Keep off the Grass

Thick Skin

The idea of being homeless would have embarrassed me once. 'Horrified' and 'shocked' covers the feeling just as well: they all describe the disgust just looking at me now would have inspired. That was then: a lifetime ago. Now, together with the few people I still trust, we sleep under a fig tree in what used to be a park. The rubbish dump it has become threatens to swallow our fig tree and the others, but we keep the refuse from encroaching, and for that they thrive.

Being homeless is our status symbol now; scavenger our title. We each have our treasures and the spots where we keep them safe, and for most of us our prize possession is a backpack with the essentials. The camaraderie that comes from not being able to afford to live in a building is because of what you have to do to get one.

Those that were truly desperate instead of just homeless would eventually give in and go to work at the factory. They never lasted long. They would come back after that first day with a sad smile on their face in their navy blue work uniform, and move into their house where they would have the first hot shower in months, perhaps years, then go to sleep on a mattress with linen. Sometimes they would even stop by our warren and try to convince us it was worth it, but you knew they didn't believe it themselves. A few of the younger scavengers had been orphaned for the sake of four walls and a roof. None of us were having any of it.

Over the next two months or so that uniform would gradually bleach to white and their skin would assume the consistency of cheap plastic. You'd sometimes see them tapping their wrists as they were walking to work for the day, listening to the *crispness* of the sound and trying to convince themselves they still had another few days before the day they didn't come home. That day was inevitable though. The few of us who didn't shun them for leaving would gradually see well-known faces morph into plastic simulacrums, men and women both. It was as hard as it was baffling to watch the familiar and beloved turn into shiny caricatures of the friends we once had.

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was what they did to the people who actually tried to tell us what went on at the factory. How they knew what someone might have been about to say was beyond me, but the night old Barry invited me into his house for dinner, only to seize up midway through and march out the door like some toy soldier was the first moment I've ever felt like the walls of a building were closing in on me. Even as I stepped outside and saw Barry bee-lining for the factory I knew there was nothing I could do.

There was a big rotary structure they'd put up in the town square that looked a lot like one of those old Hills Hoist clotheslines, and that was where they hung them by the neck until they died. Of course, when your neck is basically solid plastic like Barry's was, that can take quite a while, so you'd see them up there struggling for days, flapping in the wind, until you'd hear the inevitable snap. Some bright spark renamed the town square 'the ballroom', and all the 'kens' and 'barbies' were just there for the dancing. The mystery was why they kept coming to dance, even after they'd seen all this. How could anything in there be worse than this?

Sigh. I used to find all the euphemisms funny, but that was before Barry, and that was definitely before today. I've been running debts with the Westown gangs ever since last winter, and today they've told me they're ready to collect. I have no choice any more. I have to start work at the factory.

***

Tap tap. Tap tap. Tap tap. Ok for now, two weeks in and it barely makes any noise at all. The people at the factory doors were generous with their time and smiles the first day I walked in, for all the good it did them. None of us were looking for friendship. I think I recognised one of them from years ago, before. Maybe we went to school together? In any case, she quickly hid any recognition she might have had with a plastic smile, which (come to think of it) wasn't nearly as plastic as it ought to have been, given how white their uniforms were.

It turned out there were a surprising number of people showing up to start work on any given day. People from all over, some as far as Northam. Once they confirmed you were there to work, they put you into the system, herding you about like so many cattle as you went through medical exams, x-rays, eye-tests and so on. Eventually you were given a locker that was yours and inside was that uniform we all dreaded seeing. The main overalls came with an optional, heavy hooded jacket for when it was cold or wet, plus several sets of boots which were for various parts of the factory. That first day we were also given keys to our new accommodations, with news that there was another set of the uniform placed in our bedroom cupboards. We were then told to strip out of what we were wearing, suit up and walk to the induction theatre. We never saw that other clothing again.

None of us really expected the induction to tell us what went on at the factory. After all, it was not until most of the kens and barbies were almost fully kenned and barbied that many of them actually risked trying to tell anyone anything. But surprisingly enough one of the white suit inductors got up and said straight out: Look, we know you're all scared to be here. You've seen what happens to factory workers, and we agree, it's horrible. The plain truth of the matter is that you have good reason to be scared: I fully expect that all of you will die in around 2 months. Our job... he gestured to the other white suits is to tell you why you should keep coming to work anyway. He smiled winningly. I was getting the feeling this man could sell ice to an Eskimo.

How many of you have managed to keep track of the time? He looked around the room as a few hands went up. Well, for the rest of us, did you know it's been nearly seventeen years now? Some of you younger ones might not even remember the Internet.

He started walking back and forth on the stage, getting into it, reminding me more and more of a self-help seminar I went to once. Since the day of the collapse there have been quite a few theories floating about as to what actually happened. Whether it was aliens invading, or whether a new artificial intelligence launched the nukes above the atmosphere to create a worldwide EMP, I don't think anyone actually knows for sure. I did hear someone suggest it might have been a major solar flare that fried everything, and it was just paranoid intelligence agencies that caused the problems later, but as an amateur astronomer myself I can tell you for a fact there was no solar flare that day.

As you know, we escaped the worst of what happened afterwards because of our lower population density here in Australia. And as bad as it is out there where you've been scavenging for a living, it's nothing compared to the desolation in the northern hemisphere where every kind of weapon has been deployed indiscriminately.

The truth is, we are still at war with an enemy possessing far superior technology, and what this factory does is build the weapons to fight this enemy. The reason you had all the medical tests when you arrived, and the reason we are so strict about enforcing silence about what goes on in this factory is that there are infiltrators in the general population who are not *fully* human.

He looked around the room to see the effect this had. He had obviously said this before and emphasised each word for maximum drama. That said, if he was faking the genuine concern in his voice, it would make him the best actor I've ever met.

Call them androids if you like, most of them don't even realise they're not fully human. They were born and raised the same as you and me, they love and laugh the same as you and me, and if their leaders don't call on them for service, they die the same as you and me. The difference is that inside each of their cells, instead of mitochondria - for those of you who remember your high school biology, those are the power plants that provide energy for each cell - Instead of mitochondria, they have tiny fusion powered nanobots which can replicate and act in concert to manipulate their hosts and create a fighting machine like no one had even seen before the collapse.

He paused for a moment, turning solemn. I'll tell you what I have seen: I've seen the pain on a woman's face as her arm forcibly rearranged itself into a flesh and bone machine gun and couldn't help but rapid fire chunks of her bones at my head. I've seen a school bus full of children combine themselves, screaming, into a crab-legged trebuchet that then threw the bus at me. Maybe you don't believe me now, but when you've been through what I've been through, you will. This shit is messed up.

"The point of all this is that the main weapon we make here, in this factory, are soldiers which can fight these monstrosities. We use tech that will give you super quick reflexes so you can weave and dodge when you're being attacked by things that move faster than the normal eye can track. Things that look like men, women and children, but who can fire bullets at you