Apocalypse: Fairy System Macronomicon (a book to read txt) 📖

“Well, they weren’t all going to the same place,” Jeb said with a shrug. “I figure if we clear the path, we can get a smooth thirty- or forty-mile stretch,” Jeb said, motioning to where the road disappeared into the south. “More if the Stitching is oblong.”

“How did humans do this?”

“This is what you’re impressed by?” Jeb asked, turning back to the road. “It’s just a road connecting one edge of the continent to the other that people could traverse in a matter of hours. Is that such a big deal?”

Brav looked like his eyes were going to fall out of his head, so Jeb decided to stop teasing him.

“The wagons?”

“Right, I’ll go get them,” Brav said, nodding before turning on his heel and running to where the wagons waited for them.

“And I…will start looting,” Jeb said, picking up a rock and smashing the nearest window.

All in all, the wagons actually went only a little faster on the highway due to the constant need to move cars out of the way.

On the other hand, the caravaneers were practically crying with joy as they filled all available empty space with human oddities. Glass was especially sought-after. Human glass was incredibly clear, and a single glass cup went for a couple silver. They made a stack of carefully detached windshields, also grabbing things like knives, guns, and the odd leather bucket seat to bolt onto their caravan seats.

Jeb didn’t bother looking for things to sell. He was looking for some wheels, dumping ice-cold river water on his head every few minutes as his shoe tried to melt to the pavement.

Jeb actually rested on his pegleg every now and then to allow his foot to cool.

The biggest impediment to finding a suitable ride was that many of the cars were empty, weatherworn and damaged. When the world ended a few months ago, people had been teleported right out of their cars and shoved in Tutorials.

That meant the cars were left running, moving at seventy miles an hour with no human oversight. Only a handful of smart cars had been able to avoid collisions of any kind.

Even the ones that didn’t get badly crunched up had been left running until they went empty.

If this were in town, that would have been a problem, but they were on the I-5.

A fair number of people were on long road trips, and some of them had gas cans in the back. Gas degrades pretty hard over the course of three months, but it’s still usable…barely.

After a couple hours of searching, he found an oversized Jeep with its right front tire blown out. Other than that, there was some minor damage to the fender where it had cruised to a stop and hit the meridian, but all that was fixable.

It’s like me! Jeb thought, glancing down at his own missing leg. Whoever had owned the truck had bought it specifically for off-roading, as the body was lifted, the remaining tires nice and big, and not one, but two spares in the back.

Off-roading was going to be the name of the game, so Jeb slapped his hand down on the hood and claimed it for himself, nice and loud so the surrounding aliens didn’t loot the windshield.

After that, he hauled the gas cans over, put a gallon in and tested the engine. The key was still in the ignition, so it was just a matter of crossing his fingers and hoping the battery was still alive. The machine rumbled to life without complaint or stutter despite running out of gas before sitting there for the better part of three months.

“Yesss, power!” Jeb cackled, turning it off before starting on changing the tire.

Half an hour later, he was tapping the steering wheel and bobbing his head to some kid’s EDM, feeling the wind in his hair as he cruised forward at roughly ten miles per hour.

Jeb could just go off-road and ditch his caravan, but that didn’t seem like the best idea ever. Not only did Jeb not know where the city was, he was alone. And there was no easier way to get killed or do something stupid and wind up dying, than to go it alone.

Like Into the Wild.

“Is that some kind of magical pre-recorded music?” Brav asked, driving his wagon alongside Jeb’s Jeep.

“Pre-recorded, yes. Magical, no.” Jeb blanked out. He didn’t actually know how a CD worked. “Probably not magical.”

“What’s playing the music then?”

“Speakers work by passing a current through copper wire at a rate that makes a vibrating electrical field. The vibration is then picked up and amplified by a set of magnets attached to thin fabric or cloth.”

“So, cloth, copper and lodestone does all that?”

Jeb shrugged. “Basically. You’d have to ask an engineer for more specifics. I’m sure there’s some electronics in there.”

Speaking of engineers… I wonder where all the scientists from NASA wound up. Jeb was absolutely sure there were some very smart people out there integrating human tech with Myst.

Myst and Myst engines gave the law of conservation of energy the finger. That kind of power would give those nerds wet dreams. If someone went to an oil refinery and found a Premium Unleaded lens, they could send a ship into space while ignoring fuel weight.

Jeb glanced down at the dash of his Jeep, doomed to run out of fuel sometime in the next couple of weeks when all the refined gas in the world dried up or expired.

Hell, I could find a Premium Unleaded lens. Are there any oil refineries in California? Jeb needed to keep his eyes open for an abandoned gas station.

Jeb tapped the steering wheel some more. Come to think of it, he’d only seen lenses made in nature, hadn’t he?

I wonder if man-made things count as natural. Humans