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Description

In the year 2105, on the third planet of the Sol system, in the Orion arm of the Milky Way, an ecological disaster occurred. The land was strewn with garbage, the waters flooded with pollution, the air choked with dust and chemicals. A corporate trifecta- Buy N Large, Vishkar Incorporated, and Volskaya Industries, banded together to undertake what they thought of as a humanitarian task... if people were willing to pay a few red cents to leave the planet. Buy N Large built leviathan starships capable of carrying as many as 500,000 people and 600,000 working organisms each, and Vishkar and Volskaya collaborated on perfecting cybernetics inspired by the puppets of the behemoth Iterators from another world. All three- ahem- "mass produced" multiple lines of cyborg synths and dragons to work both aboard their starships and on the surface of earth. Primary among these, and heavily hyped up as the future of cybernetics were two models: the Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class, and the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. Both of these models were the stars of a joint operation Clean Up and Recolonize: The Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Classes, or Wall.es would clean up the planet by compacting and stacking cubes of trash, while the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluators would search for proof that Earth was habitable again, bringing back the starships and their precious cargo. It sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, Murphy's Law (Anything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong) struck the operation: what was supposed to be a five year task ended up failing, and the last of the starships left the surface, humanity leaving behind what they thought was a dying biosphere, not to return until 700 years later, with the help of one of the most unlikely sources: one of a small cluster of surviving Wall.e units based in New York City. Over the intervening 700 years, the army of Wall.e units were left to fend for themselves, with most of them sooner or later dying and resurrecting themselves, or otherwise abandoning their directives. Interestingly, some of them began to re-express their previous personalities, while sticking to the same directive they had kept for centuries. Our Wall.e is one such unit.

In the year 2815 AD, Wall.e (or Emily or Crossfire depending on who you asked), was working atop a trash tower in the Manhattan District, finishing her last few cubes for the day. Her entourage of pet Slugcats and her two dragons were doing various things around her as she worked. With no fellow Wall.es that she knew of in New York, Wall.e was increasingly feeling that Trash Tower maintenance was growing to be enough of a chore by itself... let alone the sheer amount of trash that still needed to be cleaned up off the streets and compacted into new towers. Wall.e finished compacting her last cube for the day, and gingerly placed it on top of a low wall of cubes. Then something glimmered in the sunlight. The Spearmaster, who was perched on her shoulder, as usual, slid down her arm to get a better look, then excitedly pointed one of his spears at it, gesturing as he did so. Nearby, the Gourmand was snacking on a worm that had made the mistake of poking its head out of the trash too close to her. The Survivor and the Monk were hanging out, regaling each other with tales of adventures had and creatures fought, creatures tamed, and Iterators interacted with. The Hunter was perched on top of the wall, watching the Saint float in mid air just a few feet away. The Saints tongue- a very long, stretchy ribbon of a tongue, was swirling in the air around him, and his arms were outstretched, his tail lazily hanging down. The Rivulet was sitting on the same wall as the Hunter, both watching the Saint float straight up in a spiral, before descending back to their level. The Artificer was relaxing at the base of the wall, apparently not caring what the other Slugcats did. Wall.es dragons, Hal, and Whiptail, were also perched on the wall, silently keeping their eyes trained on Five Pebbles's can below. They could swear they had seen something moving down there, and they were sure it wasn't Pebbles. Wall.e herself was now squinting at the trash at her feet, looking for the Spearmasters find. She soon spotted it: the edge of a hubcap. Wall.e dug her claws into the ground, and tugged hard on the object. An almost brand new hubcap burst out of the trash at Wall.e's feet, a collection of seven stars displayed prominently at its center. A Subaru Hubcap was a rare find, and Wall.e decided it was worth keeping. She placed it in a cooler along with a few other finds (not all hers- some belonged to the Slugcats), and whistled as she closed the cooler and picked it up. The Spearmaster slid down off her shoulder, and the Slugcats gathered around Whiptail, piling onto her back. Wall.e likewise clambered onto Hals back, and waited for her Slugcats to settle down. As usual, the Saint fashioned his tongue into a makeshift set of reigns, and the rest of the Slugcats grabbed on to them, and/or onto each other. Wall.e cleared her throat, grabbing Hals and Whiptails attention, saying, The two dragons dove off the top of the tower, Wall.e and the Slugcats alike enjoying the breeze created by the dragons dive. They pulled up, and with a few good flaps, set off over the big city, cautiously looking back at the silent construct as they flew away from it.

As they flew home, the unusual group of travelers flew past old Buy N Large Ads, each holographic display advertising something related to the evacuation of Earth. The voice of the last C.E.O., Shelby Forthright, boomed into the empty city, using wordplay to lure the nonexistent masses into paying for a ticket to interstellar paradise. The largest of these ads advertised the local jewels of the BNL fleet: The Axiom, the Yorktown, and the Columbia, each offering luxury services, a variety of activities, and a cruise beyond a passengers wildest dreams. Wall.e could only wonder what it must be like to be one of those passengers, and not a cyborg synth stuck on earth with just her Slugcats and her Dragons for company. The Slugcats started chattering in interest as they passed the docking port that the Axiom had once taken off from. Wall.e leaned over the side of her dragon, wistfully remembering watching it take off. She was brought back to a perch on top of a nearby trash tower, being startled by the sudden roar of the Axioms thrusters firing. She remembered turning her head, looking up at the great behemoth as it started to lift off, wondering how such a metallic hulk could take off in the first place. She recalled closely scanning the lower deck windows, and locking eyes with a vaguely familiar synth, who wordlessly waved a goodbye, and then burst into tears and collapsed onto the floor as the ship started to ascend into the great starry void above. She also recalled making out a designation- AX 001- on the inside of the synths upper arm, and the acronym E.v.e. on the outside of the same synths arm, and wondering what the designation meant. Wall.e recalled inhaling the stench of charred earth, seared trash, and worst of all- burnt flesh, and feeling sick afterwards. The memory brought up a storm of emotions churning within her, and she wondered if she would end up going outside to scream in the middle of the night. Those feeling seemed to clear up just as Hal and Whiptail landed outside their house... a repurposed Wall.e storage truck, and the slugcats all scrambled to open the door.

The door opened on shelves stocked with everything from tools to food to individual collections of items. Wall.e unstrapped her cooler as the Slugcats raced inside. One of them turned on the tape player, a second inserted a tape, and a third turned on the tv. The movie "Hello Dolly!" began playing in the background as Wall.e sorted through the day's finds. She first pulled out the hubcap and placed that on a shelf with some other miscellaneous items. Next she pulled out a Zippo lighter- how many of these did Artificer have?- and put that on a shelf with the others, shaking her head slightly. Then, she pulled out- a spork? Wall.e wasn't sure what to make of it except that it was probably Gourmands find- she brought home dishes just as often as random objects- and compared it to the forks and spoons that she already had cleaned up and ready for use. She put the spork between the two cups of cutlery... in all, it took Wall.e over an hour to sort everything. She then glanced up at one of her corkboards. Photos of herself- and a vaguely familiar face- stared back down at her. She wasn't sure quite what this synths relationship with her was, but she was sure that they had been close knit once. She thought that maybe this synth was the mysterious "AX 001", but she couldn't prove it... and she thought that maybe the synth's actual name was Lena...? Wall.e couldn't prove that either. The strains of music wafting from the tv floated into her mind as she racked her brains over "AX 001", and she found herself glancing at the screen just as Cornelius and Irene held hands. Wall.e's own hands- both pairs of them- subconsciously folded into a hand hold, and Wall.e found herself staring down at them. She then looked up at the stars outside, eyes beginning to water, wondering just where "AX 001" could be, and if they would ever hold hands, like they appeared to be doing in some of her old photographs.

Description

In the year 2105, on the third planet of the Sol system, in the Orion arm of the Milky Way, an ecological disaster occurred. The land was strewn with garbage, the waters flooded with pollution, the air choked with dust and chemicals. A corporate trifecta- Buy N Large, Vishkar Incorporated, and Volskaya Industries, banded together to undertake what they thought of as a humanitarian task... if people were willing to pay a few red cents to leave the planet. Buy N Large built leviathan starships capable of carrying as many as 500,000 people and 600,000 working organisms each, and Vishkar and Volskaya collaborated on perfecting cybernetics inspired by the puppets of the behemoth Iterators from another world. All three- ahem- "mass produced" multiple lines of cyborg synths and dragons to work both aboard their starships and on the surface of earth. Primary among these, and heavily hyped up as the future of cybernetics were two models: the Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Class, and the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluator. Both of these models were the stars of a joint operation Clean Up and Recolonize: The Waste Allocation Load Lifter: Earth Classes, or Wall.es would clean up the planet by compacting and stacking cubes of trash, while the Extraterrestrial Vegetation Evaluators would search for proof that Earth was habitable again, bringing back the starships and their precious cargo. It sounds nice, doesn't it? Well, Murphy's Law (Anything That Can Go Wrong Will Go Wrong) struck the operation: what was supposed to be a five year task ended up failing, and the last of the starships left the surface, humanity leaving behind what they thought was a dying biosphere, not to return until 700 years later, with the help of one of the most unlikely sources: one of a small cluster of surviving Wall.e units based in New York City. Over the intervening 700 years, the army of Wall.e units were left to fend for themselves, with most of them sooner or later dying and resurrecting themselves, or otherwise abandoning their directives. Interestingly, some of them began to re-express their previous personalities, while sticking to the same directive they had kept for centuries. Our Wall.e is one such unit.

In the year 2815 AD, Wall.e (or Emily or Crossfire depending on who you asked), was working atop a trash tower in the Manhattan District, finishing her last few cubes for the day. Her entourage of pet Slugcats and her two dragons were doing various things around her as she worked. With no fellow Wall.es that she knew of in New York, Wall.e was increasingly feeling that Trash Tower maintenance was growing to be enough of a chore by itself... let alone the sheer amount of trash that still needed to be cleaned up off the streets and compacted into new towers. Wall.e finished compacting her last cube for the day, and gingerly placed it on top of a low wall of cubes. Then something glimmered in the sunlight. The Spearmaster, who was perched on her shoulder, as usual, slid down her arm to get a better look, then excitedly pointed one of his spears at it, gesturing as he did so. Nearby, the Gourmand was snacking on a worm that had made the mistake of poking its head out of the trash too close to her. The Survivor and the Monk were hanging out, regaling each other with tales of adventures had and creatures fought, creatures tamed, and Iterators interacted with. The Hunter was perched on top of the wall, watching the Saint float in mid air just a few feet away. The Saints tongue- a very long, stretchy ribbon of a tongue, was swirling in the air around him, and his arms were outstretched, his tail lazily hanging down. The Rivulet was sitting on the same wall as the Hunter, both watching the Saint float straight up in a spiral, before descending back to their level. The Artificer was relaxing at the base of the wall, apparently not caring what the other Slugcats did. Wall.es dragons, Hal, and Whiptail, were also perched on the wall, silently keeping their eyes trained on Five Pebbles's can below. They could swear they had seen something moving down there, and they were sure it wasn't Pebbles. Wall.e herself was now squinting at the trash at her feet, looking for the Spearmasters find. She soon spotted it: the edge of a hubcap. Wall.e dug her claws into the ground, and tugged hard on the object. An almost brand new hubcap burst out of the trash at Wall.e's feet, a collection of seven stars displayed prominently at its center. A Subaru Hubcap was a rare find, and Wall.e decided it was worth keeping. She placed it in a cooler along with a few other finds (not all hers- some belonged to the Slugcats), and whistled as she closed the cooler and picked it up. The Spearmaster slid down off her shoulder, and the Slugcats gathered around Whiptail, piling onto her back. Wall.e likewise clambered onto Hals back, and waited for her Slugcats to settle down. As usual, the Saint fashioned his tongue into a makeshift set of reigns, and the rest of the Slugcats grabbed on to them, and/or onto each other. Wall.e cleared her throat, grabbing Hals and Whiptails attention, saying, The two dragons dove off the top of the tower, Wall.e and the Slugcats alike enjoying the breeze created by the dragons dive. They pulled up, and with a few good flaps, set off over the big city, cautiously looking back at the silent construct as they flew away from it.

As they flew home, the unusual group of travelers flew past old Buy N Large Ads, each holographic display advertising something related to the evacuation of Earth. The voice of the last C.E.O., Shelby Forthright, boomed into the empty city, using wordplay to lure the nonexistent masses into paying for a ticket to interstellar paradise. The largest of these ads advertised the local jewels of the BNL fleet: The Axiom, the Yorktown, and the Columbia, each offering luxury services, a variety of activities, and a cruise beyond a passengers wildest dreams. Wall.e could only wonder what it must be like to be one of those passengers, and not a cyborg synth stuck on earth with just her Slugcats and her Dragons for company. The Slugcats started chattering in interest as they passed the docking port that the Axiom had once taken off from. Wall.e leaned over the side of her dragon, wistfully remembering watching it take off. She was brought back to a perch on top of a nearby trash tower, being startled by the sudden roar of the Axioms thrusters firing. She remembered turning her head, looking up at the great behemoth as it started to lift off, wondering how such a metallic hulk could take off in the first place. She recalled closely scanning the lower deck windows, and locking eyes with a vaguely familiar synth, who wordlessly waved a goodbye, and then burst into tears and collapsed onto the floor as the ship started to ascend into the great starry void above. She also recalled making out a designation- AX 001- on the inside of the synths upper arm, and the acronym E.v.e. on the outside of the same synths arm, and wondering what the designation meant. Wall.e recalled inhaling the stench of charred earth, seared trash, and worst of all- burnt flesh, and feeling sick afterwards. The memory brought up a storm of emotions churning within her, and she wondered if she would end up going outside to scream in the middle of the night. Those feeling seemed to clear up just as Hal and Whiptail landed outside their house... a repurposed Wall.e storage truck, and the slugcats all scrambled to open the door.

The door opened on shelves stocked with everything from tools to food to individual collections of items. Wall.e unstrapped her cooler as the Slugcats raced inside. One of them turned on the tape player, a second inserted a tape, and a third turned on the tv. The movie "Hello Dolly!" began playing in the background as Wall.e sorted through the day's finds. She first pulled out the hubcap and placed that on a shelf with some other miscellaneous items. Next she pulled out a Zippo lighter- how many of these did Artificer have?- and put that on a shelf with the others, shaking her head slightly. Then, she pulled out- a spork? Wall.e wasn't sure what to make of it except that it was probably Gourmands find- she brought home dishes just as often as random objects- and compared it to the forks and spoons that she already had cleaned up and ready for use. She put the spork between the two cups of cutlery... in all, it took Wall.e over an hour to sort everything. She then glanced up at one of her corkboards. Photos of herself- and a vaguely familiar face- stared back down at her. She wasn't sure quite what this synths relationship with her was, but she was sure that they had been close knit once. She thought that maybe this synth was the mysterious "AX 001", but she couldn't prove it... and she thought that maybe the synth's actual name was Lena...? Wall.e couldn't prove that either. The strains of music wafting from the tv floated into her mind as she racked her brains over "AX 001", and she found herself glancing at the screen just as Cornelius and Irene held hands. Wall.e's own hands- both pairs of them- subconsciously folded into a hand hold, and Wall.e found herself staring down at them. She then looked up at the stars outside, eyes beginning to water, wondering just where "AX 001" could be, and if they would ever hold hands, like they appeared to be doing in some of her old photographs.