Anomaly Flats by Clayton Smith Read Free Book Online

block next to the battery. “We have them. Strong. Way too strong for computers.” He fiddled with the yellow box for a few seconds before unclipping the cords and closing the hood of the car. “Yep…it’s the alternator,” he confirmed.
    Mallory stuck her hands in her pockets to avoid having them splashed as he swung his head around. “Okay. So how long will it take?”
    Rufus rubbed his jaw thoughtfully. His hand came away wet. “Shouldn’t be more than two or three days.”
    Mallory started. “Two or three days? No, no, no, no, no…I have to get out of here now— like, today !” She noticed that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring and considered flirting her way to faster service. But historically speaking, her attempts to come across as coquettish and sexy usually ended up with her tripping and falling, and that was unlikely to help. So instead, she clasped her hands beneath her chin and said, as sweetly as she could, “Please can you fix it faster than that?”
    Rufus shook his head. “Takes a while to build one. Two, three days.”
    “ Build one?” Mallory was no mechanic, but she was a reasonably good Capitalist. “Couldn’t you just buy one?”
    Rufus slurped at the drool spilling out through his bottom teeth. “No one delivers out here. Got to make one.”
    “Come on,” Mallory said. “No one?”
    “No one.”
    “Surely someone does. You get mail, right? And UPS? And FedEx?”
    Rufus tilted his head to let a small lake of spittle run out the side of his mouth. “You-pee-what?”
    “UPS! I love logistics! What can brown do for you! Ultimate Package Service! UPS!”
    Rufus shook his head. “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
    “But you get mail at least,” she insisted.
    Rufus shrugged. “Nope.”
    “What do you mean, ‘Nope’? You don’t get mail? ”
    “Not since the 90s.” He scratched his ear. “We do get messages by government-sponsored drone.”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa. You have government drones?”
    Rufus nodded. “For messages.”
    “How do they not get their alternators scrambled?”
    “Don’t know,” Rufus shrugged. “Part of what makes the government so terrifying.”
    Mallory’s brain felt like it was developing a stutter. “This is ludicrous,” she said. “No outside mail or deliveries since the 90s? How do you get things?”
    “We don’t get things,” he said, stowing the little yellow box back inside the tow truck. “We make them.”
    Mallory shook her head and started pacing the parking lot. “Insane,” she grumbled. “Buy an alternator online—Amazon Prime or Google Express! Have them send it by drone!”
    Rufus whipped a greasy handkerchief from behind the seat of the truck and used it to wipe off his hands. It caked his hands with more dirt than it removed. “What’s that?” he asked.
    “What’s what ?” Mallory wondered if anyone had ever died from total exasperation, or if she’d be the first.
    “Amazon Primer Google Express.”
    Mallory gaped. “Are you kidding me right now? You don’t know what Google is?!”
    Rufus wiped his wet lips on his shoulder. “Nope.”
    “Do you even own a computer?”
    “No. No computers in town,” he said. “Magnetic fi—”
    “Right, right,” Mallory waved him off. “Magnetic fields.” She stopped pacing and leaned against the fender of her poor Impala. “So no one ever comes through here? No one drives into town and says, ‘Whoops, made a wrong turn, now I’m in weirdo hell’?”
    Rufus shrugged. “You did. Other than that…”
    A thought occurred to her. “What about emergency vehicles?” she asked. “Fire trucks or ambulances? Or police?”
    “We don’t have any fire trucks or ambulances. You get injured or burned down in Anomaly Flats, you’re on your own. We do have a sheriff. But I reckon he’s unconnected from outside police, what without a phone and all.”
    Mallory furrowed her brow. “Your sheriff doesn’t have a phone?”
    “Wouldn’t do much good.”
    “Magnetic fields,”