Junk Hunters

The figures - there were three of them - breached the summit of rot and rubble, black-clad and vaguely human-shaped. Upon closer inspection, they might have been identified as young adults, two males and one female. As it happened, an authority drone on a routine circuit did just that after first scanning their identity bar codes and searching its database for infractions. The three were all clear. The males wore full-face visors and UV protective ponchos over street clothes. Street clothes were black, unisex bodysuits. The female of their crew was also in black, though she didn’t have to be. Those with the credits printed custom skin-tone-matched suits and, if you could afford them, body enhancements. She wore black in solidarity with her lower-caste friends in the form of a corseted, tailored, hooded hazmat suit with built-in backpack and detachable boots. It didn’t bother her at all that black cost less. She was egalitarian that way.

A voice came through their linked comms.

“What does the, the thing say again? What is called?” It was Xeno, the larger of the two young men.

“The book? It’s called a book. The coordinates seem to target one of these mobile auto carts.” The smaller boy, JT, said and sent them both visual of his view screen.

“Auto. Mobile. Carts.” Jewels corrected.

“Whatever it is, it’s supposed to be blue,” Xeno replied.

“Blue? Nothing here is blue and my comms says it’s here.” Jewels replied.

“Copy. My comm says we’re on target and all I see is rock color, rust color and dirt color.” Xeno joked.

“I’m sending a visual of the area grid. Pick a sector and let’s get to work.” JT said, swiping the visual to his friends.

They spread out and began manually sifting through the detritus for signs of a blue van. Jewel had assembled a tool she’d pulled from her pack and was bent over, digging through what looked like decomposing textiles. Her head was submerged in the waste of human consumption while the baubles and ruffles on her intricately ornamented outfit blew in the toxic wind.

Xeno, a few paces away, steadily excavated his section of the landfill, while somehow never taking his eyes of Jewel. He worked silently, eyeing her through his visor.

“Jewel”, he said through comms, “This probably isn’t the place or the time, but I have to say this,” he said, sighing loudly.

“What?” Her helmeted head jerked up from the hole she was investigating several meters away.

“That hazmat is fae! I mean, you’re wearing the reason I hate the rich,” he confessed, shooting out the syllables in his rapid-fire way.

“This? Boy, you can have it. I sincerely hate the butt ruffle.” Jewels replied as she reached back and ruffled it.

“Jah-dore the butt ruffle! Ugh, but I couldn’t fit even one of my kilos in that corset.” He pointed at the significant roundness in his midsection for emphasis.

“Is it enhanced? No, I know. It’s really you.” He answered himself and huffed, “Nevermind, if you’re giving, I’ll take it.”

“Xeno, you really are a hoarder” JT chastised his best friend. “Why would you take a suit you can’t fit?”

Xeno and Jewels turned their heads towards him, responding simultaneously. “For inspiration.”

“You wouldn’t understand. We’re not all socioenvironmental activist minimalists, JT.” Jewels added.

JT wondered if minimalist was the rich-girl slang for poor. He’d found a hand-sized chunk of concrete and had used it to scrape a flat surface he’d uncovered. Definitely metal. And under a thick layer of dust, he was sure he‘d scraped off flecks of paint. He worked on removing the rocks and other debris until he found something else. He rapped on it with gloved knuckles. Glass.

“Need some help over here. Got something.” JT called out and tossed the visual of flakes of blue paint to their view screens.

Jewels and Xeno carefully navigated their way across irregular mounds of trash and gathered around.

“How do we open it?” Xeno texted and the words swam across all of their visors.

“Stand back.” JT raised the concrete, using it as a hammer. The window shattered and JT cleared out the hanging shards. Xeno activated his wristlet and shone a bright beam of light in through the opening.

“Spot me I’m going in,” JT said and activated his wristlet flashlight while climbing through the window.

“Good, you’re the skinniest,” Xeno said into his comms, relieved.

JT emerged through the window a few minutes later holding a package. It was made of a thick, black plastic. JT cleared away the grime from each corner, looking for something the little black book had told him would be there. When he found it, he tried peeling it off with gloved hands.

“Give me that” Xeno tried to do the same thing with an equal lack of success.

“Excuse me, gentleboys,” Jewels said. They both looked up. She held out her hand. She had removed just one index finger and thumb from her expensive gloves.

“What is the code?” She asked, spraying the bag with disinfectant, peeling back the sticker and revealing a keypad. A visual of the passcode streamed across her visor. Immediately after entering the 17 digits, the bag unzipped itself open with a hiss.

“Wah. It’s the real thing. We really found it. To be honest, I didn’t think instructions from an old diary would turn into anything. I just came for the road trip.” Xeno confessed.

“Thanks, I guess.” JT replied, “Jewel, test its functionality. Try locking and unlocking it again.”

Jewel locked the bag then passed it around to the guys to test the locking system. When neither of them could open it, she unlocked it. If they weren’t all so cool, they would have cheered.

“Original plas-tech, nearly indestructible,” JT confirmed. “There’s at least 40 of these in there.”

Xeno hadn’t heard him. He was watching Jewels’ ruffles again and he noticed they were no longer waving in the wind. They whipped.

“Um, chicos. Winds picking up. We should hurry” He pointed to a small swirl of dust and debris taking shape, gaining momentum. They all knew what that meant.

The three of them spent the rest of the daylight digging the door clear and gathering their magnificent haul. They sat together on the vehicle floor. It was dark out, but light beamed from various devices, illuminating the interior of the old van. Inside panels had been removed and piles of unwanted contents of packages surrounded them. Jewels upended the last bag onto the closest heap of trash, rolled the precious plas-tech tightly and tucked it into her already full pack.

“Smize! “We’re done here,” she said sending them a pic of her big, happy grin, hoping this was only the beginning. It was hard making friends when your developing personality seems to be at its most tedious. But Xeno had met JT sneaking food from his storage shed and they became friends. And JT stuck around through the worst break-up of Xeno’s life so far. Jewels’ and Xeno’s older brothers happened to be ffl (friends for life) and that’s how she ended up at Xeno’s place instead of possibly getting charged for a crime that one time. These guys had taken her in when her alleged former friends (and her mother, but that was another story) had left her out to dry. She hoped it was for keeps.

Before the others could agree that their mission had, in fact been completed, the wind responded with a howl and the van began to creak and sway.

“Sand storm! Cover the window” Xeno yelled just as a strong gust of wind sprayed sand through it.

JT looked around, spotted just the thing. “We need adhesive.”

Jewels dug furiously through the side pockets of her pack, “Fortune smized, I got mags.” And tossed a case of magnets in their direction. She noticed their quizzical looks. “They’re for my mag lev boots?”

The van was pelted by whatever the wind could kick up and throw. Once it shook so violently, they were sure it would topple over. But it didn’t, and the magnets sealed the plas-tech to the window until the wind died down.

Visor off, JT looked up from checking his feeds,

“We’ve got a buyer.”

“A buyer!”

“How much?”

“Well, several buyers actually” JT continued. “It’s kind of a bidding war.”

“How much?” Xeno repeated.

“We’re at a million. And rising. Fast.”

“A million bid-points?” Xeno breathed, excitedly.

“A million, no…a million and a half Universal credits for 51 of our very rare, original plas-tech zip locks in pristine condition. And now some walla with lunar coordinates is upping the offer.”

“Yah, now tell me how much you hate the rich. Looks like you’re about to be one of us.” Jewels smirked at Xeno.

JT was starting to find her sarcasm cute. Now that he was coming up, it didn’t feel like she was talking down to him.

“Weren’t there were 52 bags?” Xeno asked.

“Yah. I’m keeping one. Finder’s fee.”

Later that week, JT entered a windowless storefront and greeted the old lady sitting in a recliner playing virtual casino games. She ignored him, pulled an invisible lever and muttered a swear.

He walked under the hand-written sign that read “Library” and past shelves displaying ancient hard drives and hand-held communication devices with cracked glass screens. A single dusty, plastic crate housed a dozen paper books and plastic-sealed anime. JT activated the overlay on his visor and the dingy room of reclaimed salvage transformed. Neon signs listed the contents of every device. Illuminated, virtual shelves were packed with files for download. An impossibly attractive holographic librarian hovered nearby. Her name tag read “Betty”.

“Where’s Ezekiel?” JT inquired. The librarian didn’t respond.

“Zeke’s right here.” A voice said behind him.

JT turned to see the familiar face of a fit, handsome, middle-aged man. The familiarity was due to his resemblance to a well-known vid-pic actor of yesteryear.

“Got something for you” JT said, switching off and retracting his visor.

“If it’s a wife, take it back. Already got one too many.” He cackled.

Without the overlay, JT saw the elderly man self-consciously smooth down his few strands of white hair.

“Lemme see whatcha got and make it fast. I’m too old for suspense.” The old man quipped. “I’m only gonna live 20 more minutes.”

“You’ve been saying that since I was 10.” JT laughed and handed Zeke the black bag.

“Original. Plas-tech.”

“Wey, oh! Where did you,” the old man began, stopped, lowered his voice, looked around then continued.

“Where did you get this?” He whispered.

“Let’s just say you let me borrow an item I couldn’t afford. That led to this. And now it’s yours.”

“This, for a book of some walla’s dream interpretations and love poems? What was in the bag? Any salvage?”

“Yah, it’s in there. I can get you more if you need it. Got piles of it.”

Ezekiel carefully slid out the contents and counted twenty of them.

“Good condition paper,” Ezekial remarked, turning it front to back. He focused on the small print beneath a colorful pic of a middle-aged woman. His automatic eye lenses zoomed in.

“One thousand dollars”, he read aloud. “2052, eh? I know a few collectors looking to acquire relics.” He winked at JT. “ It’s a trade. I’m keeping the bag though. Won't sell it.” He said replacing the 20,000 old U.S. dollars. “The bag’s worth something.”

JT winked back, pointed to his blinking comm. “Gotta take this call. See you soon, Zeke?”

“At my funeral, most like,” Zeke replied.

JT headed toward the exit, connecting to his call.

“See ya, Betty!” he called out, waving as he passed the old woman in the recliner. Her gnarled fists were clenched with crooked index fingers pointed into guns. She was busting VR bad guys and didn’t see him leave.

Xeno’s voice came through.

“JT, you won’t believe this. We have another buyer.”