True Confessions of a Dumpster Diver: A Cyberpunk BeoWulf

Forget trade secrets like where are the best locations, what times of the year are best, or how to look at a bag and tell if it s just rotten kitchen waste or old tech that can t be supported anymore. Or my name. If you met me on the street you d either ignore my unclean rags--security and maybe health risk--or in diver towns, you d just call me by my crew s name. I put this thing together, I call it what I want, that s all you need to know. Since Mother Earth kicked us out of the house and Father Government started his wars among the bubble-cities, people like me eke out a living by diving into dumpsters--the automated boxes tucked into alleyways that the city s brain drags onto the mainline when filled. The bubble s computer sends the dumpsters to the rail station later; we know the times and places. Finally, the boxes get dumped outside the bubble in a colossal mound, the perpetually recarved tombstone of a dying society. We are mostly dissidents, children of the wasteland, offspring of those not allowed to participate in the official economy. Some bubbleheads sympathize with our situation, but never in public.

We don t have any access to the medical tech, no cellular rejuvenation schedules or hormone treatments. We don t have or want or need a government--we barter. Medical goods are high priority. Our literacy rate is twice that of those who live within a Bubble. For example, did you know that it takes seventy-two muscles for humans to create speech? Or that the human brain can store about 280 quintillion bits of information? We consult catalogs, and occasionally someone will memorize a print list of what something s worth.

Another dumpster diver philosophy: dive to to survive. It s the only commandment. And there are fringe benefits: these deathly silent alleyways, supposedly private off the main streets with side entrances to the secure residential zones--are where we find our treasure. The makers of culture usually throw away the best stuff. I ve heard men and women killed for taxicab credits, associates argue schemes for advancing the corporate ladder, even lovers swear total loyalty in spite of the Bubble. Just the other day I found a great book of Old English poetry. I tell you, we are building cities among the ruins of forgotten suburbia.

On a good morning my crew will hit the outer wall of the Bubble around five-thirty and then jump inside an emptied crate. They re about ten meters long and four high. Another crew picks over the pile dumped into the wasteland outside the Bubble. If we ve done our job the day before, they merely hide among the worthless stuff and avoid radio contact until it s time to link up again. Then my crew, in trash drag, waits for the next train to dump its load. We climb in and hit the mag-lev station where cars are held. Nearly all transportation inside the bubble is based on magnetics. Why do we even bother to go in? A good number of reasons: to get new stuff we really need, recruits, sabotage--and, one day you ll repeat this story. We do have security risks, the cameras and weight sensors, but I won t tell you how we disable the enemy s equipment--let s say we take a pound of flesh and a pint of blood so we can t be tracked. As for the radios, hardly anybody transmits like that anymore. The scans only happen when some politician wants to "Sanitize the Bubble" again.

And so, we dive even deeper.