Energy sector

Red sticks the knife into the floor.

-Tell me, mister tyrannosaurus rex,

or do you prefer something gentler,

diplodocus or iguanodon?

What brings you here to our

little corner of the valley?

Mack gazes up at the ceiling

of the porch. It has more of

the helicopter and spider painting.

He sees now that the helicopters

are trapped in a giant web.

-Chance. I am just going

away from things more than

going towards them. I had

no knowledge of this place.

-Making your getaway?

Not very quickly on that

clunker you were pushing.

Doesn’t it have a working motor?

-Yeah, it does when I can

find a place to charge it.

The problem was the tire

going flat. I already used

my last tire patch.

-I see. We can probably

do something about that.

You haven’t said what it is

you’re getting away from? 

Embezzlement? Bad life decisions?

If it was theft, you should have

gone for a bigger score.

Red pries the knife loose

from the floor of the porch,

tosses it down again.

It joins dozens of nicks

in the wood beside her foot.

-Nothing like that. Like I said

I’m a dinosaur, the energy sector

is changing from oil and gas

to nuclear, you know? those

new generation small reactors?

I don’t want to have anything

to do with toxic industries any more.

-Right. That’s pretty much what

our community, the village of Harmony,

is based on. No toxics, whether

it’s chemicals, or energy or how

we treat each other. Interested?

-Yes. So what does that mean?

Becoming a member or something?

-That depends. What do you have

to contribute to the community?

We don’t have much need for

industrial logistics managers.

-I know how to fix things,

mechanical systems, basic electrical,

plumbing, and like I said, I used

to make furniture. More than

just simple tables or cabinetry.

Things of beauty. Is that something

that people in Harmony would like?

-Maybe so, we all know how to do

all those basic system things ourselves,

some folks more than others, we had

to figure out a lot of stuff on our own

when we put the town back together.

Red looks up at the web painted on the ceiling.

-Maybe we could use more beauty,

there’s never too much of that, right?

-Never. Well almost never. Kind of depends

on what you think is beautiful. Some people

like the new cities with their structures armored

against heat waves, hurricanes or floods.

So much exotic metal alloy and 

windows smarter than I was in high school,

tunnels instead of sidewalks.

All climate controlled with the piped in scent

of citrus or the sea, computer-generated

soundtracks of waves or birds,

breeze in the pines. Sensory simulacrums.

Tuned to you with AI! Your childhood favorite scent,

not your neighbor, Alexi.

-Not too much of that around here.

We have the difference between actual

grapefruits, oranges or lemons.

And goat manure. Wet soil.

Bread baking in the oven. Each other.