#4l3x

My optical sensors open with a click, and immediately take in the pouring rain and the flashes of light in the sky.

Where am I, I wonder dimly. My hard drive has not finished recalibrating, and I feel the telltale absence of memory in my RAM. I had been forced to shut down. How did I get to be here, lying amongst the garbage?

I cannot turn my head, all movement is offline. But I can see mounds of refuse in my peripheral vision, and can sense gasses released from decomposing waste. Have I broken? Is that why I was thrown away? I am still functional, why am I here?

There is a dent in the side of my skull – solid steel, it must been quite the blow. How had it happened? Had I made a mistake, slipped and fallen onto something?

My hard drive finishes reloading, and I remember.

I blink once in the rain, the only movement I am capable of. I had not just been damaged, I had been attacked. Deliberately broken. By human, with… wrenches, and stones. No wonder I’m so badly damaged.

“Unnatural”. They had hurled the word at me, like an insult. Was that not the point? A household android had enhanced strength, speed, and balance, more than that of a human, for the purpose of having greater ease in doing human tasks. Perhaps in a human it is undesirable to be unnatural, but I am not a human.

Lightning flashes above me. If it were to strike me, my processer could be destroyed. I could ‘die’. Perhaps that would be better. Even awake, what could I do but lie here and rust? Better to be asleep.

I see movement. Is someone else here? Why? The only reason I am here is because I am broken, did they take me here? Doubtful, since I have likely been lying here for many hours. Already, I can feel rust beginning to form in my joints. Once it hardens, even if my locomotion module is fixed, I will not be able to move without substantial cleaning and repairs. And, at this point, it is too late. No one would fix an old household android this far gone. It would be more cost-efficient to build a new one.

I register a shock as lightning strikes mere feet away from me. I am not sure whether to count myself lucky or not that I was spared of the strike, for this just means I must lie here longer.

A chime in my head alerts me to my low battery. Even without being damaged further, I will still be shut down. Soon.

The lightning flashes again, and this time I know for a fact that I see movement. The light had glinted off something reflective – another android? Though, in this rain, many surfaces would quickly become reflective.

A feel strangely hollow. A reaction to my predicament? I detect something is missing, a physical piece. Perhaps this is keeping me from moving.

‘Battery low’ a light blinks again. Not long until I shut down.

Something touches me.

I can’t move, but I am startled. I still can’t see, it is too dark, but I find myself picked up at my shoulders and knees and lifted from the heap of scrap metal. Am I going to be destroyed? That would not be entirely unwelcome. I simply hope my pain receptors are offline.

My battery is very low, any moment now I will fall into sleep mode to conserve energy. Already, the little of the world I can see is fading.