Rusted

Rusted is the brainchild of none other than my brother-in-arms, Alex Eckman-Lawn. The world was born out of a short story he wrote in college and, in talking about it, we realized it could be interesting to explore the dark corners of a world whose trajectory might not be too far from our own in this age of Twitter, Facebook, etc.

“Humans place an impassable barrier between themselves. Physical contact is a thing of the past. Conversation is distilled to bits and bytes and character limits. Technology has rendered the touch of another moot.

That was before. This is after.

The safety of the world before has been traded for a vitality the likes of which the remaining survivors haven’t seen in their lifetimes. Some choose to form small collectives to begin again. Others are lost and left to wander the world alone. And still others revel in the violence of a world without barriers and laws, giving in to an animal instinct which still runs deep in their blood; to hunt, to scavenge, and to destroy.

Those who remain must find the courage to reconnect with one another and remember that which defines humanity before they cease to exist.

This world is Rusted.”

Rusted is planned to be an anthology of sorts, with numerous short stories spanning the world which has, against the odds, survived yet again to become something new. The first story, Faded Signal, is being published in Popgun Volume Four in February of 2010.



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