#gastown

Hard Core Logo Bruce McDonald. 1996

Neon Pig 43 W Hastings St, Vancouver, BC V6B 1G4, Canada See in map

-cracks knuckles-

So, you're a 40 year old oil-and-gas project manager because that's where the money is. You went to art school but life never goes like you planned, does it? You're looking forward to being FIRE and starting up a steampunk boutique. Maybe doing some community theater - Ben Jonson, underappreciated compared to Shakespeare. The fly-in fly-out lifestyle helps with the planning.

The world's falling apart but people still want to have fun and still need oil and gas so you figure you'll be all right. And this month your polycule's having drama. So you don't mind that you're at the start of fly-in at the smallest, dullest Seven Sisters refinery in the Pilbara --

--until the Collapse begins.

It's shitty and it tears you up but, deep down, you're glad you weren't there when the bombs came down. Glad when the refinery sorts itself out without too much violence. When people start showing up offering all kinds of stuff to exchange for the oil and gasoline.

Turns out you're one of the few people left who's got a grip on how the whole refinery works - everyone's got their part but the whole is the tricky part - and you're good at talking to the people showing up. Worrying, all the while, about when people come who won't say no for an answer.

One day an entire fucking militia shows up! What's got to be half the army that's left! With someone you threw out two weeks ago for being a thief - who's happily told the militia all about you. Luckily, they're more interested in your neighbors who trade you drinking water. The guy in charge of it isn't unreasonable, by your standards. You compliment each other's hair and work out a deal...