June 18, 2433
Dear Mother:
No reply from you, I see. Oh, wait, that's because there's no way for you to reply to me. This goes out half-blind. I see that the previous e.letter was picked up by someone, presumably you.
It's odd, writing this way. I'm talking to you as if you were here, but you're not, and you never will be again, I suppose. I write as if expecting a reply, but none can come.
First, you'll be relieved to know that the proprietor of this establishment didn't want sexual favors from me in return for using this terminal. He wanted currency older, even, than that: the sweat of my brow. I helped him unload boxes and crates and bags of stuff - goods which he holds in a small warehouse built into this building, and which he trades to people for other goods.
He gets his goods from others of like occupation, and takes the materials he gets in trade (mostly food, it seems) and trades it with those others in kind. It's a simple and effective system, requiring no cumbersome medium of exchange.
As to what I unloaded, there were agricultural tools and rope. There was heavy, smelly cloth that left some sort of residue on my hands. There were steel barrels of something called gasoline, and a few of something called diesel oil.
And there were weapons. Not like the little pacifiers that the grunts carry: there were all manner of knives and other sorts of blades, for one thing. Mostly there were small flat crates of guns and steel boxes of ammunition.
That's one quite startling thing about the Wasteland, Mother: the number of guns. Almost everyone has at least one. I'm beginning to feel naked without one.
Old Jacob (that's the unwashed elder who runs this place) has begun to teach me to shoot. As I mentioned, he seems to hold this place partly by force, and there is always danger. We went out this morning and he showed me how to load and fire a pistol, which is a small gun, only a little bigger than a grunt's pacifier, that you hold in one hand. He kept me at it until my hand was tingling from the repeated recoil. I got so that I could hit a man-sized target at ten meters pretty reliably, and Jacob said that was good enough for a start.
He's given me a job. He needs someone here to help him defend the place in case someone tries to rob him, and to do some of the heavier work. He's a big, strong man, but he's getting on. I don't know exactly how old he is, but his hair is white and he's got deeper wrinkles than I've ever seen.
As for needing someone to help defend the store (as he calls it), I haven't seen any sign of trouble so far. But I've only been here three days, and the building is made of concrete and steel. It's set under a section of something that looks like an old aerial roadway, up against a massive concrete pillar. The windows are slits, set high, with walkways inside, and the door is a massive steel thing.
Ah, well, it's time for me to go. Work beckons. Adios, Mother.
No reply from you, I see. Oh, wait, that's because there's no way for you to reply to me. This goes out half-blind. I see that the previous e.letter was picked up by someone, presumably you.
It's odd, writing this way. I'm talking to you as if you were here, but you're not, and you never will be again, I suppose. I write as if expecting a reply, but none can come.
First, you'll be relieved to know that the proprietor of this establishment didn't want sexual favors from me in return for using this terminal. He wanted currency older, even, than that: the sweat of my brow. I helped him unload boxes and crates and bags of stuff - goods which he holds in a small warehouse built into this building, and which he trades to people for other goods.
He gets his goods from others of like occupation, and takes the materials he gets in trade (mostly food, it seems) and trades it with those others in kind. It's a simple and effective system, requiring no cumbersome medium of exchange.
As to what I unloaded, there were agricultural tools and rope. There was heavy, smelly cloth that left some sort of residue on my hands. There were steel barrels of something called gasoline, and a few of something called diesel oil.
And there were weapons. Not like the little pacifiers that the grunts carry: there were all manner of knives and other sorts of blades, for one thing. Mostly there were small flat crates of guns and steel boxes of ammunition.
That's one quite startling thing about the Wasteland, Mother: the number of guns. Almost everyone has at least one. I'm beginning to feel naked without one.
Old Jacob (that's the unwashed elder who runs this place) has begun to teach me to shoot. As I mentioned, he seems to hold this place partly by force, and there is always danger. We went out this morning and he showed me how to load and fire a pistol, which is a small gun, only a little bigger than a grunt's pacifier, that you hold in one hand. He kept me at it until my hand was tingling from the repeated recoil. I got so that I could hit a man-sized target at ten meters pretty reliably, and Jacob said that was good enough for a start.
He's given me a job. He needs someone here to help him defend the place in case someone tries to rob him, and to do some of the heavier work. He's a big, strong man, but he's getting on. I don't know exactly how old he is, but his hair is white and he's got deeper wrinkles than I've ever seen.
As for needing someone to help defend the store (as he calls it), I haven't seen any sign of trouble so far. But I've only been here three days, and the building is made of concrete and steel. It's set under a section of something that looks like an old aerial roadway, up against a massive concrete pillar. The windows are slits, set high, with walkways inside, and the door is a massive steel thing.
Ah, well, it's time for me to go. Work beckons. Adios, Mother.
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