There was a robot built for cleaning the interior of the ship of 'foreign contaminats'. It had been his job for decades, scrubbing the specks from the newly arrived EVE models who had been scouting the Earth for organic plant matter unsuccessfully for years and years. There was only one rule for this contamination scrubber: No outside matter may enter the spaceship. This robot was called MO. And ever since the Axiom landed, he had done his best to resume his old routines and habits, working along the lines on the floor, meeting the dead ends to a spilled smoothie cup, a pile of vomit, or a dead insect. Such as a coachroach or an ant. Such tiny foreign contaminate crawlers had no place inside the ship, but... being now attached to the Earth, instead of millions od miles above it... pest control was becoming more and more of a hassle. For MO and the passengers clinging to the past ways of leisure and luxury.
MO once found a man scooting along the ground-way in his hover chair, watching a cartoon on his headband visor. The man was so filthy, MO's radar lit up like a red light, bells of alarm ringing. But he resisted the urge to go closer to the human, as the human was in motion, zipping by in his chair without effort. The hesitation was fear. MO had never touched a human before. He had only handled robots. Sure, he had seen humans. He even helped them, in a way, by keeping the interior of the Axiom as clean as the day of its construction. But when the humans did nothing to clean themselves...?
MO shook his head, slapping his cleaning handle against the floor. He narrowed his eyes and saw the place was steadily decaying from the inside: humans everywhere on their gliding recliners, chattering away, refusing to go outdoors, refusing to join the New Society the Captain believed in making. Truly, even the Captain himself had built (with help) a house for himself, refusing to "live in that blasted ship for another day", claiming "man came from the Earth, and I will die on the Earth like a man!"
MO turned towards a window. No more stars to see; no more darkness until the night. Outside he could see a dry, flat land. Beyond which stood metal fingers pointing to the clouds; empty, hollow buildings. Mountains further off which broke out of illusion the closer you approach, becoming trash. Where was the promised Earth? The grass? The vibrant colors that came from living flowers, instead of from a colored paint in a bucket?
The little robot drove off of his line, reaching the window. If all of the humans stayed indoors, as if they never landed, then how could anything be changed? How could the land grow, the world awaken, if everyone chose to stay asleep?
Maybe it was up to the ones who Think. Not the ones who Stop. MO closed his eyes. He had been living as a hypocrite. No. A coward. The world beyond the ship was all foreign. But was it all contaminated? Or was it his own internal programming which made him think this way? Was the real death dealer staying inside an air conditioned space, allowing the circuits to never switch to more advanced modes of articulation? Could his fears be, in a way, rewired into an experience to be had, not an assumption to be held back by?
After all, the trash compactor... WALL-E... if anybot was living proof that a bot could change its own wiring, it was him. The one who brought the ship back home.
MO opened his eyes. He knocked his handled hand into the floor twice, then raised it high in triumph with a loud sound. Several humans zipped by in their chairs, chattering on their devices, unperturbed. The glowing floor lights guiding them from cafeteria to bathroom, to cafeteria, to bedroom, to--
It was time to go outside.
...