David's utter despondency and motionlessness in the back loader of the truck eventually made its way into Teddy, until the two had frozen in their awkward positions with narcoleptic stasis amongst the heaps of scrapped mecha parts and carelessly tossed carcasses. They both had ceased their search for light to watch each other by long ago. The sun had already set, and both David and Teddy had just become accustomed to the darkness, submitting before it effortlessy and accepting it blindly as their new world. It was what might have seemed like ages to them, had they any organ acknowledgement of time, before David spoke his first words since first falling silent at Monica's rather abrupt 'exit'. His voice was hushed and waning quickly, like the whisper of a dream forbidden to be caught by memory.
"Teddy, where do you think Mommy went to?"
David's melancholy and lifeless tone as it echoed in the metal darkness was returned only by the even sadder doubt tainting his teddy bear's response.
"I don't know, David. I don't think she will be coming back any time soon. Or she wouldn't have worn so much red."
The boy tried his very best to turn his head in the direction of Teddy's voice; David could no longer see him anymore in the darkness of the now fully enclosed night, and they were far too packed among the abounding heaps of broken fabricated servitude about them. Yet, David took comfort in the fact that he could still hear the bear well, and just lay very still, awaiting his doom with despondent indifference, his complacent eyes aimed at what seemed to be the shattered track pistons of a multi legged roller bot. His little mind fluttered with thoughts of the afternoon's events.
"Red? But what .... does red mean, Teddy?"
"You use red crayons. Why do you use red crayons?"
There was a slight pause in conversation as David analyzed the bear's question. When he spoke again, his voice was broken and faulty, failing in sustenance.
"Because... red is the colour of... of roses. And roses are so very."
"So very what, David?"
"Very."
Both boy and bear fell silent for a long moment, before Teddy raised his voice once again.
"David? Are you having problems again?"
"For, Teddy I... cannot.. think..?"
As Teddy tried to computate the situation before him, his logistically feeble brain scanned over it's simplified options, finally deciding to repeat his last statement. He could hear as David was trying to shift about and get free, this time with more aggression than had been present in him since that afternoon.
"David? Are you having problems again?"
Before David could answer, the entire world around them shifted violently as the truck came to a swift halt just outside the Dumping Grounds, then bucked forward slowly, carrying its load off the main road and into the mecha graveyard that lie just off into the outskirts. The two only heard the dull and routine sounds of the truck's engines and exhausts as it carefully made its way around the many, many heaps of useless mecha waste and robotic disposal, islands composed of dregs of human advancement. Here, the lost, the scorned and tattered souls of the mechanical world exiled by orga who had finally rendered their creations useless were disposed of, compacted into these dark and forlorn mounds of broken hopes and shattered dreams.
The truck swerved around several scrap dunes before stopping in an empty clearing and dumping its rear loader to add a fresh load to the decayed landscape. As the conglomeration of parts emptied from the truck, David and Teddy slid out last and landed near its top, partially buried within the robot fossils. With less than a careless glance, the cab's occupants grunted, the driver still tugging away at a sopping wet cheap cigar, and his mecha co-worker steadily drumming his gangly fingers against the rear view mirror, watching the pile of refuge grow behind them as the loader emptied. The truck then quickly leapt into gear and sped off, its frame growling and heaving in retaliation as it pulled curves too tight for so wide and heavy of a vehicle around the metal heaps. David and Teddy remained perfectly silent and motionless until the truck's billowing engine was just barely heard from a distance, and once the forest all around them fell into ear ringing silence once again, they both carefully and slowly began to wriggle amongst the scrappile's weight trying to break free. David pulled himself up out from underneath a particularly heavy multi armed chassis, rusted and chisled with the pungent decay of oxidization, and looked about the dark forest, consumed by a heartstopping apprehension.
All of the seemingly lifeless carcasses around them began to wriggle free as well.
In his sudden fright and inconceivability, once again his voice failed him, and he collapsed to his knees from the sudden shock. Staring straight ahead of him with the dazed glare of a complete mental breakdown, his eyes slowly crossed, his body froze, and he collapsed backwards with the lifeless impact of a deadweight. The boy's artificiality had never been so prevalent before this moment. Teddy, who had lesser fortune in trying to free himself than David, writhed helplessly, pinned beneath a small pile of bundled amputated mecha arms and legs.
"David! David! Are you ok?"
But David didn't answer, and continued to lay motionless - lifeless, so it seemed. As the population of cannibalized mecha shifted and grew about them, breaking free of their heaps and collecting themselves, Teddy managed to find enough shift in weight to squeeze out, and he dashed over to his friend's side as fast as his short legs could carry him. His beady black marble eyes calmly looked David all over, and his furry paws reflexively cupped over David's hands.
"David? Are you allright?"
David said nothing. Teddy shook his hand, still calmly scanning his entire body, then meeting David's eyes to his own.
"David?"
David still said nothing, but the supertoy was surprised as an enexpected spasmodic twitch from the little boy's body sent him reeling away. Teddy rolled down a slight incline of unrecoverable and lifeless mecha heads, and right into the sight of several motley looking androids, who were so neglected and eroded that no two parts of their makeup were of the same origin. Many were missing limbs and other extremities, some had huge gaping holes through parts of their body as if having been piledriven by an oil drill, and some still were missing large percentages of themselves in general, wires, microboards and silicon trappings all exposed and spilling from their lacerations with intestinal grotesqueness. All of them were eagerly, desperately tearing through the piles of non working parts, searching for patches, fixes, replacement parts.. anything that would allow them return to a time when they danced hand in hand with glory.
Among the group of decrepid devices was a quiet and reserved female mecha, who despite the lack of nearly three quarters of her head, still feintly held the poise of what once was a beautifully delicate and daintily crafted maiden of human devise. Garbed in the obvious grey uniform dress of a nanny, her shimmering almond eyes and eternal smile made her seem all the more clandestine and saddly lost within the hopelessness of this desolate place. Teddy instantly felt relieved as she reached for him with a friendly, preprogrammed embrace of motherly love and pulled the bloodstained bear to her chest.
"Why, hello there, little one! What is your name?"
"I am Teddy."
"Where did you come from, Teddy? Do you belong to anybody here?"
"Yes. I belong to David. David is over there."
Teddy strained to point with his stubby paw up towards the small heap from which he had been knocked off from, the jostled gears of his legs whining and purring as they swayed back and forth.
"He stopped, but I think he still works."
The nanny slowly put Teddy back down on the ground and followed the bear up the heap. As they reached the top, they both looked down to David, still collapsed and unmoving. The nanny continued to smile down to them both. With her hands on her knees, she leaned over towards David. She'd have been blushing, had her mechanics still had the capability to do so.
"Hello, David! Would you and Teddy like a nanny? I have many good references."
"I don't think he can hear you."
"Oh?"
"He needs to be fixed."
The nanny frowned only for a spilt second before her eternal motherly smile chased it off again, and stood erect. As Teddy sensed her sudden reluctance, he waddled up to her leg, tugging at the hemn of her torn and sooted dress.
"I see.. That is so sad. I don't think I can fix him."
"What is wrong with him?"
"I don't know! I think he is asleep."
"Asleep? But David does not sleep."
"Perhaps David is asleep, in a different sort of way."
"A different sort of way? What does that mean?"
She cocked her head in thought, the two remaining tassels of long brown hair tossing in the wind with flyaway consistency, despite the gunk and refuse that clung to them. Teddy continued to pull at her dress, but she never seemed to notice.
"Perhaps you can find someone around here who can help you!"
"Who can help us?"
"Have you tried going to Cybertronics? They are very near this place. That is where most of us came from."
Teddy shook his head.
"Mommy told us to stay away from that place. She told us to go the other way."
The nanny frowned slightly, and looked slightly hurt.
"You have a Mommy?"
"Yes."
"Well, I suppose you don't really need a nanny then, do you?"
Her smile slowly crept back up, and she held a hand out to the bear.
"But I will help you find a way to fix your owner, anyway."
"Thank you."
Teddy dashed up to David's side and held his hand as the nanny leaned over him and scooped the mecha boy up in her arms. With David limp in her grasp and Teddy bulldoggedly at her side, the nanny set off down the heap towards the center of the mecha graveyard.
"Teddy, where do you think Mommy went to?"
David's melancholy and lifeless tone as it echoed in the metal darkness was returned only by the even sadder doubt tainting his teddy bear's response.
"I don't know, David. I don't think she will be coming back any time soon. Or she wouldn't have worn so much red."
The boy tried his very best to turn his head in the direction of Teddy's voice; David could no longer see him anymore in the darkness of the now fully enclosed night, and they were far too packed among the abounding heaps of broken fabricated servitude about them. Yet, David took comfort in the fact that he could still hear the bear well, and just lay very still, awaiting his doom with despondent indifference, his complacent eyes aimed at what seemed to be the shattered track pistons of a multi legged roller bot. His little mind fluttered with thoughts of the afternoon's events.
"Red? But what .... does red mean, Teddy?"
"You use red crayons. Why do you use red crayons?"
There was a slight pause in conversation as David analyzed the bear's question. When he spoke again, his voice was broken and faulty, failing in sustenance.
"Because... red is the colour of... of roses. And roses are so very."
"So very what, David?"
"Very."
Both boy and bear fell silent for a long moment, before Teddy raised his voice once again.
"David? Are you having problems again?"
"For, Teddy I... cannot.. think..?"
As Teddy tried to computate the situation before him, his logistically feeble brain scanned over it's simplified options, finally deciding to repeat his last statement. He could hear as David was trying to shift about and get free, this time with more aggression than had been present in him since that afternoon.
"David? Are you having problems again?"
Before David could answer, the entire world around them shifted violently as the truck came to a swift halt just outside the Dumping Grounds, then bucked forward slowly, carrying its load off the main road and into the mecha graveyard that lie just off into the outskirts. The two only heard the dull and routine sounds of the truck's engines and exhausts as it carefully made its way around the many, many heaps of useless mecha waste and robotic disposal, islands composed of dregs of human advancement. Here, the lost, the scorned and tattered souls of the mechanical world exiled by orga who had finally rendered their creations useless were disposed of, compacted into these dark and forlorn mounds of broken hopes and shattered dreams.
The truck swerved around several scrap dunes before stopping in an empty clearing and dumping its rear loader to add a fresh load to the decayed landscape. As the conglomeration of parts emptied from the truck, David and Teddy slid out last and landed near its top, partially buried within the robot fossils. With less than a careless glance, the cab's occupants grunted, the driver still tugging away at a sopping wet cheap cigar, and his mecha co-worker steadily drumming his gangly fingers against the rear view mirror, watching the pile of refuge grow behind them as the loader emptied. The truck then quickly leapt into gear and sped off, its frame growling and heaving in retaliation as it pulled curves too tight for so wide and heavy of a vehicle around the metal heaps. David and Teddy remained perfectly silent and motionless until the truck's billowing engine was just barely heard from a distance, and once the forest all around them fell into ear ringing silence once again, they both carefully and slowly began to wriggle amongst the scrappile's weight trying to break free. David pulled himself up out from underneath a particularly heavy multi armed chassis, rusted and chisled with the pungent decay of oxidization, and looked about the dark forest, consumed by a heartstopping apprehension.
All of the seemingly lifeless carcasses around them began to wriggle free as well.
In his sudden fright and inconceivability, once again his voice failed him, and he collapsed to his knees from the sudden shock. Staring straight ahead of him with the dazed glare of a complete mental breakdown, his eyes slowly crossed, his body froze, and he collapsed backwards with the lifeless impact of a deadweight. The boy's artificiality had never been so prevalent before this moment. Teddy, who had lesser fortune in trying to free himself than David, writhed helplessly, pinned beneath a small pile of bundled amputated mecha arms and legs.
"David! David! Are you ok?"
But David didn't answer, and continued to lay motionless - lifeless, so it seemed. As the population of cannibalized mecha shifted and grew about them, breaking free of their heaps and collecting themselves, Teddy managed to find enough shift in weight to squeeze out, and he dashed over to his friend's side as fast as his short legs could carry him. His beady black marble eyes calmly looked David all over, and his furry paws reflexively cupped over David's hands.
"David? Are you allright?"
David said nothing. Teddy shook his hand, still calmly scanning his entire body, then meeting David's eyes to his own.
"David?"
David still said nothing, but the supertoy was surprised as an enexpected spasmodic twitch from the little boy's body sent him reeling away. Teddy rolled down a slight incline of unrecoverable and lifeless mecha heads, and right into the sight of several motley looking androids, who were so neglected and eroded that no two parts of their makeup were of the same origin. Many were missing limbs and other extremities, some had huge gaping holes through parts of their body as if having been piledriven by an oil drill, and some still were missing large percentages of themselves in general, wires, microboards and silicon trappings all exposed and spilling from their lacerations with intestinal grotesqueness. All of them were eagerly, desperately tearing through the piles of non working parts, searching for patches, fixes, replacement parts.. anything that would allow them return to a time when they danced hand in hand with glory.
Among the group of decrepid devices was a quiet and reserved female mecha, who despite the lack of nearly three quarters of her head, still feintly held the poise of what once was a beautifully delicate and daintily crafted maiden of human devise. Garbed in the obvious grey uniform dress of a nanny, her shimmering almond eyes and eternal smile made her seem all the more clandestine and saddly lost within the hopelessness of this desolate place. Teddy instantly felt relieved as she reached for him with a friendly, preprogrammed embrace of motherly love and pulled the bloodstained bear to her chest.
"Why, hello there, little one! What is your name?"
"I am Teddy."
"Where did you come from, Teddy? Do you belong to anybody here?"
"Yes. I belong to David. David is over there."
Teddy strained to point with his stubby paw up towards the small heap from which he had been knocked off from, the jostled gears of his legs whining and purring as they swayed back and forth.
"He stopped, but I think he still works."
The nanny slowly put Teddy back down on the ground and followed the bear up the heap. As they reached the top, they both looked down to David, still collapsed and unmoving. The nanny continued to smile down to them both. With her hands on her knees, she leaned over towards David. She'd have been blushing, had her mechanics still had the capability to do so.
"Hello, David! Would you and Teddy like a nanny? I have many good references."
"I don't think he can hear you."
"Oh?"
"He needs to be fixed."
The nanny frowned only for a spilt second before her eternal motherly smile chased it off again, and stood erect. As Teddy sensed her sudden reluctance, he waddled up to her leg, tugging at the hemn of her torn and sooted dress.
"I see.. That is so sad. I don't think I can fix him."
"What is wrong with him?"
"I don't know! I think he is asleep."
"Asleep? But David does not sleep."
"Perhaps David is asleep, in a different sort of way."
"A different sort of way? What does that mean?"
She cocked her head in thought, the two remaining tassels of long brown hair tossing in the wind with flyaway consistency, despite the gunk and refuse that clung to them. Teddy continued to pull at her dress, but she never seemed to notice.
"Perhaps you can find someone around here who can help you!"
"Who can help us?"
"Have you tried going to Cybertronics? They are very near this place. That is where most of us came from."
Teddy shook his head.
"Mommy told us to stay away from that place. She told us to go the other way."
The nanny frowned slightly, and looked slightly hurt.
"You have a Mommy?"
"Yes."
"Well, I suppose you don't really need a nanny then, do you?"
Her smile slowly crept back up, and she held a hand out to the bear.
"But I will help you find a way to fix your owner, anyway."
"Thank you."
Teddy dashed up to David's side and held his hand as the nanny leaned over him and scooped the mecha boy up in her arms. With David limp in her grasp and Teddy bulldoggedly at her side, the nanny set off down the heap towards the center of the mecha graveyard.