electricopolis-net

[electricopolis-net]

Let's get fit for the summer...!

[electricopolis-net]

Wow, 12 years already....?? Thanks so much!!

HAPPY 12TH ANNIVERSARY, ELECTRICOPOLIS!!!! RAHHHHHHHHH

i decided to celebrate by redrawing one of the first illustrations made for the webseries!! my version’s on the left, original’s on the right :^)

[electricopolis-net]

S03E07 The Missing Year

Meanwhile, in Electricopolis…

The lights of the subway train disappeared, gradually, into the darkness. Margaret stood there on the platform for another long moment, looking into the black, and then she turned and raced back up the stairs to Top Tier HQ. Jam followed behind her, stammering. "Margie!" he shouted. "Wait!"

"I can't wait," she responded, her jaw set tight. "I have work to do."

In the company headquarters, most of the white-collar workforce--the executives, the middle managers and so on--cowered in the lobby in a state of utter confusion. Beyond the doors and windows, there was a throng of people that pressed against the glass, demanding to know what was going on. 

"Miss King!" said the execs, huddling around her. "Where's your father? No one can get in touch with him!"

Margaret raised her voice. "Where my father is isn't important right now," she said, swallowing her fear and anxiety. "In his absence, I'm the acting head of the Top Tier Electric Company." Before they could protest, she continued: "What's the situation regarding our main workforce?"

"They're still in the tunnels," said one mousy-looking man, adjusting his glasses. "At least, a good eighty percent of them must be."

"Still? Get them out of there," Margaret ordered. "We need them up here, not down there! We'll need them to carry the HQ's backup generators to the hospitals and the farms, primarily, then distribute the rest among the populace. Get going!"

A host of the executives hurriedly broke off from the main group to follow her orders. Margaret pivoted to talk to another set of worried faces. "What's the damage regarding the riots?"

"The riots seem to be kept to the top tier," came the response from a tall, thin man who was mopping his brow with a handkerchief. "The worst of it was about an hour ago--it's calmed down a lot since then. The fire crews are on the scene in Diamond Plaza, putting out the fires among the commercial district."

Margaret breathed a sigh of half-relief. "Okay, good. If they're hitting their limit, contact the Volunteer Fire Departments down below and see if they can divert any people. Meanwhile, tell the cops to stop looking for Bob Sparker and start doing their real jobs instead," she said, trying not to let her annoyance show. "Control traffic, make sure the emergency vehicles have a clear path to do their thing. Infrastructure is the most important thing right now."

The remaining group of middle managers nodded and scattered off to do their jobs. Finally, she turned to Jam. "Jam," she said quietly. "When you're able to, I've got something I need you to do. You remember Miss Information?"

"I was just thinking that," he said. "I'll get a generator over to her and keep her running. Between the two of us, we'll keep tabs on the lower tiers."

"Thank you." She heaved a sigh and turned towards the doors.

Jam looked from her to the glass doors. "What are you gonna do about them?"

Beyond the glass doors was a horde of people, pressing up against the glass, pounding on it and shouting in muffled voices. Margaret swallowed. "I'll do what I have to," she said. 

A few security guards went outside and pressed back the crowd enough for Margaret and Jam to emerge. They were immediately confronted by a nearly incomprehensible wall of voices, each person demanding answers. "What's going on here?" asked one. "Where's Mr. King?" said another. "And what about that Bob Sparker?"

Margaret stepped forward and stared, square and seemingly unafraid, into the crowd. "Everyone just calm down a second," Jam said, holding his hands up. "Margaret--that is, Miss King--has something to tell you." 

Margaret swallowed and steeled herself. "I know you all have a million questions, so let's get started," she said. "First, forget what you've heard about Bob Sparker. He isn't to blame for any of this."

"Then who is?" asked a man in the front of the crowd.

Margaret swallowed, unsure of how to proceed. "I..."

Jam stepped to the side, closer to her, and squeezed her hand out of the view of the crowd.

"I am," she said loudly. "My father, Percy King, oversaw the welfare of the electric company and the town itself. But he's...gone," she said simply. "I'm here instead."

A silence settled on the crowd for a second or two, and then it erupted into confusion. "What do you mean he's gone?" shouted a member of the crowd, pressing forward against one of the security guards. "We want some answers from him, damn it!"

"He's gone!" Margaret repeated. "He's somewhere far away where he can't do any more damage!" She blinked back the tears that were starting to brim at the corners of her eyes. "I'm here to take responsibility..."

"Take responsibility?" spat the man in the front of the crowd. "How do you plan to do that? We've been stuck without power for hours!"

"I know. As heiress--and now the CEO--of Top Tier, it's my duty to keep the city safe. My father failed you, and I've failed you," Margaret admitted, casting her gaze downwards. "I can't speak for him, but I was...naïve. I didn't think about what was really going on inside the city. I just trusted him to make everything better. So if you want to hate me, hate me," she insisted, looking back up at the crowd. "If you want to take it out on someone, take it out on me!"

There was a hollow, tinny sound as a soda can hit her shoulder and bounced away. "Hey!" Jam shouted, stepping forward, but Margaret raised her arm to keep him back. 

"It's okay," she mouthed. A second can hit her chest. The crowd roared. Someone threw a small chunk of brick that hit her in the forehead, causing her to stumble backwards, the cut bleeding. Jam caught her, and pulled her to her feet. "I'm fine," she said dazedly. "It's okay, I can take it--"

"No!" Jam admonished, to her and to the crowd. "Stop it, all of you! You think any of this helps anyone?" he said, gesturing around them. "You think doing this is going to solve anything?" He shook his head. "Listen to me. Go home," he advised. "Be with your families. Take care of each other."

"My partners are still down in the tunnels," said a woman, raising her hand. "When will the workers be back?"

"We're...we're extracting them as we speak," Margaret said, mopping the blood from her brow. "Some of them will still be working to distribute generators to high-priority areas, but the rest can return home. Jam's right," she said. "Please, take care of each other. We'll have a lot of work to do, but...give us another chance. Let Top Tier take care of it. Keep your radios on, okay? We'll draft up some guidance and broadcast it as soon as we can."

The crowd calmed down, and finally dispersed. "Thanks," Margaret sighed, pulling out her compact mirror and checking the cut on her face. "That could have gotten way worse."

"It almost did," Jam said firmly. "You've gotta take care of yourself, Margie." He put a hand on her shoulder as the two of them went back into the headquarters. "Come on. Let's regroup with the execs. You got anything to eat around here?"

Work continued late into the night. Margaret and Jam sat in the conference room with the rest of the highest-level executives. The room was lit by oil lamps, and in the middle of the table was a camp stove that heated a pot of instant noodle soup. "I remember pulling all-nighters, but nothing this bad," remarked one of the mousy-looking men. "Your father would always tell me to go home and take it easy... that he would take care of everything."

"Yeah?" Margaret said, looking up from her ramen. "That sounds like him, all right. He always..." She hesitated, swallowing nervously. "He always wanted people to go home happy."

"For better or for worse, yes." The man pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and blinked at her. "Miss King, you might consider taking the same advice. I think we've got things locked down over here."

Margaret shook her head, then noticed Jam's piercing gaze. He normally wore his shades all the time, but in the dim light, he'd had to take them off. "I...guess you're right," she sighed. "But I don't want to go to the penthouse. Can't I just rest on the couch over there?"

"Miss King," said the man, "you can rest anywhere you want."

Margaret sat down on the couch, Jam next to her. Within moments she was deep asleep, her head resting on Jam's shoulder, and he found himself nodding off after not much longer. 

What a nightmare, he thought to himself. I wonder how Bob's doing. I hope he's okay...and Mr. King, too, I guess. He closed his eyes. I hope they haven't killed each other.

As the days and nights passed in inky darkness, Margaret and Jam--and the executives, the middle managers, the foremen, all the way down to the lowest position in the company--worked together to keep the city from falling apart. Without electricity derived from the hydrocarbon fuel under the town, they were forced to generate their own using their own power. Generators, and the remaining fuel that could be used to power them, were reserved for areas like the hospitals and farms, so modified bicycles and treadmills were set up across the city to function as charging stations. Margaret spent quite some time on the local charging cycle herself, both to assuage her own guilt and to work off some stress. Jam considered telling her to take it easy, but there were worse coping mechanisms.

When he had time, he made that trip to Miss Information to give her a generator and ask her the situation in the lower tiers. Amazingly enough, the riots that had occurred in the top tiers were largely absent from the bottom, probably because they were used to being without power due to the brownouts in recent days. "Probably also because we're not sick in the head like you rich guys," Miss Information laughed, and Jam only nodded grimly. 

Margaret, in the meantime, combed through the paperwork from Research & Development. Apparently, one of the scientists had been spearheading research on using underground water channels to power the city, but hadn't been able to secure funding. "I guess we could go with something like this," Margaret mused, flipping through the schematics. "It would require reworking a lot of our infrastructure, though..."

"That's probably why it never went anywhere," Jam remarked. "Besides, would the Underground Sea be enough to power the entire town?"

"I guess we've got no choice but to..." 

There was a knock at the penthouse door, and before either Margaret or Jam could get up to answer it, the visitor had let himself in. He was unfamiliar to Jam, but Margaret's eyes widened: their guest was gaunt and willowy, with an ethereal beauty and long, golden hair that swept past his shoulders. He walked with a cane and wore a white suit, and upon his chest was a small, firefly-shaped, battery-powered brooch that gave off a warm glow.

"Excuse me," he said primly, bowing slightly. "Miss King?"

"Who are you?" Jam asked, slightly annoyed. "You always let yourself in like this?"

"It's fine," Margaret said quickly, standing up and brushing off her shirt and skirt. She reached forward to shake the man's hand. "It's, uh, a pleasure to see you--President Amar."

Jam looked from Margaret to President Amar and back again. "Amar? The head of Rubyred Networks?" he asked, blinking.

"The very same," said the mysterious man, smiling a thin, suspicious smile. "I believe I have something you'd be very, very interested in... perhaps a way to save our precious city."

Jam pulled his lips back in a grimace and glanced over at Margaret, giving her an Is this guy for real? kind of look. Margaret shushed him, and turned back to Mr. Amar. "Of course I'm interested!" she said, and reached over to clear off the nearby table of its various papers and coffee cups. "Please, have a seat!"

"Thank you." Mr. Amar sat down, sighing. "Forgive me. Is that an oil lamp there? Do you mind if I turn it up?"

"Not at all," Margaret said. She reached over to twist the knob on it, brightening the light. "Can you see all right?"

"Much better. My eyesight's not the best," Amar sighed. "Anyway..." He reached into his suit jacket and produced a thickly stuffed envelope. "Please, take a look." 

Margaret opened the envelope and pulled out the papers inside. She looked over them, her brow furrowing. "These are...schematics for wind turbines!"

"That's right. While your father was happily running the town into the ground, I contracted scientists to come up with a system that utilizes windpower. Constructed and placed carefully on the wall of the city, each turbine should be enough to power over a thousand households apiece," Amar stated proudly. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"It is," Jam said. "Why are you coming to us with it?"

"Why, because I need Miss King's help." Amar's eyes gleamed. "As you can imagine, this would require the use of already existing infrastructure if we want to get it up and running as quickly as possible..."

"You want access to the power grid?" Margaret asked.

"And funding," Amar pointed out. "Both of which you have in abundance, my dear."

Margaret considered this. "Um, could you give us a day or two?" she asked. "My, uh, associate here and I should talk this over."

"Ah. Of course." Amar's eyes gleamed in the light. "However, time is ticking, Miss King. We wouldn't want the city to be without power any longer than absolutely necessary, would we?"

Jam's eyes darted over to his friend. Margaret swallowed nervously, feeling the pressure slowly start to descend like a weight on her shoulders. Her father had spoken of this man before. "Of course, it's beneath me to disparage the man," Percy King had said diplomatically, "but beware of those like him, my dear." She was starting to realize why.

"We'll just be a minute," she said briskly, trying to hide her anxiety. She grabbed Jam's arm and led him to the adjoining room, closing the door almost all the way behind her.

"I don't trust him," Jam said. "This is way too convenient, right? I'd be surprised if he hasn't been sitting on these plans for years, just waiting for the perfect moment to swoop in and act like a hero."

"You're probably right," Margaret said, "but we don't have much of a choice, right? These turbines aren't that complex, so they can probably go up way sooner than we'd even get to approve funding for the water-powered infrastructure. And if we drag our feet on this and he goes public with it..."

"I know, but..." Jam pinched the bridge of his nose, furrowing his brow. "I don't like it. He's up to something."

"I know." Margaret rubbed at her face. "But I don't know what else to do..."

After a few more moments of hushed speech, Margaret and Jam came back into the parlor. Amar had been checking his watch, and tucked it back into his pocket as they approached.

"We'll do it," Margaret agreed, "but be honest. You want something else out of this, don't you?"

Amar smiled thinly and his eyes acquired that predatory gleam once again. "Why, how astute of you, Miss King. There is something I'd like. Two things, in fact. First, I'd like you to bend the mayor's ear a little bit to get Paulina Sweet released from prison."

Margaret stared. "You want me to what? After what she did to Bob and that poor Sam Gale guy?"

"Free her from prison. Yes." Amar's smile widened. "And as for the second thing...you'll simply owe me a favor, that's all. A favor I may call in down the line, sometime, somewhere." His smile turned into a toothy grin. "Is that adequate, Miss King?"

Margaret felt her hands clench under the table. True, she could probably get Paulina out of prison, loath though she was to do it. It would be a trivial task. But that "favor" didn't sound so good...

But, then again...

I owe it to the town, she thought. If it'll help save the city...if it'll make everything right...

"Okay," she said, nodding. "You've got a deal."

---

Things moved quickly after that--suspiciously quickly. The turbines were ready to go up almost as soon as the paperwork was signed, which cemented Margaret and Jam's suspicion that Rubyred had already had them constructed and had simply been waiting for the appropriate time to strike. Still, what was done was done, and Margaret was just glad to not have to keep the populace of Electricopolis waiting any longer than necessary.

Her concerns were pragmatic as well as righteous. Top Tier (and undoubtedly Rubyred) had been hemorrhaging money during the blackout and reconstruction, so the sooner they could get up and running, the better. Margaret had voluntarily taken an enormous pay cut, as well as a few of the other executives she had managed to convince, which helped them save face as well as money. Slowly, public opinion about Top Tier managed to swing from negative to neutral, and even began to cautiously approach positive.

But who really benefited from this was Rubyred. As Jam had predicted, Giuseppe Amar was hailed as a hero, and (Margaret felt her stomach turn) a worthy replacement for the absent Percy King. Margaret herself was regarded as a stopgap, an unprepared ingenue who was suddenly, brutally thrust into an unenviable position. Leave it to the real businessmen, people whispered, and Margaret felt frustration curling her hands into fists. Thank God we have a real leader now.

She tried not to pay attention to what people said. Maybe it was for the best, anyway. Amar did seem to know what he was doing. Maybe releasing Paulina Sweet from prison was a fair trade... it's not like Bob Sparker or Percy King were still in town for her to have a grudge against, after all.

The turbines went up. Power was restored to the populace. Slowly, Zap! Entertainment ramped up again, bringing back almost all of their pre-blackout programming, with Bob Sparker's Shock 'Til You Drop noticeably absent. The network never issued a statement, nor did the people in town care to inquire. The show was canceled, and his name was barely ever spoken again.

And quietly, gradually, rays of light began to pierce the cover of the clouds.

[electricopolis-net]

[electricopolis-net]

Happy New Year (of the Snake) 2025!! Did you know that it's my birth year? I was born in 1989, so I'm a snake too!

Sorry for not updating much--I've gone into hibernation in the last part of the year. However, look forward to the conclusion of Season 3 next year, and the beginning (and possibly middle) of Season 4! We've seen some big changes, and there will be a lot more for sure...

[electricopolis-net]

Life in Exile Pt. 3: Stormy Weather

The days turned into weeks, then months. Bob wasn't sure how long he would have to spend out in the relative wilderness of Junk Town, but some time after he arrived, the air began to warm and turn towards summer.

The passing year brought drastic changes the likes of which he'd never seen before. The seasons in Electricopolis were all very samey, with only the feel of the air and the changes of television and coffee shops indicating the passage of time. Out here, the earth grew softer, the air grew warmer, and the grass began to green while flowers sprung up from the earth.

The changing seasons also brought a familiar crackle in the air that made the hair on the back of Bob Sparker's neck stand on end. When he felt it, he raced back to his and Percy's ramshackle house on the beach almost as fast as the rumor that spread through the town: A storm is coming.

He'd been putting away bits of metal and discarded gadgets for just this occasion. He latched them together and wrapped them with wire, a collection of antennae from long-discarded radios and automobiles until he had a long, flexible rod that swayed and twanged in the air.

"What's that for?" Percy asked, but Bob only looked at him, grinned, and raced out into the plains that surrounded Junk Town. In the distance, thunder sounded.

Percy looked after him, and then his face paled. He closed the book he was reading, jumped to his feet and ran out after him.

It was exactly what he had thought. Bob Sparker had grabbed his homemade lightning rod and was waving it back and forth in the fields, cackling. "Come on!" he shouted, his lightning rod going thwipp in the air as he whipped it back and forth. "Is that the best you've got?"

Percy cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled towards him. "Bob!" he called out. "Stop this foolishness and come back inside!"

"I'll be in in a second!" Bob said, still waving the thin, flexible lightning rod in the air. It bounced off a nearby tree. The clouds began to darken. "Just give me a minute!"

Realistically, there wasn't much Percy could do. If he got close to Bob, there was a good chance the lightning could strike him too, and it would do far more damage to him than it would Bob. While he was contemplating this--

CRACK

--a bolt of lightning flashed in the air. There was a thundering BOOM with it, and Percy nearly flew backwards. Bob's laughter paused, his breath catching in his throat--and then he cackled louder than before. "Now that's more like it!" he hollered, jumping to his feet. "Again! Again!"

"You idiot," Percy grumbled. "Didn't you learn your lesson last time?" He cautiously drew closer to the laughing man and reached out a hand to grasp his shoulder. Then he pulled back, hissing in pain. "Ouch!"

"Sorry, boss," Bob laughed, and the familiar high-pitched mania was back in his voice once more. "I'm a real live wire! Didn't you know that? Hee hee hee!"

"You're a menace, is what you are," Percy growled. He took off his coat, turned it around, and used it as insulation while he grabbed the squirming Bob Sparker in both hands. "You're coming with me!"

---

Bob was a nightmare. Percy barely got him across the threshold of their house before he began thrashing and banging his heels against the floor. "Stop that!" Percy snapped. "You're going to bring the house down if you do that!"

"I don't care!" Bob howled. "I wouldn't have to live here if it weren't for you! I hate this place!" he wailed, sparks flying. "I hate everything here! I hope it burns!"

Percy gritted his teeth. "It will burn, if you're not careful," he admonished. "This place is nothing but wood and scrap metal, you idiot!" He reached out and grabbed a coil of rope from off of the floor. "Stay still!"

"No! You're not tying me up! Not like that no-good Dr. Flask!" Bob protested. He smacked Percy's hand away, then heaved him backwards until they were rolling around on the floor. He straddled Percy's hips and grabbed at the older man's shoulders, banging him backwards against the floor. "I won't let you, you hear me?"

Percy could barely think. Out of desperation, he pulled an arm back, cocked his fist and rammed it straight into the side of Bob's face. Bob yelped, falling back, and Percy scrambled to sit up.

Bob was dazed, but he was bristling all over, as if the electricity within him was causing his skin and clothes to shudder. He sat up, then lunged at Percy, who quickly wrestled him around and wrapped his arms around him from the back.

Bob's head was craned backwards, his body stiff and arched, his eyes wild. His teeth were gritted and his jaw was set so tight that Percy was afraid he would bite his own tongue. "Calm down," he insisted, wrapping his arms around Bob tightly. "Calm down!"

I need to get him to discharge, Percy thought. There's no good way to do that...there's nothing to ground him here. Except...

Percy placed his free hand on the ground, then tilted the other and shoved the side of it, the meaty side, into Bob's mouth. The uncontrollable man immediately latched on to it, bringing his teeth down so hard Percy had to fight not to let out a yelp. Immediately he felt the waves of electricity rip through his body, tensing his forearm up. He couldn't have pulled his hand away even if he wanted to. 

It felt relentless, but the entire ordeal likely only lasted for a couple seconds at most.  As Percy's vision blurred, he slowly slumped against Bob, groaning, a horrible buzzing still vibrating in his ears. His hand hurt--it was clearly bleeding, but it also burned, as if it had been held too close to a fire. His muscles slowly relaxed, aching, one by one. It was as if he was feeling all the pain in his body in bits and pieces, too much to process all at once.

Bob sat up against him, panting and heaving. Slowly his tightened jaw dislodged, letting Percy's hand fall, and Bob let out a hiss of pain as he rubbed at his chin. "Percy?" he croaked, his voice hoarse. "Mr. King?"

Percy said nothing. He only sighed, exhausted, his weight pressing down on Bob's back. The other man turned around, extricating himself from Percy's grip and grabbing his shoulders. "Mr. King?" he said again. "What happened?"

Percy would have laughed if he could have. Instead, he closed his eyes.

---

Percy woke up some time later. He expected to see the white walls of a hospital, but instead, to his immeasurable disappointment, what he saw was nothing but a ceiling of wood and tin. 

"Mr. King?" Bob Sparker leaned over him, craning forward. "Are...are you okay?"

Percy lifted his sore and aching hand. "I'm all right," he wheezed. He turned his hand back and forth, realizing it had been awkwardly bandaged with a cloth. "Did you do that?"

Bob nodded. "I know it isn't much. I'm--I'm sorry," he choked out. "I hurt you really bad, didn't I?"

"It's fine. I gave you quite the black eye, myself," he sighed. "I didn't have much of a choice."

"I didn't even notice." Bob gingerly touched the bruise around his eye. "Mr. King...Percy..."

"Yes?"

"Why'd you do that? I mean--let me shock you."

Percy thought. And after a moment, he responded: "It was the only way to make sure you'd be safe."

Bob collapsed on his chest. "You're just like her," he wailed. "Margaret did the same thing!"

Percy paused for a moment as Bob sniffled. Then, he raised a hand and put it on Bob's head, resting against his fine white hair. "Bob," he whispered. "I'm sorry."

"What? What do you mean?"

"I mean...about everything that's happened. The city. You. Me. Margaret..." He let out a long, slow sigh. "I really made a mess of things, didn't I? All because I was too afraid to do the hard thing. The right thing."

"I...I messed up too." Bob sat up, still trying to stifle his sobs. "I'm sorry. I kept saying I didn't want to hurt people anymore, but look what's happened again." His voice betrayed his frustration. "I never wanted to hurt you. Not like this."

A long silence fell between them.

"Bob," Percy said hesitantly. "I know it's not my place to ask this, but..."

"What is it?"

Percy placed his wounded hand on Bob's shoulder. "Let's not fight anymore."

Bob grasped it in his own hands, as gently as he could. "Okay," he whispered, nodding. "I'd like that."

...They didn't notice it, but far away, through the woods and over the dusty valley beyond, the clouds above Electricopolis had begun, quietly and gradually, to disappear.

[electricopolis-net]

when the fuckign. mania

[electricopolis-net]

Life in Exile Pt. 2: You & I

The question of what to do still loomed over the two exiles. Percy was determined to save the coin he had, and Bob had nothing more to trade, save his phone, which he figured he should keep, though it had long since run out of power. So that meant finding a job.

Unfortunately, Bob was terrible at manual labor. The farmer from before (a fellow by the name of Gon) invited Bob to help out in the fields, but his back started hurting almost immediately, and he was so unused to the strain that it was easier for Gon to do the work himself. Still, he did acquire a small turnip for his troubles, but it mostly just added insult to injury.

Working at one of the food stalls in town was only a little less disastrous. Bob did fine when things were slow, but tended to freeze up under pressure, and more than once his shaking hands had tipped over a glass or gotten burned on the grill. It went better than the farmwork, and maybe with more practice Bob would have overcome his nerves, but he wasn't exactly feeling inspired to persist in his work.

As a last-ditch effort, he decided to play to his talents that had originally landed him a job at Top Tier in the first place: entertainment. He danced (decently), sang (not very well), and told stories of the city in the valley. It attracted children, who relished the chance to learn anything they could about the cursed city, but the adults turned them away and guided them past the mysterious man with the long nose.

Dejected, he found himself on the beach, poking at the sand with a stick. "This is harder than I thought," he sighed. "Man, if there were a television camera on me, things would be different."

The stick bumped into something under the sand. Bob paused, then began to shovel away the sand with his hands curiously. He pulled out something rectangular, made of plastic and metal: a pocket radio. "Oh, huh, a radio," he remarked, banging it in his hands to get the sand out. "I wonder if it works?"

It did not. "Ah, well. Oh hey, there's batteries in it, though," Bob observed, taking a few double A batteries out of the rear of the machine. "Maybe they're still good?"

He wandered along the beach, bending down to look at the machines and other junk washing up on the shore. After about twenty minutes, he had assembled a collection of geegaws and gadgets: the pocket radio, a hand-crank-powered flashlight (lucky!), a cracked set of binoculars, a kitchen scale, and more.

He brought them into the house, sat down at the table and began to tinker with them, with Percy watching from nearby. The batteries were usable, if not fully charged, and he slotted them into the kitchen scale. By some miracle, it turned on, the LCD screen displaying 0.0 grams. He could have jumped for joy.

"This'll be great!" he exclaimed, turning the scale back and forth.

"Clean it up a little bit and I bet we could get something good for it," Percy offered, impressed.

The sound of the Cursebreaker's voice made him jump. "I see you've done exactly what I hoped you would," the man laughed raucously, appearing from behind Bob. "Sorry, boys, I let myself in."

"What do you mean by that?" Percy asked. "You hoped we'd repair these?"

"Of course I did. They're from your town, after all. You two are in the best position to reclaim these. Clean them, make them usable. Take responsibility for them," the Cursebreaker intoned, gesturing with his staff to each item. "I could have just told you all this at the start, but I wanted you to learn it on your own."

"By the way," the old man added, "there's one more thing we have to do before these are fit for trade." He pulled out a small plastic bag full of paper bits shaped like the amulets he had hanging around his neck. "They have to be purified, you see."

Bob and Percy watched. The Cursebreaker sat down at the table, examined each item in turn, and made the upwards-arrow sign he'd used before to welcome Bob and Percy into the town. Afterwards, he took the small pieces of paper, licked the back of them, and stuck them onto the items, one apiece. "There," he said. "Now they're good to go."

"This 'curse'…" Percy ventured carefully. "Do you really believe there's such a thing? It seems preposterous to us, being from the city itself. Do you really have to go to such lengths to even use our trash?"

"Eh." The old man shrugged. "The folk around here are always superstitious. They barely trust me more than they trust you," he laughed. "But they live by rules, and the rules they live by make them happy. So why not play along?"

---

Percy traded the goods in town the day after, and came back with a much better haul than before. The kitchen scale netted them some more food and a few heavy blankets for their beds. The hand-cranked flashlight was especially lucrative: not only did he manage to trade it for a slightly worn woolen coat and shirt for himself, but he also managed to snag some clothes for Bob as well. The clothes off their backs had gotten dusty, dirty and--frankly--didn't smell so good, so it was time to learn how to do their own laundry for once.

The small shack was equipped with a water pump, and it wasn't too hard to barter for soap. A barrel that washed up on the beach made a passable washtub. It was a far cry from the luxuries of Top Tier HQ, but Bob tried his best not to complain. Percy, for some reason, didn't complain at all.

Actually, Bob found it interesting. Percy was in the best position to rant, rave and moan about his fall from grace, but he took everything in stride. Maybe he considered it what he deserved, or maybe he simply didn't want to appear petulant in front of his ex-employee. Whether it was washing clothes, bartering in town, or even learning how to cook food from a can, Percy just shut up and did the damn thing. It was honestly kind of impressive, though Bob would never admit it.

Gradually, and with the two of them working together, things settled into a sort of routine. Bob would wake up early in the morning, comb the beach for refuse before anyone else could take the good stuff, and return home to clean and repair them. Percy would take the items and barter them in town, then return with sundries that they used to improve their quality of life: food, wood for the stove, pots and pans to cook in, a sewing kit, even things like magazines and books.

"Magazines? Really?" Bob asked, flipping through them. "These are old style magazines and TV guides. Not exactly worthwhile reading material."

"It's not enough to simply survive," Percy explained. "You have to give your brain some kind of stimulation that isn't work. Enrichment for your enclosure, so to speak."

"Enrichment for my enclosure," Bob groaned. "You really have a way with words."

Percy shrugged. "It's just like running a business. You have to keep your workers happy if you want to earn their trust, and earning their trust is the only way they'll feel compelled to contribute to the best of their ability. It's the difference between 90% efficiency and 95%."

"Is that so," Bob yawned, reclining in bed. "Well, I'm not your worker anymore."

"That's right," Percy said. "You're more like a housewife now, don't you think?"

"That's not funny!" Bob yelped, turning bright red. "I am not your housewife!"

---

The first week or two of exile had been filled with novelty, but it was starting to wear off by now, and the boredom was driving Bob insane. He tossed and turned in his bed, tinkered on his gadgets throughout the night, and went for walks along the shore in the early morning, but nothing seemed to make his restlessness abate.

It wasn't long before he blew up at Percy again. "I can't stand this!" he shouted, throwing a broken something-or-other onto the table. "I can't do this anymore! I want to go back to town!"

"Stop complaining," Percy said, refusing to raise his voice. "You know very well we can't do that."

"We could do that if you hadn't run the damn place into the ground!" Bob yelled. "If you hadn't let the power run out--if you'd done something--"

"Done something? Done what?" Percy retorted. "Shift the entire city to an alternative source of energy all at once? It would have taken decades to do that. If I'd been president twenty years earlier, it still wouldn't have been enough time," he insisted. "The infrastructure wasn't built for anything else!"

Percy sat down at the table, rubbing at his temples. He was sweating. It was the first time Bob had seen him lose his cool since they'd taken up residence in the town. "You don't understand," he groaned. "You don't know what it's like to inherit a dying city."

Bob blinked, processing this. "Is that true?" he asked. "Electricopolis was already on the way out?"

Percy nodded.

"Why didn't you say anything? Why didn't you do anything?"

"What could I have done?" the other man moaned. "Tell the entire town to pack up and leave? There was nothing for miles around--just dust and mountains. I couldn't simply turn them out to the wilderness." He buried his face in his hands. "I just…wanted everything to go smoothly. I wanted everyone to be happy…up to the very end."

Bob looked at him, then turned away. "That's not how it went, though."

"I know." Percy rubbed at his nose and eyes. "I must apologize for that. I…took your resignation far too personally."

"That's putting it lightly."

"Can you blame me?" Percy sighed. "We had such a good thing going, you know. Look at this," he said, motioning to the items they'd stockpiled. "Even hundreds of miles away from town, with nothing but the clothes on our backs, we've scraped together something for ourselves. You can't deny that we make a good team."

Bob sighed. "That's the problem," he mumbled. "We do make a good team."

[electricopolis-net]

COMMISSION FOR @noelledeltarune OF ONE.. bob sparker

[electricopolis-net]

Don't try this at home, though, folks--I'm a professional!

[electricopolis-net]

GET A LOAD OF THIS GUY CAM

[electricopolis-net]

Hello! Money is tight at my household right now, so I've set up an artistree account. Please feel free to COMMISSION ME for drawing or writing! Thank you very much and please feel free to reblog!

[electricopolis-net]

local noob attempts to recreate the p3r art style using only default medibang brushes and fonts, more at 11

[electricopolis-net]

S03E06: Life in Exile

Pt. 1: The Town of Refuse

The day after their arrival in Junk Town, the old man known as the Cursebreaker led both Bob Sparker and Percy King to the shoreline. On a hill near the beach was a small, dusty house, though again, like the houses in town, it was made of a combination of wood planks, concrete, sheet metal, and other debris. "This house has been abandoned for quite some time," the Cursebreaker declared. "I'm sure nobody will kick up a fuss if you move in."

Then, he led them to the beach itself. "Junk Town subsists on the waste that floats up here," he explained, motioning with his staff to some of the flotsam washing up on the shore. "Take a look."

Bob crouched down and wedged a tin sign board out of the sand. "Hey, this looks familiar," he said, turning it back and forth. "The Pine Room--wasn't that a bar in Electricopolis? I used to go there before it shut down."

"That's right," said the Cursebreaker, nodding. "And that's not all. Old television tubes, monitors, magazines, plastic bags and old clothes, all kinds of stuff turn up here. And it's all from your fair city in the valley."

Percy stroked his chin, thinking. "Fascinating. I knew some of the companies in town used the underground sea as a dumping ground, but I never realized the currents bore the refuse all the way out here..."

"There's a lot of things you folks don't realize," said the Cursebreaker, turning away from the water. "But there's time for that."

There was a moment of silence. Bob stood up and looked out over the water, shielding his eyes from the sun. It was a cloudy day, but still bright enough to sting his eyes, unfamiliar with the sunlight as they were.

"So...what should we do?" Bob asked. "Just kill time until we go back to town?"

"Oh, you're not going back," said the Cursebreaker matter-of-factly. Bob and Percy turned to stare at him. "Not until the clouds clear."

Not until the clouds clear.

What did he mean by that? Bob tossed and turned, thinking about it. Thankfully, the abandoned house by the shore did have a couple of beds in it, lumpen and worn though they were. It was, as the Cursebreaker had said, better than nothing, but only just.

"I mean, the city's power is shot," Percy explained. "So it probably will be quite some time before that subway's running again. But I don't understand what he meant about the clouds."

"The clouds have always been there, right?" Bob asked.

"As far as I know."

"As far as you know." Bob shot him a pointed look. "You sure you're not hiding anything?"

Percy rolled his eyes. "Come on now. We're stuck together, so we may as well trust each other, don't you think?"

"I have a better idea." Bob sat up, restless. "I'm going to get something to eat."

He walked into Junk Town along the road from the beach. Given his gawky, long-nosed appearance, and the fact that he was still wearing a dressy vest, pants, and shoes, the people of the town avoided him and whispered as he walked by. He tried his best to ignore it, and walked up to a food stall.

"Excuse me," he said politely. The smell of grilling fish and hot rice made his mouth water. "Um...do you take cash here?"

"Cash?" said the proprietor. "What do you mean by that?"

"Cash," repeated Bob. He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and drew out a couple bills. "Or--I don't imagine you take cards."

The proprietor regarded him with a wary look. "That stuff's no good here," he said. "We don't take that kind of money."

"What do you take?"

"Junk Town tender. Coins, mostly. Barter sometimes, if you got something good to trade." He looked Bob Sparker up and down. "You got anything to trade?"

"Trade?" Bob blinked. He looked down at himself, patting himself down quizzically. "I don't think so."

The man shook his head. "Sorry. No can do. You come back with something good, I'll give you a bowl."

It was the same story everywhere he went--none of the businesses in town took any kind of tender aside from coins, medals, rings, mostly small metal objects that Bob had absolutely none of on hand. Occasionally he would see a customer trade for something larger, like canned food for fresh, or a parcel of cloth for a finished dress. Then he saw a familiar face with a large head of lettuce in his hands, haggling with a nearby shopkeep.

"Hey, it's you," said the farmer, turning away from the shopkeep. "Found yourself a place in town, did you?"

"For what that's worth," Bob complained. "I'm starving, I've got no money, and I can't get anyone to give me the time of day."

The farmer looked at him, then down at the lettuce. "Hmm. I wouldn't mind giving this to you, but I'd need something in return. You sure you don't have anything on you?"

Bob thought. He turned his pockets inside-out. "I've got...my house keys, my phone, my wallet..."

"Lemme see those." The farmer grabbed his house keys and turned them around, admiring them. "Yeah, these'll melt down okay."

Bob grimaced. Well, it's not like I was going home anytime soon, he thought.

The farmer handed him the lettuce. It was surprisingly heavy, and Bob struggled to hold it. "Well! Looks like you're getting the hang of things here in town," said the man, grinning. "Pleasure doing business with you."

Bob arrived back at the house with the lettuce. "Well, look at you," Percy chuckled. "Grew it yourself, did you?"

"I'll have you know I traded for it," said Bob proudly, setting it down on the table. "They don't take cash or cards here, so you gotta trade for everything. They do take coins, though...and keys."

"Interesting." Percy swung his legs off the bed. "We're not going to get much of a meal out of just a head of lettuce, though. You said they take coins?"

"Yeah. You have any?"

"I do." Percy took out a change purse from his pocket and upended it onto the table. A clattering of coins fell out--only about ten or twenty of them, but enough to make a nice little pile. "It's not much by Electricopolis standards, but it might get us a meal out here." He stroked his chin, thinking. "Maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"I have an idea." He scooped the coins back into the purse, set it on the table, and grabbed the lettuce in both hands. "I'll be back soon."

"Hey! That's my lettuce!" Bob yelped, blocking the door. "What are you going to do with it?"

"Are you really that territorial over a vegetable?"

"Mr. King--Percy," Bob replied, exasperated. "I can't believe I have to explain this. You turned everyone in town against me and exiled me just because I didn't want to be under your thumb anymore. If we're gonna stick together--and unfortunately, it sure looks like we are--then you gotta tell me what you're thinking. Preferably it won't involve stealing my stuff."

Percy sighed, maddeningly condescendingly. "It's simple. We keep the coins for a rainy day, and we trade the lettuce up for something more substantial. If we play our cards right, we can get a full meal without dipping into the money at all."

Bob blinked. He considered this. "That's...that makes sense, actually."

"I should hope it does. I am a businessman, after all," Percy said proudly. He paused, thought, then added: "And if it doesn't work out, you can spend the money however you like."

"All right," Bob capitulated, unblocking the door. "Good luck, I guess."

Percy walked back in about half an hour later with some heavy plastic bags in his arms. "Whoa," Bob marveled, watching as he began to empty them onto the table. "What's all that?"

"First, our dinner." Percy set some plastic takeout containers of fish and rice onto the table, followed by some canned vegetables and tinned fish. "Food for later, though it isn't very much, and some utensils. I also found our friend the woodsman, who offered us some wood for the stove. We'll need it."

"Man." Bob sighed heavily. "We're really roughing it, huh?"

Percy nodded. "It's not the accommodations we deserve, but it is what we have. We may as well get used to them."

The accommodations you deserve are behind bars, Bob thought snidely, but held his tongue.

"Also..."

Percy cracked open one of the takeout containers. "I had the cook at the food stall cut up part of that lettuce when I traded it. Since it's the first thing we owned out here, I thought it would be nice to try it after all."

Bob opened his container and looked at his meal. The rice was nestled up to one side of the container, with the fish on another and the cooked, sauced lettuce in the other third. "Huh. It looks good."

Percy handed him a plastic fork, then took the other for himself. They began to eat.

It was delicious. It was absolutely delicious. It was almost more delicious than anything Bob had had in the city, and he'd sampled quite a few dishes, usually on Percy's dime. The fish was tastier than anything you could find from the fisheries in town, and the lettuce was fresh and crispy, not like the sorry, soggy mess that usually came on a burger.

"This...this is exceptional," Percy muttered. "This is quite a meal."

"It's good," Bob choked with emotion. "It...it's really good."

To be continued...

[electricopolis-net]

S03E05: Out of Electricopolis

Bob sat down on the subway seats opposite Percy, looking out the window. There was blackness outside the train, lit up every so often by dim and flickering bulbs. Occasionally he would see a door, but even those began to disappear after a while. The tunnel they were in seemed to stretch for hours.

"How far away is this exit?" Bob murmured.

"Several hundred miles," Percy replied. "It’ll take a while. Maybe you should get some sleep."

"Maybe you should mind your own business."

"There’s no sense being a brat about it." Percy leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. 

Bob waited, expecting him to say something else, and after a moment, he grudgingly laid down on the subway seats and admitted to himself that the other man was right. He was tired, extremely so, and it wasn’t long before the heaviness of sleep settled on his body. 

"Mm…" 

Bob’s brow furrowed in his sleep as he fidgeted back and forth. He blinked his eyes open, slowly, holding up a hand over his face. Something felt warm on his face, like an incandescent lightbulb held too close.

He moved his hand away and squeezed his eyes tight. Whatever it was, it was a lot brighter than any lightbulb he’d ever seen…

He shook his head and sat up. Percy was still asleep on the other side of the train. The electric lights in the subway were off, but shafts of dappled light shone in through the windows from outside. The doors were open. Distantly, he could hear the sound of…something. Insects, maybe? Birds? 

Bob stood up and peered cautiously out the door. The train had pulled up to a platform, but it wasn’t in the middle of a city or a tunnel. It didn’t even seem to be in the dust bowl of the valley. It was in a clearing in the middle of a forest, with densely clustered trees. But the trees weren’t anything like the stunted, carefully manicured types that were installed in the top tier. These were large and verdant enough to block out most of the sky…and there were hundreds of them, as far as he could see.

He held out a hand to touch a shaft of light, turning his hand back and forth, seeing how it played over his pale skin. "Is that…" he whispered, his mouth dry. "Is that the sun?"

He’d heard tales of it, of course, and in the back of his mind he must have realized that the sun still existed, somewhere; but it just never seemed to matter in the city of Electricopolis, stuck beneath inky-black clouds, his brain concerned only with the limelight of the stage. For a moment, he felt ashamed–and then, excited. What else had he been missing?

Bob sat upright, swung his legs off the subway bench, and then paused. Across from him, Percy King twitched and snored gently. Should he wake him up? The temptation to leave him here was strong, but…there was a good chance Percy knew more about this area than he did.

Bob walked over, bent down next to his boss, and tapped him on the shoulder. "Mr. King," he said, and then added, hesitantly: "Percy."

Percy snorted a little, blinked, and looked over his shoulder at Bob. "Oh…we’ve reached the end, then?"

"Yeah."

"Well." Percy sat up, stretched, and yawned. "I suppose we’d better start walking."

"Walking? Where to?"

"Good question," Percy sighed. "I hadn’t the time to send out surveyors in this area. Let’s hope there’s a settlement or something beyond this forest."

With no other alternative, they began to walk, leaving the subway station in the middle of the clearing.

"So tell me something," Bob said, lifting his shoes up gingerly over a patch of mud and tree roots. "What was your big plan, anyway, staging that blackout?"

"Oh, it wasn’t staged," Percy groaned, pushing a branch out of the way and passing underneath it. "The town’s energy reserves are totally shot, and your silly little festival was the final straw. I simply bent the truth a little to make it seem like I didn’t know beforehand. Petty, I admit, but…"

"That’s not the word I’d use," Bob grunted. "But how were you going to fix the energy crisis?"

"I wasn’t. That’s what the subway was for." Percy stopped to catch his breath, then continued following Bob through the woods. "The town couldn’t have sustained itself for more than a few decades, even if we’d cut power down to its most minimal usage. I began the subway project to devise an escape route from the city to someplace beyond. The forest station was as far as I got, however. It was barely completed before the blackout."

"You’re not telling me you made that whole thing yourself. You must have had workers," Bob pointed out. "So there are still people who know about the subway, right?"

"Of course there are. But it seems to only have had the power to make that one trip…I don’t see how it’ll be of much use to the general populace if it can’t run anymore." Percy shook his head. 

Bob glared at him. "Fantastic," he sighed. "Just fantastic." He glanced back over his shoulder, towards the subway station clearing, but couldn’t see it through the thickness of the trees. "Well, so much for best-laid plans. Now I’m stuck in the woods with a guy who tried to throw me to the wolves."

"Better the wolves in town than the wolves without," Percy remarked. He walked past Bob, ducking underneath another branch. "In Electricopolis, they’re just a metaphor, after all. Who knows what’s out here?"

Bob looked after him, blinking.

Hour after hour stretched before them. More than once they had to stop to rest, and their stomachs growled with hunger. Eventually, however, they saw a yellow light through the trees, and they made their way towards it to reveal the edge of the forest.

"Whoa…we made it." Bob squinted into the late afternoon sun as he looked around. The forest opened up onto a large meadow. Not too far away was a cabin with a pile of chopped wood against one side and a tendril of smoke curling from the chimney. "Check it out. Someone lives all the way out here."

"Well, I suppose we’d better make ourselves known, don’t you think?" Percy said, walking towards the cabin. "Maybe we’ll at least get something to eat."

"Is that a good idea?" Bob asked, nervously. "I mean, we don’t know who’s out here…a creepy cabin near the woods…what if it’s like one of those horror movies?"

"Really, we just came from the woods," Percy said, raising a hand to knock at the door. "I think they’d be more scared of us than we are of–"

The door swung open, revealing two large, dark shotgun barrels pointed directly at Percy’s face. It took a moment for him to register what it was, and then he slowly, fearfully, raised his hands, open-palmed. 

"Came from the woods, huh?" drawled a voice. Bob and Percy’s gazes followed the length of the shotgun to the figure behind it–a tall and dark-haired man, his skin leathery and hands calloused from a lifetime of hard work under the sun. "Gimme a good reason why I oughtn’t just blow your heads off right here."

"U-uh, um," Percy stammered. "Well."

Bob quickly stepped in front of him, holding his hands up. "Wait, wait," he protested. "You wouldn’t kill two guys for no reason, would you? Imagine the cleanup! The bodies!"

The woodsman thought about this, cocked his head, and lowered his gun. "You make a compelling point," he remarked. "You boys look a mess, but you’re no threat. Too bad for you," he chuckled. "C’mon in. Sit a spell."

Percy gave the man a wary, sidelong glance, then edged his way into the cabin. It was one neatly-kept room, with a fireplace at one end, a stove, a bed, table, and chest of drawers, among other things. Slowly he sat down at the table. His body was tense, but the warmth of the fire made him gradually start to relax. Bob followed, sitting across from him.

"That’s better. Now, who are you folks?" asked the woodsman. "And where the hell did you come from?"

"It’s a bit of a long story," Percy said. "We’re from the city of Electricopolis. Do you know it? The city in the valley?"

"Oh, the cursed city, like those folks in town call it?" replied the woodsman. "Never put much stock in it, myself. I think they’re all a mite superstitious."

"Cursed?" Bob asked. "Why would they say that?"

"Hell, just look at the thing! Juttin’ out above the mountains, all those thick black clouds roilin’ above. Nobody ever goes in, nobody ever comes out." The woodsman set the shotgun up against the wall and busied himself with ladling some soup into a couple of bowls. "They say it’s got a hex on it. I say it’s none of my damn business. You say you’re from there?"

Bob and Percy exchanged glances, trying to figure out exactly how much they should reveal. "Yes," Percy said slowly. "Until things went south. The town ran out of power, you see, and we were…forced to leave."

"Bad luck." The man set the bowls of soup down in front of his guests, and handed them each a carved wooden spoon. "Well, let’s hope there aren’t any more of you folks comin’ in. I don't have enough soup for all of you."

"Just this much is enough. Thanks." Bob accepted the meal gratefully. "Say, you mentioned a town earlier..."

The woodsman jerked his head, indicating a direction away from the cabin. "Junk Town. That's what they call it. It's not far--a mile or two down the road, maybe. The people aren't bad, they're just..." He thought for a moment. "Like I said, superstitious. They might not take too kindly to a couple folks from the cursed city."

"Is there...anywhere else you'd recommend?" Percy asked, extremely politely. "A place called 'Junk Town' is a bit, well..."

"Hah! Awfully picky, aren't ya?" laughed the woodsman, jabbing in Percy's direction with his spoon. "Nope, you're out of luck. Junk Town's up against the coast, and there's nothing else but woods and mountains around it. Too bad," he said. "How'd you get across the mountains, anyway?"

"We went underneath," Percy explained. "On the subway. Well--an underground train."

"An underground train. Too bad you didn't build it in the opposite direction!"

Bob shot Percy a sharp glare. The other man looked away.

---

In the end, the woodsman was able to provide soup and directions, but not a place to stay the night. With the sun beginning to dip low in the sky, Bob and Percy, reluctant companions though they were, headed off together for the town down the road.

The first thing they noticed was the dust. The woods had been dark and dappled with sunlight, and the meadow open and pleasant, but the road they were traveling on now was dusty, and the dust gave everything a somewhat muted quality--not unlike the dust of the valley they'd just left. Still, the environs weren't nearly as barren as the valley had been: for one thing, the plains were lined with neatly-kept crops, which Bob insisted on stopping and looking at. 

"This is incredible!" he gushed, crouching down to take a look at a head of lettuce. "Look, it's vegetables! There's so many!"

"They don't grow them with hydroponics out here," Percy mused, looking back and forth. "I guess because they have so much land to spare."

Bob reached out a hand towards the head of lettuce, only to be interrupted by a sharp yell. "Hey!" said a voice. "Get your hands off that!"

Bob scrambled backwards and up to his feet. The farmer came over, walking between the rows of vegetables. He looked to be in his late thirties, maybe early forties perhaps, and sported a five o'clock shadow, a receding hairline, and a round, red nose. He was muscular in a sinewy kind of way, and looked as if he'd spent all his life in the fields. His clothes, a long-sleeved shirt and jeans, were plain and patched from long-term wear.

"Sorry," Bob said, holding his hands up in apology. Thankfully, this man only had a hoe in his hands and not another shotgun. "I didn't know they belonged to anyone."

"You didn't know?" asked the farmer, raising an eyebrow suspiciously. He looked the two men up and down. "...Where did you two come from, dressed like that?"

Bob and Percy exchanged another should we tell him?-type glance. "We've come from the city in the valley," Percy ventured carefully. "But we don't mean any harm, and it's just the two of us--"

"The cursed city?" the farmer said, recoiling. He looked around for a moment, then, seeing nobody else around, leaned in. "So people really do live there?"

Bob nodded. "Plenty of 'em. We left because...well, it's a long story..."

"Never mind that." The farmer waved a hand. "I shouldn't even be talking to you right now, but I'll give you a piece of advice. Go down the road into town proper." He pointed down the road that snaked into town. "Go see the folk down there. They'll figure out what to do with you."

"I'm starting to think that'll involve burning us at the stake," Percy groused.

The farmer considered this, then tilted his head. "No, they wouldn't burn you," he declared. "They might breathe in the smoke and get cursed themselves. Anyway, get outta here," he said, halfheartedly jabbing his hoe in the men's direction. "Get!"

---

The second thing they noticed, walking into town, was that the buildings were a ramshackle construction of debris. Planks of wood were nailed to old signs, corrugated sheet metal and tin roofing, and a thousand other things besides. Piping extended from some of the houses, puffing wood smoke into the air as a makeshift chimney. The buildings were clustered together in rows down each street. However, the two visitors barely had time to marvel at the construction before the villagers began to notice them, whispering among each other and casting fearful, yet fascinated, glances at the two. 

"Excuse me," Bob said, raising his voice a little. "We're new in town, and, uh--"

"We're looking for a place to spend the night," Percy finished. "Anything will do."

The crowd turned away as the people talked amongst themselves for a moment. Then it parted, revealing a single old man who walked, with swaggering back-and-forth motions, up to the two newcomers. 

The old man had a great bushy beard and unkempt hair, and walked with a staff that reached high above his head. The end of the staff was curved in an O shape, and rings of what looked like tin or aluminum jangled from it. He wore an old, faded robe with zigzag markings on the trim, and around his neck hung several odd pieces of board that appeared to be talismans or amulets.

"That's enough, that's enough," the old man said, motioning for the villagers to quiet down with a wave of his hand. He turned to Bob and Percy. "Now, who are you two, exactly?"

"We're travelers," Bob sighed, already weary of explaining. "We're from the city in the valley--but we're not cursed, and it's just the two of us, and--"

The crowd gasped. The old man motioned, again, for them to be calm. "All right, all right, settle down, you lot." He turned back to the two men, extended two fingers, and made the motion of a zigzag arrow to Percy, and then to Bob. "There. You may enter our town now."

"Breaking a curse is that easy, huh?" Bob joked.

The old man laughed. "Well, that remains to be seen. But I'll not have anyone turned away from Junk Town if I can help it. Come," he said, jerking his head towards a direction down the road. "Follow me."

They walked, and walked, and walked some more, until they reached a tent on the outskirts of the town. "I figured you were the mayor or something," Bob remarked, stepping inside. "You don't live in the middle of town?"

"Oh, no," laughed the old man, sitting across from Bob and Percy at a low, round table. "You overestimate my importance. They call me the Cursebreaker," he explained. "Kind of pompous, but I can't argue with it. That is my job, and I do it well."

"A cursebreaker?" Percy said. "Then I suppose you're just the man we need to see. Is there any way we can convince these people to let us stay the night?"

"Oh, well, don't worry about them." The Cursebreaker waved a hand. "You can stay here for the night. They won't kick up a fuss if it's my place." He looked Bob and Percy up and down slyly. "Judging by your finery, I think it won't be up to your usual standards, but..."

"Anything is fine," Bob said tiredly. "Just as long as we can get a break from all this walking. I've never walked so much in my life."

"Then take your time," said the Cursebreaker. He reached down beneath the table and pulled out three drinking glasses and a bottle of what looked like clear alcohol. "You boys want a drink?"

The two men nodded vigorously. The Cursebreaker poured the clear alcohol and offered two of the glasses to them. "What are your names, anyway? Don't think we've been introduced."

"Bob Sparker," said Bob. "Well, it's not my real name, but it's my stage name. I used to be a game show host, so..."

"And I myself am Percy King, ex-president of the Top Tier Electric Company," Percy said.

The Cursebreaker laughed, then held up his own glass. "Well, well! Welcome to Junk Town," he declared. "Bob Sparker and Percy King, may you find rest and recuperation from your long journey."

"Thank you," Bob said politely. Percy simply nodded. The two downed their drinks, then recoiled. "Whoa," Bob said, coughing. "That--that's strong stuff."

"Just the way I like it!" The Cursebreaker barked out a laugh. "Now that you've been properly welcomed, you can rest here for the night. Tomorrow I'll take you to your new dwelling."

"New dwelling?" Bob asked. "What'll that be?"

"Oh, nothing fancy," said the Cursebreaker. "Just an abandoned house near the shore, but it's better than nothing. I'll explain how things work around here, too. But for now, you rest," he said firmly. "Tomorrow's another day."

The tent was barely big enough for two people, let alone three, but Bob scrunched himself up as best he could while Percy laid along one side of the tent and the Cursebreaker snored a foot or so away.

Now that Bob had some time to think, the combined emotions of the past few days were hitting him hard. The exhilaration of his great creative project, the Electric Festival, barely completed before he was blamed for the blackout and run out of town...the despair of being separated from his friends...his anger at the man he now had as a traveling companion...

It was almost too much. Bob buried his head in his hands, trying to stifle a sob, but it wasn't long before he simply fell deep, deep asleep.

The End

[electricopolis-net]

Update will be a lil late this week. I'm moving it to next Monday, Feb 26th, as this week has been hectic!

[electricopolis-net]

happy valentine's day :^]