Clarkesworld, February 2026
Morag is a tech salvager living in post-collapse Wales who maintains robots, including her companion walkbot Seamus—a former military killer robot she freed years ago. During Rugby Weekend in Caernarvon, children report seeing a robot, which turns out to be “The Iron Piper,” a modified robot-assisted exosuit disguised as an autonomous robot for promotional shows.
The Iron Piper is operated by Maeve, a charismatic recruiter, and Tam, a downtrodden assistant. Maeve runs a tech organization called “the Campus” in Aberystwyth, presenting it as a utopian community where technically minded people can work on reviving old technology and building robots. After the show, Morag confronts them, revealing she knows the “robot” is actually a piloted exosuit from old entertainment shows.
Maeve wants Morag to join the Campus and copy Seamus’s software to restore their broken walkbots. She promises Morag full-time tech work, respect, and the chance to leave a legacy. Though tempted, Morag is suspicious of their deceptive recruitment tactics and the power dynamics she observes between Maeve and Tam.
Tam secretly visits Morag and reveals the Campus’s dark reality: what began as an egalitarian tech commune has devolved into hierarchy and exploitation. Maeve and others now live comfortably while workers—both technical staff and casual laborers—are trapped in indentured servitude through contracts binding them to unpayable debts. Tam, himself indentured, is organizing a revolution but wants Seamus’s military software to arm walkbots against Maeve’s faction.
Morag refuses both sides. She recognizes that revolutions simply create new hierarchies, and giving either faction weaponized robots would be dangerous. She tells Tam the Campus represents an evolutionary dead end—attempting to recreate a tech-startup culture that failed even when civilization was intact. The real future lies with independent builders like her foster-son Cliff, who creates appropriate technology for current needs, and with the casual laborers’ networks that ensure fair treatment through collective action.
When Maeve attempts to steal Seamus’s code, the robot defends itself, knocking over the Iron Piper suit. Maeve desperately offers to trade Tam’s indenture contract for the software. Morag refuses but tells Tam he can simply walk away—contracts only matter if communities respect them, and no one in the region honors indentures. She directs him to join a nomad tribe who will protect him.
However, Tam feels obligated to the people still trapped at the Campus. Morag makes a trade: she gives him the flamethrower attachment Cliff had gifted her (originally meant for Seamus) in exchange for one of the Iron Piper’s grabber arms for Seamus, with one condition—don’t use it in Caernarvon.
Tam burns the Campus camp and escapes with the Iron Piper suit. Weeks later, Morag finds the abandoned, deteriorating suit on the hills. She salvages its control panel to build something useful, reflecting that the tech-startup lifestyle “didn’t even work when it was supposed to work.” The story ends with Morag returning to her farm, satisfied that some obsolete things are better left to rust while their useful parts get repurposed for the present.
Fiona Moore is a BSFA Award winning, WFA shortlisted writer, academic and critic, author of Management Lessons from Game of Thrones and the Morag and Seamus series of cozy post-apocalyptic stories. Her work has appeared in Clarkesworld, Escape Pod, and Interzone, and she has published two novels. She makes miniatures and runs a blog about cooking food from franchise tie-in cookbooks. She lives in London with a snowshoe cat who’s not bothered about anything.