Challenge #02548-F358: Expect Them

Disasters happen and they turn up, usually in a camper-van/workshop. Mechanics, Electricians, Plumbers, the good ones keep their rates reasonable and do the insurance stuff for bread and butter and a bit of jam. The money is good, they leave behind grateful people, and good work. Their bonus is they have contacts everywhere for the next disaster. -- Anon Guest

No good deed goes unpunished, -- Ancient and confusing Human saying.

Disaster is inevitable. They divide a little patch of the world in which they happen into three camps. Those who suffer from it, those who attempt to profit from it, and those who come to do whatever they can to help those in the first camp. Fortunately for many, the profit instinct is the rarer of the three. Once divorced from the need for plenty, Humans are generally empathetic and compassionate beings.

When disaster strikes, the Humans swarm. They bring tools, they bring solutions, they bring themselves and whatever skills lie in their knowledge and recall. They bring all their tricks, from the seemingly daft to the ridiculous. Sometimes, they come when they sense an impending disaster, which is even more ominous than it sounds.

There are many kinds of disaster, and Humans have been through all of them. Natural disasters are the worst for their unpredictability, but the ones caused by society? Those can be predicted, almost to the second, by the patterns in extant history.

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