Corax lands on my shoulder as soon as I step away from the car.

  “Did you have a good time?” I ask him.

  Instead of responding, he just stares back, asking me the same question.

  “Yeah, I did. I think we’re actually friends now. It’s crazy to think how she was when we first met, I can barely believe she’s the same person.”

  Corax only stares at me, giving me a look that I can’t quite decipher.

  “Alright, how do we get power?” I ask him. “Their water purifier was electric, which means they had a power source somewhere.” I don’t want to say it, but I didn’t see a single thing still powered in the entire time I was putting out the fires. The power generator is almost certainly broken, but maybe we can fix it.

  If worse comes to worst, there isn’t all that much difference between a generator and a servo, turning the servo manually will output current. Cranking it myself would be worse than just charging the battery from my internal generator, but if we can find some way to automatically turn it, like with wind, that’s free power.

  Could I make a steam turbine? Get a small fire going to boil water to turn a fan and create electricity? It’d be tough and inefficient, but it might be possible. That can be plan B.

  We reach the remnants of the water purifier. The melted remains of a thick wire run along the ground towards the wall. We follow the melted plastic and fragmented copper, only to find a melted pile of crap where the wall starts. A few pieces of rubber are still sticking to the wall, creeping its way up towards the roof and disappearing into the remaining smoke.

  “Can you-”

  Corax doesn’t even let me finish before he takes off into the sky. He returns only a few seconds later, flying out of the darkness and landing on my shoulder.

  “Roof.” He says.

  “Alright, I’m guessing a windmill or solar farm on top of the mountain?” That would make the most sense. “Maybe it’s still working then?”

  They had to have battery backups down here to keep the power flowing when a storm hits, but I doubt that survived. The raiders were far too thorough.

  If the wire running between us and the generator is the only thing that’s broken, I could just drive the car up there and recharge it, and run back down here when the storm hits.

  I don’t want to wake Cassie up for something that might not work. Instead, we start walking to the entrance tunnel.

  The smoke has almost completely cleared out, and I can see a few marks of paint left on the walls. Oops, it’s fine.

  I step into the open air, only to see a wall of sand dominating the horizon. Flashes of lightning streak through it, and the sand at my feet is beginning to move.

  “Is that real?” I ask Corax, hoping against hope it’s not.

  Corax nods. Of course it’s real.

  “I guess we’re making a steam generator then.”

  The two of us head back down into the dark, leaving the world to be ravaged yet again.

  What do I need to make a steam generator? A pot to boil water in, a tube to trap the steam, a turbine in the tube to spin, a permanent magnet, and some copper coil. I actually should be able to scavenge most of those parts from the water purifier, assuming it’s not too melted on the inside.

  I move slowly through the rubble of the town, collecting tools wherever I find them. I need more than my screwdriver to take it fully apart.

  Once I have a small collection of tools, I get to work. Stripping the outer layer reveals that things are worse than I hoped. Someone dumped flammable liquid in here, which has liquefied anything not metal, and even a few of the softer metals sit in a solid puddle on the floor.

  That’s not great. I can still work with it though. I remove one of the many tubes, cut apart a flat part of the machine to make fins, find a rod in town for an axle, and fit everything nicely inside the large tube. That’s a turbine, simple.

  I cut up yet more metal and bolt it together to make an adapter between a pot I found in town and the turbine. It’s not quite airtight, but will work well enough to make sure most of the steam goes through the turbine. I even use a screw as a plug for a fill hole to add in more water as necessary.

  All that’s left now is to figure out how to generate electricity and start charging the car. I couldn’t salvage anything that will work from the generator. The car has a way to turn the spinning wheels to electricity when the brakes are applied, but there’s no way my turbine would be strong enough to turn that.

  I still have my broken knee servo in my backpack. The gearbox was broken, sure, but the magnets and copper coil are perfectly fine. It’d be more efficient if I had something a little bigger, but it’ll work. I get to work quickly stripping the servo down to its base parts.

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  Once I’m left with just the motor’s internals, I attach the axle directly to the turbine, and add another piece of metal to try to keep most of the steam away from the servo. That’s a fully working steam turbine!

  All that’s left is to drag a barrel to the car, fill it full of whatever flammable materials I can find, put the whole contraption on top of it, and light it.

  It takes a few minutes for the water to start boiling, but the moment it does, the turbine begins to spin. Electricity begins to slowly drip into the car. I’m not sure exactly how much it is, but I’m sure it’s more than I could provide. Hopefully it’ll be enough, but even if it isn’t, the steam generator is fairly portable. We can just strap it to the car, bring a few barrels of water, and make electricity whenever we need it.

  Plus, more importantly, the fire means that I can finally give Cassie that hot meal I promised her.

  I read to Corax for a few hours through the night before getting to work.

  None of us have been able to find a single food store that was more than charred ash in this town, so I’m forced to dig into our food supplies. What am I going to make for her? Soup? Would she like that? I think I saw some unbroken bowls in one of the houses.

  I start off by condensing some of the steam back into water. There’s no need to dig into our own stores, and it only takes a single sheet of metal to do so. Once the bowl is full, I replace it with a container for water. Might as well make sure we have enough for the rest of the drive.

  Next comes the soup base, at least I’m pretty sure. That’s what Lucas taught me anyway. Most of the food Cassie got is that same leafy plant, so I really hope dried and ground up kudzu will work. How much do I use though? I guess the more, the better? I’d really hate for her to not like it.

  She needs more than that for breakfast, I’m almost certain soup is supposed to have more than just a base. Unless she wants more kudzu in her kudzu soup, my only option is one of those bars she hates. Maybe they’ll be better hot and rehydrated.

  I crumble up the bar, drop it into the soup, leave it to boil for a few minutes, and carefully pull it out. I drop a spoon in it, and I guess I’m done? Steam is still coming off the surface, but I hope it’s not too hot. Even if it is, it’s better being too hot than too cold.

  I knock gently on Cassie’s window, I’d hate to make her panic by just opening the door suddenly.

  Sure enough, just my gentle tap is enough to startle her back to consciousness. Her hand rests on her pistol as always until she realizes where she is.

  “Room service.” I say through the window, holding up the hot bowl of soup.

  A small smile finds its way onto her face, and she opens the door for me.

  “Sorry it took a little bit for me to fulfill my promise. I hope it’s good.”

  “You’re fine, I appreciate it.”

  I set the soup gently in her lap. Luckily I don’t have to worry about burning her.

  She takes a spoonful, blows on it for a few seconds, and takes a bite. A surprised look dominates her face, and she drops the spoon back into the bowl and laughs.

  “Is something wrong?” I should have let her do it.

  “No, it’s just…” It takes a few seconds for her to decide on her words. “Very strong.”

  “I’m sorry! I can water it down!”

  “No no, it’s fine.” She waves her spoon vaguely at me. “I just wasn’t expecting it to taste like a raw leaf.”

  “I’m sorry.” I can’t help but apologize again.

  Cassie glares at me, she doesn’t even need to say anything anymore.

  “I’ll put less leaves in next time.”

  “Sounds good.” She returns to her soup, but is unable to completely hide her cringing when she takes a second bite. “I really appreciate you making breakfast.” She lies through her teeth.

  “Please don’t lie to me.”

  “Alright, fair. I’m sure we’ll laugh about this in a few days.”

  “I hope so.”

  “Funny now.” Corax says from my shoulder.

  Cassie almost chokes on her soup while trying to stifle a laugh.

  “I guess I can’t argue with him.” I give the both of them a small smile.

  “I’ve heard he’ll bite if you do.”

  Cassie’s joke manages to pull a small laugh out of me.

  “He sure will.”

  Cassie’s face brightens a little bit at my laughter, only to immediately sour when she takes another bite.

  “So, is this better or worse than just the bar?” I ask.

  “Better, I think, but not by much. Or at least a different kind of bad.”

  It takes her fifteen minutes to finish her bowl, apparently getting worse with every bite. I’m not sure if that’s because it is getting worse when it cools, or if way too much ground kudzu has filtered to the bottom instead of staying in suspension. Probably both.

  Eventually she finishes and climbs out of the car, only to do a double take at my little machine sitting in the open.

  “What’s that?” She asks.

  “I made a steam turbine to recharge the car.”

  “I’m sorry? You just casually made a steam turbine?”

  “Yeah, they aren’t complicated. And I could take apart the water purifier to build it.”

  “Uh-huh.” She stares at it for a few seconds. “God, AI are fucking wild.”

  “It’s really not that impressive. You could build one too if you had the same books I was born with.”

  Her only response is shaking her head disbelievingly.

  “How long until the storm hits?” She asks.

  “It already has. It hit not long after you went to sleep.”

  “Alright, so we’re safe then.” She lets out a relieved breath.

  I didn’t even think of the possibility of the raiders coming back. A mistake like that could easily have been the end of us. Don’t freak out, we’re ok. Just acknowledge, rationalize, and dismiss. My mistake didn’t ruin anything, we’re all safe. I just need to take it as a lesson and do better next time.

  “Why do you think they attacked?” I ask the only thing I can think of.

  “No idea, it feels like it’s personal though. Maybe revenge? A kidnapping? Just for fun? Killing their neighbors preemptively? One of those probably.”

  “I don’t like any of those options.”

  “Yeah.”

  I guess we just need to settle in until the storm passes. We’re already starting to run out of books.

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