Bert, her blue eyes narrow and fixed on the dusty wooden rafters above, finally let out a slow breath. It had been raining for the past three hours, and at times, raining like there was no tomorrow. Which, as Bert had been concerned of at one point, there may not have been. A significant portion of the roof had dissolved in the storm, and a number of small leaks were poking through to the ground floor. And she reckoned it would be a hell of a lot worse up on the second floor, where her guest rooms were presumably evaporating.

Southerly rain storms were a regular facet of Waste life in Can't Be Buried, and a great way for folks to get rid of deceased family members. And between low pressure systems, travellers were concerned with wind and dust. Since all the damned trees had wandered west, there was very little to hold dust down. Huge, cascading dust storms killed hundreds every year, and beasties or bandits tended to kill the rest.

There was a small cheer and a scattered applause around Bert. She was standing behind the bar counter in a large, tavern-like wooden room filled with a small number of dishevelled customers at shabby round tables. Behind her was a row of shelves, each bearing a veritable science lab of delightful, albeit unlabelled, glass bottles. The great secret of Waste bar ownership, Bert had found, is that no traveller, trader or nomad of any kind cares what they drink, so long as it's cheap, it burns, and it takes away the bad memories (which tends to be every memory).

The kitchen hummed away through a small window behind the drinks, Bert's adventurer-turned-handyman and chef, Phoenix, hard at work on the day's meals. Or at least, Bert thought, he better be hard at work. One time she had found him snoozing in the corner, a rabbit-like creature he had caught to slaughter tucked asleep into his lap and dressed in a little paper hat. She didn't know where the hat came from, but they'd had to let the creature go. Neither had the heart to cut it open while it wore that stupid hat.

Giant wooden letters atop this two-storey building, one of the few intact structures from the Old World still standing, spelled out "Smack-dab. Bar. Food. Room." To some, this fine establishment was considered the jewel of Can't Be Buried, a haven for traders and other innocent folk the Waste over. Except the problem was, that Smack-dab's greatest asset - it being the nearest shelter for hours in both directions - was also its greatest problem.

Smack-dab was inconveniently located along the Trader's Back Road, a lengthy trail that linked the trader's village of Second Thought in the north with the farming village of Gerald, south. By using the back road, you could skip the Great Highway along the coast, which although faster, took you straight through rather murdery bandit country (and the Ash Fort).

Well, Bert frowned, it probably wasn't the Ash Fort anymore, not now that those southerners had come up and toppled it. First a horde of bandits, then a cold front - what next, a forest of man-eating trees? She shook her head at the thought. That would be just what she needed on a day like today. A day when there was actual paying customers, for once.

Her sapphire-coloured stare fell to the dusty windows at the front of the room. Smacks had a little garden between it and the road, although nothing had grown there since the Old World. It was mostly just some tidy dirt, a few weeds, and a gravel pathway that wound up to Smack-dab's wooden porch. But standing there, in the middle of the tidiest patch of dirt, was a statue. It was a woman, an adventurer, who wore a crude, wide-brimmed hat that looked like two hats sewn together, and a long, patchy trench coat flowing down her body, blowing in a breeze that would never fade. She grimaced at the world, pointing forwards with one stony arm that clutched a finely carved revolver. There was a plaque at her feet, which read:

The Woman With No Name
Founder and Original Owner
RIP

And then below that, in smaller letters...

If you deface this statue,
I will come out there and cut your balls off
- Bert, current owner

And then below that, in a newer plaque that looked tacked on more recently:

PS. To those who have no balls,
we will work something else out.

Bert let out another slow breath, her brow melting slowly into a frown. She often wondered what The Woman would do in her situation, dealing with modern problems. Like the fort being toppled basically once a year, or Can't Be Buried's growing population of Things - you now, the ones that go bump in the night (and also eat you). The Woman didn't have to deal with any of that back when she was running the place. No, she just had to fight off the occasional Waste Beast, and struggle to find suppliers for her grog. Oh, and also die horribly in a vicious gun battle.

Bert's frown soured, lines of sadness creasing at the edge of her eyes. The Woman was the mother that didn't sell her to slavery - the one that actually gave a damn. But, like all of the Waste's great ironies, she died because of Bert, to protect Smack-dab. And now? Bert'd be damned if this bar did anything other than thrive. Smack-dab would prosper, or she'd shoot folk until it did.

* * *

Above Smack-dab, a strong gust was swirling up and over the mountains, carrying away the rain. Somewhere, a wandering trader was shot in the head for what looked like a delicious sandwich. Elsewhere, a cannibal was gnawing on her victim's rib cage, blissfully unaware that a slobbering Waste Beast was about to gnaw on her's.

All in all, it was a pretty quiet day.

But three figures were approaching the bar, and they weren't known to be quiet...

* * *

"Cor," said the young lad known as Orsen, "It ain't half big, is it, Jeb?"

Jeb smiled, folds of leathery dark skin wrinkling as his lips moved. "Aye, an' thas' just the relic of it, too. Back in th' Old World, that city woulda been huge! With buildings made o' glass - clean glass, Orsen, imagin' that! - an' towers stretchin' all th' way into th' clouds. So tall ya couldn't see th' top if ya stared from th' bottom. Not like the rickety ol' towers up in the Orcklands."

Orsen's mouth hung open, his youthful, teenage face soaking in as much of the view as possible. But something struck his mind, and he turned to face his travelling companion, brow furrowing. "So ... if there was towers an' that, where they all gone? I don't see anythin' taller than a few storeys."

Jeb nodded slowly, a veritable sage of a man. Or so he liked to pretend. "Well, m'boy, they ... fell over."

"They fell over, Jeb?"

"Aye, lad, they fell over. Just goes t' show, don't it?"

"What's that?"

"Ya shouldn't make a tower outta glass."

Orsen pondered that for a moment, nodded with satisfaction, then turned back to look at the view.

Jeb was a haggard old man, so long as nobody said that to his face. He wouldn't get violent at them, but if they didn't want to hear a lecture about how age is nonsense, a man can be anything he wants regardless of age, and that a person shouldn't insult strangers who could secretly be hiding claws in their gloves, they kept their mouths shut.

He scratched at the rough stubble on his weather-beaten face, leaning back in his puffy coat against his large trader's backpack. It clunked with various metallic sounds as it took his weight. Orsen, meanwhile, couldn't take his eyes off the view before them.

They were sitting together in a watchtower, built from bits of corrugated tin and planks of wood at the top of an Old World power pylon. Their feet dangled off the edge, the sound of waves lapping hungrily at a beach blowing in on the wind from just a mile or so away. It was a cold day, especially up in the tower, but they'd both shivered through worse.

Jeb and Orsen were staring at the Dead Church: a city, or rather, what was left of one. Most of this aged, decrepit place had been consumed when the ocean rose to swallow it, but its sprawling outskirts lay in an eerie dormancy on the shore. In a time long forgotten, this place was a bustling metropolis, filled with beautiful gardens, buzzing industry and, according to Jeb, gorgeous women who would not only take their clothes off at the drop of a hat, but who had little-to-no physical mutation (Jeb had, of course, embellished some of his story). He'd tried to convince Orsen that it was also home to robots that served humanity, working in their shops and that, but Orsen didn't believe it. The Overlords, as robots were known in this place, kicked humans in the ribs, they didn't serve them ribs. Overlords didn't work for humans, end of story.

A few moments into their silence, the lad eagerly fished into his thick, tattered coat and revealed a well-loved notebook. Jeb watched him find a blank page and scribble hastily into the book, and he couldn't help but smile.

Orsen loved himself some Old World history. Anything still standing from the time it all went tits up was like pure gold to the boy. He'd ask a million and one questions, then scribble everything he'd seen and learned into his diary. In fact, the duo were using that love as an excuse to travel around the Waste, walking from town to town selling whatever they picked up to fund their next adventure. The boy got to see what the world was like before, and Jeb taught him about modern life along the way.

Shortly, they heard some clattering behind them, followed by the grunting of voices. Both Orsen and Jeb turned to see in the other direction, spying what appeared to be some kind of construction going on just outside of Rangi's Aura, the nearby town. Actually, it looked more like destruction, thought Jeb. A bunch of burly sorts in matching blue dungarees seemed to be sledgehammering some hovels down on the fringes of Rangi.

"What do you think they're doing, Jeb?" Orsen asked, wriggling away from the edge of the tower to sit on the other side.

Jeb pulled his legs up as well and slowly swivelled around, feeling his old bones creak from having sat still too long. He watched a particularly large-looking woman get frustrated with her hammer and start prying the wood and metal away with her bare fingers.

"Looks like they're tearin' down homes, m'boy," he replied, scratching at his stubble again. "A new development goin' in, mus' be."

Orsen stayed silent for a moment again, gazing out at the work below. It wasn't too far away, but nobody seemed to be bothered by two shabby traders sitting in a tower.

The boy finally made a noise. "Hmm. Do you think th' folk that live there are in on it?"

They watched in curiosity as a well-dressed local waved his arms at the large woman, his mouth flapping non-stop, but the words only reaching their ears as muffled swears. Before Jeb could respond, the burly woman pushed the well-dressed man hard, picked up her sledgehammer and drove it clean through his skull. Jeb and Orsen both sat upright with a jolt. Hell, Jeb hadn't seen a skull explode like that since his last wife died.

"Err," the old man said, a little uncertainly. "Looks like they're bein' consulted now, lad."

Faced with the images before him, Jeb's face lost its smile. This strange construction work was something he hadn't seen before, and he wasn't sure what it was. His brow furrowed, deep frown lines forming crevices across his forehead. With a grubby elbow he nudged Orsen in the side. "Why don't ya finish yer notes, lad, then we'll get on the road, eh? Doesn't look like we wanna hang around Rangi much longer."

Orsen stared at the sparkling red splotch now occupying where the man's head should be, while the burly woman went straight back to her task of pulling the home apart. He nodded slowly, then curled his legs under himself and continued his scribblings cross-legged, leaning back on his pack.

It was then that Jeb spotted something metal moving between the folks with dungarees. He squinted hard, following the bobbing motion of the glare before it vanished behind a house. There was a whole horde of these strange new folk amassing outside Rangi, with what looked like more pouring through the town in a steady stream. Many pushed or pulled carts laden with what appeared to be building supplies. Rocks, mud - they'd even scrounged some wood, though Jeb suspected they acquired it nearby (rather than brave the Western Forests to fight the man-eaters for it).

There! He saw the glint again, appearing behind a throng of dungarees-wearing folk that were huddled together, having some sort of meeting. One of them even had an old plastic hardhat. Jeb's old eyes, despite being sluggish from a well-used life, jumped open at light speed, his body arching forwards as if to zoom in on the picture. The glinting, bobbing metal was a bloody Overlord, something Jeb wouldn't have expected to see this far out of a major population centre. It was stomping along with one of the strangers. But Jeb couldn't figure out where it fitted into all this. By all accounts, and the old man knew plenty of accounts, that Overlord should either be treating humans with a distant but very clear disgust, or stomping on their necks (so, less-distant, but still very clear disgust).

What the hell were these people doing? Some pulled down homes, others cleared debris, the rest seemed to be repairing the road, or digging up fields. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? And then there was the robot following one of them around...

He shook his head, feeling tired again. Good or bad, it didn't matter. His Waste senses were telling him it was time to go.

"Hey, Jeb, look there!" Orsen suddenly cried, giving the old man a little jump scare.

Orsen was pointing to a group of two men standing over what looked like an animal. A wolfcat pup, maybe. They were fairly close to the tower, away from the hustle and bustle of ... well, of whatever this whole mess was.

"What? Wassat? I don't see anythin'," Jeb stated, squinting at the small huddle.

"Don't ya see the wolfcat, Jeb? It looks jus' like Mr Tinkles!"

Jeb frowned. "Have you been in the bonkerberries again, Orsen? I tolds ya not t' touch th' stuff."

Orsen practically leapt on the old man, gripping his sleeves tight, his young face aghast. "No, I swear! I haven't touched one. Not since last time, I swears to ya. Mr Tinkles was my friend back at the commune."

Oh, thought Jeb, the bloody commune.

The commune is where Jeb met Orsen a number of years back, way up north in the Orcklands. He was a sheriff at the time, one of the few in the area who braved being on the, in his unpopular opinion, correct side of the law. He and a few local folk had decided to bust open one of the Orck communes, which was basically a cattle farm but with humans instead of pigcows. They were bred, raised, fed, and then eventually eaten by the Orcks, the cannibalistic bandits who reckoned they ruled the place. Jeb's job was to make sure they knew this wasn't the case.

But though his partners had evaporated during the break-in, Jeb had managed to get one soul out of there, one soul at least who wouldn't perish in that awful place: Orsen. And now he'd taken the lad almost as far away as he could get.

"Oh no!" Orsen squealed, scrabbling to the edge of the tower, and to Jeb's horror, almost falling off it. "They're kickin' him!"

"Who?"

"Mr Tinkles!"

"But it's not Mr Tinkles, lad. Now come on, grab yer things. We gotta get movin' before it gets too late. We don't wanna be out walkin' after dark, not this close t' th' Church."

Jeb tried to grasp Orsen's shoulder gently but the boy shrugged him off. "No!" he cried again. "I have to go save Mr Tinkles!"

"Stay out of it, boy! That's rule number one, wadda I keep tellin' ya? Trouble finds ya enough in life, so don't go lookin' for it."

Jeb reached for Orsen's sleeves again but the boy was already moving. Orsen grabbed his pack and had his feet on the ladder down before Jeb could so much as fart.

The boy hesitated, meeting the eyes of his mentor. "I can't stay out of it, Jeb. Mr Tinkles needs help."

"But it's not Mr Tinkles!"

"But it looks like him, Jeb. An' he's bein' hurt real bad."

Then his worried face disappeared, leaving Jeb scrambling to gather his belongings and pursue. Bloody hell, he muttered quickly to himself, putting his arms through the leather straps of his pack. Always stay outta trouble, it's so simple. Never get in a fight, never start a fight, and run away if it looks like there could be a fight. What wasn't clear about that?

As quick as he could, Jeb forced his tired old bones onto the ladder and clambered down as fast as he dared to. When his thick boots hit the dust at the bottom, Orsen was already running towards the strangers. Head-first into the Waste Beast's cave.

Orsen had a good heart, to be sure. He was always trying to help people, or animals. Jeb saw that, he was proud of it. No doubts there.

But other folk ate good hearts for breakfast.

...sometimes literally.

* * *

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