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description= creative writing on environmental justice;
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reckoning, reclamation, botany, of, the, mouth, original, mandate, burn, barrel, astrology, flash, fiction, call, gets, weird, omen, recollection, posts, pagination, sowing, kottravai, on, leafing, how, you, wait,
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Text of the page (random words):
e reentry journal now you can do it to access writing coach seven missed calls from mom message from reminder art therapy in one hour and forty five minutes continue your five day physiotherapy streak always getting stronger always getting stronger trademark of she dismissed them all unstrapped her leg and played the block game until the login for art therapy appeared on her hud she tapped it and her efficiency apartment disappeared into the vr start new project read one pane load asset packs saved asset packs she didn t mind art therapy she d picked it off a list of options it reminded her of drawing with jacko but in a good way not too much the part where they talked about the art sucked but most of it was just putting together stuff from the asset packs some people in the group made fucked up shit with distorted bodies and darkness and holes oozing blood benny just made landscapes the biggest asset packs the photorealistic ones had scans of all kinds of trees and flowers and rocks she even recognized one of the mountains from a basic training vr sim it was the same one jacko had said looked like a pile of turds benny had missed half the targets from giggling benny never used that asset pack but mostly landscapes were okay she made up stupid little games like an accurate southeastern landscape or an extinct landscape or a landscape where everything s blue with fescue and forget me nots and spruce except then she had to make up some bullshit about the bluebird represents healing and amy the facilitator would nod her avatar head sympathetically and that asshole perry s avatar would smirk benny s avatar still had both legs today everything in the landscape was broken a tree half killed by lightning with black bark and green needles around bleach white wood a split rock this weird smeared sideways flower from one of the asset packs probably some kind of glitch in the scan because nothing that freaky could be real she hesitated over some bugs that reminded her of the bots at work a shiny round blue green beetle a slatey pillbug perhaps next week she d make a round stuff landscape she could draw the bots of course rather than just relying on what had been scanned into the asset packs but there was a lot in the asset packs and she hadn t picked up her pencils since she got back at the end of class she didn t have to talk because brett started crying about his dad s old mustang a car not a horse that was fine with benny she had nothing to say it was too late to make dinner so she ate some seaweed chips and jerky and a granola bar she didn t even need to shower she figured she showered twice a day at work she played the block game for a while and went to bed she could open that package tomorrow the next morning she overslept and nearly missed the shuttle at work there was a jar in her internal mailbox labeled uncle bernie s special salve which made her smile the rest of the week disappeared into training modules and shadowing other bot handlers she watched through her hud while tark told his gray silicate bot to run a radioactivity scan on some beads and while braith guided one of her black survey bots out of a partly collapsed bed frame benny passed quizzes and made stilted conversation with her coworkers uncle bernie s salve seemed to help the package sat on the counter it was a busy week the next week she started running her team for a couple of hours at a time first with graeme looking over her shoulder then with her on call each bot had its own panel on her hud plus the ones for the other bots in the area and overall status alerts thunderstorms gas alerts wildlife sightings seemed like there was always something going on it was almost like piloting the mech except with nothing locked around her body just information flowing through and occasional chatter on her headset almost like old times she made the round things landscape in art therapy with pillbugs and ladybugs and cacti and beach pebbles and fat winter birds snarky perry said it made no biological sense brett thought it was cute and wondered if roundness represented integrity and wholeness sure benny told him why not the following week all her training modules were done it was just her and the bots she had to ping graeme with a question almost immediately was this butterfly in a glass dome the kind of thing she should have a bot dig out for the museum but graeme didn t seem to mind the salve really did help on tuesday she opened the package there was a note scribbled on a sheet of algaweave dear benny jacko would have wanted you to have this hoping it brings back good memories you re always welcome here in salmon don t be a stranger love margaret benny crumpled the note then immediately tried to smooth it back out again jacko had talked about her mom all the time the quilts the spoon collection the unexpected dirty jokes a couple times she d gotten care packages of molasses spice cookies to share with the squad this care package was a sketchbook it was like something from the wrong asset pack dropped into her apartment the black fiberpack cover ring binding and furysaurus sticker were all horribly familiar benny s sketchbook had been decent with long fiber creamy algaweave but jacko s was the real deal thick cotton paper she had thought jacko was bullshitting the first time she told her to go ahead and draw something on one of those precious pages but no that was just jacko if benny flipped through it about a quarter of the drawings would be her own she didn t flip through it she put it carefully in a drawer with margaret s smoothed note on top then she dismissed all her notifications and played the stupid block game until she was tired enough to sleep her fifth week on the job graeme told benny that her squad had a below average adverse incident rate benny choked up a little it was nice maybe to know she was keeping them safe on an uneventful tuesday something tripped an alarm the notification took over her entire hud red and flashing with an urgent beep enemy sighted engage y n she froze ready to no that wasn t right she blinked hard it actually said warning met a28 payload error payload error okay payload error that had been in one of the training modules sometimes the reclaimed materials they were dumping got stuck she minimized the notification pulled up the metal bot s interface panel and tapped payload purge cycle through the front facing camera she watched it bank off the track and dock with the hopper purge cycle complete continue to decon continue she signaled watching the minimized error it didn t go away instead the screen turned redder repeat warning met a28 payload error something was really stuck in there that was okay manual decon she d passed that quiz eventually she directed the bot to a manual decontamination bay and set off met a28 met her in bay c 34 a narrow space with a counter on one side stocked with gloves wipes containers and a lot of nozzles the blue bot was still but the lights in its sensors were flickering when she approached it beeped sullenly benny hadn t actually seen them in person she realized not up close up close the bots were big waist high at least and benny wasn t short the problem was obvious one of its grabbing arms was still extended locked around something shiny carefully benny moved closer it was a flat piece of metal plain silver barely thicker than her retro id badge narrow and wider at both ends a wrench a very simple one not adjustable just a bracket on one side and a loop at the other more like a wrench icon than an actual tool benny pulled the bot s menu back up watching in case it moved cycle arms she tapped then jumped as one of the grabbers extended next to her prosthetic she pressed back against the counter she could get up onto it if she needed a more defensible position which was ridiculous this was a civilian bot she was a civilian person everything was fine the arms cycled grabbing and pinching and scooping then retracted all except one was the thing stuck in there without taking her eyes off the bot benny groped around on the countertop for ppe come on drop it she said locking her gloved fingers around the wrench it was really jammed in there she wriggled it careful not to misalign the arm met a28 beeped then beeped again sounding almost plaintive which was silly it was a bot give it she said tugging the bot beeped once more as the wrench finally came loose it was light as well as thin aluminum maybe or an alloy okay she pulled up the menu again and cycled the arms this time it retracted properly right fine weird but fine she set the wrench in a containment tub on the counter and turned around to take off her sweaty gloves she should file the incident report while she had the object s measurements handy in her peripheral vision something moved benny spun to face the enemy except the stupid prosthetic didn t pivot properly and her balance deserted her she went down with a yelp clipping her hip and shoulder against the counter and hitting the ground hard met a28 was holding the wrench again and the decon bay was too small she was trapped between the bot and the wall her leg didn t work benny could feel her pulse speeding up she tasted blood with an effort she smacked the call supervisor button on her hud she was almost okay when graeme arrived she d made it to the bench across the hall from the manual decon bay and maybe didn t look too much like she was about to puke graeme sat down next to her and looked straight ahead what happened it wouldn t let go of that wrench and then when i finally got it to it picked it up again benny looked at the floor the scrub bootie stretched weirdly around her plastic foot she d probably get fired now ah hang on graeme stood up walked over to the decontamination bay and pulled a chemical nose out of one of the drawers she swabbed the wrench looked at the readouts and then sprayed some foam onto it she was talking to the bot too quietly for benny to hear let s give that a second to work and then i think it s time we paid a visit to the charging bays benny frowned why what s it doing it s easier to show you than explain let s get this puppy cleaned up first together they rinsed off the foam and sprayed down the rest of the unit then checked fresh chemical sniffer results through it all met a28 clung to its shiny wrench okay tell it to go recharge benny tapped the icons on the hud menu and the bot started to move benny turned to follow it no we ll take the elevator this way you feeling better now yeah sorry nothing to be sorry about should ve done this week one the elevator started descending with a jerk for a moment it seemed very small benny concentrated on graeme s prosthetic hand tapping on the rail graeme didn t look worried the elevator dinged again the doors opened after you said graeme according to the hud the bay they were looking for was to the right the hallway was dark with pale concrete floors and blue metal gateways punctuating its length sensor lights flickered on as they walked but the bays remained dark benny could make out faint red and yellow charging lights in some of them they turned a corner then hit the right number graeme leaned past benny and poked a panel on the wall the charging bay lit up benny didn t say anything it was going take her a while to figure out what to say there were ten alcoves around the room sized for the different bots they slept charged they weren t alive nose in with their pointed ends tapped into the power supply and their round backs facing the room no two alcoves were the same one had a curling design of green and blue glass stuck to the wall above it one had a canopy of wood fragments woven through with long dead flowers a small one with a sensor bot tucked into it bore lines etched into the wall arranged into designs that looked almost like pictures and one alcove had a sunburst of flat shiny metal what is it we re not really sure almost all of them do it from pretty early in the real world portion of their training we tried taking it away but performance craters if we reprogram them not to do it they can t sort the materials right we even had a couple of digital ethologists from the university come study them and their final report was all about bowerbirds collecting blue objects and bees following ultraviolet markings on petals best i could tell it boiled down to the bots think it s pretty and maybe that helps them understand their jobs graeme shook her head i m sorry i should ve told you it just slipped my mind when a bots finds a decoration for its nest we just let it do its thing there was a beep from the hall benny was probably imagining things but it sounded timid the big blue metal reclamation bot was still holding the silver wrench in its extended arm graeme pulled benny aside they stood in front of the charging bay with the glass curlicues while met a28 rolled in rotated and extended a small nozzle one of its solvent jets benny realized it pivoted from side to side probing the air then poked the nozzle into the gap between a fish knife and a flattened beer can it sprayed the wall retracted the nozzle and pressed the wrench into the sticky patch then it retracted its arm rolled backwards beeped once and rolled forward onto its charging brackets an orange indicator light lit up on its rear told ya graeme said personality she shrugged benny shook her head that s so weird graeme shrugged again like i said it s just how they make sense of it all on the way home benny watched the scrubby regenerated forest around the landfill give way to orchards and solar arrays and then housing developments with orderly palms and oleanders around their gates she got off at the caladan avenue station where unruly nasturtiums overflowed out of chipped concrete urns and went back to her apartment her pencil case was where she d left it when she unpacked she went back into the other room and pulled jacko s sketchbook out of the drawer when mom had helped her set this place up she d put a comfy chair in front of the window benny shoved laundry off it sat down and opened the sketchbook there was the dorm at benicia on the next page a seagull with a crab in its beak a water bottle casting a long shadow in the afternoon sun the extended gun arm of a mech she flipped through page after page of drawings some swift bare lines some slow and carefully colored in she found the first of her own drawings a sailboat in the bay jacko had added a mermaid swimming in its wake the drawings ended three quarters of the way through the book jacko would never fill those pages but new images had started crowding the blank pages of benny s life she knew how she d sketch them the bots graeme s plastic hand the curvilinear forms of nasturtiums mom positioning furniture the memory of jacko s face benny could see them rayed out like the bots mosaics benny bit her lip pulled a pencil out of the case and began to draw author j l rifkin posted on july 3 2026 ja...
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