Scrap headed for the Piles.
They stretched out as far as he could see in every direction, dawn light illuminating them in an almost ethereal glow. But which one was his? How could he find his way back?
“For cog’s sake…” he grumbled, and glanced back to make sure he wasn’t being followed. Bad Knees Outpost loomed behind him, a bland, cube-shaped bunker with only a neon sign to make its presence felt.
Scrap limped on up the street, scraping his leg through orange sand. The Outskirts was little more than a long street peppered with various simple, ramshackle dwellings, though each one was infinitely more impressive than the shack Scrap had built with his own hands. He made his way past a handful of aimless, drifting robots, none of whom seemed to have anywhere else to be or anything better to do. They staggered here and there on clanking legs or squeaking wheels – not quite junk cases, but not far off. He wondered why, even beyond the Piles, these robots seemed so neglected?
“Upgrades cost serious charge,” the doctor had said. But access to charging, servicing and repair was a basic robot right.
So who, Scrap wondered, was charging for charge?
In the distance, he spotted a small, unimposing train station, the only building other than Bad Knees Outpost that looked like an actual building. A long, silvery hovertrain slowed to a stop outside the station, its dozen or so open-topped carriages empty of cargo. The used cases it carried must have been deposited on the Piles, Scrap thought, quite sure that any of them would serve as a better body than his own.
As he watched maintenance-bots busy around the train, checking its suspensor field and giving it a sonic spray before its journey on to New Hull, he began to wonder what had become of the city that he once thought he would call home.
No, forget New Hull, he thought. Forget the humans. Forget the past. Go back to your Pile.
He turned on his heels and hoped that he was heading in the right direction. Then: “Scrap!”
He glanced back to be confronted with an unwelcome sight – the humans, their robot helmets still pressed on to their heads, running towards him.
Scrap turned again and picked up his pace, but with only one foot he could manage little more than a speedy limp.
“Scrap! Scrap!”
“Gnat, wait!”
“Scrap! Scrap! Scrap! Scrap! Scrap!”
Gnat caught up with him easily.
“…Cog’s sake,” Scrap grunted.
“You went out the wrong way, Scrap. We were waiting for you,” she said, tapping him on the shoulder. “Outside is so big you can go anywhere. This way or that way or that way or over there … where are you going?”
“Home,” Scrap replied.
“But your home blowed up,” Gnat noted.
“And whose -zk- fault is that?” Scrap snapped.
“Clearly yours,” offered Paige.
“You brought those hunters right to my door!” Scrap growled.
“And then you saved me,” Gnat said. She mouthed “King of the Robots” to her sister and added, “Then we saved you! We bringed you here. We stole that robot’s sky-bike—”
“Borrowed,” Paige corrected her.
“We borrowed that robot’s sky-bike and bringed you here and crashed and didn’t die and took you to the robot hospital. Robospital.”
“Spent your whole lives in a Foxhole, and you’re suddenly flight-cycle pilots?” Scrap scoffed. “Right.”
“We’re human, we’re not stupid,” Paige huffed. “Mum taught us. A lot.”
“And you just so -zk- happened to know where the nearest hospital was? Riiiiight.” Scrap shook his head as he tried to pick up his pace. “I’m not trustin’ one -zk- word that comes out of your—”
“The flight-cycle had a map,” Paige interrupted. “There are outposts all over here. Geological, meteorological, medical … I can’t help it if you don’t know how the world works. Also, that arm cost us our last battery, so you’re welcome.”
“What, this?” he snapped, waving his new arm. “Don’t expect me to thank you for this. I’d still have my old arm if it wasn’t for you…”
“I like it, it’s cool as cooclumbers,” said Gnat. She tapped her helmet disguise with her knuckles. “Do you think we make good robots? I think we make good robots. Did you see me when I was being a robot and they thought I was one and I said my name is—”
“Shut up, Gnat,” Paige said sternly, before prodding Scrap on the other shoulder. “I didn’t want to go back for you, by the way, I wanted to leave you there. You could at least try not to be totally ungrateful.”
“Ungrateful? I woke up today with nothin’ and, thanks to you, I still managed to lose the lot!” Scrap flung his arms in the air. “I’ve been on that pile of ’bot bones for ten -zk- years and I’d only just started to … live there. Then in the space of two minutes, you’ve brought those hunters to my door and it’s all -zk- gone. All of it.”
“Except for your cooclumbers new arm,” Gnat reminded him.
“Shut up, Gnat,” snapped Paige again, and turned on Scrap. “You know what your problem is, junk case?”
“You mean, other than the fact that my home is smokin’ smithereens?” Scrap asked.
“At least you had a home,” Paige hissed. “We spent most of our lives underground. Under actual ground.”
“Well, maybe you should have -zk- stayed there!”
Paige clenched her jaw and fists at the same time.
“I told you we should have left him there to rust,” she snorted. “Come on, let’s go back for the flight-cycle. We have our mission.”
Gnat shook her head. “Scrap is the mission.”
“He is not our mission,” Paige protested. “Our mission is out there in the—”
“But Scrap is helping and saving us!” interrupted Gnat. “You can’t have the mission without the King of the—”
“Shut up, Gnat!” Paige shouted. Gnat skidded to a halt, her bottom lip trembling.
“Stop. Shouting. You’re always shouting at me.” Gnat’s voice shook as she welled up. “I don’t shout at you, but you shout at me. Don’t shout at me. Mum didn’t shout at me and you’re not Mum!”
“Gnat—”
“You’re not!” Gnat said in a gasping sob. “Mum wouldn’t like it that you shout at me… She’d say enough’s enough of all that and stop it, you two, and say ‘friends forever’ and hug…”
“Fine, I’m sorry,” mumbled Paige. “Stop crying.”
“This feels like none of my business – I’m just goin’ to leave you to it,” muttered Scrap, walking on as fast as he was able. “Horrible to meet you, have a nice life.”
“Mum’s poorly!” Gnat blurted.
“What?” said Scrap, stopping in his tracks.
“Gnat…” Paige said softly.
“Well, she is,” insisted Gnat. “She was too poorly to come with us. She said find the King of the Robots.”
“What’s, uh, wrong with -zk- her?” Scrap asked, trying very hard not to think about his maker, in a Foxhole somewhere, too sickly to leave.
“Mind your own business,” said Paige.
“In fact, what are any of you even still doin’ on Five One Three?” Scrap added. “I mean, all the other humans -zk- escaped, right? Didn’t they – didn’t the corporation send rescue?”
“Mum and Dad sent out a distress signal – it beamed across the stars for years,” replied Paige. “When no one came, Mum and Dad gave up on the idea of being rescued and started making plans to get off-world … but then Dad got sick. After he died, all Mum thought about was leaving Somewhere Five One Three. But then she got sick too. So now her mission is my mission.”
“Our mission,” Gnat added. “Find the King of the—”
“That’s not a mission!” Scrap interrupted. “Even if I – even if you did find the ‘King of the Robots’, what good would that… What could he possibly… It’s not like he could get you off this cog-forsaken rock, or…”
As Scrap trailed off, Gnat pulled the helmet off her head. Tears streamed down her face.
“Gnat! Put your head back on, right now,” Paige insisted, doing her best to shield her sister from prying eyes.
“Mum needs doctors and medicine to make her better, so we have to get her off-world and that is that,” Gnat said, sobbing gently. “Mum said find the King of the Robots because he’ll help us and I said he’ll help you too, Mum, and Mum said you never know and I said obviously he will and … you will help us, won’t you, Scrap?”
“No one can get you off-world!” Scrap blurted, glancing nervously around. “Just -zk- just put your head on, will you?”
“Not until you say you’ll help us,” sobbed Gnat. “Please, Scrap!”
“Gnat Brightside,” Paige growled through her teeth. “Put. Your. Helmet. On. Right. N—”
“Human?”
Scrap spun round. A worn-out old construction-bot was pointing its digging claw right at them.
“It is – it’s human!” the ’bot repeated, hopping clumsily towards them on a single, spring-loaded leg. “Human! Human!”
“Looks like some ’bots still know a human when they see one…” Scrap whispered, not in the least bit happy about it.
“Gnat, get behind me,” Paige snarled, reaching into her satchel. Scrap watched in horror as she pulled out one of June’s grenades.
“What are you – where’d you get that?” Scrap gasped.
“Found it on the hunter’s flight-cycle,” said Paige, her thumb hovering over the detonator as a crowd of robots began to gather ahead. “And I’m getting us back to that cycle if I have to blow up every robot in—”
“Put that thing away, you’re goin’ to get us all -zk- killed!” Scrap hissed. He looked back towards the train station. They had a clear path to the train. “Cog’s sake … do you gubs know how to run?”
“I’m actually the best runner out of me and Paige,” replied Gnat. “Once I ran so fast, I—”
“Then shut up an’ run,” Scrap interrupted. “RUN!”
Scrap had never run from anything before. Not because his legs were rusty and creaky, or because he was missing a foot – rather, he had never felt there was any problem that could not be solved by taking a stand. But if the last ten years had taught him anything, it was that everything he had done since he set foot on Somewhere 513 had been either a mistake, or a failure, or both.
So run he did.
Cries of “Human!” echoed behind them, propelling Scrap, Paige and Gnat down the street. Despite being dragged by the arm by her sister, Gnat was giddy with excitement.
Leave ’em, Scrap thought, even as he tried to keep up with the humans. His mind raced with a snowballing sense of dread. Never again, you said. No more humans, ever again. Leave ’em. Go back to the Pile.
But still he ran.
“Get all aboard!” Gnat yelled, her helmet tucked under her arm as they reached the train station. The snaking hovertrain was already starting to pull away. A ladder on the back led up to a long, open carriage. Paige and Gnat climbed aboard, but Scrap found himself suddenly slowing down. Let ’em go, he told himself again, glancing down at his new arm. What do you owe them anyway?
By now Gnat was peering out of the top of the carriage, her arm outstretched, while Paige tried to pull her back inside.
“Scrap, grabbit!” Gnat howled, clenching and unclenching her fist in readiness.
But Scrap had already stopped running.
He stood there in the dust and heard Gnat scream his name again.
Then he watched the train pull away.