Rob dropped a brace of rabbits, a wax paper package, and a gold nugget the size of baby’s fist at the feet of the Queen’s throne. He himself was clad in a patchwork of rabbit pelts to guard against the cold. He must have made it himself while on his travels. The pelts hadn’t been properly cured and the coat stank like death. But the Queen smiled. The ranger had been out for a month. We had thought him dead.

“Take the rabbits to the kitchens,” she said, waving to one of her underlings, who scuttled across the throne room to remove the rabbits from the Royal Presence. “Bring me the rock.”

Rob lifted the nugget up. The Queen took it from his hands and held it up to the blue light that filtered through the holes in the throne room’s walls. The only light that we saw of the sun in recent years. There were windows in the throne room, once, but we hadn’t been able to find a glassblower to replace them since the cataclysm.

It had been 20 years since The Big One had stranded us, making the pink hotel a prison. I was 13 and my family had been on a Californian vacation -- our first trip since our parents had split up and got back together -- when the bomb dropped. It had set off a series of earthquakes that, in the following days, made California into an island.

It had also severed most of the ties -- electric cables, internet, fiber optics, that created links to the mainland. For years, we tried to communicate with the outside world, but slowly we had given up. As we became more self-sufficient -- producing food in the hotel’s garden, collecting and decontaminating rainwater in the pool -- there was less of a need to communicate anyway.

“Pretty rock,” the Queen said to Rob, “but what good is it to me? We have no need for currency here.”

“My Queen,” said Rob, “I found it on a body, not three days dead. Along with this,” he held up the wax paper package, and drew out an object as golden as the nugget.

The Quen squinted. “Is that...a dried orange slice?”

“It is,” said Rob. I could hear the excitement grow in his voice. “My Queen, somewhere, there are greenhouses that can grow citrus trees. And somewhere near that, people have a need for rocks that can double as currency. We may not be alone.”

He handed the orange slice to the Queen. She took a bite, chewing thoughtfully. “Rob,” she said. “Organize a search party. Prepare for a long absence. Find these other survivors, and bring them to me.”

Subscribe to r/robotdevilhands for more of my writing!