It was dark and she stumbled at first, but then the constant grind of the feedstock's compiler led her forward, and soon violet-tinged light penetrated the trees. She left the road then, taking cover in the undergrowth. The smell of the place hit her next: rust and battery acid and the dry dust smell of old plastic slowly turning beige. A hollow feeling spread through her limbs: hunger. Her steps picked up and she drew nearer to the fence. It was at least twenty feet high and it hummed. Old signs pocked with buckshot warned about the dangers of high voltage. At the front of the dump was a small, squat structure the colour of wet cat food. It had its own fence. Amy guessed it was a guardhouse of some kind. In the game her mom had shown her, you always had to decommission the security in places like that before gaining access to the feedstock from the compiler. It was tough, though, and you were likely to get hurt: in-game, the guardhouses had electrified roofs and the dumps had botflies equipped with thermal vision, and these were linked to fence-mounted turrets full of puke rounds.
