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NutJob and HayWire listen carefully. TomTom and JerryMac have heard all of this before, so they’re tidying up their benches now, and they’re going.
“We’re heading home early today,” says JerryMac, “before he starts waffling on about The Shorb again!”
As his colleagues leave, BarmyWaffle takes the calculator from its case and places it flat in the palm of his hand. The white plastic case is badly faded and the LCD screen is cracked and opaque. However, the faint numbers can still be seen on the keys. The entire device looks like a sepia photograph from the Victorian era. Except that this is the real thing, a sepia coloured, 3D, historical artefact, the provenance of which cannot be disputed.
“Apparently,” he says, “these things were everywhere! You know, students, teachers, office workers. Everybody had them.”
“At first, when The Decimation hit, nobody realised that ‘no more oil’ would mean ‘no more plastic’ and, when you couldn’t get batteries for these things any more, they were just chucked away. Nobody thought to keep them. This is one of only twelve that remain. It came from the University of Waterloo.”
HayWire asks, “Waterloo? I know Lancaster had a university didn’t it? Where’s Waterloo?”
“Oh, the University of Lancaster was famous!” says BarmyWaffle, “highly prestigious! And then they established another one here, then another. There were four universities in Lancaster by the time everything collapsed! Preston had three. Manchester had eight, and even Liverpool had five! Er, I mean Lool, just south of Boot!”
“If you go north from Boot, following the original coastline there used to be a town called Waterloo. Until it was flooded!”
“I thought Waterloo was in Belgium,” says NutJob.
“Yes, the Belgian one is probably still there, I don’t know! There used to be a Waterloo in London too, and in Canada. The
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