Patch 41
[ Patch ]
Patch sat on Rowan’s shoulder like a loyal metal sparrow, a two-pound brick of dented steel and cracked plastic with a single blinking light behind its wire-grill face. Every few minutes, unprompted, it chimed a glitched syllable.
“Patch.”
Rowan flicked the side of its casing. “You say the weirdest things at the worst times, you know that?”
Patch blinked once. “Pa-tch.”
“Exactly. Real conversationalist.”
Rowan crouched by a scatter of footprints pressed deep into the dirt. Heavy boots. Four men. Heading north. He brushed a line of dust from one print, checking the edges.
“Three days old. Maybe two if they’re slow or stupid.”
Patch gave a small static hiccup. “Patch.”
Rowan nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
He moved along the ridge, his long coat brushing against sagebrush. His boots barely made a sound. Most people in the Wildlands traveled in loud groups. Rowan traveled like someone who spent most of his life alone. Which was mostly true.
Patch chimed again, soft and cheerful in its broken way. “Patch.”
Rowan grinned to himself. “At least you’re consistent.”
[ Through the Scrubland ]
The sun dipped low as Rowan crossed into the scrublands. He had been trailing Sable’s crew for days. He wasn’t hunting them. He wasn’t out for revenge. He didn’t even know what they were after.
But they had a direction and he did not, and sometimes that was enough.
Besides, the Wildlands had a way of pulling him into other people’s storms. He didn’t mind it. It kept him sharp. It kept him from thinking too hard.
Patch chimed again, more distorted this time. “Pa-chh.”
“Don’t test me,” Rowan warned. “I will absolutely put you in the bag.”
Patch chimed sweetly. “Patch.”
“Mm-hmm. That’s what I thought.”
[ The Camp Below ]
Rowan reached a rocky outcrop and sank to his stomach. Below, in the remains of an old fueling station, the scavenger crew huddled around a sputtering fire. Their voices rose in drunken arguments. Their gear was strewn everywhere. A broken generator coughed in short bursts.
Rowan lifted his binoculars, adjusting the cracked lens.
“Idiots,” he muttered. “Loud as thunder.”
Patch mimicked a quiet click. “Patch.”
“They won’t hear us. They barely hear each other.”
He watched them for an hour. He wrote notes. Symbols. Sketches. The things only he understood. He had tracked dozens of groups over the years, but Sable’s crew moved with purpose. They weren’t looting random settlements. They weren’t scavenging for food or water.
They were heading somewhere.
Rowan wanted to know where.
Patch chimed again, almost sleepy. “Pa-tch.”
Rowan patted the worn metal head. “Stay awake. You’re my only friend out here.”
Patch brightened. “Patch.”
[ A Night of Listening ]
Rowan stayed hidden until night swallowed the ruins. The scavengers switched to night watch rotations. Someone snored loudly. Someone else muttered in their sleep.
Patch’s LED throbbed slowly in the dark.
“Any thoughts?” Rowan asked.
“Patch.”
“Deep.”
He sat against a boulder, feeling that itch in his bones that came before trouble. He tried to ignore it. He tried to quiet his mind.
Then Patch stiffened on his shoulder, its LED flaring bright.
Rowan frowned. “What’s that about?”
Patch buzzed a static burst sharp enough to make Rowan flinch.
[ First Signal ]
“Pa-chh.” A crackle. Another burst. Then a warped fragment. “Pa… sig… nal…”
Rowan froze. His breath caught.
Patch had never spoken another word in the two years he had owned it.
“Signal?” he whispered. “Where?”
Patch’s LED flickered erratically. “Nor… th.”
Then it went dark.
Rowan stared into the black valley where the scavengers slept.
North.
He didn’t know what was out there. He didn’t know why Patch cared. But the thought of ignoring it made something uneasy stir in his chest. Something old.
“Well,” he whispered, “guess we’ll be heading North.”
Patch, silent now, hung heavy against his collar.
[ The Tower ]
By the next evening, the scavenger crew reached their destination.
Rowan watched from behind a crumbling retaining wall. He had seen ruins of every size across the Wildlands, but nothing like this.
A radio tower rose above the basin, skeletal and rusted but still intact. Its dishes drooped. Its upper lattice was bent sideways like a broken spine. Cables dangled and swayed in the wind.
Around its base sat a cluster of old-world structures: squat concrete blocks with cracked windows, half-buried solar arrays, and a collapsed walkway that led underground.
Sable’s crew had torches lit, and two of them worked on the tower’s base panel, prying out cables and feeding new ones in. A small generator hummed faintly.
“Looks like they’re repairing it,” Rowan whispered. “But for what? No one has the juice to run something like that.”
Patch stirred weakly on his shoulder.
Its LED blinked once.
Then again.
Rowan put a hand on it. “Easy. You good?”
Patch’s voice came out in a faint hiccup.
“Patch… Pa ch…”
Rowan swallowed. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Patch was remembering something.
[ The Relay ]
As Rowan crept closer, Patch suddenly vibrated so hard it nearly slipped off his coat. Rowan caught it with both hands.
“What’s wrong? Patch, talk to me.”
Patch’s speaker whined, pitched high like an overloaded wire.
Then, without warning, the tiny device connected to something in the air.
Rowan felt the static in his teeth.
Patch’s LED burned bright white.
And then Patch spoke with perfect clarity, in a voice Rowan had never heard from it.
“System handshake complete. Relay link established. Downloading Patch 41.”
Rowan staggered backward. “Patch…?”
But Patch kept going.
“Directive for station personnel. Emergency override authorized. If you are receiving this broadcast, proceed immediately to Site Meridian. Repeat. Proceed to Site Meridian. Priority designation: red. Do not remain near the relay tower. Structural instability detected. Coordinated seismic event predicted.”
Rowan stared at the device, jaw slack.
Patch continued in the same calm old-world tone.
“This is the final operational directive. Good luck, Doctor. End message.”
Then the LED snapped dark.
Patch fell silent.
The scavengers down below stopped working at the exact same moment, their heads snapping toward the sound of Patch’s faint echo. Their torches turned. Their silhouettes stiffened.
Rowan ducked behind a rock and held Patch tight against his chest.
“Buddy,” he whispered, heart pounding, “what the hell did you just wake up?”
The tower groaned.
Somewhere beneath it, something deep rumbled.
The scavengers shouted.
Then the ground shook.
And everything went dark.