Page 1 of Garbage

Prologue

He waited until the overnight security guard was looking the other way, and then snuck out the wide gate.

Well, maybe snuck was too strong a word. That would imply that someone knew or cared that he’d left, and he was pretty sure that even if the guard had seen him leave, nothing would have happened.

The first few times he’d snuck out, someone had shouted at him, and twice the techs had run diagnostics, but that had been a long time ago. So, probably the guard knew.

Still, it was better to sneak out. Just in case.

He made his way along the cracked, pitted sidewalk, picking up scattered litter automatically with the two forked metal claws that extended from his back. This side of the fence was always clean. His own invisible impact on the universe.

Beside him, cars whizzed by, their motors drowning out most of the sounds from the cramped apartments across the street. He caught snatches of babies wailing, adults arguing, music loud enough to compete with the traffic.

An older woman stumbled down the same sidewalk, approaching him. She smelled of liquor, even from this distance, and he couldn’t tell whether the ripped sleeve exposed her tattooed shoulder accidentally or on purpose. She didn’t look too steady on her feet.

He stepped automatically to the side. “Can I help you?”

He had a small set of programmed responsibilities, but basic politeness and support were within those confines. He’d helped a little girl find her parents once. Gotten more than a few balls down from trees for kids playing in the streets. Pulled a small boy away from an aggressive dog, to the gratitude of his nanny. Those were all treasured memories.

The woman looked up at him with bleary eyes, then spat. “Garbage.”

He wasn’t sure if that was a personal attack or simply a statement of identification. It was what he was. A sanitation worker. A trash collector.

Garbage.

He gave her a wide berth as he walked past her. Hopefully she would get home—or wherever she was going—alright.

He continued around the corner, the pistons in his chest cavity speeding up as he approached. He’d asked another bot if that ever happened to him, and been told that he needed a reconfiguration cycle.

He hadn’t gotten one, though, because each time he did, he knew what would happen. Little bits of himself would just disappear.

He didn’t really know what was missing, just that sometimes there were well-worn paths to a cluster of data—photos, bits of dialogue, or just his own internal organization of ideas—that simply weren’t there.

It happened without reconfigs. All the time.

It was just more shocking when it happened all at once.

That was far from the only thing that set him apart, anyway. None of the other bots ever left the lot at night. None of them had the same buggy programming that made him try to seek out conversation, even if he might not remember it later.

There were a lot of things that he did that didn’t make sense.

But tonight he had a destination in mind and remembered just where he was going.

The river two blocks away was blocked off by a tall chain-link fence, graffitied signs prohibiting anyone from visiting. No one played there, and bikers moved through the area quickly. From most angles, you couldn’t even see the trickle of slow-moving water, just the flutter of old paper cups and plastic bags caught amongst the overgrowth.

Yet someone had set up a park bench to overlook the steep banks. It had been new fifteen years ago, but now the lower board of the back rest had rotted through, and the rest was a dingy gray.

Growing beneath it, though, was a weedy plant whose yellow buds he thought might open tonight. He didn’t tend the plant in any way—it seemed to be good enough at seeking out the water and nutrients it needed between the cracked cement—but he’d been watching it.

His eyes sought the plant out first, then searched harder when he couldn’t find it.

He was certain that it was there. This wasn’t a memory from some other year, one of the dozens that seemed to swim together fluidly in his data banks. He’d time-stamped it, taking photos every night and refreshing them in his direct access memories during the day so they wouldn’t get lost.

His flower was supposed to be here.

He crossed the street, drawing closer to the park bench. He found the patch of fresh-torn dirt, already drying, where it had been. It was only after looking up and down the fence several times that he spotted his little plant, lying on its side, leaves withered and roots exposed.

Someone had torn it out, only to drop it a few meters away.