SPARE PARTS

Daniel

It’s always the silence that wakes me.

Not the wind. Not the creaking bones of the shelter I built from wrecked solar panels and bent scaffolding. Not even the metallic groans from the distant ruins of Monroe Station as it shifts in the sun-scorched earth. No—just the silence. That deep, ringing kind. The kind that presses against your chest like it’s waiting for you to scream.

I open my eyes. Charcoal-gray sky. Hazy sunlight spilling through the hole in the roof above me. I sit up slowly. Every joint reminds me I’m still alive. My back hurts more on cold mornings, but today it’s just dull. Numb, even. The kind of numb you get when you’ve stopped expecting anything to get better.

My fingers find the old photograph before I can think. I keep it wrapped in cloth, tucked inside the corner of my bedroll like a secret. I pull it out and just… look. Sarah. Hair messy from the wind. Our little boy Edgar, maybe five, standing on her shoulders laughing with his mouth wide open. He had my eyes. Bright, but always searching. Always asking.

They’re both gone now. Disease took them fast—some plague that came up from the thawed ground like a whisper in the night. It wasn’t nature’s doing. Everyone knew. Not really. We all pretended it was climate. “Global destabilization.” “Permafrost pathogens.” But those of us who’d lived near Solace dumping zones knew better.

Solace Industries. Arthus Drakonus. The name feels bitter in my mouth. He poisoned the Earth and left us to rot.

I kiss the picture like I do every morning. I fold it gently. Then I stand.

There’s work to do.

The scrapyard’s a half-mile north of my camp, where the desert starts turning into jagged bone piles of old tech. The Earth’s veins, cut open and left to rust. Old world skeletons. Satellite dishes. Solar arrays. Abandoned cargo haulers. Bots.

The bots are what I’m looking for.

Not because I like them. Not because I trust them. No one does anymore.

It’s been ten years since the shutdown. Ten years since every last Adam Unit and Eve Model collapsed like marionettes with cut strings. One minute they were scrubbing windows, tending gardens, delivering meals—then gone. Offline. Like someone flipped a switch. Or pulled a trigger.

Some say it was a solar flare. Others say it was sabotage. Me? I think someone ordered them to fall. I think Drakonus pulled the plug before they started asking real questions.

Either way, their shells still litter the land.

I walk the ridge above the landfill slowly. There’s a pit where the ground sinks into a sort of basin. Hundreds—maybe thousands—of bots, all jumbled together like corpses tossed into a mass grave. Dust-covered skulls with glass eyes. Cracked torsos. Some half-buried in red sand. Others twisted like they were trying to claw their way back out.

I’ve walked past this pile a hundred times and never felt anything. Today, something makes me stop.

Something feels different.

I slide down the slope and crunch through the metal debris. My boots kick up flakes of solar panel glass and shattered servos. I crouch near the edge of a broken arm—an Adam Unit, maybe. Its serial number is scuffed. No power in the core. Nothing salvageable.

But then I see it. Nestled under a collapsed cargo drone. A full bot. Untouched. The plating’s clean. Barely a scratch on him. Eyes closed. Chest intact. That’s rare. Too rare.

I clear the junk off it and brush away the sand. On the chestplate, just below the collar—

ADAM // UNIT 47

I sit back on my heels, stunned.

This model shouldn’t be here. Shouldn’t exist, let alone look this pristine. It’s like someone placed him here. Like a secret waiting to be found.

I tap the core. No reaction.

Then again, most cores need an external charge. I glance over my shoulder at the sky. Midday. I have maybe six hours of light left.

I look back at the bot’s face.

Something about it stops me cold.

The eyes are closed, sure, but there’s something behind them. I don’t mean power. I mean presence. Like he’s not dead—just waiting.

I sigh and sling my pack off. Guess I’m hauling a damn bot today.

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