The roar of a heavy-duty diesel engine shattered the heavy, fungal silence of Biodome 01.
Lumbering through the breached upkeep doors of the central machinery depot, an eighty-foot self-running combine harvester surged onto the raised outer edge embankment. The machine had been stripped of its rotary threshing drums and grain hoppers. In their place, bolted securely to the heavy load-bearing steel chassis, were three five-thousand-liter agricultural fertilizer tanks, interconnected by a network of heavy PVC plumbing, high-pressure booster pumps, and a pair of fifty-foot high-pressure spray booms extending like clockwork wings on either side.
Standing on the harvester’s open worker platform, seventy feet above the muddy terraces, Toby Mallow was covered in diesel soot, wearing heavy welding goggles pushed up onto his wool beanie. In his hand, he held a massive adjustable pipe wrench that he waved triumphantly in the air.
“Behold the Vance Mobile Aerosol Dispensary Mark One!” Toby hollered over the roar of the twin turbochargers. He wiped black grease across his chin with the sleeve of his flannel shirt. “Built from three junked fertilizer wagons, four bilge pumps scavenged from the flood control pool, and pure supply boss genius! Arthur, the tanks are fully charged, high-pressure, and ready to roll!”
