Copyright © 2026 Vaughan Stanger

“If you sit with me, I’ll—”

Giles broke off from hacking at the brambles blocking his path and glanced to his right. A human figure shimmered like a ghost amid the hornbeams but faded before he could get a good look at it. The voice had cut out, too. It had sounded like an elderly man’s; except that wasn’t possible, because there were no elderly men – or women – any more. Evidently, he’d triggered a projection of some kind. While noteworthy, the presence of a power supply interested him considerably more.

A flashing battery symbol in his field-of-view reminded him that he would have to turn for home in ten minutes. In other circumstances he would have responded immediately, but for once the opportunity justified taking a risk.

He forced his way through the vegetation until he reached an artificial-looking mound covered in twigs and dead leaves. Sweeping them away revealed the wood-effect bench underneath. Behind it, he unearthed a pair of heavy-duty power cables, half-buried in the mulch, which snaked off towards a pair of towers camouflaged to resemble trees. Clusters of solar panels protruded amid tangles of creepers.

At last he recognised what he’d discovered. Triggered by sensors embedded in the path he’d cleared the bench had projected an avatar of a dead man. Such memorials had become fashionable a few months before the tsunami of panic-buying that brought the supermarkets to their knees – and with them civilisation. Doubtless this had formerly been a sunny spot, but eight decades of unrestrained tree growth and the accumulation of organic gunk had overwhelmed the solar panels. No wonder the ghost had appeared so briefly. Yet eighty years after its installation, the bench’s power system still delivered a trickle of charge. To Giles, this represented a potential cornucopia. If salvaged, the solar panels would boost his stock of spares, which the repairs required after a recent storm had severely depleted. But if he could remove the bench’s internal power cell and replace or augment his own with it, he could increase his walking range and perhaps find more benches. If so, the dead man would earn his undying gratitude.

Amen to that!

The low-charge alert flashed crimson in Giles’s field-of-view. This time, he really would have to leave.

He arrived back at the visitor centre with only a minute to spare. Normally he would have scolded himself for cutting his safety margin so fine, but this time he nodded in approval. The resources he’d discovered would significantly improve his situation. Once fully recharged, he would collect his tools and return to the bench.

It had been a good day.

To read the rest of this story, please send a message to vaughan.stanger@gmail.com with the subject line “BSFA Awards Shortlist Read Request”, or via a personal message on BlueSky, Mastodon or Facebook. I will email a PDF of the complete story to the address you supply. (I will delete your email address immediately after use.)