John Smith's Collection

MOTE Week 30, 2025

This week on MOTE, I received a prompt from Fiona Grey: The bomb collector was the only reason the debris of past wars hadn’t killed us all.

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John Smith was a very boring name for a very boring person. Or at least that was what Paul was told when he was tasked with spending an afternoon with him once a week to keep the old man company.

Paul soon discovered that the old man was really interested in only one subject. History, specifically military history. He was always asking questions about this war or that war, trying to find out what Paul knew.

Paul had had an early interest in history, but the parts of the subject he'd had to study for GCSE had put him off. Nonetheless, he went away from their first meeting rather intrigued. To prepare for the next week's visit he'd gone to the library and done a little reading on the wars John had mentioned.

The second visit went better than the first. Paul's studying had paid off, and he was able to have a discussion with the old man about Dunkirk. Of course John's interests were more eclectic, and there were questions on wars Paul knew little about.

Over time Paul's studying over the weekend paid off, and he was able to converse intelligently with his client for longer and longer periods. One week, John took him into the back room to show him something. On the wall were a couple of propellers, one was labelled as being from a Spitfire, and the other was from a Lancaster. Paul was struck speechless; those were special things.

"Ah, yes. I never did get the full details of the Spitfire prop, but that one came off a Lancaster that flew in the Peenemünde raid. But that's not what I came in here to show you."

Mr Smith did something, and part of the floor sank into the ground. "The real collection's through here."

Paul followed his client down the ramp and into an underground museum. It was an amazing collection. There were shells and bombs from all corners of the globe and many wars across many decades. There was even an intact bouncing bomb from the dam busters raid, and a bomb casing from a Grand Slam earthquake bomb.

"When did you start collecting bombs?"

"When the last owner of the collection handed it down to me." John smiled, and continued. "There's one room to go."

The last room had a safe door opening. The door was opened and through the doorway the pair went.

"You won't recognise this one I'm afraid. It's the only one of its type ever to make it to Earth."

No, Paul didn't recognise it. It was about twenty feet long, about a yard in diameter. There were no fins, and no engine at the tail.

"It's been deactivated, so we should be safe. But if anyone were to figure out how to set it off, the resultant explosion would be capable of blowing a crater bigger than anything we've ever seen. The number of deaths resulting would be incalculable. This is the reason for the collection. Anyone who managed to make it that far would assume that past devices are all that I have. They wouldn't look any further and find this."

"What is it?"

"'What will it be?' may be a more accurate question. It's a planet buster. Drop it from space, and it will drift down through the atmosphere, hit the ground, penetrate and blow up. It was designed so that only a few of them, widely dispersed would be enough to make a medium sized planet unliveable. At least, that's what the literature that came back with it says."

"I don't follow. Why would anyone consider destroying our only planet?"

"They wouldn't. I was told that there was an accident about a thousand years from now, and it sent a planetary bomber back through time. It crash landed, and this was still sufficiently intact on board that the scientists of our time could develop their own versions. The decision was made to keep it safe, deactivated and unused, as far away from the governments of the day for as long as possible."

"Who else knows?

"Now? Only you and I. There were more of us, and we pooled all our resources into this place, ordinary terraced housing above, museum below. But I'm the last custodian, and I need another person to step up and take over. You're the first person I've come across in the past twenty years with the right interests and the right intelligence and the right morals."

"Me?"

"Yes. You. There's more than enough rental income from the other terraced houses that you'll have a comfortable life for as long as you want. You won't even have to live in my place, although that house can't be rented out for obvious reasons. There's a few legal hoops to jump through, but as long as we start early enough we'll have everything in place by the time I'm no more. Assuming you want to be custodian?"

Paul thought for a minute. "Yes. I'll join you."

"Excellent! I'll get onto the lawyers tonight. Now, let's get you back upstairs before you have to leave."

The rest of the visit was relatively boring, but that, Paul realised, was the point. Only someone suitably minded would progress to being shown the collection.

Paul drove off with his brain still whirring away in his head. How long had the custodians been protecting Earth? How long did they still need to protect the planet? In a sense those didn't matter. What mattered was that he'd thrown in his lot with them. He would now become a custodian, and would in time take over from John Smith.

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My offering this week went to nother Mike. I’m looking forwards to reading what everyone else comes up with.