And So Much More! Chapter 9: Off The Rail, a wall-e fanfic

For MO, life was defined by two iron-clad rules:

1.) Destroy any and all microbes and/or Foreign Contaminants.
2.) Never, EVER leave the line.

From the second he was activated, MO always listened to those rules. If there was so much as a single percent of foreign contamination, he would move in and clean it gone in a microsecond. As for the line...the line defined his path. It was the light that guided the way, the barrier between where MO could go and where he was forbidden. He followed it, his team mates followed it, everyone followed it. The Line was all.

Then...something happened.

It was a routine job at first: clean the returning EVE probes of any and all Foreign Contaminents they might have accquired on Earth (and how MO loathed the thought of that dirty little rock and all its filth) and then return to base. It was a gruesome job; sometimes the EVEs would have a whopping twenty-five percent contamination ratio! Still, it was one MO carried out patiently and diligently. EVE after EVE he went, scrubbing them clean, and then...he came across something odd. It was not an EVE but something...else. Something that did not belong. MO scanned this strange being to see its contamination level...

Scanning...

Contamination Level: 100

ONE HUNDRED PERCENT?!

Intolerable! Inconceivable! Yet before the matter could be dealt with in full...the anomalous robot was gone, running off into the depths of the Axiom and vanishing. MO hung his helmeted head in shame: he had failed in his mission. Now...now a walking cesspool of contamination was aboard the ship, and the cleaning 'bot had no way to find it. Slowly, MO wheeled himself back toward the carrier to return to base, but...wait. The scanners were still detecting a faint trace of Earth dirt! There, on the floor, tracks! He could follow them to the contaminated robot and scrub it down to a mirror shine!

But...they were heading off the line, away from the carrier.

MO had never left the line. None of his team-mates had left the line. NO ONE left the line...except Rogues and malfunctioning units. MO was not a Rogue, nor did he want to be. MO was not broken, and the thought of the Repair Ward scared him. But...the dirt! The dirt HAD to be cleaned, and that robot had to be stopped before he trailed it all over the place and made a mess of things! What to do, what to do? Those two rules, the foundations of MO's entire life, had always stood side by side, never in opposition. Yet now...now there was a clear choice: His duty...or the Line.

It took him a long, torturous moment to decide.

In the end, he knew what he had to do. Closing his eyes, he leapt, not knowing what would happen next...and left the line behind.

He had a job to do.

END