CREATIVE WRITING ASSIGNMENT
Student: Carole-Lyne Ka
Grade: 5th Grade
0446.05.17
Assignment: “Describe a memorable event and illustrate it”
The Day I Met the Looters in Hazmat Suits
Last year I was doing my usual route through the Coast houses on my bicycle when I saw them. Three men in full Hazmat suit—those thick suits that make you look like oversized yellow larvae, with gas mask and everything.
They saw me and immediately pointed some kind of scanner at me. It beeped a few times. They looked confused. I think they were expecting the scanner to find weapons or bodymods, but I don’t have any of those. I’m just me.
One of them kept staring at his scanner like it was broken. Another one was looking around nervously, like he thought I was bait. (People always think I’m bait. It’s because I don’t have any weapons or implants, so they think something dangerous must be using me to lure them into a trap. Even the marauders who are mean to everyone else don’t dare approach me—they think if I’m surviving out here with nothing, there must be something really wrong with me. It’s actually kind of annoying.)
They wanted to take a superconductor accumulator from one of MY houses. I say “my” because I’m the one who explores them, who honors the dead who lived there, and who makes offerings to Artemes for their souls. So technically, they’re my territory even if I don’t have my name written on the door. (I know that here the goddess of the forest is Kwahn, the Silver Fox, but I was a high priest of Artemes in a past life. She knows and rememberds. That’s why I honor her here, even though we’re far from where her temples used to stand).
I told them they couldn’t just take it the accumulator. I explained that this was my house—well, one of my houses—and that they needed permission.
They laughed at first. But then they got nervous again because I wasn’t scared of them at all, and I think that confused them even more than the scanner not working. I told them if they took the accumulator without asking, I would bite them.
I was serious. I read in a book from the Old World that sometimes the threat of doing something really weird is more effective than actual violence, because people don’t know how to respond to it.
They talked among themselves for a minute. Then one of them stepped forward and spoke to me in a very formal way—like he was addressing a warlord or something. “We recognize your authority over this territory,” he said. The way he said it was weird—very official, like he was following some kind of protocol. “We regret entering your holdings without presenting ourselves. Would you be willing to sell us the accumulator?”
He offered me talers. I told them we don’t use money on the Coast. If I need something, I trade for it. Even the Diggers prefers use tokens or Piles, not talers.
But then I noticed comic books sticking out of his backpack where they had left their equipment. Old ones. Pre-Fall editions. There’s at least four or five of them.
So I made them a deal: they could take the accumulator if they gave me the comics.
They agreed. I think they were just relieved I wasn’t going to bite them.
The comics were really good. One of them was from a horror series I’d been looking for—I’d read the first two issues in another house but never found the third. Now I have it.
Gordon asked me later why I let them take the accumulator when we could have used it ourselves. I told him the accumulator was just sitting there anyway, and we already have three others. But the comics were rare. You can’t just find those anywhere.
He said I made a good trade.
Kate-Erin said I was lucky they didn’t just shoot me and take both the accumulator and the comics.
I don’t think they would have. They seemed like the kind of people who follow rules. Even in their weird, violent way.
Teatcher Notes
Carole-Lyne, even though it wasn’t specified, I would prefer that you don’t use GenAI for the illustrations.
However, this is a very interesting account, though I remain extremely concerned about your solo expeditions into the ruins. We should discuss it with your brother.
Grade: B+