“Just so I’m clear,” Dex said. “It’s okay for you to use foreign materials to make minor repairs?”
The robot nodded. “Yes.”
Dex snapped their fingers and pointed at Mosscap, smiling. “We’re going to Kat’s Landing.”
“I thought we were going to the monastery in Eastspring,” Mosscap said.
“Eastspring doesn’t have what we need right now.”
“And that is?”
“A printer,” Dex said. “We’re going to make you a new bit.”
Mosscap’s head whirred. “You want to … manufacture something new for me?”
“Yeah. Would that be okay?”
Mosscap stared off into the distance, its eyes fixed on nothing. “No robot has had newly manufactured parts since the Transition.” The staring continued, as did the whirring. “I … honestly don’t know what to say to that.”
“I don’t want to push anything that isn’t okay by you,” Dex said. They meant that sincerely. “But we’re not talking about replacing circuits or something, right? It’s just mechanical. It’s not brain surgery.”
Mosscap nodded, slowly. “I follow the logic,” it said, “but I’ll need to think about it. This has never been done before, and I’m … I’m not sure.”
“That’s fair,” Dex said. “How about we head to Kat’s Landing regardless, and you can think on the way? If we get there and you don’t want to do it, that’s absolutely fine. This is your decision. We can try some glue or something as a plan B.” Dex looked at the road ahead. This stretch of the Riverland highways was familiar enough that they didn’t need to consult the map on their pocket computer. Their memory of the curves and turns sufficed. “It’ll take us maybe … hmm … three hours from here? And it’d be a nice place to stop, regardless of what you want to do.”
“What else is there?” Mosscap asked.
“Fishing, artists, people who work in hydro. It’s a funky old town—hasn’t changed much since the early Transition. There are some newer buildings, but it’s mostly river-builds.”
Mosscap’s expression became interested. “What’s a river-build?”
Dex thought about how to explain, then shook their head. “It’s one of those things you just kinda need to see.”
“Consider my curiosity piqued,” Mosscap said. “But how am I to get there, if I can’t walk?”
Dex glanced back at the wagon. The interior was too short for Mosscap, but that wasn’t the only space worth using. They gave the storage crates tethered to the wagon’s roof a quick up-and-down. “Give me a minute, and I’ll shuffle some boxes around,” they said.
Mosscap’s decorative mouth widened with slow excitement. “Oh, Sibling Dex, do you mean—”
“Yep,” Dex said, getting to their feet. “I’m gonna take you for a ride.”
* * *
A river-build, as it happened, was whatever its creator wanted to make out of whatever they had on hand. Back in the day, the Lacetail River had been choked with refuse, and the landfills peppering the surrounding area brought problems without end. During the Transition, nets that hadn’t seen fish in years were put to use hauling out every errant object that didn’t belong in a healthy waterway. The people who called the Riverlands home became masters of repurposing, and their settlements quickly drew in landfill miners of a similar ethos. Nowadays, the waters of the Lacetail were clean and thriving. Whatever garbage couldn’t be given a second life had been carted off long ago to the underground waste bunkers where unusable things were sealed away, a buried reminder of old sins.
The tamer junk scavenged by the riverfolk remained the backbone of a village like Kat’s Landing. There were houses made of plastic, of old tires, of shipping crates painted every color a human eye could perceive. Cracks bestowed by age were patched with modern touches, like mycelium or bacterial cement, giving an impression like that of broken teacups mended with gold—a lasting beauty, born out of brief destruction.
Some of the river-builds stood on the grassy banks, but just as many bobbed on the water itself, buoyed by old rain barrels or perched upon stilt-like supports made from discarded plumbing pipes. Everything there was constructed to withstand the moods of rising tides and heavy rains, but resilience had not been the builders’ only intent. Flights of fancy could be found everywhere. There were windmills and whirligigs made of old-fashioned bicycle wheels, mosaics crafted from bottle caps and resin, sculptures decorated with splashes of forbidden materials sporting colors found nowhere in nature. It was a town built of trash, but its current incarnation transcended that unseemly origin. Kat’s Landing was a feast for the eyes—dazzling, in an eccentric way. Every time Dex’s travels took them through there, they found something new to see.