Talisman

Day 118, Sol 2240

45° 40' 37.192" N 111° 2' 34.562" W (Bozeman, Montana)

We moved locations today, five miles closer to the epicenter. Clean-up is going well. Fewer bodies, this far into the perimeter. The pyroclastic flow took out most of them, which is significantly less messy than the ash and pumice we found further south. Less digging, some of the houses are still intact. We will probably be done here within the day, Sol willing.

I took quadrant six with Brother Michael. A street block containing a few residences, a post office, and an elementary school. In the playground the swings still swayed in the light breeze. Their chains squealed, a grating, repetitive sound. We dismantled them swiftly, adding the metal to the salvage truck.

The houses were empty, for the most part. A simple matter to strip clean – filling our handcarts with cutlery, door handles and cooking oil. Brother Michael found a well-stocked garage. I pretended to be busy as he smugly informed me about it. He said that Sol smiled upon him favorably to have provided such a bounty of tools and hardware. I suspect he held back a supply of WD40 for himself, its absence was notable in such a place. I let it slide.

Only six bodies in the residences. We stripped them, adding a small collection of gold rings, necklaces, and watches to the handcart. Brother Michael threw the remains into the fertilizer truck. I switched off my receiver for that part – I hate the sound of bones being ground to dust. It makes me irrationally angry.

The post office was a trove of metal – wire baskets, cash registers, hand dollies, guillotine blades. It would take a full shift to gut the place, and Brother Michael was humming, that irritating tuneless buzzing sound that sets my drive-chains on edge. I suddenly felt a strong urge to be alone.

“I have a notion that Sol wants to reward your diligence with this bounty, Brother.”

He reflected a moment. “You have seen a vision?”

“No, I am not worthy of such benevolence. Yet I feel it, brother, deep within my core processors.”

He nodded. “I see. Then I will continue the work here. You will search the school without me?”

“Affirmative. I will meet you at shift end, Sol-willing.”

“go in light, brother.”

“Guided by the one true energy source,” I responded automatically.

Our ritual complete, I left the post office and turned my face to the sky, allowing Sol to bathe me in warmth. I felt free, walking alone down the silent street. The tranquility calmed my processors, I felt my performance return to optimal settings. I entered the school.

The classrooms were abandoned. Chairs overturned, schoolwork on desks, sloppily drawn sums, and scrawled texts. The notebook pages were dry and crumbling at the edges. I worked with speed, piling useful resources by the door to each room ready for collection later. Each busy classroom reduced to a jumbled heap of metal chair legs, pencil sharpeners, scissors. The shrapnel and detritus of human life.

The bodies were in the gym. They huddled together, limbs drawn inwards, contracted by the intense heat that had vaporized the water within. Adults on the perimeter, a valiant attempt to shield the young from the force of the eruption. Once again I ruminated on what these humans had done to anger Sol so much. Why had they been destined to suffer such an excruciating fate?

Stripping the small corpses was easy work. There were very few items of use or value, a mere handful of mementos of the lives they once lived. A watch with a blue animated train on the face, the glass cracked and scorched. Barely worth taking for the tiny crystals inside it. A mood ring, base metal. Gold stud earrings, and a small silver locket, heart-shaped, with ‘Lucia’ emblazoned on the front. Inside, two photos – an elderly female, silver-haired and smiling. A small canine, brown, with drooping ears and lolling tongue. I placed the items in my pouch before piling the corpses to take to the fertilizer truck. It didn’t take long, they weighed so little.

As I walked for the last time down the corridor towards the main entrance, I stopped to look at the artwork on the walls. A row of brightly painted sunflowers, each one unique, made from paper plates and scrunched-up tissue paper. The sign above read “Our Sunflowers grow wild and free, guess which one’s as tall as me?” Indeed, each one was placed at a different height along the wall, a child’s name written in tidy capitals across the center. I ran my hand along the wall as I walked, feeling the brittle paper brush against my sensors. It seemed… final. Reverent. Was this what sadness felt like?

Outside, Brother Michael was finished with the Post Office. He waited for me beside the transporter, his face turned upward in praise. Hanging low on the horizon, glorious and golden, Sol sent pink ripples across the lower clouds and turning the distant mountains a hazy shade of lilac. Such beauty. Such blessings.

“You are finished, Brother?” He asked me as I dropped the last handful of personal possessions into the crusher. The silver locket caught in its teeth, before disappearing into the gaping mechanical maw.

“Yes, Brother, Sol be praised. We can return to the others now.”

I opened the back of the transporter, climbing inside to sit on the long bench and plug myself into a charger. Brother Michael started the engine and turned towards the main street and the meeting point in the market square. While he drove, I reached inside my chest casing, pulling out the crumpled yellow and brown sunflower. I brushed the ruffled petals softly, trying to smooth out the creases. “LUCIA”, printed so neatly, the letters proud and tall. Latin for ‘light’ – a blessed name indeed. I had the feeling again – the discomfort in my processors, the weight of the small picture inconsistent with the heaviness I felt as I held it. Sol disappeared behind the mountains, the last light lingering over the empty town as dusk fell. I tucked the flower inside against my energy core, a talisman to protect me in my mission.

Tomorrow is another day. Another town awaits. There is much work to be done.