The three pickup trucks pushed east, their worn tires chewing through the gravel and dust of the Great Barrens as the sun, a pale, anemic disc, hauled itself over the jagged silhouette of the ruined horizon. They did not take the ubiquitous, beloved Wuling mini-vans—those trusty workhorses of the settlement—for a simple, pragmatic reason: these particular trucks, relics of a bygone era of assumed abundance, ran on diesel. In the new economy of Sweetwater Gulch, where the promise of homemade fuel shimmered like a mirage made real, the diesel burners were kings. Gasoline was a precious import, a finite treasure from the other side. Diesel was the future, black, smoky, and theirs to brew.
Beyond the palisade gate, the convoy split, each vehicle becoming a solitary prowler heading into the vast, indifferent sprawl of the Wasteland. In each cab rode a team of four, their faces set with a gravity that matched their mission. They were not just scouts or traders; they were heralds, carrying the edicts of Harry Potter Michael into the wild.
Their mandates, delivered in a late-night council by Michael himself, were clear and carried the weight of scripture:
First, they were to become prospectors of a peculiar sort. Their eyes were to scan not for gleaming ore or pre-Collapse tech, but for blackened stone, for strata of earth that held the dull, sooty promise of coal. Any such find was to be marked, logged, and sampled. The Master would later inspect these sites personally. The goal: a small, secure mine to feed the hungry boilers of the Sweetwater Gulch Refinery (currently a grand title for two soot-stained tanks).
Second, they were to be town criers of commerce. To every scavenger, lone wanderer, or wary homesteader they encountered, they were to spread the word: Sweetwater Gulch's hunger for scrap had evolved. No longer just metal and salvageable parts. Now, the settlement craved the very dross of the old world—all waste rubber, all plastics, all wiring, all piping. Bring it. Anything and everything would be purchased. Payment would be fair, and crucially, not limited to bottle caps. Food, tools, basic medicines, even liquor and well-crafted bows and arrows—the economy of Sweetwater Gulch was now a barter bazaar.
Third, and most revolutionary, they were to announce the dawn of personal mobility. The benevolent Harry Potter Michael, in his wisdom and concern for the logistical struggles of the scavenging trade, was launching the Sweetwater Gulch Bicycle and Pedicab Initiative. This encompassed both sale and, more audaciously, rental.
A functional bicycle in the Wasteland was not mere transport; it was a status symbol, a life-changing asset, often valued at two hundred bottle caps—a fortune. A three-wheeled pedicab was a figment of most people's imagination. Michael's rental scheme was a crack in this wall of inaccessibility. For a deposit of twenty caps and a successful interview with the (yet-to-be-formed) Settlement Credit Office, a scavenger could gain the use of a bicycle for a month for a modest fee. The gain was undeniable: travel speed tripled, cargo capacity doubled. It was a multiplier of fortune.
The threat, of course, was obvious. The council had argued vociferously the night before, all save Michael seeing not opportunity, but catastrophic loss. "They will take the bikes and vanish into the Barrens!" Old Gimpy had insisted, his voice strained. "It is not a matter of if, but how many!" A bicycle was a life transformed; for many, it was worth becoming an outlaw.
Michael had listened, then dismissed their concerns with a wave. The rental scheme would proceed. He offered no detailed rationale, no risk-assessment. The truth was, he couldn't give them one they'd understand. How could he explain that in the world he came from, bicycles were so plentiful they were considered a nuisance, abandoned in colorful piles? That a functional one could be had for the equivalent of a few bowls of noodles? The lack of a cargo rack on a "shared" bike was a triviality; the resourceful people of the Wastes could solve that with scrap wood and wire.
Neither Michael, in his blithe confidence, nor his worried lieutenants, steeped in Wasteland scarcity, could yet fathom the seismic shift this simple act of trust—this reinstatement of credit—would trigger in the fragile fabric of their world.
Crouched in the lee of a collapsed wall that had once been part of a suburban garage, Zhu Dacong carefully tended to his prize. The morning's incredible luck—a thick, arm-length monitor lizard, now deceased thanks to a well-thrown piece of rebar through its eye—lay before him. For a scavenger of Han descent (a distinction that mattered little now, save in memory), this was a windfall. Meat for days, and more importantly, fat. Glorious, precious fat.
In the deepening cold of the Wasteland nights, fat was life. Eaten, it burned slow and hot within. Rendered and poured into a scavenged can, with a cloth wick, it became a tiny, vital sun, holding the killing chill at bay. His focus was absolute as he struck his flint against a piece of steel, sending a cascade of desperate sparks into a nest of dry fibers. Matches and lighters were ghosts of the past; this slow, careful dance with stone and steel was the only fire most people knew. It was a miserable process in the rain, but the Barrens were stingy with precipitation.
A small, greedy flame finally took hold. Zhu Dacong sighed, the tension in his shoulders easing a fraction. He positioned his rusted can "pot" over the flame, ready to render the lizard's fat, his world shrunk to the flickering light and the promise of warmth.
The growl of an engine, alien and threatening, shattered his focus. He looked up, terror icing his veins. A pickup truck, already terrifyingly close, was bearing down on his position. Escape was impossible. His hand darted to his knife, a pathetic shard of metal against a vehicle. He raised it, not in hope of fighting, but in a futile gesture of defiance. The lizard, his luck, his warmth—it was gone. All he could pray for was his life.
A head popped out of the passenger window. "Hey! Easy there, friend! We're from Sweetwater Gulch! Harry Potter's people!"
The words, spoken in a rough but familiar cadence, didn'tt immediately register. Then Zhu Dacong saw them—the crew cuts, the wary but not immediately hostile eyes, and most of all, the T-shirts they wore. Those T-shirts, emblazoned with the blocky, magical characters of the old world. No raider or lone wolf wore such things. Only the followers of the strange, generous man from the east wore those.
The knife didn't drop, but its point lowered. The men from the truck didn't approach his fire or his lizard. They stayed by their vehicle, and one of them, a man with a face like seasoned leather, began to speak. He spoke of a new hunger in Sweetwater Gulch. A hunger for trash. For the very rubber and plastic and tangled wire Zhu Dacong passed every day. He spoke of payment—in caps, in food, in things. And then, he spoke of the bicycles.
The words washed over Zhu Dacong, not as speech, but as a wave of pure, disorienting possibility. A bicycle. Not to find, but to rent. The math exploded in his mind. Three times the distance. Twice the cargo. It wasn't just more scrap; it was more life. The pedicab was a dream for another man, but the bicycle… the bicycle was a door cracking open.
There was a catch, of course. The man mentioned a deposit, an "interview." And a warning: betrayal of this trust would make one an enemy of Sweetwater Gulch, hunted by its guards. But the greater warning, delivered almost as an afterthought, was the one that sparked panic: the rental had already begun. The bikes were going fast.
As the truck rumbled away, leaving a plume of dust, Zhu Dacong stared at his sizzling can of fat. The immediate, vital task suddenly seemed trivial, a small, guttering flame next to the bonfire of opportunity now roaring in his chest. With frantic haste, he packed his meager kit, buried his lizard meat in a shallow hole marked with a pile of stones, and took one last look at his little campsite. Then he turned, and with a speed born of pure, undiluted hope, he began to run. Not walk, not trudge—run. His destination was clear, a fixed point in the swirling dust of the Barrens: Sweetwater Gulch. He had to get there before the last bicycle was gone.