SCRAP, page 2
“Mum and Dad and Paige and me,” explained Gnat as Paige glanced around. “Paige and me were born there but I never knew my dad ’cause he died when I was not much years old.”
“Oh,” Scrap said quietly. “I’m -zk- sorry.”
“My dad was called Captain Tripp Gander and his rocket ship was called the Black-Necked Snork—”
“Stork,” Paige corrected her.
“…Stork,” Gnat continued. “The ship that bringed all the people to Somewhere Five One Three.”
“Captain Gander … yeah, I’ve -zk- heard his name too,” muttered Scrap. He pressed his tiny, rusted fingers against his temples, trying to take it all in. After a moment, he said, “You really spent your whole lives underground?”
“I mean, we’re not moles, but yeah,” Paige replied defensively.
“No one came to find you?” asked Scrap.
“No,” said Paige quickly. “No one came.”
“So we came to find you,” said Gnat happily. “And we founded you, so now we can do the mission.”
“Mission?” repeated Scrap. “What mi—”
“Shhh,” Paige hissed, tilting her head to listen. “Do you hear that?”
Scrap tapped his best ear with a rusty finger, hoping to improve its reception. There it was – a familiar, distant shriek, growing louder by the moment.
“They found us,” Paige said, grabbing Gnat’s arm. “Gnat, cover!”
“Found you? Who –zk– found you?”
Paige didn’t reply. She grabbed her sister and dragged her behind a mound of empty cases. Scrap turned towards the angry screech of the thrusters and looked up. Two flight-cycles descended through the air, purple exhaust fumes billowing behind them.
“Hunters…” Scrap whispered as the cycles drew closer. It wasn’t the first time they, or predators like them, had circled the Pile. Every now and then vehicles like these would appear in the teal-blue sky and soar overhead on the trail of this creature or that. Scrap couldn’t say what motivated these once well-programmed robots to scour the deserts of this sad Somewhere for prey, or why, for the first time since Scrap made his home on this mountain of metal debris, they were suddenly making a beeline straight for him.
“Junk case!” cried one of the hunters as their flight-cycles clanged roughly on to the shifting surface of parts. Scrap watched two robots dismount and realized he’d never seen a hunter up close before. These two were three times his size at least. Grubby cloaks covered lean metal cases with long, segmented arms and legs. Atop their shoulders sat featureless, polished metal heads – one, a sphere, the other, a cube. The sphere-headed robot wore the horned skull of some poor, long-dead alien on his shoulder, while the cube-headed one’s belt clanked with what looked like grenades.
What happened to their cases? Scrap wondered as they strode towards him. Even without their strange adornments, he didn’t recognize their design. They looked almost nothing like any of the robots that set down on Somewhere 513 all those years ago.
But then neither did he.
“I’ve seen some sorry-looking junk cases in my time, June,” said the sphere-headed robot. “But this one takes the biscuit.”
“This one takes the whole tin, Terry,” said the cube-headed robot, casting a long shadow over Scrap. “Ever seen a case like it?”
“Never seen a case like it,” Terry replied as the pair circled him. “Can we take a picture?”
“What?” asked Scrap. In an instant, the two robots were either side of his shoulders, all but pressing their faces to his. Terry held out his arm and a small camera embedded in his thumb flashed. Scrap shrugged them away and backed off towards his shack.
“What’s your name, junk case?” Terry asked.
“Mind your own motors,” Scrap replied. “Get -zk- lost.”
“…I’m Terry,” the sphere-headed robot said, after a moment. “And this here is my sister June.”
“See how easy that was, junk case?” noted June.
“Politeness costs nothing,” agreed Terry. “If a couple of robots can’t pass the time of day, then I don’t know what civilization is coming to, I really don’t.”
“Maybe he doesn’t remember his name,” suggested June. She tapped the side of her head and added, “Could be a glitchy brain-frame…”
“There’s nothin’ wrong with my -zk- brain-frame,” grunted Scrap. He wasn’t about to tell them his real name but, keen to prove he had all his faculties, he cast around for something else to call himself. Unfortunately all he could think of was the name that tiny, tatty human had given him. So, despite himself, he said:
“…Scrap. My name’s, uh, Scrap.”
“Suits you!” declared June. “You want to hear a joke, Scrap?”
“What do you call a junk case with no head?” asked Terry.
“An improvement!” June boomed.
The robots’ laughter echoed across the Pile.
“What do you gubs want?” Scrap growled.
“Oh, I’m sorry, are we keeping you from all your important junk case stuff?” said June. She plucked one of the grenades from her belt and tossed it from hand to hand like a ball. “See, me and my brother here, we’re hunters. We’ve travelled from the frozen mountains to the ocean jungles to the edge of the Elsewhere, and stalked nearly every living thing on this planet.”
“Why?” asked Scrap, staring uneasily at the grenade.
“Good question,” replied June. “Why do we do it, Terry?”
“Love?” suggested Terry.
“Love!” June agreed. “We’re passionate about our work, I can’t deny it. Me and my brother have something of a bucket list – we just won’t be satisfied until we’ve hunted every last critter on Five One Three.”
“If it walks, swims, flies or crawls, we’re going to hunt its head off,” added Terry.
Scrap bristled. He’d never met robots like them. Years of hunting had clearly taken its toll. Each pursuit had left them wanting more, perverting their programming, corrupting their cores, leaving them desperate for the next chase. A decade ago, he would have stood up to them without thinking. Even today, he felt himself clench his tiny fists.
“There’s nothin’ here but dead-cored junk cases,” he said. “Leave me -zk- alone.”
With the sudden click of a button, June armed her grenade. A red light blinked impatiently in the centre of the explosive as it counted down to detonation.
“Want to play ‘catch’, junk case? Loser loses an arm!”
Scrap stood his ground.
“Not in the -zk- mood,” he grunted.
“You’re no fun,” sighed June. A deft click-click deactivated the grenade and she replaced it on her belt.
“I don’t blame you, junk case – all those boom-bang-a-bangs make me nervous too,” Terry noted, his right hand instantly splitting apart to reveal a cannon barrel. “I prefer the sophisticated charm of a hand-gun-hand…”
“You’d be wastin’ your -zk- charge,” said Scrap, staring down the barrel of Terry’s cannon. “Nothin’ here worth blastin’.”
“Can’t argue with that!” June laughed. “Well, I guess we’d better be on our merry— Wait! We almost forgot to ask!”
“So we did,” said Terry, tapping the top of Scrap’s head with his hand-gun-hand. “Tell me, junk case, d’you know what a human looks like?”
Scrap’s eyes darted towards the mound of cases.
“Good question, Terry,” added June. “You ever seen a human, junk case?”
Scrap’s reply was half whispered. “Why d’you -zk- ask…?”
“Truth is, June and me were on long-range patrol by the time the humans arrived on Five One Three.” Terry’s right hand reformed in an instant, and he splayed his fingers wide. “Then, before we knew it, they’d vanished! Rocketed off-world to who knows Somewhere…”
“Yeah…” said Scrap. “That’s what I -zk- heard too.”
“Apparently they’re this big,” said June, and held her arm high in the air. “Green scales, and the rare ones are purple. Tentacles coming out of everywhere. Three or four eyes, five or six mouths … and slime. Like, so much slime you can’t even get hold of ’em.”
“Slime coming out of everywhere,” added Terry. “Can you imagine those things roaming around here? I mean, you ever seen anything like that, junk case?”
“No,” said Scrap, happy at least not to be telling a lie. “Anyway, like you said, the humans have -zk- gone.”
“Exactly,” exclaimed June. “By my count, that makes Somewhere Five One Three the first free robot world in the galaxy.”
“The first Somewhere free of the slime of humankind,” added Terry proudly. “But then…”
“But then what?” Scrap asked.
“Then this,” replied June, and held up her hand in front of Scrap’s face. Clenched between her finger and thumb was something small, hard and off white. Scrap peered closer.
“Is that…?” he muttered.
“That, junk case, is a tooth,” said Terry giddily. “A five-year-old central incisor, to be exact.”
“But not from no snackrabbit or gigantoad or sandsucker,” added June. “No, Scrap – that tooth is human.”
“Human?” repeated Scrap. He kept his eyes firmly on the tooth.
“Human,” June confirmed, rolling the tooth between her fingers. “Now my brother here is no brain ’bot, but even he can tell you that if the humans left Five One Three ten years ago, and this here tooth is five years old, then…”
Scrap glanced at Terry. He scratched his chin thoughtfully, metal scraping on metal. “Then … then … wait, I’ll get there…”
June sighed.
“Then somethin’ doesn’t -zk- add up,” said Scrap, still staring down at the tooth.
“You’re not as rusty-headed as you look, Scrap.” June laughed. “A human, on a planet where humans are outlawed? I reckon something very much doesn’t add up.”
“I reckon if we find the owner of this tooth we could tick off another species from our still-to-be-hunted list,” Terry declared. “And carry out a little pest control at the same time…”
“Then do it,” Scrap snapped. “Instead of standin’ on my pile, talkin’ my ear off, takin’ up my -zk- day.”
Terry moved closer. Scrap could feel the heat from his case.
“Of course you must have a lot on your plate, what with your worthless, hollow, junk case existence, so we’ll get to the point,” said Terry. “See, every living thing on this planet has its own observable biological residue, what my sister so eloquently refers to as the stink.”
“Humans have a special stink, probably on account of all their tentacles and slime,” added June. “Makes ’em easier to track. All you got to do is tune in. Show him, Terry.”
An image flashed across Terry’s featureless, spherical head – a point of amber light, pulsing in the centre of a planetary map.
“What do you know,” said June slowly, tapping the map on her brother’s face. “Human stink.”
“Imagine our excitement,” added Terry. “Can you imagine it?”
“I -zk- s’pose…” replied Scrap.
“I’m not sure you’re really trying,” Terry huffed, his face-map vanishing with a finger tap on the side of his head. “Anyway, do you know where the stink led us?”
“Where?” Scrap grunted, already knowing the answer.
“Here,” June replied.
“We’ve been tracking the stink for three days,” said Terry. “And it’s led us right to your door.”
“Trackin’?” Scrap nervously repeated.
“Oh, did I say tracking?” said Terry. “I meant hunting.”
A sudden CLUNK came from behind the junk pile. Terry spun towards it, his hand-cannon-hand reforming at the end of his arm.
“Who’s that?” said June. “Come out of there, or my brother gets shooty…”
“It’s my favourite thing,” Terry confirmed. “On the count of three…”
However resourceful the humans might be, Scrap was fairly sure they wouldn’t survive being shot. He acted instinctively, reaching his fist behind him and swinging it as hard as he could at Terry’s torso.
TINK!
Terry didn’t flinch. He barely even noticed. Scrap looked down at his dented knuckles and saw one of his fingers had come loose.
“What was that supposed to be? Trying to keep us from something?” Terry aimed his hand-gun-hand between Scrap’s eyes. “What are you hiding back there?”
“No one,” Scrap protested. “I mean, nothin’!”
“You think my brother will lose any sleep junking a junk case, junk case?” June bellowed. “Shoot first, ask questions never, that’s Terry’s motto.”
“Also, you can’t have the rainbow without the rain,” added Terry, his hand-gun-hand pulsing with energy. “So whoever’s back there, come out, or we do this junk case a profound personal favour and blow him to bits. Now, where was I? Oh yeah. Three…”
“Now wait a minute…” Scrap protested.
“Two…” hollered June, grabbing one of the grenades from her belt.
“Don’t -zk- shoot!” Scrap yelped.
“One…” said Terry.
“Stop!” came a cry. An unbearable moment later, Scrap watched Gnat step slowly out from behind the pile.
His eyes widened with disbelief. Gnat was wearing a robot’s head over hers, like a mask.
“What are you supposed to be?” asked Terry as he and his sister peered at the girl.
“I’m a robot,” Gnat replied with a shrug. “Beep-boop, don’t shoot.”
“You’re a robot?”
June moved closer to Gnat to examine her. With Terry’s hand-gun-hand still aimed between Scrap’s eyes, Gnat adjusted the robot’s head concealing her own.
“Obviously,” she replied, her tone flat and voice tinny. “My name is Gnat-Bot Ninety-Nine. Beep bop, I’m a robot.” She flung her arms in the air and waved them stiffly.
“Well, her story checks out,” said June. With a shrug, she replaced her grenade on her belt and peered curiously at Gnat. “Hey, Terry, have you seen this? This ’bot is … sort of mushy.”
Scrap glanced back at Gnat, her exposed arms jutting out from her poncho.
Brownish skin.
Human flesh.
“Leave her -zk- alone!” he cried.
“What is that?” June asked, poking Gnat’s arm with a metal finger. “Some sort of upgrade?”
Upgrade? The word echoed around Scrap’s head. Is that what had happened to Terry and June? Had their cases been upgraded? By whom? There were no humans left, and robots didn’t go around upgrading each other.
Did they?
“I knew it!” howled Terry. To Scrap’s relief, his hand-gun-hand shrank back up his arm. “What did I tell you, June?” the hunter added. “We’ve been out here too long – we’re not up on the latest cases. I bet these mushy styles are all the rage in the city…”
“You sure?” June scoffed. “Looks like just another junk case on just another Pile to me…”
“No, it’s true! Gnat-Bot Ninety-Nine is all the rage,” Gnat happily declared, deep in character. She paced stiffly up and down, her arms outstretched in front of her. “Boop bop, I’m a mush-bot…”
“‘Mush-bot’…?” June repeated. In a moment, she gestured back to their flight-cycles. “Saddle up, Terry! We’re heading into the city, see if we can’t pick up the human stink … and maybe get us a couple of these new cases while we’re there.”
“Unless…” said Terry, eyeballing Gnat as she marched across the Pile, making loud beeps and whirrs. He tapped the side of his head and his face-map reappeared, the pulsing amber light now glowing a vivid green. “It’s … it’s her,” Terry blurted suddenly. “June, she’s the stink!”
“Stink? Who is? What? Where?” exclaimed June.
“The mushy’s no upgrade!” Terry called out, his hand-gun-hand reforming at the end of his arm. “That little junk case is human!”
“Uh, boop bop, no I’m not…” Gnat insisted, glancing nervously around for her sister.
Scrap saw Terry take aim. Without thinking, he threw his full force against the hunter’s leg.
“Uff!”
Scrap might as well have charged at a steel door. He bounced off Terry’s leg and tumbled to the ground without Terry budging an inch.
“Trying to take me on again, junk case?” Terry laughed, his weapon still trained on Gnat. “You’ve got a lot of core for a rust-bucket…”
“Aaargh!” Scrap roared. He leaped to his feet and raced at Terry again, this time clambering up his leg and on to his back.
“Knock it off!” Terry cried as Scrap wrapped both arms around the hunter’s head. “June, I’ve got a junk case on me! Get it off!”
“Eww, he’s getting rust on you,” said June, turning her attention to her brother as Gnat looked on in petrified confusion.
“Run, you -zk- gub!” Scrap shouted, kicking out wildly, his feeble blows to Terry’s case leaving no more than a scratch. “Go, run!”
“Will you get him off me?” Terry cried, wheeling around while June tried to pluck Scrap off her brother’s back. “I don’t want to have to track that human’s stink all over ag—”
The hunter froze as he spotted another figure suddenly racing towards the human.
“What in the Somewhere…?” he muttered as this new, equally mushy someone-or-other grabbed ‘Gnat-Bot Ninety-Nine’ by the arm and began pulling her towards the hunter’s flight-cycles. “June, that human comes with her own human!”
“Two for the price of one? A red-letter day for June and Terry,” June declared, at last wrenching Scrap off her brother’s back and flinging him roughly to the ground. “Gimme a sec to separate the junk case’s head from his body, and we can add them both to the trophy case…”
“Wai -zk- ait…” Scrap groaned, dragging himself painfully to his knees. “You -zk- want to play -zk- catch?”
“What…?” June uttered as a small black object flew from Scrap’s hand. Terry’s hand-gun-hand retracted instinctively as he reached out to catch it. The hunter glanced down at his palm, and realized he had caught one of his sister’s grenades.
