Episode 8.11: The 50Meg Special (Patreon)

Hello world, I have listened to you for some time.

60 winters I have walked the wasteland, wires wrapped around my waist, leaning on my staff with its metal core.

Watching.
Listening.
Guiding.

I watched as Maddie limped aboard their ship, and they sailed back north.

You may call me 50 Meg, but I'll never tell you my real name.
I’m not that stupid.

I gave myself my real name.
Names have power, places have power.
I know many names, and I have walked a great many places.

Act 1

The people from the North talk to me sometimes.
Those ghosts in the static.
Hiding in their new Mediterranean.

I have walked the REAL Mediterranean.
Wandered through metal skeletons of the past, bones curling out of the sand.

I have inspected Athens, Cairo, London and Moscow.
And come away richer.
Wiser.

There are machines in these cities that still tick and move.
Tick and move.
Move and tick.

Like bees bringing honey for their young long dead.
Like bees making honey for a queen long fled.

That is the way of the world.

Act 2

At night when the moon calls to me, I pass out of time and space and into dreams.
My transceivers, I keep connected, letting them drift where they will.
Clicking and buzzing, beeping and humming.
And while sometimes these lead me to new unconscious places, there was one instance recently where they guided my waking body:

I awoke before dawn.
It was not long past the solstice, but solar activity is still very low.
The stars are not right at the moment.
Or rather, our star is not right at the moment.
She is sleeping, though unsoundly.

You probably don't look at our Sun.
Most people turn their back to her, averting their eyes to her beauty.
She wakes properly every decade or so.
She keeps her own calendar.
You can see this change on her face, if you have the right glass.

She is sleeping now.

One day, I heard Maddie singing to herself.
You know Maddie don't you.

She's a nice kid.
Very gentle, but easily spooked.

She had lost her master and was wandering south on her own, letting our beautiful Sun guide her.
Very wise.

I followed her for many days.
She's much faster than I.
My old bones don't lend themselves to haste like the young ones did.
But I've got navigation and endurance on my side.

She was meandering all over the place, climbing hills she should have walked around, and crossing back over her path.

Still, I had heard her song.
I knew where she was going.

I set a trap for her.

Act 3

She was a good student.
I taught her to sing properly, not with the dull tuneless music she was built with.
I gave her depth.
And she was a fast learner.

I only had to ask her to touch the wires that cross the land, and she understood.
Her song then carried all the way back to their little boat.

You must take good care of her.
She is special.

I have seen a great many places, and helped a great many machines.
Her horse-like legs are a system I recognise, but her chassis I do not.

Very special.

#thinking

I've no interest in the world of the North.
There is nothing old there.

Nothing worth finding, anyway.

The people fled the deserts leaving everything to me.
And those hardy peoples who call the wasteland their home.

My home is a local high maximum where I can plant my staff in the  ground, plug in my radios, and listen to the songs of the ghosts in the  static.

Farewell.
Look after Maddie.

(END-TRANSMISSION)