Hank clocked into work at 5.46.
His tablet didn’t take his face the first time. The light too dim. He had to angle his face in the light of the strip above the shack door before the circle went green.
Asset protection shift: active.
It was chilly. Not freezing, but he felt it in his knees. The zipper on his jacket caught on the torn cloth beside his company patch. He worked it loose with his thumb before he stepped out into the yard.
Cars on both sides. Three high. Four in some places. Sedans, work vans, fleet pods with their windows blacked out. There were delivery carts with subscription codes still attached. Useless without an account.
A reclamation site, they called it.
Nothing got reclaimed.
The fog swirled gently, caught between the stacks. The morning dew caught on the hoods and made lines in the dust. The cars all had tags, on the windshield or the door. Blue, yellow, and red. Processed, pending, and restricted handling. Half the tags had faded to white in the sun anyway.
Hank started up his buggy.
Checkpoint A1. Green.
Checkpoint A2. Green.
A crow perched on a rusted minivan cocked its head as he went by.
The east side fence was patched. Mesh over mesh. Nobody had interfered with it since he’d reported the damage last week.
Unauthorized material access attempt. Increase visible patrol.
Hank walked to the fence and prodded the mesh with his toe.
The gravel road went past the compacts. He looked over them at the old parts plant. Behind its own chain link fences. You could still see the ghost letters on the wall where they’d taken the company name down on his last day.
He slowed the buggy at C7.
One of the tarps had blown back. Not much. But there was a flash of color. A deep red that peeked through the dust. Not flat corporate warnings. Something bright.
He walked over, pulled the tarp back.
The plastic scraped over the rust.
A long hood and a wide dash. The mottled chrome around the grille caught in the dawn light. The windshield was cracked but not gone. The seats inside were split, dirty yellow foam pushing out against the vinyl.
Hank put one hand on the fender. Let it rest there.
Cold metal. Weighty under his hand.
He looked back down the aisle. Back toward the camera post at C5. Its status light was blinking amber. It’d been like that for months, but service ops insisted it was operational.
He pulled on the door handle.
Heavy. A screech of complaint from the hinge before it gave. A clunk as it opened.
Mouse nest. Old vinyl. Mildewed foam. Oil.
Hank leaned in, one hand on the roof, and looked at the dash. Gauges. No screen. All the needles resting behind cloudy glass.
There was a key in the ignition.
He laughed. “Course there is.”
He went around to the front of the car and popped the hood. The latch fought back, and the hood rose heavy until it settled on its prop.
The engine was still there. Usually they got stripped down to the bolts. This one sat. Big block. Belts you could see the cracks in. No battery, and a bunch of chewed insulation.
He’d made steering-column brackets in the plant. Used to be for cars like this. Then for the small corporate carts with the round nose and sealed panels. They stopped if the monthly authorization failed.
They were still good brackets.
He had a jump pack in the patrol buggy. “Emergency site mobility support,” said the label. The cart died twice a week and corporate wouldn’t replace the battery.
He carried it over to the car. Set the pack on the frame and cleaned the cable ends with his pocketknife. Not well, but enough.
He fetched the little fuel can from the buggy, too. A capful, maybe even less.
His hands knew the order.
The tablet vibrated.
Warning: PATROL INTERVAL EXCEEDED.
The driver’s seat dropped under him when he sat, with a deep sigh of dust. He put a boot on the brake. Muscle memory.
The key turned. A click.
He stopped. Turned it again.
The starter dragged like it was pulling itself out of the mud. One slow grind, and then nothing.
He waited. Listened to the wind.
Turned the key a third time.
It wouldn’t be accurate to say the engine started. But it moved. Two turns, maybe three. A hard cough coming up through the block, deep enough to hit the floorboards. The car shook under him. The dust lifted from the dash. The needles on the gauges shifted.
It caught. It barked once.
Then it died.
The echo rolled back down the aisle to him. A smaller memory.
Hank sat with the key in his hand. He rubbed the steering wheel with his thumb.
The tablet vibrated.
Audio anomaly detected. C-sector.
Confirm incident status.
He got out slowly.
He unclamped the jump pack and wound its cables. Put the fuel can back in the buggy. He lowered the hood, gently, and let it drop the last few inches.
It latched.
The tablet buzzed again, options waiting.
Asset tampering.
Equipment malfunction.
Unauthorized access observed.
No incident.
Hank looked down the aisle. The red car sat beside him. Dull again, shrinking into the torn tarp. The gray carts watched from their own stacks.
No incident.
The tablet accepted it.
Checkpoint C-8 blinked in its map.
Hank pulled the tarp back over the car as best he could.
A story from the Static Drift universe.
Article photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash.