Powering Progress

The sun had barely risen, and already Syun-Ro could see the approaching shape of Tohv’s boat, the bow bobbing gently as it cut through the water. To be returning at this early hour, the old man must have set off when the night was still thick and in full sway.

He rose, padding his way along the jetty towards the incoming vessel, sleep still fresh in his eyes. Scratching his head, he reached the end of the wharf and readied a line. Tohv poled towards him, his thin frame perched at the back of his ancient craft, the boat obediently following the course laid out for it. The water was still, so guiding the vessel in was practically effortless; as soon as it was within reach Syun-Ro was able to easily loop his line around the jutting bow and guide it in. The first rope secured, he shifted to the stern of the boat and looped the second line.

The docking complete, he turned his attention to Tohv. “Couldn’t sleep?”

The old man shrugged, not rising from his seat, and gingerly lifted his pole from the water and placed it inboard.

Syun-Ro smiled. He liked Tohv; the old man barely said a word, often appearing world-weary, but his eyes were sharp and his focus keen. More than once he’d been able to find forgotten treasures hidden in areas others had long considered picked clean.

“What do you have for me today?” he asked, casting his gaze toward the cargo heaped in the centre of the vessel. “A decent haul?”

Tohv shrugged again, waving a hand dismissively at the pile, the gesture a familiar invitation.

Syun-Ro bobbed his head and sat down on his heels, lowering his eyes closer to the heap and scrutinising it appraisingly. Leaning forward, he picked at the pile and plucked out a piece at random.

Casting his eyes over the worn and scuffed item, he knew his job could hardly be called glamorous; he was a salvager. What was considered by most to be garbage, he inspected and recovered, if possible. His days were spent handling refuse, sifting through trash, tinkering with waste. Hardly an enviable task, though it could be worse; Tohv made his living by collecting the garbage in the first place. The old man would pole his small boat into the sewers themselves and hunt in the dark and dank, scouring the filth and decay for glimmers of worth. Syun-Ro had accompanied him once, thinking it useful to have an idea of what the old collector went through to secure his prizes; he’d thought that knowing the relative hardship or ease in the task would help him to assess the items’ worth.

What he’d learned was that the physical ardours of the work paled in comparison to the sheer tolerance required; the stench was overpowering. Even after a number of hours had passed, and his senses should have been dulled by acclimatisation to the foul odour, it somehow still managed to assault his airways, the temptation to gag remaining even then.

He shuddered, the recollection bringing a sour taste to the back of his mouth. If Tohv noticed then he chose to ignore it, instead staring off into the distance, his tired gaze focused on the bright lights and glistening spires of the metropolis.

The gleaming mass of metal and glass was the source of their bounty, a squatting hub of habitation, nestled in the river delta. Residing outside of its towering walls, Syun-Ro and Tohv were not recognised as citizens of the prominent settlement, and were instead relegated to the status of ‘fringe-dwellers’, a looked-down upon section of the populace that gathered in the shanty town that sprouted around the base of the great wall.

Discarding the piece of refuse in his hands as officially junk, Syun-Ro moved on to the next. It was amazing what people in the metropolis considered trash, he thought, studying the item. Rich in technology, the citizens seemed to disgorge electronics into the sewer system more than anything else. Staring thoughtfully at the piece in his hands, he absently reached into his pocket and withdrew a power cell and a micro-screwdriver. In a matter of moments, he’d removed the back of the aging gadget and fashioned a coupling, adjusting the power cell’s output so it wouldn’t overload the device.

Toggling the unit’s power switch, he waited for signs of life. When none came, he returned his attention to the device’s guts, poking and prodding until he found what he believed to be a blown transistor. Prying the part loose, he fished in another pocket and located a suitable replacement. Clicking it home and securing it in place, he reached again for the power switch.

This time a small LED lit up on the gadget’s top, and after a second or two a previously black screen winked awake. The words “GAME BOY” arrived on the primitive display in bold letters, a tiny speaker breaking out in a warbling fanfare.

Nodding to himself, Syun-Ro stood and wandered in the direction of his workshop. After a brief search he located what he was looking for buried in a chest of miscellaneous knick-knacks; a slim plastic cartridge with a picture of a man in red and blue overalls. Embossed along one edge were the same two words which had appeared on the ancient device, and lining the cartridge up with the piece of aging tech he noted with satisfaction that it had the same dimensions as what he suspected to be a docking port.

Returning to the old waste collector, he sat down on the jetty and slotted the cartridge into the unit, toggling the power on and off as he did so. When the device powered back up, the display was different from before and an undulating tune burst out from the speaker. A couple of pokes to buttons on the front of the unit, and Syun-Ro had the small man from the cartridge’s picture bouncing across the screen and collecting coins.

Chuckling to himself, he powered the device back down and extracted the cartridge to show to Tohv; if the old man could find any more of the ancient objects they’d now not only have worth themselves, they’d also increase the value of the unit they interfaced with. The device itself was clearly a toy of some kind; little use to the dwellers of the fringe, who favoured more practical salvage, but potentially of interest to the antique vendors and museum curators of the metropolis that Syun-Ro sometimes dealt with.

Tohv nodded and rolled his eyes, the simple gesture speaking volumes; the device had been repaired with so minimal an effort, how could it have been discarded so readily?

Syun-Ro shrugged and shook his head, his hands raising vaguely towards the sky. He had no answer for the elderly boatman. He too was astounded by how quickly the citizens of the metropolis consumed and discarded technology, their appetite seemingly limitless, their attention span pathetic. It seemed they made practically no effort to repair electronics when they failed, instead dumping them into the already bloated and ill-suited sewer system.

He wondered at what point they’d be content, their lust for technology finally satisfied.

Would it be when the sewers could no longer handle the influx of electronic garbage, and backed up completely? When the ever dwindling resources around them, consumed without end to produce their trinkets, ultimately ran dry? Or perhaps when the toxins leaking out into the environment from their improperly disposed garbage reached a level that could no longer be ignored?

He sighed, staring up at the shiny façade of the metropolis. They’d likely just move again, like they always did…