Author's note 1:
Okay, so, this is HEAVILY inspired by the only good Novelization of this movie in the site. Does anyone remember it? I'm not going to publicly say the name aloud, but if you're thinking "Hey! This looks familiar...", then the answer is "Yes. And all the credits go to them."
If their fanfiction was a deconstruction of the movie in human form, mine will be a deconstruction of a deconstruction.
I feel like the human version of the movie requires an edge to be plausible, and you'll see what I mean by that as we proceed.
Also, this was crossposted on AO3. Since, you know, the description was supposed to be longer.
All good?
Okay!
We can start.
(UPDATE: The cover for this story was drawn by "NickIndustries3" on X. Find them there.)
Screams...
Explosions...
Gunshots...
Shouting in different languages...
Gary's awakening was sharp and agitated. Through bloodshot eyes, the Sergeant rushed to his feet and gripped his chest. His heartbeat was out of control, pumping excessive blood into his system. For a soldier in the US army of his rank, it was unbecoming.
Still, pushing through the feeling of having ran a marathon, Gary slid down the surface behind him and pinched his eyes shut. He inhaled and exhaled, loving the way precious oxygen filled his lungs to be distribuited accordingly.
Once the tiredness washed away, he brought a hand to his face and rubbed it. Okay, okay. Think! He stared at the tip of his military boots, scavenging for memories of the hours prior to... this.
I was in Iraq, with my squad. We were helping a nearby village when...
Realization dawned upon the Sergeant.
...when those damn Islamists attacked our convoy.
The last fragment akin to a memory he possessed was the frame of... an RPG rapidly flying towards the house he had taken shelter in. He wondered how many civilians had perished because of collateral damage.
Shaking his head to get rid of such unpleasant thoughts, the Sergeant's gaze fell on a military bag he always carried with him. He reached out to seize a portion of its silky material and unzipped it. Gary rummaged his way through, counting all the supplies at his disposal.
Painkillers, MRE, flares, and a flashlight. There was no sight of his weapons or ammo.
Sighing, he planted a hand onto the wall and hoisted himself up. He then wrapped the bag around his shoulder, deciding to handle only the flashlight in his grasp.
Since, now that he could think about it, he couldn't see jack-shit. A permeating darkness engulfed his proximities, which was suffocating, awakening primordial instincts into his spirit.
Shaking the flashlight and slapping its side for a moment, Gary shined it forward. The first thing his eyes landed upon were the margins of two civilian vehicles. One was a red jeep, the other was a medium-sized, grey car.
Their design...
Why did he feel like he was back home?
He directed the beam upwards, wincing at the crusty and dusty ceiling barely holding itself. Gary ambled deep within the structure, understanding that he was currently trapped inside an underground parking lot.
The connecting beams appeared unchecked for God-knew how many years, dust and other types of particles nesting within a gush to its side. Polluted water rushed down a broken pipe; the ideal location for rats to nest and reproduce.
But where were the rats?
Gary's undivided attention was now focused on a particular door with a broken neon sign above.
EXIT.
Perfect.
Better to get out of this abandoned location and contact his unit for transportation!
He clutched onto the doorknob and pulled, but it seemed the mechanism was jammed. The Sergeant tried to circle the issue by using sheer, brute force, and still the mechanism remained jammed.
"Damn it!" He hissed, rolling his eyes. "Alright. I just have to find a lever."
Searching the vehicles proved to be fruituous, as he collected a metal rod of modest size and approached the jammed exit yet again. Gary carefully posed his flashlight on the ground and nudged it so the beam directly shined onto the target. He planted the rod into the available space and pulled.
The Sergeant groaned as his muscles strained, but again his efforts were rewarded. With a SNAP! the exit was now open and ready to be crossed.
The twenty-six-year-old man collected his bag and trekked onwards. He pushed the button of an elevator, but the power was cut, rendering the machination effectively useless. "Are you serious?!" He cursed under his breath.
Guess he had to take the stairs...
First an abandoned underground parking lot, and now an elevator with no power? The situation was becoming weirder minute by minute.
Gary needed answers, and he needed them now.
The Sergeant scanned the main lobby he entered, pinching his nostrils as he almost vomited at the amount of trash spread across the floor. "Jesus!" He coughed, pushing acid back down his throat. "H-hello?" He called out. "Anybody home?"
The building was apparently abandoned.
Not a single soul in sight...
He marched towards the exit, fear and determination meshing together and acting as fuel. Gary practically tore the entrance open and ran down the stairs.
The young man dropped his bag in shock, surprise and utter horror short-cutting his brain. He couldn't comprehend what was in front of him, no matter how much time he spent pondering over the implications.
He was in New York (or at least, a city manufactured similarly to said settlement), but it looked wrong. The first adjective popping into the Sergeant's mind to describe the surroundings would be death.
A brown-ish mist surrounded the skyscrapers, adding a spectral tone to the abandoned streets. The windows were either shattered or dirty with grime, drastically changing the reflective feature of the material.
The streets themselves were full of trash, either compacted into remarkable cubes of concentrated scraps or left across the entire area. There were no people in sight, the once-vibrating land claimed by humans forsaken.
And the vehicles? To be transported into scrapyards and be torn into additional scraps. Most of them were empty, without engines or even tires. The windows had been mercilessly eaten away by time, now only wide holes.
Gary's gaze settled on a... body.
It was a skeleton, with an arm stretched towards the Sergeant and its boney maw wide open, as if screaming a silent plead. It wore a strange jumpsuit with a logo embedded onto its surface, barely readable. The years hadn't been particularly kind to this fellow; a single well-placed kick would be more than enough to break those remains.
Still driving on auto-pilot, Gary stalked towards the skeleton and crouched, slowly inching the badge closer. 'BnL', it read. While a crusty and black 'Markus' onto a white background could be discerned from the rest of the dirt.
That's when he spotted something residing beneath that labyrinth of bones. Shutting his eyes, the Sergeant snaked his fingers between the skeleton's ribs and secured a strong grip onto the object. He then retracted his appendage, engaging in a macabre game similar to 'Operation', being careful not to touch the margins of the body.
It was... a diary?
He scrolled through multiple pages, noticing the rudimentary calligraphy and lack of proper punctuation. Either the worker was in a hurry to write his thoughts, or he wasn't taught higher skills of writing styles. This meant the skeleton in front of the Sergeant had been selected as a working force, alongside other chosen, to follow a directive; no question asked. What kind of sick fuck would order this in the modern day?
"BnL..." The young man drawled. "Where have I heard it befo-"
He halted his speech, bringing a hand to his throat as he began coughing. Gary's throat was on fire, significantly constricting and in desperate need of oxygen. His eyes panned across his surroundings, and that's when he noticed that the mist wasn't made of steam or clouds... but of toxic hazards, a bio-product of the trash left behind.
However, the human's body was a perfect machine. Gary's system slowly got used to the environment, and the coughing properly ceased. Further episodes of this magnitude would ensue until he fully adapted to this hostile post-apocalyptic setup.
But... he was also sweating.
Gary passed the back of his hand across his forehead, sensing the tiny drops of water his body naturally produced. It was late afternoon, probably around 5 p.m., so why was he sweating like that? Judging by the speed his body responded to the hot surroundings with, the temperature's current scale had arrived to an astonishing 40 degrees Celsius.
He scampered away from the light, fearing the UV rays would produce lasting effects on his health. He certainly did not want to die from the heat, or receive sunburns from what was supposed to be the planet's first source of life.
Gary's mind had finally took in his precarious situation. He now possessed a vague idea of what had happened to the once-glorious Great Apple, as well as the entire world, for that matter. And the insigna belonging to this BnL? There was no explanation for it, yet, but the name felt so reminiscing. He had the answer on the tip of his tongue!
But, for now? For now he did the most logical thing any other member of his kind would do.
"HELLO?!' He shouted at the top of his lungs. "IS ANYONE OUT THERE? HELP! HEEELP!"
A chill propagated up his spine as he realized the words had reverberated throughout the streets, as if he was residing in a cave. They fell on metaphorical deaf ears, lost admist the empty sections of this forsaken boneyard.
Gary breathed in and out, adjusting his hair and bobbing his head. Okay, okay. I have to find other people.
With a new self-ordered objective in mind, the young man began a throughrouly inspection of the streets. To his great disdain, more trash plagued the available space, while the bodies of these workers almost made him puke a few times.
Unfortunately, Gary had to get rid of some of his garments during his research. But it wasn't his fault! It had be late afternoon, around 5 p.m., and yet the blasted sun didn't decrease the intensity of its rays. At this rate, the Sergeant would have to wait until night to receive absolution from the scorching heat.
So, he remained only with his shirt, pants, and boots, dashing through the streets like a madman as he hoped to find any other Homo Sapiens. There had to be, right? Besides, where would eight billion people go? They couldn't just vanish overnight!
The Sergeant's expectations were crushed once he stared at a hologram displaying a peculiar ad, a series of static images rolling one after the other.
"Too much garbage in your face? There's plenty of space out in space!"
Groups of workers worked tiredlessly, compacting trash into cubes as the ones he had come across. There was no shortage of them, with even children participating in the activity as they lifted a thumb-up towards the camera for better filming. Gary was looking at a perfect archetype of a janitorial advertisement.
"BnL starliners leaving each day, we'll clean up the mess while you're away!"
Another hologram popped up, this time taunting the soldier with a magnificent ship propelling upwards through its thrusters. It was just like those science-fiction movies! But his kind hadn't still achieved such advanced prototypes...
Where the hell was he?
"The jewel of the BnL fleet: the Axiom!"
A bigger ship took the spotlight.
The ad now allowed a deeper look to the inside of the vessel. Luxories reserved only for the biggest billionaries of Gary's time were in full display and seemingly available for a multitude of common civilians: a couple getting a massage, a guy accepting a fresh drink from a well-dressed server in front of a giant pool, friends playing golf, and even a family playing ball with a grandma exploiting an hoverable chair.
"Spend your five-year cruise in style! Waited upon twenty four hours a day by our faithful crew, while your captain charts a course for non-stop entertainment, fine dining, and with our all-access hover-chairs, even grandma can join the fun! There's no need for walk."
There was one aspect of capitalism that this ad perfectly encapsulated: consumism. People spend, squander, consume, and they want more. To satisfy the request you must search for raw materials, bringing the ecosystems down as collateral effect. They say technology would fix all of humanity's problems, but to power the technology you need resources.
"The Axiom! Putting the 'Star' in 'Executive StarLiner!'"
A middle aged man joined the filming, walking in the camera's angle through a single, wide step as he saluted the audience. He wore a circular badge on his left breast. 'Shelby Forthright, BnL CEO' was written below as introduction.
"Because at Buy 'N Large, space is the final fun-tier!" Shelby turned around to wave at the Axiom as it sailed away, leaving planet Earth forever.
Memories of his childhood unlocked the secret this location held, although the young man couldn't believe it. No, no. It's impossible. It can't be!
He backed a step away and-
CRRIIN!
Gary had stepped on a newspaper. He snatched it from the ground and blowed onto it, getting rid of the dust so he could properly read the pages.
TOO MUCH TRASH!
EARTH COVERED.
BnL CEO declares global emergency.
The article went on to describe the cited global emergency in detail. Shelby Forthright had launched 'Operation Clean-Up' and employeed a specific class to flawlessly execute the maneuver. The 'WALL-E' workers had been born, otherwise known as 'Waste Allocation Load Lifters - Earth Class.' They were basically slaves with a simple directive: clean the world of the accumulated garbage while the rest of humanity peacefully prospered above the stars.
That word...
WALL-E.
He had been ten years old when the movie premiered. The little robot's adventures itched themselves into his brain as a staple part of his childhood. The story was perfect, a masterpiece.
Somehow, outside of any logical premise, he was walking through the same Earth as the one in WALL-E. Yet... why were there people in the ads? Shouldn't they have been replaced by robots? The WALL-E robots?
Nothing made sense, nothing. Not even what information Gary knew about the movie.
The newspaper suddenly flew away from his grasp, transported high in the air by the wind. Other objects also rolled on the ground, and the wind itself was strong... maybe too strong.
He slowly turned around...
The Sergeant's eyes widened in shock.
It was tall, imposing. This wall of dust pushed past the city outskirts, spreading chaos anywhere it went. As it collected mass, it also grew exponentially. It was a sandstorm...
...and it was headed straight at him.
I forgot about those...
In one second he was petrified, while in another he had whirled of a 180 degree angle and was sprinting away as fast as his poor legs could carry him. The bag slowed him down, but he couldn't separate himself from the precious supplies it carried within.
I need to find shelter!
That's when he spotted the supermarket. I can barricade myself in a room. He thought, getting over the non-functional escalator and knocking aside the shopping carts in his path.
The sandstrom was right behind him, unrelenting.
He dug himself deeper into the establishment, shutting the bathroom door behind him. The exterior of the building should act as the main line of defense, dealing with the majority of the dust. As for the obstacles in the main hall? They would disperse what little of the storm had managed to get inside.
It was like a beam of light when encountering obstacles: it either circled around the object but lost brighteness in the process, or it attempted to pierce through but failed to.
He flicked one of the buttons upwards.
ZZZZZR!
The lights actually flickered on! Gary sighed in relief and approached the sinks, placing his bag on top of them. He crossed gazes with his reflection, taking some time to memorize it again.
Gary sported brown eyes, black hairs, and a bit of beard all over his cheeks and chin. He tried to rotate the valve to acquire water, but only a few drops managed to fall. Shrugging, he produced a canteen from his bag and settled it underneath the faucet. At this rate, he might actually retrieve a bottle of water before he'd go to sleep.
Sliding onto the floor, he browsed the notebook's pages. They stopped about half in, leaving unfilled, blank sheets.
He took some time in deciphering the notes, deciding to proceed day after day.
The initial notes regarded Markus' experiences when selected as a candidate for the project. The kid (at the time seventeen years old) was practically ecstatic! He wrote it was a chance to prove himself, as Forthright had declared any worker who exceeded expectations would win political favours or riches to indulge themselves in.
Gary recognized all too well the politician's tactic of sugar coating the precarious working conditions those WALL-Es would soon face.
However, the first two years were actually quite promising. It seemed the initiative was working! Tons and tons of garbage were being compacted, incinerated, or merely thrown into space. Markus considered the other WALL-Es as his own brethren. And that might have been true, as the workers often fell in love with one another.
Their children would follow their parents' footsteps, as would the future generations.
It was from year three that things turned ugly.
There was just too much junk to work with. Markus wrote about hearing Forthright muttering curses and how the project might fail. Even the WALL-Es were getting tired of excessive working hours and terrible working conditions. They felt they were being seen as objects, machines, and not people.
Shit, the first uprising commenced during the beginning of year four. One of the WALL-Es grabbed a shard of glass from a processed compartment and struck a guard in the neck. The man spasmed and gurgled on his own blood 'till he died in front of the workers. No one remembered the WALL-E's name, but he soon turned into a martyr, becoming a symbol of resistance.
The fifth year had been the worst. WALL-Es all over the world revolted against the Buy 'N Large program, killing any executive they got their hands on. Forthright had almost been one of the victims, managing to escape the capitol before one of the first sandstorms ever registered and a mob of enraged workers reached him.
The next notes detailed life after the last starship sailed. The WALL-Es died one after the other of starvation, often resorting to...
They-
The Sergeant shut the notebook and bolted for the nearest bidet. He gripped its sides and emptied his stomach's contents into it. Acid temporarily filled his mouth before he could get rid of it, inducing heavier vomiting as a result.
Gary spat mucus and coughed, inhaling and exhaling.
Cannibalism...
The WALL-Es had no choice but to resort to cannibalism to prolong their lives.
How many children had assimilated such philosophy as they grew? How many did grow as ferals? How much death had plagued Earth?
But most of all...
Did the original WALL-E grow as the rest of his brethren did? Was he a feral? A menace? Was he a human, anyway? Did he exist?
A mad plan formed itself in Gary's mind.
He had to find WALL-E.
Aside from checking if the protagonist was alive, the 'robot' was the only owner of a functional home with electricity and supplies in New York. Gary wouldn't survive out there for long if he didn't find the cute automatron.
He marched towards the sink and gripped the canteen, bringing it to his lips. The water was polluted, but drinkable, certainly a better option than dying of dehydration.
Gary consumed some of the MREs as dinner and threw the plastic containers into a trash can.
Gotta give the good example.
As the lights flickered off and he curled onto the cold surface of the bathroom, a part of his subconscious desperately hoped that this whole ordeal was a dream.
Maybe he would wake up inside a medical tent in Iraq, surrounded by his platoon and doctors.
Maybe-
His eyelids fully closed.
Gary Sanderson succumbed to the exhaustion.
Author's note 2:
I wanted to, you know, do something a bit different this time.
If anyone has criticism or likes this, a comment would be great. Even if the WALL-E fanfictions are little in numbers these days...
Also, I tried to offer some world building insight as well as detailed descriptions of Gary's surroundings.
I hope it was enough...