Chapter 1

There is a good life to be had in obscurity. Not a lucrative one, surely, but a good life none-the-less.

The girls tuning the auto-harvester were not necessarily used to such things. Not that the younger one had not delved her hand into tinkering, but the older had never had much use for knowing the ins and outs of such machinery. Faces covered in soot as they attempted adjust the influx pipes, the girls thought back to happier days. Days when their father had been affluent and rich, able to get them the finest in tools and machines.

Two more twists from her spanner and the young girl cried in joy. A gout of steam belched from an exhaust port atop the harvester, along with a fair amount of black smoke. With a grind and churn the harvester struggled back up onto its spider-like legs and began to shamble back out into the field.

“See, not so bad! Only took a few hours and now we won’t miss the last harvest,” the younger one chirped happily. Removing her goggles and wiping soot from her forehead she watched the harvester extend its scythe like mandibles into the wheat field with a sense of satisfaction.
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