Chapter Text
Kojiro Nanjo was a simple person. By simple person, I usually meant someone absolutely normal, without many police records, who was content to work from sunup to sundown, to have a small apartment in the suburbs with some plants that stay alive for a considerable time. Without a doubt, Nanjo was a calm and good-hearted individual - he made friends with other humans, animals, and if you doubt it, even more primitive life forms, after all, his friendliness doesn't have to be limited much, right?
The space in which Kojiro lived was not the most recommended place to live. There were several reports of robots and humans united in dangerous gangs roaming his neighborhood - committing thefts, robberies and mayhem. Some clever survival techniques were used by the residents to get through them without problems, such as: hiding their valuables; not walking on the street after peak hours; and finally, avoiding alleys, duos and trios that are stopped on the street without any visible activity. But despite the insecurity, the apartment was cozy and worth the low price.
Kojiro worked in a considerable industry of organic rechargeable devices, called ORDs - they were the raw material for the manufacturing of several other factories with equally strange acronyms that no one was willing to spend much time to understand. The salary was more than enough for a young, single man, his plants, and a small orange feline for whom Nanjo had a strong affection.
Well, it is at this point that the authors think "oh my god, this is boring and tedious! How can I improve this plot in an amazing and genius way?"
And then after several sips of water, internal conversations, and a minute of petting their favorite little animal, they come to the brilliant conclusion that Kojiro Nanjo could have been peacefully dining in his little kitchen, and then a huge airship carrying disposables suffered a breakdown and brought down a broken and illegal project on his roof.
Since the event, it can be said that Kojiro's life has never been the same, and he is no longer a simple man.
After the dry, loud thud that startled the poor man and his cat, Kojiro got up and ran to the window thinking it was the street-but there was nothing there, just the usual neon signs and led screens advertising products. If there was damage, he thought, it was up there on the roof of the building. Kojiro's apartment was one of those on the top floor, and perhaps that was why he was able to hear the shock.
After a long moment of pondering, his curiosity overcame his fear, and he decided to check the source of the noise. The greenish light from the small reader in the hallway swallowed his thumbprint, and then the secure solid iron doors slid open to allow him to leave. Just down the hall, his elderly neighbor also came to check out the noise, with her small companion robot.
- All right, I'll go look. Please come in. It's dangerous to open the doors at this time.
- Will you go see what it is? Alone? - the lady asked, holding her coat tightly around her shoulders. Kojiro remembered that she lived alone, away from her children who worked in artificial intelligence abroad, and her robot was probably her only company. His own family also lived far away, in the less connected country areas. He was the son who left home early to try for a better future.
- I will check it out and call the police if it is something serious. Go back inside, please. - Nanjo said, pointing to the apartment behind her. The neighbor agreed, stepping back with her robot. As soon as the doors closed, Kojiro took the elevator and carefully peeked through the public cameras reflected on the screen and zoomed in to try to recognize something. In the corner of the screen, a medium-sized, strange shape appeared - however, it was lying in the middle of the vegetable garden (planted on top of buildings since the last government law). Unfortunately, the building's system was not state-of-the-art, like those in prime neighborhoods that had drones scanning the surrounding streets. The angle didn't show much more of what had fallen there, but Kojiro didn't want to wait until dawn to check. The man pulled out his plasma gun, which looked like a revolver from centuries past except that it could destroy organic tissue and base metals - which he was allowed to use only for personal safety under the new legislation - and then pressed the button for the elevator exit, carefully approaching the form amidst purple lettuce and super nutritious orange seedlings.
The strong light from the spotlight tracked Kojiro's movements, making it easier for him to walk among the suspended white plastic pots. A few safe meters away from the thing, Kojiro recognized a humanoid leg pointing out of the leaves. Further ahead, a torso, and near its feet, a metallic little finger.
From that height, Kojiro realized that it was impossible that a crash had not happened, and spotted a blimp from the municipal e-waste system gliding far into the skies toward the dumps and recycling centers on the outskirts. The disassembled robot had probably been discarded, and accidentally crashed there - and since no light emerged from it, Kojiro thought it relatively safe to collect the parts. Still with the gun in his grasp, he retrieved his finger, then his loose dirt-soiled leg, and walked toward the fallen torso on the cement. The other leg was still connected to him, and like the simple man he was, Nanjo felt embarrassed to realize that the robot contained an exposed male sex organ, he took off his jacket and covered it before picking it up in his lap.
It took him a few minutes to find the other pieces, the last being a head with long hair, which could not be properly analyzed because it was covered in wet dirt. It was high enough to bury the face, arms, and leg loosely, and a few times he had to dig to remove smaller pieces such as a foot, but he managed to collect everything successfully.
As said, Nanjo was an empathetic and simple man, living in that world of cold technology and logic that he did not understand at times, as he used his heart most of the time. And it was Nanjo's empathetic heart that saved the broken robot, as he decided to give it a second chance and try to reassemble it. He couldn't think of the idea of discarding that stranger that looked so much like him.
Finally, with the spotlight being the only witness to his act, he straightened the dirty pieces in his arms and returned to his small apartment.