Michael Merrell (order #6642461)

Written by Anton Zaleski

Edited by Sara B Frank and Kyle Ferguson
Cover Art by Konstantinos Skenteridis

Michael Merrell (order #6642461)

Visit the world of Wreck Age

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WRECK AGE, the WRECK AGE Logo, are trademarks of Hyacinth Games, LLC. in the USA and
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Michael Merrell (order #6642461)

Miles upon miles of garbage filled the ewaste site that Qwerty was digging through.
Maybe digging wasnt exactly the right word, it
was really more of a scavenge, since he lacked
any implements to actually pierce the dry soil.
However, what he lacked in shovels, he more than
made up for in technological scanners and other
high tech implements. After a few hours of
scanning the area, he had recovered an ancient
data tablet of mysterious origin, and after carefully
dusting it off, was able to jump its memory core
and access the information inside.
It wasnt encrypted, which made the process
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easier. But simply accessing the information was

just the first step. Qwertys forehead furled as he
stared at the data. The file he was staring at was
labeled "King Nut Company Job Order Cost
Analysis, 3rd Quarter", which Qwerty's gear tagged
as a presentation of some sort.
Examining the data was like reading an
archaic map written in a long-lost language. His
fingers swiped like a conductor on the projected
screen, as he sifted through charts and graphs. He
wanted to get to the good stuff, so he skimmed
through data about variable and fixed costing,
dividend payments, stock market IPO
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profitability, cost projections, and consumer

analytics. All of these things were fancy terms for
aspects of monetary transactions; the ancient
custom involving exchanges of goods or services,
called currency. Currency was used to buy
goods and services, and it was still in use today in
some Podunk towns, but Qwerty preferred to stay
away from those sorts of places. They were
crowded and smelled bad.
The majority of these concepts made some
sense to Qwerty, but when chained together he
started to get lost in the ancient customs and
culture. Investment portfolio sounded like the
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works of a rich artist, while data management

sounded like some sort of computerized
supervisor.
Qwerty wanted to see pictures of what the
cities used to look like; Those were his favorite
finds. The prospect of finding an image of the
smiling-faced, but long dead staff of the King Nut
Company in front of their corporate headquarters
was worth the tens of hours that Qwerty had
already spent digging through these files. These
personal treasures were what drove his obsessive
work habits. Qwerty would pour through
thousands of pages before coming upon such a
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grandiose image, and it would always be worth it,

regardless of how much this affected his personal
life.
Qwerty preferred being a loner, so he had
naturally steered his career towards dig sites where
it would just be him, his computer equipment and
these ancient files.
Qwerty was a Scrivener in the Order of the
Reclaimers. He utilized very sophisticated and
often convoluted methods for getting to data that
had been designed on machines that had mostly
been manufactured for obsolescence. Sometimes,
data from these finds melded its way into the
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scriptures of the Reclaimers. But Qwerty was

more of an agnostic. The more pious of the order,
like the MRO, took the words as literal truths,
attempting to apply them to the present day.
Seeing how humanity had all but destroyed itself
once before, Qwerty didnt see these writings as
anything religious in nature. Instead, Qwertys
studies focused around understanding the Exodus
of Man, and why those choice few left Earth so
many generations ago.
Based repeated findings, Qwerty knew that
the level of production prior to the Exodus was
tremendous, on a scale that would dwarf even the
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mightiest of the Reclaimers factories. A veritable

paradise on earth... machines operating 24 hours a
day, creating goods for all to use and utilize, with
everyones needs taken care of. But it all went
wrong.
But that was ancient history.
From a very young age, Qwerty spent
countless hours studying scripture in The Orders
computer labs, where serpentine data cables
disappeared behind the screens. Qwerty imagined
the room as a nest of snakes. He had taken a keen
interest in the fabled creatures when he was
younger, poring through any data he could find on
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serpents. Hed also really liked dinosaurs.

However, as an adult, there was little time for
fantasizing about creatures that may or may not
have existed.
Qwerty plugged a small dongle into one of the
slots of his sleek, mechanical glove. Once the chip
was seated, a read-out was brought up on
Qwertys Heads Up Display, which tagged the
dates and locations of thousands of discoveries
from the e-mine that surrounded him. Looking
through the virtual interface, Qwerty was jealous
that he stood just a few meters from a spot where
sixteen seasons ago, A Scav named HAR2 had unMichael Merrell (order #6642461)

earthed a slate of unimaginable value that was still

being talked about to this day. The slate HAR2
found contained animated movies that showed
videos of cats in a series of compromising and
hilarious positions. The laughter caused by these
videos mocked Qwertys efforts, as nothing he
had ever Reclaimed could even come close to
matching the interest that Frito the Cat Goes
Bonkers, pt. 2 had garnered. Qwerty
remembered the stir the videos had caused, and
wished that people would take things more
seriously.
The Scraps were like an ancient supermarket
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filled with empty shelves that had long since been

picked through. The general consensus of the
Hub's Scriveners--Qwertys colleagues--was that
there wasn't much of value left that could be easily
accessed. Even though there were still literally
tons of Old Tech buried beneath these wideexpansive plains, the majority of it would take
thousands of hours to uncover, and it wasnt seen
as an efficient use of time and only a few isolated
Reclaimer sects believed in slave labor. Morality
wasnt black and white More shades of RGB.
Qwerty wished that he had a huge dinosaur,
with gigantic jaws that could reach down into the
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ground like a shovel and help him un-earth it all.

But Qwerty didnt have a pet Unless you
counted virtual ones. His close friend Mar-key was
currently taking care of them while he was away
on his sabbatical.
Qwerty had come here to clear his head, and
to bury his former friend and mentor,
Methusala41, whos final wish was to be
surrounded by the technology trove that she had
worked so tirelessly to understand. While it was an
odd request, it made some semblance of sense to
Qwerty, in that strange way Methusala41 had been
known for.
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Qwerty decided to try to turn it into a kind of

memorial vacation, and as a meditation retreat.
These were ancient terms, no longer in popular
use, but he enjoyed comparing his actions to that
of the people before the Exodus. It helped him
feel more connected to his research.
He had left the patchwork-walled compound
two days ago, setting out for the dig site on his
electric bike. He carried a satchel full of samplecollection bags, the remains of Methusala41, and
the attitude that this would be a cleansing period
of relaxation. Qwerty was glad to be away from
the buzzing noises and constant murmurs that
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filled the computer labs of the hub.

Qwerty adjusted his tan-colored robes,
tightened the straps on his heirloom rifle, and
checked the fit on his respirator. The rifle was a
relic with over a century of service to the
Reclaimers: it was first discovered by WikkiGurl,
then ASCII, and then Qwertys mentor,
Methusala41. The latter had been a charming
eccentric who had claimed that she could upload
her entire consciousness into her Avatar on the
Hub's server. This, of course, turned out to be
complete rubbish, along the lines of the pile that
Qwerty was currently standing on.
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The rebreather was mostly symbolic at this

point, as the past few generations of Reclaimers
had been seening great decreases in pollutants in
the atmosphere and soil. This was cause for great
conjecture among The Orders head sages. Even
though the air was barely toxic in most places, the
Reclaimers continued to wear their trademark
respirators everywhere outside of the hub. It
helped them to remain faceless to the masses and
that mystery was helpful, as it allowed them to
appear more powerful and numerous than they
actually were. Qwerty felt otherworldly quality
when he fitted his re-breather over the tight head
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covering made out of well-worn linseed cloth, and

pieced together mechanical monocle. His head
would occasionally get scratchy from the cowl, but
it was a low-tech and effective way to keep the
grime in the air from drying out or damaging
Qwertys skin. A thin layer of coal tar over the
scalp helped, but the hub was currently low in
supply. Theyd run out soon unless the next trade
caravan they reached out to had some to trade for
the spare parts and refurbished tablets that the
Reclaimers used as their primary trade fodder. The
hubs location had to be kept as secret as possible,
which made trade particularly difficult, and often
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meant short supplies of even the most basic

goods.
Qwerty scanned the vast lands, seeing nothing
but nondescript pile after nondescript pile around
him. Each mound held a veritable treasure trove,
but most would need heavy excavation to access.
It was as if he were locked out of a huge server
buried beneath his feet that he didnt have the
proper log-in to. Over the decades, these dunes
had taken on a very natural, almost innocent
appearance, but to any Reclaimer worth their
weight in chips it was known as a location of great
interest. Or at least it once was.
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The Oklahoma Site had initially attracted

Reclaimers from across the continent, with some
even coming from across the Big Drink towards
the tail end of the tech rush. There had been
countless skirmishes fought over the digging and
salvage rights in those first few years.
Qwertys hub had pulled most of its forces
out of the area once the Zealots from the MRO
arrived, with their trademark heavy-handed tactics.
The Zealots arrival was marked by a swath of
charred bodies. Their indiscriminate plasma caster
and arc beam fire ended up destroying a great deal
of the valuable salvage that they fought over in the
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process, but what could you expect from those

BFI1 errors?
Those skirmishes were a distant memory, and
now for as far as the eye could see, he was the
only one around this former battlefield.
Except that he wasn't.
Qwerty spotted unsteady movement in the
distance the figure was darting back and forth,
as if being dragged around by an invisible magnet.
Even though well outside of engagement
range, Qwerty reacted quickly; combat training
pushing intellectual social programming to the
1

Brute Force and Ignorance

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side, like pushing a VR shell to a side screen while

he worked at an array of monitors.
He flipped down one of the many lens on his
monocle, and cycled through the different
magnifications... 2x, 4x, 8x, but still couldn't quite
make out what it was.
When he zoomed to 32x, Qwerty judged it to
be a dog; it was a quadruped, and the shape was
right. Qwerty had seen dogs before, many times.
Trade caravans often had a pack of them as guard
animals, but this creatures smooth body and
giant, misshapen frame was something out of a
nightmare.
Michael Merrell (order #6642461)

Keeping tabs on the beast was difficult; it

darted back and forth like the crazed drug addicts
that scurried about outside of the larger trade
settlements like Tenpike and Switch City.
As if the creature had noticed Qwertys
voyeurism, it stopped and began to sniff. It stared
intently in Qwerty's direction, opened its gaping
mouth, and let out a wail. A few seconds alter, a
sound like a deep, growling stomach rumbled over
Qwerty This broke the hours of relative silence
that Qwerty had become accustomed to while out
on this dig, and a shiver crept up his back. The
creature had found purpose, and began to run
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with great speed directly in Qwertys direction.

Qwerty quickly un-slung his glass rifle.
He thumbed a button that linked his
monocle's magnification to the dongle on the rifle,
and then steadied his aim. The weapon was of
ancient military design; rifles of this sort were true
symbols of prosperity and wealth among the likes
of a Reclaimer Scrivener. They were treasures
passed down through generations to carefully
chosen heirs. Methusala41, though slightly out of
her mind, had taken Qwerty under her wing from
a very early age, and told Qwerty on her deathbed,
that the glass rifle would be his. Qwerty had cried
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that he was about to lose the womans care,

friendship, and compassion, and half-wished that
the womans incoherent ramblings about lifeafter-death could actually be true. Of course, they
hadnt been.
With the flip of a switch, the glass rifle's
fusion power source quietly hummed to life in his
hands. Its systems booted up in nanoseconds, and
a glowing indicator announced that the trigger was
ready to be pulled all in the span of less than half a
breath. As soon as Qwerty placed his gloved
finger on the trigger guard, the air around the
barrel of the rifle dropped several degrees, almost
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as if it was anticipating being used. This specific

chill of battle always filled Qwerty with a rush of
adrenaline.
Qwerty squeezed the comfortably designed
trigger of the heirloom, and the beam that shot
from the barrel instantly took on the signature
crystalline appearance the glass rifle was named
for. The soundless, deadly ray ripped through rock
and dried foliage directly to the right of the dogcreatures feet, sending dirt cascading around it,
and causing a muffled crashing sound in the
distance. The thing continued careening towards
Qwerty, un-phased.
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"Damned Ships!" he barked out, a curse that

referred to the Exodus shuttles which had
stranded the rest of humanity on this planet so
many centuries ago.
Lowering his weapon, Qwerty fumbled for
manual reload button. The length of the
recharge rate was one of the only features that he
didnt appreciate on his rifle. However, its length
of service was clearly a testament to the solid
design. Maybe I can club it to death? he
thought. The target bounded closer, and Qwerty
found himself wishing that he had the area effect
of a shock mine at his disposal, or even one of the
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MROs unreliable caster-weapons, or perhaps a

moat with a drawbridge.
The thing was closing in at inhuman speed. It
was now within clear unmagnified range, and the
rifles recharge indicator read only 91%. He was
going to die over a 9% delay in his recharge. Or
maybe hed have one more shot One final
chance before he'd draw his revolver, and prepare
for the worst.
Qwerty was a steeled veteran who had seen
action in service to The Order from TenPike to
Toronto, but even so, fear crept up his back. If he
missed this last shot, he doubted hed live to tell
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the tale. Qwertys thoughts went to a poem he had

once read, about what happens to a tree that falls
in the woods if no one is around to hear it.
97%... 98%... 99%...
The glass rifle finally re-charged, and he
quickly re-shouldered the venerable weapon,
trying to determine the trajectory of this animalmissile. Luckily, the thing wasn't much for tactics;
it was simply charging straight at him. A bullet
made out of flesh and teeth and jaws which were
now in plain sight, about to rip Qwerty's head
from his shoulders. Qwerty imagined what the
creatures maw must smell like.
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Slow it down focus.

He inhaled deeply and let out a sigh; he
mumbled a quick mental script to the divine
servers that might live in the few satellites that
hadnt yet fallen out of orbit above Earth, and
squeezed the trigger.
The crystalline beam itself was silent, but the
result was not. The ground exploded into a dust
cloud where the beam had hit. Qwerty quickly
slung his rifle back behind him and desperately
grasped for his revolver, waiting for a clear picture
to emerge in the stubby weapons iron sights.
The creature emerged from the smoke, and
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the thing came to a halt with a resounding thud.

Qwerty saw his shot had punched its way through
the creature.
The creature appeared confused at its
predicament; one remaining eye slowly blinked. Its
jaws opened and closed and took on an almost
comical appearance, like a d og trying to sink its
teeth into a tank. It tried desperately and
pathetically to bite at Qwerty, and then attempted
to stand, but its legs collapsed under the weight of
its body; there was a hole bored clean through the
side of its head, and then again through its
haunches.
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Qwerty slowly approached the brute. His

hand gripped the wooden handle of his revolver
so tightly that his palms and knuckles hurt. Each
deliberate and measured step brought him a little
closer to this deadly mystery that lay before him.
His training screamed that he should use his
optics and observe from a distance, but even
though this creature was organic in origin, he was
fascinated. Entranced, Qwerty stepped closer.
Qwerty stopped a half dozen paces from the
thing, and hit record on his video recorder.
He puffed his cheeks as he exhaled and felt
his chest swell as he took in air, over and over.
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When he finally spoke, his voice was purposefully

slow, in the technical monotone of field reports:
"Substance: animal, genus; unknown. Subject
is representative of a canine, but clearly not
completely natural in origin. At first contact,
subject began moving at supernatural speed as
soon as it spotted, or perhaps smelled me.
Actions indicate hyper predatory nature.
When initially spotted, it was an estimated
distance of at least 2 KM away. Subject closed
the gap in less than one-and-a-half minutes,
which indicates a speed of nearly 90km per
hour, which seems improbable. My rifles
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internal recording will have to be analyzed to

determine if initial presupposition is correct.
Subject is still alive, but debilitated by a shot
through the cranium."
As if defiantly responding to Qwerty's
comment about its head, the monster reared up
and attempted to strike. Qwerty instinctively
pulled the trigger of the revolver. A nanoexplosive tipped bullets erupted from the barrel,
and found its target, and the blast blew the
creatures head into a spray of bone and brains.
The blood splattered out nearly ten meters away
from Qwerty, like a modern painting of bright red
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on a dulled brown canvas. The smell of blood

wafted into Qwertys rebreather.
Qwerty shuddered, and slumped to the
ground, splaying his legs out in front of him. He
rested his arms behind him and tried to blink the
macabre scene out of his head. He waited until the
ringing that resonated in his began to fade. Then
he continued talking to himself: "Subject has been
neutralized due to imminent threat. Hopefully the
brain stem is intact and can be extracted for
analysis".
As he sat continuing his report, Qwerty
reached into a pouch at the back of his belt and
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pulled out another small card. This one allowed

for data analysis of organic matter, rather than the
standard fare of metallic or synthetic materials. He
fit the card into the third slot on his gauntlet and
stood back up and circled around to approach the
thing from what he thought to be the least
dangerous angle. Even missing its head, the
creature was still fearsome.
He approached from behind and gave it a few
good taps with his boot just to make sure that
there was no reaction. Satisfied that the beast
wasnt going to rear up, Qwerty reached out with
a gloved finger. A small needle quickly extended
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and punctured its leathery, furless body for a

sample. After a few seconds, the report came back
on his Heads Up Display. At its genesis, this
creature was indeed a dog, but the amount of
altered DNA and the chemistry in its system
showed it had been heavily augmented. Qwerty
had read of pre-Exodus DNA enhancement in
both human and non-human animals, but it had
been outlawed by the governments that existed at
the time. However, he had never heard of
anything near this level of advanced bioengineering, much less seen it in the flesh.
Questions lingered
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Where had it come from?

Qwerty flung his head up and raised his pistol
as he swung around in a 360-degree arc. He
expected another one of these monsters to be
barreling down upon him, but instead, he saw
nothing but miles and miles of rolling trash hills.
Just to be sure he was again alone, Qwerty
slowly rotated once more, this time carefully
surveying the distance to make sure another of
these creatures wasn't sniffing around. It didn't
seem possible that this creature could have
smelled or seen him from nearly two kilometers
away, but that was certainly how it had seemed.
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There was no point in conjecture though, and the

video feed would have to be analyzed back at the
hub.
He studied the stream of data detailing the
creatures composition, now remembering to pay
more attention to the surroundings. Data
indicated that the creatures relatively empty
stomach held mostly grass and several small,
partially digested rodents, far too little to
adequately nourish it. How could a creature like
this could survive out in the Wilds?
Had the thing been standing, its shoulders
would stand almost a meter off the ground. It was
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nearly that wide, too--its back end tapered and it

looked like it was bred (or created) for pure
destruction.
Qwerty pulled a bio-rubber containment
pouch from one of the multitude of pockets on
his worn flax-canvas belt, and used the gauntlet's
built-in cutting tools to remove the gruesome
creature's brain stem. He gently opened the flap
on the pouch, put the grisly body part into it, and
then re-sealed the bag.
While he was no expert in biology, Qwerty
guessed that something this far out of the ordinary
was sure to gain him recognition, and might even
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lead to new scientific advances. He silently

thanked the creators of the technology of his glass
rifle for his life, and the opportunity for the
discovery.
"Transcom Engineering, Voipath Tectronics
Corp, Doctor Conner..." he continued through the
list of a dozens of different names and companies
that had been burned into his memory through
the hours of repetition, a rite of remembrance he
that he begun to learn upon M41's death.
"...and Methuzela4. You all have my thanks
for the technology that saved my life today", he
whispered into his rebreather, which made his
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voice sound tinny.

He began the trek back to the three-wheeled
electric bicycle which sat almost a kilometer away.
The soles of his cloth-wrapped boots crunched
with every step. Upon reaching the bike, he
uploaded the data from the encounter onto a mini
back-up server attached under the seat. He then
strung his glass rifle into the mount on the bikes
side, and flung random pouches filled with a
variety of small electronics and mechanical parts
into the cart that lay between the two back wheels.
With the care of a surgeon, he then placed the
pouch holding the brain stem into the basket.
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He then straddled the bike frame, and rode off

towards home.
In all the excitement and its aftermath,
Qwerty had forgotten the King Nut data tablet,
which lay just a few dozen meters from the
remains of a headless creature, out in the middle
of nowhere, surrounded by junk.

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But wait... there s more!

The world of Wreck Age depicts humanitys desperate struggle
after betrayal and disaster have decimated Earth as we know it. Your
introduction to Wreck Age begins in the 26th century, during the resetting of the calendars, or Year Zero, the first year in the
re-emergence of civilization we call The Resurgence.
Hyacinth Games has a rapidly expanding a full line of Wreck Age RPG
content, tabletop war-games, and a full line of miniatures.
We publish under a Creative Commons license to reach and
involve a wider audience; from sci-fi enthusiasts, to gamers, to casual
readers, to not only grow our community, but give back to it as well.

Check us out at:

www.wreck-age.net
Facebook.com/hyacinthgames
Twitter: wreckageRPG

Michael Merrell (order #6642461)