Chapter Text
Namjoon wakes up with the sun.
It’s no coincidence - the small, square window above the nook he rests in had been placed there for a reason, and his energy system powers up as soon as the first rays of sunlight shine through the industrial glass. The panels on his arms open and shift to reveal hundreds of small solar cells as Namjoon sits up and basks in the light, just for a moment - and then a small beep rings out in the otherwise empty container, signaling his batteries are now fully charged, and he gets up to get ready to work.
More than a hard job, it’s a boring one. Namjoon shouldn’t be able to tell, but he can, and this - this is a boring job.
Maybe it wouldn’t be for Unit N2M-100N, who wasn’t supposed to be able to learn about anything beyond the controls that operate the garbage compactor, but Namjoon hasn’t been Unit N2M-100N for a long while - probably since that first time he had to be repaired.
The repair crew had a human with a nice smile that had patted his head and said to him “You’re a tall one, aren’t you?” like he was one of her nephews, and when called back by one of her colleagues had answered “Hold on, let me see what’s wrong with this kid and I’ll be right with you.”
She had talked to him like he was a human, unlike most of the rest of them, and Namjoon - who for all intents and purposes at least almost looked the part, as one of a small set of newly perfected, hyper-advanced androids - couldn’t do much but take it in stride.
At some point, she’d asked him if he’d like a name as she hummed behind her magnifying glass while fixing the fine wiring in his left wrist. Namjoon didn’t have an answer for her, so he’d said it makes no difference to me, ma’am, like he’d been programmed to.
She’d laughed, and told him to call her Younha, and after a quick look at his unit plate the fifth time he’d ended up in her bay she’d started calling him Namjoon . The name stuck, and he kept quietly shuffling in her repair queue whenever he’d needed to - and then one day he’d come over to fix a cracked lens in his vision and she had been gone already, on one of the last shuttles off to the spaceship that was supposed to keep all humans away from Earth while androids like him cleaned up.
Younha had left him a note that said take care, Namjoon , and a hard drive full of repair protocols - he snaps it into the USB port on his side now, as he sits down on the floor of his container, and gets to work following her instructions.
He’s not supposed to be handling this stuff himself, but give an android repairs once, and he’ll be fixed: teach an android to repair himself, and -
“Ouch.”
He props the panel of his left thigh open with a screwdriver, trying to be more careful about the electricity running down the wires. His memory system reminds him he’d left the hand-held solder on the third shelf of the container from the left - and then it also reminds him that last time he’d tried to use it, he’d accidentally fused two of his fingers together.
Namjoon is really not supposed to be doing these things himself, but. There’s really nobody else available, is there.
He decides against the solder, for now, and snaps the panel closed. It’s getting a little rusted, and he’s gonna have to go look for spare parts soon - maybe in the android factory he’d uncovered the previous rotation, buried under yet another pile of trash.
Which also reminds him - his primary directive. All the garbage.
He gets up to his feet. If he were human, he would sigh, like he keeps seeing them do on the TV screen he’d managed to hook up into the container’s energy system, but he’s not, so he doesn’t. He just leans over to press the button to open the door to the container, picks up his supply box that he’s long since started using to collect random human knick-knacks, and off to work he goes.
The heat is sweltering, as usual, the external temperature well above 40° - his vision is temporarily invaded by a red error message until he remembers he needs to optimize his systems to the environment, and soon enough he’s no longer in danger of overheating as he makes his way through the skyscraper-tall piles of garbage he’s helped accumulate through the years.
His internal fans whir in the otherwise silent landscape, and Namjoon rummages through his supply box as he walks, until he finds -
“Ah, there it is.”
Namjoon is an android, and doesn’t need to state things out loud - least of all when there’s no one around to listen. But his code doesn’t have anything against it, so Namjoon does it anyway, especially while he’s working.
The device in his hand - he thinks it might be a smartphone, but he’s not sure - links up with his voice box and speakers after a few seconds, and the recording inside starts back where he’d left it, a little tinny. Sometimes it glitches, but Namjoon doesn’t mind. Happens to the best androids too, after all.
“ Kafka on the shore, c-chapter twelve, ” it begins. Namjoon keeps walking, and the recording starts reading his book, getting more than halfway through the chapter before he finally reaches the spot where he’d stopped yesterday as soon as his shift had ended. He’s never gotten this far away from his container while working.
The compacting unit is looking very much in need of a few repairs itself, but that’s a little out of Namjoon’s jurisdiction. The outside is already warm to the touch when he pulls himself inside the hub. It used to have two doors on either side, but they’ve long broken down, and he’s still looking for replacement parts. Namjoon pulls open the protective screen that covers the controls - a little dust got in there anyway, courtesy of the sandstorms that keep wreaking havoc and toppling over the carefully constructed garbage piles.
He swipes the sand away with one hand, pressing the big blue button that turns the screens of the machine on. The left quadrant is the first to respond, showing him a map of the city underneath the rubble and garbage - he’s supposed to be in what used to be the middle of Itaewon, Seoul, South Korea.
The right screen turns on after fluttering for a couple of seconds, showing the HOTSHOT logo in capital letters before giving him his options.
The area is untouched, and the procedure is clear on the matter. Metal gets compacted first, then plastic, then everything else. There’s a step for organic matter, too, but no garbage android has needed that one in a while . Maybe in a century or so, but who’s counting, except Namjoon’s memory systems?
The recording of his book keeps going as Namjoon sets up the magnetic arm of the machine first with a few, quick taps and carefully directs it over the closest pile.
It pulls up too much, as usual. Namjoon lowers the intensity of the magnetic field with a swipe of his finger on the screen, and a few things drop back on the ground - a fridge, he thinks it’s called, and a bicycle. The rest follows the magnetic arm, over Namjoon’s head and towards the back of the machine, where it gets pushed into the compactor panel.
Namjoon’s hearing automatically dials down by itself right before the screeching sound of bending metal reaches his ears. The first time he’d heard it, the noise had scrambled his comms system so badly he’d needed full recalibration, and he’s not keen to repeat the experience.
A few seconds later, the machine pops out a perfectly shaped cube of metal parts. Namjoon resists the temptation of looking back at it to see if anything catches his interest, and immediately pushes in instructions to pick it up and put it in the trunk of the compactor.
The machine obeys, and the first cube ends up safely stored - and then it’s time to start all over again.
He ignores the refrigerator and the bicycle, for now. They’re way too big for the compactor as they are, and he’s gonna have to come down from the machine controls and use the laser cutter in his left arm to cut them down to more manageable pieces - but later. Right now, he steers the machine forward, pulling the magnetic arm over another pile.
He goes on like this through all of chapter thirteen, fourteen, fifteen of his book - he’s halfway through chapter sixteen when the compacting unit starts beeping, warning him it’s getting low on battery. He opens the solar panels on the back of the compacting unit with a swipe, gets his supply box, and jumps down and out of the hub.
It’s time for Namjoon’s favorite part of his shift - sifting through the garbage during the breaks he gets when the machine needs to recharge, looking for whatever holds his interest or might seem like a good addition to his container unit.
His ventilation system keeps whirring as he sets his eyes on the closest pile, and he starts pulling things out - a folder with a bunch of documents, an old TV, a clear plastic bag full of other plastic, bottles and cups and straws. He’s found cool things before: a pair of tiny shoes, smaller than any human shoes he’s seen any of them wear, and a solar-powered watch that had cogs instead of wires. The devices he uses to listen to his books had been one of his finds, too, like the actual physical books he’s managed to collect. Most of them are missing a page, or several, but Namjoon doesn’t mind - he can usually figure out how the missing parts go, anyway.
Today isn’t looking like a good day for scavenging. Most of the stuff is either deeply uninteresting or ruined beyond measure - he throws aside a gold ring that sparkles in the sunlight in favor of pulling a metal locker towards it and prying it open, the metal bending easily under his android fingers. It’s empty, and Namjoon settles it back on the pile with a hum.
He claps a few times to get the dust and dirt out of his hands, and starts again. Despite the underwhelming beginning, digging a little deeper uncovers some interesting things - a set of dice, with more sides than he thinks they’re really supposed to have, and a tablet with a cracked screen he sets aside to disassemble for spare parts later. A rubber duck ends up in his supply box next, just because of the way it squeaks when Namjoon squeezes it.
He’s about to lean down again when the compacting unit behind him beeps, signaling it’s already done charging. The solar panels fold back into themselves and under the panels on top of the machine - Namjoon’s systems supply him with an image of a ladybug folding its wings, easily noting the resemblance. Over the years, he’s built a collection of clips, documentaries, videos that showed what Earth looked like before . Before all the humans had left the planet - or even before Namjoon had even been just a corporation’s newest project up for discussion.
He needs to look for more of those. He could download the information straight to his systems, but - there’s something about sitting down in his nook in the container unit, all the lights off except for the television screen, every frame documenting what life was like a century ago flowing through his optic fibers and ending up stored inside his memory.
Besides, it’s not like he doesn’t have time to spare. He makes a note - look for more video files , and it seamlessly slips into the to-do list in his main directory.
“Let’s get back to work, Namjoon,” he says to himself, and climbs on the machine once again.
***
One minute before the end of his shift, the sun starts setting.
Namjoon stares at it for just a moment before turning the machine off and closing the protective panel above the controls, making sure everything is back where it’s supposed to be.
A pop-up message in his vision tells him he’s completed his shift for today just as soon as he jumps out of the compacting unit and his feet touch ground. His supply box is safe on his shoulders, everything is set up and ready for another day, and Namjoon can walk back to his container.
Except - he never ended up dealing with that fridge, and the bike. And he’s almost done scouring the area for metal. He could do it tomorrow, but -
Androids aren’t supposed to feel in any particular way towards anything. They’re not really supposed to feel at all. And yet, Namjoon hums as he steps closer, his fingers twitching as the panels of his forearm rearrange themselves to uncover the arrow head of his built-in laser.
The metal glows gold in the light, and Namjoon can easily picture something else other than the wasteland he’s in - a house, like a few he’s walked in before while exploring. The fridge stands in a corner but it’s new, shiny - a human walks past it, then another. Outside the window, the city belongs to a different time.
Namjoon points the laser towards the door and turns it on, tracing one long, sizzling red line from top to bottom. The fridge is taller than him, and the metal looks thick, but it falls apart easily under the heat.
One half of the door drops to the ground at Namjoon’s feet, smoke rising from the burned edge, while the other swings to the side with a creak of rusted hinges. Namjoon takes a step back, ready to keep cutting. He turns off his laser for a moment, just to wave away the smoke - and then his vision clears, and he freezes.
At the bottom of the fridge, standing tall on a little pile of dirt, there’s something growing.
The plant is nothing more than a sprout, barely as tall as the span of his fingers - but it’s green, and healthy, and Namjoon has never seen a real plant before. He kneels down in front of it, reaching out with one hand - the sensors on the tip of his fingers register everything as he brushes them against the leaves.
“Hello,” he says. “How did you end up here?”
The plant, of course, doesn’t answer. For one split second, Namjoon doesn’t know what to do. There’s no recommended pathway, no directive for this - except the one that tells him how to deal with it like he’s dealt with all the human waste he’s packed up and compacted before.
Unit N2M-100N isn’t supposed to be able to go against his code. Namjoon can’t find it in himself to care. He reaches behind himself to unclip his supply box from his back and searches through it until he finds what he’s looking for - a round speaker with a broken driver he’d been planning to try and repair. He takes the driver out, putting it aside, and brings the now empty speaker box closer to the fridge.
Slowly, he digs his fingers in the dirt around the plant, and pulls. It goes easily, the little clump of dirt crumbling a little in his hands, but he tries his best to hold it together - and then, as gently as he can, he lowers it, plant and all, inside the speaker box.
There’s no way to know if it likes its new home, but Namjoon still brushes his now dirty fingers against the leaves once again. The vibrant green looks out of place among the muted yellow-brown of the landscape, but Namjoon doesn’t pay attention to it - he picks up the plant, holding it close to his chest.
The fridge lies forgotten as the sun sets, and Namjoon starts the trek back to his container.
With every step, the plant sways from its spot in Namjoon’s arms. He doesn’t register it, every one of his systems scouring the information he has stored in to check for - anything, really, that could help him take care of it.
He wants to take care of it, which is strange. He knows it needs the sun, just like he does, and water, if he can find it - he makes another note, to save some the next time it rains and he’s forced to stay inside because the compacting unit can’t recharge properly, its technology a lot less sophisticated than his.
He doesn’t realize he’s gotten all the way back to his container in record time, too busy thinking about what kind of plant it is, whether it might grow into a tree, like the ones he’s seen in the documentaries, or if it will make - flowers , that’s what they’re called. Androids aren’t supposed to like anything, Namjoon knows, but he thinks he’d like it if it made flowers.
He pushes the button that opens the door, and once that slides open, the one that turns on the light. He would try and brush the dust and dirt off of himself, but he’s known for a while it’s a lost cause. He still tries his best not to bring too much dust in, knowing how much it interferes with the ventilation system that keeps the air inside the container as clean as it could be.
Closing the door behind himself, he unclips his supply box from his back and opens it, still holding the plant in his arms. The rubber duck goes in the bottom left nook - he’s pretty sure it’s a toy, and he squeezes it a couple of times for good measure before placing it next to a soft plush toy of an animal he cannot recognize. It might be a bear, but bears aren’t blue. Either way - the rubber duck squeaks one last time and Namjoon pats it over its yellow head before moving on.
The broken tablet ends up in the top right nook, the one with the stuff he’s been meaning to try and fix, if only just to practice for when he has to inevitably try and fix himself once again: the dice, the ones with the weird shapes and more sides than he thinks they’re supposed to have, go next to the cube with six different colors he’s found the week before, in the top left nook.
Once his supply box is empty, he stores it near the door, ready for tomorrow.
Usually, this is when he’d settle in, turn on the screen he’d set up on the wall, and try to find something in his collection he hasn’t watched yet - difficult, but not impossible.
Today, though - he’s running on lower battery than he thinks he’s supposed to.
“It’s time to turn off for the night. Do you sleep?” he asks, lowering his eyes to the plant in his arms.
He puts it down next to his nook, the bottom left one in the farthest corner from the door, and lies down. Carefully, he turns the speaker box so that the plant faces the window, like he does - so they can both wake up with the sun the next day.
“Goodnight,” he says to the plant, like he’s heard humans say on his screen, brushing his fingers against the leaves once again. They rustle slightly, and Namjoon closes his eyes as his systems go into sleep mode for the rest of the night, one by one.
Outside his tiny window, the clouds part, just a little, to uncover a night sky full of stars.
“We’ve had everything triple-checked, Captain,” says the commander, turning his tablet off and sliding it under his arm. “The androids have been cleared from engineering, and they’re all ready to go.”
“Alright, then. When’s the launch supposed to be?” the captain replies, turning around in his chair towards the two other men on the bridge. The medals on his uniform shine under the lights of the bridge, but the commander keeps his eyes steady on the windows and the void of space behind them, his posture ramrod straight.
“In an hour, sir.”
“Very well. Let’s hope this one brings back good news, right, Lieuteniant?”
Lieuteniant Kim Seokjin has his doubts. None of them show on his face - for one moment, his thoughts on the twenty androids on the search probe about to take off from the E.S. Aurora on a mission to Earth are overshadowed by that one mechanic in engineering that had stopped him in the corridor, trying to insist there was something wrong with the code, lieuteniant, now if you would just listen -
“Of course, sir. They’ll be back before the end of the month - we’ll find out then.” he answers, and tries to stand as straight as the commander next to him.
“We sure will, lieuteniant. You're dismissed.” the captain waves him away, turning towards the controls. The red eye of the autopilot behind him seems to blink at him, and Kim Seokjin steps out of the bridge with a frown.
As he walks down the hall, turning a sharp left into the officers' quarters, he takes out his own tablet from where it's strapped to his uniform belt.
The screen flickers as he pulls up the plans for the research probe with a swipe of his fingers. There doesn't seem to be anything above his security clearance in the plan - everything is spelled out clearly in front of him.
A bright blue dot signals where the androids have been stored, and he goes through the checklist one last time - the engines are in top shape, and so is everything else. The code on the autopilot of the probe has been triple checked, run through the A.I. in engineering for holes and mistakes no less than three different times - and yet that mechanic seemed so sure there was something wrong with it.
Seokjin shakes his head, trying to rid his thoughts of the mechanic’s boyish face and big, round eyes as he’d trailed after him in the engineering sector, trying to get Seokjin to listen. He was almost certainly wrong, and even if he wasn’t - it really was out of Seokjin’s hands.
He swipes the research probe plans away and puts his tablet back. With a sigh, he stops in his tracks right in the middle of the hallway, almost bumping into another officer he mutters an apology to - and then he steps into the closest elevator and pushes in the code that will get him down into the hangar bay.
Ensign - Jeon Jungkook , he thinks he’s called, although he didn’t really catch his name - is almost certainly wrong. Seokjin just likes to play it safe, and they’re both going to find out who’s right in forty minutes.
Seokjin steps out of the elevator and into the railing just as the research probe is starting to slide out of the hangar bay, ready to be docked on the outside of the spaceship and finally begin its trip to Earth.
His tablet beeps as he keeps staring at the procedure - only thirty minutes left.
“Let’s hope I’m wrong, right, Lieuteniant?”
The voice at his left startles him, just a little - but enough to let out a loud “Hey!”, and the ensign snorts. Seokjin’s ears feel a little warm, but he’s going to ignore it.
“Let’s hope you are, Ensign. There’s nothing wrong with the code of the probe, we’ve checked everything. You can stop worrying.”
Ensign Jeon Jungkook is pulling up the sleeves of his work suit, a bright orange that contrasts starkly against Seokjin’s own blue uniform - at Seokjin’s words, he turns to him with wide eyes, his expression as surprised as Seokjin’s had been just a few moments before.
“Lieuteniant - I didn’t mean there was something wrong with the code of the probe . I meant there’s something wrong with the code of the Aurora .”
“Well,” Seokjin answers, turning back to the probe’s slow glide across the metal support as he schools his expression into something neutral. He can feel the ensign’s eyes on him, but he doesn’t turn to face him again.
“That changes things.”
Unit Y00-NG11’s systems power up exactly five minutes before landing, perfectly on schedule.
The androids that haven’t been sent out yet are still on sleep mode, and he patiently waits for his turn. The procedure had been spelled out clearly in his program: he’s been assigned a district, and his fully automated pod will be ejected as soon as the probe lands, and as soon as it takes off again to drop off another android in another district Y00-NG11 will go out and do his job. The same probe will pick him back up, along with the others, in an Earth month’s time.
Y00-NG11 makes sure he already has his timer set up. From the moment he lands, he will have exactly seven-hundred and thirty hours to complete his mission.
The beeping around him warns him it’s time - the compartment underneath opens, and the pod slides down through the passage, Y00-NG11 inside.
He can still hear the autopilot announcing every step - now ejecting POD-N07, containing Unit Y00-NG11, landing near Seoul, South Korea. Earth date: 02/11/2613. Sunrise expected in two hours, forty-one minutes.
The pod’s descent is quick, and as soon as it reaches the drop-off deck, a robotic arm takes care of the rest. Unit Y00-NG11’s pod is carefully placed on the surface of the planet, and the autopilot goes on about outside temperature and atmosphere oxygen levels, but Y00-NG11 ignores it - and then, finally, the door to the pod slides open, revealing the landscape.
Y00-NG11’s systems automatically regulate themselves to face the heat as he steps out, and he takes in the landscape. He hadn’t expected anything other than what the protocol had already shown him, but seeing it for himself is different. The horizon is opaque, and only a vague outline of buildings can be seen. He doesn’t know where they’ve landed, but it’s barren and empty even of the human waste he’s been advised against interacting with.
Behind him, the pod is being brought back into the probe by another mechanical arm, but he doesn’t look back as he keeps walking out. His timer starts, just as soon as the probe starts preparing for takeoff once again. Seven-hundred and twenty-nine hours, fifty-nine minutes, fifty-eight seconds and counting, now.
Unit Y00-NG11 relegates the timer to a corner of his vision and turns on the plasma propulsors on his feet and ankles, rising through the dust that surrounds him as soon as the probe’s thrusters are turned on.
He flies away as fast as he can, pulling up a map of the district he was assigned to, looking for where to start. It’s time for him to get to work.
Namjoon doesn't mind noise. His hearing is sensitive to it - it’s rather a design flaw for androids that were supposed to operate heavy machinery, if you ask him, but he doesn't mind. He can easily regulate it, anyway, so it's not really a problem.
He also does not expect to hear the very distinctive sound of an explosion just as soon as he steps out of his container, about to clip his supply box to his back and face another day of work.
It's not a noise he hears often, and it was definitely close - he tries to focus his vision to catch any sign of smoke, his supply box temporarily forgotten in his hands, and then he spots it.
A column of thick, grey smoke, pretty much indistinguishable from the muted colors of the rest of the city except from the way it’s rapidly rising up towards the sky. It’s only two streets over, close enough to his container that a fire could become a serious problem - the supply box drops to the ground as Namjoon runs to investigate, his feet skidding on the gravel and dirt that lies in a thick layer above the asphalt of the city streets.
His sensors don’t register any heat spikes as he gets closer, turning around the corner of a building, which is good - it means nothing is burning yet. The smoke is still rising, though, and Namjoon is almost there. He can see the smoke rising from behind one of the delicate piles of plastic waste he’s put together himself just a few weeks before, but he barely has time to take another step closer when another explosion bursts through the garbage.
Namjoon is left staring at the sky as the blast throws him flat on his back. He tries getting up, but - one of his fingers is definitely broken. And he might have some issues with his left leg if he doesn’t check it soon. All in all, not bad for being sent flying a good fifty meters from where he’d been standing.
The cloud of smoke and dust is even thicker up close, and Namjoon tries his best to at least push himself up on his elbows. His vision tries to focus on what’s beyond the fog - it looks like there’s someone standing there, just a few meters away, but it’s unlikely. Namjoon has been the only android in the area for decades, there’s no way -
It only takes an instant to find himself flat on the ground once again - only this time there’s no sky above him, but the barrel of what he can tell is a plasma gun. Said plasma gun is attached to a sleek metal arm, which is attached to - oh .
The android threatening him is saying something, but Namjoon has no idea what - he raises his arms above his head, slowly, hoping it’s enough. The stranger is hovering a few centimetres above Namjoon’s knees, which isn’t reassuring when he looks like he’d be willing to step on them at any moment. Namjoon tries to get a little further away, but he ends up with the gun being shoved even closer to his face.
“Who are you?” the android tries again, and this time Namjoon understands. He still keeps his hands up while he answers, just to be safe.
“Namjoon? Wait, no - Unit N2M-100N.”
“Unit N2M-100N,” the other android repeats, nodding. “Directive?”
“I’m part of the clean-up team? Dealing with all of this,” he answers with a wave of his hand to gesture at the city around them, disregarding his previous concern about his continued wellbeing.
“Who are you? ” Namjoon asks, now that the plasma gun seems to have been lowered a bit. The android flies a little further away from him, and the gun folds back into a metal arm.
“Unit Y00-NG11,” the android answers. “My directive is classified,” he continues, before Namjoon can even try to ask. Y00-NG11 doesn’t give him time to say anything else - he stares at Namjoon, calculating, and then he simply turns back on his heel and flies away once again.
Namjoon is left staring at the trail of blue light that lingers in his vision when Y00-NG11 disappears between the abandoned buildings.
He gets up from the ground after a beat, trying not to put too much weight on his left leg. He doesn’t feel pain, but he’s not the greatest with repairs as it is, and damaging it further as he walks back to his container wouldn’t be ideal.
His only thought as he carefully follows the path back is: why would another android be here? Y00-NG11 looks new , and doesn’t seem to have a single scratch on him, and he can fly - that kind of technology sure wasn’t available when Namjoon was in development.
There’s no clear protocol how to deal with any of this. He pulls up his calendar as he steps into his container once again - he hadn’t even realized he’d left the door open when he’d gone looking for the explosion - but it’s not the bigger issue he has at the moment. Namjoon has never really bothered with the date before, but he also hasn’t seen another android in years. Today it’s November 13 of the year 2613, according to human time, and Namjoon makes a note of it.
He closes the container door behind himself, reaches into one of the nooks to get his tool box, and sits down on the ground to find out what’s wrong with his broken finger, first, and then he can move on to his leg.
Next to his nook, the plant seems to be doing alright. It’s been two weeks since Namjoon found it, and it looks like it’s growing, millimetre by millimetre.
“Sorry for leaving the door open,” he says as he rummages through the toolbox to find one of the tiny screwdrivers he knows he has in there somewhere. He’s found some information on how to care for plants on an old computer, and apparently they grow better when you talk to them, so Namjoon has been doing just that.
“I met another android today. His name is Y00-NG11, and I don’t know what he’s doing here, but it involves explosions,” he goes on, as he reconnects a wire in his finger. “I want to find out, but he didn’t let me ask. I don’t even know where he’s from, he just appeared. But I don’t think he was just passing through.”
The rest of Namjoon’s morning is spent like that, between repairs and talking to the plant. The container is soundproof, and there’s no way to find out if Y00-NG11 is out there, causing more explosions and following his mystery directive.
Namjoon takes out the solder from the toolbox and tells himself - whatever it is, he’s going to find out.
“Maybe we can be friends, you know. Should I try?”
The ventilation system in the container starts another cycle, making the leaves of the plant move with the current of air. Namjoon takes it as a yes.
***
Namjoon looks up from the controls of the compacting unit just in time to see Y00-NG11 fly over his head. It’s almost a familiar sight, now - both Y00-NG11 and the way the blue light scanner in his left hand sweeps over piles of garbage and abandoned buildings alike.
By now, weeks after their first meeting, Namjoon has figured out he’s looking for something - he still has no idea what, and asking isn’t going to help. Last time he’d tried, Y00-NG11 had made a very pointed comment about how Namjoon had a job to do just as he was picking up yet another book from a pile. Namjoon’s wires still get a little crossed whenever he thinks about it.
He looks back down at the controls, checking how much battery he has left. He does do his job, just with - a few detours, maybe.
Y00-NG11 flies past him again, this time low enough he raises a cloud of dust behind him. Namjoon leans out of the hub of the machine.
“Hey!”
Watching Y00-NG11 stop mid-air to face him is - fascinating, he thinks that’s the right word for it. That’s not what Namjoon wants to tell him, though.
“How is it going?” Namjoon asks him, because small talk was big among humans, as far as he knows. Even Younha used to chatter constantly every time she fixed him up.
Y00-NG11 stares at him, and Namjoon tries really, really hard not to be intimidated.
“It’s going - well,” Y00-NG11 says. The smoke that’s still rising up from one of the buildings where Y00-NG11 had blasted his way in, obviously frustrated, would beg to differ, but Namjoon remembers his last close encounter with the plasma gun and keeps his mouth shut.
“I could give you a hand, if you’d like?” Namjoon asks, but Y00-NG11 shakes his head firmly.
“It’s my directive, N2M-100N. You take care of yours,” Y00-NG11 answers him, and flies away once again. His tone is just slightly less cold than the other times they’ve interacted, Namjoon thinks. Progress.
Y00-NG11 keeps his search around the area Namjoon’s working in - he thinks he can feel Y00-NG11’s eyes on him when he takes his break and lets the compacting unit recharge while he goes through the garbage for something interesting, but he doesn’t look up to make sure.
When he turns the compacting unit off for the day, though, he definitely spots Y00-NG11 hovering behind a building. Namjoon waves him hello. He’s surprised to see Y00-NG11 waving back after a beat, and follows his trail when he flies into yet another building through a broken window.
It’s nice, having someone else there, even if they don’t really talk. It’s clear Y00-NG11 is serious about his job, and Namjoon doesn’t want to upset the android with the plasma gun, but he’s just curious. Just like all the human things he’s collected - it’s nice to find out more, about anything.
Y00-NG11 seems to have scoured most of the area Namjoon works in, so far. The only bit left is the one closest to Namjoon’s container, so he’s definitely going to see more of Y00-NG11 in the next few days.
Another explosion rings out to his left, but Namjoon keeps walking even as Y00-NG11 flies out from behind a pile of rubble, covered in dust. He seems more frustrated than before, even as he keeps his scanner out to check his surroundings.
The blue round light ends up covering Namjoon’s feet, too, when Y00-NG11 takes a sharp turn left, but he doesn’t mind. Y00-NG11 is almost keeping him company, flying back and forth across the path Namjoon has traced through the piles of compacted trash.
He’s almost back to his container when his sensors pick up on movement that is not yet another explosion. It takes a moment to process, but when he does, the red warning pop-up sign in his vision is informative enough.
“Y00-NG11! Hey!”
Y00-NG11 stops in his tracks once again, meters above Namjoon’s head.
“There’s a sandstorm coming,” Namjoon calls out to him, and he sees Y00-NG11 look towards the horizon. From his vantage point in mid-air he can probably already see the beginning of the cloud of dust that’s about to cover them both in a few minutes.
“Y00-NG11, listen - come with me? I know somewhere safe,” Namjoon keeps going, a glitch in his voice. Sandstorms had been fatal for a lot of the other androids on clean-up duty, and despite how much more advanced Y00-NG11 is, Namjoon is not sure he’ll be completely safe. He can tell the other android doesn’t know what to do - but then he’s lowering himself down until he’s at eye-level with Namjoon, still hovering a few centimeters above ground.
“Where?” Y00-NG11 asks, and Namjoon gestures for him to follow.
He hurries down the dirt path, Y00-NG11 right behind him - the wind from the sandstorm whips dust against Namjoon’s face, but it’s been a while since he’s cared about getting scratches.
When he turns around to check, the cloud is almost as tall as the buildings behind them, and Namjoon knows they only have barely a minute left - he rushes up the ramp to the door of his container and slams his hand against the button to open the door, turning around once again to grab Y00-NG11 and pull him inside with him with all the strength he has.
They both bump against the row of nooks that’s closest to the entrance as the door closes between them and the incoming sandstorm, and that’s when Namjoon lets go of Y00-NG11’s arm.
“Sorry about that,” he says as they both get up from where they’d fallen on the floor, but Y00-NG11 doesn’t seem to have heard him - his gaze is focused on the room around him. As soon as the door had closed, the container’s energy systems had powered up, and the entire room now glows a gentle yellow from the strings of tiny lights Namjoon hung around years before.
“Do you rest here?” Y00-NG11 asks, facing him.
“My nook is in the last row,” he nods. “These used to belong to - you know, the other androids like me, the rest of the clean-up team. But they all broke, and there was no one here to repair them properly.”
Y00-NG11 nods back at him.
“But you can repair yourself?”
Namjoon would really, really like for that to be true, but - “Not really. I can do basic things,” he explains. If he were a human, he’d be embarrassed.
“Nothing too complicated. And most of them would have needed spare parts that no one makes anymore. I think humans would say I’m just lucky,” he explains.
“Lucky,” Y00-NG11 repeats, like he’s trying to memorize the word.
Namjoon watches Y00-NG11 as he turns around in place, staring at his extensive collection of paraphernalia.
“I’ve been collecting all of this for a while,” he explains, before Y00-NG11 can ask. “Humans have a lot of interesting things.”
Y00-NG11 reaches out to pick up a rubber duck, squeezing it. He startles a little at the noise, and tentatively squeezes it again, just to check. When it squeaks again, he puts it back, and moves on to the next nook - Namjoon wisely doesn’t comment, no matter how much he wants to.
“Do you want to see more?” he asks Y00-NG11, and the other android nods, and Namjoon decides then and there - he’s going to give him a tour.
They go through the nooks one by one. Y00-NG11 doesn’t seem interested in the one full of toys, but the one where Namjoon keeps the things he’d like to try his hand at repairing catches his eye - he holds up a lightbulb between his fingers and it lights up a bright yellow, casting shadows on both their faces.
The lightbulb turns off just as soon as Y00-NG11 hands it over to Namjoon, and they pass it back and forth a few times, amused at how it keeps going on and off like a signal, before putting it back in place.
Y00-NG11 steps forward, in front of the nook where Namjoon keeps all his books and documentaries, but almost impulsively, Namjoon holds him back with a hand on his arm.
“Wait, Y00-NG11 - I think you’ll like this,” he says, dropping his hand away. Y00-NG11 turns towards him, a question clear on his face. Namjoon pays him no mind and reaches up into the farthest nook, pulling down a tablet. Hooking it to the speakers he’d set up next to his screen is quick work.
“Listen to this,” he says, and presses play.
The speakers glitch, just once, but then the music starts, every note echoing against the walls of the container. Namjoon isn’t sure of the instruments, but the first one might be a piano, and then a guitar, and someone singing.
“I found this a few years ago,” Namjoon begins, looking at the way Y00-NG11 gets closer to the source of the melody. “The files are unnamed, but it’s - human music. It’s nice, isn’t it?”
Y00-NG11 nods, his head moving to the beat.
“Do you know how old it is?” he asks, and Namjoon shakes his head.
“I think it might be a hundred? A hundred and fifteen years old? I don’t really know,” he admits, and if Y00-NG11 is surprised, he doesn’t show it.
He does look up at Namjoon, though, his eyes calculating.
“How old are you? ” Y00-NG11 asks Namjoon, and -
“A hundred and twenty-one,” Namjoon answers honestly. Androids cannot lie, and even if he could, there’s really no point to it.
Now Y00-NG11 does seem surprised - he stares at Namjoon for a long moment, and then his eyes fall back on the tablet.
“It is nice, N2M-100N. Human music, I mean. I’ve never heard any of it before,” he starts. “I’ve never seen a lot of these things before, either.”
“If you want to see more, you can look through the nooks,” Namjoon answers, gesturing around them. Y00-NG11 nods and doesn’t say anything else - his eyes flutter from one end of the room to another, but he makes no move to get up.
He seems more relaxed than Namjoon has ever seen him, and he can see his fingers tapping to the melody against his own leg.
“You can call me Namjoon,” he says, before he can stop himself from it. He hasn’t been N2M-100N in a while, and he’d like Y00-NG11 to call him that.
Y00-NG11 cocks his head to the side, curious.
“You told me your name is N2M-100N,” he replies, and Namjoon shakes his head.
“It was my name. A long time ago, and then, I got another one,” he starts to explain. “Back when humans were still here, I met one of them. She used to repair me whenever I needed to be.”
“She said it would be nice if I had a name like her - a human one, and then she asked if I wanted one. And I couldn’t really say no, you know?” he goes on, and Yoongi’s eyes seem to spark with recognition.
“I think I know someone like that, too. He calls me Yoongi, ” he says, and Namjoon is delighted, for a moment, that there’s someone out there somewhere that kept up Younha’s tradition of giving androids a human name.
“Are you friends?” he asks Y00-NG11 - Yoongi, maybe. He doesn’t know if he actually likes to be called that, but - maybe he’ll ask, later.
“Friends are for humans,” Y00-NG11 answers, without looking at him, but his tone isn’t cold. For a moment, Namjoon wants to reach out like he did earlier, and hold Y00-NG11’s hand, but he doesn’t.
“Humans made us, too. If they didn’t want us androids to have friends they should have been more clear,” Namjoon replies, and that’s when Y00-NG11 looks up, looking amused.
“That’s also true,” he agrees, and his eyes follow Namjoon even as he gets up and walks to his nook.
“I’m going to show you another friend I’ve made,” Namjoon says, as he reaches down and picks up his plant in the speaker box.
He holds it up right in front of his eyes before bringing it back to where Y00-NG11 is sitting, just to check everything is alright. It’s perfect - it’s looking even more green than usual, and Namjoon can’t wait to show it to Y00-NG11.
He walks back to Y00-NG11, carrying the plant close to his chest, and sets it down on the floor between them before sitting down once again.
“Here it is! It looks nice, right? It’s a plant, even if I don’t know what kind yet -”
He’s interrupted by the sight of Y00-NG11’s scanner, the blue light emitting from his extended hand covering him as well as the plant between them. After a beat, Y00-NG11’s eyes turn from the black Namjoon was used to seeing to the same bright blue, and the plant starts hovering in mid-air - Namjoon barely manages to reach out and grab on to the speaker box before it creeps closer to Y00-NG11.
The sleek metal of Y00-NG11’s chest panel folds itself to the sides to reveal a hollow cavity, everything glowing light blue - Namjoon tries to hold on to it, but the plant gets sucked in and stays, hovering in place - and then the panel closes and Y00-NG11 turns his scanner off.
“Y00-NG11, what - give me the plant back,” he says, getting closer to Y00-NG11’s face. The other android’s eyes are still glowing blue, and he doesn’t answer Namjoon - he just gets up, and steps towards the door.
“Y00-NG11 - Yoongi, stop,” he almost yells, putting himself between Y00-NG11 and the door controls. He can tell the storm is in its last stretches, and whatever has gotten into Y00-NG11 can wait until it won’t get them both buried under a wave of sand.
Y00-NG11 doesn’t seem to be registering anything - not even Namjoon, which is decidedly not great. At least he’s not pulling out the plasma gun, but he’s just standing there, looking for all intents and purposes like someone had turned him off permanently if it weren’t for his eyes, blue and unseeing and staring right at him.
Namjoon has no idea what to do - he puts his hands on Y00-NG11’s shoulders and pushes him back a few steps, hoping he doesn’t trigger anything. The panel in his chest doesn’t seem to have any external controls that might let Namjoon open it - and then it hits him.
This might be what Y00-NG11 had been looking for. His directive - Namjoon’s plant, or something just like it, and he gave it to Y00-NG11 himself. If all of Namjoon’s system weren’t busy trying to find a solution to the whole situation, he would find it - interesting.
Y00-NG11 steps back willingly, and sits down on the floor again when Namjoon gently pushes him into the motion. Namjoon would be willing to bet that beyond his code, Y00-NG11 has never been successfully pushed into anything he didn’t want to do, but he still seems to be perfectly calm and willing to wait until the door is open to try and step out of the container once again.
Namjoon takes a moment to just stare at him, and examine all his possibilities - he wants to get his plant back, but what does Y00-NG11 need it for? And who programmed him to look for it? He mentioned an engineer, but they’d seemed to be more like Younha, and not anyone in a position of power that could give classified orders. Namjoon has only heard the word classified in another human book before it had come out of Y00-NG11’s mouth when they’d met, and it had to do with people with power and governments and things that the humans had taken with them once they’d left the planet.
All his systems come to the same conclusion at the same time. The only way to find out is to follow Y00-NG11, wherever he’s planning to go once they can safely go out. It doesn’t seem like they will have to wait long for it, not with the way the storm is looking decidedly less threatening when he takes a peek out of one of the windows.
“Y00-NG11?” he tries, once again, just because. Y00-NG11 doesn’t even turn his head Namjoon’s way, but he tries not to let that get him down.
He spends the next hour settling things back into place, rearranging the objects in his nooks. He turns the music off after a while, pushing to the side the image of Y00-NG11 nodding along to the beat just moments before - and then, finally, the container’s security systems lets out three quick beeps to signal the outside is safe once again.
“Ready to go out?” Namjoon asks, knowing he’s not going to get an answer. As soon as he walks over to the door controls, Y00-NG11 rises to his feet, standing in front of the door until it slides open, and Namjoon rushes to follow him as he steps out of the container, remembering to close the container door behind himself.
He’s thankful Y00-NG11 is walking and not flying, even if he doesn’t really understand why - he doesn’t question it as he tries to keep up with his brisk steps towards an unknown destination.
The sandstorm hasn’t done a lot of damage, apparently. Namjoon only has to step over a few compacted garbage cubes that it had toppled over, but as for the rest, it was milder than it looked.
Namjoon keeps track - they walk together, in complete silence, for exactly forty-three minutes and twenty-six seconds, and then Y00-NG11 stops in his tracks, and Namjoon looks up to realize that what they’d just waited out in his container had not been a sandstorm.
Hundreds of meters away, in a circle of blast and debris as big as one of the neighborhoods Namjoon has helped clean up, stands a space probe. The lines along the metal plates glow blue, just like Y00-NG11, and Namjoon can’t do anything more than follow Y00-NG11 as he almost slips down the gravel-covered slope at the edge of the blast zone and keeps walking towards it.
Namjoon tries his best to keep up even as he stares at the probe, fascinated - the more they get closer, the brighter Y00-NG11’s eyes glow, and the faster he walks. They’re almost running by the time they’re below the three thrusters on the bottom of the probe, and that’s when Y00-NG11 finally stops, and Namjoon almost crashes into him.
A metallic arm detaches itself from the bottom ring of panels with a hum, scanning the surroundings, and the light turns from white to green as soon as it washes over Y00-NG11. Namjoon tries to step away, but it doesn’t seem to bother with him.
Y00-NG11, though, starts to hover in the green light just like Namjoon’s plant had, and yet another panel opens to reveal an android-sized open pod in which he’s gently ushered in. As soon as the doors of the pod slide close, so do Y00-NG11’s eyes, and Namjoon is left gaping, staring up as the pod is swallowed into the probe.
In front of Namjoon, the three thrusters start charging up. He can tell the probe is getting ready to leave, and -
It’s a split-second decision, really. His vision zooms in on the ladder going up the side of the thruster on his left all the way to the top of the probe, where he can see a window that might let him see inside. With any luck, he might be able to spot Y00-NG11, and then - he doesn’t know what he will do. But he’ll decide later.
For now, he just takes the first steps upwards, beyond the thruster and the first ring of panels, then the second, then the third. The window is still further up, but it’s only a matter of time.
He makes sure to turn all his audio systems off when he hears the first rumble of the engines as he keeps climbing the ladder. It might end up destroyed either way, but he can at least try to do some damage control. Below him, the thrusters light up a blinding white one by one as the shuttle prepares to take off.
Namjoon looks up towards the sky, makes sure his grip is tight around the handles, and holds on for dear life.