THE BUG EATERS

The town’s decaying shopfronts and sagging row houses offered Faina soft and stubborn comfort. There was still something beautiful about them even now, unmaintained for decades. It was proof, she thought, of Lamplight’s unmatched ability to persevere through whatever the world threw it at.

Copper Street was bustling with activity. It always was, despite the town’s small size. All sorts of people gathered here for the commerce, street food, and back-alley bars. Faina watched the townsfolk shuffle about in dirty clothes, taking swigs from their hip flasks and bickering about nothing. There were a few merc groups and shady types hanging around too, but they usually kept to themselves. They would be from all corners of the country, perhaps even the continent, and all scrounging for better lives.

Most people here carried a weapon of some sort, and a lot of them were still visibly dressed up in full combat gear, but Lamplight was still almost always free of violence. Even though plenty of its visitors wouldn’t hesitate to rob and kill one another out in the wastes, people knew better than to make trouble here. No one wanted to ruin a place like this for themselves, losing access to some of Daybreak’s only neutral ground and risking the combined fury of the entire town. Sure, there was the occasional drunken brawl, but anything more serious than that had to be settled elsewhere.

They entered an old brick building with a big wooden sign that read ‘Crumb’s Dealership’. It was rendered in absurdly ornate lettering for the complete lack of decoration surrounding it. A little brass bell rang as they opened the door, alerting the store owner.

Behind a rusted iron desk, Crumb glanced up at them from a week-old newspaper. He sat framed by stacks of kitschy junk, worn machinery, and busted metal cabinets. It all appeared distinctly unimpressive, but Faina knew that was intentional. He kept his more valuable stock locked up safely in the back to make sure newcomers didn’t get any funny ideas. Crumb was actually one of the most successful businessmen in town.

“Hey there Crumb, how are you doing?” Jazael spoke in a tone that was, for him at least, friendly and full of warmth. The two of them had known each other for years.

“Back already? You guys get anything good for me this time?” said Crumb from behind the desk.

He was a portly man with a wide grin that never seemed to leave his face. There were bits of meat, probably synthmeat, stuck between his yellowing teeth. His hair was tied back into an unflattering ponytail, and he wore an old denim jacket emblazoned with numerous logos of mostly defunct corporate brands. His eyes looked tired, especially above the exaggerated smile.

“Well, you’ll just have to take a look for yourself. The shifting sands happened to bless us a little today by revealing a couple of new structures outside the village in G9. What was the place called again?” Jazael paused for a moment. “Kurhum? Kurham? Ah, whatever; no one’s lived there for a long time. Anyway, we picked up all sorts of shit while we were out there. Something’s gotta hit the mark, right?”

“Hmm, okay then,” Crumb responded in a raspy tone that made him hard to hear over the building’s choking AC unit.

The scavengers dumped their rucksacks onto the desk and unzipped them so that he could take a look at their contents. Inside were various metal pipes and broken mechanical devices. Scrap like this was their bread and butter, the commodity that could always be counted on to bring in a decent amount even when they didn’t fully know what they were offloading.

Tulio’s bag also held a bundle wrapped in stained cloth. He unwrapped it to reveal a collection of small porcelain dolls. They weren’t in great condition, chipped and cracked with faded paint, but they knew that Crumb had a soft spot for odd bits of memorabilia.

The trader spent about five minutes picking things up, looking them over, and putting them down. An expert in his field, he paid attention to every detail of what he was buying. He was perhaps Lamplight’s most experienced scrap buyer, and also one of the more trustworthy ones. It wasn’t as though he didn’t rip people off from time to time, everyone here did, but he almost never ripped off his regulars.

“Okay,” he said, sighing a little. “Well, I’ll be frank. There’s nothing great here, but I’ll always make you the best offer I can. What do you want your payment in? Daybreak National Credit? Ascendency Drehm? PLM’s new labor vouchers? Coastal Dollars? Washington Dollars? Crypto? Take your pick! I overhear a lot of people talking about MinuteToken these days, so that might be a good bet.”

“Vitarian Credits,” said Tulio, quickly and sternly, before the others had time to even consider a different currency.

“You know the total is going to end up being a bit less if it’s in VC, right? Transaction fees and exchange rates, you know, they screw us over.”

“Yeah, but it doesn’t hyperinflate overnight whenever a regional commander gets murked. We’re trying to save up a little, not just play the lottery. It’s worth it for the stability.”

“Fair enough. I’ll take it your team doesn’t object? I can split the payment between the VC and one of the others if you want me to.”

“VC is fine,” replied Jazael, and Faina nodded along with him.

“Alright then. I’ll give you 60 VC for the metal and 20 VC for the dolls. No, 21 VC for the dolls, just to make it easier for the three of you if you need to divide it up. I really am a very generous guy, after all.”

“Thanks,” said Jazael, rolling his eyes a little as he passed over a large metallic token.

Crumb chuckled a little. He then pushed the wallet chip into a slot on his computer and hit a few numbers on his keyboard, loading it up with the credits. A look of hesitation suddenly appeared on his face as he remembered something, and his eyes moved slowly to the heavy sheath strapped to Jazael’s belt.

“You know, Jaz,” he murmured, leaning forward. “I’m still offering two hundred VC for that knife, here and now, if you need the money.”

“Ha, I wouldn’t give it up for anything. This knife’s been by my side for so long that it’s pretty much the only possession I’d actually start to feel uncomfortable without.”

“Well, it’s your choice, but I’m only looking after you. Some people kill over as little as clean water out there, and you’ve made no secret of the fact you’re carrying a piece of real valuable hardware. An energy weapon would be a great prize for any scavenger, you know that.”

“It’d cut through them like warm butter, too! I’d like to see anyone try and take it from me. It’s just not happening,” Jazael grinned.

“Alright,” Crumb shrugged, handing back the token. “There is another way you could all make some pretty decent money. If you get there fast enough, maybe there’ll be enough of the good stuff for two or three of those energy knives.”

“Yeah? Tell us more,” Tulio enquired with a certain enthusiasm buried in his voice so subtly that Faina was certain nobody else could have really noticed it.

“There was a battle today, while you guys were out of town. The place to look is B3, along Route 42. The Daybreak National Army went after a squad of those religious cultists from the Korvarian Ascendency. It was all over in an instant, but mechs got involved on both sides, and word is that at least one of them actually dropped during the fighting. It’s supposed to be still out there right now.”

Tulio straightened up, his eyes sharpening.

“The noise,” Crumb continued, “left the group who heard it all shaken up. They came in here telling me they thought the mechs were coming for us, and that Lamplight was finally going to be wiped off the map! I’m not sure who else they told, but word will probably spread quickly that there’s money to be made. Mechs have all kinds of valuable parts and rare metals inside them. Hell, what I’m thinking is, maybe they even left the power core. The factions scattered so fast that they wouldn’t have had time to extract it.”

“Thanks for the heads up, we’ll go check it out right away. We don’t want to miss the opportunity to snag a mech core; people are always saying that even just one of those monsters could power the whole town and then some.”

“Wait,” said Faina sharply, “I really doubt they’d leave something that valuable behind. Let’s not let ourselves get too excited about this. A recent battlefield is going to be incredibly dangerous.”

The people of Lamplight were highly susceptible to rumors and misinformation. An innocent suggestion or mistake easily spiralled into a grand delusion once it passed through a few campfires and dive joints. Small skirmishes turned into epic scale warfare and potential paychecks turned into wealth beyond measure. Faina was conscious of how it was up to her to temper her teammate’s expectations.

“A mech core has never actually been sold in Lamplight before, right Crumb?” Faina asked, already fairly certain of the answer.

“Hmm, well, not to my knowledge. Honestly, I’ve never even seen a mech core in person, but there’s a first time for everything. It’s good to have some healthy optimism, no?” Crumb let out a raspy laugh. “There was a battle, there will be loot, and there will be money. Don’t stress over the details, sure, but it’s definitely worth checking out. I promise!”

“I think we’re too tired right now to go out again. We’ve already been on one long expedition today and I don’t think we have another one in us. Even you, Tulio, look like you’re about to crash and burn. You think you’re good at hiding it, but no amount of willpower will vanish the bags under your eyes. We’ve got to get some rest now or we won’t be at our sharpest if we run into trouble.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d had to talk her friends down from acting brashly. They rarely did the introspection required for them to take proper care of themselves, and so the burden usually fell on her. She sometimes found it frustrating, babysitting was certainly not her desired calling, but she cared about them a lot. The absolute most frustrating part was just that Tulio knew all of this and still put up resistance anyway. Faina figured he didn’t like the loss of control.

“I’m tired, sure, but I can push through it. Remember what we’re saving up for. Remember our goal. A thousand other people want that same thing, and we’ve got to beat them to the prize. Do you think they’ll stop and give us time to take breaks? It’s not how this works. We have to keep going when there’s a job this good, Faina.”

Crumb watched them as they talked, but reached with one hand towards his newspaper. He still had a grin on his face, but his eyes weren’t part of it. He clearly wanted to get back to reading whatever article he had been in the middle of when the scavengers had entered his shop, and there was always a limit to how much he’d try and push them towards any particular course of action. It wasn’t his place to offer advice, as he had never been a scavenger and he didn’t have much personal experience with the dangers of the open desert.

The AC filled the brief gap in conversation with an ominous rattling.

“Faina’s right, as usual. My knees are screaming at me! We definitely need to take a break before doing anything else. I’d probably drop dead if you marched me out there right now,” Jazael laughed, alone.

“Fine,” replied Tulio. “Outvoted. We’ll take a break so that the two of you can have your beauty sleep. We’re not staying out of action for long though. We set out first thing in the morning, agreed?”

“First light,” said Faina, knowing that was all Tulio would ever concede.

They gathered up their now-empty bags and pocketed their newly earned credits. Jazael said his goodbyes to Crumb, and then the three turned to leave. Crumb switched on a crackling radio and went back to reading his newspaper.

“Thanks for the business! See you all again soon, and good luck!” he said, as the bluesy chords of century-old rock music followed them out the door.

The three went straight from Crumb’s Dealership to The Lazyday Hostel, where they were known by the staff. The owner made sure they always got a special rate and a private locker, so they never stayed anywhere else. That was not to say that it would have been in any way expensive had they not secured the discount. The hostel was a run-down place even for Lamplight, a sheet metal shanty built into the bombed out husk of an old convenience store, but all they needed were four walls and three mattresses.

Jazael was the first to get to sleep, knocking out almost immediately. Tulio followed, seemingly unfazed by Jazael’s loud and abrasive snoring. Faina found it a lot harder to keep her eyes closed. She lay awake on her mattress for some time, watching over her sleeping comrades, before finally getting any rest.

She knew Jazael was right whenever he raved about Daybreak’s situation. Leaving was the only sensible choice. Buy fake identity papers, secure transit, and put distance between themselves and the war. It made sense as the course of action most likely to give them all a chance at a good life. But still, as she thought about it, a knot tightened in her chest.

There would be nothing satisfying about leaving while others are still struggling just to survive. She wanted a future, but she wanted Daybreak to have one too, and she wasn’t sure what that would take. There was always the possibility of joining one of the factions, but she agreed that they all did more harm than good. Helping herself and those closest to her seemed like all she could really do. There was no guilt in it, but it left her feeling hollow.

Faina turned onto her other side and pulled her thin wool blanket up to her chin.