Pete held the button in for a few moments, then let it go.  "Dud.", he said to himself. 

He opened the back of the cellphone, removed the battery and placed it in the battery box on his workbench.  He then placed the phone in another box aptly marked phones.

He reached into the pile to his right and randomly pulled another phone out of the pile he had at one time or another obtained from travelers wishing to trade.

He wasn't quite sure if any of them would work, or if he would ever figure out how to recharge them.  But daily he sorted through his items he received and organized them for future use.

Although his organizing seemed simple enough, the workbench was covered in tools and items, and looked out of order.  But he knew where every screw was in his shed, every nut, and every bolt.

He had actually been at the same job, here in his backyard, for decades.  long before the virus, and the cleansing, and his mothers illness.

He used to complain because his mother wouldn't let him work in the basement, and made him build this shed out back to make into his workshop.  But things were a lot different now.  He enjoyed the separation from the house and all that it brings.

Plus the silence allowed him to think.

For some reason, his mother had been getting louder at night.  What started as low grunts and light scratching has grown into screeching and clawing just in a couple nights.

He wasn't sure why.  He knew he could look to find out.  He also knew that Scott had been on edge about his mother as well.  he was afraid this tension between them was going to escalate, and he was afraid of what may come.

He held the power button down and waited.

"Dud.", he repeated his process again.

He did find a couple that worked, but the batteries were so low, he was afraid to play with them until he discovered a way to charge them.  He was just pleased he found a couple that worked.

So many of the electronic devices had stopped working when the cleansing took place.

Pete wasn't exactly sure why, but he knew it had to do with the bombs the government dropped.

As far as the house goes, he figured it didn't work anymore because there was no electricity.  But he wouldn't be sure until he got bigger solar cells.

He had a few, but they created such a low voltage, he could barely light his workbench lamp.

It would be enough to charge the cell batteries, if he could just rig some sort of converter.

He tried charging one once, and it blew up.

He looked over at the black scorch on the top of his bench and remembered.  The battery power cells aren't what they used to be.  The chemicals in them are quite volatile, and he made note of that in his mind, for future use in case he decided to make some small explosive devices.  Weapons were always a big hit with the customers.

As he continued to work and day dream of new inventions and solutions to old problems, Scott came in.

"Hey Pete..i need to talk to you.", Scott was bold in his body language when he approached Pete, but very timid in his speech.

"Yeah, what's up man?", Pete knew what was up.  He had been waiting for this for weeks.  He actually thought it would all come to a head before this, and it almost did the night Lunk had first arrived at Pete's house.

"Hey, I was talking with some guys, and they said that they would pay us good and we could be a holding station for their...goods.  I was thinking, we could really use the basement, and we...", Pete interrupted, knowing exactly what this conversation was about, and where it was going to lead.

"Look Scott, I told you.  A, I don't deal with slavers!  And B, we can't use the basement because...", Scott then interrupted Pete with anger in his voice, "Yeah, Yeah, I know, your freak is in the basement, and we can't disturb her! God forbid we make a living and survive..."

Pete turned and faced Scott from his stool, his glare stopped Scott's mouth.

"Listen, I don't deal with slavers, and I'm not dealing with my mother.  i don't know what to do yet.", Pete looked to the floor.

"You know what to do, you just wont do it!", Scott turned and grabbed a hammer off the workbench and swung it as hard as he could taking all of his anger out on the wall.  One swing, the wall, although wood, buckled and splintered.  He dropped the hammer and kicked the door open as he left the shed.

Pete knew that he had to do something about his mother, but he didn't know what.  He also knew he wouldn't deal with slavers.

He tried that once, and it was ugly.

He thought, because he was the only trade dealer for miles, he would have some pull and respect.

The slavers came, they had a good day that day.  Only one slave left.  A female of course, about 30 years old.  She was still wearing her business clothes, dirt covered her face.

She had no fight in her.  When Pete first saw her, he knew he wanted to free her.  Whatever the cost.

The slaver was a hard man, and brought with him about half a dozen other men, who all looked like they had lost interest in their capture.  Pete couldn't fathom how long that took, or what had transpired.

All he knew was that he couldn't stand the sight of an innocent enslaved in chains.  It was those slavers who deserved to be in chains.  but he knew he could never stop them.

He bargained for her.  The slaver, although tired of his capture, demanded far more than Pete could give.  He just didn't have the resources to afford such a high price.

He snickered sorrowfully to himself as he remembered that day, thinking about how he could have purchased her 20 times over is it happened again today.

He clinched his teeth as he remembered the day.

The slaver would rather kill her than continue to feed her, and if he couldn't get what he wanted, he would do just that.

The bargaining turned into dealing, and the dealing into pleading.

The slavers simply laughed at the entertainment, and enjoyed raising the price just a little if Pete could come closer to the asking price.

The slaver finally grew tired of the game and put his pistol to the woman's head.  She never even flinched.

Pete remembers the crack like thunder.

Him and Scott buried her that afternoon after the slavers left.  Pete still cried once in a while when he passed her grave in his back yard, wishing he at least knew her name.

He often wondered if she understood what he was trying to do for her.  If she knew he was trying to free her, not get her for himself like those sick slavers.

At least she didn't have to suffer this anymore.  Unlike his mother.  He thought about how she was a slave to the sickness.  How he had an opportunity to free her from her living hell. 

Reality struck him, "What the hell am I talking about?", he said out-loud.

Although Pete was a big man, and looked like he could do damage, he was a very kind and gentle man, and couldn't hurt anyone, let alone his own mother.

But was she still his mother?  He wasn't sure, but one thing he was sure of, he wasn't going to be able to hurt her.

"No slavers!" he said as to reassure himself of the unbreakable rule.

Pete thought for a moment, and wondered why Scott couldn't see how bad dealing with the slavers was.  He was there that day, he saw what happened, he helped dig the hole.  Was he that ignorant?  Was he "slower" than Pete thought?

They knew each other for many years, and spent a lot of time together, but since the virus, Scott had been different.  He has changed.  But Pete still felt responsible for him.

He turned, and held the button, the light came on and the phone spoke.  "Communicator operational, you have 37 messages sir, and 1 TOS update, and 1 system message, and 3 critical updates.  Your battery is at 89 percent.  May I help you?"

Pete was excited, this was the first phone to have such a full charge, and the AI seemed to be fully operational.

He would reserve the battery as much as possible.  this phone would work for a while.

"Phone.  Go into reserve battery mode, voice operation only.", Pete still couldn't believe his luck.

"Yes sir.  Power conservation mode on.  Voice only.  May I help you?", the phone display turned off, and all that was lit was a small light in the corner which flashed every moment or so.

"Phone.  Text message.", Pete pushed his memories to the back of his thinking, making the importance of his new discovery greater than it actually was, giving himself an excuse to stop thinking of the slave girl he couldn't save, the mother who was ill, and a friend who had changed.

"Yes sir.  Recipient please.", Pete pulled a notepad from his left which had a list of all the working phone and PDA contact numbers.  He looked up the PDA he had given to Lunk.

"Recipient Lunk.  PDA number 111-320-001", Pete didn't know what he was going to send to Lunk, but knew he wanted to test the service.

Some of the ground based communicators stopped working because the antenna towers and some of the stations were destroyed, but some satellite services were still operational, and didn't rely on ground antennas at all.  His fingers were crossed.

"Recipient found.  Message to text sir?", the phone had connected to service and was ready to communicate.

"Yes.  Text this message.  Lunk, I have working communication in text mode only.  you can contact me at this cell number.  Hope all is well.  Signed Pete.", he looked forward to a response from Lunk.  He really liked him, and felt like he would make a good friend.

"Message sent.  Is there anything else sir?", the phone waited.

"Yes.  Leave ports open for other communications.  Make yourself visible, and listen on all channels.", who knows who else is out there, he thought to himself.

"Yes sir."

He put the phone in his pocket.

Then thought about his situation again.

Scott had never exploded like this before, Pete was sure this was the beginning of the end of their relationship.