ISLE: Heavyweight (Act I, Part III)

Marlowe experiments to find how the rucksack works

850 words, ~5 minute read
Recommended listening while you read: Rescue by Thomas James White
Day 1 on the island, afternoon

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I felt much better after a bit of food and drink. As my jaw laboured over the hardtack, my thoughts wandered back to before I’d volunteered—to life before the seed ship project. We’d been excited, idealistic, young & dumb. We’d also been indignant, unhappy with the way things were going. In the clarity of hindsight, how little had gone wrong for those kids. Here I was, older, wiser, and yet, things had now gone ‘stranded alone on a remote island’ levels of wrong.

I pictured the apartment we’d lived in during that time. The meals we’d made with the neighbours. The joy around the table. The awkward jokes that hadn’t landed, but were laughed at anyway, as a shared gesture of solidarity, a kindness to show we were all in it together. The mess of glasses on the tabletop… The chairs with their cat-scratched upholstery and thick-cushioned seats… The steam coming off the easily chewable food…

Something cracked loudly in my mouth and brought me back to reality. Hopefully just the hardtack. I tried using as little drinkable water as possible, but as it rinsed the sand from my gums, I emptied more of the first bottle than I’d intended. I could feel my body thanking me as I swallowed it down.

After the snack, I walked down to the waterline and rinsed my face in the seawater– refreshing at first, but the salt lingered. I needed to figure out a way to capture fresh gray water for things like this. The musty sting of my survival suit stuck in my nose again, so I looked around one more time to be sure I was alone. I peeled the whole thing off. I swirled it around in the waves, turned it inside out, and then hung it from my driftwood marker. It felt good to be fed, half-clean and naked on a private beach. People paid good money for this.

While my suit dried in the afternoon sun, I tested the backpack more. I reclaimed my strange fruit from its perch in the standing driftwood and grabbed my digging stone, placing both into the bag. The strange circle on the leather flap glowed every time something went in or out, as though it was counting. I held the bag up and stared into the little cylinder.

There was another long hiss of pressure releasing, a crackle in the air, and then a grid projected out of the glow, filling most of my field of vision. Again, the wind caused the image to flicker slightly with each gust. Icons representing my fruit, my digging rock, the hardtack, and each of the three water bottles filled six of eight spaces. This was an inventory! Along the top was a thin line that had a thicker segment on the left side. This segment extended only a small way across. It was much shorter than what I’d expect if I were already using most of the slots.

How, exactly, did this thing work?

I began gathering as many sizeable rocks as I could from the boundary between the beach and the forest. The grid disappeared as soon as I looked away. The afternoon sun beat down as I worked. I’d have to get that suit back on soon if I wanted to avoid a serious burn. Once I had a neat little pile, I tried to stuff the rocks into the bag. First rock, should be slot seven. Second rock, slot eight. To my surprise, the third rock went in with no issue, as did the fourth & the fifth. I kept stuffing until I lost count of how many rocks I’d put in.

Hm.

I focussed on the glowing dot again. The grid projected once more, having now expanded to be twelve spaces. The pack had grouped some of the rocks together. I had my original six icons, then four additional stacks of eight rocks each.

“So, not a limited number of spaces…”

The line at the top of the inventory had changed. The thicker segment now extended more than 1/2 way across and had turned yellow. I threw the bag over my shoulder and immediately felt heavier. I tried to walk down the beach a little, but I was out of breath within a few steps. My body was still underfed and over-rested. My legs wobbled.

I struggled to pull the straps off my shoulders, and the pack dropped to the ground with a thud.

It was weight-based. I could put in whatever I wanted. The bag would auto-sort into as many inventory spaces as it needed, but everything added weight. While all those rocks felt lighter than they probably should have, I still could only carry so much.

Inside the bag was still empty darkness. Why didn’t I see anything?

Why hadn’t the water stacked?

Who put a fancy leather future-techno rucksack in the forest?

The afternoon sun relented, and the air cooled off. I put my survival suit back on, but it still felt damp. I decided that shelter was the new priority. Which was good, because just as I started pulling down palm fronds, I felt a raindrop hit my forehead.

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