Out of Place by Shane Scollins

ride. Wish we had our bikes.”
    “ No doubt bro. I wish we’d’ve gone out to Glamis and hit the dunes instead.”
    Zack picked up a large log and tossed it. “I hear ya, but those guys don’t ride. I’m pretty sure Javy is afraid of dirt bikes.”
    “I’m pretty sure Javy is afraid of dirt.”
    Zack laughed a little. “Yeah, he won’t admit it, but he’s hatin’ this.”
    “He hates anything that doesn’t include a cocktail glass with sugar on the rim , served to him by a blonde with huge fake boobs.”
    “ As long as those huge boobs are offset by a huge fake booty.”
    “And the hair has to be really fake -looking with black roots.”
    Zack nodded. “And she needs to have those huge spider-leg eye lashes.”
    They laughed and Zack asked, “How many fake parts can a girl have before she’s officially a cyborg?”
    “I’d say more than five.”
    Zack tossed another log. “No, gotta be more than that. You got boobs, hair, lashes, nails, butts—”
    “Calfs, lips, noses—”
    “Contacts, eyebrows…” Zack thought for a second. “We need to change our criteria. I’m going to go with a power button on the nipples or touchpad on the abs.”
    Rick blew out a long breath and wiped a bit of sweat from his brow. “So we’re not there yet , technologically speaking.”
    Zack wiped his hands on his jeans. “No quite.”
    They carried as much wood as they could pile onto their arms and headed back to camp. As they arrived , Javier and Donovan were just completing the circle of rocks that would be the fire pit.
    Zack ’s pile was getting very heavy. His arms were whipped and he dropped the pile with a groan. Rick didn’t have as much trouble. He was built much thicker—not that Zack was a weakling by any stretch. In fact, he spent a good amount of time in the gym working out, lifting weights, and he’d played hockey all his life. But Rick was a freak of nature, built like a tank out of the womb.
    Zack took out his foldout axe and started chopping off some splinters for kindling. Night would be falling soon and they needed a good fire. He hacked away at a large arm-sized log until he had a nice pile of splinters and twigs and he started arranging them around the center of the fire pit.
    In his pack , he had some dirty paper towels he saved in a zipper bag to keep them dry. Zack had taken a one-week survival course in school, and rule one is that you never throw anything away because there is a recycle use for everything. Old paper towels were perfect for starting a fire.
    He clicked his compact camping lighter and got a towel burning. Touching it to the tiny curled pieces of shaved wood, it didn’t take long for those to ignite, and before long a small fire was cooking. “We have ignition.”
    Rick came over and placed four small logs on top in a pyramid shape. “And we have liftoff.”
    Zack looked towards Donovan, who just finished setting up his tent. “You two make a wood run.”
    “Why us?”
    “Because we just did.” Zack pointed down the trail. “Go down there about two hundred yards, there’s a nice pile on the left side.”
    Donovan tapped Javier , who sat on a log. “C’mon, Javy, we’re up.” He turned back to Zack. “Then you two can go find your own seats.”
     
    ***
     
    They sat around the fire. It wasn’t completely dark beyond the glow of their campsite. “Good call, Dono, on the camp,” Zack said to Donovan. “We would’ve never made it to Lenape before dark.”
    Donovan leaned back on his log and said in an old English accent, “Why thank you, Ma’Lord, ‘tis my honor to navigate and relay critical logistics.”
    Zack laughed. “You’re such a freak.”
    “Yeah,” Rick added. “You need to stop that Larping shit o r you’re never going to get laid.”
    “Are you actually still doing that stuff?” Zack asked Donovan.
    “ Indeed I am,” Donovan replied. “You guys don’t know what you’re missing.”
    “ Sorry, Dono,” Zack said. “We know exactly