The Last Petrol Station On The M1 is ringed by a dense perimeter of old warbots, ordered years ago to form up shoulder-to-shoulder, arms grappled over each others' shoulders. Their last orders: to activate their autonomous maser-turret mode, and blow the explosive bolt threaded through each of their delicate AI higher function modules.
Outside their targeting range, Lord Passive-Aggressivus is declaiming his rulership of the wasteland, his rightful dominion over the stockpiled fuel, the only working electric car charger this side of Leeds, and the service station Greggs. His bandit gang seethe around his rusty spike-covered white Ford Transit, with their menacing array of weapon-covered cut-n-shut post-Brexit war wagons: cheap screeching mopeds, LMG-packing Ford Ka technicals, a VW Golf with an enormous boy-racer aftermarket spoiler, and the gaunt, stripped-down suicide-immolation threat of a single, graffiti-streaked, windowless Tesla.
The fence won't hold them long, batteries shot from years of pathetic British solar trickle-charging, masers sure to die by midnight. The locals' only hope, the reluctant antiheroism of a lone mech pilot, fuelled only by builder's tea and a sullen, anxious sense that Somebody Ought To: Mad Maxine, the Road Worrier.
