Junk Bot Wizard

Junk Bot Wizard

  Brett P. S.

  Copyright © 2015 Brett P. S.

  All rights reserved.

  COVER ART

  Chicago East Side – Heather Phillips at Flickr.com

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE – SALVAGE BOTS

  CHAPTER TWO – REANIMATION

  CHAPTER THREE – ENDLESS WASTES

  CHAPTER FOUR – A WORLD ERASED

  Chapter One

  Salvage Bots

  Eric rubbed his knuckles against the fibers of his beard as he rocked back in a comfortable chair. The fireplace lit up with the life of the lot, pulsing harmoniously with the ebb and flow of the molten fires deep beneath the surface of the planet. The vibrations shook the ground slightly, but he’d gotten so used to them by now that he hardly felt their presence unless he tried. The echoes of old machinery come to die soothed him to sleep each night.

  Eric glanced out his window for sight of his new drones. The sun had almost set and night made it difficult to navigate. Nothing but stationary junk filled the landscape. As far as he could see, scrap metal, though none appeared to be his drones.

  “What do you think, Berta?” he said.

  In the corner of his little shack, a stationary bucket of bolts whizzed and clicked in a fashion he couldn’t make sense of.

  “Certainly, but what if they don’t make it back?”

  Berta communicated again in a series of unintelligible auditory gestures.

  “You put too much faith in those things,” he said. “One of these days, they’ll end up like you.”

  Berta hissed.

  “I’m just saying. Life out there is harsh. You should be lucky. Not them.”

  Eric waited for Berta to reply, but instead jumped at the sound of a buzzer that rang through his shack. He picked himself up, groaning as he did so and strode over to the door. It wasn’t a particularly long walk, but he had to cross a few workrooms in the process.

  Eric opened the door and felt the hot sting of a setting sun beaming down at him, even as he shielded his body with a door of lead. He kept it open for a few seconds while the band of scavenger drones scurried through, and then he slammed it with impunity. It didn’t hurt so much ten years ago.

  Eric led his motley crew back to his living room, where he sunk back into his chair and examined them. Each drone stood no taller than a mouse, though each carried something the size of a small dog. Larger ones took too much in the way of time to maintain. Parts were scarce for the big ones too, so he made due with the tiny drones. Size didn’t matter much out here anyway.

  “What have you got there, Percy?” he said.

  Eric reached down and pulled up a freshly cooled piece of scrap iron. Good, that would make for excellent raw materials. Maybe he’d do something fancy with it. It was almost Berta’s birthday.

  “Lewis?” he asked. “What’s that strapped to you back?”

  The drone rolled forward, carrying what looked like a smaller version of itself. The salvaged piece looked similar in shape to a mouse, and it ran on wheels like Lewis. However, once Eric held it for a closer look, he grimaced.

  “They don’t throw these away often,” he said. “Where did you find it?”

  Lewis whizzed and shined a projection of his video feed across the floor. Eric watched it closely but frowned again once he saw the object stashed in the south stack. Trash. Nothing but raw materials. A lapse in judgment, maybe?

  “I’ll forgive you this time, Lewis, because you didn’t know, but this thing isn’t useful to me.”

  Berta whizzed and clicked.

  “Because it’s a damn toy,” he said.

  Lewis’s camera sensors peered up at him.

  “Just take it back.”

  Berta hissed again.

  “You can’t be serious. I won’t.”

  Berta uttered a concoction of noises so diverse, it could only be interpreted as a swear word.

  “Fine,” he said. “But this thing’s not going outside. The sun would eat it for breakfast.”

  Berta appeared to calm down, and the rest of the drones scurried back to their respective locals in Eric’s shack. Eric held the tiny bot in his hands and examined the solar torn metal. Maybe he could use that scrap iron. After all, Berta’s birthday was tomorrow.

  Chapter Two

  Reanimation

  Eric worked through the night, sharpening the iron for a solid casing to protect it from the sun’s harmful radiation, not that it would make much difference on the inside, but every little bit helped. He completed the casing in the last hours before sunrise and laid it gently beside the toy as he unscrewed the original covering. This toy was a newer model. Shame that anybody threw it out in the first place. A bit of curiosity took Eric by surprise, and he hooked up this model’s memory unit to his own projector. The memory unit was small, located behind the visual sensors in the front of the contraption.

  The video feed displayed itself with a strong helping of noise and disruptive artifacts. Rough pictures mostly. That was all he could really isolate. Like a stop-frame animation, the story of a tiny toy unfolded. A family. A child who found a friend. This machine was loved. They took good care of it, more than he would. Then, like everything else on this planet, it went out with the trash. How did it happen? The feed was incoherent. Too little to make a good conclusion. Besides, it was his now. It didn’t matter who else might have loved it in a past life.

  Yet, the mystery behind the toy took him for a number. Eric spent the next two hours playing and replaying the bits of information contained inside its tiny brain. He’d been used to old junk, but never something new. Somewhere deep inside, he wondered who had the nerve to send him good material.

  After he felt finished, Eric screwed on the new casing and activated the toy he decided to call Henry. The lights of its visual sensors lit up, and Henry looked at him before dashing forward and off the workbench. Eric caught it and set it back up.

  “Hold it right there,” he said. “I’m not finished with your diagnostic.”

  Henry’s visual sensors dashed around as Eric ran a scanner across the materials. Everything looked in one piece. Good enough to run full speed off his workbench at any rate.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked.

  Henry looked at him and tried to run off the ledge again, but this time, Eric stopped him before he reached a halfway point. Berta chirped in the background.

  “Don’t look at me,” he said. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”

  He glanced back to see Henry still revving his motors at full capacity.

  “Listen up, drone. Your name is Henry now. I’m sorry, but whatever life you had is gone.”

  That seemed to make it calm down. Eric eased up his pressure gradually and released his finger.

  “See that?” he said to Berta.

  Berta whizzed, followed by a crashing sound of metal against the floor.

  Chapter Three

  Endless Wastes

  Eric sank back in his chair and rubbed his beard again. Henry rocketed around the room and throughout the shack. Attach some abrasive surfaces and he might be able to clean something, but Eric was beginning to worry about the poor thing. Henry did not stop moving, not even for a second. Although it took Eric a while to assess the situation, he was now sure the drone was scanning for weak points in the structure. He was looking for a way out.

  “Henry, this needs to stop,” he said.

  The drone peeked around the living room exit, its visual sensors colored green as it stared across the room at him. Henry scooted forward and revved its wheels.

  “You just don’t get it, do you?” he said.

  Bert
a chirped and whistled.

  “No, I’m going to show it. I should have done it a long time ago.”

  Eric held out his hands in a cupping gesture and motioned for Henry to climb inside. Henry rolled forward, and Eric did the rest, grabbing the drone and hoisting him up. He walked over to the nearest window on the south side of the living room and held it up to get a decent view.

  “See that?” Eric said.

  The horizon stretched out farther than a planet should, with an atmosphere as thin as a night sky in the middle of day. A burning sun torched the endless wastes from the east, a sea of scrap metal.

  “This world is the end of all journeys,” he said. “A world where people throw their unwanted possessions. There is no going back because there is no way off this heap of metal.”

  Berta hissed.

  “Well, it is unwanted. Somebody threw it away. That’s how it works, Berta.”

  Berta hissed again.

  “What do you want me do about it?”

  Berta was silent.

  “No,” he said. “I’m not doing that.”

  Berta remained silent.

  “I don’t believe in it. I’ll make it work … somehow.”

  Chapter Four

  A World Erased

  An underworld’s molten core vibrates in rhythmic pulses. Eric had grown used to it, but that was before Henry came along. For the past five hours, it has done nothing but repeatedly ram itself into the front door. It would not stop, no matter how many times he said so. A machine that would not listen. A drone that would not cooperate. It took the rhythm of the planet to calm Eric down.

  “I hope you know this is all your fault,” he said to Berta.

  Berta remained silent.

  “Because it was your idea to keep it.”

  Berta remained silent.

  “What? Take responsibility?”

  Berta remained silent.

  “I suppose I could have said no back then.”

  Eric stood up and stretched his arms. He eyed Henry across the shack, still ramming itself into the door at the far end. Something ticked inside of him. Erasing someone’s memory, drone or human. That was something he would not do. At the least, it was something he’d take no responsibility for. Berta was a talkative drone, but its lights hadn’t lit up since yesterday.

  “At any rate, I’ve got an idea that might settle this.”

  Eric paced over to the door to his shack and looked down to see the tiny toy drone still performing the same function. With each deliberate attempt, the iron casing deformed a little bit.

  “That’s not going to work, you know,” he said to it. “All you’re doing is denting your case.”

  Henry continued ramming into the door, as if Eric hadn’t said anything at all.

  “Listen, drone. I’m going to suggest something, and I don’t know why I’m offering it, but hear me out.”

  Henry pulled back, as if it was going to follow through but instead stopped.

  “I can open this door, and you can roam free. Try to find your family, but I have to explain to you … this is a world where you will roam for an eternity and never find them.”

  Henry started bashing against the door again.

  “Or, there’s another option. I can wipe your memory. Make you forget the life you had.”

  Henry picked up the pace and ran faster now. His case was sullied with scuffmarks and bulging dents.

  “I’m trying to tell you that you can live. You go out there, and you’ll fry before the sun sets. I guarantee it.”

  Henry continued its pattern of attack. It didn’t let up, not for a second. This was the path it chose? Well, at least Eric didn’t have to wipe its memory, but this was a waste. A waste of material. Maybe something more too. Eric kept thinking who would have the gall to throw something like this down here, but how could he be the one to throw it back?

  He drew open the door and as quickly as the sun’s rays burst in and singed his skin, the little toy scooted out into the endless wastes. After he shut it closed, Eric peered out a window and watched Henry skid across the landscape for a distance until he couldn’t see it any longer.