Discovery
The black plastic box was half-buried in the dirt, but Tikri could see the letters. O-N-Y. He brushes it off. There is the ‘S’. He knows it’s a name. Doesn’t know what it means. It’s on lots of things at Pawnfellow’s market in Tradetown. Always fetches a good trade. Even if this SONY box is just another piece of broken plastic stuff from Before, Tikri knows Pawnfellow can attach the name to something else and raise the price. He pays for those letters, working or not.
SONY things were worth a lot, but you needed electricity to make them work. That meant owning or renting a generator and someone to pedal it. No Digger in Tradetown could afford that. Of course any artifact from Before was worth something. Even scraps of metal, plastic, cloth. The best things were metal. Axe and hammer heads. Pots and pans. Anything made before the End. Everyone wanted these things, no electricity needed. You just had to get it to the market without being robbed. Then make sure Pawnfellow or some other trader didn’t haggle you into submission.
Before stuff was always underground. Beneath hardened mud and chunks of black rock. Lots of black rock. Tikri’s friend, Onwat, called it pavement. Said it was made Before. Onwat could read. Knew a lot about Before, how it ended. That’s how she found the solar panel. Dug up an old book. It showed her where to look. Pawnfellow had wanted that panel bad. Just what he needed to make those SONY TV and DVD boxes come to life without gennys and pedalers. But Onwat made sure everyone knew it was her find. She hired the biggest Minders in Tradetown for protection when she brought it in. It meant a 50/50 split, but it was worth it. There’s was no way Pawnfellow could just take it. He paid Onwat so much for that one artifact, she had enough to buy into the Trader’s guild and open her own stall, dealing in scraps and small Before items that weren’t worth the effort for Pawnfellow and the other, bigger Traders.
Tikri thought the solar panel had turned out to be a pretty good deal for everyone. Onwat didn’t have to dig anymore, and the panel made enough electricity that Tradetown got TV Time. Pawnfellow hooked up a screen and a SONY DVD and showed any old discs he could find. Most of them were people sexing and no one wanted to watch that, but sometimes Pawnfellow would trade for a DVD that turned out to be a movie from Before. His admission charges went way up for those.
Even if you had to miss a meal to afford it and push your way to the front of the crowd to see the pictures, TV Time was worth it in Tikri’s opinion. He liked it best when they showed DVDs of Before animals. Most were gone now. Onwat said there might be some still alive, in other parts of the world. Places Tikri knew he would never go. He still liked to imagine how they might taste.
Tikri didn’t quite understand how Before had ended. It sounded so unbelievable. Giant machines and bombs that smashed whole cities with a single blow. Hard to believe humans made all that. But the movies on TV Time would show it too. It must have been true. He did know it happened long ago, hundreds of years, a war across the planet. Everything broken afterwards and no fuel left to burn. Humans no longer able to rely on their machines. Buildings, cities, machines. All gone. Knowledge started to disappear as food got scarce. Humans eating the weak. The weak were also the smart. Soon there was no one left to teach. Then no one to read. Then nothing to rebuild with anyway.
Onwat said the biggest difference about Before was that nearly everyone could read, instead of now, when barely anyone could.
Now Priests said too many words poisoned your mind. The word is not the thing. Beware the symbol and stick to the simple. They said that again and again. The Traders said we would starve without a few Readers to explain how things worked Before and the Priests were smart enough to see it was true. As for the Readers, they knew their value was in scarcity, just like everything else from Before. They closely guarded their skill and their books, only passing them down to children born of two Readers. For protection, they did the same as everyone else who could afford it. They hired Minders. And the Minders made sure everybody played by Market Rules. Order from chaos. Surplus. Value. The Market. Slowly, town by town, something of Before was coming back to life.
But the Before world was gone forever. All the cities, the machines, and most of the animals too. Some of the Before places were left undamaged after the End, but they had been emptied long ago. Everything else was underneath the mud and the broken pavement. So, if you wanted to eat, you had to dig. You had to know where to look. Find one artifact, usually there would be more. All you had to do was keep digging. It was just a question of how deep. Find something good, something that still worked even, and you might not have to keep digging the rest of your life.
He scans the plain for other Diggers. Tikri had learned at a young age. Never get excited about a find. Don’t give away your spots. All that did was attract attention and curious Diggers. He lost a mostly-working bicycle to Rakli once, when he told him about a spot. When he was smaller and couldn’t defend his finds. That bike would have paid for a whole winter of meals and no digging. Now Tikri knew. Trust no one. Rakli least of all. There was no code when you were outside the borders of Tradetown, with its Minders paid to uphold Market Rules.
He looks around again. No one nearby. Time to dig. Tikri drives his spade into the earth. He tries to lever the SONY box out of the dirt. Nothing moves. Wiggling the blade deeper, he finds the SONY’s bottommost edge, tries again. The earth crumbles and falls away, the black rectangle of the SONY disappearing from sight. More and more dirt and rock follows it into the dark. Tikri scrambles backward, the edge giving way under his feet. He falls to his back, the ground tilting and disintegrating underneath him. A length of steel rebar encased in concrete emerges as the ground keeps falling away. Tikri grabs it, his spade and collection bag falling into the hole as he dangles over emptiness. The sound of falling debris clattering far below slows. He kicks his feet upward to the edge of the hole, swings himself up and rolls away from the still crumbling opening.
Just enough light reaches the hole to see the bottom. Dust-covered black and white squares. Tikri drops a small rock into the hole. It falls away from sight, bounces below, the impact echoing through dark expanse.
His head reels. This is something huge, something from Before. He is in danger just for finding it. He hunches down, scans around him. No one in sight or earshot. Tikri’s near death barely registers. This discovery. Beyond measure. He can tell no one, at least for now. Except Onwat. She would tell him what he should do. He looks around. Triangulates landmarks to find his way back. It’s the first skill a Digger learns.
Tikri gathers some scraps of plastic and metal uncovered when the hole appeared. He folds them into his cloak. It would be enough for another day’s food and water. He could only hope no one comes this way before tomorrow. Onwat would know what to do after that. He could trust her.