falling to fucking pieces. Just like everything else they owned.

  Kin stalked off and sat at Raj’s feet in the shade until Ash tied and twisted the threads into place. This trip was the pack’s last unless he found a way to repair it. It was scraped, cut, stained and splashed with acid from a close encounter with a hazel six months back.

  If he had any sense he’d trade it to someone with the pack plan on their hasdee. Mill it down into components, print another one good as new. But he just couldn’t let go of his father’s pack. Besides, they didn’t have the money.

  “There’s some more shade down there. We can eat,” Raj said. He sipped his canteen. Ash nodded, too thirsty to waste mouth moisture on speaking.

  He stood and pulled the pack on, feeling it press against his damp clothing, cool with sweat. From a cold day start, the sun had risen and was blistering down like a motherfucker. There was only so much wrapping in hasdee strips could do to protect your skin from burning. Raj had it far worse though—he was a paleboy, prone to burning rather than tanning. He was wrapped like a mummy. On hot days like this Ash was grateful for his pitch-black father, even if he had diluted his sun-resistant skin with a milky white woman.

  Ash followed Raj, Chirp taking off again and flying high to look for any danger. Kin stalked behind Raj, walking in his shadow in perfect time. They were on a strip of hard earth between two low walls of rubble, mostly metal and concrete. Good visibility, no shade. They trudged around a corner, still heading roughly northwest and towards the dark pool of shade that had collected under an overhang formed from an airplane wing. It was the thick bit sticking out of the junk, tapering off as it went into the pile, snapped off the body who-knows-how-many years ago.

  As they approached the shadow, Kin stalked forward, looking for any hazels that might be hiding there.

  “It’s clear,” he called and walked into the shade.

  Raj and Ash followed. Under the wing the temperature dropped a good five degrees. It wasn’t much but it felt like entering an air-conditioned room. Ash closed his eyes in relief and for a moment was in the Wire Pub. They had cooling—not full strength and amazing like the rich end of Cago—but good enough to put a chill in the air. Ash opened his eyes and licked his lips, wanting a cold golden beer more than anything.

  He put his pack down and settled for mouthfuls of tepid water. His canteens were all rough gray plastic with near zero insulating ability. It was one of many dreams to own self-chill canteens. Of course, it was a stupid dream in light of the ultimate treasure that filled the mind of every scavenger: to find a sourcecube. Such things were the nights of hungry children and adults alike filled with. To find a cube filled with plans no one else had. Or even if they did, you got the plans for free, an infinite supply of whatever it was. Beer maybe. Ice cream. Beef, wetly red and laced with delicious fat. Tools, weapons, clothes.

  To find a cube meant wealth unending. Why would you want a self-chill canteen? You’d just send your five hundred bugs out for you. Run your hasdee day and night making everything you ever wanted.

  Ash sat down on the dirt and opened the top of his pack, careful not to pull on it too much, and took out the top block of pap.

  “You know, the missile is probably like a few ton. Might be filled with hot stuff or it cut down in the pile so we can find hot stuff,” Raj said, showing Ash a mouthful of yellow pap.

  Ash looked down at his own pap. It was white with a few traces of yellow, slight additions of vitamins. Their hasdee was the lowest weakest and worst model—all exposed wires and chunky extrusion tubes with only the basic plans in it. Pap you could live on but not really. Pap you could die on.

  He put it in his mouth and chewed it anyway.

  The missile was all they’d talked about since yesterday. Most days they went out together but yesterday Raj had gone northwest and Ash had hit the east, heading towards the town of Char on a hunch he couldn’t ignore. It had come to nothing—he’d collected the usual plastic and metal—but when he’d returned to Cago Raj had been waiting there, jumping around more than that idiot bird of his. He’d been out far, digging around, when a “giant fucking missile” dropped right out of the sky. Chirp had flown up and marked a crash site but it was too far for Raj to get to before dark.

  Raj had already scouted out other scavengers, listening in on conversations and found no one else had seen it. Or if they had, they were keeping quiet. Ash and Raj conspired to keep it that way, swearing to tell no one except their families in vague terms and made their plan.

  It was least a whole day march out. They’d have to hollow out into the pile and seal up for the night. Next day keep walking until they hit the crash site. Most of a day searching, finding treasure, another night sealed up, a day back. Three days all in, walking back into town with plenty of time before Feed. Cash in their finds, pay out the quotas and maybe even buy some meat from Fat Man. End the year warm with a belly full of food.

  The missile hadn’t detonated as far as Raj could tell. That was good from the finding-a-deep-smooth-hole-no-one-else-knew-about angle but bad from the exploding-to-death side. Once they pulled out as much good stuff as they could they’d try to blow it. It’d pull in scavengers and Scabs like crazy but everyone knew a bomb going off was the best way to find a cube. Half the legends around rich men started with dead missiles falling from the sky.

  They s
at there for a while, not talking much, chewing pap and sipping water, feeling their feet throb and their backs decompress freed from the weight of their packs. Ash broke off some pieces of pap for Kin who swallowed them down and then sniffed around for more. Chirp fluttered down to peck at some pieces Raj put out, keeping half an eye on Kin and half on his food.

  Ash stood, feeling it in his feet and grabbed his pack. Raj followed. They both knew the danger of too much rest. Sit down too long on a march and soon you couldn’t stand again.

  “Time, Kin?”

  “Two ten.”

  About four hours until dark. At three and a half hours they’d have to stop no matter how far they’d come and carve out a hole to seal up in.

  Ash pulled his pack on, feeling the straps dig into his shoulders. He should have padded them with cardboard but they just didn’t have enough to spare. It was all going into their hasdee to keep them fed or going into the quota to keep them free of Fat Man’s sweaty grasp.

  Ash looked at his friend as Raj pulled his pack on and got himself ready. His family was poor too—not quite as poor as the Rose family who was not just scraping the bottom of the barrel but milling it down too. Anyone rich wouldn’t see the differences but to Ash they stood out. One of Raj’s canteens was metal rimmed and could keep things hot or cold for a long time. The strips of his clothes were wider than Ash’s because their hasdee was bigger. Wider strips meant less sewing by bugs which meant less fabric overall and less chances to rip. His pap was yellow, loaded with vitamins and minerals. You could live on yellow pap, preventing scurvy and every other deficit disease. His shoes were thicker, his pack was newer and the cutter hanging from his belt had a longer and stronger beam, allowing him to cut more easily through the junk. Even Chirp, a dolt of a pet when it came to conversation, carried sophisticated scanners.

  They’d been friends for a long time, standing as close as two people on adjacent steps. It stung Ash was always on the lower step in every measure that mattered.

  Raj swallowed some water and then hooked his canteen on his belt (a metal clip rather than plastic Ash noticed).

  Then they kept walking.