In post-apocalyptic life, scavenging is everything. The world is your trashcan, and you are one of many hobos who are looking around for anything that might—just might—make your miserable existence somewhat less miserable.
Adam walked to the Tanaka family garage, where Captain Creed had found the miniature set, and excitedly started looking around.
Everything was trashed and looted long ago. Three months is more than enough for a place like this to be stripped clean by other survivors.
People take everything. At the Tanaka family garage, car wheels had been taken, and the engine stripped for parts. The battery, the charger, and most of the wires were gone. Whoever had come here knew exactly what they were doing.
Adam suspected it was those people who ambushed him at the shelter. He might as well look for their hideout and take those things back, though they had probably left two or three men behind. He found dog tags on the men, so they were perhaps ex-military who had deserted their posts.
Either way, he found all that he needed in the garage once he took a careful look. He found some duct tape, from which he could strip the adhesive with a blade to replace glue; some cutter blades that seemed broken but were still sharp; and some tools he could fashion by combining them with sticks.
Lastly, he found sandpaper, which brought a smile to his face. Usually, his toolkit as a miniature builder included more than just that, but he was happy with what he found.
What he needed next were a brush and perhaps some needle-nose pliers. Instead, he found cutting pliers behind one of the workbench drawers at the end of the garage. The cutting pliers were blunt and old, but they were good enough to act as holding pliers if held lightly.
Here's another post-apocalyptic tip: the space behind a drawer is a treasure trove; you don't know what to expect to find back there. Drawers filled to the brim always drop something behind if the space is big enough, so always check them.
Next, the most important things of all were a brush, paint, and water. For these rare items, Adam had one place in mind that might have them.
"Holy shit! That smells like shit!"
Kave's cave!
He took his flashlight and went down the rabbit hole, and what he saw scared the living ghost out of him.
Kave seemed to have thrashed the place during his madness phase. The furniture had been taken apart, and the many shelves broken down and made into barricades. Two lines of super crude defenses had been put together with the crudest skill imaginable. When Adam stepped back and surveyed the scene, it resembled two different fortification complexes, like those they used to make in Wartopia, which helped Adam understand how Kave's madness worked.
The world may have ended, but Kave had never stopped playing. However, this war game was between him and the demons in his head. Adam didn't know whether to feel pity or envy him.
Both young men had lost their families. In fact, if the survival rate were like rolling a natural 20 on a twenty-sided die, everyone would have lost more than one family member. But if he were to think about it, it was more like rolling a natural 1, the very definition of misfortune: to be left alone in the world.
Adam didn't stop there; he kept going and going across the place he had played in so many times. He knew the place well, but walking in it now was so unfamiliar. There were parts of the concrete walls that had been broken by something heavy, exposing the reinforced steel beneath, as if Kave had given up on breaking the melted hatch door and tried to dig his way outside.
In other parts, Kave seemed to have turned it into an art gallery. Their precious paint kits had been opened and used to draw demons and monsters on the walls, but it was there that luck smiled upon Adam.
It seemed the place had gone dark before Kave could complete his cave drawings; the lanterns lying around suggested that. This had left some paint vials still sealed, and there was some great color variety, too. Adam could work with all that: mix some to make the required colors, dilute with water, and paint to his heart's content.
But the true luck hadn't reared its beautiful head yet, as, in the far distance, on one shelf that had somehow remained in place, and, like the most prized game collectible waiting for a game character to collect it, Kave's Pencil Sharpener waited there for Adam, with three small brushes on top.
This brought a smile to his face, instilled warmth in his heart, and likely stirred a sense of excitement within him.
Yes, Adam was happy to see you, pencil sharpener.
As anyone could have guessed by this point, this was no ordinary pencil sharpener; it was an antique, a trophy of days gone by, a prize that Kave won in 2004 at the first Wartopia Real-Time Strategy Convention hosted by the Education Department in the state in collaboration with Wartopia's devs.
The late 1990s and early 2000s were the golden age of RTS games. "Wartopia: Defense on Planet Urd," released in 2003, was a sensation at the time. Adam was young and not yet initiated into the Wartopia scene, but Kave's uncle, Tanaka Takashi, was a game developer at the studio, and guess who got a free copy for his birthday from dear Uncle Takashi.
After winning the convention, Kave received that pencil sharpener along with other items; it was made in the image of one of the game's iconic buildings, the Refinery Rig.
From a distance, it looked like a kitchen blender and was mostly called the Blender by fans. Players would assign Auxiliary Men-at-Arms to the Rig and let them haul scrap from all over the place. The Rig simply devours everything thrown in its upper part and produces one of two things: B-Mats, also known as Basic Materials or Building Materials, and Parts, used for creating weapons and other buildings.
The system was simple and straightforward for an RTS, but in an open-world survival craft like "Wartopia: Privateers," the Rig was minimized for personal one-character use. Still, it could make B-Mats, Parts, Fabrics, Blanks, and a whole bunch of other materials. The game description explained it as a super-advanced 3D Printer that breaks all manner of scrap down to powder, separates it into basic components, and outputs a refined material, ready for crafting and assembly, depending on the input given to the terminal.
Adam had always envied Kave for this magnificent trophy. It was from a bygone era when games were games and men were men. It might be the only thing that could cure his loneliness after parting with Captain Creed's miniature now that its owner no longer needed it.
Adam held it with happiness and took the brushes from its cup, which had been designed to hold pencils. Its inner workings included a battery-powered pencil sharpener that played game intro music as its inner blade sharpened a pencil and lights glowed from all its sides, which was the equivalent of a carnal pleasure for hardcore fans.
That was all he needed: paint, brushes, cutters, pliers, and sanding paper. A surprisingly simple and basic kit to create an army… an actual army.
Adam walked out of the shelter, all smiles, and found that Kave was back.
"Sup?"
Adam said and sat beside his friend, who was looking at him with a pale face.
"Adam."
"Yes."
"I… I didn't walk far."
"Figures. What's wrong?"
"… Everything."
Adam turned to Kave and patted his back.
"You know, I don't mean to brag, but I've survived out here for a hundred days. If I did it, you'll do it," Adam said.
"You think… We'll be okay?" Kave asked with a quiet tone.
"Maybe. Who knows? Gobzkins almost killed me this morning; then humans took me hostage. I wasn't a believer, you know. Every time I almost died, I just… feel it."
"It?"
"Yeah. Like I was being watched over. I mean, do you remember Mr. Dorsett? He always called me a wuss. What did he call you?"
"… A femboy."
"HAHAHA!"
"He said a feminine she-boy… but there is a term for it… He's just an uncultured oaf."
"Wahahaha!"
Adam couldn't stop laughing, and Kave smiled as he looked at the fire. After calming down, Adam spoke:
"Now, a femboy and a wuss had lived a hundred days in the apocalypse."
"You're no longer a wuss… You survived."
"And you're no longer a femboy. Just some smelly, dirty hobo."
Kave couldn't disagree with that; however, the overall conversation started to fill him with reminiscence. His head felt like it was coming back from a rather long, bad sleep, his senses were submerged in a suffocating pool of acidic shit, and his soul was held in by so much darkness. If there was hell, he had been through it, and it was no fun being on a highway to that.
For some time, Kave watched Adam do what he did best—a master at work for a craft he never thought would save a life. The Adam of now had long and dirty fingernails, longer hair, dirty clothes, but a grit and willingness to survive like nothing he could ever imagine.
"How did a wuss like you make it?" Kave found himself asking.
"Long answer or short?" Adam looked at him with a smile and bright eyes that gained more color now that he was doing something he utterly loved.
"Whatever one you like more," Kave said, having a feeling that Adam would be telling a story.
Never disappointing his friend, Adam straightened his back and looked into the fire, telling a long-short version of how he made it.