Seven
By Matthew Fortuna
Ricky turned to check the exhaust on his exobike. He turned the knob, changing the power converter out to full. The others would find him if he kept this amount of energy output for long, but it was worth the risk.
There had been an explosion some distance off when Ricky had been helping a customer put a few refurbished parts in his broken arm, rewiring the singed pieces to the new hardware. He’d just been retracting the precision circuit solder when a light passed through the sky and crash landing behind a few hills of slag metal.
He’d locked up fast, thanking the customer for his service, and grabbed his exobike.
A few other robots had noticed too, and so it was paramount he made his way there first to salvage what he could before the others tore it apart.
The wheels slipped and dug in to the hard surface, jetting the exobike forward. Ricky’s hands held fast, keeping the bike on the right trajectory.
A chaotic scene unfolded as the hills slowly sank beneath his view. A fire had broken out, catching on the waves of propane that sifted on the wind, and giving some indication of what lay beneath.
Ricky sped down the slope, just missing a drill cave as he made his way through the wreckage that scattered from the crashed object. The fire burned hot as he came close, but Ricky pulled his exobike right through the flame, parking just behind the burning wreck.
He stepped down, grabbing a salvaging unit from his bike and strapping it to his back. A few welding bots had already made it first, tearing at the hull of an aged spacefaring capsule of some kind.
He made his way past, carefully pushing the bots aside as he searched for the hatch leading in.
A voice called him from behind.
"Hey. Scrap collector. You’ve got a second?" It was one of the larger welder bots. Ricky noticed a probe dangling awkwardly from its shoulder, obviously broken.
"Just a second. I want to get in before the others get here. Can you wait until then?"
The robot seemed to grunt. "Yeah, sure."
"My service station is just over the hill so wait for me there if I take too long."
"Huh. Sure thing."
Ricky found the hatch. "Is there going to be a problem if I don’t fix it before this job is done?"
"No, it should be fine. Nothing critical."
Ricky looked back. "Good luck with the alloy. This stuff looks old, nothing I have not seen this a long time."
"Huh. It’s got some use left. I need a few panels for my acid rain shelter. This will be fine."
"Good to hear."
A small latch was keeping the door closed. Ricky turned it, finding the resistance much less than expected. He opened the hatch, starting a relatively simple light filtrating subroutine to better scan the contents of the craft.
There wasn’t much of use. A single broken standard class robot was seated in the pilot’s seat just to the left of the hatch, covered in some kind of protective material. To the right, a broken windshield monitor was sparking, giving off trace video feed from the cameras on the outer shell.
The monitors were still useful, but there wasn’t a way to carry them back. Ricky decided not to touch them.
His thoughts turned back to the broken robot in the pilot’s chair. There was something odd about the way it was shaped, if only just slightly out of proportions to any model he’d seen before.
Ricky decided not to pursue any suspicions as his job was to fix robots with whatever he could. He grabbed as many useful items as he could; a few wires, some plastic tubes of some kind, a few circuit panels, and a couple rods. He glanced halfway to the broken robot. Just registering a slight twitch in the fingers.
Ricky hesitated, unsure if fixing this robot was an entirely great idea. But, a sub process reminded him that his soul purpose was to fix the robots of the world, not leave them behind. A second part agreed, but wanted only to use the scrap pieces for other things.
He made a decision. Taking the robot from its place in chair. It was much lighter than he was expecting, and much floppier.
He made his way back outside, pushing past several other desperate robots who’d been held back by Ricky’s legs being in the way. A few of them glanced curiously at the figure draped over his shoulder, but they quickly lost interest.
He spotted the welder bot from before and made his way towards the growing pile of scrap.
"How is your probe?" Ricky asked.
"Not good. It fell off."
"Where is it?"
"I set it over next to the scrap pile where- Hey!" A small scavenging robot had been examining the probe in its grippers. It looked up, startled. "Put that back! It’s my probe so leave off!"
The scavenger put it down and scampered off.
"So was it just lose and fell off?"
"Yeah, more or less."
"I can fix it right now if you’d like."
"Huh. That’s nice of you, but you seem kind of busy at the moment. And I’ve got some scrap to collect."
"Sure. I’ll be back at the service station if you need me."
"Yeah, sure thing."
Ricky made his way into the rut left behind by the capsule where he’d parked his exobike. Nothing had touched it since he’d went off, and he gently put the broken robot down on the seat.
He didn’t bother taking the scavenging unit off his back. He revved the engine back to life, but kept the power converter at low, not needing an extra bit of speed.
The robot seemed to be rebooting slowly, starting at the extremes and making small movements as it became aware of its surroundings. Ricky pat the robot on its bubbly head.
The exobike bumped over the landing rut from the capsule as he cleared his way through the gathering crowd of robots. Many of them turned and waved in greeting and looked on curiously at his unusual cargo. Ricky waved back as best he could while holding the inert robot to the seat.
He passed over the slag heap hills slower than before, carefully riding around the drilled cave, and coming to a halt outside his service station. There were a few boxy robots and a feminine standard class model waiting in line outside.
"Sorry for the wait. I was down at the crash site."
"No hurry." The feminine robot responded. "I was the first one here, and it’s been only a short while."
"And you are?"
"You can call me Crystal." She put a hand to the hearing slits alongside her head where a clear crystal had been set.
"Nice to meet you Crystal. I’m Ricky." Ricky put his hand up in greeting. "Now excuse me while I open shop again."
Ricky set the exobike on its peg and hefted the clothed robot back over his shoulder before unlatching the door and propping it open.
"We’ve just recently had a shipment of spare parts from across the slag heaps, and I’ve got a few new pieces from that ancient wreck that just came down."
"Anything useful?" One of the boxy robots asked.
"Maybe not. The hardware is too old to be compatible, but I might be able to pull it apart and see what I can do. Some should make good collector’s items though if you’re in to that kind of thing."
"Maybe." Crystal said.
"That’s nice to know. Are you a big collector?"
"Yes. Of some things here and there. Nothing exquisite or exotic. Just a few select trinkets I’ve come across over time."
"Huh. What generation are you?"
"Newer. More recent than you I’m guessing. You’re covered in relics. You put that shell together yourself?"
"Nah. Just the way I was built. Kind of a throw together job actually. Older generation robot and all that."
"I like older robots. They seem to carry themselves with more dignity than the younger generations."
"Well, I’m glad you’re a fan. But on to busine
ss. What can I do for you?"
Crystal turned her head. "I’m missing an arm plate. Can you replace it?"
"Yeah, sure. Just a moment. I need to see if I’ve still got a few lying around."
Ricky went in to the back room and came back with a pile of arm plating. He set them on the counter.
"These are all the plates I’ve got that’ll fit a standard class robot. Gender neutral as far as I can tell."
"Really? Gender neutral huh." She held up a piece that was slightly thicker than the other ones. "This belonged to a male, standard class with ligament to motor enhancements."
"Huh."
"You can tell because of the way the screw ports are a little crooked. They didn’t fit in right when the enhancements were added."
"Well, I’ve got to hand it to you. I’m impressed."
"That’s not all. The robot this came from was an older issue, one of the original generation. Do you see this marker here on the inner lining? It means the robot served during the time of the humans."
"How did you learn how to interpret these things?"
"I once knew a robot who wore this kind of plating. In fact, he was the only one left when I met him."
"Sorry to hear he’s all but gone."
"Well, life goes on as they used to say. Nothing to be done about it."
A sharp movement from the clothed robot caught the attention of everyone in the room.
"Just a second. Keep digging through until you find what you want. I need to deal with this one."
Ricky left Crystal to find an arm plate, and went to check on the robot. He was thrashing about now, and clawing at the bubble on his head.
Ricky tried to help, but by the time he’d moved to stop the robot from hurting itself, it was too late. The