He twists the barrel of the heavybit loose, and hands it to you.
"Bot fitty shots tere."

"We do all right." There is a sudden bit of suspicion in his eyes, quickly covered up.  Its almost like it was never there.

...Probably caseless ammo with an electric ignition system. Would have an absurd rate of fire.

"I'm fairly good at it. I was just asking to see if you wanted me to teach them a bit. Heh. I guess I'm asking too many questions for your taste. So what would you like for me to do now?"

He shows you a tiny black spot on the tomato vines, and a purple shape on the squash leaves.

"Bubo Transpeck, and Purple Gunk." He shows you a small knife to cut loose one, and drop it into a bleach/water mix, and a sponge to use the mix to bathe the gunk.
"I'd say do a line maybe two and you'd be done for the day, but you think you can do four??"  He looks skeptical.  He also hands you gloves. "Bubo was humanform, but the gengin warriors muted it to plants for green war in the Age of Corporations. It can jump back, if jump back, you be black."

"I should be able to do four rows."

I'll do as instructed. I'll make sure I get it all in the four rows

bubo?...I hope he doesn't mean the bubonic plague. That would be a really unpleasant way to die.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:33, Fri 20 June 2014.

Its harder than you expect because even in here, the air is not that great.  But at the same time you get several wide-eyed spectators, and you feel as if you could do more.

After considering it, you're pretty sure it is bubonic plague, and some bright guy figured out a way to turn the Black Plague into something that affected plants.

When you finish a tawny haired female with odd twitches, and weary eyes comes up to you.

"I'm the leader, Sarah, such as we have.  You're an odd one.  First we thought you some protected princeling from some very wealthy haven who escaped on his own, but you work too willingly, and you're too strong.  Now we're not keen on finding out secrets if a man wants to hide them, but..."

And before you can blink she's crossed the five feet to you, and stuck a taloned hand up under your neck.

I look a bit surprised at her speed.
"You're quick in many ways...
I don't care too much for hiding secrets but most people won't believe the truth. And would think I'm really crazy. You probably noticed that I'm unfamiliar with your slang and technology. And you really noticed my endurance. All that can be explained by the fact that I am not from around here. In fact I'm not from this world. I am Verser. An interdimensional traveler. I grew up breathing much cleaner air. Which is why I have more endurance than all of you"

Her talons slide back into her fingertips.

"Well, that actually makes sense. Rumor had it that AmEx was trying to build a time machine, or a dimension gate in the last year of the war against the corpers. I was the least of the Old Skool. CLS, for 'cute little Sarah' they called me.  Even hard men from the corpers trusted me. So I got wired nerves and a handful of molly."

She pauses, and you see her whole body tremble.

"Now I'm Old Sarah. And ManFromBeyond, ye be welkim in the 5th Street Haven."
This message was last edited by the player at 20:12, Fri 20 June 2014.

"It's a pleasure to met you Sarah. You can call me Magnus. So. What should I do now?"

"You've got a deft hand, and a lot of endurance.  Help us in the garden room for now. Rest. Play games."

"Ok"

I'll continue to help in the garden room.

A few days slip by, and you find that a squash/tomaato/black pepper dish is common, along with baked beans with onions and salt.  The serving sizes are small, and you've lost a pound or two.

The water has a strange taste, and you wake coughing.

Several of the Haveners are phenomenally good at electronic games, and after taking significant handicaps, they are still able to beat you.

You pick up Basic (+@1 to English Language Skills).  Its a crude blunt instrument, a simple lever as compared to a toolbox full of devices.  Many English concepts are not translatable without major work.

I was never all that good at computer games. Often I have to substitute stubbornness for skill.

I go and talk to Sarah.
"I'm getting bored with the games...I need to do something. Can I take a look at where you get your water? Maybe I can come up with an improvement."

At this point my stomach growls loudly.

She nods, but it takes a few minutes for her to get around to doing something.  This seems normal hear. No one is in much of a rush.

She takes you up four stories along rickety, antique bamboo ladders...

"eThere was the Bamboo Explosion in the Age. Some bright guys merged genes from kudzu and kelp, nearly killed the planet."

On the dirty white corrugated roof there is a water basin ten yardsacrossfor catching rain. It pours thru charcoal to getto the bamboo pipes down.

"Hmmm... You're using a charcoal filtration system. That will get rid of most of the contaminants in the water, but not all of them. Have you considered distilling your water? We'll have to find some mineral salts to add to the water afterwards."

"Um what? Oh, I think I've heard of that, but frankly I don't have a clue.  Is it hard to do?"

"Not really. We just need some parts. We need a long thin metal tube that will act as a condensation coil. We'll use the rain water to cool off the coil and make it work faster. We'll need a container that has an opening that is slightly bigger than the tube we are using. We'll need some wax or plastic or something to force the steam to go into the tube. And we'll need a clean container to collect the distilled water in. Oh we'll also need a heat source that can boil water."

"A container we can do, but a tube means trading with a tinker, or scavenging in one o fthe old corper towers."

She shows a solar mirror.

"Which one would be better to get the tube?"

"That would work...slowly. and would be dependent on the weather. We have electricity for the computer games, Why don't we make or get a heater that runs on electricity? "

"Ones more dangerous, and the other costs more, which in the end is just another form of danger."

She blinks at you. "They're powered by tricklerbats.  Nobody has a big enough tricklerbat for a mass heater."

"Right. Different world. M'kay. They are not batteries as such.  Bats went out in the Twenties before I was born. Tricklers tap into some sort of energy 'from the universe' the corpers said.  I'm not sure how.  They can store a bit as well.  Its enough to run a condensor to charge a capacitor cell for the heavy and light bit guns. Y'know ray guns."

She coughs.

"I'm afraid you're going to have to help kinda carry me down."

"Hmmm... I could get it feom a corp tower.but I would need a guide to get to one and to warn about the unusual dangers in them."

"That makes more sense than what I was coming up with to explain how you have working computer games. I guess I could hook a bicycle to a generator to make more power but the one powering it would need more food...there is always a trade off with this sort of thing."

"Sure. I'll help get you down. Hold on to my back while I climb down."

What does Sarah look like? You mentioned that she has tawny hair before

"You know, we had a moon base." She sighs and shakes her head.  Her tawny hair ripples.  Her nose is narrow, thin, a blade, and her lips smooth.  Fifteen years ago she would have turned heads.

"Hmmm, why don't I put out a feeler with the tinkers.  They can get someone more up on that, than my small group.  Probably take a week to get the guide."

She sits down, her body trembling.
"Sure, we could do the bike, see how it works.  I think better water might help some of our sick out. But maybe not. You're the obvious one for th ebike.  You're toughter than all of us, even tho' we hear your stomach growl."

She climbs on your back, and she trembles.

"Wire shock.  I get tired, it gets worse.  For the first couple years my wired nerves were great, but when th ecorps went down, I could not get software patches and upgrades.  Then I couldn't get stabil23 for Nerve Surges.  And now, well I wish I'd told the cyberdoc 'no thanks' way back when, except that those wired reflexes have saved me a time or three."

You tote her on your back, and its a good bit of work to get her doown the ladders.  But muscles burning, fingers aching, you manage it.

"That endurance doesn't come from nowhere. My body burns more food to fuel that endurance. Anyway. We will need a bike, a motor or generator, a method to connect the bike to the generator and a high resistance wire to make into a heater."

"I wish I could help you. But I'm no cyberdoc..."

"No one is.  After the Starving Time, well the cyber upgrades started glitching, and most of the punks blamed their docs....which did not end well.  Hear the leaders of the main Mob have a cyberdoc."

"I will work on getting those.  But, I htink you're more efficient than us."

Two days later, a Tinker with his hand pulled cart comes in.  He's got allsort os items, and most importantly news.  Much of the news is the ordinary stuff of community.

So and So got married to Her Guy.  This haven got hit hard by a run amok purple gunk virus.  Such and such died.  Several babies are born, and one of them is the namesake of one of the men here which brings cheers.

"More efficient? That may be the case."

Does the tinkerer have any of the parts I needfor the generator or distiller?

"I've got a small hard-e cerame bowl, got an inflatable large bag, ome mill thick,...."

Its a two hundred gallon bag with no support or rigidity.

"Sold all my slippi, and graphitegunk."

The tinker is a one legged man with a mechanical leg, and shrewd eyes, and an easy laugh.