"Hey boss! Look what we found!"

"What is that?" The boss said, recoiling in surprise.

"We don't know; it was stuck in the transmitter cables."

"Hmm, you got the satellite back in working order?"

"Yes sir, we did." Rusty answered.

"Then get rid of that thing. Put it out with the others."

Dave started to protest. "With the others? Isn't that kind of a waste? I mean…"

"Dave, we all know that that thing is too small to be of any use to us, it belongs out there with the rest of them!"

"But what if I can get it to work again? I can figure out its programming and Rusty-"

"Whoa, hey! Don't drag me into this!"

"You said you would help!"

"No I didn't!"

"That's enough you two." The boss sighed. "Alright, since things have been slow around here, I'll tell you what. "If" you can get that thing to work again, you can keep it. If not, out it goes."

Rusty was surprised "Boss?"

"Personally I don't care what you do with it. But we have regulations to follow; do you know what would happen if word got out that we were using old robot parts without proper clearing? They'd shut us down!"

"They can't do that!"

"They can, Dave. Right now we're the only ones with access to Zone Pink. With us out of the way, most of the broken down robots out there will be stolen and scrapped and who knows what else."

"That's right, now get to work."

"Yes sir!" they said in unison.

"It's kinda cute, can't we keep it?"

You dumb blonde Rusty thought to himself. "Dave, we just figured out this thing runs on nuclear energy, and you want to keep it? If we start it up like this it could melt down!"

Dave though a moment. "Well what if we just take that part out?"

"You can't just "take it out"! What's it going to run on?"

"I don't know…I bet we have something around here."

"Even if we did, where are we going to find one small enough? How are…hey, what's with that look?"

"You know something." Dave smiled.

"About what?"

"You said "find", not "build"."

"Well it's not like I couldn't build one! I could easily…-Agghh! Fine!" Rusty stammered as he stormed out of the room.

"Wait, you're not actually going out there are you?"

An hour later, Rusty was a few miles into Zone Pink. There had to be one around here he could use, or at least modify. Maybe he was just looking in the wrong section.

Zone Pink was the largest robot graveyard in existence. Located on the dark side of the moon, it was the perfect spot to store hundreds of thousands of outdated and broken down models. Ones that couldn't be recycled.

It was also the perfect place to find spare parts for just about anything.

Rusty had been looking through countless old space ships for a hydrogen converter. If he could find one small enough, he could take it back to Dave to power up that thing they had found.

He wouldn't admit it, but what they had found had left him really uneasy. It looked like a doll, well actually too big to be a doll. It looked like a small boy if you ignored all the exposed metal and wires on its arms and face. How it got stuck in the satellite was beyond him.

Bingo!

Rusty had happened upon a smaller space cruiser with a hydrogen converter still attached. It was kind of boxy, but if he made a few changes, it was sure to work!

Dave had run the last scan on the little robot. It was amazing! It had no solid-state drives, yet there were memory files. Where did they all fit? It was the most advanced thing he had ever seen! He'd love to see just what it could do, if only Rusty would get back.

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Boss! Oh, I was checking up on the security shield on The Wall." It was a bad lie, but it was enough of a distraction for Rusty to slip the converter into his bag.

"Oh really? That's funny, the TASC video showed you going inside The Wall."

God, he hated that annoying security camera!

"I had to double reinforce it. But um, I was wondering" he needed to change the subject. "If Dave and I can't get that robot we found to work, where will it end up? From what I saw inside the wall, all we have is industrial size robots."

The boss chuckled. "Don't worry; we have a special place for things like that."

"Seriously?"

"You remember don't you?"

Rusty shook his head.

"All broken down humanoid robots are stored in bunkers just south of the ridge."

"So the inspectors don't freak out like last time?"

"More or less."

Rusty knew what "south of the ridge" meant. Every type of robot had a section they would be placed in based on type, so naturally there was an area of land set aside for robots who looked a little too human. Everyone who knew of Zone Pink had jokingly called that area "Uncanny Valley". Not just because it was an actual valley, but because after taking inventory there, one would notice that the human-like features on the robots were just that…uncanny.

Dave and Rusty had just finished installing the hydrogen converter.

"All we do now is start it up! The charge should hold at least an hour."

"Are you sure this is safe?"

Dave smiled. "Nope!"

"I'll just stand back here then."

With a few knobs turned and buttons pressed, the small converter started to hum, and then after a moment went silent.

"It broke!" Rusty cried.

"Wait look!"

Slowly, the exposed headlight of a left eye began to glow blue. And soon after, a more normal looking right eye opened.

Rusty was seriously getting creeped out, while Dave was perfectly calm, almost happy.

"Hey you're awake." Dave said to the little robot that was starting to sit up and look around.

"Dave, don't talk to it!"

"What? It looks human, and I bet it speaks like one too." Dave turned back to the robot. "Can you understand me?"

Long strings of binary code appeared on the monitor.

"No, use you voice. I know you have one. My name's Dave. What's your name?"

"My name is Astro."

(Notes: 1. a hydrogen converter is what powers the Starship Enterprise 2. Uncanny Valley is actually a term used to describe the fear people feel when robots seem "too human" 3. TASC is an acronym for That Annoying Security Camera; I made that up in about 10 seconds.)