Description
A cool breeze played across the tops of the massive coastal pines, swaying the massive trunks in waves, their crowns endlessly fencing, back and forth. The air was heavy, pregnant with the moisture coming off the inletās turbulent water. All of nature seemed to be in motion, from dark forest and ocean, to the buzzing insects that plagued the southern tip of what was once Vancouver Island.
A small, thin man with a disheveled look contemplated the scene before him disconnectedly as he stood atop the Eastern wallās tallest uncovered tower. He watched the movement before him, noted how even now, the endless, repetitive actions before him connected each element to the other. The onshore breeze shifting the trees baking in the sun, heating the air, and in turn, rising to higher altitudes and cycle back above the water, to cool again.
Repeat, repeat, repeat. The cycle has always been endlessā¦ not really endlessā¦ but that aspect of heating and cooling had not changedā¦ maybeā¦ maybe a large scale stirling engine? Compression has changed, the laws of thermodynamics have been modifiedā¦ by who? By what? Doesnāt matter. ā¦ a wave generatorā¦ storing mechanical energy via pullys and large coil springsā¦ maybeā¦ maybe a handheld crossbow with windup springs? Could it repeat? The Romans has something like thatā¦ or was it the Chinese? Both? ā¦
The manās thoughts were jumbled, since the world had changed, he couldnāt get the medication that had previously kept his thoughts so blissfully ordered. It had indeed been a long number of years. He couldnāt rightly remember how long it had been, he furrowed his large brow at that thought. Shrugging, he remembered that it was really the Chronologistās job. Back to it, damnationā¦ The thin man looked back down to his task at hand, and the jumble of gears, cabling and wood on the table before him. He glanced back up at the vista one last time, watching the wind push the waves to shore. His hands moved back and forth tediously, a perfect example of the economy of motion, fitting the gears from various machines of the old-world together in a variety of arrays. Finally he settled on a large sprocket from an industrial vacuum, and the reduction gear from a commercial washing machine. Both of these, he fitted to pre-sized spindles embedded in a large wooden column that lay amongst the scattered mechanical detritus before him. A tractor-trailerās leafspring rested at the top of the column. Drilling those holes by hand had taken the better part of a day.
Time for a treadle-powered workshopā¦ or maybe a windwill powered one? Could we store the energy in springs? Springs springs springsā¦ thank God for modern alloys.
The two gears the thin man had selected slotted into place, whereupon he tapped cotter-pins through holes at the top of each spindle and bent them back upon themselves. Looking down at his handiwork, the thin man grinned to himself. He pulled a hand-crank on the side of the column. Each of the wheels spun in unison. Smiling in self-satisfaction, the thin-man looped cable around a drum at the base of the column, wrapping it several times before securing the end. The other end, he threaded through a block half-way down the column. At the end of the cable, a simple hook previously used by a small crane was attached. This, he snagged midway onto another cable strung between the two points of the truck leaf-spring on the end of the column. As he braced the end of the column against his waist, he turned the crank with a grunt, the metal groaned but inexorably, but with every revolution, the cable was drawn back to eventually rest on a large steel stop protruding from a slit in the wooden column. The hook was taken off the bowed cable, resting a full eight-thousand pounds of force on the single metal stopper.
Ahh! Ahahaha!! Those contemptible natives are in for quite the trā¦
Mid-thought, the wood gave little warning as the metal axle the stopper was affixed to, ripped upwards through the wooden column, launching hundreds of feet into the air. The thin-man cowered as the wood shattered, splintering hard enough that pieces of the column embedded themselves into the wooden parapets.
Looking down at himself, he noted only several slivers that had dug into his right shoulder and forearm. As he picked them out, he contemplated the failure before him.
Well, thatās the farthest Iāve come yet! A full 8,000lbs on that one! By Godās teeth, Iām right there! I need oakā¦ where the hell am I going to get oakā¦ maybe maple? A hard wood anywaysā¦
As he finished that thought with a self-satisfied grin, he grunted, hefting the columnās six-foot bulk and throwing it onto a pile of similarly broken prototypes.
CORVIN! Get yer pox ridden ass down here! I swear by Christ, Iāll have yer fucking head!
Wellā¦ that sounds like a wonderful proposition Michael, but I think Iāll stay up here the thin-man named Corvin thought to himself, peaking over the edge of the wooden parapet, noting the placement of the axle from his contraption, not three inches away from the foot of a large, and visibly upset man with a large blonde beard.
Michael! Did you see how high that one went! Iām nearly there! Weāll have a working bolt-thrower by the end of the week! Youāll see! Corvin called down. Think of the possibilities! That one rested fully bent on the stopper! Thatās eight-thousand pounds! We could put a bolt straight through a raiderās hull with this! We could even attach a large weight! Or a sea-anchor! Orā¦ orā¦ A sail! The applications are endless! Shitā¦ Iām rambling againā¦
The man named Michael sniffed derisively, Youāll end up killinā yerself, and more importantly, others with yer damned āinventionsā , miming quotation marks with the last word. Why donāt you just swing an axe with the rest of us ya whelp? What gives yā the right to risk our well-beinā with yer pseudo-science anā ego eh? The burly Michael shouted up at the tower as he hefted a large felling-axe that was ever-present at his side. Michael was the prototypical new-age soldier. While he towered over most men at just shy of seven feet tall, intellectually he was utterly dwarfed by the man he stood cursing.
Michael a faller, had worked in one of the remote locations in what had been Northern British Columbia, which showed in his both his gruff nature and preference for physicality. Contrasting Michaelās brawn, Corvin, an engineer had worked on a planned petro-chemical terminal in Prince Rupert when the Event turned the world black, accounted for much of the jury-rigged technology in the settlement. It had been Corvin that had brought running water to Esquimalt via a system of incredibly complex aqueducts, holding tanks and pressurizing drops that guaranteed even and steady pressure to each building. Even the old naval museum, at the end of a pier, jutting into the harbor had running water and flushing toilets.
It had been a long seven years since the Event. But life was certainly more comfortable than it had been at the beginning, when the fires had replaced the light. White light had been replaced with the constant amber flickering of oil lamps. A lot of blood had been spilled under those lamps, and if Corvin had anything to do with it, any further bloodshed would be far-removed from the lights of his new home.