Sunrise
The sun pierces through smog in the west, and its dismal glow alerts James that it is time to leave soon. The large mechanical gloves give out a high whine and crunch, before releasing its air like an exhale. The last block releases from the shutters, falling onto the rubble. He places it meticulously onto the stack that he has spent the last four months on. The mountains of compacted trash extend so far he can hardly remember where he had first begun. Perhaps that is the sweetest kind of progress, James thinks. One where you couldn’t even see the starting line.
“I beg you, dear,
Don’t go wasting your emotion
Lay all your love on me…”
The song croons in the otherwise quiet evening. It ends with a click and static when James taps the button-panel sitting on his chest. With a final sigh of satisfaction, he packs up his goodies for the day. He was able to find a few spare parts, as well as a stack of vinyls still in their sleeves. When he turns to leave, his foot gets caught on an object hidden under the rocks and cracked cement. With a yelp, he is hurtling down onto the ground, the metal of his leg crashing against the unforgiving surface beneath him.
“Goddammit.” He grumbles. He looks around to glare at whatever just tripped him, and finds a shabby brown boot not far from where he’s sprawled. That, of course, does not catch his curiosity whatsoever. However, a flash of bright green beside it gives him pause. He crawls over, favoring the leg that did not take the brunt of his fall.
He releases the large gloves from his hands, and scoops it up. Suddenly, he is face-to-face with it. Actually, he has no idea what “it” is. He studies how the dirt hugs around it, and the way the soft green thing bends against his fingertip. He brushes the round and flat object hanging off the side of the green stick. It feels familiar, but he can’t really figure out why. His brain buzzes with it. He decides that probably means he should keep it, so he places it inside the closest thing to him–that traitorous brown boot–for safe-keeping.
The trek back is slow on two accounts: one being the sack full of knick knacks and trinkets, the other being the now faulty part on his lower right leg. He had scavenged the part on another cyborg–complete with older parts that had been discontinued a decade or two prior to his lifetime. Truthfully, he is under no illusions the antique machinery would last him long, but finding parts from cyborgs of his generation becomes harder as time rolls by. And besides, he didn’t plan on falling directly on top of it.
The sectional door screeches against metal, and James takes heavy steps inside the hideout. He heaves his oversized gloves and places them against the wall with love. Finally, he collapses near a revolving wall of parts and tools. The machinery of his leg pulses and shakes, as if protesting the weight previously placed upon it. An hour and a half is spent replacing dented and cracked panels and tightening disobedient screws.
Once the leg is relatively fixed, he takes the boot out once again. During his time mending the broken parts, he was able to think about what this green thing reminded him of. He is certain that some of the functional films in his collection have these green anomalies in it.
He sorts through the DVD’s, muttering, “No, no, no, not you–not you, either–no, no, nope. Oh, there we go. Yes!” Hastily, James feeds the DVD into the Blu Ray player, bouncing on the balls of his feet. The movie starts off, and lights of the screen bounce around the walls of trinkets around him.
The busted speaker system does not allow any sound to play, but he sees them, the green things. The characters are outside and they are rolling in a ground full of them. There are huge ones too– tall like buildings. Some are weird shapes and other bright colors. A boy plucks one from the ground, a lot like the one James found– but this one has a red thing on top of it. He gives it to a girl, and she smiles and hugs it to her chest. James feels a burning longing in his core, at the sight.
Abruptly, the panel on his chest beeps and glows a deep orange. The reminder brings his attention to how the weight of the day aches in every bone and wire in his body. He turns off the movie and pulls himself over to his cot, lying heavily down onto it. He sets the boot on the table beside him, staring at it as he drifts off to sleep. He dreams of green, green, green.
—
James likes to charge in the morning so that he can see the sun rise. It is the most color he ever sees on Earth. Most of the time, he is in the company of grey, beige, and brown for miles and miles. But in the morning, his solar panels can bask in colors of bright orange, yellow, red, purple, and blue. Sometimes, James thinks it's not the sun that charges him, but the colors it brings with it.
Right now, the sky is soaked in crimson and coral near the horizon. James feels the energy feed into him like an IV drip from his spot on top of his hideout. Once he is fully charged, he heads back inside to gather some tools.
The radio tower is not far from his home, and has become like a second dwelling as he attempts to fix the damn thing. The sand storms in these parts are relentless, and a lot of times he has had to come back to undo damage that was not there the previous day. Needless to say, progress is slow and often backsliding. However, James is determined.
Thankfully, the weather has been merciful, so the tower looks just like it did a week ago. He climbs to the top to work on making progress with the radio. It is his best bet in terms of contact with other cyborgs, and he has hope that it will work. He just needs to get lucky with the environment and stay consistent. He can definitely do that.
The humming is something that doesn’t enter his conscious awareness until it grows in volume. James is knocked from his flow state by this noise, and the sound of rumbling starts to accompany it. It could be an earthquake, but the humming is quite odd and unusual. He looks around for a source that does not make itself known.
James decides to pack up his scattered tools and exit the tower to ensure a quick escape, if need be. He does so, quickening as the volume steadily increases. Whatever it is, it is coming soon. Once James is back on land, he looks toward the horizon. Nothing unusual. The ground beneath him vibrates. He looks toward the sky, and sees three specks of hazy light peeking from above the smog. When James realizes those lights are directly above him, he decides his next best course of action: running for cover.
There are a few piles of large rocks off in the distance, and James makes a dash towards them. The shaking of the ground starts to reverberate through his body, causing him to fall off balance multiple times. James has the terrible impulse to look behind him at the source of danger, but fights it vehemently, because that would be fucking stupid. And James is many things, but stupid, he hopes, is not one of them.
Finally, he dives behind the rocks. It is desperate, and probably won’t work, but his options are bleak, and he can’t really think straight, so he gets the idea to bury himself under rock, sand, and debris. Perhaps he was a mole in a past life, or his hopes are misguided, and he really is just stupid. But either way, he digs and digs for his life, burying himself under.
There is the sound of air rushing, mechanical metal screeching and collapsing, and the ground protesting under a large weight. Then, after so very long, there is silence.
James takes a minute of pause before trusting that silence as the end, because honestly, he has no idea how he is even alive. He shakily extracts himself from the sand, finding that his glasses were snapped in the mayhem. He wipes them on his shirt, out of mere habit, and puts them on anyway.
The dust covers the air in a sheet, making it difficult to make out much of anything. James looks over at the radio tower, to find it crushed. He begins to mourn that, then remembers that could have been him so, really, priorities are important.
As the kicked-up debris settles, James can make out a large metal structure. It is white and sleek, almost spotless in appearance. How and why that just came from the sky, James does not know the answer to. However, his train of thought is cut off when the structure starts to open.
Something that resembles a pod is carried by a claw–like the ones from those abandoned claw games with toys inside. James has played one before, it was shit. It is quickly deposited on the ground, and the claw presses a few buttons before retreating back inside the structure.
James watches as the pod opens, revealing a stiff figure inside. From his spot, it is still difficult to make out fine details, but he can see their outfit: an all-white jumpsuit and a hood. There are shaded glasses over their eyes, which makes it hard to tell if they are awake.
The mystery answers itself when the figure loosens, shaking out their arms and legs. They step out from the pod, looking around. When they don’t find whatever they were looking for, they take off their hood, pushing the glasses onto their head.
James breath punches out of him as the figure's face brightens into a smile. Black curls ruffles against the wind as the stranger tips his head to the sky. Suddenly the stranger takes off in a run before soaring into the air.
Watching the stranger fly is otherworldly. A million sunrises could not beat the sight, he is sure of it. Blue rings of energy erupt from his white boots, propelling him through the air inexplicably. James watches as he zips through the smog, and he wonders at how this person is able to make this planet look so much more colorful than it is.