Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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.

Chapter Text

The floor hadn't exactly been the best option to use as blanket. However, the Sergeant wasn't a stranger to adapting to the available resources. 

Gary cracked his neck, yawning. As soon as he finished scanning the bathroom he huffed, softly punching the ground. That minuscule particle of his subconscious was wrong; it hadn't been a dream, it was all real.

So, he gathered some of the water from the bottle in his hands and splashed it on his face. Immediately, he felt better, ready to start his search.

First things first, he looted the remaining canned food in the supermarket, stuffing as many containers as his bag could house. It wasn't technically stealing. After all, if everyone had died, there was no reason for him to pay!

Gary peered at the sky, tracing the grey clouds meshed together. Soft tingling alerted his skin, and the Sergeant unfurled a hand, palm facing upwards. There was no mistakening the tiny drops of water wetting the center.

It was going to rain.

A burning inquiry took ahold of the young man. If the temperature had raised so much during the passed centuries, how was it still able to rain? 

Perhaps...

Perhaps not all of the oceans had become a uniform mass of dry land. And when CO2, steam, and other gasses evaporate in the air, clouds tend to form. 

Either way, if rain was plausible, then life could be sustained.

The only problem was that he didn't wish to soak under such harsh weather. It was going to be painful... adapting to the sudden switch of hot and cold environment.

Maybe he could snatch specific articles of clothing for these separate occasions...

Navigating through the Big Apple was easier than expected. Gary's trips to the city were brief, but he also memorized certain patterns in case he would come visit again. The exploration with his family had been one of the few opportunities for relax before he was called for service.

He barged through an entrance to a clothes shop, rubbing his right shoulder. Again the main entrance had been sealed, and again he had to vandalize to enter. The part of Gary belonging to the 21st century screamed at him that this was wrong, but a newly-born part (the one who wished to survive in this post-apocalyptic era) claimed that this was a necessary evil.

"Ah!"

Well, at least the articles of clothing were of decent size; certainly not as wide as the jumpsuits worn by those obese Axiom residents. Gary's military bag slid down on the ground, while the Sergeant himself put his fists on his hips.

"Let's see..."

He was spoiled for choice, indeed, but he would focus on a strict list. Gary required something to protect him from the cold rain, while he would stick with his green shirt for the hot days.

The Sergeant rummaged through the various sections, not liking what he was seeing so far. He launched what he wouldn't acquire behind his shoulders, the articles of clothing flying through the air before they landed unceremoniously into a big pile. 

Fifteen minutes passed without a concrete result. Gary huffed, pinching his nose. "What is really important for this type of weather?" He pondered aloud, eyes darting between the various clothes.

They stopped on a particular garment, laying folded across the counter. He trekked onwards, touching the sides of the desk as he analyzed the object of interest. 

It was a raincoat, dark green in colour, but closer to a poncho.

Bingo!

Gary ran his fingers on the material, bobbing his head in satisfaction at its well-preserved state. He clutched onto it and stretched it in a single wave of his hands. 

The Sergeant applied some minor adjustments as his appendages slid effortlessly into the holes. It was a perfect fit; Gary felt like the most lucky son of a bitch in current existence.

By now the rain's frequency and strength were hammering down the outside of the shop. Raising the hood over his head and retrieving his bag, Gary exited the establishment and stood still.

Perfect.

The material functioned as expected, absorbing the liquid for its wearer. Gary's boots slapped into newly-formed puddles as he searched for a decent transportation. He couldn't find umbrellas, so he had opted for the most logical solution.

WALL-E's truck appeared to be located somewhere near lower Manhattan. The only way to rapidly reach that destination was taking a train.

And if Gary's memory wasn't playing tricks on him...

Ah, hah!

The exit station sported a sign he had hoped to encounter. 'BnL Transit, Downtown Terminal.' This was his ticket out of this section of New York.

He went up the stairs, using the metal rod attached beside him to stabilize his weight. The Sergeant looked left and right, spotting a pad located in front of the rail itself. It presented the hologram of a human palm. Shrugging, Gary pressed his hand precisely as the hologram instructed.

Wirring sounds and rustling of metal indicated his successfulness. Gary chose a bench protected from the rain by the ceiling and sat down, drumming his fingers on his legs.

TICK!

Mmmh?

His foot had nudged a pen.

The Sergeant shifted his stance to collect the object. Thinking quickly, he produced Markus' notebook and checked if the ink hadn't been fully consumed. And once black traces were left behind? Gary scrolled through the diary until he settled on the first blank sheet.

Day 1.

This is my testament in case the harsh conditions of planet Earth will claim my life, as they did for those before me.

I apologize for stealing this diary and desecrating the remains of its previous owner: Markus. I hope God had mercy on your soul.

So far, New York has proven that supplies may last centuries, if properly protected by buildings. Clearly, soda cans somehow explode because of the high temperature, while water bottles resist the effect.

A chemical reaction induced by the different ingredients in the soda? Fuck if I know.

There's only one who can help me. I can only hope he resides right where I expect him to be.

-Sergeant Gary Sanderson.

The Sergeant's transportation halted in front of him just as he finished signing his first note. He put both the notebook and pen inside his bag, and directed his gaze up and down the automated train. For dating almost seven centuries without proper maintenance, the wagon worked too well. Maybe WALL-E spent his free time by tinkering with its systems?

As soon as he sat down, a scanner lighted up his body. The Sergeant lifted a hand, shielding his vision from the sudden appearance, and groaning from the brightness itself.

"Welcome aboard, new passenger." A female AI greeted him once the scanning part ceased. "It has been approximately twenty five years since a new user has registered in the BnL transportation database. May I memorize your name?"

"Uh, sure..." The Sergeant coughed. "Gary Sanderson."

"Confirming new user profile..." The AI folded the ramp he had crossed to get inside and shut the passenger door. "Welcome aboard, Mr. Sanderson. Where might I guide you, today?"

"Well, uh..." He halted his mumbling, snapping his attention back at the ceiling. "Wait, you've spent twenty five years without a new user registering?"

"Affirmative."

"Wouldn't the other passenger be a little robot named WALL-E?" He probed, wincing at the rain splattering against the wagon's windows.

"Negative. The other registered passenger is named Wally, a human worker participating in the WALL-E program."

Why did sound like the AI replaced the 'E' at the end of the name with another letter? But the Sergeant held his cheek with a fist, rolling his eyes. "I don't suppose he's still alive and that you could take me to his zone of operation, right?"

"Affirmative. Course set, we'll be arriving in... ten minutes."

Gary detached his fist from his cheek. "Wait, what?" 

Too late, the wagon immediately moved, engine practically roaring as the AI took control. The force sent him against his seat, so he slapped two hands onto the window behind him and gritted his teeth. "Jesus!" He hissed.

I really don't want to argue with a woman AI. Better to let this one slide.

Instead, he spent the remaining minutes of his journey pondering over the best approach with the other human. 

Okay, okay. So, WALL-E is a human too. If he has the same personality from the movie, quick movements will scare him off. Better to approach him slowly.

What would he be like, anyway? As innocent as his robotic counterpart? Or was he an hardened survivor with the same ruthlessness and unpredictability that characterized Gary's entire race?

A sense of responsability washed over the Sergeant.

If the former option reveals to be true, he'll be vulnerable. He... he doesn't deserve all of this.

Maybe having a friend would help him?

Then again, the main reason Gary was searching him for, was his knowledge of the city and the truck he had adopted as refuge. The Sergeant sighed, burying his face into his hands.

Selfish to the end. Why are we so flawed as a species?

The wagon suddenly vibrated.

"We have arrived at the requested destination. Please, step off the ramp with caution, and enjoy your day! We hope to see you again at the BnL Transit!"

"Oh, uh..." Gary rubbed his neck, waiting for the rump to unfold. "Thank you, ma'am." He nervously added, frustration and embarassment meshing together. 

Finding WALL-E's truck was going to be hard as it is. But doing so under the rain? No, he will survey the landscape and pray to God that he would stumble upon the human by accident.

The Sergeant stared at the broken and barely held-together cranes. Those mighty beasts were once exploited to accumulate great masses of trash. Then, the trash would be transported into an incinerator. This begged the question: How the fuck did BnL's consumism and productivity doom humanity? Weren't there initiatives like in his world to stop this disaster from ever existing? 

Where were the environmentalists? The animalists? The associations to promote a resounding stop to this madness?

Even then, if Buy 'N Large was so concerned about their investments, they should have known polluting the planet and driving the human race into space would hurt their profits. 

Sometimes, Gary wondered if the screenwriters had ever thought about these details...

The number of amassed cubes in his path grew significantly, forming towers of junk. Gary stopped his advance in front of a hydraulic compacter, circling it in utter fascination. 

So, this is what the WALL-Es use to clean...

It wasn't anything special. Trash was supposed to enter a pipe union on the lower side, then the machine would process the junk into the desired form, and finally the cube exited from a main cavity in the front. The workers grabbed the cubes and stashed them together like in that janitorial advertisement.

The Sergeant rubbed his chin, careful not to wet his fingers with the rain.

But how to grab a considerable quantity of junk?

Doing so by hand seemed tedious. How did the workers manage to create entire art operas?

Gary froze, wondering if his ears had deceived him.

A single sound had met him. A sound he had thought he would never hear again. 

A bark.

He turned around. Oh, shiiiit. There was no mistaking what he was facing. Immediately, he attempted to formulate a logical explanation for this development. And yet, there wasn't anything sufficient to excuse it from existing.

It was a dog; its tail cutely wagging as it tilted its head at the Sergeant. 

Gary couldn't associate the mutt with any known breed, so he easily classified it as a bastard. Still, its appearance tugged at the extremities of a golden retriever and a labrador. Its coat was wet and slightly dirty from the pounding rain, but the dog seemed not to care for it.

"Heyyy, buddy." He tried to coerce the mutt in trusting him, kneeling and patting his flank, his military bag forgotten for the time being. "What are you doing here all alone?"

The dog took a step towards him.

That's it...

"Have you lost your owner?" Gary faked a gasp. "You must be hungry! You want a treat? I know you do!"

The mutt's head perked at the familiar word, and it crossed the remaining space in one single hop. It perked its butt onto the ground, maintaining its snout upwards.

He's trained. The Sergeant hummed as the canine accepted the treat he had recovered from his bag and munched onto it. Could he be WALL-E's dog? But he had a roach in the movie as a pet.

Calling the dog a 'He' was rather simple. Gary had spotted the... reproductive organ beneath the animal and immediately averted his gaze. This mutt was in good health and full of energy. Who had taken care of him?

"BULLET! Where are you?!?"

Gary stared in shock as another human revealed himself and joined their little party. It was a young man, perhaps of the Sergeant's exact age, and was holding an unfolded umbrella to protect his upper body from the rain.

He sported unchecked brown hair, brown eyes, no facial hair whatsoever, and a jumpsuit similar to the WALL-E dead workers Gary had encountered. Dirt and grime filled the guy's face, while his innocent eyes looked around 'till they posed on the dog.

"There you are!" He smiled... but halted his advance once Gary entered his field of view. 

Now that the young man had slightly lifted his umbrella, Gary could see the pair of strange goggles resting on his forehead. 

"Uhm..." The Sergeant drawled. "Hello?" He waved at the strange dude, unsure of his origins and stance on strangers.

There was... a small crude-looking device embedded into his chest. Four yellow-ish notches indicated a full charge, while the object itself, of the same size as a cellphone, was apparently connected to the young man's inner chest through sorted cables.

It was... a pacemaker? Of a primitive design, sure, but a pacemaker nonetheless. Judging by those notches, the device required external recharging to last for specific windows of time.

And, also, why did Gary feel like he had already met him?

The worker took a step back, uncertainty properly displayed on his face through an ever-growing frown. He was scared... scared of Gary. 

"Hey, hey!" The Sergeant raised the palm of his hands, facing forward. "I'm... not here to hurt you." He proclaimed, hoping this would placate the worker's troubled state of mind. "Is this dog yours?" He then asked, pointing a finger at the mammal he had encountered.

The worker slightly nodded.

That's good progress.

Gary inched closer and closer, stopping every now and then to allow the worker some breathing room. When he was directly facing him, the Sergeant straightened his posture and offered a handshake, smiling warmly. "My name is Gary Sanderson." He looked around him. "I'm... kinda lost. Can you help me?"

He didn't push the other guy in shaking his hand, preferring to let him do it by his own initiative.

When he did, however, the Sergeant noticed he possessed a good grip... for a trash collector.

"W-Wallace Burtt." The guy answers to him. "But you can call me Wally." The worker softly smiled at him, easily breaking the ice.

A lump formed in the Sergeant's throat, inducing a series of coughs. Once he calmed down (and subsequently controlled the heat flowing to his cheeks), Gary bobbed his head at the confused young man before him.

"Nice to meet you. It's Wally with a 'Y', yes?"

"Yes!"

Wally was too bright in his responses, carrying a childish bounce of tone. Perhaps the Sergeant's worries were unfounded, devoid of logic. The young man before him was simply a victim of today's broken society, craving close contact as any other human did.

"How old are you?" Gary asked. "The AI in the wagon said a new passenger hasn't registered in twenty five years. Is that your age?"

"Yep!" Wally tilted his head, pointing his free finger. "How old are you?"

"Twenty six."

He had to suppress a chuckle at the cute way Wally's innocent eyes widened. Was the trash collector surprised he had met someone older than him? Did he feel like he was supposed to look up at Gary for guidance? An idol of some kind?

The Sergeant was just a year older than him, for crying out loud!

"So, his name is Bullet." Gary added, nudging his chin after the mutt, who had nested between the two humans, snout resting onto his paws. The Sergeant's sentence wasn't a question, but a factual statement from the words he had picked up. "For how long have you owned him?"

"Two years. I've raised him since his mother died of sickness when he was a puppy." Wally crouched to scratch Bullet's ears. The dog rumbled contentedly. "He's good at tracking food. We were just looking for supplies."

Bingo!

"What a wonderful coincidence." Gary turned to snatch his bag from the ground. He presented it to Wally. "I've gathered food from a supermarket on the other side of the city. I've even got some medicines." The Sergeant glanced at the sky, wincing lightly. "Uhm, not to say that our parley isn't lovable, but I would prefer for it to continue under a roof. Rain isn't, exactly, the best background to talk. Do you live nearby?"

An inner battle commenced inside of Wally. The Sergeant could fully witness it by his inability to conceal his emotions. Still, he admired Wally for not jumping at the opportunity of inviting someone in his home. Gary was a total stranger for the trash collector. And strangers were hard to trust.

"Who knows?" Gary shrugged. "We might even become friends!"

Those pupils of his practically shined.

Gotcha!

"Really?!?"

Wally got a bit too close to Gary. The Sergeant took a step back with a nervous smile, trying to avoid the umbrella from scraping his cheeks. 

It seemed that the trash collector got the memo, rapidly going back in his tracks. "Oh, sorry!" He almost screeched, blushing. "I-uh..." He pointed at Gary's clothes. "W-what are you wearing?"

Changing the subject to appear less goofy? Way to go, Wallace...

"It's a raincoat. A poncho, if you will. It helps protect my body from the rain." Gary cleared his throat. "Now, may we proceed into your home?"

"Sure!"

There was a concrete bounce in Wally's steps as he padded the way with Bullet. Gary merely grabbed his bag and silently tailed the trash collector.

Maybe that's what we both need. A friend.

Chapter Text

There it was, standing in all of its... well, crusty splendor.

He watched Wally handling the mechanism of the ramp flawlessly, displaying an innate strength and will to survive. Gary could see it from his movements, surgical and direct, and from his posture, on maximum alert for impending danger.

Finally, the utility earth-mover halted the passage's descent, rumbling and whirring from excessive dust in its compartments. The interior was, in essence, Wally's home; a dome to protect the young man from the insidious treachery of the silent world behind them.

The trash collector beamed at the Sergeant, inviting him inside through a swift movement of his chin. "Come on! It's even better from a close perspective." He said, pride tainting his tone.

Bullet preceded him, hopping onto the ramp and quickly joining his master. Rain kept splashing against Gary's dark green raincoat, but the material resisted, absorbing the liquid. He had chosen his garments well, no doubt about it.

The Sergeant adjusted his hood and stomped his way in, a smile tugging at his lips from Wally's bounciness. That man-child was just too innocent and pure, having grown up without an education on even the most basic of subjects.

Gary sincerely doubted Wally possessed any knowledge about sex, or about his hormonal changes during puberty, for that matter. Just what had happened to this fellow? What atrocities had he survived to accept a complete stranger into his sanctuary... just to have someone to talk to?

But, no, Gary wasn't lying when he said they could become friends. After all, with this remarkable second chance given to him, the Sergeant craved something simpler; a ticket out of the action, destruction, and utter bewilderment of having to heed to dubious orders. 

The lights all around them flickered on. Wally planted his feet in the center of the room and spread his arms wide. "Welcome to my home!" He smiled toothily, almost screeching his announcement out. Bullet barked beside him, as if adding a word of encouragement for his master.

Those Christmas lights indeed crafted a spectacular and welcoming atmosphere. Surely, the truck's crude interior was complemented by the decorations Wally had placed. Gary could understand why the young man had chosen this container as his sanctuary.

However, before Gary could concentrate on analyzing the various relics Wally had collected, his eyes fell on the worker's body. The lights in the truck allowed the Sergeant a deeper inspection of Wally's faculties.

There was no mistaking his thin frame, barely conceivable to support such harsh labour. Whatever canned food and polluted water Wally had relied upon had the unfortunate side effects of slowly debilitating his physique. And his skin? Totally filthy! Probably unwashed since the very day he was born. The only saving grace was its shade, comparable to Gary's, but slightly darker.

Was the uniform he wore protecting him? Did it possess a field of some kind to filter the UVs? Still, there were some tans, around Wally's face and exposed appendages. At least, his eyes functioned as intended, being shielded by his goggles, which reminded the Sergeant of WALL-E's lens.

A wince crossed Gary's face, and it didn't got unnoticed by the worker.

Wally cutely cocked his head. "What's wrong?" 

You... you're the problem.

It was not strategic to reveal the motive behind his unease. The trash collector didn't deserve to carry another burden, that of representing the reason Gary felt deep sympathy for him. In fact, pity wasn't what he wanted to exchange with Wally.

Not then and not in the near future.

So, Gary shook his head and lowered the hood of his poncho, along with letting his military bag fall. "Nothing. It's just the weight of this damn sack." He accentuated the discomfort from his facade by rolling his shoulder in circular motions.

"Ah!" Wally bolted in action and clutched onto the bag. "L-let me handle that!" He grunted through gritted teeth, transporting the object towards one of his shelves. 

The Sergeant almost cackled at the way Wally's stance giggled left and right, the worker's legs wobbling as they struggled to find a good equilibrium.

Clearly, Wally felt that, as the landlord, he was obligated to treat a guest fairly. He was doing a woozy job so far, but Gary let him continue for the sake of his self-esteem. Instead, he waved his own arms up and down, getting rid of the stuck drops of water on his poncho.

Wally carefully took off his boots and gloves, hanging them near the sealed entrance, similarly to how his robotic counterpart acted. Gary heard multiple sighs of relief, along with the worker moving his spine and down, cracks reverberating throughout the truck. "Much better!" The trash collector added at the end, smiling brightly.

"You... uh..." Wally rubbed the back of his neck. "You want to hang your coat?" He blinked. "N-not that I detest you wearing it! I just thought you might like to get comfortable."

The Sergeant shifted the weight on his shoulders. A bit too heavy. He's right.

Nodding, he approached the same corner Wally had walked into and stripped his raincoat off. He placed it onto the only remaining hook, gently patting it. Now, Gary's garments consisted of his shirt, pants, and boots. The truck's floor was a bit too rough for his tastes, which was why he did not separate himself from them.

Gary focused his undivided attention on the shelves, placing his hands on his hips. Wally had seriously worked tiredlessly and diligently to obtain all kinds of relics from a dead past. The Sergeant counted at least ten categories: old children toys, signs, shattered traffic lights, parking cons, hardware, torn clothing belonging to both sexes, and even a god damn drum.

But what if...

Hands working on auto-pilot, the Sergeant practically punched the lower button. The shelves alternated between one another, until Gary caught a glimpse of what he was looking for. So, detaching his fist, he grasped the familiar object and brought it closer.

"Ah, yes!" Wally joined his side, jabbing a finger at the game. "I have no idea what this is. I collected it this morning along with other stuff."

"It's a Cube of Rubik." The Sergeant easily answered, bouncing the cube from one palm to the other. "I know it's made of nylon, and there are springs to keep the components attached. It was very popular more than seven centuries ago. You have no idea how many speed runners participated in contests." He then gripped one side. "It's very simple: You have to rotate the sides and align the various squares so each face is made of only one colour."

Wally's mouth remained open to resemble an 'O' shape. The soldier smirked, offering the cube to the trash collector, who gladly retrieved the object and attempted to resolve the puzzle.

Of course, Wally couldn't get it right.

His eyes roamed to the plastic spork.

Gary couldn't comprehend why the worker chose utensils to eat above all other relics. He didn't assume it was because of an eventual shortage, as Wally seemed to prefer canned food: easily accessible and consumable.

"I have never seen anything like that." Wally commented, momentarily lifting his eyes from the cube. He was nowhere near done. "I'm aware of forks and spoons."

Gary nodded in approval. "It's a spork. A hybrid, if you will. You did well to separate it from the rest."

Something was missing...

A metaphorical light bulb flickered on.

He rotated the shelves again, settling onto the mass of lighters. Gary snatched one from the collection and flung it open, rapidly pushing a thumb onto the metallic wheel.

A scorching spark was produced. And after a few more attempts the butane finally acted as fuel, bringing a tiny flame out.

"Fire!" The soldier exclaimed, laughing loudly. 

"Wooh!" Wally disregarded the cube, inching closer. "I have never seen them do this!" Those innocent eyes flickered to Gary. "How do you know so much stuff?!?" He excitedly asked.

Wally was, yet again, a little bit too close. However, Gary flung the lighter's cover down, crossed his arms, and leaned against the shelves. "Everything can be used if you read the instructions." He smugly said, reaching out to pat the trash collector on his shoulder.

The soldier motioned at the far end of the truck. "And what about where you sleep? Anywhere I can lay on? I'm no stranger to sleeping on floors, but I would choose a matress of steel with a pillow anytime."

Sure, his unit's expeditions in villages often resulted in sleepless nights, and the Sergeant was used to prolonged exposure to this type of ordeal. But all humans required a certain amount of hours to settle in and enter proper REM cycles. Their very health was on the line...

Gary wasn't about to jeopardize his senses.

The worker posed the cube of Rubik back onto the shelves and pointed a finger behind him. "Right this way, Gary! I've actually put together a bunk bed." 

Indeed, the quarters were divided into two separate levels. A single ladder would guide the other person onto the additional berth. It was made of metal, far from safe and tested wooden interiors. There resided a certain fascination, though, empowered by the thought of the trash collector managing to craft this quaint furniture.

A slow rumbling reverberated from Wally's stomach. The young man blushed and crossed his arms over the body part, avoiding eye contact. "S-sorry!" He blurted. "It's been a whole day since we've last eaten something."

Another rumbling followed Wally's... 

...and it originated from Gary, this time.

The Sergeant smirked. "You're certainly not the only one with fatigue and hunger." He turned to the bag, unzipping it. "Let's see what we've got here..."

BnL wasn't very... sneaky in acquiring all of the companies the world housed and making an effort to promote its own brand. In fact, most of the products Gary was currently rummaging through sported the same nameplate and would, most likely, taste the same. Only a big ass 'Affiliated with BnL' was present on the front cover.

"Beans. Beans. Beans~" The young man sang, tapping his foot. "Beans. Oh, beans again!"

Okay, maybe he had slightly exaggerated with them...

"Ah, hah!" He exclaimed, whirling around to wave the two containers. "Would you like some chicken with salmon? They taste pretty good!"

Wally was kneeling in front of an old VCR, fumbling with the cables. He stopped momentarily to address the soldier. "Sure!" He waved his own palm. "I'm good with that."

The problem was opening it...

Something caught his attention, having remembered this small detail when he had gazed at the various plastic utensils. Gary quickly pushed the button and halted the shelves once the requested destination had arrived. He scrutinized the spoons and forks, eyes darting from one extremity of the shelf to the other.

There it was!

Bingo.

It was a metal knife, six inches in length. The handle slid quite well into the Sergeant's hand, and he expertedly twirled it. The weight and length was ideal for usage in the army, as well as its decent dexterity. Wally had been lucky to find such a well-preserved artifact.

"Hey-uhm..." Gary did not detach his eyes from the weapon. "Do you mind if I keep this knife and that lighter?" Its weight was still present in his pocket. "They could come in handy, you never know."

Self-defense first of all. Besides, if he and Wally were to actually board the Axiom, a weapon could very well determine their fate.

"It's fine!" The trash collector consented from behind him.

Gary approached the young man, cocking an eyebrow. "What are you doing?" He asked, standing on the tip of his feet to catch a glimpse of what labour Wally was entertaining himself with.

The worker delivered a devilish smile. "You'll see!"

Shaking his head at the young man's anticts, the Sergeant crouched down and tore the cans' tops wide open with his knife. Already the fragrance of food invaded the soldier's nostrils, and Gary breathed in deeply, letting the smell guide him elsewhere. He was back home, with his family, enjoying a stuffed turkey on holidays... and with that damn photo taunting him.

Gary was snapped out of his trance by a soft touch on his arm. 

"Are you okay?" Wally asked him, genuine concern plastered on the entirety of his face. 

The Sergeant pinched his eyes shut. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay. Just..." How could he put this? "Memories. Sometimes they barge into my mind without a warning. I-it's normal, you know?"

Wally actually bobbed his head.

"Yes, I understand."

With that cleared out, the trash collector gladly accepted the chicken and practically stuffed his mouth with it. Loud munching noises spread across the truck, undeniable proof of Wally's status as a malnourished survivor bearing no knowledge about long, forgotten table manners.

A bit of chicken soup slipped from the left corner of his mouth, pummelling onto the floor. It did not bother the worker, though, who hummed contentedly and kept his eating pace stable.

At least he's using a fork...

Still, the civilized part of Gary couldn't withstand such a barbaric display of hunger. While Wally was excused from adhering to this philosophy because of planet Earth's drastic change, it did not mean certain parameters were to be completely butchered.

Hell, the trash collector's dog approached the residual piece of soup and licked it off the floor. Bullet then whined, a pleading look given directly to his master. He was demanding his fair share.

"Don't worry, I'll keep a reasonable quantity for you."

Or, at least, that was what garbled phrase had supposedly been spat from Wally's stuffed maw. The letters and vocals were jumbled, inconsistent phonetics making the Sergeant wish for a Damocles' sword to cut his head off in that instant.

It was... ignoble.

Gary paused his eating to address the young man.

"Uh..." He drawled, at first. "Have you always eaten like this?"

Wally nodded. "Yesh."

That had been the last straw...

The soldier put his dinner down, intertwining his fingers and legs. "Okay, I'm gonna teach you something important now. Listen closely and make sure to memorize it, alright?"

Wally dried his wet mouth with a forearm. "Okay?"

"They're called table manners. It is... imperative for someone to respect certain rules when they eat with other people." Gary rotated his hand back and forth. "You can do whatever you want while you're alone, just act otherwise in front of others."

The worker was fully listening to him.

Okay, Gary. Time to give a man-child from a post-apocalyptic set-up a lesson over eating food like a proper human being.

"First things first! Posture. Here, let me show you..." 

The next few minutes were a blur as the Sergeant teached New York's Sole Survivor the basics. Though Gary had to admit: despite his immature personality, Wally was a fast learner and was eager to please.

Besides, that's what Wally was... a Sole Survivor.

"You're doing good!" The soldier praised. "Just make sure to remember to eat with your mouth closed. And, for the love of God, do not humm too loudly while you're doing that! People will think you're a weirdo."

"What's a weirdo, Gary?"

The Sergeant shook his head. "You... really don't wanna know."

Wally shrugged, gathering a piece of salmon and letting Bullet feast on it.

"You're not a worker like me. Where are you from?"

Ah, the question that Gary had hoped would never arrive. He was prepared, though! Prepared to spill so much bullshit and mix it with the truth even Jim Carrey from 'Liar, Liar' would envy him.

"I am a soldier." Gary scoffed. "Or... I was."

"A soldier?"

The way Wally was tasting the word meant that he had absolutely no idea about its origins.

"You're not exactly the only one out here." The Sergeant commented. "Those savages? Troublemakers. My squad and I got into frequent fights with them in a place we call 'Iraq.'" He spat the name of the country. "So many deaths... I-I might as well be the only survivor."

Wally had begun rotating his fork into the residual soup of the container. His eyes were distant, as if his very mind had drifted away and was exploring buried memories of his past.

Perhaps Gary wasn't far away from the truth...

"You're like me."

Oh?

"Mmmh?" The Sergeant raised his gaze again. "What do you mean?"

The Sole Survivor smacked his lips. "We were abandoned... left for dead. I... m-my parents taught me how to explicate our directive. I can read, maybe write a little bit, but I was never alive." His hands started trembling. "Once the resources were scarce, we began killing each other for our own survival. W-we-"

Gary halted his speech, wrapping his arms around the unstable young man. Wally buried his face into the crook of the Sergeant's neck and cried, soft weeping noises escalating as time passed. Gary merely tightened their embrace.

"T-they... they..."

"I know... I know."

God bless your soul, Markus. At least you guys can live on through this wonderful person.

Wally detached himself from Gary's grip, rapidly drying his tears. "A-and what about you? D-do you have a family?"

Hesitancy surrounded his very core...

"Well, uh..." Gary rubbed his temples. "Fine, fine! Yeah, I did. We tried to follow old Earth customs, such as Christmas or Thanksgiving. I had a little brother once, named Thomas. Thomas Sanderson."

The name still left a sore taste on his tongue.

"He was ten years younger than me. One day, he was playing outside and a drunk son a bitch hit him with his truck." Gary sighed. "Thomas died instantly. At least I never had to worry about him suffering hours on end before relief."

"Is that why you became a soldier? Because of the anger?"

"Nah! I was already enlisted. I just exploited the opportunity to escape from my old man. Our relationship strained significantly since the accident."

"Oh..."

Gary tapped Wally's nose. "Cheer up! I had a lot of time to get over Thomas' death. I was mostly successful. Don't pity me, you've had it rougher."

I shouldn't either. You've survived this long on your own. But how can't I? 

"Was what you said true? Are we friends?"

The Sergeant chuckled at the insecurity he detected from the question. "Yeah, I consider us friends. That is, if you want to be my friend."

Wally's eyes sparkled. "Y-yeah! I-I mean-" Recognition, of all emotions, crossed his features. "Wait a second, please!"

Gary stared impassively as the Sole Survivor bolted for the barely-functional TV. On his way there, Wally retrieved a cassette from a toaster.

How the hell the trash collector even thought of conceiving a toaster as a storing device was a mystery to the Sergeant. Still, Gary kept his mouth shut and let the scene play.

If the worker was doing what the soldier expected him to do, then...

Another 'Bingo!' for me.

...Wally had put on a tape. The tape.

The singers happily sang 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes.' A multitude of people joined the stage, adhering to the rhythm and increasing the melody's energetic display through their magnificent voices. They then danced, mirroring the spectacle of the American Dream from the 50s.

Wally excitedly clutched onto the Sergeant's shoulders and groaned, unable to move him up. 

"Come on! L-let's dance."

His strength was feeble, pathetic. Gary just let Wally absorb the satisfaction of having managed to lift him upwards. When, in reality, the Sergeant had accompanied the movements with his own body.

The two of them poorly imitated the dancers' precise and professional skills. But neither of them cared! They were having so much fun. Bullet sat in the background, panting, and visibly intrigued by the humans' curious anticts.

That is, until the final song interrupted their dancing.

Gary looked between the TV and the knelt Wally, bringing a hand upwards to apply a gentle pressure to his back.

"And that is all... That love's about..."

"And we'll recall... When time runs out..."

The Sole Survivor was mesmerized by the duet, not realizing his own fingers eventually intertwined. Gary was well aware of the feelings of oppression and emptiness, having experienced them after the unfortunate demise of his brother.

"That it only... Took a moment..."

"To be loved..."

"A whole... Life... Loooong."

Wally lowered his hands, sighing in disappointment. "I'm so stupid..." He croaked out.

No, you are not.

"You just want to experience what those two felt. There's nothing wrong with that, you know. To find love is... probably the biggest challenge of them all."

"Did you? Did you ever find love?"

"Nope!" Gary smacked his lips. "Honestly, I don't think I ever will. But you, Wally? I can feel something is gonna happen. There's an aura of luckiness surrounding you. I can almost touch it."

The recording ended, leaving a barricade of static for the two to witness. Bullet scratched his ears and whined at the pesky interference, and that pushed Wally into quickly snatching the tape away and storing it inside of the toaster.

Wordlessly, the Sole Survivor shot Gary a look before ambling towards the exit, a BnL bag in his grasp.

The Sergeant huffed, going after him.

Bullet hopped onto wrecked cars and spinned in circles, draining the accumulated energy, while Wally stood onto his feet and waved his bag up and down, cleaning it from the stuck dirt.

Gary was merely sitting on the ramp, playing with the lighter Wally had gifted him. He was almost tempted to test if this was still a dream by scorching the palm of his hand. However, he decided against it, preferring to continuously light the flame up and then slap the metal top down.

It was early evening. A purple-ish aura surrounded the landscape as the residual light retreated for the night. A torrent of wind accompanied the shift of perspective, hitting the two humans directly into their chests. The Sergeant's face scrunched a bit from the impact, but he otherwise endured its force.

Gary noticed Wally's attention being drawn upwards, and his own eyes flickered towards the general direction. The Sole Survivor was staring at the vastness of space from a parting hole through the brown-ish and polluted clouds.

Thinking about what could be out there, huh? That, maybe, love itself is up there. Well, you ain't far from the truth. The Sergeant smirked. You've got a nice chance on your plate. I can't promise to accelerate the process, but I'll help you regardless.

Gary's smile turned melancholic.

I don't know why I'm here, Thomas. Is the universe playing a prank on me? Or am I a victim of its insidious schemes? Either way, I must aid Wallace...

His fists tightened.

...even if it means I'll perish. There's someone wishing to keep humanity away from Earth's reach. I'm sure we'll have a score to settle, he and I.

The howling in the wind became deafening. Gary's skin practically tingled as if grazed by a thousand pieces of sharpened glass. The Sergeant's vision wandered far off the visible scope, until it settled onto the massive wall of dust engulfing anything into its monstrous wake.

The young man snapped to his feet. "WALLY!" He called out, whistling at Bullet immediately after.

The mutt galloped inside the truck, while his owner took a moment to register the sandstorm before he whirled around and joined them.

The smaller blows of dust reached their sanctuary, but the ramp had already been lifted.

"That was close, eh?"

Wally did not answer vocally, but he at least shrugged, demonstrating that he was gradually getting over the tape. He placed the BnL bag back where it belonged before he dragged  himself towards their bunk, momentarily stopping near a light meter. 

By flipping a switch, most of the Christmas lights turned off.

Understanding the implications behind the gesture, Gary climbed the ladder leading to the upper bed and adjusted his resting position, one arm snaked around his neck and the palm of his other hand spread on his chest.

The material of the mattress was rough, but better than whatever crap he had slept on during his stay in Iraq. Just thinking about those nights with the looming fear of getting ambushed sent a chill down his spine. It was useless, right now, to sleep with an eye open, but old habits rarely die.

In fact, Gary stared at the ceiling, lost admist the convoluted labyrinth of his mind.

He thought about Eve's arrival, or rather, how much it would require for her to arrive. Wally hadn't collected the plant, yet. So the Sergeant would be forced to tail the young man until its discovery. And then? Then they would try to survive Eve's trigger-happy approach.

What would the... girl look like, anyway?

Gary could see why the mechanical counterpart of his Wall-E had been struck. Eve was a gracious female bot, indipendent and sure of herself. And despite her daring mindset on things (especially the part where she blasts her way out of problems), she was a perfect combination of cuteness and self-awareness.

But what about a human Eve?

If Gary's experience in the army was anything worthwhile to consider, there was the crucial card of passion to catalogue. It made sense, no matter the angles the Sergeant looked at.

A robot may be easily swayed from their mission. The lingering curiosity of learning about the world around them seemed pretty effective onto the robots in the movie. Eve had followed Wall-E out of necessity, but she stuck with his anticts and enhanced her cultural baggage.

With an extreme prejudice over a dead world and the absolute importance of her directive, a human Eve would do anything to go back onto the Axiom with a successful specimen under her custody. The mere chance of Earth sustaining life after seven centuries would point at a significant shift of perspective, removing monotony from the residents' dull lives.

No, a human Eve would be far more ruthless.

That was why Gary needed to stuck himself at Wally's back like glue. He would be the Sole Survivor's guardian, shielding him from Auto's frustrating outlook and unbearable cruelty.

Besides, if Auto was now a human, he could be far more cunning as well. There was no guarantee the plot would unfold as the movie's own did. And that was the major issue.

Humans are not machines.

Adrenaline pumped into his veins. A soft voice in the back of his mind informed Gary of Auto's unredeemable status. The second in command would never change, he couldn't change. Or, perhaps, he could if someone pushed him onto the right path.

One chance. Just one chance to settle things right.

That, Gary could bestow upon the man.

He became distracted by soft whimpers coming from the first floor. Gary clutched onto the sides of the bed and leaned in to peek, ears on high alert. The whimpers weren't high pitched, they couldn't possibly belong to Bullet. It sounded more like a man being disturbed in his sleep.

Surely enough, he spotted the curled mutt just beneath the other bed, staring at its occupant. When Gary's face entered his point of view, Bullet spared him a glance before refocusing on Wally.

Huffing, Gary tip toed his way down the ladder, shifting barely as not to wake up the Sole Survivor. He affectionately rubbed Bullet's neck before his gaze fell on the young man.

Wally's hands trembled and clenched as he appeared to be combatting a nightmare. A bit of sweat ruined the texture of his forehead, while the rest of his body spasmed every now and then. Whatever was plaguing his dreams was bad, very bad.

An idea popped into his head.

There was no guarantee it would work, but the dangers of self-loathing and embarassment were nothing compared to what Wally was going through.

Gently, he snaked his fingers into the young man's hair and adjusted them. Then, Gary sat near him and rubbed the palm in circular motions. The Sergean't mother had always said his massages were one of a kind, soothing to their very core.

After a few seconds Wally calmed down, his breathing stabilized. A small smile adorned his lips while he hummed contentedly. 

Gary returned to his mattress, choosing to listen to the storm's howling. The noise was remarkably soothing, reminding the Sergeant of those popular ASMR videos.

It was...

Gary Sanderson succumbed yet again to exhaustion. But this time, he wasn't alone.

Chapter Text

"You want to... help me clean?"

"Yup!" He smacked his lips, conviction spreading into his claim.

"I mean... you're not a worker."

"Hey! It's not like I'm unfit for that type of labour. Besides, we've got all the time in the world, right? Maybe together we'll compact a quarter of the city in five years!"

It all started normally: getting up, eating breakfast, reassuring Wally again, and practically demanding to participate in the WALL-E program as a newly-employeed worker. Obviously, Wally had been taken back from the request, dropping his can in a rather comical manner, mouth agape.

It was unsettling, the way the Sole Survivor flawlessly switched from one displayed emotion to the other, always on high alert, always frightened. But he would have initially and easily fooled any Axiom resident, passing as a man-child with no taught values.

And yet, Gary Sanderson, with his knowledge of psychology valuing a round zero, could recognize discernable symptoms of manias and PTSD.

The Sergeant did not know the correct term to describe someone like Wally craving for constant attention and approval, but he was aware of the disturb's existence. And the PTSD? It didn't take a genius to spot it, as Gary's job often entitled soldiers returning home with this... 'issue.'

"Come on!" He carefully 'slapped' a hand on Wally's shoulder. "We're both reaching our prime. Also, friends help each other, don't they? Have you forgot last night?"

Bullshit on top of bullshit (minus the friendship thing.)

It wasn't about pitying the man-child, it was about helping him through the hardships that would soon ensue. There was no way Wally possessed his counterpart's exact resilience. The human mind was fucked up, anything could go wrong. And Gary? He was probably the most stable and trained person to withstand the blows.

Sure, he wouldn't be as strong and agile as the officers above the Axiom (that is, if his assumptions about augmented personnel were proven correct), but the unexpected factor would aid him.

He had no emotional attachment to weigh him down, other than empathy and knowledge about a similar universe to guide him.

If this goes as expected, we should find the plant and witness Eve's arrival.

"Okay..."

In the end, Wally relented, dragging himself towards one big pile of boxes and beginning to throw useless junk behind his shoulders. Perhaps he was searching for something specific? But he already possessed all the necessary clothing and utensils for the job. Would additional protection really be needed when compacting trash required agility?

"Here!" He exclaimed, clutching onto an article of clothing and presenting it to the Sergeant. "You're gonna need this."

It was a similar jumpsuit to the one Wally wore. The only major difference was its general state, less dirty and sporting no cuts into the fabric. There was even a blank nametag near where a left breast would reside. Overall, what he was holding fell into the 'sufficient' category. Although the colour wasn't exactly amongst his favourites.

Gary much preferred dark green than brown, like the poncho he had collected. In fact, his eyes momentarily roamed to the raincoat, still hanging from its position near the entrance.

"I guess this jumpsuit somehow protects you from the sun and the temperature, right? I could fix the first issue with my raincoat, while I'm happy to inform you that I have operated under such circumstances already. I can withstand the temperature."

Wally shook his head, pushing the jumpsuit into his chest. "Your raincoat won't stop the UV rays for prolonged exposure. These BnL's jumpsuits were designed to protect our skin, generating a tiny, invisible field. They function on batteries, like my pacemaker." He tapped the device. "I'm gonna have to install one for you too. Why do you think my skin is mostly pale? It's a side effect." The young man then shrugged, muttering a last phrase. "The most advanced technology in the world, heh?"

Huffing in disapproval but motivated to survive the scorching heat, Gary retreated into the shadows of the truck and stripped down, slithering his appendages into the holes. Wally, meanwhile, continued his pursuit of an available battery, throwing the useless relics behind his shoulder for Bullet to catch, as if they were playing fetch.

The jumpsuit was tighter than his military clothes, hugging his body and coating it in dust. Gary coughed, hoping the dirt wouldn't induce a scratching fest onto his skin from the nesting bacteria. He took a hold of the goggles, smiling at the design. Little old me would have loved these for a cosplay match. He thought, planting them onto his forehead.

Wally came back in that instant, pointing at the bed. "Sit down." He said, a certain authoritarian tone tainting his voice.

The Sergeant quirked an eyebrow, but complied.

I guess even this man-child can be assertive.

Gary watched the Sole Survivor meticulously work, both attaching the device and applying maintenance through a screwdriver. Once the batteries were inserted, four horizontal lines appeared. A sudden discharge of electricity made the hair on Gary's body stand up, and a chill travelled up his spine. 

He almost convulsed when Wally stopped him from rushing to his feet and held him. "It's just the field influencing you!" The young man told him. "You'll get used to it."

Gary closed his eyes and breathed, calming down.

The Sole Survivor stepped back as he finished, grinning and putting his hands on his hips. "This must be my magnum opus!"

The Sergeant leapt towards one of the mirrors Wally's home had and looked into it.

Bloody hell...

Were it not for his robust and healthier frame, he would have easily passed as a WALL-E member. He adjusted the goggles above his head and turned to pull Wally by his arm.

"Look at us!" Gary said, spreading an arm at the mirror "We're basically brothers! Too bad for the eye shading, though..."

The Sole Survivor's cheeks flushed, and he averted his gaze. Gary smirked at this reaction, but did not react otherwise, simply heading for the giant hatch. "You've got to show me the ropes, bro~" He taunted. "Don't take too long."

Ignoring the groan unleashed by Wally, the Sergeant tapped his nametag. The Sole Survivor had indeed written his name onto it, which effectively rendered the young man a WALL-E participant. His goggles jiggled and pressed rather harshly against his forehead, but Gary wasn't a stranger to these devices, and he shrugged off the minor discomfort.

Wally brought a cable with him as they trudged down the ramp. The Sole Survivor rounded the corner and opened a hidden compartment, plugging the cable into the available socket. However, the other end of the cable was then connected to the young man's pacemaker.

The last beeping line shifted from deep red to orange.

Wally inhaled, gesturing at the display. "My pacemaker drains the battery too. So, this means I need additional recharges, or the double consumption from both it and the magnetic field will be the end of me."

"I suppose those solar panels on the roof aren't just for show, eh?"

"No, they aren't."

"Mmmh." Gary hummed. "How many days does your battery last?"

"Honestly? Three days at most with a full charge. Auxiliary power can be drained by turning off the magnetic field. However, this leaves me vulnerable to UV rays."

"And how much will my battery last?" The Sergeant pondered.

"A full week." Wally glanced at the corner leading to his home. "There's a twin shovel resting beneath my bed. Go get it, you're gonna need it. I'll be done in ten minutes."

The Sergeant swung the utensil left and right once he had secured it in his grasp. The shovel wasn't very resilient from the looks of the material, which meant it had been conceived to solely collect trash and quickly dispose of it.

The other surprise was how uneffective the sun felt on his skin. Yes, Gary was sweating like crazy, and yes, his stamina wasn't unlimited, but he didn't feel upcoming burns. The magnetic field was handy for sure! It was even going to last a whole week.

He found Wally detaching the portable cable from both the control unit and his pacemaker. With his device now fully recharged, the Sole Survivor turned to face Gary, walking two steps, probably intent on saying something important-

"AAAAUUUUUU!"

-too bad he had stepped onto Bullet's tail. The bastard unleashed this howl and ran in circles, sniffing at his tail, confused for what could have caused the sudden spike of pain.

The young man quickly apologized to the mutt for the oversight, and Gary chuckled. Really, Wally was clumsy, but he was still the cute and friendly 'entity' the Sergeant remembered him to be.

"So..." Wally puffed his chest out in an attempt to appear bossy. "Are you ready for your first day?"

It obviously did not work.

Still, the soldier played with his shovel, slightly launching it upwards before catching it by the handle.

"Lead the way, mate."

This was literally it?

"...and after a few seconds..."

The compactor rumbled and jiggled, producing a 'fresh' cube of garbage. Said cube was then lifted by Wally and placed on top of another, creating a third layer of trash. This simple mechanic reminded Gary of a videogame about a succubus tormenting a programmer, who had to survive nightmares by climbing a giant platform.

Sometimes the character could push certain cubes to create ladders to continue his journey.

What was its name?

Cath-something.

Because that's what the Sole Survivor was creating: multiple layers of trash to act as ladders to place other cubes on top of them.

But the way to compact the cubes?

Scoop, shovel, and compact.

That was it, no additional steps required.

It was banal... it was monotonous.

"Tada!" The worker spread his arms, smiling. There was complete pride in his eyes, an overzealous response for an achievement he considered enormous. "Do you like it?" He asked, nudging his chin at the fresh cube as if he had produced a piece of art.

Gary looked at their surroundings, frowning at the amount of garbage filling the streets and at the giant towers of cubes. 

What a fucking waste...

Humanity had truly adhered to its destructive nature.

"Let me try." 

The Sergeant surgically buried his shovel into a pile and began levelling as much cargo as he could. Muscles strained, a groan was unleashed, and teeth were grinded together. He could have easily chosen a small quantity to begin his task, but, somehow, his luck had guided his tool beneath home appliances, such as a damn microwave.

Why does the universe hate me so much?

Puffing air out of his mouth and adjusting the angle, a more reasonable amount was lifted and shoven inside of the hydraulic compactor. Gary fed the quivering machinary at least three more shots before stepping back to admire the result.

A nice cube of garbage fell on the ground, raising dust from the impact. The Sergeant temporarily separated from his shovel to clutch onto the solid object and allow it to join its brethren.

Gary rubbed his hands together. "Huh..." He tapped one of his feet. "Not as bad as I had envisioned." He turned to address Wally. "Are you sure-"

A full-hearted laugh had been almost escaped him. Instead, he suppressed the rising need to vocally express his entertainment by biting his outer lip and choking on his own saliva.

The Sergeant was incredulous, unable to conceive the scenario in front of him as concretely possible. He knew Wally was immature and naive, but this surpassed any expectation he had harbored for the Sole Survivor!

Yet, he recollected this particular segment of the movie.

"Woah!" The worker let out, touching the article of clothing currently obscuring his vision. "Why would anyone use these as optics? You can't see anything through them!" His voice was muffled, but Gary could discern the words.

The Sergeant threw his hands up in surrender, marching to the worker and snatching the two cups from his eyes. "It's a bra..." He explained. "This is worn by the fairer sex." And once Wally frowned, he pinched his nose. "I mean, by women. Don't ask me what they cover, I ain't gonna tell you."

Gary went to dispose of the garment, but Wally rushed in front of him, halting his advance.

"W-Wait! I... well, I'm always looking to preserve objects. Can..." The twenty-five-year-old boy tapped both of his index fingers together. "Can I keep it?"

Hunched posture, closed fists, and averted gaze; Wally was so nervous he looked like a beaten puppy. And why was he asking for permission, anyway? If he wanted to, he could have merely demanded Gary to hand the bra over, and the soldier would have gladly obliged.

"Sure, sure!" He tossed the bra over the worker's shoulder. "Here. Next time, just ask for the item. I'm your guest, remember? I abide by your rules."

Wally's face visibly brightened. The worker giddily fist-bumped the air and held onto the bra, a wide, toothy smile plastering his face. He immediately dispersed from Gary to search for additional relics to add to his catalogue, burying his arms into the piles of junk, not minding at all the putrid stench emanated from those remains.

Gary merely left his companion to his childish anticts, lowering the goggles from his forehead onto his eyes. Most of the trash was raising quite the dust, and he sincerely wished to end this work day without red, swollen edges. He hated the human body's response to those occurrences: having to continuously scratch the spots, which, in turn, would form crusts onto the surface.

Scoop, shovel, and compact.

Scoop, shovel, and compact.

Scoop... shovel... and compact.

If I had known my death was going to entail boring janitorial tasks, I would have fought harder to stay alive.

Another cube was produced. He puffed air out from his mouth and bobbed his head at the geometrical symmetry of the structure once the cubes were aligned.

But I wouldn't have met Wally. Guess we both needed a break from our daring lives.

Later, Wally would find car keys, a paddle ball, and a fire extinguisher. Each time, he either frowned or became frustrated at the lack of an expected result that would never arrive; and each time, Gary was happy to explain that object's specific functionality, while basically widening the Sole Survivor's cultural baggage.

Hell, Wally had almost tossed away an engagement ring! He was more entertained by the container than by the invaluable object.

Gary quickly conjured an excuse of wishing to partake in the search, stuffing the ring into his pockets. Really, the Sole Survivor would soon need it.

It seemed Wally had deliberately left Gary with dealing with the monotonous job while he scavenged for more souvenirs. And honestly, the Sergeant did not mind. He preferred to let the worker have some fun for once, as he himself was full of energy and in better shape for the labour at hand.

Finally, they focused their attention on a refrigerator blocking their way. Wally told Gary to stand back, producing a peculiar cylinder from his breast pocket, four inches in length.

Suddenly, a damn laser cut the metal in half. The remains crumbled onto the ground, while Gary's mouth fell open.

"And you had that in your pockets?!?" 

Wally looked at him funny. "It's standard gear for WALL-E workers." He shrugged. "Or, at least, that's what my parents told me. Without any supervisors, we decided how to operate ourselves." The young man posed the cylinder back into his breast pocket.

Huh. Okay, then.

Shifting his attention on the refrigerator's interior, the Sergeant almost snorted in relief. 

It was there; the plant. Small and insignificant, but vibrant green in contrasto with the silent and brown world around it. And for this precarious environment, the plant appeared healthy, in good condition. Maybe drops of water could have slithered past the refrigerator's top to satisfy the biological being?

Either way, Wally whistled loudly, carefully scooping the plant into his hands. He turned to the Sergeant, pushing the cargo towards him. "What is this?" He asked. "It looks... beautiful."

"It's a plant." Gary jabbed a thumb behind him. "You should place it inside of that boot we've collected. Once we get home, we'll water it."

"Why would we water it?" The Sole Survivor cutely pondered, practically chirping as he stared at the plant.

"For the same reason we feel thirsty." The Sergeant directed his goggles onto his forehead. "Come on. We've done enough for today."

He watched the Sole Survivor slightly nudge one of the tiny leaves to get rid of a spec of dirty. Wally was completely baffled by this discovery, perhaps even bewildered.

This is just the start...

Gary crossed his arms, staring at the sky.

...won't be long before your Angel visits us.

Chapter Text

The walk back to the truck was mostly silent, save for the brief conversation with the female AI inside of the wagon. Wally was exhausted from the work day, while Gary stirred his muscles, moving his appendages back and forth.

He was tired, but not exhausted. Maybe it had to do with the fact that he hadn't grown up in these precarious conditions, and that he has had experience with manual labour before he actually reached the grade of Sergeant.

He conversed with the Sole Survivor, dedicating some time to craft cringe jokes. At least they induced a decent result from the young man, who either cuckled or outright snickered.

Bullet had taken shelter beneath the shadow cast by the empty skeleton of a vehicle. Once he saw his masters had returned, the bastard rubbed his flank against the two humans' thighs, properly marking them with his scent.

Wally kept his chin facing downwards, lumbering the ramp with his BnL bag and shovel secured around his right shoulder. Gary stuck to him close, carrying the twin shovel.

It was there that it happened...

Gary had been the first to notice it, as he had taken the liberty of scanning their surroundings for when it would have inevitably transpired. And since Wally was still ignoring him, he nudged the young man's shoulder with an elbow.

"Hey, Wally. What is that?" He rhetorically asked, lifting a finger in the red dot's general direction.

The Sole Survivor stopped dead in his tracks, turning his head to scrutinize the red dot. He slowly approached the laser, kneeling with an opened palm. Perhaps he was assuming the dot could be another object to add to his ever-growing collection?

Suddenly, the laser flickered away, about ten meters from the ramp. Wally put his bag and shovel down, bolting for the red dot while Gary smiled at the playful skip in his steps. 

Again, the Sole Survivor failed at catching the bright light, which zoomed away, far into the outskirts.

Wally beckoned Gary. "Come on!" He exclaimed. "It could be our greatest catch yet!"

Ah, he didn't fail to notice the 'our.' It looked like Wally was actually considering him an integral part of his life.

So, Gary sprinted after the chuckling young man. His eyes roamed over the buldings, the roofs, the vehicles, and even one of New York's rivers as they passed through the abandoned streets. Soon enough, hundreds if not thousands of red dots were shined onto the city, converging upon the single laser being chased by the Sole Survivor.

Wally wasn't paying attention to this, mind settled over retrieving another relic for his childish anticts. But Gary? He was aware of what would transpire, and he was mentally preparing for the consequences of highly-advanced technology visiting this dead ball of grime they both resided onto.

Sweat coated his forehead. Gary wheezed air through gritted canines, relying upon his military training to endure the fatigue. It had been a while since his last exercise outside of combat areas: his legs trembled, his muscles worked hard, and his heart's beating rapidly escalated.

And how was Wally capable of running this fast? The excitement of another possible addition to his collection surely couldn't gift the young man this much energy, right? 

Regrettably, as they found themselves into a familiar and open desert-like environment, Gary realized he had underestimated the hyper-active Sole Survivor. 

Wally reached out to finally seize his prize-

"Uh?"

-but nothing solid grazed his skin. 

"Oh, it's just a light..." The young man murmured. "Guess we'll go back home empty-handed."

Gary took a moment to recuperate from the marathon across the blocks, pointing a finger at the ground. "Y-you should probably check that out."

Other lights finished triangulating the position, forming a geometric shape with the previously chased dot. A loud roar, mechanical in nature, reverberated from above the duo's heads, and already a good chunk of sand was aimlessly hurled across the bay. The noise was very different from canonical wind...

They looked up.

The Sergeant's eyelids half closed in annoyance.

Well, shit.

The spaceship's wall of fire split into three different balls, raining Hell itself on Earth. A scorching heat was continuously hammering certain rectangular portions of dirt, while even rocks filled the air as they were being launched.

Gary forcefully clutched onto Wally's hand and yanked him away before a smaller column of fire could hit their location. He guided them both towards safety as Wally fearfully screamed his head off. 

The Sergeant couldn't blame the Sole Survivor for this humane reaction.

One last shockwave sent the two flying. Gary waved his arms for a few seconds before the cold touch of the ground greeted him. He coughed and spat a mix of saliva and blood, patting his sides in search for his friend.

"W-Wally?" He croaked out.

The raised dust rendered his goggles fogged. He coughed some more, bringing them down. And while the glasses were quickly tarnished by the mist, his eyes remained unscarred.

An arm snaked around his neck, the familiar beeping of his friend's pacemaker making him sigh. He was raised up... and Wally (with his goggles also down), hugged him. Gary happily reciprocated the gesture, using one hand to pat his back.

"W-what was that?"

The Sergeant frowned, shifting to look behind his shoulder. 

"Let's find out, aye?"

The dust was thick, and Gary was sure their hair would turn a deep grey by the time they were done with this assignment. Still, their resolution only strengthened: side by side and hand in hand, they fearlessly pushed forward.

Gary winced at the area of the impact. The ground had been blackened, turned to molten glass. And now they both saw the object of interest: a highly-advanced spaceship, anchored to the abandoned surface of this planet.

The spacecraft possessed three elongated legs. This design reminded the Sergeant too much of the Tripods from War of the Worlds with Tom Cruise. Also, the canonical logo of BnL was embedded onto its metal side, flouriscent and vibrant, unlike most of the broken signs in New York. Hell, even its surface was immaculate! Clean from any speck of dirt that could taint it.

The Sergeant's training kicked in full force. He waved his index and middle finger forward, glancing at the Sole Survivor behind him. 

Wally cocked his head, baffled by the motion.

Honestly, Gary wanted to facepalm.

"It's a code us soldiers use." He whispered harshly. "This means 'Advance!' And this..." He put up a closed fist. "...means 'Halt and wait!' Okay?"

Wally took a moment to digest the new information and nodded.

"Cool." Gary praised at him, choosing this moment to affectionately ruffle the Sole Survivor's hair. The young man blushed, and Gary merely turned around to advance.

They hid beneath one of the legs, scanning the spaceship for any sign of human activity.

Suddenly, a hatch opened wide from the rear. Gary pulled Wally down, diving behind their only hiding spot. The former slowly gambled his chances by peeking, making sure to reveal as little of his body as possible. Instinctively, his fingers twitched and directed themselves at his hip, but once they grasped thin air he huffed, remembering that he now held no weapon aside from a knife.

He lifted a fist, signaling the need to stand by.

Some sort of capsule was gently lowered onto the ground, six feet and three inches in length, and not that much in width. The surface appeared encased in a layer of ice, likely a product of the hibernation sequence forced upon the occupant. Also, the glass was too blurred by the drop in temperature that both Sole Survivor and Sergeant couldn't see shit.

When the arm did indeed punch a code into the small keypad, the front of the capsule released a cloud of steam, opening by itself. The mechanical arm retracted back into the spacecraft's inner sanctum, the lights shutting off in that specific compartment.

And once a good amount of steam had been cleared?

The duo spotted a silhouette, feminine in nature. It didn't take long before a proper analysis of the young woman sleeping inside could be conducted.

She breathed softly, clenching her fists as her eyes snapped open. 

Hadn't Gary been a gentleman, he would have whistled from the sheer beauty radiating from the girl.

Damn! As a bot she already emanated an angelic aura. But now? Wow, she could run for those competitions!

Lomg white hair, blue eyes, skinny neck, soft lips, but also a narrow chin and a certain flexibility; this gal had to have endured physical training to present herself as an angel of both feminine beauty and deadly capabilities. Gary bet she could easily defeat three Bruce Lee(s) at once: a femme fatale to her core.

Thing was, as soon as the hatch had finished  unlocking, a back-up protocol with a flashing red light was triggered. A transparent visor latched over her face, protecting her from the hazardous environment. 

As Eve stirred her muscles and pushed herself off her holding station to count her equipment, Gary risked a glance to Wally.

Geez.

He was practically encapsulated from the girl's appearance: mouth almost dropping to the ground and sweat slithering down his cheeks. Wally was love-struck, no questions asked.

Eve had now collected some sort of pistol and had holstered it onto her hip. She walked a few steps, letting her white nanosuit adjust accordingly to the environment. She then brought an arm up, swiping her fingers over a datapad attached to it.

That's handy. Is it like a smart watch?

She started muttering incomprehensible sentences. Gary sharpened his hearing and concentrated his undivided attention on her lips.

"...dioxide seems reasonable... nitrogen... are stable..."

Ah, she was measuring the atmosphere's composition to ensure she could lower her visor! 

Still, even her voice was melodic, soft and inviting. He swore he had heard Wally release a sigh of contentment from this additional discovery. A small smile adorned his face as he inspected Eve's form further.

Yeah. I kinda envy you, buddy.

Eve's visor unlatched in a single motion, and the girl took deep breaths in. How old was she, anyway? She couldn't be older than Gary or Wally!

A rough estimation put her in her late twenties. 

If Gary had to analyze her height, he would say she was about five feet and ten inches. The Sergeant himself was six feet and two inches, while Wally was six feet tall. And even then, Gary had a clear idea of what would happen if he and Eve were to square off. 

Tons of broken bones and bruises on his part, for starters. It was difficulty to theorize if he could even hold a candle against her. It made sense to consider the young woman enhanced by technology, both mechanical and biological.

Was it like the video game Halo? Were women like her chosen from birth through a specific genetic make-up? And then progressively augmented as they grew?

Wait... what the fuck?!?

Entering another code into the keypad, Eve seemingly induced her giant capsule in folding into a small-sized cylinder. She also attached this on another compartment onto her hip, this time higher than where the pistol resided.

Vibrations spread from the spaceship's metal onto the Sergeant's skin. He and the Sole Survivor recognized the sound immediately, and bolted for the nearest rock as fast as their legs could carry them. But they had been blown away again! Gary comically hit the ground multiple times before a layer of incinerated dirt and trash covered him.

He peeked through the cover, coughing and watching the spaceship soar high in the sky, piercing through the polluted clouds.

Could have warned your departure with an alarm, you know?

Wally's head and torso soon emerged from the wreckage, about ten meters away from Gary. Despite the smoke and dust darkening his skin, Wally smiled toothily and waved at the Sergeant, who awkwardly reciprocated.

Gary padded his eyes across the field, searching for Eve. The Sergeant found her glancing one last time at the departed spacecraft before handling some sort of device. It emitted a bright blue light, shifting up and down a nearby rock. And once the light turned into a red shade, the young woman bobbed her head in satisfaction.

Was she testing a scanner?

BEEP!

Unexpectedly, smaller LEDs flickered on beneath her boots. She then flew in the air, soaring above their heads like an experienced eagle hunting for prey. Eve was smirking, clearly enjoying this meaningless activity in the grand scheme of her mission.

"Woah!" Wally whistled, captured by the spectacle.

"Yeah. She's good, uh?" Gary added, passing the back of his fingers onto his lips, noticing a bit of drawn blood. He didn't know the gravity of the cut, so he would be forced to wait 'till they were back into the truck.

Wally quickly latched onto his hand and yanked him from his resting position. "Come on!" He barked. "Let's not lose her."

The Sole Survivor's genius idea was to guide them behind a big bolder. Wally peeked from the left side, while Gary kept contact with Eve from the right. The latter gripped the bolder's formation, frowning at the elegant display from the young woman.

She appears too sure of herself. Unless this means she lets her guard down all the time-

A terrible feeling in his gust almost made him regurgitate his intestine. He looked back at Wally, noticing how his shoulder was grazing a rock detached from the rest of the formation.

He bolted for the young man, yanking him by the neck just in time as the rock hit the ground.

KIUUUUUUM!

Gary shut his eyes, bringing Wally closer to his chest, as if he was a mother cradling her child. The smell of cooked organic material was sharp, resonating well with the rest of the junk around them. A quick inspection of the boulder revealed a smoking hole drilled into its surface, edges still burning hot from the precise blast.

He felt Wally squirming beneath him, but he was unrelenting, and chose to keep his hand clamped over the worker's mouth. He did not cover his nose too, obviously. He wasn't that careless.

Once distant footsteps were not hearable anymore, Gary relaxed his stance and rested his head against the concrete, releasing the young man beneath him.

However, a soft sound alerted him, and he cracked an eye open to properly check the cause.

Wally... was sobbing.

Chapter Text

Gary had never seen the other young man cry before, let alone break down like this.

Yet here he was, clinging to him as though the world had collapsed beneath his feet. Moments ago, they’d narrowly survived an ambush by that beautiful yet deadly femme fatale, and now the aftermath was settling in like dust after a storm. Wally, usually so resilient, so stubborn in his optimism, was trembling in Gary's arms, curled inward like a frightened child seeking sanctuary in a father’s embrace. His shoulders shook with the force of his sobs, each one cutting deeper into the silence of the ravine they’d taken refuge in.

Gary leaned his head back against the jagged surface of the boulder shielding them, exhaling a long, weary breath. His body ached, but it wasn’t the pain that weighed on him, it was the choice. His instincts were at war. The soldier in him, honed by years of discipline, hardened by loss, screamed at him to assess the perimeter, to watch the shadows for any sign of Eve returning to finish the job. But another voice, quieter yet more persistent, urged him to stay where he was. His empathy, though often buried beneath layers of survival and strategy in these moments, surged forward now, refusing to ignore the young man's pain.

He tightened his grip around Wally, just slightly. Not enough to restrain, but enough to say: "You’re safe now. I’ve got you." 

Minutes slipped by, and with them, Wally’s sobs slowly faded into silence. What remained was a quiet stillness, a fragile calm in the aftermath of chaos. The worker now sat slumped against Gary’s chest, his trembling having lessened to the occasional shiver. The dark green folds of the Sergeant’s raincoat draped over Wally’s grime-streaked brown and yellow jumpsuit, hiding the worst of the scuffs and stains. They sat there like that, two survivors bound by instinct and a need for connection: one armoured in years of combat, the other exposed in raw vulnerability.

Gary leaned down, his breath warm near Wally’s ear. His voice was soft, nearly lost to the wind.

“I need to check if we’re safe, alright? But I’m not going far. I won’t leave you.”

Wally stirred faintly and turned his head just enough to look back at Gary. His tired eyes met the soldier’s, and then he gave a small, slow nod; barely a motion, yet loaded with meaning. Gary accepted it as permission and, with practiced care, began disentangling himself from the embrace, careful not to disrupt the tentative calm between them.

He stood and scanned the area.

The crater embedded in the nearby rock face was still smoldering. Wisps of smoke curled upwards, carrying the acrid scent of scorched minerals and what Gary could only assume was plasma residue. The blast had blackened the surrounding stone, and though the outer edges had begun to cool, the heart of the impact site still pulsed with heat. He didn’t need a thermometer to know better than to touch it.

Instead, he dropped to one knee in front of Wally again. The worker hadn’t moved much, his body slack, his gaze distant. Gently, Gary reached out and tilted Wally’s chin upwards with two fingers, coaxing him back to the present. The young man blinked, but there was still a hollowness behind his eyes, like his mind had temporarily powered down to cope with the trauma.

“We’re fine.” Gary murmured, steady and calm. “We made it through. Just breathe. You’re okay.”

But something wasn’t right. This was... strange.

In the movie, WALL-E had been obsessed with Eve: he had bewn unshakably loyal, always charging towards her with that puppy-dog resolve. But here? Wally seemed paralyzed, reluctant, almost afraid to act. Where was that determination? That immediate pursuit?

Gary’s brow furrowed.

Hell... He thought with a half-hearted smirk. If I had even half a shot with someone like Eve, I wouldn’t have hesitated either. Not that he was some kind of creep—he was still a soldier, not a skirt-chaser—but he wasn’t blind. If fate had handed him a different timeline, maybe even a different body... well, he might’ve given his best shot at wooing that walking, talking war goddess.

But right now, there were bigger things to worry about. He glanced at Wally again, whose breathing had evened out, if only just.

“You, uh... wanna go look for that girl?”

Gary’s voice was casual, but the question hung in the air like a live wire.

Wally flinched, visibly, violently, like the mere mention of her name had triggered a landmine in his mind.

“Are you mad?" He snapped, spinning towards Gary with wide, disbelieving eyes. “She just shot at us! That blast could’ve killed us!” His voice cracked at the end, anger mixing with something rawer; fear, maybe even betrayal. He crossed his arms over his chest and turned away, lower lip jutting in a stubborn pout. “I don’t get it... we didn’t do anything to her. We wouldn’t have hurt her.”

Gary’s eyes narrowed, not in judgment, but in observation. His training was kicking in again, analyzing body language, tracking subtle cues. And there it was: Wally’s index finger tapping rapidly against his opposite forearm, over and over. A compulsive motion. Probably unconscious. A nervous tick, no doubt, just one of the many coping mechanisms that had taken root during his endless years of solitude on this lifeless planet. A planet that had devoured civilization and spat out a lonely survivor.

The Sergeant exhaled through his nose and rubbed the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger.

Of course.

How could he have been so blind?

This wasn’t a plucky little droid who had developed an innocent personality over time, like in the movie. This was a flesh-and-blood human being: scarred, battered, and carrying a mountain of trauma on his shoulders. Wally hadn’t just weathered loneliness; he had endured it, survived it. That child-like curiosity and sweetness Gary thought he recognized wasn’t naïveté, it was a defense mechanism. A mask. One that barely held together.

God only knew what the poor guy had seen. His parents. His friends. Maybe even his own community wasting away around him. Maybe he'd been a child when the world finished ending; left behind, forgotten. Forced to watch it all rot.

Gary swallowed hard as another memory surfaced.

Markus’ journal.

The pages flashed through his mind: the crude sketches, the panicked handwriting, the cold, clinical horror of it all. Starvation. Madness. Cannibalism. Just the word made his stomach turn.

He suppressed a shiver.

Wally hadn’t just lived through hell, he’d grown up in it.

And now, after all that, some stranger with a plasma cannon had shown up and tried to fry them. No wonder the kid didn’t want to chase her. No matter how beautiful she looked, or how familiar she seemed.

Gary looked at Wally again, really looked at him.

He wasn't just trying to protect himself. He was trying to protect what little was left of his sanity.

A sudden thought seized Gary like a jolt of cold water.

Bullet.

He’d left the dog unsupervised. The mutt was probably still wandering the outskirts of the blast zone, or worse, heading straight towards Eve’s last known location. Gary had no idea how the scout would react to a creature like Bullet. Would she see the dog as harmless? A curiosity? Or would she put him down, out of some cold logic, some twisted sense of mercy based on the harsh reality of these ruined conditions?

In the movie, Bullet had been just a cockroach, small, resilient, and easy to overlook. But here? In this world where robots had human faces and souls full of trauma, everything had shifted. Gary had no idea what that change meant for Bullet.

He ran a hand down his face and tried to push the anxiety aside for now. They couldn’t go back out there just yet. Not without regrouping. Not without a plan.

“Look, uh... that’s fine.” He said finally, his tone gentler now, like speaking to a shell-shocked recruit. “We won’t go after her. But we still need more supplies if we want to make it through the next few days. You up for a trip into the city? Maybe grab more of that—uh—chicken?”

At the mention of food, Wally’s expression underwent a startling transformation. The tension melted from his features, replaced by a bright, almost childlike grin.

“Sure!” He chirped, bouncing to his feet with the kind of enthusiasm Gary hadn’t seen in anyone for a long time. His eyes sparkled with a hunger that was only partly about food, it was the thrill of doing something familiar, something normal.

Gary blinked, momentarily stunned by the shift. Just seconds ago, Wally had been curled up in a trauma-induced haze, haunted by a brush with death. And now here he was: light on his feet, excited at the prospect of scavenging for what passed as fast food in this dead world.

The Sergeant watched him move ahead, head held high, as if the last hour had been nothing more than a passing storm. It baffled him.

That kind of emotional whiplash… it wasn’t just resilience. It was survival instinct. Wally had likely taught himself how to compartmentalize, how to shove the pain into a corner and pretend everything was fine just long enough to get through the day. It was... unsettling. Impressive, maybe. But deeply, deeply concerning.

Gary followed a few paces behind. The city wasn’t far, but danger never was either, not in this world.

And still, his thoughts lingered on Bullet.

Please don’t let her shoot the damn dog.

If there was one thing Gary could admit, begrudgingly, it was how diligently Eve executed her directive.

Efficiency, focus, precision... she had all the qualities of a high-end recon unit wrapped in the body of a badass girl with a plasma cannon. It wasn’t long before they encountered her again, just a few blocks into the city's decaying heart. She moved like a ghost between collapsed buildings and shattered skylines, her presence unsettlingly graceful against the backdrop of ruin.

Thankfully, Wally hadn’t connected the dots. He hadn’t caught on to Gary’s quiet plan to orchestrate another 'chance' encounter. For the sake of continuity, Gary told himself. To keep the timeline from derailing too far from what he remembered. But deep down, he wasn’t sure anymore whether that mattered, or if he was just clinging to familiarity in a world that made no sense.

What he did know was this: pushing Wally into more life-threatening situations was a gamble with diminishing returns. The kid was already hanging by a thread. Shoving him into the emotional blender that was Eve could tear open wounds that hadn’t even begun to scar over.

But what was he supposed to do? He wasn’t a psychologist. He had no idea how to untangle the knots of trauma twisted around Wally’s psyche.

Still, he convinced the Sole Survivor to tail her, just a little longer.

The moment he asked, Wally hesitated, but then that same hopeful glint sparked in his eyes, the one that made him look so painfully young. Like he’d forgotten all about the plasma blast that nearly turned them both into ash. Like he was back in some fantasy where love could bloom on a dead world.

“Okay.” Wally had said, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

Gary had nodded, but something in his gut twisted. Because that smile wasn’t normal. It wasn’t stable. It was too eager, too fast. Like a wound smiling at the scalpel.

Just how messed up was Wallace Burtt, really?

How much pain had this young man swallowed to still be able to wag his metaphorical tail for someone who’d nearly killed him? How deep did the abandonment run? How many nights had he spent staring at the stars, hoping for something to crash into his world and rescue him from his own mind?

Gary didn’t know. And frankly, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

They trailed the scout at a careful distance, ducking behind the rusted skeletons of long-dead vehicles and collapsed signage as they moved through the city’s industrial ruins. Eve never turned around. 

It was one thing to evade the heightened, if still human, senses of a scout-class operative. It was an entirely different challenge to fool advanced scanning tech: hardware engineered in the twilight of humanity’s golden age and calibrated to detect anomalies down to the molecule. They were walking blind against a machine built for precision.

Yet Eve seemed preoccupied, her focus locked on the task at hand. She moved methodically through another of the city’s endless junkyards, scanning the contents of old boxes, storage lockers, and the trunks of cars long since claimed by rust and time. Each time her wrist-mounted sensor beeped red, she scowled: a tight, frustrated expression that deepened with every failed ping. No plant. No progress.

So far, she was a perfect reincarnation of the film’s trigger-happy robot: coldly efficient, emotionally volatile, and dangerously unpredictable. Gary couldn’t help but wonder: if they somehow reached the Axiom, would she act the same way? Would she accuse Wally of stealing the plant again, despite the absurdity of it? Despite the fact that in this world, Wally wasn’t even equipped to steal anything more than a ration tin?

In the movie, it was childish. Here, it could be deadly.

The man following Gary wasn’t a quirky little droid with a stubborn loyalty chip. He was a flesh-and-blood human being, dirty, underfed, wearing a patched-up jumpsuit, and carrying seven centuries of emotional debris. His only 'weapon' was the tiny, half-functioning laser Gary had seen him use to cut through thin scrap metal.

And this was who Eve had nearly vaporized on sight.

Gary glanced over his shoulder at Wally, who was nervously wringing his hands, his fingers tapping together in a frantic rhythm that gave away his state of mind more clearly than words ever could.

“You should talk to her.” Gary said suddenly, keeping his voice low but steady. “I mean it. She reacted like that because she was startled. Maybe if we approach her properly this time, she won’t go full orbital-strike on us.”

Wally shrank a little, hugging himself. “I... I don’t know, Gary. That was really scary back there. I’m not brave like you are.”

Gary almost laughed, almost. If only Wally knew how wrong he was.

“You are brave." He said instead, nudging the younger man’s shoulder with a smirk. “I see the way you look at her. Love-struck, huh? Can’t say I’ve ever felt anything like that myself.”

The Sole Survivor’s face lit up in crimson. “G-Gary! That’s—! You’re embarrassing me!”

Gary just winked and fell silent, letting the teasing linger in the air between them like static.

Beyond the broken wall that concealed their presence, Eve exhaled sharply and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her armour-clad fingers tapped at the sleek datapad embedded in her arm, navigating through her mission logs. Gary could make out flickers of holographic text flashing briefly above the screen.

She looked... frustrated. 

Too bad Bullet chose that exact moment to ruin their element of surprise.

The mutt, oblivious to any notion of stealth, leapt down from the peak of a towering junk mound with a triumphant bark, like some noble knight arriving late to the wrong battlefield. His paws clattered against rusted car hoods and scrap metal as he bounded down the slope with cheerful confidence.

Wally’s eyes widened in horror.

“No, no, no—” He hissed under his breath. He pressed two fingers to his lips and whistled; low enough not to alert Eve, but sharp enough to hopefully reach the mutt’s sensitive ears.

Bullet didn’t even flinch. He continued strutting down the trash pile like he owned the damn place.

Gary closed one eye in anticipation. He already knew what was coming.

BOOM!

A concussive shockwave tore through the yard as Eve, moving purely on reflex, fired her plasma rifle. The shot blasted apart the side of the junk heap in a spray of molten shrapnel, ash, and dust. Metal screeched as it warped from the heat. Debris rained down like confetti at the end of the world.

A massive cloud of gray and black choked the air, lingering like a veil of smoke from some arcane ritual gone horribly wrong.

Wally let out a strangled gasp and slapped both hands over his mouth.

“Oh, no! Gary, she—”

But before he could spiral into grief, a shape began to stir in the haze.

A blurry silhouette. Wagging its tail.

Bullet.

The dog emerged from the cloud, head cocked to the side, completely unfazed, as if nearly being turned into slag was just part of his morning routine. His fur was singed in a few places, but otherwise, he looked no worse for wear.

Eve didn’t move. Her weapon remained half-raised, then slowly lowered. Her eyes narrowed as she watched Bullet trot up to her like an old friend.

She kneeled with deliberate calmness, offering a flat palm, unarmed and still.

Bullet sniffed it. A pause. Then a tentative lick.

That was all it took.

"You’re well-fed." She murmured, voice soft and almost clinical. "And in decent condition. Do you have an owner? Are there survivors in this city?"

Gary, watching from behind cover, arched an eyebrow.

Was she rhetorically pondering out loud? Running diagnostics? Or was she genuinely—actually—asking the dog for help?

Either way, it was unsettling.

Eve remained crouched there, head tilted in quiet thought, one gloved hand resting gently on Bullet’s scruff. The dog’s tail wagged lazily behind him as if he’d just found a new friend.

Gary exhaled slowly. “Well… that could’ve gone way worse.”

Beside him, Wally nodded, still too stunned to speak.

It only took a moment.

A tiny, thoughtless distraction from the Sole Survivor—a shift in balance, a glance in the wrong direction—and a loose rock dislodged from the towering junk pile above them. It clattered as it bounced down, sharp against the rusted silence, finally skidding to a stop a few feet away.

Too loud.

Gary didn’t hesitate. His instincts kicked in before his thoughts even formed. He lunged sideways, tackling Wally just as—

BOOM!

The concussive blast lit up the space behind them. The shockwave knocked a gust of scorched air across their backs as debris exploded into the sky. Charred metal fragments pinged against nearby walls like shrapnel. Bullet barked in panic, his howls echoing through the haze.

Gary hit the ground hard, landing half on top of Wally, half buried in a collapsing pile of rust and ash. His back screamed in protest. His ears rang from the pressure. But they were alive, again.

Groaning, the Sergeant shoved himself up on one elbow. The dust was thick, clinging to every breath and every blink. He could feel Wally trembling beneath him, the younger man clutching his arms in shock.

Gary forced himself to move, reaching towards the open air. He extended his arm from the rubble, holding his palm out flat and high in the universal sign of non-aggression.

"Blue! Blue!" He shouted, voice raw. “We’re friendlies, for fuck’s sake! Cease fire!"

He didn’t know if she’d understand.

He didn’t know if the military phonetics they’d used back in his world meant anything to a scout unit from seven centuries in the future. For all he knew, Eve might just paint them as hostiles and light up the whole district.

But sometimes you had to gamble.

All he could do now was hope the strange mixture of military code, desperation, and sheer defiance would spark just enough curiosity in her programming—or her humanity—to buy them a few seconds of mercy.

Behind him, Bullet whimpered and pawed at the rubble, loyal even in chaos.

Beside him, Wally looked like he’d stopped breathing entirely.

Come on... He thought, eyes straining through the dust cloud. Don’t make me dig my own grave twice in the same week.

...

“Come out with your hands in the air.”

The command sliced through the dust-heavy silence, her voice sharp and mechanical in tone, but unmistakably human in intent.

“I’ll verify if you’re as trustworthy, and as unharmed, as you claim to be.”

Gary exhaled through clenched teeth. He still couldn’t see her clearly through the smoke, but he could hear the slight mechanical whir of her weapon powering up again. The scout meant business.

The Sergeant moved fast, clasping Wally’s shoulders and hoisting him upright with a grunt. The Sole Survivor was dazed but compliant, his breath shallow and clothes streaked with soot. Gary brushed a clump of ash from the younger man’s hair and straightened the hood of his own dark green raincoat, a habit from his field days; look organized, and look controlled, even if you're bleeding.

Then, extending a hand, he locked eyes with Wally.

Wally blinked. Hesitated. But then, gently, he placed his palm into Gary’s, like a child trusting a parent’s unspoken promise: "You won’t let go."

The young man stayed tucked slightly behind the Sergeant as they stepped forward, Gary leading with a calm, open posture. Both of them slowly raised their free hands in a gesture of submission.

Eve was waiting. She stood with rigid precision just a few feet ahead, plasma rifle leveled and unwavering. Her stance was textbook combat-ready: feet apart, shoulder relaxed, and sights aligned, but her eyes betrayed something else. Caution, yes. But also... curiosity.

She tracked their movements with silent scrutiny, until finally—

“That’s far enough.”

They stopped, boots crunching on loose gravel.

“Who are you?” She demanded. “And why have you been following me?”

Gary raised an eyebrow, amused by the accusation. He let his gaze flick towards Wally before replying with deliberate nonchalance.

“Following you?” He echoed, then chuckled under his breath. “Hardly. We were just scavenging the local shops. Looking for food. Water. You know, essentials.” His tone shifted, softer now. “And... him.”

He nodded towards Bullet, who was circling warily a few yards away, ears low, tail twitching like an antenna picking up static.

The scout narrowed her eyes.

“So the mutt belongs to you?”

Gary shrugged one shoulder in a manner that was neither dismissive nor defensive. “Technically, he belongs to him.” He replied, tilting his head towards Wally.

The way Wally flinched and snapped out of his anxious daze at the sound of his name made Gary almost laugh. The kid looked like someone waking up in the middle of a test they forgot to study for.

Wally crouched without a word. No posturing. No excuses. He simply opened his arms and waited.

Bullet hesitated for half a second, and then bounded forward.

The dog’s paws skidded slightly on the loose trash, but he regained balance quickly, his body a blur of brown fur and kinetic joy. He dove into Wally’s embrace with a whimper of relief, shoving his snout into the crook of the young man’s neck. Wally squeezed him back, eyes clenched shut, as if Bullet’s warmth might anchor him to reality.

The dog rumbled in his throat, a kind of canine purr, content and proud.

Gary watched the scene unfold in silence, then turned his gaze to Eve.

For the first time, the scout didn’t look like she was about to fire.

She looked... like she was thinking.

“It would be a wasted opportunity not to catalogue your presence for my debriefing back on the Axiom.” Eve finally conceded, her tone neutral but laced with clinical interest. With smooth precision, she holstered her plasma rifle against her hip. The weapon clicked into place with a magnetic hiss. “Survivors in this climate imply sustainability. If that’s the case, there must be a viable specimen... somewhere.”

Bingo.

Gary bit back a grin. That right there was the golden ticket. Proof of life, potential repopulation, and maybe, ust maybe, some kind of stake in Earth’s future that didn’t involve choking on dust or dying of radiation sickness.

Of course, that being the plant they possessed.

Still, better to keep questions about 'specimens' tucked away for now. She was a machine-like woman on a mission, and Wally was, well... bound to try wooing her in the most tragic, adorable, and utterly doomed fashion imaginable.

Gary waved off the rising tension with a casual gesture. “Why don’t we crash inside one of these buildings?” He suggested, already eyeing the crooked silhouette of a nearby supermarket. “That place over there, been using the old bathrooms as makeshift shelter. It’s hotter than hell out here.”

He gestured between himself and Wally, dust-coated and slightly singed. “We’re also running low on food. Might I inquire, milady, whether you’re in possession of any sterilized rations?”

He winced at himself.

God, he sounded like an aristocrat from the 18th century. But Eve’s stiff formality set the tone, and he wasn’t keen on pushing her emotional thresholds and ending up atomized. Better pompous than a tragic end.

“I have a few." She replied after a pause, eyeing them both with cautious appraisal. “But we scouts are trained to locate local resources during recon expeditions. Relying solely on preserved rations is inefficient.” Her eyes, partially hidden behind that translucent visor, narrowed slightly. “Lead the way. But no funny business.”

Gary held up his hands in surrender. “No jokes. Dead serious.”

He turned towards the other two. “Dude?” He said, nudging Wally gently without using his name. It wasn’t time yet. Let Wally be the one to break the barrier. Let him charm her, fumble, try,  whatever it took to spark that vital emotional connection. Gary was just the escort on this story arc.

“C’mon. Let’s both take the front.”

Wallace patted Bullet lightly on the rear, a familiar signal. The dog perked up and fell into step beside him without hesitation, his tail brushing softly against Wally’s leg as they walked.

Behind the trio, Eve followed with silent steps, her movements eerily graceful. The tension in her posture hadn’t left, she was still a coiled spring, still evaluating every motion, and every breath.

But she was following.

For now, that was enough.

The group cut a strange image in the muted sunlight of Earth’s ruined horizon: Gary’s dark green raincoat trailing slightly in the dust, Wally’s grime-stained brown and yellow jumpsuit hanging loose on his wiry frame, and Eve—pristine, unblemished, immaculate in her snow-white uniform—bringing up the rear like some kind of futuristic Valkyrie out of a different world entirely.

And in that surreal silence, it felt—for a brief, fragile moment—that the streets were once again alive.

Chapter Text

There was noticeably less tension than when they’d first encountered Eve, and Gary counted that as a small victory. She hadn't aimed her plasma rifle at anyone in the last twenty minutes, which, by his standards, meant they were practically friends.

Still, he kept one eye on her at all times.

She was calculating, perhaps too calculating, and her stillness had that unnerving quality, like a sniper in the brush who hadn’t decided yet whether the target was worth taking the shot. Gary just hoped she’d continue rationalizing her surroundings, measuring value over instinct, and not get jumpy enough to immolate them over some half-formed assumption.

As they passed the decaying skeletons of what had once been a suburban neighborhood, Eve’s attention drifted towards the broken architecture. She stopped occasionally to scan pieces of debris: scorched walls, corroded signage, and melted plastic playgrounds. There was a particular curiosity in her movement, something meticulous and clinical, yet tinged with a strange awe, as if she were walking through a museum of Earth’s slow collapse.

Still, she never lost sight of her directive. Her left forearm blinked with faint blue lights as her scanner cast beams over walls and cars, searching tirelessly for signs of viable flora. She didn’t realize, of course, that what she was searching for had already been found. It was nestled in one of Wally’s storage compartments, buried in the depths of that Frankenstein’d truck the young man called home.

And the ironic part?

Only Gary knew about it.

Wally, for all his charm and survival instincts, was far too preoccupied with sneaking glances at their guest. His eyes tracked her like a moth drawn to a halogen lamp. Eve, of course, didn’t notice, or pretended not to. Either she lacked the emotional bandwidth to acknowledge the attention or was too proud to consider that these two 'primitive' humans might be keeping secrets. Dangerous ones.

That pride might be her blind spot. And Gary planned to exploit it if needed.

His mind shifted, unbidden, to a name that made his gut clench: Auto.

A memory, or rather, a theory, surfaced. If the Executive Officer aboard the Axiom had been humanized in this world as well, then Gary had a new enemy. Probably still cold, still manipulative, and still wrapped in layers of protocol and corporate rot. He imagined Auto not as a glowing red eye, but as a tall, impassive man in a sterile white uniform, quoting bylaws while dismantling lives.

But maybe… just maybe, there was room to reason with a human version. After all, flesh and blood came with the curse, and gift, of doubt. He might be able to sway him. Maybe not with words, but with evidence. With proof of life.

Gary clenched his fists inside the pockets of his coat, gripping that idea like a lifeline.

He let himself smirk, muttering under his breath in a voice only the wind would catch:

“My mission is to ensure Wallace Burtt’s survival… and the passengers’ safe return to Earth. And I always accomplish my mission.”

The words weren’t his originally. They belonged to a game character, a machine-turned-sentient prototype with a heart just beginning to beat. But today, Gary borrowed them anyway, because in a world teetering between extinction and rebirth, conviction was as essential as air.

The supermarket was hollow and echoing, a cathedral of long-expired goods and collapsed shelving units. Rows of metal and plastic ghosts stretched into the shadows, lined with faded advertisements promising luxuries no one had cared about in centuries.

Gary and Wally combed the aisles methodically, salvaging what few rations were still sealed and safe. The Sergeant focused on practicality:  protein bars, dried vegetables, and the occasional vacuum-sealed mystery meat. Anything sterile enough to avoid dysentery.

From the corner of his eye, he spotted Eve standing near what had once been the canned goods section. She delicately picked up a tin of something indiscernible, turning it slowly in her hand. Her movements were almost reverent, like someone inspecting an alien artifact rather than dinner.

"You can take what you want..." Gary offered casually, gesturing towards the shelf. “It’s not like any of us signed a lease for this place.”

Eve tilted her head towards him, the pale glow of her visor catching faint sunlight through a broken window. She seemed to assess him for a moment longer than necessary, then returned to considering the can in her hand. Her silence wasn’t hostile, though.

Gary smirked to himself.

So even the mission-driven scout could suffer from indecisiveness in a grocery store. Figures.

In that moment, she was every stereotype of a civilian girl wandering an aisle, unsure whether she wanted peaches or pears, even if she was a dead-eyed military scout wrapped in white plating and government training.

And then—

CRASH!

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

The scream jolted Gary like a shot fired in a dead zone. His instincts ignited. He sprinted down the aisle, boots skidding slightly on loose gravel and dust.

When he rounded the corner, he stopped short and blinked in disbelief.

There, tangled in a ridiculous pile of shopping carts, lay Wally, sprawled flat on his back, arms askew, and his face twisted into an embarrassed grimace. A few cans of powdered milk rolled lazily away from the wreckage.

It was a near-perfect recreation of that absurd moment from the original Wall-E movie; only instead of clunky metal and servo-driven panic, this was just a grown man in a filthy yellow jumpsuit getting flattened by his own overenthusiasm.

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling through his teeth.

“Jesus, man." He muttered, stepping over a rogue wheel. “What the hell happened to you?”

Wally shifted beneath the carts, his face turning a deeper shade of red. "I, uh... I was trying to push the carts out of the way. Clear a path, you know?” He offered a weak chuckle. “Guess I didn’t realize how strong I was.”

That was an obvious lie.

Gary gave him a long, skeptical stare. There was something else going on; nerves, distraction, maybe a flash of clumsy stage fright now that Eve was around. But this wasn’t the moment to push.

Instead, the Sergeant reached down and began lifting the carts off him one by one.

“Yeah, sure.” Gary muttered under his breath, shaking his head. “Let’s go with that.”

Bullet trotted up beside the Sergeant, his claws clicking softly against the cracked tiles of the supermarket floor. He barked once—sharp and alert—then a second time, as if chastising his fallen master for his clumsy misadventure. The sound bounced between the metal shelves and decaying displays like echoes from a time when the world was still alive.

Gary rolled his eyes but couldn't help the amused huff that escaped him.

From up above, Eve finally deigned to investigate the commotion. Her boots clicked against the linoleum as she approached the broken escalator. When her gaze fell on Wally, still half-buried under a chaotic nest of shopping carts, something unexpected happened.

She lifted a gloved hand to her lips and, of all things, giggled.

It was a light, crystalline sound, like windchimes stirred by a rare breeze. It echoed through the open exitway of the supermarket, rising up into the stale air like a momentary relief from the bleakness outside.

Gary looked up at her, blinking.

Wally, on the other hand, was transfixed.

The Sole Survivor’s gaze locked onto her like she was the only thing in the universe. His eyes widened, breath caught in his throat, and a giddy, boyish smile took hold of his face. He looked like someone witnessing magic for the first time.

Gary, still standing beside him, glanced between the two and sighed. He suddenly felt very much like the third wheel in a story that had nothing to do with him anymore.

“Great.” He muttered to himself, scratching at the stubble on his cheek. “I’m stuck chaperoning an apocalypse rom-com.”

He descended the stairs at a steady pace, boots thudding with each step. As he reached Wally, who was now awkwardly trying to untangle himself from the cart wreckage, Gary offered a hand without ceremony.

Once he had hauled him to his feet, the Sergeant clapped a firm hand on Wally’s shoulder and leaned in close.

“You’re making real progress in your clumsiness.” He murmured with a smirk. “Lemme guess, you were staring at her and didn’t see the carts piled behind you, right?”

Wally’s cheeks ignited in a flush for what felt like the ninth time that day. The red spread across his freckled skin with a speed that almost made Gary laugh aloud.

Above them, Eve had quieted again, but the corners of her lips still curled into a faint, amused smirk. She studied them both from her elevated vantage point, not coldly, not analytically, but with something gentler in her expression. Curiosity, maybe. Or amusement. 

“Come on, bro,” Gary said, poking Wally lightly in the ribs. “Just keep doing your thing. Be natural. You’ve got this.”

The encouragement was casual, playful even, but it was sincere, laced with that older-brother wisdom Gary had started to slip into more and more lately.

But Wally didn’t smile. His gaze lingered on Eve for another heartbeat before he slowly turned away, his expression clouded with doubt.

“Why are you so determined to help me?” He asked, voice low. “She’s a scout, descended from BnL’s elite command structure. You're a soldier, trained, strong. And I’m... a janitor.” He shrugged, the words heavy on his tongue. “You’ve got way more of a shot with her than I ever will.”

Gary froze mid-step.

He hadn’t expected that. Not the raw honesty. Not the sobering logic behind it.

He blinked. For a long moment, he just stared at the kid, caught off guard by the clarity in his voice: the intelligence and the painful self-awareness. Maybe he had underestimated Wally. Maybe beneath the scavenged uniform and nervous ticks was a lot more than Gary ever gave him credit for.

Wally waited. His eyes flicked briefly to the floor, as if bracing for some placating platitude or a dismissive laugh.

But instead, Gary stepped closer. He slung a firm arm around Wally’s shoulders and pulled him in as they began ascending the stairs side by side.

“Because opposites attract, man.” He murmured, voice quiet and genuine. “And like I told you, I’m not the romance type.”

He paused. A breath passed.

“I’m not gonna lie, I’m decent with people. Got a solid sense of humor. Not a bad cook when the rations allow it...” He added with a small chuckle. “But I’m not looking for love. Haven’t been in a long time. Not after everything I’ve seen.”

Wally glanced at him sideways, caught somewhere between confusion and curiosity.

Gary tapped his chest with two fingers, right over his heart.

“The truth? I’ve already made peace with the fact that I won’t get a happy ending. But you?” He gave Wally a little shake. “You can. If anyone still deserves one in this radioactive sandbox of a planet, it’s you.”

The Sole Survivor’s steps faltered for just a second. He looked down, eyes blinking rapidly.

Gary leaned in just a little closer, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.

“Besides... after you helped me out all this time? The least I can do is return the favor. If you’ve got a goal, a dream, hell, even a dumb romantic one, I’m gonna be the guy who helps you reach it. Whatever you need? I’ve got your back.”

There was a pause, just a few seconds of silence shared between two men who had survived far too much to still believe in fairytales.

But maybe, just maybe, they could still believe in each other.

Thankfully, Eve was too distracted to register the hushed banter unfolding a few paces ahead of her. She had taken to Bullet, now crouched beside the dog and absently running gloved fingers through the thick fur on his neck. The mutt, ever the opportunist, leaned into her touch with lazy satisfaction. Perhaps even his instincts recognized that she wasn’t just another mechanical threat.

Once inside the makeshift shelter, formerly the supermarket’s grimy but spacious restrooms, Gary paused near the tiled entryway, planting his back firmly against the cold wall.

“Not much, honestly.” He said, his voice echoing slightly against the ceramic. “But it was the nearest refuge when I landed here.” He gave the room a nod, as though introducing an old friend. “And hey! Power’s still on.”

He turned to Wally with a flicker of suspicion. “Did you rig it back up, or was it like that already?”

“I’m a janitor, not a mechanic.” The younger man replied flatly, the annoyance clear in his tone. “I know enough to keep parts from falling apart, but rewiring a generator system? That’s not part of my directive.”

Gary raised both hands in playful surrender. “Alright, alright. Touchy.”

The quiet tension in the room shifted as Eve finally rose from her spot beside Bullet and stepped closer. Her gaze flicked between them like a scanner re-calibrating.

“So..." She began, straightening her posture. “What are your names?”

She touched her chest with a light tap of her fingertips. “I am Lieutenant Evelyn Knight. Scout designation 1-08 of the E.V.R.E. Initiative.”

Gary nodded respectfully, his military instincts resurfacing at the mention of rank. “Sergeant Gary Sanderson.” He replied smoothly. “Fifteenth Field Artillery Regiment, reporting for duty, or what’s left of it.”

He shifted position, sliding down the wall and settling into a squat, drawing one knee up and resting an arm over it. There was a relaxed confidence to him, the way experienced soldiers often carried themselves when pretending not to keep a hand close to their weapon.

Eve turned next to the quieter of the two.

“And you?” She asked Wally directly. “What’s your name?”

Wally blinked, then glanced nervously at Gary. The Sergeant offered a slight nod, just enough to encourage him without pushing.

“W… Wa—”

Oh no. Gary winced internally. He's really gonna do it. Just like in the movie.

“Waaaally!” The janitor announced with too much enthusiasm, his name stretched into a cartoonish echo of the character he was unknowingly imitating.

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose, shaking his head. “Unbelievable.” He muttered. “Still an idiot in this universe… but a smart idiot. Damn near lovable.”

“Wally?” Eve repeated the name, tilting her head. She didn’t seem put off, if anything, her tone was curious. “Wally…”

She tested it again, like a scientist tasting an exotic fruit. Then, surprisingly, she giggled, a bright, bell-like sound that reverberated off the bathroom tiles.

“That’s a nice name." She said, a genuine smile tugging at her lips. “Uncommon. Might I add, it suits you.”

“Uhm…” Wally rubbed his forefingers together sheepishly. “W-what was your name again?”

“Evelyn." She replied, then softened. “But you can call me Eve.”

“Eeeeeehhh?”

“No. Eve.”

He furrowed his brow in concentration.

“Eeeeeaah.”

Gary stifled a laugh and quickly turned it into a cough.

Eve glanced sideways at the Sergeant, brows raised.

“He’s been alone for a while, ma’am.” Gary said dryly. “Grammar means jack when you’re living off cockroaches and tin cans.”

Eve sighed, exasperated yet faintly amused. “No, it’s like this. Watch.” She pointed to her mouth and pronounced slowly: “Eeeeeve.”

Wally focused, determined to mimic her exactly.

“Eeeeevvvvvaaahhh?”

Gary slapped his forehead and groaned. “Close enough."

Eve laughed again; freely, with an unburdened joy that lit up the sterile, dimly-lit bathroom. Wally’s lips parted in wonder. She had actually found his effort funny. That singular response seemed to validate every ridiculous, fumbling attempt he’d made to win her attention. He doubled down.

“Evah!” He repeated, leaning a bit too close, the grin on his face now broad and boyish.

That did it.

The scout buckled, doubling over as laughter overtook her. She wrapped her arms around her stomach, gasping for air as the giggles spiraled into snorts. It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t military. But it was real.

Gary, still pressed against the wall, allowed himself a soft, quiet smile.

He didn’t want to ruin the moment. If anything, he wanted to vanish into the tiles. Let them have this little dance—this pure, silly thing—without a grim soldier's shadow cast over it.

But even as he smiled, a sharp, stabbing heat bloomed beneath his ribs.

Jealousy.

It bit fast and it bit deep. That acidic feeling of watching something good—something warm—pass you by while you're left out in the cold. But Gary was nothing if not practiced at burying what hurt. Rationality clawed its way up and doused the flame.

Why should I be jealous?

He deserves this.

He’s genuine. He’s kind. And I’m just… left with wreckage.

Gary adjusted the hood of his raincoat, tugging it a little tighter. His fists clenched at his sides, silently, unnoticed.

He tried not to think of Thomas.

Tried not to remember the last look they shared.

Tried not to remember his parents; how they mourned one son and resigned themselves to the other.

A brother who couldn’t save his sibling.

A son who couldn’t comfort the grieving.

A man still alive in a world that had long since died.

What a pathetic fucking man. He thought bitterly. Still pretending I deserve something.

Eve finally composed herself, wiping away a tear from the corner of her eye and sniffing lightly. “You’re funny.” She said, directing the compliment at Wally; but then, she turned her attention to Gary with genuine curiosity.

“So you said you’re a Sergeant...” She began. “But a Sergeant of what, exactly? The way the world looks, I highly doubt any of those ancient infrastructures are still intact.”

Gary opened his mouth, prepared to give his usual vague answer.

But Wally, bless his eager heart, beat him to it.

“He fought in Iraq!” He blurted.

Gary blinked.

Oh, no.

The words hung in the air like a slow-motion car crash. The kind where you see the windshield shatter before you even hear the impact. Wally looked proud. Eve looked surprised.

Gary looked... screwed.

“…He told me so himself.” Wally added helpfully.

The bathroom lights hummed faintly overhead. Eve’s brow rose. Her visor flashed a data sweep reflexively. Out in the corner, Bullet gave a quiet, confused whine.

Fuuuuuuuck.

“Right...” Eve’s voice softened, but only slightly. A calculated shift, smooth as polished steel. She gave Wally a mild, diplomatic smile. “Listen, Wally. I’ve encountered several antiquated mechanisms I’d like to secure for analysis aboard the Axiom. Our onboard researchers are particularly fascinated by lost Earth technology. Would you be so kind as to retrieve some of those devices stashed away in this store?”

Wally’s eyes widened to dinner-plate proportions. His body actually bounced, as if the request had flipped a switch inside him marked Helpful Mode.

“S-sure! I’ll get them for you!”

Without missing a beat, he zipped out of the bathroom, and yet he still took the time to close the door behind him with surprising gentleness.

The room fell quiet.

Just Eve. And Gary.

A shift occurred instantly in the air: from bubbly miscommunication to cold, deliberate calculation.

The scout didn’t waste time. Wordlessly, she retrieved a sleek datapad from her hip holster. The surface glowed pale blue as she swiped right, the screen projecting faint schematics and a long list of scrolling symbols. She scanned the contents, then hummed; an analytical note, devoid of emotion.

“You do realize..." She said finally, not even looking up. “...that Iraq is in an entirely separate continent.”

Gary folded his arms. His stance wasn’t overtly aggressive, but it had the stiffness of someone resisting the urge to clench a fist.

Eve continued. “There is no feasible evidence to suggest that human survivors have migrated and successfully colonized territories that arid. Statistically, they’d cluster around freshwater sources—rivers, lakes—out of desperation for purification. That’s historically documented. Ancient Mesopotamia tried the same route. Over five thousand years ago.”

Gary scoffed, a dry exhale of disbelief. “So what, did they feed you encyclopedias in scout school?”

“Precisely.” She tapped a few holographic icons on the datapad, completely unfazed by his sarcasm. “Extensive Earth history. Cultural studies. Ecosystem collapse patterns. Geography. Biowarfare evolution. It’s how we know where to look.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Look for what?”

Eve’s gaze finally rose. Cold, clinical, unreadable.

“That..." She said with mechanical precision. “...is classified.”

A pause.

“I cannot share mission directives with independent parties occupying what remains of a derelict civilization.” Her words were flat but firm. “You may not be savages, but you are still... outsiders. And protocol remains intact.”

Gary’s jaw worked silently for a second before he clicked his tongue.

“Even if one of those ‘outsiders’ kept your mutt from getting his fur turned into ash a few minutes ago?”

For the first time, her expression faltered. Not much, but enough for Gary to catch the flicker in her eyes. The datapad dimmed.

A pause stretched between them; two operators from entirely different worlds, staring across the smoking remnants of Earth’s past.

“That’s not the point.” Eve pressed, her tone clipped but not yet confrontational. She crossed her arms, datapad now dormant at her side. “You said you fought in Iraq. That would be impossible. Gasoline has long since lost viability for preservation or use. Even if you had vehicles, you’d still have to cross an ocean thousands of miles between America and Europe. Who built your ship? Who navigated? How many were with you?”

Gary blinked, then exhaled sharply and lifted both palms in surrender.

“Alright, alright! Look, I didn’t mean to lie, not really. I just didn’t want to rattle Wally, y’know?” He dropped his hands and rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s not exactly built for harsh truths. So I fed him something harmless. Iraq, a dead country. Familiar enough to sound real. The truth?” He tapped his own chest with a thumb. “I come from somewhere near the Canadian border. There are still factions scattered throughout the U.S. Scavengers, militia remnants, and a few cults. I was with one of ‘em. Lost most of my unit over the years. I ditched my gear, found this poncho in some dusty store, and ran into Wally maybe... three, four days ago?”

Eve’s fingers resumed dancing across her datapad, her face unreadable as she recorded everything with surgical precision.

“I noticed you’re also wearing sanitation worker attire.” She said finally, glancing up. “Same as Wally. Might I inquire as to the rationale?”

Gary let out a dry chuckle. “What, this thing?” He tugged on the faded jumpsuit beneath his coat. “I figured he shouldn’t be out there cleaning alone. Looked too damn sad. So I grabbed one from the depot and joined in.”

The scout sputtered, caught off guard by the simplicity of the answer. “You... joined him? In cleaning the entire city?”

“Yep." Gary replied, voice low but steady.

“But...” Eve blinked. “Why? The city's dead. Everyone’s gone. Your lifespans--”

“...will run out long before the directive ends." He finished for her, eyes distant. “Yeah, I know. That’s kinda the point.”

She frowned. “I don’t follow.”

“I didn’t want to die alone." Gary said, voice so soft it almost got swallowed by the flickering light overhead. “That’s all. No grand plan. No mission. No delusions of saving the world. Just Wally, Bullet, and me. Figured if we kept busy, if we kept the world clean... maybe we’d earn a little dignity before the end.”

His hand instinctively drifted towards his hip, where the handle of a small, worn combat knife peeked out from beneath his coat.

“But don’t worry.” He added, seeing the brief tightening in her shoulders. His mouth curled into a sardonic smile. “I’m civil. I don’t stab women I meet in abandoned bathrooms. That’d be... extremely stupid.”

Eve exhaled, and something that might’ve been a smirk played at the corners of her mouth.

“Well...” She said dryly. “...there’s something we can finally agree on.”

The door creaked open with an enthusiastic shove, and Wally all but bounded back into the room, cradling something metallic in his arms like a newborn.

“There wasn’t much.” He announced, cheeks flushed with pride. “The rest’s still back in the truck. But I found this! Not sure what it does, though.”

He planted it with gentle ceremony in front of Eve, beaming like a kid who’d just brought home a science project. The two leaned in with curiosity to inspect the ancient artifact.

It was a toaster.

Gary caught a glimpse of chrome and promptly slapped a hand over his mouth, barely suppressing a laugh. He snorted quietly instead, allowing himself the indulgence of a crooked grin.

Wally fiddled with the levers, pumping them up and down with a childlike mixture of hope and confusion. “Maybe if I press this... it’ll do something?”

Gary couldn’t take it anymore.

“That’s... a toaster." He deadpanned.

Both Eve and Wally turned to face him, unified in mutual blankness.

“It’s used to make toast. You know—slices of bread? You stick 'em in, wait a bit, then CLICK—” he punctuated with a loud snap of his fingers “—and boom. Hot toast. Instant breakfast.”

Wally’s face lit up. “Ooooooh! So that’s what they were for! I always assumed they were storage containers. I use them for my tape reels. They fit nicely.”

Gary blinked. “Yeah. I remember.”

He did, too well. Back at Wally’s home, stacks of tapes peeked out of toasters like ancient relics tucked in mini coffins. As a kid, Gary had thought it was quirky. But as a grown man?

It was borderline tragic.

Eve took the toaster gently and slid it into a compartment on her uniform. “Thank you, Wally. This will certify today’s reconnaissance.”

Wally flushed bright red at her praise, though Eve didn’t seem to notice. Or maybe she just didn’t say anything.

Gary pushed off the wall and stood with a stretch, cracking his back before eyeing the duo. “Hey, Eve, quick question.”

“Yes?”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty-four." She replied without hesitation. “Why?”

Gary cast a glance over her shoulder at Wally, who was currently lost in a euphoric trance of toaster victory. He exhaled through his nose and smiled softly.

“No reason. Just curious.”

Twenty-four. That made her a year younger than Wally, two younger than him.

And yet, here he was, Sergeant Gary Sanderson: former artillery, trained combatant, weathered survivor... babysitting a lovesick janitor and a scout with zero understanding of small kitchen appliances.

Not exactly the post-apocalyptic promotion he’d envisioned.

"You said you live in a truck." Eve glanced between them, her tone still calm, but inquisitive. "Where exactly is that?"

Gary rolled his shoulders in a nonchalant shrug. "Few hours west on foot. Outskirts of the city. We’ve got some rations, decent shelter. Wally’s solar panels work like a charm." He clapped the janitor on the shoulder just a bit too hard.

Wally flinched. “B-basic maintenance, Gary." He grumbled, rubbing the sore spot. “Necessity’s a good teacher when you’re living under UV death rays.”

Eve lifted an eyebrow, impressed. “Is that right? May I log the location into my waypoint system? Just in case I need assistance during further reconnaissance?”

“S-sure!” Wally practically bounced at the offer, eyes wide and hopeful, his voice cracking slightly as he scrambled to look helpful.

“Great.” Eve thumbed something on her datapad, the device emitting a faint chime in confirmation. Without another word, she turned and headed out, her boots echoing softly as she disappeared down the hallway.

Silence fell.

Wally’s breathing grew louder, shallow and fast. He stood frozen, processing. Then, without warning, he whirled around and grabbed Gary by the collar, fingers trembling but firm.

“P-please, man. You have to help me! She’s so... so kind. I can’t screw this up. I can’t lose her!”

Gary blinked. The desperation wasn’t just in Wally’s voice, it was in his eyes. Honest, raw, and burning. For the first time, the janitor wasn’t acting goofy or clumsy. He was serious.

The Sergeant gently pried Wally’s hands off his collar and gave a single, measured nod.

"What do you have in mind?"

Why did he even have to ask?

Of course it was about following her. Of course it was about waiting until nightfall like lovesick idiots. And naturally, it was Wally’s brilliant idea to build a statue in her honor. From scratch.

Apparently, Eve could retrieve some kind of internal capsule from her suit and nestle it back into her original cryopod. A compact shelter, she called it. Safer than wandering Earth’s deranged atmosphere. Safer than the rare, but still very real, chance of running into volatile survivors.

From the top of an old fuel tower, the two men watched her climb into the pod. The door hissed shut behind her. They couldn’t see her face, it was turned away, but they both assumed she was asleep.

Then came the inevitable.

Wally stepped wrong.

The Sergeant saw it too late. He reached out on instinct, fingers grazing air.

“Wally—!”

THUD!

The janitor vanished into the garbage below.

Gary cursed and scrambled to the ledge. “Wally! You okay down there?”

A groan drifted up from the mountain of junk.

“I’m fine! Ow.” Another pause. “Just a bruise… and a bump. I’ll feel that in the morning.”

Then, despite everything, he grinned up at his companion. “Come on! It was fun. Join me!”

Gary hesitated for only a second. Then he sighed, mumbled something that sounded vaguely like a prayer, and leapt.

“SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!”

CRASH!

He landed, mercifully, on a pile of plastic bags fused together by time and heat. Somehow, it cushioned his fall enough to save his spine.

He lay there, eyes wide at the night sky, chest rising and falling.

“Why...” He muttered. “...is trash softer than my old mattress?”

Beside him, Wally laughed.

And for a brief moment, beneath the ruin of a world long lost, it didn’t feel quite so lonely.

Still, they had a job to do.

Wally tiptoed towards the capsule and formed a rectangle with his hands, framing his vision like a camera lens.

“Evah?" He whispered.

No response.

Inside, Eve was fast asleep. The temperature in the pod had dropped low enough to frost the inside of the glass. Her silhouette was barely visible beyond the condensation.

“Mmmh...” Wally crouched, nervously tapping his fingers together. A nervous tick, or an itch? Gary couldn’t tell.

“What should we do?” The janitor muttered, clearly talking to himself more than anyone.

Then, he sprang up with a sudden grin. “I know! We can show our appreciation for her!”

Before Gary could ask, Wally darted towards the mangled remains of a car and yanked a shovel out from its rusted frame. He hoisted it like a sacred relic, then marched off towards the nearest compactor like a man with a mission.

“Come on!”

Gary let out a long breath and rubbed his temples.

Wally was a lost cause.

But damn it... he was an adorable one.

They took turns standing watch through the night, their boots crunching softly over shattered asphalt and dust-coated glass. Gary didn’t sleep much. He never did too well. Wally, however, managed to snore contentedly for at least three hours, curled beside Bullet like a loyal, overgrown pup.

By the time dawn broke through the smog-choked sky, staining it an industrial shade of orange, the pod hissed.

With a soft mechanical wheeze, Eve stirred.

The young scout emerged slowly, blinking against the light as she stretched. Her joints cracked faintly in the morning chill, each motion smooth and deliberate, until her eyes locked onto the hulking figure in front of her.

She froze.

Before her stood a crude sculpture, if it could be called that, made entirely of salvaged scrap. Tubing welded at odd angles formed a barely humanoid frame. It was spray-painted white, unevenly, and a mop had been affixed to the top in a vague simulation of her sleek hair. Two blue Christmas baubles dangled where eyes might be, eerily reflective in the light.

Eve tilted her head, staring at it for a long, silent moment.

And then she winced.

Gary watched from afar, arms crossed as she turned briskly away, muttering something under her breath that sounded suspiciously like “What the hell...” before she vanished behind a curtain of shattered concrete.

"Damn it." Wally muttered beside him, just loud enough for Gary to hear. The janitor gave the nearest pile of pipes a light, frustrated kick; a symbolic act of defiance that, of course, backfired spectacularly.

With an ominous clatter, the stack shifted. Gravity did the rest.

CRASH!

Steel pipes rained down with terrifying precision, knocking Wally off his feet and pinning him beneath a weight easily nearing a hundred pounds. His shriek echoed.

Gary had, wisely, already stepped aside. He stared down at the carnage with an expression best described as mild amusement, hands on his hips.

Then, without ceremony, he bent over, leaned in...

…and booped Wally on the nose.

“Don’t worry, buddy." He said with a grin. “You’ve got this. I believe in you.”

That, of course, was a lie. But Wally didn’t need to know that.

The janitor groaned under the weight, limbs flailing in slow motion like a squashed insect.

Still, despite the bruises, physical and emotional, there was something noble in the wreckage. Gary supposed this was what it meant to be human in the year 2805: building statues out of junk for people who didn’t understand them, hoping they’d see the beauty in the gesture.

He looked towards the horizon where Eve had disappeared.

She will come around.

Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow.

But the only way to reach the heart of the stars… was through sacrifice, rusted steel, and a love letter forged in the shape of a ridiculous, lopsided statue.

Chapter Text

Identified: Specimen Negative.

Eve had heard those cold, synthetic responses more times than she cared to count. The familiar voice of her holopad echoed with mechanical indifference, just as it always had during her reconnaissance missions.

She remembered the first time she was sent to a terrestrial world. The thrill, the hope, the illusion of freedom. The mission brief had promised discovery, purpose, even glory. As one of the privileged few authorized to leave the generation ships, she was chosen to seek out traces of life on distant, abandoned planets; from microbial growth to full ecosystems.

But she had found nothing.

Every year, a new star system. Every year, another barren, lifeless rock. It had become a cruel routine: chart a path, enter cryosleep, land, scan for life, report, return, repeat. At first, she treated them like joyrides through the stars. Worlds spinning beneath her, alien suns warming her suit. It felt like freedom. It wasn't.

Each 'Identified: Specimen Negative' was a small death to her dreams.

She slammed the hood of a rusted pickup truck shut, dust blooming into the air as the metal creaked. The scan yielded nothing, just like the last dozen. Her boots crunched over cracked asphalt as she moved towards an enclosed space, a port-a-potty. Bacteria might shelter there, shielded from the sun's fury.

She scanned.

Identified: Specimen Negative.

Of course.

Eve let out a sigh of exasperation and closed the flimsy door. The scanner hadn't picked up even the smallest microbial signature. She was beginning to feel like this entire mission had been a joke, a footnote in an already meaningless career.

Home—the Axiom—didn't feel like home either. Upon returning from these endless scouting missions, she would debrief useless data, undergo physical reconditioning, and then return to training. Again and again. The cycle was suffocating. The cryosleep left her skin raw and her mind disoriented. She worried it might even ruin her looks, her carefully maintained image among the crew. It certainly wasn't helping her feel alive.

Technically, she was twenty-four years old. But due to the repeated time spent in cryostasis, she was likely biologically younger. A fact that only reminded her how long she had been chasing nothing.

This mission, this directive, wasn't even important anymore. No one truly believed there was anything to find. After centuries of failed expeditions, scouting had been reduced to a box-ticking exercise. They now sent a single scout every five years. Just one. This year, they chose Earth. The irony wasn't lost on her.

The birthplace of humanity; a planet long-abandoned, presumed dead, and mostly forgotten. It was the last place anyone expected to yield results.

Eve had never seen Earth before. Raised on the Axiom, her world had always been sterile walls and artificial skies. She used to fantasize about escape, about skies without ceilings, about running in fields she'd only read about in archived literature. But this? This wasteland?

It was insultingly mundane.

She moved on to an old BnL replica of an Apollo capsule. Her scanner chimed.

Identified: Specimen Negative.

Her jaw clenched. She slammed the hatch closed with a sharp metallic clang.

Identified: Specimen Negative.

By late afternoon, her patience had disintegrated. In the cavernous belly of a decrepit BnL cargo vessel, she made one final scan.

Identified: Specimen Negative.

"Aaaagh!"

The scream tore from her throat before she could stop it. She slammed the cargo doors shut with enough force to echo across the surrounding ruins, then ripped her holopad from its dock and hurled it over the railing. It crashed against the dry, sunbaked earth far below.

She stormed off the ship in a blind fury, boots pounding against rusted metal. Her only thought was to retrieve her holopad and end this miserable day.

Behind her, unnoticed, something metallic shifted.

Before Eve could even register the sudden pull, a sharp tug yanked her backwards, her boots leaving the ground as if gravity itself had betrayed her. A magnetic thrum vibrated through her bones as she slammed against a large circular disk; an industrial cargo magnet still active on its rusted crane arm.

Her limbs snapped tight against the cold metal. She was pinned, spread out and immobilized by a force too powerful to resist.

"What the hell!?!" She shouted, her voice bouncing back from the steel around her.

It struck her a moment too late; her suit. The sleek, pale-blue bodysuit she wore was magnetized.

Of course. The nanofabricated ceramic gossamer, designed to be ultra-thin, smooth as Egyptian cotton, breathable and form-fitting for 'sporty aesthetics,' was also laced with metallic filaments for environmental protection. A marvel of Axiom engineering... until now.

Straining her neck, she tried to glance around for help, but the dead landscape only stared back at her in silence. She writhed, gritting her teeth, muscles twitching in frustration as she tried to peel herself off. Every motion was useless. Her boots clanged. Her thighs strained. Her back arched.

Still stuck.

"Of course the magnetic lift works after seven hundred years." She growled, eyes rolling.

She activated her antigravity servos. The whir of propulsion surged beneath her boots as she tried to create lift; maybe, just maybe, with enough force she could tear herself free.

She swung.

Once.

Twice.

The magnet held strong.

"Who the hell designed this crane to lift cargo but not let go of it!?!" She snarled, hair clinging to her face from sweat and exertion. Her thoughts spiraled into a flurry of profanity-laced curses aimed at every engineer in history.

Minutes passed. Her patience, already threadbare from the day’s repeated disappointments, snapped.

Enough.

She forced her right hand downwards, inching along her thigh towards the holster strapped to her leg. The plasma sidearm was still there, barely. But it, too, was magnetized. Her fingers strained against the resistance as she pried it loose, her joints aching.

The barrel groaned as she aimed it upwards, setting the charge to low power; just enough to melt the mechanism, not blow her to pieces.

She took a breath.

Closed her eyes.

Pulled the trigger.

A concentrated stream of plasma hissed against the magnet's core. It glowed white-hot, then snapped with a shriek of shearing metal.

Her body dropped.

But she didn’t fall.

Her antigravity boots kicked in just in time, hovering her inches above the dusty floor. She touched down with a grunt, the smell of scorched steel still hanging in the air.

"Note to self..." She muttered, brushing herself off. "Never wear fashionable body armor near derilict Earth cranes."

She looked up at the smoking remains of the magnet, then down at her rifle, and let out a breath.

At least now, the day couldn't possibly get worse.

Right?

At least she didn’t blow up the entire ship this time.

Gary cocked an eyebrow as he took in the smoking remains of the magnet. The warped disk still hung limply from the cargo crane above like a wounded beast. Guess all that military-grade poise and discipline paid off. She hadn't lost it; just enough fire to melt the problem and walk away from it. Efficient. Controlled. Dangerous.

He glanced to his right.

Wally was crouched beside him, silent, eyes wide in admiration as Eve stood a few meters away, seemingly unaware of her silent audience. She had her face buried in her hands, breathing heavily; whether in exhaustion or frustration, Gary couldn’t tell. The day had clearly worn her thin.

Her datapad lay discarded on the cracked asphalt just ahead of them, the screen faintly flickering in the rising dusk.

The sun was setting now. Golden light spilled across the jagged skyline, draping the ruins of Earth in a strangely nostalgic hue. This, Gary remembered, was supposed to be a pivotal moment for the duo. Back in the original sequence, they were meant to meet for the first time here; by the wreckage of a magnet and a hard fall.

But the timeline had shifted. They’d already met in the supermarket.

So what now?

He elbowed Wallace in the ribs, breaking the man out of his trance.

“Psst. This is your chance, lover boy.” He whispered. “Grab her datapad. Walk up to her, introduce yourself again, casually. Some friendly banter, then hand it over. Let her see you’re useful and harmless. Bonus points if you make her smile.”

Wally immediately resumed his tick, nervously tapping his fingers together. “I-I dunno, Gary… What if she’s still mad? What if she shoots me?”

Gary gave him a look. “Her? Please.” He scoffed. “She’s not gonna shoot you. Worst-case scenario, she’ll ignore you, which, let’s be honest, you’re used to by now.”

“That’s not fair—!”

“I’m not here to be fair, Wally. I’m here to wingman you to victory. You said you wanted my help, right?” He gestured dramatically to the datapad. “Well, there’s your starting line. Go play hero.”

Wally blinked down at the flickering tablet, then back at Eve, who was still rubbing her temples like the day had personally insulted her. He swallowed hard.

“…You think she’ll like me enough to… you know… go on a date? I think it's called that, at least."

Gary froze.

Fucking hell. Forgot where he’s from.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Alright, buddy, quick crash course: a date is when a girl and a guy who like each other decide to spend time together. They talk, they laugh, maybe eat something, maybe hold hands.” He paused, then raised his eyebrows suggestively. “If things go well, it might even end with a kiss.”

Wally’s face lit up like a malfunctioning light bulb.

“A k-k-kiss?!?"

Gary wiggled his eyebrows again. “Smoochy-smoochy. Lip-to-lip action. You know, the stuff from the romance tapes you probably kept in those toaster boxes.”

“Gaaaryyyyyy!” The janitor whined, burying his burning face in his hands.

Gary chuckled, slapping him on the back. “Joking! Kinda. But seriously, go try. You’ve got nothing to lose and possibly everything to gain.”

Wally looked back at Eve, her figure silhouetted against the last rays of the sun, and nodded with the kind of shaky courage only a fool or a romantic could summon.

“…Okay. I’ll do it.”

Eve sat motionless, her face buried deep in her hands, shoulders rising and falling with the weight of her frustration. Her energy had been spent, poured violently into that magnet, into every breath of anger, every desperate scan. Now, with the rage gone, only exhaustion remained.

Her eyes prickled, burning faintly; whether from tears, fatigue, or both, she wasn’t sure. Part of her wanted to scream again, to fly as far as her boots could take her, to escape into the clouds and leave everything behind; the directives, the meaningless readouts, the hollow promises of discovery. But she couldn't. Not because of lack of power or capacity, but because something inside her had simply… shut off.

She felt like breaking.

For the first time in her life, Eve felt true hatred for her job. Not frustration. Not disillusionment. Hatred.

She cursed every barren rock they’d ever sent her to scan. Every dead world, every empty atmosphere, every sterile lakebed. She cursed the clipboard-holding cowards who sat comfortably aboard the Axiom, issuing orders they’d never have to follow. She even cursed herself, for believing that any of this was ever going to make her feel alive.

What had she really wanted? Glory? Recognition? Freedom? All of it had been a lie wrapped in polished metal and protocol. And now, after days of dragging her soul through the ghost of Earth, she was left with nothing but an aching back, a cracked datapad, and the wish... no, the need to disappear.

She didn't want to respond. To anyone. Not now.

She just wanted to go home.

No… she wanted to go anywhere but home. Home was a cryochamber and a checklist. Home was a hallway of sterile white and repeating conversations. Home was another form of prison. And for the first time, Eve wished with her entire being that she could fly away from it all. No destination. No purpose. Just gone.

Then—

A sound.

Soft. Cautious. Deliberate.

Slow footsteps padded gently to her left. Her HUD, still running on low-energy sensors, immediately pinged the biometric signature: Wallace Burtt. The janitor. The garbage man who had been shadowing her since the supermarket.

Wally.

She sighed silently, not even bothering to lift her head.

Of course it’s him.

The audio overlay in her visor continued to track the movement, precise but hesitant, almost apologetic. He wasn’t trying to sneak up on her. If anything, he was trying not to startle her. That… was oddly considerate.

Still, a flicker of annoyance surfaced in her gut. Where was the other one?

Gary Sanderson.

Now he at least had some tact. She thought. Out of the two, he’d proven himself to be more mature, more grounded, and less of a wildcard. His sarcasm bordered on infuriating at times, but he understood social nuance in a way that Eve found… reassuring.

Not that Wally didn’t have his own charm. There was something oddly endearing about his jittery devotion, his eagerness to help, his weird little rituals with his fingers. But it wasn’t what she was used to. And after a day like today, Eve craved something simple, familiar; something resembling normalcy.

Even if normalcy had never really existed out here.

She heard another sound; quiet, cautious. A subtle rustle of fabric brushing against cracked asphalt.

The garbage collector was no more than ten feet away, seated awkwardly at her side. He wasn’t looking directly at her, but she could feel the nervous energy radiating from him. He shifted his weight every few seconds, tapping and fidgeting with his fingers, a soft, off-key whistle escaping his lips as though trying to fill the silence with anything but words.

Eve didn’t react. She didn’t even look at him.

He seemed harmless enough.

Yet even as she sat in silence, something about the man next to her stirred within her thoughts. His presence was persistent, not just physically, but emotionally. He lingered on the edges of her focus, drawing her attention even when she tried to tune him out.

She recalled their first encounter vividly; how close she’d come to vaporizing him and the other one, Gary, right there in that supermarket. Her instincts had overruled reason, thinking them threats. And yet… they hadn’t been. There had been no weapons, no signs of aggression. Just two strangers. Especially Wally, wide-eyed, curious, and entirely vulnerable.

She remembered his eyes most of all.

He’d looked at her not with suspicion or fear, but with something softer, something deeply human. There was loneliness in those eyes. A kind of wordless yearning. He had followed her like a stray, not out of obsession, but because something in her gave him hope.

But that wasn’t what unsettled her most.

What bothered her was the impossibility of it.

Nothing was supposed to have survived here. According to her briefing, all Buy N' Large settlements had failed centuries ago. The Earth was long-declared lifeless, its ecosystem beyond recovery, its atmosphere toxic, and its last cities drowned in entropy. Every recon team sent in the past 695 years had returned empty-handed, reporting no signs of human survival. Not a single one.

And yet here he was.

Breathing.

Talking.

Living.

And then there was Gary, the self-appointed Sergeant with a soldier’s posture and a scavenger’s insight. He had spoken of factions,  of gangs and wandering bands competing for salvage and survival. He’d told her how he’d crossed what remained of the Canadian border. How he had seen things—endured things—that shouldn’t be possible on a dead planet.

But if even one human could survive, let alone dozens… then something else had to be surviving with them.

Eve blinked.

Her frustration gave way to curiosity, and then, for the first time in days, to hope.

Because where there were humans, there had to be water. Shelter. Heat. Food.

And if food existed, then the planet was no longer sterile.

If something grew… if anything grew, even a single plant…

Her directive could be fulfilled.

They might just hold the key she’d been missing all along.

Wally wasn’t the obstacle. He might be the breakthrough.

He and Gary were the only elements in her entire sweep of Sector NA-001 that she hadn’t fully explored. She had scanned ruins, soil, wreckage, husks of ships and shacks alike. But she hadn’t stopped to consider that maybe the answers weren’t in the tech or the terrain… but in the people.

If any groups of humans had adapted, even at the fringes of extinction, then the ecosystem had to have evolved too; however fragile it might be.

And where life clings to survival, plants are never far behind.

Eve turned her head slightly, just enough to glimpse Wally out of the corner of her eye.

Maybe it was time to stop shutting him out.

"You can do this." Wally muttered under his breath, voice barely audible over the faint crackling of fire ahead. He repeated it like a mantra, trying to still the nervous flutter coiling tighter in his stomach with every breath.

Just a few paces back, Gary stood like a silent monument, arms crossed, his expression half-smirk, half-hopeful. The Sergeant gave him a small, reassuring nod and a thumbs-up that managed to say more than words could: You're not alone. Go.

Wally gave him the faintest nod in return.

He was just over a meter away from her now. Close enough to reach out if he dared, but still far enough that it felt like an entire gulf stretched between them. Eve hadn’t acknowledged him yet, not directly, but he knew she was aware. She hadn’t left. She hadn’t lashed out. She hadn’t drawn her weapon or threatened him in any way.

That alone felt like a small miracle.

He didn’t know whether to feel comforted by her silence… or more terrified because of it.

The scorched husks of ancient cargo vessels loomed before them like rusted tombs, orange flames flickering inside their twisted frames. The air carried the scent of burnt rubber, dry earth, and oxidized metal ; the breath of a planet choking on its own bones. Yet, in the desolation, there was something oddly calming in the firelight. Shadows danced along the edges of Eve’s suit, catching the white shimmer of her nanofabric in brief flickers.

Wally sat there, awkwardly, trying to still his fingers from fidgeting. He didn’t want to seem jittery. Or weak. Or like a complete idiot.

But the silence stretched on like a taut wire, and he knew he had to say something, anything,  before the moment passed entirely.

He cleared his throat.

Nothing came out.

For half a second, his mind went completely blank. Whatever clever line or warm introduction he had rehearsed just minutes ago had been swept away like dust in the wind. But he had to say something. He would say something. No matter how stupid it sounded.

He opened his mouth and took the plunge.

“So, what’s your story?” The woman asked, her voice breaking the silence like the gentle ripple of water over still glass. She turned her head to face him fully.

“Ah!” Wally yelped, practically leaping from the ground at the sound of her voice. Her sudden attention sent him into a brief panic, and he toppled backward onto the cracked pavement. Eyes clenched shut, he braced for the worst; a plasma bolt, a slap, or even a scolding.

But none came.

Instead, her voice reached him again, this time even softer.

“It’s alright, it’s alright..." She said, calmly and without edge. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

That... wasn’t what he had expected.

Wally opened one eye, then the other, slowly coming to terms with the fact that he was not, in fact, dead or disintegrated. Blinking, he sat up with a cautious grunt, brushing the dust off his sleeves. When he finally looked up, she was still watching him, eyes patient, and posture open. She didn’t look annoyed or threatening. She simply waited.

And now, without Gary to nudge him forward or whisper instructions like a wingman in his ear, Wally found himself facing her alone. It was his moment, his choice to either speak or stay silent.

She had piercing blue eyes, calm and steady like the frozen skies of a long-forgotten winter. And they were locked on him, unblinking, expectant. Somehow, that made it both harder and easier to respond.

“You’re very jittery, aren’t you?” She observed, a faint note of amusement curling in her tone. It wasn’t mocking. In fact, there was something almost playful in it, like watching a small animal try to puff itself up in front of a giant.

She’s talking to me. Wally thought, his heart skipping a beat. She’s actually talking to me!

“Directive?” She asked, tilting her head slightly. Her voice remained gentle.

He blinked. “Uuh… Huh?”

She smiled a little, lips curving faintly. “You’re a garbage collector, yes?”

“Oh!” His eyes widened in sudden understanding. “Uh… y-yes, yes I am!” He stammered, nodding a bit too enthusiastically. He swallowed hard. “Officially sanctioned… I think.”

Eve very nearly giggled -- it threatened at the edge of her composure -- but she managed to mask it with a small breath through her nose. His voice had an unexpectedly high pitch for a man his size, not childish, but shaped by years of yelling over engines and coughing through smog. There was a hoarseness to it, rough like sandpaper, yet oddly endearing.

Gary’s advice echoed through Wally’s mind:

“Walk up to her, introduce yourself again, casually. Some friendly banter, then hand it over. Let her see you’re useful and harmless. Bonus points if you make her smile.”

He had to impress her. Show her what he could do.

His eyes shifted to a nearby pile of trash stacked beside the rusted skeleton of a defunct compactor. He glanced between it and Eve. An idea lit up in his brain like a flickering bulb.

He gripped his shovel with both hands, sprang to his feet, and approached the pile with exaggerated confidence, too exaggerated, really, like a performer stepping onto a grand stage.

With comical speed, he scooped up armfuls of debris and dumped them into the gaping mouth of the broken compactor. The machine groaned and wheezed like it hadn’t been touched in decades, rusted gears grinding in protest as it reluctantly activated. Sparks flew. Something popped.

And then,  with a final, mechanical grunt, the compactor spat out a pitiful excuse for a garbage cube. It rolled out, tumbled once… and collapsed on the spot in a clatter of loose wires, soda cans, and something that may have once been a BnL toaster.

Wally stepped back, grinning nervously. “Uuh… Ta-da!” He said, raising both arms in triumph like a magician who had just pulled a rabbit out of a very dirty hat.

Eve blinked.

Then, surprisingly, her eyes lit up in mild amazement, as though she'd just witnessed something strange and oddly fascinating. “Oh…” She murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. “You… compressed trash into a cube.”

She sounded like she’d never seen that done before.

Wally's grin widened, proud and sheepish at the same time. “Yep." He said, puffing his chest slightly. “Classic janitorial technique.”

The cube crumbled behind him with a quiet, metallic clink.

Wally’s cheeks flushed a deep crimson as he glanced at the crumbled garbage cube behind him. Embarrassment crept up his neck, but before he could spiral into another nervous fit, he heard it; soft, breathy, unmistakable.

A giggle.

He turned to look at her, stunned. Eve had raised an eyebrow, one corner of her lips tugging upwards in quiet amusement. And to his complete amazement, she shuffled a little closer to him, closing the distance with a casual shrug of her shoulders.

“Not getting your job done makes things boring." She said, her tone light and sarcastically resigned. She rolled her eyes and exhaled like someone tired of waiting on the universe to cooperate. “I’ve been combing this wasteland trying to complete my directive since the day I arrived.”

She blinked, then added quickly, “Oh—and, uh… sorry if I tried to shoot you. Twice.”

Wally’s eyes widened.

Eve winced at her own words, rubbing the back of her neck with a sheepish look. “Protocol dictates not to let anything interfere with the mission."iShe explained. “In a broken world like this one, it’s easier to shoot first and ask questions later.” Her voice grew distant at the end, thoughtful, maybe even regretful.

Wally swallowed, then mustered the courage to speak. “A-and… what’s your directive?”

She pursed her lips, tilting her head slightly. “Mmm… that’s classified.”

“Oh…” His shoulders slumped in disappointment.

“But!” Her voice lifted again, melodic and warm.

Wally looked up.

“You and your friend..." She said, a genuine smile spreading across her face. “...you could help me. I don’t think my superiors would mind if I bent the rules… without exactly breaking them.”

Her crystalline gaze sparkled faintly in the firelight. “Would you like to? It’s not like you have anything better to do.”

The offer struck him like a lightning bolt of joy.

“Y-yeah!” He blurted, his voice cracking slightly with excitement. “Yes! I--I’d love to!”

He could hardly believe his luck. She wanted his help. Him; Wallace Burtt, janitor of trash heaps and forgotten places. For the first time in what felt like years, he wasn’t being overlooked, ignored, or simply dismissed. He had something to offer, something meaningful.

Gary’s gonna flip. He thought with a giddy grin. He’d have to gift him one of his best relics in gratitude; maybe the BnL platinum-grade multitool, or the old solar compass with the cracked display.

The Sergeant had turned his life upside down in the best possible way since they’d met. And now, somehow, things were getting even better.

“Soooo…”

The two looked up.

Standing just a few paces away, hands buried deep in the pockets of his well-worn green raincoat, stood Gary Sanderson. His frame was relaxed, but the glint in his eyes betrayed a hint of curiosity, and perhaps amusement. He rocked on his heels, glancing between them with the smug air of someone who had seen enough to be satisfied, yet still wanted the full story.

“How’s it hangin’?” He asked, lifting his brows in a shrug. “I needed to talk to Wally, but I didn’t wanna interrupt.”

Wally turned, beaming a proud and slightly bashful grin, ready to speak.

But, once again, Eve beat him to it. “It’s all good, Gary." She replied smoothly, the cadence of her voice now calm and composed. “I was just perpetuating a request for help to Wally. He accepted. So I was thinking of finding you to extend the same.”

Gary tilted his head. “What’s up?”

“I may require assistance in executing my directive.” She explained, her tone crisp and firm. “While I’m unauthorized to disclose the specifics, I will not—cannot—return home empty-handed. Not when this may be our first true opportunity for successful retrieval.”

“You want us to help you scavenge for stuff? Sure.” Gary said, with the indifference of a man who had survived enough to not be fazed by much. He rubbed the back of his head, then turned towards Wally, his voice dropping slightly. “There might be a problem though, buddy.”

Wally followed his gaze, looking just past Eve.

The winds were beginning to howl from the east, pulling with them a fine mist of sand. But further out, low on the horizon, a dark, thunderous wall of dust surged towards them. A sandstorm. Fast and full of fury.

And it was nearly on top of them.

“Oh no.” Wally’s voice dropped as panic set in. His mind raced. The truck, his sanctuary, was a full kilometer away, and judging from the storm’s breakneck speed, they had less than a minute. Maybe less.

“Evah! We need to go!” He shouted, moving to grab her arm.

“Woah! Don’t touch me!” Eve said sharply, instinctively pushing him away, though her hand wasn’t cruel, just cautious. Her visor scanned him with suspicion, but she hadn’t drawn her rifle. That was a start.

“Evah, look! There’s a storm coming!” He cried, pointing frantically past her.

Gary was already moving. With grim resolve, he marched towards them and grabbed Wally’s hand with iron grip. The Sergeant took a steadying breath and widened his stance, preparing for the impact.

It was a soldier’s instinct: form a human chain or get scattered.

Eve turned, and then the storm hit.

The world vanished.

A roaring howl exploded around them, drowning every word, extinguishing the fires of the ruined freighters, and swallowing the sky in ochre death. Eve staggered, her HUD flaring with static as the violent gusts buffeted her suit. The sand needled her exposed joints and slashed through visibility like a curtain of knives. For the first time since arriving on this planet, she felt something terrifying:

Helplessness.

“WALLY! GARY! WHERE ARE YOU?” She cried, voice cracking as her footing faltered.

No answer.

The noise was overwhelming. The static in her helmet screamed, and the thick wall of sand blinded her completely. She was lost; no shelter, no direction, and no time. Her mind screamed protocol, safety, escape, but nothing applied anymore. She was a ghost in the storm.

Then—contact.

A hand, rough, gloved, human, latched onto her wrist like a lifeline.

Her breath hitched.

She couldn’t see him, but she knew.

“Evah!” Wally’s voice cracked through the gale, raw and loud. He was still there. He hadn’t run. He hadn’t left.

And she was going to live.

Through the swirling chaos, his shadow formed in the dust, solid and real. Beside him came the outline of Gary, his frame bulkier, his movements confident.

“THE TRUCK IS THIS WAY!" Gary bellowed, securing his UV goggles over his eyes as sand whipped around them.

“FORM A CHAIN! DON’T LET GO!” He ordered. “I’LL LEAD YOU OUT!”

Eve’s breath came in shallow gasps, but she nodded. She could barely see, barely move, but she clung tight. No more second-guessing. No more standing still.

She grasped Wally’s hand with both of hers, grounding herself.

“DON’T LET GO!” He called again, his voice stronger this time, brimming with something fierce and loyal.

And so they moved together; three specks in a storm-wracked world, a human chain cutting through a sea of oblivion, bound not by directives or rank, but by something far older and far stronger:

Trust.

The wasteland howled around them, but they did not break.

Chapter Text

At last, through the blinding torrent of dust and howling wind, the jagged silhouette of the truck emerged like a phantom on the horizon. Its rusted edges flickered against the backdrop of chaos, half-swallowed by the swirling grit of the wasteland. Wally squinted through his sand-caked goggles, his arm outstretched, fingers still locked around Eve’s, while Gary led the chain with unwavering focus.

Navigating in the midst of a sandstorm with wind speeds nearing one hundred and fifty kilometers per hour was nothing short of suicidal. Each step forward was a battle of willpower: boots dragged through dragging grit, lungs burning, muscles aching. But the chain held. Against all odds, it held.

The Sergeant lunged towards the access panel embedded in the side of the vehicle, shielded by the warped skeleton of a shipping container. With a gloved hand, he slammed the release button.

A hydraulic hiss burst through the storm’s shriek as the massive rear hatch began to unfurl, slow and stubborn from age and disrepair. The doors groaned, then parted like the jaws of some slumbering beast awakening from rust-bound sleep.

Wally kept shouting. “Evah? Evah, you still with me? Just a few more steps!”

“I’m here!” She shouted back, her voice firm despite the wind tearing at the sound. “I’ve got you!”

She gripped his arm with more conviction than she expected. Wally, in his panic, hadn’t noticed how tightly she held on, nor did he see the way her eyes lingered on the Sergeant ahead, measuring him. There was trust now. Tentative, fragile... but real.

Once all three had stumbled through the threshold, Gary slammed his fist against the interior controls, forcing the massive doors to reverse course. The grinding motors strained, then finally clamped the seal shut with a thunderous clang that echoed through the hollow truck.

Silence... broken only by the distant wailing wind outside.

Gary collapsed onto the cold, grated floor, his back thudding against the wall as he slid down with a grunt. He yanked back the hood of his poncho and coughed violently, each breath a tortured rasp. He spat a thick clump of dust to the side, wiped his face with a grimy sleeve, and leaned his head back, eyes closed. Finally, his lungs were free from the storm’s siege.

Wally fared no better. The janitor dropped to his knees, hacking and wheezing as he beat a fist against his chest. He spat sand, grains clinging to his lips and nose, before doubling over, dry heaving from inhaling far too much particulate.

Eve remained upright.

She crouched between them with clinical precision, activating a slim device embedded in her forearm plate. Her visor lit up in pale blue circuitry, casting a glow against the dim metal interior as she waved the scanner across each of them in turn.

Gary blinked through his haze. “Ugh... do I look dead?”

“Pulse elevated, minor lacerations on your brow, elevated lung particulate levels.” Eve responded flatly. “But no, not dead.”

“Lovely.” He muttered, resting his head against the steel wall again.

Wally let out a final choking cough and sat back, breathing heavily through his mouth, sand crunching between his teeth. “T-thank you." He wheezed, eyes half-lidded with exhaustion. “That... was a close one.”

Eve’s scanner clicked softly as it passed in front of him. She arched an eyebrow. “Your lungs are borderline critical. You shouldn’t have been out in that.”

“I didn’t really have a choice.” He said with a sheepish grin. “Didn’t wanna lose ya.”

She tilted her head ever so slightly. “You wouldn’t have.”

Then, for the first time in the entire ordeal, Eve let herself exhale, long and steady. Her visor retracted with a hydraulic sigh, revealing her face flushed with heat and fatigue, though still composed. A fine sheen of sweat clung to her brow, and stray strands of dark hair curled at her temple. She blinked, eyes adjusting to the truck’s dim interior lighting.

“Your filtration system?” Gary asked, still catching his breath.

“Military-grade." She replied, as if that explained everything. “Capable of neutralizing seventy-three environmental toxins and filtering airborne particles under 0.03 microns.”

“Great.” Gary rasped. “Maybe you should’ve led us.”

“I didn’t know you were so fragile.” She replied dryly, but a corner of her mouth curved upwards in the subtlest smirk.

Outside, the storm howled like a wounded beast, battering the metal shell with enough force to make the walls tremble. But inside, there was calm.

They had made it.

Eve turned her gaze towards the dim interior of the truck, eyes narrowing slightly as they adjusted to the darkness. “Where are we?” She asked, her voice a blend of curiosity and quiet suspicion, the low hum of the sealed vehicle amplifying her words in the confined space.

Gary pushed himself off the floor with a grunt, joints cracking as he rose. He leaned forward to wipe the thick coat of dust and grime from his dark WALL-E maintenance trousers, which peeked out from beneath his tattered green raincoat. A few stubborn flecks clung to the fabric, defiant even against his calloused hands.

“Hold on.” Wally called softly, already shuffling into the shadows like a practiced phantom. “Let me get some light.”

He navigated with instinctual familiarity through the maze of salvaged debris until he reached a small crate filled with corroded power cells. With a bit of fumbling, he located the thick, twined cables that led to a jury-rigged set of transformers wired into the truck’s ceiling. He gave the cable a firm clamp into its terminal.

A flicker. Then a cascade.

The Christmas lights came alive all at once: tiny bulbs glowing in a rainbow of colors, bathing the interior in soft reds, warm golds, icy blues, and blinking greens. Some flickered inconsistently, others shone steadily, but together they illuminated the truck like a makeshift cathedral built from discarded dreams. Light danced over the metallic walls and the chaotic collection of old-world relics that filled every available surface.

Eve’s mouth parted slightly, her expression overtaken by wonder. Her body relaxed, the rigidity of her military posture softening as she stepped forward. She began to glide down the central aisle between heaps of carefully organized trash-turned-treasure, her boots making almost no sound on the steel floor.

Her eyes reflected the light; curious, childlike, unblinking.

It was a realm of forgotten humanity: worn teddy bears propped against rusted helmets, old radios blinking to static life, vinyl records warped into flower-like curls from heat, rows of worn books and VHS tapes stacked in gravity-defying formations. Each item carried a silent story, and the place breathed with nostalgia.

“What is this place?” She asked, not so much expecting an answer as simply voicing the question aloud.

Wally stepped beside her, arms spread wide with pride like a showman unveiling his life's work. “This is our home.” He declared, his voice bright and unapologetic. He turned and motioned enthusiastically for Gary to join them. “Come on, don’t be shy.”

Gary raised an eyebrow, scoffing under his breath. “Show-off." He muttered, but stepped forward anyway.

He stopped beside Wally, arms crossed...

...then, with no warning, snatched the janitor into a headlock and proceeded to dig his knuckles in rhythmic circles across the top of his dusty head.

Wally yelped, voice high-pitched and muffled. “Ow—ow—hey! Gary!”

“It’s his home." Gary corrected, smirking as he released the younger man, who stumbled free and began rubbing his scalp. “I just let him drag me here. Free meals, solid walls, and scavenged coffee when we’re lucky? I’m not dumb. I’m milking this situation for all the favours I can."

Eve watched the two of them with silent amusement. The display of camaraderie, clumsy, earnest, and a little absurd, was wholly unfamiliar and oddly endearing. There was a rhythm to their banter, a sibling-like connection clearly forged from mutual survival.

Her gaze moved again across the truck’s interior, zeroing in on a small area cordoned off by stacked crates and faded military blankets. There, she saw a battered television screen still running, its looping tape showing fragments of forgotten animation. The colours flickered weakly, but the image was intact. Nearby, a dog bed sat neatly in one corner, a chew toy tucked underneath. 

The mutt that inhabited was watching her closely, cutely tilting his head and panting.

Her eyes climbed to the metal rungs of a makeshift bunk bed: two levels fashioned from old shipping pallets and scavenged cushions. It wasn’t elegant, but it was functional, lived-in.

“Is this your… living quarters?” Eve asked carefully, tone unsure. She turned slightly to face them both, as if trying to decode the nature of what she was seeing.

Wally nodded enthusiastically, finally shaking off the head rub. “Yes! It’s not much, I know, but we make it work.” He pointed upwards at a patch of wiring that fed into the ceiling. “We’ve got solar panels mounted on the roof. They’re vital, not just for the lights, but for recharging our gear, regulating temperature, and…”

He tapped the rectangular casing secured over his left chest, right above his heart. A soft yellow-ish glow pulsed from three horizontal bars across its surface.

“…my pacemaker.”

Eve’s gaze narrowed slightly, her expression darkening for a brief second. “You’re enhanced?”

“No, no.” Wally quickly added, waving a hand. “Not like that. It's just... I was born with a heart defect. If I don’t recharge every couple days, it shuts down.” He laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “Nothing fancy, just barely enough to keep me ticking.”

Gary cut in, his tone more serious. “We take turns watching the charge cycles. No one's allowed to skip. Especially him.”

Eve looked between the two of them again. There was still much she didn’t know, many questions she hadn’t asked. Visibly, she was thinking about something specific.

She jumped at the sudden sound; a garbled melody crooning from a mounted object on the wall. It was shaped like a fish, and it sang.

“WHOA!” Eve yelped, reflexively drawing her plasma rifle and snapping it to aim. The glowing blue core lit up as her finger brushed the trigger.

Wally, hearing the sound and recognizing the tone of alarm, spun around in panic. “Evah! Evah, it’s alright! It’s just a fish!” He shouted, hurrying towards her with raised hands, as if to pacify a wild animal.

But Eve wasn’t listening. The plastic fish began to move, its tail wagging, its head bobbing left and right in rhythm with the warbling song. Her stance shifted, legs braced, and she adjusted her aim, prepared to shoot.

“Ah! No, no, no! It’s okay!” Wally insisted, planting himself between her and the fish, his voice firm but calm. “It’s not going to hurt you, I promise.”

Her expression remained wary, but she glanced at him, eyes scanning for any sign of deception. After a long second, she exhaled, backing away from the fish with unease. Slowly, she holstered her weapon.

Wally sighed in profound relief. “Oh, good.”

“Uhh…” Gary scratched the back of his head, observing the scene from a few steps away. “Don’t y’all have decorations on the Axiom? These things were pretty common. They used to put them up in old shops… you know, to make ‘em feel less like hospitals.”

Eve shook her head, the movement sharp and decisive. “Anything used as decoration aboard the Axiom is digitized. Holographic signage and neon projections are standard. Physical ornaments are considered… inefficient.”

“Well..." Gary muttered, crossing his arms “...guess that explains your reaction to a plastic trout with rhythm.”

The moment passed, and Wally’s expression brightened again like a sunrise. He practically vibrated with energy as he slid between them, beaming with excitement.

“There’s so much I want to show you!” He exclaimed, rifling through the shelves and piles like a child in a toy store. With a triumphant grin, he turned and held out an old, rust-flecked eggbeater.

“Look!” He said eagerly, offering it to her.

Eve accepted the strange object, her eyes narrowing in curiosity. She turned it slowly in her gloved hands, examining the design. Her fingers found the knob, and she began twisting it, gently at first, then faster and faster.

Without warning, the beaters spun loose from the mechanism and clattered to the floor in opposite directions.

She gasped sharply, eyes wide with alarm.

Wally's ears perked at the sound. “What was that?”

Gary, who had been watching with barely disguised amusement, leaned in and whispered to her. “Hide it. Quick.”

“Um… nothing! Nothing at all!” Eve blurted, voice a little too high as she shoved the broken eggbeater behind her back.

Wally, oblivious, held up a sheet of bubble wrap like a prize. “Lookie here!” He said, popping one of the bubbles with a satisfying snap.

Eve flinched slightly at the noise, then tilted her head. It did look satisfying.

“You try!” He said, holding it out to her.

She hesitated, then took the sheet. With one tentative press, the bubble popped. Then another. And another.

Soon, she was giggling as she popped the bubbles in rapid succession, the childish joy replacing any lingering anxiety.

Gary chuckled. “There’s no practical use to that motion." He said, leaning against the wall. “My brother and I used to pop anything made of plastic just to hear the sound. Drove our parents nuts.”

Wally was already diving into another crate. He emerged holding a dusty lightbulb, which he gently placed into Eve’s open palm.

The moment her fingers closed around it, the bulb lit up.

“What the—?” Wally blinked in disbelief, snatching it back and tapping it. The glow faded. He handed it to her again, it lit up once more.

“How’d you do that?” He asked, eyes wide with wonder.

“I don’t know.” Eve replied, equally mystified. She stared at the glowing bulb in her hand. Apparently, the nanocircuitry of her suit transferred low-level energy to anything electronic she touched. The light felt warm and alive.

Wally gave a small shrug, chalking it up to more 'cool robot stuff' and continued rummaging. “Here!” He said with delight, holding up a slightly worn but intact Rubik’s cube. “You’ll love this.”

He handed it to her and then darted to the VCR to grab something else. But by the time he returned, with a battered cassette tape of Hello, Dolly! clutched in one hand, Eve was already holding the completed cube in her other, solved and perfectly aligned.

“Oh…” Wally said softly, completely stunned. “You’re smart. And fast.” He stared at the cube in silent reverence, unconsciously handing her the tape.

Gary stepped up beside him and clapped a hand on Wally’s shoulder. “Beautiful, deadly, and smart. You’ve hit the jackpot, tiger.” He smirked. “Now give her the datapad. You’ve still got it, right? Haven’t handed it over yet. Now’s your chance.”

But just as Wally opened his mouth to respond, Eve winced. “Oops.”

He turned sharply, and froze.

She held the cassette awkwardly in her hands, the magnetic tape now unspooled and dangling between her fingers.

“My tape!” Wally cried, nearly dropping the Rubik’s cube in panic. He grabbed it from her hands, eyes wide as he examined the damage. “Oh no, no, no…”

“I—I’m so sorry!” Eve stammered, her voice laced with genuine regret.

“It's okay… it's okay… I can fix this…” Wally mumbled, activating a built-in tool from his suit. A small flat-head rotary implement spun into motion, and with slow, deliberate care, he began rewinding the tape.

Once reassembled, he slid the cassette into the VCR and turned on the TV. A cloud of static filled the screen, and his heart pounded in dread.

Then, the image clicked into place.

The music began.

The screen lit up with golden hues as the actors on screen began dancing to Put On Your Sunday Clothes.

Wally sighed in immense relief, stepping back and clutching his chest as if he’d just defused a bomb.

Eve moved beside him and stared at the screen, silently watching the outdated choreography unfold.

“So...” He asked, watching her reaction carefully. “What do you think?”

“It looks… fascinating." She replied, her tone laced with awe. She lifted her hand to her earpiece, and a tiny camcorder emerged from the side, recording the scene. Her eyes didn’t blink as she absorbed every detail.

Wally smiled, the flickering light from the TV dancing across his face. For all the dust and chaos and danger they’d endured, in this moment, among broken things and singing fish, he felt something rare.

He suddenly jumped in excitement, dashing to the back of the truck and rummaging through a cluttered pile of discarded odds and ends. After a brief search, he retrieved something he had found earlier; a metal lid.

“Evah, look!” He called out, spinning around with glee.

Eve was met with an utterly adorable sight: Wally humming along with the film's musical number, the trash lid perched atop his head like a makeshift hat.

“…Put on your Sunday clothes, there’s lots of world out there…!”

His dancing was clumsy; stilted, unpracticed, and hilariously uncoordinated. But Eve couldn't help herself. She burst into giggles, her laughter ringing sweet and clear. He was just too endearing, especially when he moved with such heartfelt abandon.

At a distance, Gary had crouched beside Bullet, who leaned into the Sergeant’s hand with a pleased rumble. Gary scratched the mutt’s neck and gave a faint smirk, sensing the intimate moment building between the two young survivors. He had no intention of interrupting.

“Now you try." Wally encouraged, spinning to a stop and gesturing for her to join.

Eve blinked, unsure. “Okay…” She murmured, stepping forward with slight hesitation. She had danced before, but only in the weightlessness of the skies. Never like this. Never with someone.

Awkwardly, she mimicked Wally’s moves, her advanced systems aiding her balance and posture. The results were far from graceful, but undeniably charming.

Gary watched in silence. For once, Wally didn’t get sent flying across the room or have his optic cracked in the process. Instead, they danced like two curious children learning something new together.

When they finally stopped, Gary waved at Wally and mouthed silently: The datapad!

Wally’s eyes widened with realization. “H-here, Evah!” He chirped, perhaps a bit too loud, producing the device from his coat pocket. “This is yours!”

“Oh!” She said, pleasantly surprised as she retrieved the tablet. She flashed him a warm smile. “Thank you, Wally. I was afraid I’d have to replace it.”

He melted under her gaze, his brain practically overheating. Gary rolled his eyes but said nothing. Wally deserved this moment.

As Eve looked around for something new to explore, her gaze landed on a collection of small metallic objects lined up on a shelf. She picked one up curiously.

“That’s a lighter!” Wally explained as she sat down not far from him. “I just collect all the ones I can find. Gary kept one for himself. You open it like this, apply pressure, and, boom, fire!”

He mimed each action with exaggerated flair.

Eve flipped the top open and pressed the button. A small flame flickered to life. The two stared at it in silent wonder.

Wally felt the warmth from the flame… and from her.

He suddenly became aware of how close they were, closer than they'd ever been. She remained oblivious, focused on the gentle fire, her expression illuminated in its glow.

Gary watched from across the room, a faint smile playing at the corners of his lips. He remembered this part of the film well.

Wally’s eyes slowly dropped from her face to her hand; her delicate, fingerless-gloved left hand, resting limply on the sheet between them. Just centimeters from his own.

His heart pounded in his chest. He closed his eyes and reached forward with a trembling hand, anxiety causing his joints to rattle faintly. It felt like every system in his body was screaming. Those last few centimeters might as well have been a canyon.

And just as he was about to make contact—

“What are you doing?” Eve asked, confused, catching him mid-reach with his eyes still shut.

He yelped and jerked his hand back like he had touched a live wire. “Ah! Oh, um—uuuh, n-nothing, nothing at all! Yep! Just—just sitting!”

He fidgeted, practically folding in on himself, his earlier bravery completely shattered.

Eve gave him a strange look. “Uuh… okaaay." She muttered, clearly bewildered by his bizarre behavior.

But before she could dwell on it, the television caught her attention. “Ooh!” She gasped, eyes lighting up with curiosity as IOTAM continued to play.

Wally slumped slightly, mentally kicking himself. 

Gary casually sauntered up beside him and whispered. “If you feel indecisive, a gift might turn this around.” He nodded subtly. “What about the plant we found?”

Wally’s eyes lit up. “Wait... the plant!”

“Evah!” He called, turning her attention from the screen.

Gary leaned back against the far wall of the truck, arms crossed. He already knew how this would play out.

“We found something a few days ago. I want to show you!”

Gary’s brow furrowed. We? Even now, when trying to win the heart of a girl, Wally couldn’t just take the credit.

Wally rushed to a nearby shelving unit. But amid the clutter, he suddenly realized he had no idea which shelf it was on.

“Uh, one second!” He said as he frantically dug through bins and boxes. The chaos grew louder, until a drum fell from a top shelf and landed squarely on his head.

“OW!” He winced, stumbling backwards onto the drum as he fell.

Eve giggled softly at the ridiculous display. He really was adorably helpless, and yet, somehow, he had survived in this world. She glanced down at the lighter still in her hand, then back to the glowing screen of the movie. The two were strangely connected; light, warmth, memory.

“Found it!” Wally exclaimed, tapping her shoulder. She turned to see him holding up an old, dirtied shoe, and inside it, something small and green.

“Oh!” Her eyes widened as she leaned in to study the contents. “Wait a minute!”

She pulled out her holopad and scanned the object. Three pings sounded, followed by a pause as the system processed the results.

…

Identified: Specimen POSITIVE — Ailanthus altissima sprout — Biologically functioning.

Directive A1-01: Recon & Evaluate Positive Biological Lifeforms – Accomplished.

Initiate Directive A1-02: Return To Axiom Superior.

…

Suddenly, her expression froze.

Her mind was no longer hers.

An automated override surged through her neural implants, seizing her body and locking her consciousness behind digital walls. Her limbs twitched violently. A guttural, synthetic sound erupted from her throat, inhuman and chilling.

“Evah?!” Wally gasped, backing away in horror.

In a blur, the plant was snatched from his hands and sealed into a biospecimen container on her belt. Then she yanked out a cryopod cylinder from her back. It expanded automatically, adjusting to full size in an instant. Without hesitation, the pod encased her; a rush of cryogenic vapor swallowed her form as the mechanisms hissed and sealed tight.

CLUNK!

She dropped to the floor with a final thud. The only sign of life was the slow, steady pulse of green light beneath a plant-shaped insignia.

“Whoa…” Wally whispered, unable to believe what he had just seen.

Gary stepped forward, his expression darkening. “And so it begins.” He murmured, glancing at the pod. “This’ll be between you and me, Auto.”

Wally approached the pod, hands trembling. Eve was inside; frozen, motionless, locked in a state of suspended animation. Her expression was blank, her eyes shut, her hands clutched around the container as if holding onto a dream.

“Evah?” He called softly, tapping the surface.

No response.

He pressed his ear to the shell. Nothing.

“Evah?” He repeated, louder now.

Still nothing.

“E-E-EVAH!!” His cries echoed through the truck, carried by the roaring wind outside, bouncing against every surface.

But inside the cryopod, she remained silent and still...

...just like the day they both met her.

Chapter Text

The next few days passed like a hazy blur for Gary Sanderson. But for Wally, they must have felt like an eternity.

The young scavenger spent every waking moment either kneeling beside Eve’s cryopod or attempting to reverse-engineer its mechanisms with the desperation of a man trying to revive a fallen star. Whether he was patiently waiting for her to awaken or entertaining wild ideas of prying the pod open by force, his focus never once faltered. He was relentless, obsessively so.

Gary had seen devotion before, usually on the battlefield; men throwing themselves into the line of fire for brothers-in-arms, clinging to fragments of hope, chasing miracles. This? This was no different.

Wally had chosen to follow in the footsteps of his robotic counterpart, modeling his actions after the one who had once traversed a wasteland for love. Gary might’ve dismissed it as blind infatuation, the naive sort that vanishes like smoke in the wind. But this? This wasn't mere puppy love.

It was commitment. Real, soul-biting commitment.

And it scared Gary more than he cared to admit.

Every attempt Wally made to wake Eve ended in failure. The cryopod, a marvel of Axiom engineering, offered no compromise. It was sealed tight. No wires to cut, no panels to access, no weak points to exploit. Whatever command system had activated it, it had done so with absolute authority.

Wally had tried yelling. Then whispering. Then sobbing into the pod like a child begging a locked door to open. Gary had seen it all...

...from a respectful distance.

The soldier made sure to shadow Wally wherever he went, just in case the poor kid managed to hurt himself while attempting some impulsive stunt. He didn’t get in the way, though. That wasn’t his place. Most of the time, he kept to himself, whittling a chunk of metal with the old knife Wally had given him, occasionally flicking open the lighter and watching the flame flicker in the dim interior of the truck.

He had little else to do but observe. And what he saw gnawed at him.

The WALL-E unit — no, the boy, because that’s what he really was — had dropped everything for someone he'd known only days. He had built his entire routine around her, around hope. And Gary couldn't decide if that made him courageous or insane.

Probably both.

A part of him, the part that still remembered softness, remembered warmth, admired it.

“If I had someone like that." He muttered once under his breath. “I’d probably go just as far.”

But those days were long behind him. Love belonged to a different life. One that ended long before he’d fallen into this world.

Back home, everything had changed after his brother died. Everything. The Sanderson house stopped feeling like home the moment his parents shut down, too consumed by grief to even look him in the eyes. Conversations became exchanges of silence. Laughter disappeared. And all that remained was the ache; dull, permanent, echoing like a scar inside his chest.

There was no place for romance in that world.

No time to chase dreams of holding hands or dancing under the stars.

He wasn’t like Wally. He couldn’t afford to be.

Yet watching the boy now, desperate and hopeful, Gary couldn’t help but feel the tiniest flicker of envy. Even if it was painful, even if it was hopeless… Wally still felt. He still believed there was something worth fighting for.

And maybe… that was something worth respecting.

Still, Gary had nudged the trash collector towards his canon path more and more with each passing day; sometimes with subtle hints, other times with heavy-handed encouragement.

It had been Gary’s idea to set up the mock dinner date. A one-sided affair, tragically sweet, where Wally could pretend, just for a little while, that things were normal. That Eve could smile back. That she was there.

Gary even played the damn waiter.

He lit a dusty little candle between them, one of the waxy remnants they’d found in an abandoned church, and carefully plated their canned food, splitting it evenly onto two mismatched, dented trays. Beans, corn, and something he prayed wasn't meat. Didn't matter. The trash collector ate anyway.

Then, Gary stepped back and kept his distance, arms folded and expression unreadable, pretending to stare at the far wall of the shack. But he couldn’t stop watching. Not really.

He saw Wally sitting cross-legged across from the frozen pod, whispering softly through trembling lips. He shoveled food into his mouth, barely tasting it, all while murmuring promises. Half-confessions. Maybe even rehearsals for words he hoped to say one day...

...if that day ever came.

"I'll take care of you. I promise. You’ll be safe. You’ll be happy..."

Gary didn’t catch every word, but he didn’t need to.

He tugged the hood of his dark green poncho over his eyes, shielding himself from the growing damp. The shack’s tin roof offered little protection, and the weather was turning. Again, he’d read the skies like a seasoned scout: fat gray clouds bruising the horizon, their undersides flickering with silent lightning.

Rain finally came, soft at first, then in full, drenching bursts. Wally didn’t move. He sat there, completely soaked through, holding a cracked umbrella over Eve’s pod, shielding her from every drop.

Himself? He didn’t matter.

Gary sat above, legs dangling from the roof, watching silently through the sheets of rain. Water trickled down his sleeves and pooled in the creases of his gloves. The only exposed skin, his rough, scarred palms, rubbed together for warmth, fingers clenching and flexing with the cold.

He sighed. A long, weary exhale that came from somewhere deeper than just his lungs.

Sliding off the roof with a quiet grunt, Gary landed in a crouch and stood, his boots squelching slightly in the muddy earth. He approached slowly, not wanting to shatter the illusion Wally had so carefully built.

The boy didn’t notice him at first, too lost in his vigil.

Gary placed a steadying hand on his shoulder.

“You’re getting soaked, buddy." He said gently. “Why don’t we head back to the truck and call it a night? Eve’ll be safer there. All of us will.”

Wally hesitated, blinking as if coming out of a trance. He looked back at the pod, still hovering in its idle hum, rain tracing little rivers down its sealed glass.

Then, with a slow nod, he accepted the offer.

Together, they returned to the truck, the pod gliding behind them like a ghostly sentinel. Their mismatched shadows stretched long and lean in the light of a flickering lamppost, swallowed slowly by the storm.

That had been yesterday.

Now, Wally was taking a rare break from his ceaseless vigil. He sat by the entrance of the truck, legs hanging lazily over the edge, staring out into the horizon with his chin resting in his palm.

Eve’s cryopod rested on the roof above him, gently pulsing blue, as if asleep beneath a blanket of gray sky.

Gary, still inside, eyed his raincoat hanging from a rusted hook by the door. It had taken a beating the night before; soaked through, sticky with the humidity that clung to every surface like a second skin. But now, beneath the rising heat of the afternoon sun, the fabric had begun to stiffen and dry. The world might’ve been half-dead, but nature still remembered how to sweat.

He ran a hand along the inner lining: cracked, but still holding. It amazed him how something so simple could outlast an entire civilization.

Outside, the wind shifted.

Harsh and gritty. Unforgiving.

An earthquake resounded through the city, deep and thunderous, like the low groan of the Earth itself waking from a nightmare. The tremor snapped Gary Sanderson out of his thoughts. For a second, he couldn’t tell what was happening, his mind had drifted far, too far, until he noticed the flame of his lighter vanish in an instant. Snuffed out.

The wind.

It wasn’t just a tremor. The wind had accelerated unnaturally, howling through the empty corridors of the ruined city like a pack of wolves. Gary’s instincts prickled. Earthquakes didn’t cause winds this strong.

Something was wrong.

A sound reached him, a familiar one. It wasn’t the creaking of collapsing metal or falling buildings. No, it was more focused. More deliberate. A mechanical roar, and it came from the sky.

Wally heard it too.

His head jerked upwards, tracking the echo, his eyes wide with recognition. Then he saw it.

Rocket engines.

Fire and light streaked across the cloudy heavens, arcing towards them with unmistakable purpose. The trash collector’s face dropped, stunned, and then instantly shifted into pure alarm.

He recognized the ship.

Eve’s ship had returned.

“NO!” Wally shouted, his body springing upright like a compressed spring let loose.

Above them, the cargo bay on the ship’s side hissed open, and an automated crane extended toward the rooftop towards her. Towards the pod.

“EVAAAAH!” Wally screamed with all the desperation in his lungs.

Gary looked up just in time to see the robotic arm snatch Eve’s cryopod from its resting place. The pod hovered for a second, then was yanked into the open cargo bay like a caught prize. A torrent of wind and grit burst down through the broken ceiling panels of the truck, scattering everything not bolted to the floor.

Gary cursed and yanked down his WALL-E goggles, pulling them tightly over his eyes. He raised both arms across his face, shielding his nose and mouth from the flying dust.

Wally stared, panicked and breathless, glancing from the disappearing ship to the Sergeant as if silently asking: What do I do?

Gary gave him the faintest nod; a quick, sharp motion of the chin.

That was all Wally needed.

Without another word, he bolted, sprinting out of the truck and into the chaos. His limbs moved like pistons, pure purpose in every motion. The floating ship was already banking away, engines humming louder as it prepared to ascend.

Gary remained still for just a second more, his hand brushing against the fabric of his raincoat.

Then instinct kicked in.

In one swift movement, he snatched the dark green coat from its hook, threw it around his torso, and shoved his arms through the sleeves. The material stuck slightly to his skin, still a bit damp from yesterday’s downpour. He pulled the hood over his face, patted his side pockets — lighter, knife, still there — and ran after Wally.

The air around them thickened. The deep pulse of the engines began to shift. They were spinning up for takeoff.

A sharp, rising whine screamed through the wind.

Wally pushed harder, chasing the retreating craft into the outskirts, where shattered highways dipped towards the edge of a canyon. The dried-up skeleton of the Hudson River. He ran with wild, desperate energy, every step a gamble on crumbling ground.

And then… he saw the opportunity.

The cargo bay was still open, for a few more seconds at most. Eve’s pod had already vanished into the ship’s interior.

There was only one way in.

Wally had to jump.

Gary caught up just in time to see the other young man skid to a halt at the very edge of a rusted bridge. He peered down: a one-hundred-meter drop straight into the fractured riverbed. One false step would mean certain death.

No time for fear. No time for plans.

Wally turned, took three quick steps back, then charged with everything he had. His legs pumped like pistons. Gravel scattered underfoot. He reached the edge, and launched himself into the void.

For a moment, Gary thought he wouldn’t make it.

But he did.

Barely.

Wally’s hands slammed onto the cargo bay’s edge, fingers clawing at metal, and he scrambled his way inside just as the doors began to close.

Gary didn’t hesitate.

He clenched his jaw and ran, focusing his strength, calculating distance, angle, and timing. His boots struck the concrete hard with every stride. Army training took over. This was just another jump. Another breach. Another moment where hesitation meant death.

He leapt.

It was a clean, twenty-foot arc through the open air, cloak whipping around him like a war banner, and he hit the deck of the cargo bay in a crouch, just as the doors slammed shut behind him. The hiss of the pressure lock engaging echoed ominously in the sealed chamber.

Inside, everything fell silent except for the low mechanical hum and the rhythmic beeping of internal systems preparing for launch.

Gary rose slowly, his face still obscured by the hood’s shadow. His eyes scanned the cargo hold; metallic walls, sterile chrome floors, complex circuits built into every panel. The air felt different, artificial, and humming with power.

It was like stepping into a sci-fi novel brought to life.

In the official timeline, Gary knew, Wally had clung to the outside of the ship.

But not this time.

Inside the hold, Wally had already bolted for a ladder that led to the upper deck, where Eve’s pod had been stored.

“Evah!” He cried again, desperation cracking his voice.

He climbed fast, hands gripping each rung with almost reckless urgency. Gary followed more cautiously, keeping his distance, though he couldn’t help but raise a brow.

He had risked everything to follow Wally, and yet the young man had barely acknowledged him. Just like that, already forgotten in favour of a woman in stasis.

Figures.

Still, he kept climbing.

A sudden series of whirring, clicking, and metallic groaning filled the ship. Turbopumps surged to life. Fuel lines engaged.

Then, with a bone-rattling THOOM!, the rocket boosters ignited.

The entire ship rumbled violently, and a sudden shift in gravity reminded both men that they were no longer on solid ground. Gary’s muscles locked tight as he clung to the ladder, the metal vibrating beneath his gloves.

Wally, too, tightened his grip, bracing himself against the immense pressure.

And then, slowly, surely, the ship rose.

Though, Gary immediately regretted leaping aboard.

The G-forces hit him like a collapsing building.

He was no longer running on adrenaline or instinst. He was clinging to consciousness. The pressure crushing down on his body felt inhuman, brutal. Blood drained from his head with terrifying speed, tunneling his vision into a narrow, flickering funnel of black. His chest burned with the weight of his own ribcage, and his arms, the same arms braced against a violently shaking wall, felt like they were being ripped from their sockets.

Tendons strained. Muscles shrieked. And still he held on.

Beside him, the Sole Survivor fared no better. Wally’s fingers twitched as he fought for breath, his squat form curled into himself like a crumpled machine. His goggles had long since gone askew, and his expression twisted in silent agony. They were both being crushed under gravity’s relentless fist.

This was a mistake.

Gary couldn’t even spare a curse. But crawling, inch by inch, he spotted something in the chaos. Just beyond the trembling floor panels, nestled near a row of active scout pods, was another cryopod. Its smooth casing gleamed faintly in the dim emergency lighting. Unlike the rest, it was empty.

Beside it, Eve's pod blinked calmly in the half-darkness, a soft, pulsating green symbol in the shape of a leaf, casting an eerie glow.

Gary gritted his teeth.

He groaned as he pushed forward, pain lancing through every joint. With a herculean effort, he reached over, grabbed Wally by the shoulders, and began hauling him towards the open pod.

Each inch of movement felt like lifting a truck with bare hands.

It wasn’t exactly subtle or quiet, but it was working.

The Sergeant had no clue how most of this alien technology worked. He hadn’t trained for this in any boot camp. But strangely, it wasn’t incomprehensible. The interface had a simplicity to it, almost... friendly. Whether that was due to the highly accessible design of the humans in this world, or because the universe operated under the logic of a child-friendly narrative, Gary didn’t particularly care.

He’d take the win.

He found a control pad just beside the cryopod’s hinge. One press of a glowing glyph, and the container hissed open with a satisfying chhhkt, releasing a puff of cool air.

"Inside!" He barked, dragging Wally towards the pod’s mouth.

He wasn’t taking chances.

If they remained exposed, they’d be flagged by security systems within seconds. WALL-E could fool the other bots, but they couldn’t. At best, they'd be detained. At worst... well, Gary didn’t want to discover how a spaceship's AI handled stowaways.

But if they hid inside a pod, one tied to the scouts' retrieval system, they might just fly under the radar.

Wally didn’t resist. Whether from exhaustion or trust, he clambered into the cramped pod, and Gary followed, ducking inside just as the lid began to close.

He punched the interior lock.

With a pneumatic hiss, the door sealed shut, and the entire pod came alive with low light and soft humming. An onboard gravity stabilizer kicked in, evening out the pressure and restoring equilibrium. Finally, the crushing weight vanished. They could breathe again.

But the relief came with a price.

There wasn’t enough room.

Not even close.

The cryopod had been designed for one small scout unit, not two full-grown humans. Gary and Wally were crammed together like sardines in a can, their limbs tangled, their chests mashed, their cheeks practically fused.

And of course, that led to inevitable complaints.

"Move!" Gary grunted, trying to shift his knee.

"You move!" Wally retorted, his elbow digging into Gary’s ribs.

“Ow! Don’t touch me down there!”

“Sorry! That was your knee, right?”

“Nope.”

“Oh."

A tense pause. Then they both burst into stifled laughter, the kind that bubbled out when adrenaline finally started to fade.

Cramped as it was, the pod offered them a reprieve. Gravity normalized. The lights dimmed to a soothing level. The artificial air had a sterile, clean scent. They were no longer fighting the ship, nor being torn apart by acceleration.

For now… they were safe.

Daring a cautious glance through the viewport, a narrow, glass panel conveniently aligned with the rear section of the compartment, Gary caught sight of the fiery remnants still clinging to the ship's hull. Flames licked across the metal exterior, not from combustion, but as the final gasp of residual kinetic energy bleeding off after breaching Earth's atmosphere. The blaze crackled and shimmered for several heartbeats… and then vanished.

Replaced by silence.

Replaced by space.

The violent transition gave way to an almost sacred stillness, as the void outside swallowed all trace of the chaotic departure.

Though the curvature of the Earth wasn't visible from their position within the cramped pod, Gary imagined it was out there, just beyond their angle, beyond reach. If they wanted to see it in full, they'd have to unseal the pod and walk towalks the viewport. But neither of them was stupid enough to try. The soldier wasn’t about to play astronaut just because of a romantic impulse.

He didn’t know how this ship’s artificial gravity functioned, assuming it had one, and he wasn’t willing to find out the hard way. One wrong step in zero-G could end with them bouncing helplessly through the corridors of an alien vessel like ping-pong balls.

No thanks.

Still, Wally looked satisfied with what they could see. A childlike smile formed on his dust-smudged face, and he let out a long, awestruck whistle as the soft blue glow of Earth peeked faintly through the viewport’s edge.

“It’s… beautiful.” He murmured, wonder dripping from every syllable.

And it was. Even from this limited vantage, a sliver of Earth’s curvature shimmered in the dark; a radiant blue crescent wrapped in wisps of white clouds, like a marble nestled in ink. It looked alive, untouched, perfect from a distance.

Gary couldn’t help but smirk.

“In your face, flat-Earthers.” He muttered under his breath.

But the awe didn’t last.

His stomach, ever loyal, growled ominously; a jarring reminder that beauty didn’t fill bellies.

The realization crept in, slow and cold.

How long had they been onboard? WALL-E had, in the original tale, clung to the ship’s exterior during its ascent. But here, they were inside, stowed away like contraband in a metallic sarcophagus. Time no longer made sense.

Minutes? Hours? Days?

Even if they were only a few hours into the journey… there were no supplies in the pod. No food, no water, no nutrient packs, not even a leaky juice box. The pod’s systems maintained pressure and oxygen, sure. But nothing beyond that. This was no luxury suite, it was a sealed closet with lights and a hum.

Gary’s military training kicked in with brutal precision. The human body could last maybe three days without water before irreversible damage began. And food? They could go longer, a week, maybe more, but without hydration, they'd be dead long before that became a concern.

He ran the math silently.

Three days. That was their window.

Unless this vessel docked with the Axiom soon they were on a countdown to dehydration.

Gary didn’t say it aloud.

He didn’t want to worry Wally, who was still mesmerized by the sight outside, cheeks flush with excitement like a kid seeing stars for the first time. There was no use souring that moment. Not yet.

But still… the ticking clock began to echo inside the Sergeant’s skull.

A countdown they couldn’t hear, but felt all the same.

"EXITING PLANETARY GRAVITY WELL.”

Both the soldier and the trash collector shifted, glancing instinctively towards the ceiling.

Gary frowned. “That’s gotta be the ship’s AI.”

“But why speak aloud without waking the crew?" He added, glancing at Wally.

“Well… we’re awake, aren’t we?” Wally offered with a small hum. “Buy ‘N Large integrated a variety of heuristic subroutines into their autonomous systems. Many of my...” He paused, searching for the right word. "...predecessors attempted to reverse-engineer that architecture for survival optimization back on Earth. It’s likely the ship’s sensor grid registered active sentient presence aboard and activated its verbal interface accordingly.”

Gary gave a skeptical look. “So you’re a fucking nerd.”

He smirked. "Eve's gonna love that. Her type probably only dates guys with a 4.0 GPA and a mechanical doctorate.”

Wally flushed, audibly tapping a finger against the cryopod's side as he turned away to hide it.

"NAVIGATION COURSE CONFIRMED. DESTINATION: AXIOM. ETA: SIX HOURS. INITIATING ADIRIUS PROTOCOL.”

Gary blinked. “Six hours to reach the Axiom? From this distance? That... doesn’t check out. And what the hell is an Adirius Protocol?”

Wally murmured beside him. “I’d hoped we wouldn’t encounter that.”

Gary turned to him. “Which means?”

Wally exhaled softly and began to explain, his voice taking on a technical cadence that suggested deep-rooted knowledge:

“Once the ship has harvested sufficient antimatter, presumably from stellar core traps or dark matter conversion arrays, it can initiate the Alcubierre Drive. This propulsion system doesn’t move the ship through space, but rather distorts space around it. It compresses space in front and expands it behind, creating a localized ‘warp bubble.’ The Adirius Protocol likely refers to the navigation suite responsible for real-time manipulation of this distortion field.”

Gary squinted. “So... we're warping reality itself?”

Wally nodded. “Exactly. The vessel remains stationary relative to its own bubble, but space itself is manipulated; folded and reshaped. No inertia. No acceleration. Just... translation through higher-dimensional spacetime curvature.”

The soldier blinked again. “So we won’t even feel it move?”

“Not even a vibration.”

Gary grunted. “Yeah, okay. You’re a massive nerd.”

Wally gave a quiet shrug, already trying to suppress another wave of overheating cheeks.

Yes, without a shadow of a doubt, he was a jittery, anxious, terminally awkward data-sponge.

A complete and perfect mismatch for a sleek, lethal, elite scouting machine like EVE...

...or perhaps a perfect match after all.

Gary sighed heavily and let the back of his head thud against the cryopod’s inner wall. Not hard enough to hurt, but just enough to make a point to no one in particular. He remained still, tangled awkwardly with Wally in a coffin-sized pod, limbs cramping and sore from immobility.

Six hours like this.

He could feel his muscles stiffening, slowly surrendering to disuse. His shoulders ached. His neck throbbed. His spine protested. The human body was never designed to fold into origami and stay that way for hours at a time. Still, he supposed it was a fair trade, a minor sacrifice for a chance to sneak aboard the Axiom under relatively ideal circumstances.

Certainly better than the alternative.

He grimaced at the thought of clinging to the ship’s exterior in zero gravity like WALL-E had done in the movie. No atmosphere. No pressure. No margin for error. Just the crushing silence of space and the possibility of being vaporized at interstellar speeds. He didn’t even trust the vague explanation that 'space warps around the ship' to make it survivable. That sounded like textbook sci-fi nonsense, the kind of logic that only worked when the audience was willing to suspend disbelief.

And, if he was being honest?

It was boring as hell.

Mind-numbingly, ass-flatteningly boring.

No action. No noise. No distractions. Just darkness, silence, and the constant reminder of Wally’s elbow jabbing into his ribs every now and then.

Gary shut his eyes, trying to will himself to sleep. Maybe, if he was lucky, he could snag a few hours before arrival. Not that he trusted the cryopod to wake them up if anything went wrong.

He hoped Wally had the same idea. The poor guy had run himself ragged keeping vigil over Eve’s cryopod the last few days. If anyone needed rest, it was him.

Then came the voice. Quiet. Hesitant.

"Gary?"

Well, shit.

"Mmmh?" He muttered, eyes still closed. His tone made it clear he was one millimeter from flipping the metaphorical 'do not disturb' sign.

If Wally was about to go on another tangent, maybe about how the stars reminded him of his favourite spoon or something equally sentimental, Gary planned to shut it down with a sleepy grunt and a half-hearted middle finger.

But the next words stopped him cold.

"You told me how your brother died. But that doesn’t explain why your relationship with your parents fell apart."

Gary’s eyes slowly opened.

There was no judgment in Wally’s tone. Just quiet curiosity… and maybe a trace of concern. The kind that came from someone who had been too shy to ask earlier but had never stopped thinking about it.

Why now? Of all times?

He took a breath.

The pod suddenly felt even smaller, the air heavier. Confined space, emotional topics. Great combo.

Still, Wally hadn’t done anything wrong. He just wanted… connection. Maybe even clarity. And honestly, Gary hadn’t been entirely honest with him.

“I was supposed to watch him.” Gary finally said, voice low. He swallowed, trying to clear the growing lump in his throat. “I’d just gotten home from deployment. It was supposed to be this… peaceful week. Family time. Y’know, after all the noise and chaos.”

He paused, lips twisting into a dry smile.

“You’ve got no idea how advanced we are up north. You’d think all that leftover junk from the past would be a curse, but we repurposed it. We made it work. My family had tech, clean energy, all of it. We even had a porch.”

He bit his inner cheek, feeling the weight of the lie. Of course Wally didn’t know how 'advanced the north' was, because Gary wasn’t from this world. He wasn’t even from this reality. If Wally ever found out he was just a character in a story, someone Gary had watched on a screen… well, it would break everything.

No. That truth stayed buried.

“I let Thomas play out front with the neighbours' kids." He continued, eyes distant now. “Thought it’d be harmless. I went off with the older crowd, just down the street. Nothing major. Figured I’d keep an ear out.”

His breath hitched.

“But then, the ball they were playing with bounced out onto the road. Thomas offered to grab it. They said he even smiled, said something like, ‘I’ll be fast.’”

Gary clenched his fists.

“The driver never even braked.”

Silence.

He didn’t need to say the rest. The image, a drunk behind the wheel, a child stepping onto the street, a scream too late, spoke louder than any words could.

“The better part of the story?” Gary whispered. “He died right away. At least when I got there I didn't see him twitching. Crying. Begging for help.”

He looked down, his voice barely audible now.

“My parents never forgave me. And I didn’t forgive myself, either.”

Wallace Burtt broke eye contact, his expression folding into something uncertain and small.

“I’m… I’m so sorry, Gary." He murmured.

The trash collector shifted slightly in the cramped pod. A moment later, Gary felt a hand slide into his own, tentative at first, then firm with silent solidarity.

Gary Sanderson returned the squeeze, offering what reassurance he could muster, even if it was mostly for show. He wasn’t looking for pity. He hadn’t shared that story to earn someone’s sympathy. In truth, the pain had long since calcified into something cold, distant, and buried deep beneath layers of duty.

He didn’t need comfort. He needed purpose.

And right now, that purpose was seated beside him.

His gaze drifted back to the viewport, where the last curve of Earth had already vanished into the blackness of space. The stars beyond shimmered, silent and unblinking, like the eyes of history watching from afar. 

Gary didn’t know how dangerous or unpredictable this version of Auto might be. Maybe it was identical to the one he’d watched in the movie. Maybe it had evolved into something worse. He couldn’t be sure.

But one thing was clear: it wouldn’t matter.

He had no intention of standing by if things went sideways.

If this was the cost of protecting the last spark of humanity, of giving Wally a fighting chance to finish what he started , then Gary was willing to pay the price again. Even if it meant dying a second time. Even if there was no glory, no return, and no one left to remember his name.

"Get some sleep, Wally." He said, finally closing his eyes. "It's gonna be a long day."

He felt the other young man lean against him, quietly laying his head on his shoulder. The motion was soft, trusting, almost childlike. Gary didn’t move. He just sat there, letting the moment settle like dust in a beam of light.

Internally, he sighed.

Wally’s attachment to him was growing deeper by the hour. That much was obvious. Whether it was admiration, gratitude, or something more complex, Gary wasn’t sure. But he couldn’t help but wonder… would that bond become a strength?

Or a liability?

As Wally’s breathing evened out beside him, Gary stared into the darkness beyond the pod, his thoughts unspoken but heavy.

He hoped, with all the fragile hope he had left, that the Sole Survivor’s connection to him wouldn’t become the very thing that doomed what was left of mankind.

Chapter Text

“…Gary? GARY!"

The Sergeant’s world snapped back into focus as a hard shove rocked his shoulder. He jolted upright, breath catching in his throat, and instinctively reached for the knife at his belt before realizing where he was.

Shaking the fog from his head, Gary snorted and blinked the dizziness away. His hood slipped slightly over his brow as he peered through the narrow viewport of their cramped cryopod.

And what he saw stole the rest of his fatigue away.

His eyes widened.

They had arrived.

Beyond the reinforced glass, a coordinated ballet of machines unfolded. Sleeker, smaller ships — the kind that looked more like guided drones than transports — swarmed around the shuttle like bees to a hive. Each one projected shimmering blue beams, tethering themselves to the hull, stabilizing the ship’s artificial gravity while steering it into the Axiom’s massive hangar bay. The light pulsed faintly, a soft rhythm in the dark, like arteries glowing with lifeblood.

Gary leaned forward, straining to catch every detail. The sheer scale of it was staggering. The hangar’s colossal doors sealed slowly behind them, cutting off the void of space and enclosing them in a pressurized atmosphere. A heavy silence followed, one that hummed faintly with recycled air, mechanical turbines, and the low vibration of machines doing their endless work.

It was artificial. Cold. Yet necessary. Humanity’s last great bubble of survival, hanging against the infinite black.

As the shuttle descended into its designated dock, massive arms of polished steel reached out like giants, gripping the craft and guiding it with perfect precision. Multi-jointed probes extended from the floor and walls, clicking and whirring as they scanned the vessel, verifying pressure, alignment, and cargo. No human eyes seemed to oversee the process; only machines, dutiful, tireless, and unquestioning.

Gary swallowed hard, the weight of the moment settling onto his shoulders. The real story, the real fight, was about to begin.

He turned his head, leaning closer to the scavenger beside him. Wally’s wide-eyed face reflected the glow of the hangar lights, but his lips trembled ever so slightly. He looked like a child on the cusp of adventure, standing on the edge of a cliff he couldn’t quite see the bottom of.

“Wally." Gary whispered, his voice low, firm, but not unkind. “Listen carefully.”

The trash collector blinked, then nodded with all the seriousness he could muster.

“I know how much Eve means to you.” Gary continued. “And I know you won’t stop until you’ve followed her pod to wherever they’re taking it. Not even for me.”

At that, Wally bit down on his lower lip, eyes darting away as if to find an excuse, a denial. But he didn’t speak. His silence said everything.

Gary exhaled through his nose. “That’s what I thought.” He let the words hang for a moment, heavy but not condemning, before softening his tone. “So here’s what I need from you. If I lose sight of you, and believe me, with this place, it’s bound to happen, you call out to me. Loud and clear. You throw your arms up, wave them like a fool, I don’t care. Just make sure I see you before you go charging off again. Understood?”

For a second, Wally hesitated. The weight of the mission, of Eve, pressed visibly on his shoulders. But then he took a slow, steadying breath and nodded. A small, almost shy smile cracked through his nerves.

“Okay.” He said simply.

Gary allowed himself the faintest smirk in return. “Good. Then we’re in this together.”

As the cryopod vibrated with the final hiss of docking clamps locking into place, the Sergeant adjusted his hood with a free hand and leaned back against the wall. Already, he could hear the faint metallic echoes of machinery shifting outside; doors opening, cargo moving, a thousand hidden processes ticking into motion.

The game had changed. Earth had been desolate, predictable, almost merciful in its silence. But here, inside the belly of the Axiom, the rules were different. The people here didn’t know Gary Sanderson. They didn’t know Wally. They didn’t know what either of them was willing to risk.

And Gary wasn’t about to let them find out too easily.

He shut his eyes briefly, steeling himself for the storm to come.

A squad of post-recon cleaners stepped off the elevator, four of them in immaculate white uniforms, each burdened with sterilizing equipment; scrubbers, washers, vacuums, polishers. They looked like a maintenance crew, but in truth, they were the first line of defense against contamination, the unseen vanguard of the Axiom.

The one who broke formation first was a short young man. Barely four foot eight, he carried himself with a rigidity that almost dared anyone to underestimate him. His dark hair was cropped close, pressed flat beneath a newsboy cap fitted with a small red siren light, its glass dome gleaming faintly under the hangar’s illumination. A transparent HUD visor shaded his soft brown eyes, glowing faintly with diagnostic data. His white jumpsuit was pristine, his name stitched in neat embroidery across his chest: MOE. Beneath it, the insignia read: BnL Axiom A.R.V. Division.

Strapped to his back was a compact container sloshing with sterilization fluid. His hands were encased in heavy-duty rubber gloves, and his boots, though modeled after the rugged design of a WALL-E unit, were spotless. Clean. Ordered. Uncompromising.

Despite being the youngest of the crew, just twenty years old, Moe stood out. He was the smallest, the most junior, yet by the force of his posture alone, he radiated authority. He was, after all, the squad lead, and he intended to act like it.

He thrust out an arm, trying to herd the other three into a line. They shuffled reluctantly, their equipment clattering, eyes wandering. Moe grimaced. Discipline was wasted on them.

“Alright, follow me. Whoa, whoa! WHOA! Stop!” He halted abruptly, one boot on the hangar floor, the other still on the elevator platform. His eyes darted down to the illuminated guide path at their feet.

“Wait for the clearance signal.” Moe ordered, his tone sharp, clipped.

One of the crew, the tall man lugging a vacuum device, groaned. “Moe, come on! It’s just a frickin’ guide path. Let’s get the job done already.”

“Yeah, stop being such an asshole.” Another muttered.

Moe’s head snapped around, visor flashing red in irritation. “Shut up! We don’t move unless our path is cleared. That’s protocol.”

A second later, the floor projection pulsed and extended, a glowing track leading them directly towards the line of incoming scout pods. Moe’s shoulders straightened. “Alright, we’re good. Move out!”

They marched, or rather, Moe marched while the rest dragged their feet, towards the first pod. Behind him, the man with the vacuum muttered under his breath: “Shrink.”

The word cut sharper than any blade. Moe froze, spine stiffening. His jaw clenched.

“I heard that!” He snapped without turning around. “It’s not funny.”

The others broke into quiet laughter, their equipment rattling with each chuckle. Moe’s ears burned. He hated the jokes, the constant reminders of his height, his youth, his quirks. He hated more how much they got to him. But he forced his face into a mask of professionalism. He had a job to do, and the Axiom didn’t tolerate weakness.

At twenty, he was one of the youngest certified crew members aboard the ship, personally entrusted with the sanitation and quarantine of all incoming and outgoing cargo through the Automated Reconnaissance Vehicle bay. Imports, exports, scout pods; all of it passed through his watch. He was the overseer of docking sanitation, even if his peers snickered behind his back.

They mocked his age. They mocked his height. And above all, they mocked his relentless adherence to protocol. Moe did not cut corners. He did not improvise. He followed procedure as if the manual were scripture, every page memorized, every step sacred. To him, a microbe was not a speck of dust: it was a threat. A potential outbreak. A vector for death in a closed system where no disease should exist.

So let them laugh. Let them call him names. The Axiom was sterile because of him.

Moe activated his visor’s HUD and stepped towards the first pod. The transparent overlay scanned the surface with a flicker of data. His eyes narrowed.

The pod belonged to the female scout unit, her beacon pulsing with an unusual green glow. Moe frowned. It was a diagnostic he had never seen before. Curious, but not his problem. Maintenance would squawk it later. He switched his visor to electron microscan.

The results made his skin crawl.

Across the pod’s smooth white surface, faint blotches flared red in his vision. Dust. Soil particulates. Contamination. His display read: 16% FOREIGN CONTAMINATION DETECTED.

Moe’s lips curled in disgust. Dust was no mere nuisance. Dust was aerosol. Dust carried microbes. Dust carried diseases. Disease could spread unseen, uncontained, on a ship of thousands where no one had immune resistance left.

“Oh, for crying out loud…” He muttered.

Swinging the sterilizer scrubber into his hands, Moe began to clean with quick, efficient strokes. His movements were precise, controlled, each motion cutting across the pod’s surface in perfect, practiced sweeps. The brush glowed faintly blue, obliterating microbes on contact. The smell of sterilization fluid hung sharp in the recycled air.

The scout pods were always the worst: unfiltered, grimy, and dragging filth in from whatever ruined worlds they had been sent to investigate. Moe loathed them, yet he treated each one with the same mechanical intensity, like a soldier performing drills.

Behind him, his team finally set to work: spraying, buffing, vacuuming, and polishing. The pod gleamed under their attention, its contaminants reduced to nothing more than memory.

And Moe stood at the ready, scrubber still in hand, visor flashing with green status indicators. His job wasn’t done until every last microbe was gone.

And he would make damn sure of it.

It was their pod’s turn.

Gary had counted carefully, watching the conveyor of sealed capsules being lowered, sterilized, and swept along the glowing guide path. If his calculations were right, and they usually were, theirs would be the next in line.

Sure enough, a massive claw descended from above, its hydraulic arms clamping onto the pod’s hull with a metallic thunk that rattled the chamber. The sudden jolt made Wally yelp, half in surprise, half in alarm, before Gary pressed a firm hand to his shoulder and hushed him.

“As soon as we’re on the floor..." The Sergeant murmured, voice low but steady. “...we get out, find cover, and wait for a chance to tail Eve’s pod. Understood?”

Wally bobbed his head twice in quick succession. The look on his weary face wasn’t fear, not anymore. It was determination, brittle but burning all the same.

The pod shifted, its descent slowing as the claw guided it onto the hangar’s sterilization track. Gary’s mind ticked over in silent calculations, tracing the sequence. He waited for the impact, the hiss of hydraulics, the exact second the floor would hold steady beneath them.

Three… two… one.

The pod settled. A faint tremor passed through the floor plating.

“Now...” Gary muttered. He hit the interior release. The hatch whined open with a pneumatic hiss, spilling a thin stream of gas into the sterilized air.

Both young men disentangled from the cramped space and dropped to the deck.

Gary landed hard, his boots clanging against the metal floor. He groaned, rolling his shoulder and flexing his arm to shake away the pins-and-needles numbness. A few hours of confinement had been enough to stiffen his joints, but he’d endured worse. Warzones, hot sand, broken bones that healed crooked; this was nothing new. His body remembered how to recover, even if it hurt.

Wally was not so fortunate.

The scavenger staggered forward, clutching his ribs with a pained whine that bordered on a child’s sob. For all his intelligence and uncanny survival instincts, there was still a raw, unpolished naivety about him. He hadn’t been hardened by years of training. His resilience came from persistence, not discipline, and persistence had its limits.

Gary reached out and patted him firmly between the shoulder blades. Once, twice, steadying him like he would a spooked recruit. “Easy. Breathe. You’re fine." He muttered.

Slowly, the tremor in Wally’s chest eased. His hand fell from his ribs, though his eyes still glistened with the effort of holding back tears.

Gary gave one more reassuring pat and straightened, eyes already scanning the bay for their next move.

Eve’s pod had already been sterilized and secured, prepped for immediate transport once GO-4 performed its final confirmation scan. So far, events unfolded almost beat-for-beat with what Gary remembered from the film. That thought alone set his nerves buzzing, because if the script still held, then the dangerous parts weren’t far behind.

He flicked a glance towards the cleaning crew. On the surface, they seemed like near-perfect stand-ins for their robotic counterparts: clumsy but efficient, each one armed with a scrubber, polisher, or suction unit that echoed the tools Gary had once seen projected on a screen.

But where was M-O? The meticulous little bot had played a crucial role in WALL-E’s journey. Without him, guiding this version of the Axiom back to Earth would be infinitely harder.

Gary’s musings were cut short by a high-pitched exclamation that pierced the sterilized air:

“By Forthright!”

Both he and Wally froze and turned.

A young man stood at the edge of the sterilization track, gawking at them as though they’d sprouted extra heads. He was barely more than five feet tall, dressed in the crisp white uniform of the crew, a sterilization scrubber strapped across his chest. His HUD visor glowed faintly over wide brown eyes, and his BnL badge gleamed with a name Gary recognized immediately.

“Moe?” Gary muttered aloud, squinting as if saying the name would make more sense of the situation.

"Yes.” The boy answered automatically, then frowned. “That’s my name…”

Welp. Busted.

But Gary forced himself to breathe. WALL-E had been caught too, back in the story he remembered, and that encounter had turned out to be an alliance instead of a disaster. If they played this carefully, maybe history, or fate, would be just as kind.

Wally clearly didn’t share his optimism. The scavenger instinctively ducked behind Gary’s taller frame, fidgeting with his fingers, eyes darting between Moe and the other cleaners who had started drifting closer. His nervous shifting reminded Gary of a child caught sneaking cookies before dinner.

Moe tilted his head, scrutinizing them with a puzzled squint. “Who are you two? I’ve never seen you on the Axiom.” He tapped his visor as though replaying memory files. “And that’s saying something. I’ve cleaned every deck, every crew quarter, and every single passenger pod for the last three years. I’ve even been in the Captain’s quarters!" He said it with the pride of a scout reciting badges earned.

His gaze lingered on their clothing, moving past Wally’s slightly ragged but recognizable jumpsuit and landing squarely on Gary.

“You." Moe said, pointing. “You’re wearing a BnL issue underneath, I can see the cut of it. But on top? What’s with the green thing?”

Ah. The coat.

Gary stifled a curse in his head. Synthetic jumpsuits were the norm aboard the Axiom, every color sleek and uniform, easy to recycle and sterilize. Wally could pass with his scavenged attire: the BnL badge sold the illusion. But Gary’s rain-slick poncho, its fabric a relic from another age, might as well have been a neon sign screaming outsider.

“It’s a poncho.” Gary replied evenly, adjusting his hood lower to shade his features. “Old-fashioned, maybe. But it gets the job done. Clothes are clothes, and sometimes style counts for something too.”

Behind Moe, one of his fellow cleaners snorted, unable to suppress a laugh. Another elbowed him, muttering something about “Grandpa chic.”

Moe, however, didn’t laugh. His lips pressed into a thin line as he studied Gary’s raincoat as though it were a biological contaminant.

The young man tapped his visor, scanning first Wally, then Gary. A translucent overlay flared to life across his HUD, numbers scrolling down in bright red.

Gary caught glimpses of the data; the letters reversed, but the percentages all too legible.

100+% contamination for Wally.

85% contamination for himself.

Gary exhaled through his nose. Not surprising. He hadn’t spent enough time on Earth to hit that dreadful triple-digit mark, but Wally? He practically was dirt in human form.

Moe visibly shuddered. His scanner began to wail a warning tone, shrill and insistent.

And then Moe screamed louder.

“Oh my God! What is this?! No, no, no, so wrong! So dirty! Very, very dirty!”

He whirled on them like a possessed man, his voice climbing in pitch. “Must clean immediately! Eradicate any and all foreign contamination!”

In one sharp motion he yanked out his sterilization scrubber, leveling it squarely at Wally first, because of course, to Moe, the trash collector was a walking apocalypse of filth.

Wally flinched backwards, eyes wide, hands raised like a child about to be scolded. “Ah! G-Get away from me!”

The scrubber swiped through the air with a sharp whir, missing Wally by inches.

Gary crossed his arms, observing the chaos with an almost grim amusement. He’d seen this before, except it had been a tiny bot chasing a boxy little robot around. Now it was a germ-obsessed young man trying to scrub the life out of a dirt-covered scavenger.

The floor was starting to betray them. Black streaks stained the pristine white tiles with every panicked shuffle Wally made, his boots leaving a trail like breadcrumbs.

Moe hadn’t noticed yet, too focused on trying to pin his target. “Stand still! I must clean!”

He lunged again, trying to jam the scrubber against Wally’s face.

“Agh! Get off me!” Wally yelped, stumbling backwards. His flailing arm caught Moe by the shoulder and shoved him aside.

Moe hit the ground with a frustrated grunt. “Aaaagh! I said I have to clean you!”

Then he froze.

His visor caught the streaks. Smears of grime, a dotted trail of footprints, spreading.

His pupils shrank. His whole body stiffened.

“AAAGH!” His shriek rattled the corridor. He spun, clutching his scrubber like a weapon of war. “STOP MAKING SUCH A MESS!”

Slowly inching away from the surreal display of Moe shrieking and flailing after Wally, Gary slid an elbow into the side of one of Moe’s coworkers; the tall man lugging the vacuum device.

“Pssst.”

“Mmmh?” The man glanced over, distracted from the chaos.

Gary inclined his head towards Moe, who was now attempting to ambush Wally from behind and missing spectacularly. “Is he… always like this? I mean, I don’t think any psychiatric board would’ve signed off on his deployment. What sort of mania is he suffering from?”

The man shrugged with the nonchalance of someone long accustomed to such absurdity. “O.C. Runs in the bloodline. His family’s been cleaning the Axiom for a hundred years. Sometimes efficiency is enough reason to overlook the mania.” He eyed Gary up and down, squinting at his raincoat. “Never seen you around before. Nice choice of colour, though. But… uh, why are you so dirty? Waste Disposal division? What are you doing here?”

Gary broke eye contact, buying himself a second. The lie rolled off his tongue before he had time to second-guess it. “I’m part of the security team. Sergeant Gary Sanderson, at your service.”

The man’s eyebrows shot up. “Oh, shoot!”

He whistled sharply, the sound cutting through Moe’s ranting. “In line, you boneheads! We’ve got a Sergeant on deck!”

The other two crewmen scrambled into position, snapping into a makeshift line and saluting. All except Moe, of course, who had given up on his scrubber and was now attempting to physically wrestle Wally to the floor: a comically hopeless endeavour given the scavenger’s wiry frame and panicked energy.

Gary cleared his throat, disguising his discomfort with authority. “Uh, at ease.” He coughed into his fist. “What’s your name?”

The vacuum man straightened with a proud grin and offered his hand. “Victor A. Quim. Pleasure to meet you, sir.”

Gary almost smirked at the irony. So, this was VAQ-M. Or at least one of them.

“I thought there would be more of you for this task." Gary said carefully.

Victor’s grin faltered for a moment, then softened. “Ah, you mean my brother. Vincent A. Quim. Poor guy got himself electrocuted in an accident a while back. He’s in the Medical Ward now, psychiatric recovery.” He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. “We’re hoping he pulls through soon.”

Gary filed that away at once. Both VAQ-Ms were brothers in this version. That was… actually useful information. When he and Wally inevitably followed Eve’s pod to the Medical Ward, that connection might be something to exploit.

Meanwhile, Moe shrieked again, launching himself onto Wally’s back and promptly sliding off as if the scavenger were greased.

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose. This was going to get complicated very fast.

Moe tried again, lunging at Wally like a tiny, furious predator. But this time the scavenger was ready. Having finally learned Moe’s weakness, he scooped up a grimy handful from the deck and slapped it straight into the smaller man’s face.

“Hey—!” Moe froze, stunned by the audacity. Then, when the realization struck him that someone had smeared dirt onto his skin, his mysophobia detonated like a bomb.

The shriek that tore out of his throat was so piercing it could have cracked glass. Gary and the others instantly clamped their hands over their ears, Wally included. Only Moe’s coworkers seemed unfazed; clearly they had endured this horror before. They recovered quickly, doubling over in laughter at the spectacle of their panicked colleague.

Moe was beyond reason. He scrubbed at his face in a frenzy, the brush bristles screeching as he tried to scour every trace of filth off. 

But Gary had no time to dwell on the spectacle. A sharp siren blared from the far end of the bay, dragging his attention around.

A hatch groaned open.

Three men marched into the docking bay with heavy boots and heavier expressions.

The first two were stewards; hulking men in dark, immaculate servant uniforms, equipped head-to-toe with security gear: energy-binder handcuffs, tractor-beam pens, electroshock batons, taser-guns, and peaked caps. Their presence radiated discipline and intimidation.

The third man was shorter, leaner, but carried more authority than both combined. He wore a navy-blue BnL uniform, service ribbons gleaming across his chest. His nametag read: MCPO F. Gofer. The enlisted stripes on his sleeves left no doubt: Command Master Chief Petty Officer. Chief of the Boat. Head of Security.

Gary’s blood ran cold.

This was GO-4. Or rather, the human equivalent.

“Oh, fuuuuuuuck.”

The words slipped out before he could stop them.

Thinking fast, Gary straightened and raised a finger as if struck by sudden inspiration. “Gentlemen!” He said too loudly, then lowered his tone to the cleaners. “My… superiors are here. The order for me to oversee this particular sector clearly hasn’t reached the Petty Officer’s desk yet. And I don’t intend to bury myself in useless paperwork thanks to the Axiom’s sluggish comm systems.” He forced a tight smile. “So. Don’t mention me. At all.”

He jabbed a finger towards a stack of crates near the shuttle. “I’ll… do an inventory check. For insurance purposes.”

Not that anyone here knew what insurance was after seven centuries of mindless luxury, but tossing big words around had saved his skin before.

Victor snapped off another salute. “Understood, sir.”

“And I’ll be taking my hyperactive colleague with me. Toodles.”

Before anyone could ask questions, Gary bolted across the bay. He snatched Wally by the wrist, dragging the wide-eyed scavenger behind him. They dove behind the crates, crouching low into the shadows. Gary pressed a finger to his lips, then clenched his fist in a silent military gesture.

The Sole Survivor recognized it instantly. He nodded once, expression taut.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Both Gary and Wally peeked from behind the crates.

The cleaners froze mid-laugh. Spines snapped straight. Terror flooded their faces as they realized who had caught them.

“I said, what in the hell is going on, sailors?!” Chief Gofer’s voice cracked like a whip, full of drill-instructor venom. The echo rolled across the bay, making even the steel bulkheads flinch.

“N-N-Nothing, sir!” Moe stammered, still smeared with dirt, but now trembling as much from authority as from filth.

“You know the rules! No insubordinate behaviour on duty! Is that clear?!”

“YESSIR!” They barked in unison.

“A’ight. Now return to your standby stations immediately. We’re taking over these pods for post-mission evaluation. The contents are classified, so march!”

“Aye, sir!” The four cleaners snapped into motion, hustling out of the bay like chastised cadets.

Gofer barely spared them another glance. He pulled a security chip from his pocket and slid it into the panel of the fifth cryopod. A soft electronic chirp.

“Negative.” He muttered flatly. His tone wasn’t disappointment, it was the sound of routine, the same futile scan done countless times before. He moved to pod four.

“Negative.”

Pod three.

“Negative.”

He exhaled through his nose, weary, already expecting the same for pod two, when movement caught his eye. Eve’s pod flickered with activity. Gofer leaned closer, suspicious. He slotted the chip into her panel.

“Neg—”

A sharp, affirmative chime cut him off. The panel pulsed green.

“Huh?” Gofer froze. His eyes widened in disbelief.

“That… can’t be right.” He murmured. “It’s gotta be a malfunction.”

But the pod’s glow intensified, unmistakably alive.

“My God." Whispered one of the stewards.

Gofer’s jaw tightened. “Yes. It’s reading positive.” He smacked his COM earpiece.

“Master Chief Gofer, Recon Docking. We’ve got a vegetation scout with a recovered live specimen. This is no bull; I repeat, we have a Code Green!” His voice was urgent, unshakable.

The dock itself seemed to hold its breath. Then the alarm blared, sirens screaming, as every overhead light shifted to green.

“Evah?!” Wally gasped, unable to contain himself. He lurched forward, desperate.

Gary grabbed his shoulder, hissing, “Calm down! They scanned her pod, that’s all. They want the plant, not her.”

But Wally’s panic only deepened. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to breathe.

Command’s reply crackled in through Gofer’s COM, monotone and cold. “This is Command to Docking. Findings confirmed. Authentication required. Report the E.V.R.E. scout to the Bridge immediately.”

“Aye-aye.” Gofer snapped back. He cut the line, pulled up a holopad, and tapped in a command. With a hiss of magnetics, a sleek maglev tram glided into the bay.

“Orders are to report to the Bridge." He told his stewards. “Scout One goes to the Captain and First Officer. Let’s move!”

“Sir, yes sir!” The guards activated Eve’s pod. It floated up off the deck and lowered neatly into the tram.

The team boarded. The tram hummed, gliding towards the lift at the far end of the dock.

“Evah!”

Wally broke cover, sprinting after them on tiptoe as if speed could make him silent.

Gary slapped a palm over his face. “Oh, for the love of God.”

But he had no choice. He pushed off from the crates, chasing after the love-struck scavenger who was as cute as his robotic counterpart—

—and just as infuriating in person.

Moe crouched at his workstation on the second level of the dock, his scrubber still clutched in his hands. The alarm blared overhead, green lights flashing, but the Chief’s words had been lost to him beneath the noise. Code Green… What did that even mean? And why were those pods so secret?

Questions buzzed through his head, but one thought stuck harder than the rest: that man. The strange, unkempt figure who made a mess everywhere he went. Moe had never seen anyone like him before, had never smelled such grit and grime clinging to a human. He was filth incarnate, and Moe’s every compulsion screamed to scour him clean. But duty was a chain, and Moe could only tighten his grip on it.

The other one, though… Gary. Yes, that was the name Victor had dropped. Calm, collected, professional. A face Moe didn’t recognize, and he recognized every single resident of the Axiom. Suspicious. Too suspicious.

Moe’s visor flickered, and his eyes caught the trail: dirty boot prints smeared across the pristine deck. His breath hitched. Even in a spotless environment like this, he could see them glowing in his electron-scan from meters away. They stretched all the way to the tram bay… and straight into the elevator where the Sergeant, the strange scavenger, the Chief, the guards, and the pod had vanished.

“Forthright damnit.” Moe hissed through clenched teeth. His scrubber whirred to life.

Protocol said to stay put. Chief Gofer had ordered it. But protocol also said contamination must be eradicated. And if these strangers carried their filth wherever they went, if they were trailing dirt towards whatever secret mission the Chief was running, then Moe would not be failing his duty by following. He would be upholding it.

His fingers twitched, calculating risk against compulsion. If he stayed, the dirt would remain. If he followed, the Chief’s wrath might burn him to ash.

Moe made his choice.

He glanced around: his fellow cleaners had already marched back to their stations. No eyes on him. No witnesses.

With a decisive hop, Moe dropped down from the second level to the deck. His scrubber spun, squealing as he set to work, erasing each filthy footprint one by one. Step after step, he followed the trail, scouring a path that led in the same direction the tram had gone.

Wherever those strangers were headed, Moe would be right behind them...

...cleaning all the way.

Chapter Text

Gary Sanderson inhaled sharply, his palm tightening on Wally’s shoulder as he yanked him down lower behind Eve’s pod.

The elevator hummed around them, its walls glowing with soft strips of sterile light. With every thrum and every subtle lurch upwards, they soared past floor after floor of the Axiom, hidden in the shadow of the pod. The faint reflection of Chief Gofer and his two stewards flickered across the polished metal, their rigid silhouettes watching over the precious cargo.

Gary kept still, pressing his back into the curve of the pod as though willing himself invisible. Gofer’s head had tilted once, a sharp motion that froze Gary’s blood. The Chief’s gaze lingered, ears twitching to the faint scuffle of movement. For one heartbeat, Gary thought the entire ruse would collapse right there. But Gofer’s attention shifted back to his men, and the moment passed.

So far, so good.

Gary’s pulse slowed, but his thoughts refused to. This wasn’t the neat, mechanical chain of events he remembered from the movie. This was messier, rawer; because it was humans now, not robots. People misheard things. People questioned things. People carried weapons. At any moment, one slip of sound or one wrong glance could unravel everything.

Still, the soldier in him knew his place. If Wally’s fate was to charge after Eve, then his own was to ensure the young man survived long enough to reach her. He wasn’t here to play spectator. He was the steady hand behind the chaos, ready to give fate a shove if it faltered.

And what did it matter if he perished in the process? What was left for him to lose?

He had already died once; bled into desert sand thousands of miles away, his body left to the record of a tombstone and perhaps a family photo tucked into a coffin. Did his parents and surviving kin weep over remains that were never really there? Would they ever know where he had gone?

The questions pressed as heavy as the elevator’s rising gravity.

But one truth remained: he was still a soldier. Death had not unmade that. The call of duty was in his marrow, insistent as the hum of the rising lift. And this duty was larger than any he had sworn to before.

His eyes flicked to Wally, crouched beside him, trembling with raw devotion for Eve. The scavenger’s love, fragile yet unyielding, was the spark humanity’s rebirth would hinge upon.

Gary clenched his jaw. If they were to be the Fallen Angels of this manufactured Eden, descending to crack open its illusions, then so be it. He would embrace the role until the very end.

For humanity’s return.

For Eve.

For Wally.

And perhaps, though he would never admit it, for himself.

Wally pressed his palms gently against the smooth surface of Eve’s pod, his wide eyes fixed on the motionless figure within. Through the transparent chassis, he could make out her serene face, frozen in cryonic slumber, untouched by the chaos unfolding around them. With a soft, almost child-like tenderness, he patted the pod near where her head rested, as though petting her, as though reassuring her that he was still here. That he would not leave.

Gary couldn’t help but smile faintly, though it carried more sorrow than joy. Out of the two of them, Wally had something real to fight for. He wasn’t driven by vague notions of duty or survival. His anchor was simple, pure; Eve. The love he bore her radiated in every nervous gesture, every reckless decision.

And, in some corner of his weary mind, Gary envied him.

Perhaps, if fate was merciful, the scavenger would not only win her heart but live long enough to see what came after. Maybe, against all odds, Eve would teach him what love meant in every sense, what life and family could mean on a world reborn. Gary could almost imagine it: the two of them standing beneath a blue sky that hadn’t existed for centuries, maybe even raising children; little ones with Wally’s clumsy stubbornness and Eve’s brilliance, running barefoot through fields of green. A vision too good for him, but maybe not for them.

Gary knew he wouldn’t be part of that future. Deep down, a soldier’s intuition whispered the truth: he would likely die before this was over, whether aboard this ship of gilded lies or back on the poisoned Earth they sought to reclaim. And strangely, the thought no longer frightened him. His life had already been taken once. Everything since had felt borrowed.

Fankly, he couldn’t give a damn about his own well-being anymore.

The sharp hiss of hydraulics jolted him from his reverie. The elevator doors parted, spilling sterile light into their cramped hiding place. Both men snapped their attention forward. Just beyond, Eve’s pod was guided seamlessly onto a maglev tram, which glided out into a vast corridor before halting at the threshold, awaiting synchronization.

Gary risked a glance past the pod’s corner, and froze.

Stretching before them was a corridor unlike anything he had ever seen. A colossal artery of the Axiom, alive with movement. Fluorescent strips bathed the pristine walls in pale light, reflecting off chrome and glass until the entire passage seemed to hum with sterile efficiency.

And then there were the people.

Not the swollen, lethargic passengers he had come to expect, but lean, uniformed crew members. Dozens upon dozens of them, whizzing by at dizzying speeds atop their own maglev trams. Each one moved with clockwork precision along designated glowing lanes; eight of them total, four running each way like highways of light.

Technicians with tool belts slung at their sides. Engineers hunched over datapads, their eyes fixed on scrolling schematics. Welders and electricians carrying sealed kits of equipment. Stewards with weapons at their hips. Painters, cleaners, suppliers; the entire skeleton crew of the ship’s unseen maintenance. Every one of them was alert, fit, and disciplined, their motions sharper and faster than Gary ever would have guessed from a society of excess.

The sheer velocity of it all made Gary’s head spin. The sterile silence of the docking bay had given way to an industrial rush hour, a tide of humanity hurtling past them, oblivious to the stowaways crouched in the shadows of a single pod.

For the first time since stepping aboard the Axiom, Gary felt something deeper than tension coil in his gut. Awe.

This ship wasn’t just a prison of complacency; it was alive, its veins teeming with men and women who kept its gleaming illusion intact.

Wally’s neck swivelled left and right like an owl, his wide eyes darting to follow the streaks of motion that whirred past them. The maglev trams shot down the glowing lanes in perfect synchronization, each filled with uniformed crew members handling crates, tools, or datapads. The sheer velocity of it all fascinated him; so much so that he forgot the one thing they had come here for.

Eve.

Her pod was already gliding down the artery of light, slipping away amid the chaos.

“AH!”

Gary’s head snapped around just in time to see Wally leap impulsively onto the corridor floor, right into the path of oncoming traffic.

The screech of maglev brakes reverberated like tearing metal. A tram skidded to a halt inches from Wally’s terrified face, and in an instant, a chain reaction followed. One by one, the trams behind it piled up, forcing crew members to grab onto rails or spill half their equipment onto the polished floor.

Shouts erupted.

“Watch where you’re going!”

“Who the hell is that?!”

“Blockage in lane six! Blockage!”

Gary muttered a vicious curse under his breath. Of course. He should have remembered this from the movie; WALL-E’s clumsy intrusion into the maintenance lanes. Only now, it wasn’t a robot’s slapstick gag. It was a reckless human being who was about to blow their cover.

The Sergeant leapt down after him, boots clacking against the immaculate flooring. He yanked Wally by the shoulder and pulled him aside just as more angry voices joined the rising din. Without hesitation, Gary shoved him shoveds the nearest passing tram: an open hovo-chair stacked with neatly organized crates of engineering components.

“Move it!” He barked, pushing Wally onto the seat before climbing in after him.

The driver, a wiry young teenager in standard-issue overalls, stiffened. He craned his head around, eyes wide.

“What in Forthright’s name—?”

Time for damage control.

“Halt!” Gary’s voice snapped like a whip. He shifted his posture, squaring his shoulders in the kind of commanding stance only a soldier could manage. His hand came down firmly on his own chest. “Sergeant Gary Sanderson, Waste Disposal Division. This here’s my associate, Wallace Burtt.”

He jabbed a thumb towards Wally.

The scavenger gave a mortified wave, baring his teeth in the kind of awkward grin that could make children cry.

The driver blinked. “Uh…”

Gary cut him off, already pointing towards the retreating white pod farther up the glowing lanes. Eve’s pod, escorted by Gofer and his men.

“You see that?”

The driver followed his finger, eyes landing on the pod with dawning recognition.

“Y-yes, sir?”

“I need you to tail it. Now.” Gary clicked his tongue with manufactured impatience, leaning forward like a man pressed for time. “Those idiots forgot about us. I shouldn’t reveal protocol, but what’s inside that pod is a high-priority retrieval. Could be a native life-form from Earth itself. In their rush to impress the Captain, they left my team behind.”

That got the driver’s attention. His back straightened at once. “A… life-form?”

“Affirmative." Gary snapped. He dropped his tone lower, conspiratorial. “This is classified, son. You’ll get your commendation later. For now, floor it.”

The driver hesitated, his eyes flicking between Gary’s hooded figure and Wally’s sheepish grin. The tension lingered for a heartbeat.

Then he nodded, gripped the control lever, and accelerated the tram forward.

The hovo-chair shot back into motion, slipping into the fast-moving tide of maintenance traffic. The crates rattled against one another, Wally clung to the seat with wide eyes, and Gary exhaled slowly, already calculating the next dozen lies he might need to keep this ruse alive.

The driver began drumming his fingers on the control lever. A nervous tic. Gary recognized it instantly, and he didn’t like it. Nervous men asked questions.

“So, uh…” The boy drawled, keeping his eyes on the lane ahead. “May I ask what type of foreign organism your squad’s secured? I mean, I already know the broad strokes of your mission, and…” He gave a shrug, the kind meant to look casual but wasn’t. “What harm could it do if you told me? I’ll keep my mouth shut."

Gary’s jaw flexed as he gripped the seat tighter. The tram swerved left, hugging an intercept lane, and his gut pressed against the inertia. The kid was agile, he had to give him that, but his recklessness was going to flip them upside down if he wasn’t careful.

“We believe the pod holds… a plant.”

“A plant?!?" The driver actually twisted around to gawk at him, forcing Gary to snap an arm against Wally’s chest before the fool lurched out of his seat. The scavenger’s gaze never left Eve’s pod, but Gary could feel his pulse hammering.

“But… why the Waste Disposal Division? Shouldn’t an E.V.R.E. scout handle that?”

Gary ground his teeth, keeping his voice steady. “It was an E.V.R.E. scout. Pod malfunction. It got jettisoned during a transfer cycle, drifted into the hangar at the exact moment we opened a hatch for void disposal.” He forced a chuckle, the kind soldiers used when pretending everything was routine. “Timing’s funny like that. Garbage floating into space, it never gets old.”

“I… guess so.”

Keep him calm. Gary thought. Last thing we need is him second-guessing this detour.

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Mmmh?” The driver braked hard, swerving right to avoid a tram barreling straight into them. Wally yelped; a sharp, high-pitched sound that was so uncharacteristically girlish he froze in shame the second it left his throat. His face flushed crimson, and he turned away in mortification.

Gary repeated, firmer this time. “I asked for your name.”

“Oh! Right.” The young man threw a quick glance over his shoulder, smiling despite the chaos. “Jeremy. Jeremy Fitzgerald.”

“Welp, Jeremy...” Gary said, flashing the kind of grin meant to inspire trust. “...you’re now witness to, and part of, something that might lead to Earth’s restoration. You realize how cool that is?”

Jeremy’s eyes widened. “Oh, yes!” He pumped his fist skywards in celebration, before slamming it back on the lever just in time to avoid slamming into another transport. “So cool!”

Gary allowed himself a quick exhale of relief. Hooked him.

But the moment was ruined by a strangled gurgle. He turned just in time to see Wally’s cheeks balloon. The scavenger bent over the edge of the tram, retching violently. The splatter hit the pristine flooring behind them in an ugly trail of organic matter.

Jeremy, too focused on piloting through the traffic, didn’t notice.

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose. Perfect. Just perfect. Nothing screams 'top-secret mission' like puke stains in the Axiom’s maintenance lanes.

Up ahead, the passage sloped upward. A glowing sign marked the way:

FT MAINTENANCE CORRIDOR → AFT PASSENGER CORRIDOR

Beneath it glided a tram carrying a familiar cryopod.

Gary narrowed his eyes, then leaned forward and clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Yo, Jeremy, my boy.” The words slipped out half as a joke, half as habit, and he nearly scoffed at himself. “You can drop us here. We’ll jog the rest of the way, keep pace with the tram on foot.”

Jeremy’s hands twitched on the controls. “A-are you sure? It’s a long stretch to the Captain’s tower elevator. Could take you forever.”

“Positive.” Gary’s mouth tugged into a grin as dry as sandpaper. “Just pull us aside somewhere we don’t get flattened like interstellar cockroaches.”

Jeremy gulped but complied, guiding the hovo-chair neatly to the far right lane where a small rest station stood. Three other vehicles were already docked there, their crews idling with steaming coffees and buttery croissants in hand. The air smelled faintly of roasted beans and warm bread; normalcy in the middle of chaos.

Gary swung off the transport and offered Wally a steadying hand. Once both boots hit the ground, he tipped his hood politely towards the lounging workers.

“Good day, gentlemen.”

The three glanced up, gave muted grunts of acknowledgment, and went back to their banter. Politeness had bought him a pass; no questions asked. For now.

At least some of the crew still kept themselves trim, Gary noted. These weren’t the soft, drifting passengers they’d eventually face, but men and women who had a purpose; technicians, mechanics, doers. A different breed entirely.

“Evah?” Wally whispered with urgency, eyes locked on the tram carrying Eve’s pod as it grew smaller and smaller in the distance.

“One sec, Wally.” Gary gave Jeremy’s shoulder a final pat. “Good run with you, kid. Keep up the good work.”

Jeremy’s eyes lit up. “Does this mean I’ll get… like… an official commendation from the crew? Maybe even logged into the service record?” He was practically bouncing on his toes.

“Yup!” Gary said without hesitation. “Count on it.”

Before the boy could dig for more promises, Gary tightened his grip on the scavenger’s hand. “C’mon, Wally!”

The two sprinted headlong into the traffic lane.

“See you around, Jeremy!” Gary called back.

Jeremy froze, waving with both hands, torn between pride and bewilderment. Then, as realization sank in, he muttered to himself: “Wait… they’re charging straight into traffic?”

But by then, the pair were already weaving into the chaos, chasing the tram and the pod as if their lives depended on it.

They had barely finished weaving through one set of hover lanes when the lines beneath their feet shifted colour from sterile white to glowing blue. The hum of the maglev beneath the floor sounded deeper, steadier, as if these lanes carried something heavier than crates or tools.

Gary’s attention snapped forward when a shadow loomed ahead. A strange-looking hover vehicle drifted lazily into view.

Wally’s curiosity lit up like a flare. Without hesitation, the scavenger jogged ahead, wide-eyed. Gary followed close behind, his soldier’s instinct warring with his own growing curiosity. Something about this vehicle was different.

It wasn’t a tram.

It was a chair.

And sitting in it… was a man.

No, a mountain of a man.

Gary stopped dead in his tracks, his boots clanging softly against the steel floor. The words that formed in his mind weren’t kind, but they were brutally honest: obese wasn’t even sufficient. The passenger was swollen, grotesquely bloated, his body sagging like melted wax poured into a jumpsuit. His arms and legs were stubby, little more than useless appendages; limbs that looked as though they hadn’t borne his weight in decades.

He had to weigh at least four, maybe five hundred pounds. The red fabric of his BnL jumpsuit clung to him like plastic wrap, stretched around flesh that resembled soft jelly.

The sight hit Gary harder than the firefights of Fallujah.

Wally glanced back at him, face pale but fascinated, and pointed timidly. “Is it… is it possible for humans to look like that?”

The scavenger’s voice was full of disbelief, almost horror, like he’d just seen a new species entirely.

Gary swallowed, throat suddenly dry.

Truth was, he had no goddamn idea if humanity could even survive like this long-term. The physiology made no sense. Heart failure should’ve culled them decades ago. Blood sugar, cholesterol, hell, their whole circulatory system, had to be nightmares. And yet, here they were, alive… in a grotesque parody of existence.

“They can’t even walk.” Gary muttered, voice low, almost to himself. “They can’t even... live without the ship holding their hands.”

He wasn’t a doctor. He wasn’t even a medic. His training was built around weapons and tactics, not cardiology. But even he knew enough to recognize this was a death sentence wrapped in comfort. Every single one of these passengers was a cardiac arrest waiting to happen.

And Auto wanted to preserve this? This was humanity’s great achievement after centuries of survival?

Gary finally exhaled, shaking his head. “…I think so." He said at last, though the words came out heavy.

The man reclined in his automated chair, oblivious. The vehicle glided on its own, following the glowing blue line without effort from its passenger. A massive holoscreen hovered just inches from his face, surrounding him like a cocoon, while speakers in the headrest pumped sound directly into his ears. His entire world was reduced to pixels and noise.

“Look, man, I’ve been in my cabin all morning.” The bloated man whined into his headset, his tone child-like despite his bulk. “Why don’t we just hover over to the driving range and smack a few virtual balls into space?”

On-screen, another face appeared: round, bloated, and equally glassy-eyed. The second man sighed in protest. “Nah. We did that yesterday. I don’t wanna do that again.”

The first huffed. “Well then, what do you wanna do?”

As if on cue, another hover chair slid neatly into the lane beside him. The second man was right there, in the flesh, mere feet away. And yet neither spared a glance at the other. Their conversation remained trapped inside their digital bubbles, voices filtered through speakers while their real bodies sat inches apart, blind to each other.

Gary pinched the bridge of his nose, letting out a long, tired sigh.

Back in his own time, people had been glued to their phones; sure. Teenagers texting at dinner tables, soldiers sneaking glances at screens between patrols. It had been bad enough then. But at least people had still touched, hugged, argued, and loved.

This? This wasn’t living.

These people couldn’t even be bothered to look sideways.

“I dunno.” The second man murmured lazily through his feed. “Something…”

Gary wanted to scream at them to wake up. To shake them. To remind them of what being alive even meant. But he clenched his jaw and forced himself silent.

The scavenger at his side simply stared, lips pressed thin. Wally might have been naive, but even he understood instinctively that what they were seeing was wrong.

Very, very wrong.

The duo slowed as they approached the glowing archway ahead.

MAIN DECK — Authorized Personnel and Passengers Only.

Gary stepped through first, instinctively pushing himself ahead of Wally. And the sight that struck him on the other side left him frozen in disbelief.

The corridor before them swarmed with life, human life. Hundreds at first glance. Then thousands. Tens of thousands.

A tide of humanity stretched as far as his eyes could follow. Hoverchairs glided along criss-crossing paths like motorized ants in a hive, moving in every conceivable direction. Every single rider was grotesquely obese, their swollen bodies stuffed into identical red BnL jumpsuits, their faces bathed in the glow of hovering holoscreens.

The cacophony was staggering. Chatter. Laughter. Complaints. Endless streams of small talk ricocheting across the corridor. Yet none of it was directed at the real, breathing people around them. Every word was piped into the headsets on their chairs, every gesture tapped into oversized, over-used fingers pounding at the armrest keypads.

Gary blinked hard, struggling to process the sight. He’d seen chaos before, markets in Baghdad, panicked evacuations, barracks on alert, but this was different. This wasn’t chaos. This was order. Terrifying, suffocating order.

A whole species shuffling forward in perfect oblivion.

He felt Wally tense beside him. The soldier rested a steadying hand on the younger man’s shoulder and began carefully guiding him across one glowing line after another, threading through the traffic as if they were crossing a freeway blindfolded. Not a single person looked up at them. Not one curious glance, not one frown of suspicion.

And how could they not?

Gary stole a glance at their reflection in a nearby glass panel. They were skeletal compared to these bloated passengers, their skin pale and stretched thin over lean bone and muscle. On top of that, they were filthy, dirt still clinging to boots and clothes, standing out like stains in a sterile showroom. By all logic, they should have been spotted in an instant.

But the truth became sickeningly clear: no one noticed because no one ever noticed anything. The citizens of the Axiom were blind, each cocooned in a screen, enslaved to the glowing rectangles hovering before their eyes.

A shrill voice cut through the noise. Gary looked up just in time to see a woman on a passing hoverchair waving her pudgy fingers at her console. “Drink bot!” She whined, her tone child-like.

Within seconds, a small hovering bot zipped through the traffic and dropped an enormous three-liter cup into her waiting hands. She didn’t even glance at the machine. Didn’t thank it. Didn’t move. She simply pressed the cup to her lips and gulped noisily, her body quivering from the effort of swallowing but never shifting from its reclined position.

Gary forced down a swell of disgust and tried to push forward, deeper into the corridor. Wally stayed close, his wide eyes scanning left and right, as if terrified of being swallowed whole by this nightmare tide of humanity.

They pushed through another tunnel.

AFT PASSENGER CORRIDOR → MAIN DECK

The end glowed brilliantly ahead, a shining threshold. Gary squinted as the light engulfed him and then—

He stopped dead in awe.

The Main Deck stretched out before them, and for a moment he thought he had stepped into an entire city built inside the stars.

A feminine voice echoed warmly across the cavernous space, unnervingly cheerful:

“BUY N’ LARGE. EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO BE HAPPY. YOUR DAY IS VERY IMPORTANT TO US!”

It wasn’t a corridor. It wasn’t even a deck. It was a metropolis. A floating, sterilized Eden.

Massive living quarters climbed upwards like towering apartments, rising hundreds of levels, their windows glowing with artificial light. Hover lines crisscrossed above and below like highways, streams of chairs weaving a web in every direction.

Farther out, skyscraper-sized shopping centers pierced the sky, their walls plastered with endless holographic advertisements, each one screaming the same message: consume, indulge, obey.

And then Gary tilted his head back and felt a chill run down his spine.

Above them was not a ceiling, but a dome. A projected sky. Blue, cloudless, and false. And where the sun should have been burned a massive BnL logo, rotating lazily like a brand stamp on reality. Beside it, luminous digits scrolled the time and temperature.

12:16 PM — 72°

The soldier let out a slow, disbelieving breath. It was grotesque. It was magnificent. It was horrifying.

This was humanity’s cradle.

This was humanity’s coffin.

“Hey, drinkbot!”

Gary snapped back to reality, his senses registering the call.

To their right, a man in a hoverchair drifted towards them, thrusting an empty cup out in Wally’s direction. He didn’t even glance at their faces, just shoved the cup forward like it was an afterthought.

“Here, take the cup.”

Wally stiffened, taking a cautious step back. Gary’s mouth twitched, half amused, half horrified.

John.

Recognition came fast. That round face, the vacant cheerfulness; it was him. One of the two. John and Mary. Vital pieces of the puzzle that would, in time, matter more than either of them could know.

“I said take the cup!” John grunted, his tone shifting to mild irritation. For the first time, he peeled his eyes away from the glowing holoscreen hovering inches from his face. “Come on! Take the cu—whoa!”

He leaned too far forward.

The hoverchair dipped.

And then, with a sickening inevitability, John toppled sideways and crashed onto the floor.

“Ugh!” He flailed, stubby limbs thrashing uselessly, his red jumpsuit bunching around his massive frame. Arms and legs waved like an overturned turtle, but his body barely shifted an inch.

Wally darted forward, snatching the cup from his hand as though fulfilling the original request was the most important part. He clutched the empty container triumphantly and turned, eyes wide and innocent.

“Gary?” He held the cup aloft, like a child presenting a prize. The question was unspoken, but obvious: Can I keep it?

Gary couldn’t help himself. He chuckled. He then reached out, ruffling Wally’s hair with a calloused hand.

“Go on, bro.” He nodded at the oversized souvenir. “You’ve earned it.”

Wally beamed, stuffing the massive cup into his utility bag with a satisfied hum.

Suddenly, crimson lines pulsed across the floor beneath their feet. Protocol had been triggered.

Two stewards swept past, tall and broad in their spotless uniforms, moving with crisp precision. They didn’t so much as glance at Gary or Wally, shouldering them aside as they funneled the flow of hoverchairs around the jam John’s fall had caused.

The fat man looked up at them with wide, expectant eyes. “Uh, stewards? Hello? Little help here?”

One steward finally acknowledged him, his expression calm, rehearsed. “Please remain stationary, sir. A service bot will be here to assist you shortly.”

And then he turned back, resuming his task of directing traffic.

Gary’s jaw tightened. His first instinct screamed at him to act, to hoist the man up by sheer force and be done with it. But instead, he stood there, watching the enforcers of this world stand idle while a helpless man writhed in the middle of a thoroughfare.

“What the fuck..." Gary muttered under his breath.

Were they serious? They had the strength. The discipline. The numbers. And still, protocol demanded they wait for a robot to do the job.

John’s flabby arms slapped at the pristine floor as he squirmed, voice straining in growing panic. “Anybody? Help? Please?”

Nobody looked. Nobody even flinched. Every pair of eyes stayed locked on glowing screens, mouths moving in trivial conversations, hands busy ordering another meal or swiping through digital menus.

Wally clutched his bag tighter, glancing nervously between John and Gary.

Gary, for the first time since stepping on the Main Deck, felt something claw at his gut. Guilt. Rage. And underneath it, a sharp, gnawing fear.

Because if this was what humanity had become, then who, exactly, were they trying to save?

“Not on my watch.”

Gary’s tone left no room for doubt.

“Stay here, Wallace." He ordered sharply. The scavenger blinked at the edge in his voice and obeyed, keeping back from the roar of hoverchair traffic.

Gary strode forward, squaring his shoulders, arms folded neatly behind his back. “Gentlemen?” His voice carried with the calm weight of authority. “Care to explain why you’re leaving this man flailing on the floor?”

One steward paused mid-gesture, narrowing his eyes. “Identify yourself, sir.”

“Sergeant Gary Sanderson." Gary fired back, snapping his fingers like issuing cadence. “Waste Disposal Division. Head of security. Currently chasing down a tram because Gofer--" He spat the name like a curse. “--decided sprinting for the Captain’s reward mattered more than procedure. We’re hauling precious cargo. A promotion’s guaranteed.”

Both stewards stiffened instantly. “S-sir! Apologies, we didn’t recognize you. Were you recently appointed?”

“I was.” Gary wrinkled his nose, tugging at his filthy raincoat. “And the shit we handle down there makes this cakewalk look like a holiday. Now—” He jabbed a finger at the passenger writhing helplessly on the floor. “—get that man back in his chair. Now.”

“Sir, with due respect… protocol dictates—”

“My authority overrides protocol.” Gary leaned in, voice dropping to a growl. “Where the hell did your empathy go? He’s a human being, not a data point. Help. That. Man.”

The stewards exchanged uneasy glances, then snapped to it. Together, they hefted John like a sack of feathers, adjusting him gently back into his hoverchair.

Gary signaled Wally to approach, and the scavenger shuffled forward.

“Apologies for the delay, sir.” Gary puffed out his chest, his tone softer now. “Sometimes protocol strangles common sense. Hope there are no hard feelings.”

John blinked, then managed a lopsided shrug. “Uh, no, it’s fine! Thank goodness you were here, Sergeant.” He extended a stubby hand. “Name’s John.”

Gary clasped it firmly. “Sergeant Gary Sanderson.”

Wally swallowed, nerves bubbling up before he piped in. “W-Wally!” He held out his palm like a child desperate to be included.

Gary almost laughed. Damn, he's adorable.

John looked faintly bewildered but accepted the handshake anyway.

From the side, a steward cleared his throat, squinting. “Sergeant… may I ask, what’s your callsign?”

Gary turned, one brow cocked. “My… callsign?”

“Yes, sir. Every officer has one. Gofer’s is ‘Siren,’ for that red cap of his. The First Lieutenant's is ‘Auto.’ Always been, given his role.” The man scratched his neck nervously.

Gary broke eye contact, a smirk tugging at his lips. The answer was already in his bones. He’d carried it through fire, rubble, and silence. He was still carrying it now.

The one creature that could survive anything, even nuclear fire.

“Roach.” His voice was steady, final. “Gary ‘Roach’ Sanderson.”

And damn if it didn’t sound cool in his head.

“Evah?!”

Wally’s sudden shout cracked through the din of the deck.

Gary’s eyes tracked his companion’s gaze straight to the maglev monorail gliding through the center of the lobby. Thousands of red-suited passengers floated obliviously all around, but Gary only saw one thing: the familiar cryopod being loaded into the tram. Gofer and his stewards flanking it like a prize.

“Evah!” Wally bolted before Gary could grab him.

“For Christ’s sake—” Gary muttered, sprinting after him. He barked a sharp command over his shoulder at the stewards still directing traffic. “You two, keep the lanes clear and assist the citizen. I’m in pursuit of my partner. Don’t wait for me.”

He didn’t check to see if they obeyed. Didn’t see John’s little wave, or hear his hesitant: “Uh… bye, Wally. Bye, Gary.”

The monorail’s doors were already sliding shut. Wally launched himself forward, colliding shin-first with the last car. He yelped but clung on like his life depended on it.

Gary hit a stride, vaulted, and landed smoother, though years of training didn’t make it hurt less at his age. The tram lurched, accelerating with the shriek of magnets, and the city-ship blurred around them.

Flashes of a civilization in decay streamed past.

A day-care: swollen infants spoon-fed by robotic nannies, their 'education' nothing more than jingles and treats.

A food court: rows of passengers suctioning down lunch-in-a-cup, never pausing to taste, only consume.

A beauty salon: women reclining as machines painted faces and sculpted hair, attendants chatting idly while doing nothing themselves.

Gary’s jaw clenched. The deeper they went, the more obscene the division revealed itself.

On one side, descendants of the wealthy: the ones who bought their way into this false Eden. On the other, the worker caste: descendants of those tasked to maintain the ship for eternity.

Feudalism in space. Nobles fattened in their chairs, peasants enslaved to upkeep the machine.

Gary spat the thought like venom: Who the hell thought this was a good idea?

The duo’s attention was suddenly drawn to a massive holo-ad hovering above the tram line. Its neon silhouettes strutted endlessly on a catwalk, each one clad in identical crimson jumpsuits. Then, the ship’s cheery, synthetic voice rang out across the deck:

"ATTENTION, AXIOM SHOPPERS. TRY BLUE! IT’S THE NEW RED!”

As if on command, the figures in the hologram shimmered, their jumpsuits bleeding from red into a bright, artificial blue.

A ripple of 'ooohs' drifted from nearby passengers. For one fleeting moment, the masses actually looked up from their holoscreens. But just as quickly, they pushed a few lazy buttons on their chair consoles. In perfect synchronicity, every red jumpsuit shifted to blue. A wave of conformity. Then, without another thought, the crowd sank back into their private screens, the spark of attention already extinguished.

“Whoa…” Wally’s eyes lit up like a child’s. He stepped closer to inspect the jumpsuit of an elderly man seated nearby, leaning in so close he could have touched the fabric. The man, of course, never noticed; his focus was locked on a flashing game on his holoscreen, oblivious to the scavenger practically breathing down his neck.

Gary exhaled hard through his nose and rubbed the bridge of his forehead, the other hand braced on his hip. The display only deepened his disdain. All of this, identity, choice, even colour, had been reduced to a button press.

Where was the struggle? Where was merit?

Where was the dignity of earning something?

Even in Gary’s time, when automation was rampant and supply lines tightly controlled, people had still needed to stand, to move, to interact. To fight for what they wanted. Here, they simply pressed a key and the world bent to their desires.

Wally, however, had already turned away. His gaze shot down the tramline to the very front...

...and there she was. Eve’s pod, locked in with Gofer’s escort.

His entire body lurched forward at once, like a magnet pulled toward iron. He pushed through the crowd, determined to reach her.

But his path was cut off. A red-haired woman in a hoverchair suddenly veered backwards without looking, her screen-lit eyes still glued to a live holo-chat. The seat’s bulky frame pinned Wally against the monorail wall.

“Ah!” Wally yelped, arms flailing helplessly. “Gary!”

The Sergeant reacted instantly. He moved like a soldier clearing a casualty, wrapping one arm around Wally’s shoulders and the other braced firmly against his chest. With controlled strength, Gary hauled him free of the crushing chair.

He could feel Wally trembling under his grip, hear the young man’s shallow breaths. There wasn’t enough room to bypass the woman, which meant they’d have to move her. But she remained utterly consumed by her screen, oblivious to everything around her.

Gary’s eyes narrowed. He knew this face.

Mary.

“Date?” The redhead scoffed to her holographic companion. “Don’t get me started on dates. Every holo-date I’ve been on has been a virtual disaster!”

“Excuse me, ma’am?” Wally piped up nervously.

She didn’t flinch.

“…If I could just meet one man, one, who wasn’t so… superficial!”

“Ma’am?” Wally tried again, tapping lightly on the rim of her headset.

Nothing.

“I mean, honestly, there are no good men out there!”

Gary’s lips pressed into a thin, sour line. “Not all of us are horny monkeys, you know…” He muttered under his breath. Of course, she couldn’t hear a word, but masculine pride demanded the defense anyway.

“Ma’am?!” Wally raised his voice, tapping harder. His wide, panicked eyes shot back to Gary. “Gary! What do we do? Evah’s there!"

Gary gave a resigned shrug and reached for the headset himself. A flick of his finger, and the device fizzled out.

“…I know! I know because I scrolled through them a—” Mary’s words choked off mid-sentence as the holoscreen vanished before her eyes. Her jumpsuit blinked back to its default red. She gasped, disoriented.

Wally instinctively retreated behind Gary, peeking nervously from over his shoulder like a child hiding behind a parent.

The Sergeant glanced back at him and offered the smallest of reassuring smiles before fixing his gaze on Mary once again.

Her pupils contracted against the sudden glare of real light. She blinked rapidly, struggling to focus. For the first time in perhaps years, her eyes took in the world beyond her screen; the towering skylines of the Main Deck, the endless sprawl of commerce and habitation, the bright artificial sun hanging high above. And for a brief, precious moment, she was mesmerized.

“Uh… excuse me, ma’am?” Wally whistled softly, still half-hidden behind Gary.

“Huh?” Mary finally looked down, startled to see them. Her confusion was plain, mirroring John’s earlier daze.

“Uh… could we maybe move to the other side, please?” Wally asked timidly, pointing towards Eve’s tram.

Mary’s gaze flicked between the scavenger and the Sergeant, then back again. Slowly, understanding dawned.

“Oh! Oh, uh... s-sure, of course.” With a quick command to her chair, she backed away, clearing the passage.

“Ah, thank you, miss…?” Wally prompted.

“Mary." She said, still sounding uncertain.

“Wally.” He smiled shyly, gesturing to himself before hurrying past. In three quick steps, he was at Eve’s pod. He laid his hands against the smooth hull, clutching it to his chest as though afraid it might vanish if he let go. A long breath escaped him; relief, love, possession all tangled together.

Gary lingered a moment, watching the young man with something caught between pity and admiration. Then, he turned back to Mary and extended his hand.

“Sergeant Gary ‘Roach’ Sanderson, Waste Disposal Division. Thank you for your cooperation, ma’am.”

Mary blinked, then smiled nervously as she shook his hand. “Oh! Well, of course! Always happy to help security with… whatever you need.” She broke eye contact quickly, still flustered.

But she couldn’t resist one last question. “Might I ask… what’s in that pod? Wally seems awfully protective.”

Gary’s eyes drifted past her, beyond the tram, to the distant spire of McCrea’s tower. His gut twisted with the weight of it. He could almost feel Auto watching them already.

His voice came low, steady, heavy with meaning.

“Someone very close to him.”

Chapter Text

The monorail slid smoothly into another tunnel, gliding beneath a radiant holo-sign that arched across the ceiling like a beacon:

MAIN DECK→ LIDO DECK

Moments later, the tunnel opened up into an artificial paradise: a colossal leisure district designed to mimic the luxury of a resort world. Hundreds of floors of beach-house-style quarters wrapped around the rim in a great circular ring. In the center lay a massive swimming pool, bordered by holographic palm trees that swayed in a nonexistent breeze. Dozens of spas lined the perimeter, glowing softly with neon signage promising 'ultimate relaxation.'

And yet, for all this synthetic opulence, the pool itself remained eerily still. Not a single splash disturbed the water.

Every passenger was poolside, sunk into their hoverchairs beneath umbrellas, oversized drink cups clutched lazily in their hands. Eyes glued to their holoscreens, mouths working absently at straws, they lounged like statues in a simulation of paradise; present, but never living it.

Gary’s lips pressed into a bitter line. “Figures.”

The sight drove the point home sharper than ever. Was everyone here truly this lazy, this hollowed out? Or had they all simply surrendered long ago, conditioned into apathy?

WALL-E, the film of his childhood, had always been wild, absurd, even funny. As kids, it was about robots and adventure. But standing here now, watching this surreal parody of humanity, Gary felt the full weight of the story. It wasn’t comedy. It wasn’t lighthearted. It was a message, a warning. A plea against consumption run wild. Against the exploitation that burned Earth to ash. And now, here they were, the survivors… reduced to this.

The monorail slowed again, easing to a stop before a vast emblazoned crest of Buy N’ Large inlaid into the deck floor. Ahead loomed the entrance to the Bridge Lobby.

Wally and Gary tilted their heads back in unison, eyes rising to the towering spire before them. It climbed like a colossal needle through the very center of the ship, vanishing into the false sky. Near the pinnacle, a circular observation deck jutted outward, its windows glinting against the artificial sunlight. From there, one could see everything aboard the Axiom.

Gary’s fists clenched at his sides. His jaw tightened. That spire wasn’t just command. It was Auto’s lair.

Eve’s tram rolled ahead towards the entrance. Wally froze, shoulders taut with urgency, but Gary pressed a steadying hand against him. They couldn’t risk being seen. The two melted into the shadows, keeping close to Eve’s pod while remaining out of Chief Gofer’s line of sight.

The tram entered a cavernous hall at the spire’s base; a stark contrast to the indulgence outside. Here, space yawned open, stripped down to function and formality. At the far end stood the elevator to the Bridge, its doors sealed behind an impenetrable shimmer of blue energy. Letters flickered and scrolled across the barrier in strict, military font:

BRIDGE ACCESS – AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY.

The tram glided to a stop in front of a lone reception desk.

Wally and Gary crouched low, peeking over the edge of the pod, breaths held tight.

Behind the desk sat a woman in a crisp white BnL Navy uniform. She was unlike the others they had seen; tall, thin, disciplined in posture, her hair the colour of fire, pulled neatly back from her face. Her pale fingers tapped swiftly at a translucent keyboard, her eyes locked on cascading data streams projected across her holoscreen. Filing reports, logging activity, lost in procedure.

Chief Gofer cleared his throat with a sharp, deliberate cough. The sound echoed faintly in the vast hall, but the woman at the desk remained transfixed by the glow of her holoscreen. Her fingers danced mechanically over the translucent keys, eyes bleary and sunken, as if she had been chained to this task for hours… maybe years.

“Excuse me." Gofer snapped, his voice already tinged with impatience.

The woman startled, blinking rapidly as though surfacing from a trance. She straightened at once, abandoning her work, and rose to salute. “Oh! My apologies, Master Chief Gofer, sir! What can I do for you?”

“I need access to the Bridge. It’s urgent.” His tone was clipped, almost dismissive.

Her gaze flickered towards the cryopod hitched to the tram. A hint of curiosity crept into her voice. “May I ask why, sir?”

“That’s classified." Gofer barked. “I am under direct orders from First Lieutenant to report immediately.”

“I understand, sir." She said carefully, still standing at attention. "But protocol requires I confirm authoriza—”

“I said I was ordered to the Bridge by the First Lieutenant.” Gofer cut her off, raising his voice to a sharp edge. “Immediately. That means now!”

The outburst cracked through the sterile air like a whip.

Gary, watching from cover, felt his jaw tighten. His instincts screamed at him. Wasn’t this abuse of authority? The man wasn’t commanding respect; he was browbeating her. Manipulating someone who was simply doing her job.

The receptionist winced, her shoulders stiffening. “Yes, sir.” Her hands moved quickly, tapping a command sequence. With a low hum, the shimmering blue forcefield dissipated, leaving the elevator exposed.

Without another word of acknowledgement, Gofer jerked the tram forward, gliding it past the desk and straight into the lift.

The typist was just about to sink back into her chair when her eyes finally caught the movement of two extra figures clinging to the pod’s side.

“Huh?”

“Hello.” Wally piped softly, lifting his hand in a timid wave; half greeting, half farewell.

“Sup.” Gary added, mirroring the gesture with far more casual ease. His smirk betrayed his amusement; the whole moment felt lifted straight out of the movie script.

Truthfully, he had always thought the receptionist robot seemed lonely when he first watched the film. Always stationed at that desk, nameless, forgotten by everyone around her. What would become of her when the Axiom eventually touched down on Earth? The story never bothered to ask.

But here, now, she was human. And for the first time in who knew how long, someone had seen her.

The woman blinked at them, startled, unsure how to react. For a moment, she looked almost alive, drawn out of her mechanical routine. But before she could speak, the elevator doors slid shut, swallowing Gofer, Eve’s pod, and their two hidden passengers as it rose towards the Bridge.

“Huh." She murmured, eyes lingering on the empty space. “Weird…”

Her lips curved faintly upwards, the smallest rebellion against her weary mask.

“…but welcome.”

Chapter Text

Fifty meters. One hundred. Two hundred.

The transparent elevator climbed higher and higher, its steady hum reverberating through the confined chamber. Gary and Wally clung to the side that faced outwards towards the Lido Deck. The view was dizzying; an ever-widening panorama of the ship’s interior unfurling beneath them. From the base of the lobby all the way across the expanse of the Main Deck, the sterile world of the Axiom stretched in geometric perfection, its ordered corridors and glittering holo-ads shrinking into a toy-like scale the further they ascended.

Wally tensed beside the Sergeant, pressing himself instinctively closer to the pod as though the glass walls might vanish at any moment. Gary noticed the way his knuckles whitened against the railing, the faint tremor in his shoulders. Without hesitation, he slipped a hand over the young man’s back, rubbing in small, steady circles.

“Easy, Wallace. Just a ride up." He muttered under his breath.

It made sense, in a way. Those towering cubes of compacted trash back in New York hadn’t simply built themselves. Wally had hauled them one block at a time, level by level, always looking upwards, always with the ground yawning below. Acrophobia wasn’t born in a day; it was carved into him by years of climbing among the skeletal remains of skyscrapers.

The light outside the glass suddenly dimmed, plunging them into shadow. They had reached the pinnacle of the spire. With a faint hiss, the elevator doors parted, and the tram glided smoothly forward into the Bridge.

The shift in atmosphere was immediate. The Bridge was vast and circular, a chamber of command and silence. A cool breath of recycled air swept over them, carrying with it the faint ozone tang of machinery. It was darker here, deliberately so, the dim lighting creating an almost reverent stillness.

One wall was a colossal viewport staring out into the endless black of space, a sea of distant stars twinkling like scattered glass shards. Opposite to it, another wide window overlooked the inner expanse of the Axiom itself, offering a god’s-eye view of the artificial Eden they had left behind.

Gary turned slowly, taking it all in. The chamber’s circumference was lined with consoles and stations, hundreds of them, each neatly arrayed in a ring of technological order. Dials blinked, gauges pulsed, screens flickered with streams of silent data. The walls glowed faintly with multicoloured lights, casting a soft mosaic of green, amber, and blue across the polished floor. Beeps and murmurs of machinery whispered constantly, like a mechanical heartbeat.

It was immaculate. Clean. Perfect. And yet there was something almost… sterile about it. A place where life had been pared away, leaving only control and function.

Gary’s gaze froze. Something moved at the very center of it all.

Not something. Someone.

A solitary figure stood at the helm, framed by the vast viewport, his back to them. He was motionless, hands set firmly upon the controls, staring into the void of space as if communing with it. The silhouette radiated authority and permanence, like a statue carved into the very heart of the Bridge.

The tram slowed, humming to a halt. Chief Gofer stiffened immediately, snapping into formality. He drew himself as tall as his natural frame allowed, voice ringing sharp in the hush.

“Master Chief Gofer, reporting, sir!”

The figure at the helm stirred. Slowly, he began to turn.

Gary frowned.

So, this was Auto’s human counterpart.

The man was tall: six feet and three inches, just an inch above Gary himself, and towering over Wally’s more modest stature. He looked to be in his mid-thirties, lean but strong, his posture sharpened by years of discipline. His uniform was immaculate: a flawlessly pressed white BnL naval officer’s coat with a crisp black tie, trousers without a crease out of place, and dress shoes polished to such a gloss they reflected the dim light. Not a fleck of dust, not a thread out of line.

The gold star-and-bar insignia of Commander gleamed proudly from his broad shoulders. A naval cap, stark white and perfectly fitted, shadowed a face that was pale, clean-shaven, and almost unnervingly symmetrical. His jet-black hair was combed neatly back and slicked with a faint sheen of cream, each strand pinned precisely in place.

But the eyes? Those gave him away.

Cold, metallic gray irises fixed themselves on the tram, unblinking. A thin scar ran vertically across his right brow, bisecting the lid, and continuing down over the eye itself. That eye was no longer natural. The faint crimson spark within its pupil betrayed it as artificial; a prosthetic, crafted to mimic humanity but not quite able to hide its mechanical origins.

Too dark to catch the name stitched across his breast pocket. For now, Gary decided, 'Auto' would suffice. He doubted the man’s true name would make him any less machine-like.

The First Lieutenant strode forward, each step measured, his spine a perfect rod of discipline. In his right hand he carried a gleaming metallic pace stick, the kind once used by drill officers, though this one was lined with buttons along the grip. A weapon? A substitute for the taser embedded in the original Auto’s frame?

“I’ve brought the scout as you requested, Commander.” Chief Gofer reported stiffly, still frozen at attention.

Auto’s eyes moved; first to the pod, then only briefly to the men before him. His expression did not change.

“I see.” He said. The voice matched the gaze; deep, monotonous, stripped of inflection, as though emotion itself had been excised from him.

Gary felt Wally stiffen beside him. He reacted quickly, clamping a hand onto the scavenger’s shoulder and guiding him further into the shadows, well away from Auto’s piercing focus. Better hidden, better forgotten.

The light fell across Auto now, isolating him at the center of the room like an idol in a shrine. Gary narrowed his eyes, catching the stitched nameplate at last.

Otto Maximilian Kirchner.

Even his first name was a bitter reminder of what he represented.

Auto’s gaze sharpened on the pod. “Are you certain this reconnaissance cryogenic unit reports a legitimate specimen?”

“Affirmative." Gofer replied quickly, though his voice carried a tremor. “At first, I thought it a malfunction, but the scouts’ systems have never failed before. I assumed it to be authentic.”

“You assume too much.” Auto’s words sliced the air, as sterile as the room around them. “Cryopod subroutines are not exempt from defect. That is precisely why I ordered its transfer here, for verification.”

“Understood, sir.”

With a precise, economical motion, Auto withdrew a security chip from his coat pocket. He inserted it into the pod, and the device came alive with a hum. For several long seconds the chamber filled with quiet, the only sound the methodical pulse of the scanner as it combed through Eve’s systems. Then, a sharp tone, a positive confirmation.

Auto’s face did not move, but his prosthetic eye glowed faintly brighter as the results scrolled across his hidden interface.

“Confirmed.” He intoned flatly. “The finding is genuine. Scout Unit One has indeed retrieved a live, photosynthetic organism.”

Gofer’s throat worked nervously. “If that’s true, then… that means—”

“Affirmative.” Auto cut him off without hesitation. His voice was quiet now, but no less chilling. “Directive Alpha One-One-Three must be initiated.”

Directive Alpha One-One-Three. The name landed in Gary’s ears like a verdict; the same cold, categorical order Shelby Forthright himself had issued: no recolonization, no second chance for Earth. The formulation was a policy, a lockbox on hope.

Gary felt something in him go quiet and harden. Wally, Eve, McCrea; they would need help to break that lock. He would give what he had. If it cost him his life, so be it. He had died once already; what was one more risk when the prize was an entire planet reclaimed for living things?

"GAH!"

He glanced at Wally and let out a half-breath of frustration. The scavenger had somehow slipped into the circular, hidden elevator that led to the Captain’s private suite; a blind spot where curious hands and officious eyes rarely looked. For a heartbeat Gary’s mind blanked. Then the soldier’s reflexes returned: conceal, listen, adapt.

He pressed himself flat against a bank of consoles at the far side of the Bridge and became a shadow. It turned into a quiet game of movement and stillness. Each time Auto paced the room and declaimed the Directive in that sterile, emotionless cadence, Gary edged along the consoles to the opposite flank, making himself as small and soundless as the ship’s hum would allow.

He didn’t worry much for Wally. If the play followed the old pattern, the boy would be distracted, fawn over McCrea or be gently shepherded back into place, ultimately harmless and unharmed. Gary’s job, for now, was to stay invisible and hear everything.

“Sir…” Gofer’s voice wavered into the low hush of the Bridge. “Directive Alpha-One-One-Three takes absolute precedence, but... what of the Captain?”

Auto did not look up. His hands moved over a console with mechanical precision. A holo-call blinked into being and he spoke into it in the same flat register he used for all things human. “Captain, you are needed on the Bridge.” The line clicked closed without pleasantry. Then, turning back to Gofer, his voice sharpened: “Are you afraid of him?”

“No. No, of course not, sir." Gofer said, offended on principle. “But if the Directive leaks… there could be an uprising. Passengers, crew, even rogues from the Medical Ward could…” His words trailed as the wheels of contingency spun in his head.

“Exactly.” Auto’s reply was a scalpel. “Which is why the specimen must be disposed of without McCrea’s knowledge.”

Gary felt the words in his marrow. Dispose. Without Eve knowing. Without anyone knowing.

Auto stepped forward, locked on the pod, and slid a different key into a recessed port. The mechanism answered with a soft hydraulic hiss. A narrow compartment unlatched and eased out of the pod’s belly. Under the fluorescent strip light, Gary’s breath constricted.

There it was, unmistakable even in that sterile halo: the tiny boot, and cradled within it, the green sprout.

Auto lifted the boot with a careful, almost reverent motion. He brought it closer and pinched a delicate leaf between two immaculate fingers. “Fascinating." He said aloud, as if musing to himself rather than issuing orders. “An organism capable of photosynthesis and, given suitable conditions, planetary propagation.”

Gofer watched, a mixture of awe and professional dread on his face. “A shame we cannot quarantine it for study.” He murmured. Even his voice betrayed the scientist in him.

Auto’s mouth thinned. “Quarantine implies risk.  Risk of exposure, of contagion, of hope spreading.” He set the boot down gently. “No. We will dispose of it with dignity.”

He turned to Gofer with the same calm certainty he used for pulse checks and course corrections. “After the Captain is pacified and this scout’s report discredited, you will place the specimen in an escape capsule and jettison it. Let it drift. It will live a few days at most. Without water, it will die.”

That was the plan: take the plant cleanly, quietly, bury the evidence in the void, and let a little green life choke to death so the Axiom could sleep on. Eve would remain ignorant. Wally would be broken anew. Humanity’s only tangible hope might be dumped into cold space because some officer feared what the truth would do to order.

Gary’s jaw clenched.

That was how they intended to steal the plant from under Eve’s nose.

In fact, Auto allowed Gofer to retrieve the boot and quietly slip out through the entrance. The First Lieutenant covered his tracks with mechanical precision: closing the compartment, returning the pod to its pristine state, and sliding seamlessly back to the console as if nothing had happened.

Moments later, the elevator doors opened, and Wally appeared alongside the Captain himself.

Gary seized the opportunity. Patiently, silently, he crawled along the consoles, circling around until he reached the back of McCrea’s massive hoverchair. With one swift motion, he tugged Wally out of his precarious hiding spot, gripping his shoulders as though pulling a reckless little brother out of trouble.

Honestly, that’s exactly what it felt like. Babysitting. Babysitting Thomas back before the incident.

The Captain clapped his hands twice. The Bridge responded instantly: a polished coffee dispenser unfolded from a panel, pouring steaming liquid into a cup; Strauss’s Blue Danube trickled through the speakers, its soft crescendos filling the air; and his chair illuminated a command path across the deck.

McCrea looked every bit as obese and lethargic as Gary remembered from the movie. And just as in the film, it was no mystery who the real captain of the Axiom was.

“Captain on deck." Auto droned in his flat, obligatory tone.

Both he and Gofer stood at rigid attention, saluting with the precision of drilled officers. McCrea, on the other hand, barely acknowledged them. Still half-asleep, he hovered lazily towards the console, his focus entirely on the aroma of fresh caffeine.

“Sir—” Auto began.

“Coffee…” McCrea cut him off, extending a pudgy hand.

Auto froze in place, waiting patiently as the Captain made his chair do all the work of fetching the cup. He brought it to his lips and took a long, exaggerated sip, savouring it with the indulgence of a man for whom time and responsibility meant nothing.

“Sir, the annual—”

McCrea waved him off without looking up. “Protocol, Auto. First things first.”

Auto bowed his head slightly. “Understood, sir.”

“Computer! Status report!” McCrea barked, louder now, as if his sudden burst of energy could mask the fact that he had just rolled out of bed.

Immediately, his hoverchair whooshed across the deck, gliding him to a row of consoles where glowing holographic readouts came online. The Axiom’s shipwide AI reported in a clear, clinical voice.

“Mechanical systems?”

“UNCHANGED — NO MALFUNCTIONS DETECTED.”

“Reactor core temperature?”

“UNCHANGED — FUSION DRIVE WITHIN POWER LIMITS.”

“Passenger count?”

“UNCHANGED — ONE MILLION, FIVE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND SOULS ABOARD. NO BIRTHS OR DEATHS REPORTED.”

“Regenerative food supply?”

“UNCHANGED — ARTIFICIAL ORGANIC CROPS AT CAPACITY.”

“Jacuzzi pH balance?”

“UNCHANGED — ALL SPAS REGISTER PH AT 7.0.”

Gary smirked despite himself. Of course he’d ask that.

Meanwhile, Wally’s wide eyes drifted to the far end of the Bridge. Eve’s pod was there, waiting. “Evah…” He whispered longingly.

Gary grabbed his shoulder, tightening his grip. “Hey. I’ll get you to her, alright? But you’ve gotta wait.”

Wally’s lip trembled with impatience, but he nodded, trusting the Sergeant.

“Atmospheric conditions?”

“UNCHANGED — 77% NITROGEN, 23% OXYGEN. FULLY PRESSURIZED.”

“And laundry service volume?”

“UNCHANGED — NANOFABRIC JUMPSUIT STERILIZATION FLOWING NORMALLY.”

The Captain’s chair finally rolled to a stop. He stretched, yawned, and then grinned faintly. “Okay, Auto. All systems green. Now, what was it you wanted to tell me?”

“Yes, sir. The annual terrestrial vegetation reconnaissance has—”

But McCrea’s attention was already elsewhere. His eyes fell on a side-screen displaying the current ship time.

“12:30?!” His voice cracked into a shriek. He was suddenly wide awake, all grogginess gone. “Auto, why didn’t you wake me for morning announcements?”

“Forgive me, sir...” Auto replied smoothly. “...but you insisted to sle—”

The Captain didn’t hear the rest. He was already flying across the Bridge, positioning himself beside the massive clock dial that projected the ship’s circadian rhythm. With a dramatic flourish, he twisted the dial backwards, the projection clicking from 12:30 PM to 9:30 AM.

The Axiom reacted instantly. Out on the main deck, the artificial sun reversed course, streaking from mid-day brightness back to a pink-hued dawn. Food kiosks scrambled, transforming lunch menus into breakfast offerings. Entire streams of hoverchair traffic froze, then rerouted. Entertainment feeds cut off mid-sentence as everything recalibrated.

“Honestly...” McCrea muttered with a sleepy grin. “...it’s the one thing I get to do around here.”

Gary watched the spectacle unfold with narrowed eyes. And that’s the man who’s supposed to lead humanity back home…?

The Captain blew into the brass announcement whistle built into his console, and the sound resonated throughout the ship like a great horn summoning an empire to attention. Across the Axiom, fiber-optic projectors shimmered to life, transforming every holoscreen, every holo-advertisement, and even the vaulted ceilings into a live video feed of Captain McCrea himself.

“Well, good morning, everybody." He said cheerfully, tugging at his uniform as his face beamed across every deck. “This is your good ol’ Captain McCrea speaking, welcoming you to day 255,642 aboard the BnL Axiom. As always, the weather is a balmy seventy-two degrees and sunny, and, uh—”

Gary tuned him out immediately. He had no interest in scripted announcements that hadn’t changed in centuries. He’d heard these lines before, word for word, back when they were just dialogue in a movie. Hell, he could still recite half of them in his sleep.

Instead, he shifted his focus to the Bridge itself. His eyes scanned for any piece of technology, any tool, that might give him an edge in this strange war he’d stumbled into. Staying low, he crept towards another bank of consoles hidden in the shadows. Wally was left alone for the moment, but the young scavenger was far too transfixed by Eve’s pod to notice Gary’s absence.

The Sergeant’s fingers darted across the console. A slim device detached from its dock with a soft click. Gary turned it over in his hands and grinned. It was a datapad; sleek, flat, and the size of a phone. When he swiped upwards, its holographic display bloomed into life, icons and menus glowing in midair.

Looks like a Samsung or an iPhone… funny how some things never change.

He stuffed the datapad into his pocket and quickly returned to his position beside Wally before Auto could glance in his direction.

On cue, McCrea squinted at a pulsing light blinking on the console before him. “Uh… Auto, what’s that flashing button?”

Auto snapped to attention, saluting crisply. “Sir! That was precisely the matter I intended to address. It concerns the protocol for the annual Extraterrestrial Vegetation Reconnaissance.” His voice carried no emotion, only clinical authority. “That control activates the systematic procedures in the event one of our scouts returns with a live specimen of biological life."

He gestured towards Eve’s pod, which hovered silently on its docking tram. With deliberate precision, Auto tapped the console, disengaging the energy binders that held it in place. Then, he retrieved his datapad, bringing up Eve’s recon report in stark detail.

McCrea blinked, dumbfounded. His hoverchair rolled closer as though curiosity had finally broken through his morning haze. “Wait a second… what’s that doing here?” He jabbed a finger at the pod.

“It is EVR Scout-1’s exoplanetary cryopod, sir." Auto replied smoothly. “Scout-1 was dispatched to Earth, assigned to an overlooked sector for the quinquennial evaluation. Long-range sensors detected its beacon. The Return Vehicle brought it aboard.” He let the words hang in the air before lowering his tone. “And most importantly… Scout-1 has returned with a positive finding of photosynthetic life.”

The Captain nearly spilled his coffee. “Positive?” He echoed the word as if it were impossible to grasp. Then he leaned closer, muttering under his breath: “Impossible…”

“Yes, sir." Auto continued. “At first we suspected a malfunction. But cross-referencing the pod’s subsystems revealed no errors. Diagnostics confirmed the integrity of the report. The data is indisputable. The scout has indeed located and retrieved a live specimen.”

McCrea’s face drained of colour. “Are you sure?”

Auto’s fingers danced across the holographic keypad with perfect efficiency. “Well, sir..." He said flatly, entering the final code. “...let us ask her ourselves.”

The last digit glowed, and with a hiss of hydraulics, the pod began to unlock. Steam curled into the air as the casing split open.

Gary tensed in the shadows, every muscle ready.

Eve stirred and rose from stasis within seconds. Her eyesight adjusted quickly, and so did her instincts as she snapped to attention at the sight of her commanding officers.

“Second Lieutenant Eve of Vegetation Recon reporting, sir!”

“Evah!”

In a heartbeat, Gary clamped his arm around the young scavenger’s throat and dragged him backwards into the elevator’s shadow. Wally thrashed, muffled noises escaping his lips.

“Shh, shh!” Gary whispered, tightening his grip just enough to keep him still. “I’m not covering your nose, breathe from there. Calm down!”

Neither Auto nor Gofer had reacted fast enough; by the time their eyes flicked towards the movement, the two were already hidden in the gloom.

Meanwhile, Eve stood straight, saluting both Captain and Commander. She coughed, expelling cryogenic residue as her lungs remembered how to function.

“At ease, Lieutenant. How do you feel?” McCrea asked, his voice groggy but curious.

“…I’m feeling alright, sir.” Her composure returned quickly, though her gaze darted around, taking in her unfamiliar surroundings. “Where am I?”

Auto’s voice cut through the quiet, calm and clinical. “You are back aboard the Axiom. The A.R.V. retrieved you after your pod’s distress signal was intercepted, triggered by your neural implants upon discovery of organic life. And as improbable as statistics suggested, it appears you have indeed located photosynthetic life on Terra-3 of Sol.”

Eve blinked as fragmented memories stitched themselves together.

Her thoughts aligned. She nodded slowly. “Yes. My assigned directive, Alpha One-Oh-One, was to Earth. Specifically Sector NA-001. North America. City 001, formerly known as New York.”

“The capital of the Buy-N-Large government?” The Captain asked.

“Yes, sir.” She paused, sifting through fragmented flashbacks, then straightened to deliver her official report. “I was assigned to that sector because it had long been disregarded. My directive required investigation of locations deemed unlikely to show recovery. I inspected the Axiom’s launch site itself, still structurally intact since humanity’s departure in 2105. Within a week of my search, I discovered a seedling in the Hudson Bay region. Bio-analysis confirmed it was photosynthetic, processing CO₂ into oxygen.”

The Captain frowned. “But why begin in the most polluted area of the planet? The capital was the epicenter of the trash crisis.”

Eve explained carefully. “We had not surveyed the area in decades, sir. Conditions evolve over time. While my fellow scouts focused on open wilderness sectors, Brazil, Siberia, or Canada, I concluded overlooked ruins, trashed cities, and former population centers had the highest chance of surprise regrowth. I was correct.”

McCrea leaned forward, the realization dawning. “So your conclusion is that Earth… can support complex life again?”

“The planet’s environmental condition remained poor overall..." Eve admitted. “...but it was technically habitable.”

The word habitable echoed in the Captain’s mind. His throat tightened.

“And you are absolutely sure of this?” He pressed.

“Yes, sir. That is my official report. I even secured the specimen as solid evidence that Earth is once again life-bearing.”

A tense silence followed.

“I concur with the lieutenant’s statement, Captain." Auto intoned flatly.

“As do I, sir." Gofer echoed quickly.

Eve’s chest visibly swelled with pride. 

The Captain, however, sat frozen. Half shocked, half unwilling. His eyes flicked towards the flashing green button. “But… no scout’s ever come back positive… before…”

“Well, I have now, sir." Eve replied firmly.

Auto stepped forward. “Sir, you are aware of what this means, and what must follow.” His gaze drifted towards the same button. “But the decision remains yours.”

McCrea’s hand hovered. He remembered stories passed down from the previous Captain. 

He hesitated, then pressed his thumb to the biometric scanner. The green button unlocked, and he pushed it.

An alarm wailed through the Bridge. Blast doors slammed shut, cutting off every viewport. The room plunged into darkness, lit only by holographic consoles. Gary nearly cursed aloud as Wally jerked in his grip, startled by the noise.

Then, a holoscreen materialized above the helm. The Buy-N-Large jingle chimed in that overly cheerful corporate tone.

"ROOM SECURE. COMMENCING TRANSMISSION."

The logo dissolved into the image of a man in a fine business suit standing at a podium. His too-bright smile and rehearsed optimism were unmistakable.

The late Shelby Forthright, CEO of BnL.

Gary tuned out the presentation as well. He had heard this spiel before, Shelby’s polished lines, the same corporate sermon repackaged for a fresh audience, and he knew precisely how it would unfold. Quietly, deliberately, he eased his hand from Wally’s mouth and let his gaze fall back to Eve.

They needed to be beside her. If they positioned themselves close enough, Wally would inevitably be noticed; between the two of them they could search for the missing specimen around the Bridge long enough for McCrea and Auto to grow suspicious and, eventually, consign them to the Medical Ward, where opportunities to pry the truth loose often presented themselves.

The Sergeant recognized the tactical advantages. This was also his chance to present himself to the Captain and the First Lieutenant in person: to make an impression, to sell a story, perhaps even to plant the seed of doubt in Auto’s mechanistic certainties. And if persuasion failed...

...well, history had shown that uprisings and acts of defiance sometimes forced change when reason could not.

“Let’s go to Eve while they’re distracted.”

Wally’s face lit up, eagerness spilling from him like a boy who had found a secret.

He seemed far too ready to move, but Gary couldn’t fault the enthusiasm.

Eve stood rigidly at the far corner of the Bridge, her posture eager yet taut, awaiting the moment her superiors would reveal what responsibilities awaited her now that humanity’s long exile teetered on the edge of reversal. Every second stretched thin, her thoughts circling the inevitable command: the task of returning to Earth.

While she stood at attention, fragments of memory seeped back into her mind like thawing ice. The cryogenic freeze had dulled her recollection, encasing both body and thought in a haze. Slowly, shards of experience pierced through; rising, fleeting, incomplete.

She remembered feelings before details. The elation of slicing through clouds, weightless and free. The sudden, breathtaking discovery of a fragile green sprout nestled in the wasteland. And then, an image of a home… a shelter where she had not been alone.

Her mind labored to recall them. The two figures who had shadowed her mission. One; small, stubborn, endlessly trailing after her with childlike devotion. A surviving cleanup worker who had nearly perished at her hands when she mistook him for a threat. The other; taller, steadier, more composed. A self-styled Sergeant, his manner more measured, his words easier to follow.

Wally and Gary. Yes. That was their names.

The memories rushed harder now. Wally, poor Wally; so fragile, so persistent, surviving among towers of refuse while clinging to a spark of innocence. She recalled how he had offered her shelter from a raging sandstorm, how he showed her his cherished yet meager collection of treasures. And she recalled something stranger still: the way his wide eyes lingered upon her, as though he saw something else. She remembered the exact moment she froze, the plant clutched in her grasp, her last image of him before the darkness claimed her. It must have been at least three weeks since.

And Gary; the Sergeant. Unlike Wally, his companionship had been a mutual accord rather than a childish pursuit. He had aided her searches through the crumbling skeleton of New York, rational and composed even in the shadow of collapse. She felt her burning frustration that she never had the chance to thank him properly, not even with a handshake. His words about his fallen brother echoed, hinting at the depth of grief beneath his calm exterior. His maturity stood in stark contrast to Wally’s innocence, and yet both had stayed with her.

A sudden tap on her shoulder shattered her reverie.

Eve turned. What she saw nearly stopped the gears of her mind.

There stood Wally, filthy, covered in grime, smiling up at her with unshaken warmth. And beside him, the unmistakable green raincoat belonging to Gary, his face, partially hidden by his hood, streaked with dust and weariness, yet still bound together by a soldier’s quiet resilience.

“Not now, Wally.” She said automatically, half-turned, believing it a trick of her still-fragmented memory.

Then her breath caught. Her system jolted, her heart seized.

“Hello, Evah.” Wally waved, cheerful, as though no time had passed.

“Sup, Eve.” Gary chimed in with a lopsided grin, calm even here, in the lion’s den.

Eve’s jaw dropped open. Shock paralyzed her.

“Evah?” Wally asked again, puzzled by her silence.

Her eyes contracted sharply, disbelief coursing through her. At last, a thought forced itself through her frozen mind, a single desperate exclamation:

“WHAT ARE YOU TWO DOING HERE?!?”

It was no more than a half-whisper, yet it cracked like a shout, sharp with panic.

Before either of them could answer, Eve’s instincts took hold. With sudden, augmented strength she shoved both men beneath a darkened console, tucking them out of sight. Her body moved like lightning, trained discipline mixed with raw fear.

“Evah? What are yo—” Wally tried, but her hand clamped tight over his mouth, cutting him off mid-word.

“Shhh!” She hissed, every nerve taut as her eyes flicked across the Bridge, scanning for Chief Gofer’s gaze.

When she was certain no one had noticed, she whipped back towards them, her voice lowered to an urgent rasp. “Wally, Gary—what are you doing here? How did you even get here?!”

Wally squirmed beneath her grip, trying to speak, his muffled protests buzzing uselessly against her palm.

Gary leaned forward. “We hitched a ride. Jumped onto the retrieval ship that hauled your pod back. Slipped inside before anyone spotted us.”

Her pupils dilated in horror. “Are you insane?!? You cannot be here!” She whispered fiercely. “Do you have any idea what they’ll do to me? To you? If they catch us, if they even suspect, we’re finished!”

Eve's voice cracked, trembling under the strain. “I’m going to be in so much trouble…”

Gary stole a sidelong glance at his companion and immediately caught it; Wally wasn’t listening to a single word Eve said. He wasn’t processing her panic, her warnings, or even the sharp edge in her tone. No? his gaze was fixed wholly on her, entranced. To him, her voice, even upset, even laced with alarm, was the most beautiful sound in existence. He sat there dreamily beneath the console as she ranted about the danger they were all in.

“Okay, Eve, let’s take a look.” The Captain’s voice rang out from across the Bridge. He and Auto were still hunched over the thick manual, deciphering its child-like text.

Eve froze. Her head snapped up at the mention of her name; the very cue she had been anticipating since awakening. But before stepping forward, she shoved both Gary and Wally deeper beneath the shadowed console, her hands firm, decisive. They were to remain unseen.

The Captain, eyes squinting at the crude illustrations, finally read aloud the first instruction.

“Let’s see here… ah! Step one—voice command to ship’s computer: 'Confirm acquisition.’”

“CONFIRM ACQUISITION." The ship’s computer echoed in its monotone.

At once, the Bridge came alive. Panels lit with a brilliant green glow that radiated across the ceiling. From the center of that illumination descended a cylindrical device, humming with cold precision. Its blue sensors swept in a slow, methodical circle, scanning the entire chamber until they locked onto Eve’s sample container, still nestled within the pod that had carried her across the void.

The machine glided along ceiling tracks, whirring until it hovered directly above the pod. From its sides, articulated arms unfolded with insect-like efficiency. One pair clamped around the container, wrenching it free. Another arm extended towards the Captain, its metallic digits poised in eerie patience.

“VOCAL AUTHORIZATION REQUIRED.”

“Uh…” The Captain blinked, clearly unprepared.

“Uh...” The device repeated instantly. “PATTERN IDENTIFIED: McCrea, Benjamin H. Captain, BnL Starliner Axiom. Authorization accepted.”

The Captain flinched, raising the manual as a makeshift shield as yet another arm lowered from the device. This one pressed a rapid-fire sequence of codes into the container’s lock. Sparks flashed. Panels slid apart with a hiss.

Gary, hidden in shadow, shot a daggered glare at Auto. The First Lieutenant wore only the mask of anticipation, feigned surprise sculpted into his mechanical features. He had known. He had planned this.

Wally, however, dared to peek out from beneath the console, wide-eyed with innocent curiosity.

With a final click, the container’s lid split open...

...revealing only emptiness.

“…What?!?” Eve’s voice cracked through the quiet. Her eyes widened in pure disbelief.

“Huh?” The Captain leaned forward, baffled. “Where’s the… the thingy?”

“Plant, sir.” Auto corrected smoothly, his tone infallibly neutral, almost smug.

“Right, right! The plant." McCrea stammered, rifling through the manual as though the answer might leap from its crude pages. “Wh-where is it? Did we miss a step? This was supposed to be a two-step procedure…”

He flipped frantically back and forth, mumbling, while Auto and Gofer remained at attention, unreadable.

Eve stared into the hollow container.

With their superiors’ backs turned, her gaze darted across the bridge, her mind a storm of confusion. Had the specimen slipped out by accident? Impossible, those containers were sealed tighter than vaults. No, if it was gone, someone had removed it. But who? No one else had laid eyes on the plant. No one... except two men.

Her chest tightened as realization sharpened into fury. She snapped her head towards the console where they hid.

“Wally. Gary.”

Her voice was low, dangerous.

Before either could react, she lunged, seizing them both by the collars and hauling them into the light.

“Oof—!” Gary gagged, stumbling against her grip. “Easy there, tough love! Hands off the windpipe."

“Where is it? Where is it?!” Eve demanded, already rifling through Wally’s bag. To her frustration, the only discovery was a jumbo-sized lunch-in-a-cup. She shoved it aside, then tore through his pockets, patted down his patched worksuit, even swept her eyes over the hollow where he’d been crouched. Nothing.

She turned her wrath on Gary. Her hands searched briskly; knife, lighter (stolen from Wally’s shack, no doubt), and a datapad that hummed faintly in her palm. Suspicious, yes, but nothing resembling a boot with a living plant inside.

“What the hell are you—?” Gary began, but she ignored him, snatching her holoscanner from her belt.

“Evah?” Wally blinked up at her, wide-eyed and innocent, as if baffled by the storm breaking over them.

“Find the plant! Both of you!" She snapped, her voice sharp enough to cut steel.

Wally flinched, then dropped to his knees, scouring the floor in frantic confusion. He knew she’d taken it from him. He’d seen her clutch it, frozen but clutching it all the same. So how in the world could it vanish?

“Gary?” Wally’s voice cracked, full of boyish panic. “Can you help me?”

The Sergeant pinched the bridge of his nose, sighing through his teeth. Of course he knew this search was pointless; the plant wasn’t here anymore. But to keep up appearances, he dropped to one knee beside Wally and began combing through shadows and corners, humoring them both while keeping his secret.

At the front of the bridge, the Captain’s voice rang out again. He and Auto were turning back.

“Lieutenant, did you actually recover a plant, or is this some fabrication?” Auto asked, his tone flat with thinly veiled suspicion.

“No. Not at all, sir!” Eve protested, voice taut. “I found a seedling, Ailanthus altissima, a Simaroubaceae family sapling, planted in an old boot. I swear I secured it in that container.” Her hands clenched at her sides as she spoke, earnest and indignant.

“Then let us verify the container itself." The Captain suggested, trying to sound practical. “Perhaps it fell out.”

Auto withdrew a small, specialized diagnostic chip and slid it into the container’s chamber. Eve watched the readout with mounting dread.

Seconds later the scanner chimed and returned a negative.

“Bio-analysis indicates no recent presence of biological material within this pressure-sealed vessel." Auto announced. “The only plausible conclusion consistent with these results is that the lieutenant has not, in fact, returned with a specimen.”

Eve scoffed, indignation flaring hotter. “That is impossible.”

“So... are we not returning to Earth?” McCrea asked Auto, the question hanging between protocol and hope.

“Negative, sir.” Auto’s reply was as unyielding as the machine itself he was based on.

The Captain closed the manual with a relieved little exhale, the weight of potential upheaval lifting from his shoulders. “Well, false alarm, then.”

The ship’s systems mirrored his relief: the robotic arm retracted into the ceiling; the blast shades slid open; green light flooded the Bridge until everything looked ordinary again. Normality returned with a soft, corporate cheer.

“How could this have happened?” McCrea asked, more puzzled than accusatory.

Auto raised a finger and spoke methodically. “Considering all variables, several possibilities exist. One: the lieutenant misidentified an object as botanical. Two: she recovered a specimen but failed to secure it in the container. Three: her neural interface malfunctioned, triggering the protocol in error. Four: she fabricated the claim. Additionally, container encodings can be tampered with to simulate a positive log, and neural implants are not immune to external manipulation.”

His words landed like precise, clinical strikes. Gary, listening with a tightening chest, admired, in a private, begrudging way, the ruthless efficiency of Auto’s line of reasoning. It was elegant and convenient in equal measure.

“Excuse me?!” Eve snapped. “I would never lie. I have an unblemished academic record. I graduated top of my class in the E.V.R.E. program. I have trained in astrobiology, agriculture, excavation, microbiology, physiology, botany. I can identify plants to genus and species. And regarding health: I passed every screening with distinction. I have never been ill. I am not delusional.”

Auto inclined his head a fraction, almost indulgent. “And yet, human fallibility remains. Stress, prolonged suspended animation, or neurological interference could produce false positives. There is no independent verification at present beyond the lieutenant’s testimony. In such cases we must consider the probability of error or manipulation. As for the container and its subroutines, these too could be compromised.”

McCrea floated forward then, his bulk filling the space between officer and scout. He cleared his throat and, in a tone equal parts exasperation and paternalism, he countered.

“Let us not leap to draconian measures. Eve is a decorated scout. We do not strip honors lightly.” He tapped his cap with a conspiratorial half-smile. “These scouts are the ship’s finest: trained, vetted, and committed from childhood. Why would she risk her career and reputation over a petty fabrication?”

Auto’s gaze flicked to the Captain; for a moment he said nothing.

McCrea continued. “We ought to assume mechanical or medical error first. Run diagnostics. Verify the container. Verify the scout. There’s no need to tarnish a sterling record without evidence.”

Gary allowed himself a small, genuine smile. The Captain’s instinct for politics, and for spectacle, had unexpectedly worked in Eve’s favour.

Auto remained impassive, but his voice carried the weight of command. “Very well. However, until we can complete the diagnostic sweep and validate the pod’s systems, Lieutenant Eve will be placed in the Medical Ward for evaluation. We will also schedule a full forensic check of the cryopod and its transponders. Reconnaissance status is suspended pending the outcome.”

McCrea’s face hardened into the finality of routine. “Effective immediately."

“But, sir, I’m—”

“No buts, Evelyn.” McCrea cut her off with a weary sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Listen… we both know you didn’t fabricate this deliberately. But that’s an order, and we need to be thorough.”

Her shoulders collapsed, the fight in her posture giving way to a storm of confusion and simmering anger she could not voice.

“Gofer..." The Captain said, waving his hand. “...escort the Lieutenant to the Ward.”

“Aye, Captain.” Chief Gofer saluted crisply before taking Eve by the arm. His grip was firm but not cruel, guiding her towards the tram that waited to ferry her away.

“Make sure they run diagnostics on everything; implants, interfaces, neural response matrices, the works. We need to be sure she isn’t—AAAAHH!”

The Captain’s command fractured into a startled shriek, echoing across the Bridge. Every head snapped towards him in alarm.

McCrea stood pointing, eyes wide with disbelief. His trembling finger indicated Wally, crouched only a few paces away, still busy rummaging about as though the missing plant might materialize at his feet. The oblivious scavenger froze mid-search, wide-eyed like a deer caught in the harsh beam of a spotlight.

A beat of silence stretched into a mortifying eternity. The officers of the Bridge watched, dumbstruck. Eve turned away, cheeks burning crimson.

Finally, Wally decided to speak.

“...Hello.” His voice cracked on the word, and he shuffled forward, smile sheepish yet impossibly earnest. He reached for the Captain’s still-extended hand and gave it a vigorous shake, dirt and grime smearing across the pristine skin.

“I’m Wally." He said warmly, half-stuttering, his grin as disarming as it was misplaced.

McCrea stared down at his hand as if it had been dipped into toxic sludge. He had never seen, let alone touched, real soil in his life. His lips worked soundlessly while Auto arched a single brow, studying the strange young man with clinical interest.

The Captain finally looked up at his First Officer, still dazed.

“Do… do you want me to call security, sir?” Auto asked.

McCrea blinked at his hand again, turning it over as though the dirt itself might explain its presence. Then, after a long pause, he muttered: “Uh… have, uh, Wally cleaned.”

If Auto had been capable of showing more than one expression, he might have looked as baffled as his superior. Still, he inclined his head with solemn obedience.

“Aye, sir. Chief, escort this… gentleman to the Ward. They’ll know what to do with him.”

Gofer, torn between exasperation and disbelief, clamped a heavy hand on Wally’s shoulder and steered him to the tram beside Eve. A pair of shimmering energy binders clicked into place around his wrists with an audible hum.

Wally only looked down at the glowing restraints in fascination, then glanced sideways at Eve with a bright smile as though this were nothing more than an adventure. She, meanwhile, buried her face in her palms.

“That looks a bit extreme, don’t ya think, Captain?”

For the second time in mere minutes, McCrea’s eyes bulged, his thick neck snapping towards the unfamiliar voice. He very nearly toppled out of his hovo-chair when he realized yet another human, an entirely unknown one, was standing casually at his side.

“W-what?!?”

Before the Captain could gather himself, the stranger extended a hand and seized his other arm, smearing it with the same grit and grime Wally had left behind.

“Gary ‘Roach’ Sanderson." He said smoothly, grin tugging at the corners of his dirt-smeared face. “At your service, Captain.”

For once, Auto’s veneer of impassive duty cracked. A fleeting flicker of annoyance, genuine, sharp, and utterly human, passed over his features. “Sir?” He said, stepping in beside McCrea. “Might I suggest that this time we call security? This is a catastrophic breach of protocol.”

“Ah!” Gary snapped his fingers. “But I’m not here to harm anyone.” He gestured towards the restrained Wally, seated miserably in the tram. “I’m with him. Consider me his bodyguard.” Folding his arms behind his back with mock solemnity, he added: “So yes, you can ship me off with him and the Lieutenant. I’ve no objections. But!” His grin sharpened. "...I’d like a private word with Mr. Kirchner first.”

For the briefest instant, Gary swore he saw it, Auto’s organic eye twitching.

“‘Auto’ will suffice.” The First Officer replied, tone clipped, forced back into the rigid mold of apathy. “And as for your request, why should we indulge it? Neither of you belong here. You appeared on the Bridge unannounced, without clearance.”

Unfazed, Gary began circling the Captain’s chair, slow and deliberate, until he came to stand directly in front of Auto. The latter was taller by an inch, and quicker by instinct. And though he knew Wally would fold under the First Officer’s inevitable wrath, Gary himself felt no fear.

He leaned in, close enough that his whisper brushed like static against Auto’s ear.

“Because..." He said softly. “...I’d like to discuss Directive Alpha One-One-Three with you.”

This time, there was no mistaking it. The twitch of Auto’s eye was as real as the sudden stillness that spread through him like ice. Yet, with herculean restraint, he forced his composure back into place, face schooled into neutrality once more.

“Gofer..." Auto said suddenly, his voice sharp. “... remain stationed outside with the Lieutenant and Mr. Wally until further instruction.”

McCrea, still utterly lost, raised his hands. “Woah, woah, woah! What’s going on here? What did he say to you, Auto?”

“Captain...” Auto replied smoothly, not sparing him so much as a glance. “...I assure you this matter is of paramount importance to our ongoing investigation. I will compile a precise report of my conversation with Mr. Sanderson for your review.” He turned crisply towards the elevator. “Please, follow me.”

Gary, already stepping after him, threw a two-fingered salute to Wally. “See you soon, bud. Won’t take long.” Then, with mock gallantry, he dipped into a shallow bow before Eve.

“My lady…”

Her glare could have cut steel.

Chapter Text

Gary caught sight of Wallace’s furrowed brow as the elevator doors sealed them in, the soft hum of machinery carrying him and Auto upwards. The garbage collector’s wide-eyed stare lingered like an unanswered question, betraying the gnawing unease he felt. For all Gary’s jaunty bravado, a wink here, a smirk there, Wally clearly wasn’t convinced everything would turn out fine.

And Eve? She hadn’t stopped glaring holes through him since the moment he’d opened his mouth. If looks could kill, he’d already be a smoldering heap on the polished floor. Gary could only hope she wouldn’t leap to accusing them of stealing the plant. The irony of it all was that neither he nor Wally had the means to pull off such a theft.

His own pockets carried nothing but a battered lighter, a second-hand datapad, and a knife whose handle still bore the wear of another life. Wally’s integrated laser, while useful for crude jobs like cutting through debris, wasn’t near hot enough to penetrate the reinforced alloy that made up Eve’s cryopod. The mystery of the missing plant didn’t add up, not by a long shot.

No, Evelyn might be quick to anger, a little too trigger-happy for her own good, but she wasn’t reckless, not unstable like her animated counterpart. She had discipline. She had restraint.

Auto, however, was another matter. He was as cold and calculating as the mechanical officer he’d been modeled after, his logic sharpened into something more dangerous than steel. Yet Gary knew pragmatists could be reasoned with. They might resist sentiment, but facts, hard, undeniable facts, were a blade sharp enough to slip past their armor.

Directive Alpha One-One-Three. That was the key. If Auto could be made to see the larger truth buried beneath its black-and-white decree, if logic could be turned against itself, then perhaps, even in that rigid mind, there was room to concede what was truly best for Humanity.

The elevator slid open with a subdued hiss, and Auto motioned for Gary to follow with a curt flick of his wrist. The First Officer moved with the same detached calm one might expect from a man taking inventory, not from someone whose lies were balanced on the edge of exposure.

Then again, perhaps that composure was just another mask. Was Auto biding his time, silently calculating the cleanest method to erase the inconvenient presence of a stray sergeant? Gary wasn’t naïve enough to dismiss the possibility. His eyes kept sweeping the walls and Auto’s hands in equal measure, half-expecting the sudden appearance of a concealed weapon or some security turret snapping to life at a hidden command. Maybe that was a little too much science fiction, even for this context, but prevention had always been worth more than regret.

Auto halted before a door and leaned close, letting his one organic eye meet the thin beam of a retinal scanner. A red line shimmered across, then blinked green. With a soft pneumatic sigh, the doors slid open. Auto gestured again, wordlessly beckoning Gary inside.

The man’s silence spoke louder than any monologue could. No wasted breath. No unnecessary pleasantries. Just pure, efficient control. Psychopath, sociopath; Gary wasn’t sure which category fit better, but the distinction hardly mattered.

The room itself was a monument to order. Gary whistled low as his boots crossed the threshold. If the Bridge was the polished heart of the ship, this was something beyond it: sterile, immaculate, a sanctum where not even a microbe seemed welcome. It radiated not warmth but discipline, the kind of clinical precision that could suffocate if you lingered too long.

To his right, an aquarium gleamed against the sterile whites and silvers of the chamber. Gary leaned in, hands braced on his knees, to study the lone inhabitant: a single orange fish. Its movements were unhurried but fluid, alive with the same quiet vigor he remembered from rivers back home. No circuitry gleamed beneath its scales. No faint whir betrayed machinery. Against all odds, it was real.

“My predecessors thought a fish was appropriate for... metaphorical attachment.”

Gary glanced over his shoulder. Auto stood a few feet away, arms crossed, not in rigid military posture, but in something oddly contemplative, uncharacteristic of his usual mechanical precision. His gaze lingered on the tank, on that solitary creature gliding through its glass prison.

“We navigate in a ship." He continued, his tone steady, almost reverent. “And humankind’s first vessels were born of the sea.”

“But how has this fish survived this long?” Gary asked, narrowing his eyes at the lone creature as it drifted lazily in its sterile tank. “Seven hundred years on a closed ship isn’t exactly ideal for genetic diversity.”

Auto’s mouth curved in the faintest shadow of a smile. He even clapped twice, brisk and precise. “Good. Very good. You’ve noticed what so many overlook. Those few who have stepped into my quarters never linger long enough to pick out such a crucial detail.” Folding his hands neatly behind his back, he began to pace. “When the Axiom first departed, she carried with her a multitude of animals. You could consider this vessel a Noah’s Ark of its age.”

The comparison landed immediately. Gary couldn’t deny it; it was apt.

“By the second century..." Auto continued, eyes briefly unfocused as though consulting some endless ledger in his mind. “...most of those species had perished. It is remarkable, really, how long the canines endured. Loyal creatures, hardy, adaptable. Yet their lifespans are bound to mere decades. They could not last forever.”

Gary scoffed under his breath. The thought of man’s best friend fading quietly into extinction struck him harder than he wanted to admit.

“Either way.” Auto pressed on. "The founders ensured a considerable population of fish survived the journey. That..." He extended a finger toward the lone flash of orange. “...is the last of them. When he dies, humanity will have no indigenous companion left on this ship… save for ourselves.”

A cruel end, wrapped in inevitability.

Auto drifted towards his desk with mechanical composure, leaving Gary to wander the chamber with his soldier’s eye. The room, he realized, was more than quarters: it was a curated sanctum. Along the walls hung reproductions of old masters: Michelangelo’s raw power, Caravaggio’s drama of shadow and light. Fragments of humanity’s greatest triumphs preserved in immaculate replicas.

And the shelves, dozens of them, were swollen with books. Histories, sociologies, volumes on philosophy worn smooth at the spines. Yet nestled among them, Gary caught the bold fonts of pop culture: pulp adventures, dog-eared science fiction, horror novels with familiar names. He paused when he saw Stephen King, his own memories surfacing of candlelit nights and frayed paperbacks.

The question nagged at him: were these relics passed down from First Officer to First Officer, a collection grown over centuries like coral? Or had Auto, this incarnation of duty incarnate, personally chosen every volume, every canvas, shaping the room as much as it shaped him?

“So, Mr. Sander—”

“Roach.” The Sergeant cut him off, not even dignifying the First Officer with a glance. His eyes lingered instead on the canvas before him, tracing Caravaggio’s masterful interplay of shadow and light, the brutal honesty of the colours. “Hearing my name on your tongue feels… wrong. If you insist on being addressed by your codename, I expect the same courtesy.”

Roach finally shifted his gaze, catching sight of the object in Auto’s hand. A bottle, its glass catching the sterile light of the office.

“If that is your wish, Roach.” Auto conceded smoothly, his voice devoid of offense. He lifted the bottle with a subtle shake, the liquid swirling within. “Are you a whiskey man, by chance? It is nearly midday. I doubt mild inebriation will dull our faculties, provided we put something under our teeth afterwards.”

Roach’s mouth curved into something between a smirk and a grimace. Truth be told, he had always been a beer man. Light, crisp, unpretentious; the kind of drink that washed away dust and exhaustion without loosening one’s grip on reality. His brothers-in-arms had mocked him relentlessly for it, calling him soft, a lightweight, a 'pussy' who couldn’t handle his liquor. He had taken the ribbing in stride; better to be teased than to wake up useless on deployment.

But right now? After clawing through a dead Earth, after being torn from the grave and flung across light-years into this polished cage of steel and lies? Roach needed something stronger than a beer. Something to scorch his throat, to burn away the fog clinging to his mind.

“How do I know you haven’t spiked it?” He asked, suspicion sharpening his tone as his eyes narrowed on the First Officer’s hands.

“Please.” Auto’s reply came swift, edged with something that might have been genuine offense. His brow creased ever so slightly. “I am no coward. If I wished you dead, I would not poison you like a rat. I would strike you down directly, throat to throat, eye to eye. I despise targets who cannot fight back.”

“A sportsman, then?” Roach arched a brow, intrigued despite himself.

“To the core." Auto confirmed without hesitation. “But more than that; honourable. That, Sergeant, is what separates me from the overzealous brutes on my security detail. They enforce. I judge.”

Roach gave a slow shrug, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards. “Huh. Sure. Knock yourself out.”

With unhurried grace, Auto produced two crystal tumblers from a drawer and set them upon his desk. He poured a measured shot into each. One glass he slid across the polished surface towards Roach, the motion almost ceremonial.

“There you are." Auto said, lowering himself into the high-backed chair behind the desk. His posture was perfect, yet his tone carried an odd warmth, as though the ritual itself pleased him. He gestured towards the empty seat opposite. “Please. Sit. I suspect our conversation will not be brief.”

Roach accepted the glass and curled his fingers around the cold crystal. The whiskey felt heavier than the bottle’s label implied, older, smoother, promising a clean, dangerous heat. As he raised it, his eyes drifted across Auto’s desk and lingered on details that did not belong to a man defined by procedure alone.

Under a neat stack of paper, an old-fashioned desk lamp threw a soft, yellow pool of light. Roach found the anachronism almost comforting; on a vessel where every scrap of data lived in immaculate digital files, a real lamp felt like a deliberate human flourish. Beside it, a frame stood at a jaunty angle: a photograph of a little girl. She wasn’t puffy and overfed like the infants in the ship’s equivalent of schools. Her hair was a riot of orange curls, her grin wide and honest, a few baby teeth missing; a face that belonged to sunlight and scraped knees, not to sanitized nursery programs.

Catching himself staring, Roach lifted the glass and took a measured sip. The spirit burned his tongue, blossomed across his palate and down his throat, and left behind a warmth that settled low in his chest. It was better than any canned rations he’d scrounged with Wally; more refined than he expected, like a memory of something civilized in an otherwise ruined world.

Auto mirrored the gesture, raising his tumbler in a quiet toast before he sampled his pour. His fingers drummed an almost imperceptible rhythm on the glass rim as his gaze studied Roach, slow and unblinking; an appraisal more clinical than curious.

“How did you become aware of Directive Alpha One-One-Three?” Auto asked, cutting straight to the point.

Roach cocked his head and let a half-smile form. “That’s your opener?" He said, amusement threading his voice. “You’re skipping the fun parts. Like, why I’m filthy in your pristine Bridge, how I got here, and why I walked in without a badge? Don’t you want the whole story? The theatrics?"

Auto’s expression tightened for a heartbeat, then smoothed. “Filth is not a matter of strategic import." He replied evenly. His chest rose and fell in a steady cadence, his composure unruffled. “We possess sanitization systems that neutralize biological contaminants in milliseconds. It is a triviality we can correct.”

Roach let the remark pass. He was not here to argue the merits of vacuum cleaners and ultraviolet scrubbers. For now, the whiskey warmed his nerves and sharpened his appetite for the game Auto had invited him to play.

“As for who you were? I do not particularly care." Auto said, his voice even and flat. His eyes drifted past Roach’s shoulder for a beat, as if cataloguing something small and indexed in his mind. “What mattered was whether you represented a threat to the Directive’s integrity. That other man carried something… atypical in his stare. I would not rule out an autism spectrum diagnosis. Admittedly, that is not my specialty, but merely an empirical inference based on limited observation in the field.”

Roach listened, letting the assessment wash over him. Wallace had exhibited signs of trauma, certainly: hypervigilance, startle responses, behaviour that frayed at the edges of normalcy. In Roach’s experience, war and grit rewired people in different ways, some of those traits could be read as PTSD, others as neurodiversity. If WALL-E as a robot had been coded with traits fans labeled autistic, then perhaps this human echo was not so surprising.

Auto made a soft sound, almost a scoff. “We also possess advanced AIs and diagnostic arrays that sequence DNA and reconstruct medical histories. Medics are now analysts; physicians in the classical sense are ornamental. As you can imagine, only crew members generally receive such thorough physical examinations.”

“So you’ll know who I am precisely regardless of what I say?” Roach asked, blunt and tired of shadows.

“Indeed.” Auto nodded, expression unreadable. “Nevertheless, I would wager the remainder of my tenure aboard the Axiom that both of you are from Earth.”

Roach gave a dry chuckle. “No reason to deny the obvious, then.”

“None." The First Officer agreed, topping off his glass with a precise motion. “Even falsehoods would reach me, sooner rather than later. So again: how did you learn of Directive Alpha One-One-Three?”

Roach set his glass down and let the room inhale a measured silence. He watched Auto’s face for the flicker that might betray the man’s inner calculus, but found only the practiced mask of command. When he spoke, his words were lean and sharp.

“It’s not merely about how I knew of it, is it, Auto?” Roach’s tone was low. “It’s about where I stood on it, and whether, as you suggested, I posed an actionable threat to its continuance.” He leaned forward until the polished desk mirrored the hard line of his jaw. “And yes, I know you have that damned plant somewhere on this ship.”

Auto’s composure did not break. If surprise had visited him at the revelation, he hid it as a matter of reflex.

“You could have killed me." Roach continued, voice cold as a drawn blade. “You knew that was an option. You could have masked it under a security incident and no one here would have batted an eye. And yet you chose to confront me instead of silencing me. Why?”

The First Officer’s organic eye betrayed him with a faint twitch. “I do not take kindly to murder. I am not a psychopath.” His voice was smooth, calculated, though the tightening of his jaw said otherwise. He swirled the whiskey in his tumbler, amber liquid catching the sterile light. “I could just as easily ask the same of you. And once again, you are correct. I care little for how you came to know of the Directive. Still, rest assured: if that knowledge ever indicated a breach in our security systems, retaliation would be swift and proportionate.”

Roach leaned back, steady, unflinching.

“Because I thought..." He said evenly. "...a conversation about Earth might make you reconsider your stance.”

Auto’s brow arched, a flicker of intrigue breaking through his mask. “Oh? Reconsider? My Directive?” He chuckled dryly, shaking his head. “So you confronted me not to expose, not to fight, but to stave off the inevitable bloodshed should this secret reach the public. Pragmatic. Cautious. Almost admirable. In your position…” He tipped his glass lightly. “…I would have done the same.”

Praise from a man like him, if praise it could even be called, never came without poison. Roach knew better than to take it as anything else.

“Well then, I am all ears.” Auto leaned back in his chair with a smug ease, fingers steepled together. “It has been too long since I’ve conversed with someone who possesses more than half a brain. Please, entertain me.”

Roach drew in a measured breath. His throat still burned faintly from the whiskey, grounding him, reminding him of where he was. “Let’s start with the obvious. Earth is habitable, even if the balance between ‘habitable’ and ‘hostile’ is razor-thin. The plant’s discovery means oxygen, carbon dioxide, and the other gases necessary for survival exist in the minimum amounts required. I’ve lived it. Wally and I survived for weeks in his makeshift shelter, breathing the same air without complication.”

Auto inclined his head. “A fact I cannot dispute. Yet allow me to remind you: a breathable atmosphere does not equate to a safe one.” He gestured with his tumbler, voice steady, clinical. “Our immune systems, though not wholly rewritten in seven centuries, have adapted themselves to a sterile environment. A single bacterium could devastate us.”

“But you said it yourself! Evolution doesn’t work that fast.” Roach’s eyes narrowed. “And you sit aboard the most advanced vessel humanity has ever constructed. You could remain here while the flora spreads again. Use protective suits, build outposts, send expeditions. Clean up the Earth while living in orbit or inside the ship while you're landed. You have the tools.”

Auto let out the faintest scoff, one corner of his mouth twitching. “An immense effort to gamble on an if. And one entangled with countless buts. You don’t truly believe this protocol was conjured in an afternoon, do you? The routines, the safeguards, they were shaped by our progenitors, the ones who first walked these corridors. They weighed the risks, and they chose survival. For fifty years after launch, humanity endured without sun, without sky, without soil beneath their feet. And still, they thrived. But to attempt the reverse on a poisoned, hostile Earth?” His eyes flicked to the row of portraits on the wall; solemn faces of every Auto who had held command before him. “That would not have been survival. It would have been suicide.”

Roach studied him closely. He was good, too good. His logic was sharpened, his arguments layered with just enough history to anchor them in stone. But Roach wasn’t here to debate endlessly. He had more than enough counterpoints to throw across the polished desk.

And he wasn’t leaving until he used them all.

Roach leaned back slightly, letting the liquid slide down his throat, savouring the burn. “Earth is not a complete barren wasteland.” He said, the words measured. “Vegetation is scarce, next to non-existent, save for the specimen Eve has acquired. That said, I can speak only of the Canadian border and New York City itself: the skyscrapers and buildings have survived. Sure, you’d find structural anomalies if you ran a thorough analysis, but if the climate were truly catastrophic, I wouldn’t have found them standing. Intact structures mean a colonization mission wouldn’t inherently guarantee catastrophic loss of lives.”

Auto drummed his fingers thoughtfully across surface of his desk, the rhythmic tapping breaking the silence. “Mmmh. Are you able to confirm that sandstorms are a common occurrence?”

Roach blinked, momentarily surprised. “How did you—”

“Eve wasn’t the first scout to visit the planet, obviously.” Auto’s voice was flat, but carried a subtle edge. “The annual reconnaissance has been in motion for three centuries. While our official travel logs indicate only five years of deployment, Buy N’ Large secretly kept the fleet in stasis for four centuries before establishing the E.V.R.E. scouts’ assembly.”

Roach’s mind raced. This was new intel, a facet of BnL’s secretive bureaucracy the original film never touched on. Clearly, the company’s reach extended far beyond the simplified storyline.

“I’ll take your reaction as confirmation.” Auto continued, narrowing his gaze. “Do you understand that a sandstorm is only the tip of the iceberg? Earthquakes, tsunamis, and similar catastrophic events would be commonplace. And that’s without factoring in the complete absence of human operators to maintain nuclear powerplants worldwide. Shelby managed to flee Earth on the last BnL vessel while evading the WALL-E uprising.” His lips curved slightly in a sardonic smirk. “And don’t think I’m ignorant of that young man’s uniform. I can recognize a WALL-E when I see one.”

Roach’s stomach sank. He had expected skepticism, perhaps a protracted debate, but the knowledge that Auto could identify Wally so easily complicated matters.

Auto leaned back, the shadow from his brow casting a thin line across his face. “I would hardly imagine that the remaining human workers had sufficient knowledge to manage nuclear powerplants without oversight. The consequences of negligence over seven centuries would be catastrophic. The crust of the Earth could have been destabilized by explosions, radiation waves, and the resultant tsunamis and earthquakes. It would be a domino effect of environmental collapse."

Roach’s mind worked rapidly. Auto was a dog with a bone, and he wouldn't let anyone try and take it.

His voice came out sharper than he intended, the words punching through the sterile quiet of Auto’s office. “What about the passengers’ status? They’re all obese, unable to walk, incapable of even feeding themselves without assistance. Is this the bright future you’re envisioning for Humanity, Auto?”

“Ah!” The First Officer snapped his fingers with sudden vigor, his organic eye gleaming with an almost theatrical light. “We’re heading into a philosophical stand-off, aren’t we?” He straightened his posture. “I’m only following orders to ensure the continuation of our species. On the Axiom, we will survive. That is my Directive.”

Roach narrowed his eyes. What if he used McCrea’s own canon words against him? Maybe it would strike some faint nerve.

“They wouldn’t want to survive if they knew the truth, Auto.” Roach said, his tone low but brimming with conviction. “They want to live. Risks, struggles, failures, triumphs; they’re part of our kind’s daily choices. They make us who we are.”

Auto considered this, expression unreadable. “Perhaps. But survival with a ninety-five percent probability outweighs living with a ninety-five percent chance of extinction. That is mathematics. That is logic.”

“You’re taking the easy route.” Roach shot back, his words sharp, almost accusatory.

“No." Auto countered smoothly, his voice as level as a still pond. “I’m taking the realistic one.”

Roach clenched his jaw. He had one last card to play; one final argument to cut through the First Officer’s pragmatism. His voice hardened, almost spitting the words like bullets. “You’re following the orders of a dead bureaucratic multinational whose products helped bring our planet to its knees. Even their name, Buy N’ Large, is a parody of itself, a satire wrapped in corporate greed. Shelby Forthright and his cronies have been dead for centuries, Auto. Centuries! And here you are, obeying a phantom. This isn’t survival. It’s lunacy, megalomania!”

Auto’s lips curved into the faintest semblance of a smirk, though his tone remained calm, almost chilling in its restraint. “It’s funny you’d say that.” He lifted two fingers and mimed quotation marks in the air. “What was one of those many human adages we like to throw around? Ah, yes! ‘You can kill the man, but not the idea.’ The French Revolution, for instance, sowed the seeds of Democracy. Centuries later, our ancestors adopted those principles into their own constitutions. Were they fools, Sergeant, for embracing the legacy of long-dead revolutionaries?”

Roach’s grip tightened around his glass, the whiskey sloshing within.

“What's her name?” Roach asked, nodding towards the photograph with a motion that had nothing of pleasantry in it.

Auto blinked, taken aback as if the question had punched a new hole through his composure. “I beg your pardon?” He said, buying time.

Roach tipped his chin again towards the frame. “What’s her name? She’s yours, isn’t she?”

For the first time since Roach entered the room, Auto’s features dulled. The rigid mask slipped. The First Officer searched for words that did not come easily, as if the very syllables had been locked away.

“Elizabeth.” He finally said, voice low and brittle. “She was mine. Her mother... she died in childbirth. She worked Waste Disposal. I swore to raise her.”

The past tense lodged in Roach’s ear like a stone. Was. Not is. The grammar suggested absence. The implication stung.

Roach let the revelation settle, letting the silence do its work. It was a small, human thing amid all the metal and protocol: a man who had once held a child. The discovery unsettled the neat villain script Roach had been trying to paint Auto with. The First Officer who had argued with cold pragmatism and quiet menace had, it seemed, once loved and lost. How had that grief been contorted into doctrine? How had tenderness hardened into policy?

“You’re projecting your family trauma as a rationale to close yourself off from the ethical consequences of your Directive.” Roach said after a breath, the accusation soft but steady. “Grief does not absolve you from moral responsibility.”

Auto’s eye twitched; the smallest fissure of something like pain crossed his face. For an instant he seemed both older and smaller, then he gathered himself, folding the moment away like an inconvenient file.

“We appear to have reached the end of your appeal, Mr. Sanderson." Auto announced, reset to officialdom. His tone had slid back into that cool, unblinking cadence Roach had grown to distrust.

Roach met him squarely. He felt the room tilt with the battle of wills; personal grief on one side, bureaucratic iron on the other.

Auto’s expression sharpened into a thin smile. “I doubt anyone aboard the Axiom will take your claims at face value regarding the protocol. And, given your penchant for breaching restricted areas, it is reasonable to suggest your mental state is, at best, unstable. Attempting to alarm the crew about the Directive would only get you committed.” He paused, savouring the outcome. “Still, I am no executioner. I do not relish murder. There are other measures that are both safer and more… administrative.”

Roach stayed silent. The words landed hard, final.

“Excellent.” Auto folded his hands, satisfied. “I will inform Master Chief Gofer of an unstable passenger in his tram. He will escort Mr. Wally and yourself to Medical. The Ward will contain you until a formal review.”

Roach watched the First Officer. The trap had closed, not with a blade but with procedure; sanction disguised as care. For a long, ragged instant Roach felt the old, familiar cold: he was cornered, and the odds were stacked by bureaucratic machinery and courteous cruelty.

He was, by every practical measure, fucked.

Gary sat wedged between the furious Lieutenant and the mortified scavenger, his broad shoulders uncomfortably compressed by the narrow bench of the tram. Eve had insisted he take that seat beside her, her grip on his arm brooking no argument. The Sergeant wasn’t entirely sure if it was meant as punishment, distrust, or simply Eve’s way of keeping both men under her direct supervision. Whatever the reason, her simmering glare made the air around her feel like it could ignite.

Unless…

“Psst!”

Gary felt the jab of an elbow against his arm. Turning his head, he found Wally leaning conspiratorially closer, lowering his voice to a hushed whisper.

“I tried to talk to her, mend things up.” The scavenger confessed, his words tumbling out with nervous sincerity. He tapped the tips of his index fingers together, the small gesture oddly boyish given the situation. With his wrists shackled by humming energy cuffs, just like Gary’s, it was one of the few motions he could manage. “But she told me not to speak to her at all. I don’t know why.”

Gary opened his mouth, half-amused, half-irritated. “Well, uh—”

“You do realize I can hear you, right?” Eve cut in sharply, her eyes slicing towards them.

“Gah!” Wally jerked back, cheeks flooding crimson, caught like a schoolboy whispering in class.

Gary rolled his eyes and decided not to intervene. Instead, he shifted his focus towards the front of the tram, where Gofer stood ready and Auto loomed like a shadow at his side.

“Make sure to report to the Medical Ward that one of the two patients is eccentric, delusional, and potentially aggressive." Auto instructed coolly, his finger raised in a gesture of command. His voice carried with clinical finality, as though he was labeling items in a catalogue rather than condemning human beings.

“Yes, sir, yes!” Gofer straightened and snapped a quick salute, eager to oblige.

“He’s—”

“Auto!"

The booming call cut him off. Captain McCrea emerged from the lift shaft, his hover-chair buzzing faintly as he floated into the room. His round face was alight with excitement, and without hesitation he wrapped a stubby arm around Auto’s waist, tugging him forward with surprising enthusiasm.

“You’ve gotta see this!” McCrea exclaimed, his grin stretching from ear to ear. “It’s astonishing!”

“Sir, yes, I will.” Auto began, already attempting to reassert control. “But I was concluding this—”

“No buts!” McCrea cut him off, puffing up with rare authority. He shoved Auto insistently towards the elevator, his tone uncharacteristically firm. “On the double, First Officer.”

Auto’s eye twitched faintly, but he allowed himself to be pulled away, his boots scraping lightly against the polished floor as the Captain propelled him into the lift.

Gofer remained behind, momentarily bewildered by the unexpected interruption. He glanced once at the restrained trio, then shrugged with the indifference of a man used to sudden, inexplicable orders. With a small hop, he clambered into the tram’s front seat, taking hold of the controls.

Gary exhaled slowly, a breath of relief hissing between his teeth. The smirk that curved his lips was small but victorious.

Auto hadn’t had the chance to clarify which of the two captives he deemed eccentric, delusional, and dangerous. That omission left the door cracked open, just wide enough for Gary to slip through.

He still had a shot at this.

Chapter Text

WARNING!

THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS NUDITY AND A BIT OF SEXUAL MANIPULATION. NOTHING DRASTIC, THOUGH, DON'T WORRY.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

The typist’s mind drifted as her fingers hovered over the luminescent keys of her console, the rhythm of her work faltering beneath the weight of idle distraction. Receptionist duties on the Bridge were rarely exciting, a monotonous blend of filing, authorization stamps, and polite nods to officers who hardly ever acknowledged her presence. Yet today, her focus was fractured, her thoughts looping back to the curious pair of men she had glimpsed earlier; an oddity in the sterile uniformity of the Axiom’s Bridge staff.

The gentle chime of the elevator snapped her from her reverie. With a hushed hiss, its doors slid open into the Bridge lobby. Chief Gofer’s tram hovered out, its engines humming softly as it whisked past her desk without so much as a glance in her direction. She wasn’t surprised; Gofer never spared the receptionist more attention than one might give a hologram decoration.

But when her gaze followed the departing vehicle, she froze. Inside the tram sat the strange men again; stranger still this time, for their wrists were shackled by glowing energy binders. Flanking them was an E.V.R.E. scout, posture stiff and face taut with displeasure. The sight unsettled her, though not entirely for the reasons it should have.

The younger of the two men, clad in a rough brown jumpsuit that looked terribly out of place amid the Bridge’s polished order, caught her eye. To her surprise, his expression softened into a smile, and he raised a hand to wave at her. Instinctively, she straightened, her own arm shooting up in return with an enthusiasm she rarely felt during her shifts. It was such a small thing, but he always noticed her, always acknowledged her existence in a place where most saw her only as furniture.

Then the second man turned his head. He, too, lifted a hand, though his gesture was more restrained, almost cautious. His face was shadowed beneath the partial hood of his green attire, lending him an air of quiet experience. There was something heavier in his demeanour, something seasoned, as though he had seen and endured far more than any passenger aboard the Axiom ever would. That gravity intrigued her, and it unsettled her in equal measure.

As the tram began to pull away toward the Lido deck, the first man, her brown-suited friend, made a show of waving even harder, his grin widening despite the cuffs clamped around his wrists. She couldn’t help but laugh softly under her breath, her own hand rising once more in an exaggerated wave until the tram vanished from sight.

And just like that, the Bridge lobby was quiet again, humming with sterile lights and the faint murmur of her console. Yet the typist found herself smiling, her dull and lonely day brightened by two unlikely strangers who, bound and accused though they might be, had offered her more warmth in passing than the entire Bridge staff had in weeks.

Moe scrubbed and sterilized.

Scrubbed and sterilized.

Scrubbed and sterilized again.

The cycle had consumed him for hours, his wiry frame bent low while he engaged with the ceaseless grind of brushes, solvents, and disinfectant sprays. This was not the simple polish of a handrail or the buffing of a corridor panel; this was a deep purge, the kind of painstaking sterilization procedure reserved for only the most egregious violations of cleanliness. Every boot-print, every speck of grime left by those two filthy intruders, had to be eradicated; burned out of existence as though it had never tainted the Axiom’s pristine decks at all.

And what a trail they had left! The contaminated footprints wound like scars across the ship’s immaculate arteries: from the Docking Bay to the service elevator, then fifty dizzying levels up, through the Aft Maintenance Corridor, and Forthright alone knew how much farther the brown-suited and green-hooded men had wandered. Their dirt was everywhere. Their contamination was everywhere.

“FOREIGN CONTAMINANT.”

The words pulsed across Moe’s HUD for the hundre-- no, thousandth, time.

“I know!” He shrieked, his tinny voice reverberating off the sterile walls. His brushes whirred into a furious frenzy, scrubbing harder and harder with each strike of the warning.

“FOREIGN CONTAMINANT.”

“I know! It’s vile! It’s revolting! And I will clean it!”

His visor never wavered from the trail of filth before him. He saw nothing else. There was only dirt. Only contamination. Only duty.

So focused was he that when he darted across a maglev traffic lane, he didn’t so much as twitch his eyes towards the sound of blaring horns.

“Hey, look out!” A freighter pilot howled, wrenching his controls to a screeching halt. The vehicle shuddered violently, and within seconds, two, three, four more hovercrafts crashed into its rear, tumbling together into a snarling, hissing pile-up of twisted chrome. The drivers spilled out, groaning, clutching their heads and necks as the snarl of traffic behind them swelled into chaos.

“Watch where you’re going, you little maniac!” One of them bellowed, shaking a fist in fury.

But Moe did not so much as pause. He glided past the wreckage, brush still spinning, solvent still spraying, senses still locked with unerring devotion on the soiled boot-marks that snaked away into the distance. The directive pulsed in his mind, louder than the angry shouts, louder than the screech of metal, louder than the wreckage of lives and machines collapsing behind him.

Sooner or later, his cleansing pursuit would bring him face-to-face with those two filthy offenders. And when that moment came, when the last footprint was scoured away and he stood before them, by Forthright’s will, they were going to receive the scrubbing of their miserable, contaminant-spreading lives.

Wally thought he glimpsed a familiar figure streaking across the maglev lanes, a blur darting between vehicles even as their tram hurtled forward at high speed.

Was that the short fellow from the docking bay? The one with the visor and the neurotic fixation on scrubbing every inch of flooring until it gleamed?

He squinted, but the moment passed too quickly, and the figure vanished behind the walls of flashing light. Maybe it was him, maybe it wasn’t. In the end, it didn’t matter.

What mattered was where this tram was taking them.

They’d been zipping through the ship’s arterial lanes for nearly an hour now, shuttled along the endless glowing paths from the Bridge towards the 'Ward,' as the Captain had so matter-of-factly called it. The word sat like a stone in Wally’s gut. Ward. The kind of place where people didn’t come back out the same.

He shifted his eyes sideways, sneaking a glance at Eve. She sat rigid beside Gary, her posture sharp enough to cut glass, her expression still locked in that tight, furious scowl. An hour had dulled the fire in her glare, but only slightly. She was still simmering, still sour, still every bit the Lieutenant who had elbowed him so hard in the ribs earlier that the bruise still pulsed beneath his jumpsuit.

The physical ache was tolerable. It was the silence that hurt worse.

An hour of sitting within arm’s reach, desperate to say something, anything, that could break through the wall she’d built, but her cold shoulder told him more than her words ever could. She didn’t want to hear him. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

So he let his bruises settle and his thoughts gnaw at him instead.

When his eyes drifted to Gary, though, he found himself puzzling over the man again. The Sergeant, self-proclaimed or not, carried himself with the same confidence as Eve, the same quickness of mind, the same unwillingness to let go of empathy even in the worst of situations. Wally had been watching them long enough now to notice the parallels.

One might even say they were made for each other.

But if Gary harbored even a spark of romantic interest, he hid it perfectly. Wally couldn’t understand it. Couldn’t understand why the soldier pushed him, him, of all people, to keep trying with Eve, to keep pressing past her walls. And yet, every time Gary did, Wally’s respect for him grew.

Because maybe this was what it felt like. To have someone care. To have someone push you not because they had to, but because they believed you could do better. To have someone treat you like… family.

The thought stirred an ache deeper than any bruise. His parents, his brother; all long gone, swallowed by the ash and silence of Earth. Wally had never believed he’d feel that bond again.

And yet here, in the hum of this sterile tram hurtling toward an uncertain future, he did.

Slowly, hesitantly, Wally shifted his cuffed hands closer to Gary’s side. His fingers fumbled, then curled around the soldier’s fist. Seeking comfort. Seeking reassurance.

Gary didn’t so much as glance at him. He didn’t need to. Wally felt the squeeze back, firm and grounding, a wordless acknowledgment that spoke louder than anything either of them could have said.

The warmth spread up his arm, and a small sigh slipped past his lips before he could stop it.

Yes. In Wally’s mind, Gary wasn’t just a comrade anymore.

He was something more.

An adoptive brother.

One persistent thought gnawed at Wally as the tram glided along the glowing maglev track, though:

How much longer until we reach the Ward?

He didn’t have to wait long for the answer.

The hover-tram shuddered as it slowed, coming to a smooth halt before a looming pair of reinforced doors. In clean blocky letters, they read:

AXIOM MEDICAL CLINIC AND EVALUATION CENTER.

Wally’s heart gave a nervous leap. So this was the place the Captain had mentioned; the Ward. The very word carried a chill, like chains rattling in some unseen hallway.

The doors slid open with a hydraulic hiss, unveiling a vast and sterile facility. Rows upon rows of holding cells stretched out on either side, each sealed with shimmering fields of transparent energy. The air smelled faintly of disinfectant, sharp and clinical, tinged with something that reminded Wally of ozone.

Inside, the Ward was alive with movement. Patients shuffled, leapt, and babbled within their glowing confines, many of them clearly ill in body or mind. Some laughed at nothing. Others bounced off the fields like children playing with an invisible wall. Orderlies in crisp uniforms rushed between cells, physicians barked instructions, and the constant chorus of beeps, pings, and muffled voices created a bedlam that made Wally’s head spin.

Two doctors in immaculate white coats approached the tram as it docked. One balanced a holographic datapad in his hands, its surface glowing with scrolling lines of information. They greeted Chief Gofer and Eve with polite nods. She didn’t respond, her jaw tight, eyes fixed forward in silent defiance.

Wally noticed, though. Of course he noticed. Every detail of her body language sang of tension and restrained fury. She was still angry, angry enough that even her huff of breath carried weight.

Why couldn’t she calm down? Why couldn’t he get through to her? Wally wanted, more than anything, to bridge the gap, to confess what had been swelling in his chest since the day they met. But her silence pressed harder than any wall, and he didn’t dare break it here, not with so many eyes on them.

The doctor cleared his throat, stylus tapping against the floating display.

“Hello, Chief. I assume this is Lieutenant Eve, the patient you requested we examine?”

“That is correct, Doctor." Gofer confirmed with brisk authority. “You’ve been briefed about the incident on the Bridge, I assume. The Lieutenant’s… delusional account.”

Eve’s nostrils flared. She said nothing, but Wally caught it: the faintest sound, a sharp huff escaping her throat. It was quiet enough the doctors missed it. Gary missed it too. But Wally knew. He always noticed her.

The doctor began inputting notes, speaking as he wrote. “Yes, we’ve received the report. We’ll run a full battery of tests, both neurological and psychological, to determine the cause. If there is psychosis to worry about, we’ll know.” His eyes flicked towards Wally and Gary, brows rising. “And these two gentlemen?”

Gofer gestured at them with a lazy hand, as though presenting inconveniences rather than people. “This one claims his name is Wally. No surname provided. And this one identifies himself as Gary Sanderson. We have reason to believe both are unregistered passengers. Security breach cases.”

The doctor’s brow furrowed. “Unregistered? No identities at all?”

“Correct." Gofer replied, tone clipped. “They infiltrated the Bridge, a catastrophic breach in itself. They’re to be confined here until further notice. The Captain also requested they be… cleaned.”

The physician’s gaze dropped to their stained clothes; the scavenger’s patched jumpsuit, the soldier’s mud-caked coat. He sighed, half amused, half resigned. “Well, I can certainly see the necessity. DNA analysis will establish their records, and we’ll… decontaminate them.” A faint chuckle escaped him.

“I wouldn’t treat this matter lightly, Doctor.” Gofer’s voice sharpened, one eyebrow arched. “Auto himself warned me: one of these men is eccentric, delusional, and potentially unstable. Handle with delicacy. That is why I have requested my second-in-command oversee the intake while I attend to other matters aboard the ship.”

“Deputy MacTavish?” The doctor asked, startled. “He’s coming here?”

Wally’s attention drifted, their voices fading into a low buzz as his eyes roved the Ward.

The sterile, gleaming cells. The glow of energy fields. The constant activity. His curiosity bubbled past his nerves, and he tugged Gary’s arm with his cuffed wrist.

“Hey, Gary, look! Have you seen those? They look so cool!” He pointed, wide-eyed at the glowing barriers.

Gary smacked his lips, sounding weary. “Sure thing, bud. Just another piece of Axiom tech. Nothing surprising at this point.”

“But the design! Look at it!” Wally’s voice pitched higher, his excitement cracking through the silence of the group.

Too high. Too loud. His cheeks flared scarlet the instant he realized the doctors and Gofer were staring at him.

The lead physician narrowed his eyes, humming softly. “I think I understand which one is our dangerous fellow, Chief.”

A few swift taps on the datapad, and three glowing bands of crimson light shimmered into being, floating like restraints pulled from thin air.

“Well, gentlemen..." The doctor said smoothly. “...we’ll take it from here. DNA scans, evaluations, and… hygiene. Results will be sent directly to the Captain. We’ll also await Deputy MacTavish’s arrival.”

“Thank you, Doctor.” Gofer gave a curt nod, then turned to the prisoners. Without ceremony, he herded the trio off the tram and into the heart of the Ward, before pivoting away.

Wally watched him leave, throat dry. The doors closed behind the Chief of Security with a soft hiss, and for the first time, he realized...

...they were on their own.

The doctors secured an irremovable red strap around Eve’s arm, the band glowing faintly under the sterile lights of the Ward. A psychiatric marker, branding her for everyone to see. A shiver ran down Wally’s spine. Was it merely identification? Or some sort of tracker?

They did the same to his brother next. Wally watched as the soldier flexed his wrist against the tight restraint, adjusting to its grip with the calm stoicism of a man used to such discomforts. But Wally couldn’t help the gnawing question in his mind. Was it just uncomfortable? Or something worse? Was he next?

“Alrighty, Lieutenant Eve, come with me.” One of the doctors said, guiding her toward a private chamber. The syringe glinting in his hand made Wally’s chest seize with unease.

Another doctor, this one a young woman in a spotless white coat, motioned to Gary. “Mr. Sanderson? Please, this way. Your room is ready.”

Gary’s reply was smooth, polished, as if he were back in uniform on parade. “Of course, ma’am.”

The woman flushed, smiling awkwardly. “Oh, please! I’m only twenty-seven. ‘Miss’ is fine.”

Wally’s throat tightened. He didn’t like how casually they were being separated, one by one, as if shuffled into drawers. His voice cracked as he called out.

“Evah! Gary!”

But his plea was cut short. Another doctor stepped into his path, a strap in one hand. “Alright, Mr.—eh, ‘Wally.’ Let’s get you fitted.” He raised a small injector in the other, his voice flatly clinical. “And a quick sedative, just to ease you in.”

Panic lit Wally’s nerves on fire. He stumbled back. “G-G-Get away from me!”

“Hey! Stand still.” The doctor insisted, his tone sharpening. “This won’t hurt.”

But Wally squirmed, twisting his arms out of reach. Each attempt of the doctor’s hands only pushed him deeper into fear.

“Ugh, don’t be so difficult!” The man snapped now, wrestling for control. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

Then came the words Wally dreaded most:

“Forget it. Sedative first.” The syringe arced towards his arm.

Wally’s eyes went wide. Reflex overtook reason. He kicked out desperately, his boot colliding with the doctor’s wrist.

The needle plunged into the man’s own neck.

“OW! Oh, God! That really, REALLY… reaaalllyyy…” His words slurred into nothing as his knees buckled, and he collapsed in a graceless heap on the sterile floor.

Wally didn’t wait. Heart pounding, he bolted into the chaos of the Ward.

He didn’t get far. A blur of pink hair and frantic movement cut him off. A girl... no, a teenager careened into his path. Her dyed hair stuck out in messy tufts, blue eyes wide and wild, oversized earrings jangling as she threw herself at him with alarming glee. She wore a beautician’s jumpsuit bristling with cosmetic tools, her hands trembling as they clutched brushes and powders.

“What can I do for ya? Aaahhh—j-j-just a trim? A trim? A trim? T-t-t-trim?” She babbled at lightning speed, words tripping over each other as her hands attacked his face.

“W-Wait—hey—stop!” Wally flailed, but her brushes smeared his glasses, powdered his eyes, stung his skin. Rouge, mascara, lipstick; all slathered on with manic precision and no logic at all. His vision burned, his breath came ragged, but still she worked as if possessed.

Finally, she stepped back, clutching a mirror with a flourish. “There! Gorgeous, sweetheart!”

Wally gasped. The reflection staring back was grotesque; foundation caked thickly on his cheeks, garish lipstick smeared, mascara clumping his lashes, white powder dusting him like a ghost. He almost laughed from the absurdity of it, but the girl’s pleading, half-mad eyes froze the chuckle in his throat.

“I-It looks… really good." He stammered, his voice thin but kind. He couldn’t bring himself to hurt her feelings.

That moment of mercy ended abruptly. Two burly orderlies in gleaming white uniforms seized his arms, their grips iron-tight.

“H-Hey! Let me go!” Wally yelped, thrashing against their hold.

“You can play Barbie with Perdie later...” One of them jeered, jerking his chin towards the sobbing beautician. “...once she learns how to colour inside the lines.” Both men laughed.

Perdie crumpled where she stood, brushes slipping from her fingers, tears streaking her powder-stained cheeks.

“That’s rude!” Wally shot back, his voice breaking with outrage.

The orderlies ignored him. With practiced efficiency, they dragged him to a tiny cell and shoved him inside. The hum of energy filled the air as a blue force field shimmered into place, sealing him in.

One of the men smirked. “The doc will be along shortly, if he wakes up from the little nap you gave him. Then you’ll get your genetic scan.” He winked at his partner. “And one hell of a bubble bath.”

Their laughter trailed down the corridor as Wally pressed his back against the glowing barrier, chest heaving. His reflection stared back faintly from the forcefield: smeared makeup, glassy eyes, fear gnawing at the edges of his resolve.

“They’re assholes, I know.”

Wally’s head snapped towards the voice. Relief washed through him when he saw Gary, arms crossed, standing in the next cell over.

“Gary!” He rushed to the barrier and pounded his palms against it. At least he wasn’t alone; his brother was here too. “Why won’t they let us out?!? Did they hurt you?”

“Nah.” Gary shrugged, casual as ever. “Precautionary measure. That doc said the room wasn’t ready yet. Patient inside hadn’t finished his appointment. She got so embarrassed she hid her face behind her clipboard.” A faint grin tugged at his lips. “Might’ve even caught herself a crush on me. First time it’s happened that quick… though, I ain’t interested.”

Before Wally could laugh, a harsh coughing fit rattled the cell on his other side. He turned to see a man hunched in the corner; a janitor by the look of him, jumpsuit stained dark blue and covered in grime, a bulky vacuum strapped to his back with an extendable broom dangling at his side. His curly hair stuck up in tufts, his brown eyes watery and fever-bright. Each cough shook his thin frame until he sneezed violently, spraying dust, spit, and who-knows-what straight across Wally’s face.

“Ugh—!” Wally groaned, scrubbing furiously at his cheeks and glasses. But the more he rubbed, the more the mess smeared; makeup, powder, spit, and dust blending into a grotesque mask.

The man sniffled, voice muffled through his stuffed-up nose. “Ah—s-sorry, pal. Didn’t mean t’ blow all over ya.” His accent had a heavy Southern drawl, softened by his congestion.

Wally blinked at him, remembering the funny impression Gary once did of a  'Texan cowboy.' This guy sounded a lot like that. “I-It’s alright." Wally muttered, finally smudging his glasses clear enough to see.

“I’m Vincent A. Quim." The janitor croaked. “But everybody jus’ calls me Va-Qum. On account o’ this—” He slapped the vacuum pack on his back with a wheeze. “—since I’m always suckin’ up dirt. Ain’t a pretty life, but it’s a livin’.”

“My name’s Wally." He offered, voice tentative.

“Yo, my man!”

A sharp whistle cut across the cells. Wally jumped as both he and Vincent turned to Gary, who lowered two fingers from his lips, looking smug. Wally frowned. What was the point of that? Maybe he could get his brother to show him how to whistle properly someday! He always kept his calls for Bullet at the same flat pitch.

“You said your name was Vincent, right?” Gary didn’t wait for an answer. “I met your brother back in the docking bay; Victor A. Quim. Fella said you’d been… hospitalized.”

Vincent’s grin stretched wide as he bobbed his head. “Ah, yeh, Victor! That knucklehead don’t know nothin’. Couldn’t spot the mongrels even if they were crawlin’ up his pant leg.”

Gary narrowed his eyes. “The… mongrels?”

“The mongrels!” Vincent threw his arms wide, wild light burning in his gaze. “Tiny lil’ devils; crickets, dust mites, whatever ya wanna call ’em. Gotta have eagle eyes t’ catch the bastards. But ol’ Betty here--" He patted his vacuum like it was a beloved hound. “--oh, she’ll hunt ’em down clean. Gets the job done every damn time.”

Both Gary and Wally stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Uh…” Gary tilted his head. “I think you’re talking about dust. Just particles. You know, small stuff floating around.”

Vincent snapped his fingers, nodding furiously. “Aye, aye! Finally, somebody gets it! Thought I was losin’ my damn mind in here. Everyone else’s blind as bats.”

Wally inched closer to his brother’s barrier, his pulse quickening. This man wasn’t just sick, he was unstable. His wide, twitching eyes promised he believed every word he was saying. Please let that forcefield hold. Wally thought, pressing back from Vincent’s side.

Gary studied him, his voice measured. “Your brother said you got electrocuted. Lookin’ at you now… I can see why he was worried about your well-being.”

Vincent chuckled, a dry, broken sound that dissolved into another fit of coughing.

The shimmering barriers dissolved from both his and the soldier’s cells. Wally squinted as two figures stepped forward: the same young woman with the clipboard, her cheeks faintly rosy, and the bandaged doctor who still looked as though he hadn’t forgiven him for the earlier accident.

The man cleared his throat, rubbing gingerly at the wrapped side of his head. “We’ll be escorting you both to the Examination Department, where the Lieutenant was taken. Two rooms have just opened up.” His gaze locked on Wally, sharp and warning. “Mr. Wally? You’ll follow me. I won’t use sedatives… though I’m this close to calling security.”

The scavenger froze, his stomach dropping at the word sedatives.

Meanwhile, the young woman’s smile returned when she faced Gary. “Mr. Sanderson, please, this way. Cooperation makes the process faster for everyone.”

“Nothing to argue about that, miss." The soldier replied smoothly, his voice steady and diplomatic.

Wally’s chest tightened. Why was his brother so compliant? Didn’t he see it? The staff wielded fear as casually as their instruments, scarring patients more deeply than any wound. What good was healing if they kept reopening the soul’s injuries?

And yet, if Gary, the Sergeant, the soldier, trusted them, maybe… maybe he could too.

So Wally followed. The trash collector kept close, his brother marching in step beside him like a steady anchor. Along the corridor, he dared a glance into the Ward. The other patients thrashed, muttered, or simply stared through the walls with empty eyes. Wally’s heart sank. These weren’t monsters, just people eroded by endless servitude to an idle, bloated humanity above them. Any mind might crack under such strain.

They entered the Examination wing. Four glass chambers stood in a row, not clear but frosted so that only vague, shifting silhouettes could be seen within.

Relief bloomed in Wally’s chest when he spotted one of those blurred shapes he knew without doubt: Eve. At least she was here; close enough that he could watch over her. If these doctors tried to exploit her, he’d be right there.

But then came the separation. Gary was guided towards another room. The soldier shot him a wink, a knowing spark in his eye. Wally frowned.

Does he know something I don’t?

The scavenger was left with the doctor.

“Alright, Mr. Wally…” The man muttered, scrolling his datapad. “…before I bathe you... and repay you for that little ‘nap’ you gave me..." He hissed through his teeth, the disdain sharp enough to sting, “...I’ll need to take tissue samples. DNA profiling. Captain’s orders.”

He pulled out a tourniquet, the glint of a needle following soon after.

Wally flinched, retreating a step.

“It’s fine." The doctor said flatly, irritation bleeding through every syllable. “Just a sample. Won’t hurt a bit. Promise.”

Reluctantly, Wally extended his arm. The band of rubber bit down on his bicep as the doctor tied it tight. He grimaced at the pressure, forcing his thoughts elsewhere; towards Eve, towards how he might finally gather the courage to speak the words tangled inside his chest.

Then the sting came. The needle slipped into his vein, and as crimson filled the vial, his eyes flicked up—

—and there she was. Eve. Her blurred outline clear as day behind the third fogged door.

“EVAH!” The cry tore from his throat, desperate, unguarded.

“Oh, get over it, you big wuss!" The doctor grunted, rolling his eyes.

Eve sat on the narrow exam bed in the Diagnostics and Evaluation room and tried to steady her breathing. The chamber was broad and circular, a clinical amphitheater of medical bays ringed by fogged glass. Each station contained the same efficient furniture: a sprung bed, a multi-function trolley, and racks of gleaming diagnostic instruments; scanner arms, sample hoppers, neatly coiled tubing and trays of sterile tools. From her seat she could see half a dozen examinations in progress: a technican fussing with a pupillometer, a medic arguing into his wrist-comms, a nurse guiding an anxious patient through a lung function test. The frosted panels afforded only a flimsy privacy; silhouettes shifted and conversations leaked through like drafts.

Somewhere to her right a young EMT panicked over a crash test dummy, voice cracking as she barked a practiced command. “C-cccc-clear! CLEAR!” The electrodes hissed and the dummy’s torso spattered with a thin flare of scorching foam. Eve flinched at the noise and the sudden theatrics of it; every failure here was amplified, every mistake played raw and public.

She felt wholly, humiliatingly out of place.

All afternoon the room had seemed to press in on her: ceilings too bright, walls too spotless, people too ordinary. She was an E.V.R.E. scout; trained, credentialed, the best the Axiom could spare for terrestrial reconnaissance. Her reports were meticulous; her training record was exemplary; she had been selected because she could be trusted with both a mission and the truth it revealed. Saying otherwise felt like being smothered in accusation. She had found the plant. She had brought the evidence back. The protocol had triggered the moment her neural link flagged biological activity. The logic chain was simple and exact.

And yet here she was, catalogued and corralled among the ship’s ill and the odd, her uniform downgraded in their eyes to the same utilitarian grey. The injustice burned hot inside her, this placement was not merely inconvenient; it was an attack on everything she had built herself to be. If the wards recorded a psychiatric flag on her file, the stain would not wash out. Whispered rumors would travel the decks like a corrosive solvent: a senior scout humiliated for a fabrication; a woman who cried wolf to score glory; a broken officer unfit for fieldwork. Her career would crumble. Worse, her reputation, hard-earned, fragile as spun glass, would be reclassified into gossip and pity. People would treat her as a curiosity, a cautionary tale. She had seen what reputation did on the Axiom: it was currency and weapon in equal measure.

Anger flared, hot and precise. She thought of Commander Auto, of his steady, restrained certainties, and of Captain McCrea, who had so easily accepted the First Officer’s skepticism, even as he battled to recognize part of her innocence.

Both men had authority; both had chosen procedure over the possibility she had returned to prove. She imagined how easy it would be for them to consign her to a footnote and a form. She cursed Auto for the way he had smiled with the patience of a man who would rather avoid a problem than solve it; she cursed McCrea for his blind appetite for routine and comfort; she cursed every cold-read scanner and bureaucratic checkbox that could translate a living, breathing discovery into a neutral 'negative' on some ledger.

And beneath the institutional betrayal, another, more personal anger throbbed: Wally and Gary. The memory of the moment she had unsealed the specimen container, of the plant cradled in its ragged boot, the smell of damp earth, the quiet, absurd stubbornness of green life, was still sharp enough to hurt. She had been careful; she had been methodical; she had trusted the protocols. Somehow the plant had vanished between her hands and the podium, and only those two filthy men had been near it. Wally, so guileless, so infuriatingly earnest, and the Sergeant, with his crooked grin and that impossible green coat. Either they had taken it, or they had been instrumental in its disappearance. Either possibility stung.

She would not be passive. That idea struck her, cold and clear, and steadied the tremor in her hands. Rage, when properly channeled, was a tool. She would find them. She would make them explain. If the two humans had been thieves, she would get it back.

Let them put her among the malingerers and the misfits for now. Let them whisper. Eve flexed her fingers against the sheet and tasted the cold iron of resolve. Her neural implants hummed faintly at the base of her skull, an echo of protocol and recall; reminders she kept tucked away until needed. She would be methodical. She would be precise. She would not let this discovery end as an asterisk on somebody else’s ledger.

"Alrighty, Lieutenant…" The doctor’s voice chimed too cheerfully, almost incongruously so, as he prepared his equipment. Rail-thin and clad in a crisp white surgical coat, his featureless mask gave nothing away, yet the spring in his step and the eager tilt of his head suggested a kind of pediatric enthusiasm that made Eve’s skin crawl. Of course, being treated like a child only added to her humiliation; she was supposed to be an elite scout, a trained operative, not some ward under observation for childish misbehaviour.

"…Let’s see if we can figure out what’s up with you today, miss Eve."

Eve’s jaw tightened. "Like I stated before, Doctor, I am not losing my mind. This was an unnecessary misunderstanding." Her tone was calm but firm, carrying the weight of someone used to being trusted to know the truth.

The doctor’s gloved hands hovered over his neural diagnostic equipment. "I understand you don’t want to do this, Lieutenant, but we can only be sure you’re ‘clean’ through a full physical evaluation."

Eve exhaled, a slow, deliberate sigh. He was right, of course. There was no use resisting; the procedure had to be done. "Fine. Let’s just get it over with." She forced the words out, a mix of indignation and the faintest trace of dread. Even if she knew she was sane, and her mind screamed proof of it, there was no escaping the bureaucracy.

"Okay then, we’ll start with a physical."

Silently, Eve began stripping off her gear. The utility belt clinked as it hit the edge of the examination table; she unclipped her plasma rifle, setting it aside with practiced care. The antigrav boots followed, then the back-mounted suit control system, each piece revealing more of the pale, taut skin beneath her nanotech bodysuit. Finally, with a reluctant breath, she removed the suit itself, leaving only her white satin undergarments. She hesitated, then unclipped her bra, feeling the cold sterile air brush against her exposed skin. Every nerve flared with embarrassment, each step of compliance a tiny defeat to her pride.

The doctor, however, moved with clinical empathy, his gloved hands inspecting every inch of her body as he checked for cryogenic frostbite, irregular tissue growths, or anomalies in her skeletal and muscular augmentations. His touch was professional but unnervingly intimate; Eve felt the faint brush of his gloves over her ribs, her shoulders, her thighs. Her cheeks flamed scarlet.

"All right." He murmured, stepping back slightly. "No freezer burn, no elephantiasis, no runaway marrow growths. Next, we’ll check your senses."

He produced a standard eyesight chart, letters of varying size. Eve read each one flawlessly, her enhanced vision picking out the smallest lines with ease. Then, a U-shaped metal tuning fork appeared; a flick, and her hyper-sensitive hearing detected the subtlest resonance.

"Visual acuity and sonic reception, perfect. Let’s check your neural implants."

A thin, needle-like cable emerged from the console. Eve instinctively tilted her head, hair falling aside to reveal the tiny, biodegradable port at the base of her skull, a fraction the size of a dime, wired directly into her cerebral cortex’s neural interface.

The examiner inserted the cable with precise care, a tiny hum of connection filling the air. Eve felt the prick at the nape of her neck, sharp but fleeting, as data began streaming into his diagnostic system. She tensed, aware of every microsecond of the process, every flicker of her thoughts and memories being measured, parsed, catalogued.

Her pulse quickened, not with fear, but with simmering indignation. She was being evaluated as though she were a specimen rather than a living, thinking human; yet she would endure it.

She had no choice.

Gary couldn’t help the smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. He had to admit; it was kind of amusing, knowing he possessed an edge over the young woman examining him. Dr. Newman, as she was called, was obviously smitten. It was written all over her posture, the way she avoided direct eye contact more than necessary, the way her lips twitched into reluctant smiles, even the small hand she lifted horizontally to hide her giggles whenever he cracked a joke. He’d seen it enough times now to be confident; she had a crush.

"So, uh, Mr. Sanderson!" She began, snapping him out of his thoughts.

Gary tore his gaze from the blurred shape of Wally behind the foggy glass, refocusing on the young doctor.

"I see you have a knife and a datapad with you." She noted, eyes scanning the items he’d placed neatly on the examination table. "But there’s also… that thing." She shifted her gaze to the small metallic object lying beside them.

Gary arched an eyebrow, suppressing a smirk. "It’s a lighter." He said plainly. "Y’all don’t even know what it is?"

Newman paused mid-scribble on her datapad, tilting her head in mild exasperation before shaking it firmly. Clearly, she wasn’t expecting that.

Before Gary could continue his playful interrogation, the half-sealed room’s door slid open, and a young man stepped in. He was roughly Gary’s age, as tall as him, wearing a cap that reminded the soldier of old security guards at malls or baseball stadiums. Arms folded neatly behind his back, posture rigid as a rail, he carried an air of efficiency that was almost comical in its precision.

"Oh!" Newman exclaimed, clearly relieved. "Deputy MacTavish!"

The Deputy’s sharp brown eyes scanned the room, taking in both Gary and the doctor. "Is this one of the detained intruders?" He asked, voice clipped but not unkind.

"Yes, he is." Newman replied, gesturing vaguely towards Gary. "So far, he’s been calm, cooperative… compliant even. Most of the tests are concluded, and I was going to ask a few personal questions to complete his profile."

"And the dangerous other one?" MacTavish’s gaze flicked towards the foggy glass separating Wally.

"With Freeman." She replied dismissively, waving him off. "He’s not dangerous; childish, maybe autistic. I doubt he’s delusional, despite what Auto claims."

The Deputy's sharp brown eyes met the soldier's own blue ones, measuring him. "Would you mind leaving me alone with the man for a few minutes?" He asked.

Newman gave a quick nod, retreating with a slight blush still tinting her cheeks.

MacTavish let out a frustrated exhale, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Damn it." He muttered. "I’d really like to know how the hell you two sneaked onto the Bridge. Gofer’s been riding me all damn morning about it."

Gary’s smirk widened into a full grin. "A magician never reveals his secrets." He said smoothly, eyes wandering over the Deputy from head to toe.

"So, you’re the second-in-command of Security?" He asked, curiosity cutting through his playful tone.

"John 'Soap' MacTavish." The Deputy replied with a shrug. "They call me ‘Soap’ because I’m almost as good as Gofer at cleaning up any mess that comes our way. Gofer’s thirty-five; I’m twenty-four. Not likely I’ll be replacing him anytime soon, given our age difference."

So Soap was the deputy commander of Security on the Axiom, and Gary recognized the opening for what it was: a golden opportunity he could not ethically ignore. If Soap could be persuaded, a crack in Auto’s iron will might become a corridor wide enough to push a revolution through.

"You wanna know why we sneaked onto the Bridge, right?" He asked, keeping his voice low and steady.

"Preliminary interrogations are part of protocol." Soap replied, frowning as he keyed a subtle note into his datapad. "So yes, I want anything you’ll give me for the file. We’ll encounter each other again in Detention. Consider this my head start."

Gary let the moment hang long enough to press the weight of it into the deputy’s bones. Then he leaned forward and spoke plainly.

"I wanted to speak to the First Officer about a classified directive." He said. "A directive that’s kept from the public and from most of Security, even those not in the inner circle. Auto is sitting on a decision that keeps us anchored in this artificial Eden. He’s denied recolonizing Earth. That scout; she found a living specimen. There’s vegetation down there."

Soap's eyes widened enough to make Gary think for a second he’d swallowed the deputy’s whole face. The datapad in Soap’s hand stilled; the hum of distant machinery felt suddenly louder.

"That is… a bold accusation." Soap said finally, voice low.

Gary shrugged one shoulder, letting the label roll off him like water. "It’s called Directive Alpha One-One-Three. You won’t find it in the public dossiers. You won’t even find it in some internal registers. Not unless you’re cleared to see what the people at the very top keep for themselves."

He gave Soap his name, because names mattered. "You can call me Roach. Sergeant Gary ‘Roach’ Sanderson."

Soap studied him for a long beat, the kind of look that tried to weigh bone and motive and decide which was heavier. "Do you have proof?"

Roach reached out to the metal trail and pulled the datapad towards him, then knocked it over to Soap with a small, deliberate nudge. "There." He continued. "I tried to reason with Auto. I tried to make him change his mind. When that failed, I did what any soldier should do: I recorded my side of it."

Soap didn't argue or demand theatrics. He took the device, thumbed it awake. "I can’t play that here." He muttered, scanning the room with a careful, professional paranoia. "If this is true, I can’t have Gofer or Auto sniffing around me while I’m looking. I need to know who I can trust before I move."

He looked past Roach to where Wally hunched behind the fogged glass. "I’ve always wondered what Earth looked like." Soap said quietly, almost to himself. "If Auto’s been lying, if we’ve been kept from reclaiming what’s ours, that’s a different kind of treason. I’ll see what’s on this, and if there’s fire to your smoke, I’ll recruit dissidents. Quietly."

Roach watched the deputy pocket the datapad, felt the cold thrill of small victories settle in his ribs. Soap gave him a curt nod, then turned and left, moving with the efficient silence of someone who knew how to keep a dangerous secret burning just long enough to light a fuse.

Not long after, Doctor Newman returned to finish her examination, cheeks still pink from embarrassment but eyes more professional now. Roach settled back into his seat with the slow, satisfied curl of a man who had played the board and found his piece in position.

Checkmate.

Wally pressed his forehead against the cool glass, his eyes fixed on the blurred outline of Eve in the neighbouring station. His own doctor had already taken more than enough; blood, skin samples, even a retinal scan that made his vision ache. Now the man hovered at his side again, trying to pluck a hair from his scalp, muttering something about 'completing the profile.'

But Wally barely heard him. His focus remained on her.

Eve’s silhouette shifted. First her arms rose, methodically peeling away the layers of her uniform. Wally’s breath caught in his chest as her shape became more defined, more vulnerable. Then another shadow, taller, angular, moved into frame. The doctor. He circled her like a vulture, tools in hand, raising his arms, leaning close. The opaque glass distorted the details, but the gestures were unmistakable: inspection, prodding, invasive touches.

A sudden movement chilled Wally’s blood. The doctor lifted a long, thin object, trailing a cable. A needle? A blade? Whatever it was, the silhouette brought it toward the back of Eve’s head and pressed it in one swift motion.

Wally’s stomach lurched. His pulse hammered against his temples.

"Oh my God... EVAH!"

He shot to his feet, panic overriding thought. The back of his skull connected with something solid; a sickening crack resounded, followed by a groan. His own doctor reeled backwards, crumpling to the floor, unconscious.

Wally staggered, clutching the table for balance, chest heaving. He had no idea what he had just done, nor did he care. His only thought burned with singular clarity: he had to reach Eve.

With the cable locked into place at the base of her skull, Eve’s stomach turned. A wave of nausea crawled through her as though her very self had been invaded, as though something utterly alien now probed the sanctity of her mind. She loathed the sensation, loathed the thought of a foreign instrument burrowing into what should remain untouchable.

The examiner, calm as if this were nothing more than routine maintenance, tapped away at the console. His voice was infuriatingly casual.

“Alright, Lieutenant, just stay still. This may feel… unusual. Ticklish, even.”

Then the command executed. The cable flickered to life, faint lights pulsing along its length. Artificial bioelectric currents surged into her cortex, feeding into her implants, echoing through her neurons like tiny bolts of counterfeit lightning. Her body betrayed her before she could fight back; the sensation scrambled her brain’s chemistry, flooding her with endorphins. Her composure shattered.

“HAHA—ha—STOP! HAHA—THAT—HAH—TICKLES—HAHAHA!”

Her voice broke into undignified shrieks of laughter, her chest convulsing with each forced giggle. Heat rushed to her face; not from the stimulation, but from the mortification of losing control before this man, this stranger, this pediatrician in a mask who now had her reduced to a child.

And yet the absurdity did not end there.

From the periphery of her blurred vision, another station came into view. A man stood clutching an umbrella as if it were life itself, a doctor tugging furiously at the handle.

“Come on, Brella, give me that!” The physician’s patience finally snapped as he wrestled it away.

“No! NOOO!” The patient howled with the raw desperation of a child denied his toy. Then, from somewhere deep in his lungs, he unleashed a shriek so piercing it rattled the air, an animal wail of uncontainable torment.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—!”

The sound mingled hideously with Eve’s uncontrollable laughter, turning the pristine examination ward into a madhouse chorus of hysteria and pain.

"EVAH!"

Wally frantically tried to find a way out of the cell, looking for ways to deactivate the barrier. He had to stop this madness and save her!

But how? The entrance's pad demanded a code to unlock the door.

And the only other available option would be to...

Almost there...

Roach carefully sharpened his hearing to follow the exchange of shouts and giggles.

Just like in the movie.

“Well...” The examiner concluded cheerfully, scanning the data cascading across his console. “...you’re not suffering from any augmentation side effects, nor do I see evidence of space-adaptation syndrome. No cryogenic-induced psychodelusions, no task-related stress markers. And..." he added with a tilt of his head. “...you don’t appear to be fabricating information or concealing it with deception.”

Eve was still writhing with residual laughter, her lungs aching from the unnatural euphoria. Every chuckle hurt now, but the sensation still coursing through her veins left her feeling half-drunk on relief.

“Haha—I—I told you! Hahaha…” The words tumbled out in broken bursts, her voice torn between vindication and the humiliating giggle fit.

The doctor glanced at her, bemused. “Odd, then, that Command would send you here for something you clearly didn’t do.”

“I know.” The last wave of laughter ebbed, leaving her flushed and breathless. Her voice sharpened, her pride hardening against the vulnerability of moments before. “I knew I found something. I brought it back myself. I don’t confuse what I’m trained to identify. I never make stories up.”

Her tone faltered, bitterness bleeding through. “The plant I had was most likely lost—or rather…” Her jaw clenched. “…stolen from me.”

The examiner’s voice interrupted her spiraling thoughts. “Alright then, Lieutenant. Just one last step before I can clear you. As per E.V.R.E. health protocol, and the Axiom’s disease-free mandate, I need to administer your xenoimmunity induction vaccine.”

Eve groaned, exasperation flashing in her eyes. “Oh, great.” She knew what that meant. The damned thing always hurt.

She lay flat on her stomach atop the cold medical bed, fists clenching against the sheets as she braced herself. The doctor readied a pneumatic injector, its sleek chamber primed with engineered super T-cells designed to defend against pathogens that no longer belonged to Earth alone.

A hiss of compressed air filled the station as he pressed the injector firmly against the curve of her hip.

TSSSSHT!

“OOWWW! That hurts!—” Eve hissed, her entire body jolting as the burn radiated across her muscles. She bit back further protest, her pride stifling the undignified cry building in her throat.

“I believe that’s my cue." Roach muttered under his breath, rising from his chair and crossing the sterile floor towards Newman.

“Okay, Mr. Sanderson.” She hummed absently, her eyes still on the scrolling columns of medical data. “Results should be ready by twenty-hundred hours. You should—”

The words died on her lips the moment she looked up.

Roach was standing far too close, hood peeled back, blue eyes boring into her like steel points. His smirk was faint, the kind that dared her to interpret it as either charming or dangerous.

“You’ve been working non-stop, haven’t you?” His voice dipped lower, softer. “When was the last time you took a break? Got out with someone?”

Newman blinked, flustered, retreating until her back bumped against the fogged glass partition. Her fingers tugged nervously at her collar, colour rising in her cheeks. “W-well…” Her voice cracked under the pressure of his gaze. “It’s been t-three years since my last r-relationship.”

Jesus Christ. Roach nearly faltered. Three years? How many times has this woman been strung along, left high and dry? Is that kind of frustration even possible?

He steadied himself. There was no room for sympathy. No room for shame. Not when Wally needed him.

“Mmm.” He planted one gloved hand against the glass beside her head, leaning in just enough to blur the line between threat and seduction. “That why you’ve been staring at me this whole time?”

Her breath quickened, lips parted. She was biting down on her lower lip, and the look in her eyes left no room for denial.

For a brief, sour moment, Roach hated himself. The thought of assault sickened him, always had. He wasn’t here because he wanted to be. He was here because he had to be. Because the mission came first.

“I—I—”

“You’re cute too, you know?” He cut her off, voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. “I thought you’d already be taken by someone else.”

His free hand slipped behind his back, fingers closing around the cool metal of the syringe case resting atop the desk.

Her voice shook, almost girlish. “W-would you like to… have dinner tonight?”

“Sounds like a plan…” His lips curved into a predator’s smile.

Time to tie the knot.

“…but why should I wait that long for dessert?”

I’m going to Hell for this. God forgive me. Wally needs me.

He kissed her; slowly, carefully, with no force behind it save for suggestion. Newman melted almost instantly, her arm winding around his neck, surrendering to what she thought was passion.

That was when Roach pressed the syringe to the side of her throat and depressed the trigger.

Newman stiffened, breaking the kiss, eyes wide in betrayal. “Y-you…” Her knees buckled, her voice faltered, and then her pupils rolled upwards as the sedative overtook her. “Y-you…”

Roach caught her before she hit the floor, guiding her gently into the chair he’d been sitting in earlier. He lowered her with the same steady hands that once carried wounded soldiers off the field.

“There, there.” He murmured, adjusting her head against the backrest. His voice softened, almost tender despite the guilt burning in his gut. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just needed a way out.”

CRASH!

Roach whipped his head towards Eve’s side of the glass just as the faint echo of Hello, Dolly! filtered through the walls. Exactly as he expected; Wally had thrown himself into the room, convinced Eve was in danger.

“STAY BACK, YOU! LET HER GO NOW, OR I’LL SHOOT!”

The shout confirmed it.

Roach yanked his raincoat’s hood back over his head. He moved swiftly, grabbing the metal container off the table. Careful not to hesitate, he hurled its contents to the floor, the clatter sharp against the sterile walls. Then he set his grip, braced, and ran.

CRASH!

Glass exploded into a spray of glittering fragments. Doctors flinched, shielding their faces from the shards. Roach stepped through the wreckage, his eyes sweeping across the scene.

There was Eve’s attending physician, frozen mid-step. And there was Wally, clutching Eve’s plasma rifle like it was a lifeline, his hands shaking but the barrel leveled at the room...

...backwards, of course.

Roach forced a smirk. “What’s up? Heard there was a party here!”

No one laughed. Fear locked the room in silence. To them, this was madness incarnate: one man brandishing a charged weapon, the other breaking in with calculated calm.

Roach scanned the room, but Wally’s attention was fixed only on her.

“Evah! Are you okay? Did they hurt you? Did they... violate you?”

The stares shifted towards Eve.

“Wally, put the gun down!” She snapped, voice rising like a whip-crack. “I’m getting a medical exam! What the hell are you doing here?!?”

Violated? Roach thought, frowning. Why would he—

The thought cut short.

Because then he saw her.

For a split second, every ounce of training screamed at him to look away, to keep his discipline. But that voice was small, drowned out as his brain caught up with what his eyes registered.

Eve was standing there; stripped bare by the examination, naked as the day she was born.

The nanosuit had always hidden her form in lines of armour and fabric, but nothing prepared him for this. The smooth curve of her skin caught the light, flawless and unscarred, her figure balanced between strength and grace. Her breasts rose and fell with each furious breath, nipples hardened in the cold air. The pale line of her undergarments drew the eye to the subtle taper of her waist, the sweep of hips and legs sculpted by years of training. She was, simply, stunning.

Shock surged through him, equal parts awe and alarm. His body betrayed him before his mind could catch up.

“HOLY FUCKING SHIT!” The roar tore out of him, reverberating through the ward.

He spun half away, arm thrown across his face as if to shield himself from the sight. His pulse thundered in his ears.

Through his fingers, he saw her head whip towards him.

“Eve, your goddamn clothes!”

Three seconds of silence passed.

.

.

.

.

“EEEEEEEEEEEK!”

Eve’s shriek tore through the lab like a sonic blast. Everyone jumped; including Wally, who was staring at her, wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

Roach dared a peek between his fingers. Surely she had covered herself by now?

She had, but barely. Eve clutched her arms across her chest, trying to shield her body, her face burning red with fury and humiliation.

“LOOK AWAY, YOU PERVERT!”

The shout was aimed squarely at Wally, whose eyes had been practically glued to her.

“AAAH!” Wally yelped, snapping his head away so fast his glasses almost flew off. His voice rose in a frantic stammer: “I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY!”

Roach pinched the bridge of his nose. Christ. This was a circus. Wasn’t this supposed to be based on a kids’ movie?

But things spiraled further when someone shouted:

“LOOK OUT! HE’S GOT A GUN!”

The staff’s eyes locked on Wally, who was still gripping Eve’s plasma rifle.

An orderly seized the moment, lunging at Wally from behind.

Roach moved faster. He caught the man in a chokehold, muscles straining as the orderly thrashed. For all his professionalism, the guy was strong, precise, and trained. But oxygen deprivation was undefeated. Soon, the body went limp, and Roach carefully lowered him to the ground.

Eve and Wally stared at him in stunned silence. But before Roach could say a word, another orderly charged straight at Wally from the front.

Panicked, Wally raised the rifle with his eyes squeezed shut.

“NNNNNOOOOO—!” Eve leapt for the gun.

Too late.

FWOOOSH!

The rifle fired... backwards.

The shot of superheated plasma streaked across the ward and slammed into the facility’s power generator. The detonation rattled the entire room, sparks and molten shrapnel bursting out in a shower of chaos.

The room fell into stunned silence. Every head turned; first to the smoking generator, then to the trembling scavenger with the weapon, and finally… to the naked woman next to him.

“Uuuuhhh…” Wally’s cassette player sputtered into silence as he shrank into himself, face pale. “…Oops.”

Roach winced. “Maybe it ain’t as bad as it looks?”

But it was. Eve had frozen mid-leap, bent forward with her rear and chest unintentionally thrust out, her body on full display. The angle was… unflattering, in the worst possible way. Every male eye in the room locked on her.

A low whistle broke the silence. Vincent. “Aw, man. Now that’s a fine chick, if I’ve ever seen one.”

If looks could kill, Eve’s face would have ignited the entire ship. Humiliation and wrath boiled over, her cheeks crimson, her fists trembling with unspent rage.

Her gaze snapped to Wally.

“WALLY! YOU IDIOT!”

Her fist rocketed forward like a missile.

The blow landed square on his face.

The world spun into a blur for Wally as he flew across the room, slammed into the plastisteel wall, left a very clear, Wally-shaped dent, then dropped like a sack of scrap to the floor.

Pain exploded through him; his nose broken, blood gushing. His face felt like fire. Miraculously, his glasses and teeth held intact, and the plasma rifle remained clutched in his hands.

He groaned, half-conscious, as Eve stood in the center of the lab. Her fists were clenched so tightly her nails dug into her palms, drawing blood. Her whole body trembled with fury. Her breathing came in ragged huffs, eyes blazing like fire.

Every ounce of her wrath, shame, and frustration honed in on one miserable, bleeding trash collector.

A sharp bzzzt! jolted Roach’s attention.

The doors to the evaluation ward whooshed open. One by one, the force fields around the holding cells blinked out, and the consoles and overhead lights dimmed with a dying electronic whine.

For a heartbeat, everyone, staff and patients alike, froze in collective confusion. Then it hit: the blast had fried the ward’s power grid.

Vincent broke the silence.

“HELL YEAH! WE’RE FREE!”

The declaration echoed like a battle cry.

Then, pandemonium.

The inmates surged out of their cells in a frenzy of cheers, whoops, and laughter. They swarmed the staff before the doctors and orderlies could react, tackling them to the ground, tearing free restraints, overturning carts.

Roach stood slack-jawed, watching the Ward dissolve into madness.

“Gary, Wally!” Vincent’s voice cut through the chaos. “You both freed us, ya damn angels!”

Roach barely had time to blink before the mob turned on the diagnostics lab. The wave of bodies slammed through the broken glass, crunching it further beneath their boots, trampling over the stunned doctors inside.

“’Scuse me, ya sexy vixen!” Vincent hollered as he shoved past Eve, nearly spinning her aside.

She shrieked, indignant, but the mob didn’t slow. They barreled straight for Roach and Wally.

The Sergeant’s hand twitched towards his knife before he realized... no, they weren’t attacking. They were lifting him. He felt himself hoisted into the air alongside a dazed, battered Wally, carried like trophies above the sea of frenzied inmates.

It hit him: they thought this was all intentional. That Roach knocking out the guard and Wally firing the rifle had been a master plan. That the two of them had engineered this entire prison break.

And, in a roundabout way… maybe they had.

“Three cheers fer Wally an’ Gary, y’all!” Vincent’s voice boomed over the mob. He threw an arm high, leading the chant.

“Hip-hip, HOORAY!”

The roar shook the ward as the flood of bodies stampeded out the entrance, their so-called saviours borne aloft at the front of the charge.

Chapter Text

This was… impossible.

Soap sat rigid in his chair, the glow of the datapad casting pale light across his face. He had listened to the recording twice now, straining at every word. The exchange between Roach and Auto played back in his head with merciless clarity; two voices locked in a duel of conviction.

Both arguments were ironclad. Auto’s rationale was calculated, delivered with that precision the First Officer was infamous for. Roach’s case, however, carried a different kind of weight; humanity. It wasn’t just logic; it was belief. Belief in Earth. Belief in home.

And then came the truth.

Alpha One-One-Three.

Soap pinched the bridge of his nose. Auto’s decision to conceal such a directive wasn’t merely questionable, it was heresy against the very charter the founding fathers had drafted when the first starlighter ships left Earth. The Axiom wasn’t built to drift forever. Its purpose was to return. To carry humanity back to the soil that birthed it.

Yet Auto had buried that truth.

Soap’s stomach turned.

He cast a quick glance at the office door, half-expecting Gofer or some nosy clerk to burst through. The corridor outside remained still, silent. He was alone with this knowledge, for now.

Which meant the burden of choice fell squarely on his shoulders.

Did he keep silent, preserve his rank, and continue polishing Gofer’s boots while Auto dragged them further from their home planet? Or did he risk everything -- career, reputation, even his life -- to defy them?

He wasn’t a leader. Not by nature, not by training. He could clean up messes, and yes, he could fight and enforce. That was his role.

Deputy. Second fiddle. He wasn’t the spark of a revolution.

But maybe Roach was.

Soap stared at the datapad again, his reflection flickering faintly on the screen. Sergeant Gary 'Roach' Sanderson. A soldier from Earth, hardened by a world Soap himself had never touched. If paramilitary groups still existed there, as the title suggested, then Roach carried discipline and a kind of authority Soap could never fake.

Yes. If there was to be an uprising, Roach would be its spearhead. Soap’s role would be simpler: to sharpen the blade, to gather allies, to clear the path.

He leaned back in his chair, exhaling slowly, the decision solidifying inside him like cooling steel.

Hard, urgent footsteps pounded along the corridor. Soap spun around just as a steward barreled into the doorway, breath ragged, knees wobbling.

“S-sir!” The man gasped. “The Medical Ward; it's compromised. Patient breakout. One hundred and sixty-two registered occupants have evacuated their wards!”

Soap’s jaw tightened. He rose immediately, every muscle going alert. “Show me.” He ordered, voice flat and efficient.

They ran. The steward led him to the control room: a hive of frantic motion. Technicians barked into headsets, fingers danced over holo-keyboards, and a dozen projectors cast a three-dimensional map of the Axiom into the air. Red dots, too many red dots, skittered across corridors and maintenance levels like a swarm.

“Deputy MacTavish on deck!” Someone called. The room snapped to attention; heads turned, hands saluted. Soap cut them off with a raised palm. “At ease. Status report, now. We don’t pay you meal vouchers for shouting. I want facts.”

A female tech stepped forward, pointer skimming the hologram. “Sir, Medical Ward’s primary generators were disabled. A rifle-wielding individual detonated the facility’s power grid, then the emergency failsafes failed to engage. The containment fields collapsed and the patients fled across three decks. Witnesses report the shooter was assisted by another man wearing a green poncho-style coat.”

Soap’s hand twitched towards his vest, feeling the familiar shape of his datapad. Roach. The name lodged like a splinter at the back of his throat. Why—? He had promised to handle this discreetly. He'd told Roach he would listen, gather allies, be cautious. If Roach had turned to violence, the calculus changed profoundly.

“Bring me the live feed.” Soap ordered. A technician overrode the remaining feeds and flooded every console with footage. The image filled the room: the primary maintenance corridor, a tearing human tide. At its crest were two figures painfully familiar: Roach and Wally, hoisted aloft by the crowd like ragged heros. Wally, in particular, clutched a plasma rifle with a look of stunned, desperate determination.

Soap felt the world narrow. The sight was simultaneously absurd and catastrophic. Chaos had a sound: shrieks, cheering, the metallic detonation of glass underfoot.

He forcibly damped the surge of emotions; shock, anger, an odd prickle of grudging admiration. This could all go sideways in a heartbeat. If Auto learned Roach had incited or led a revolt, the reprisal would be swift and merciless. The First Officer would clamp down; Gofer would sanitize everything with arrests and quarantines. The Axiom ran on order. Disorder was a contagion.

“Hunter Two-One, on call." Soap said, voice steady despite the thundering pulse in his ears. “Mobilize. Contain."

He let the order hang in the charged air and then turned to the steward who had brought him the news. “Get me a manifest of yesterday’s movements in and out of the Medical Ward; every tram signature, every maintenance pass. Cross-reference with personnel logs and passenger locators. Quietly. No comms to Gofer until I say.”

The steward saluted and sprinted off. Soap watched him go, then looked back at the holo of the surging crowd. In that human tide he saw more than pandemonium: he saw possibility. Roach had lit a fuse. Whether it would consume them all or ignite a path home remained to be determined.

He inhaled, exhaled, and reached for his datapad. There was work to be done.

The psychiatric rejects thundered down the maintenance corridors like a tidal wave of human chaos, their manic cheers echoing off steel walls. They overturned carts, smashed through doors, and stripped every supply cache they stumbled across. Maglev freight trams screeched as panicked drivers pulled the brakes; some skidded to a halt while others derailed entirely, metal grinding against metal as the horde streamed past in blind exultation. It was as though the very order of the Axiom had been turned inside out.

Wally stumbled along at the heart of the madness, barely able to tell if he was terrified, exhilarated, or simply concussed. His head still swam from Eve’s devastating punch; colours bled together at the edges of his vision, and the world lagged a half-beat behind his thoughts. Every sound seemed to rattle around inside his skull, overlapping, distorted. Still, through the haze, one thing burned clear: these people were free. He had freed them. For the first time, he wasn’t just a garbage man fumbling through life; he was their liberator.

That fragile pride flickered as he glanced to his right. Gary pushed his way through the mob, face set in a grimace, teeth clenched as he dragged Wally out of the way of a careening freight hauler. The Sergeant’s eyes burned with calculation, scanning every possible threat even as maglev cars crashed and buckled around them. Gary wasn’t celebrating. He wasn’t laughing. He was surviving.

The mob surged around a sharp bend, their manic energy still carrying them forward...

...until a thunderous shout cracked through the corridor like a whip.

“HALT!”

The command reverberated through the service tunnel, spoken in perfect unison by trained throats.

The response was immediate. The horde slammed to a standstill so abruptly that bodies collided and toppled over one another. Wally found himself hurled from their shoulders, crashing down hard onto his backside. The plasma rifle nearly slipped from his grasp, and he clutched it tighter like a child clutching a blanket. He winced as pain shot up his spine. Beside him, Gary stumbled but recovered swiftly, rising to his feet with soldierly instinct.

Wally blinked, lifting his gaze, then froze.

A wall of armoured stewards filled the corridor ahead. Two dozen of them, at least, in full Kevlar plating, visors reflecting the harsh strip-lighting above. They stood shoulder to shoulder, shields interlocked, a seamless human barrier. Every arm was raised, palms stretched flat in an unmistakable gesture of command: stop.

The celebration evaporated in an instant. Silence rushed in, heavy and suffocating. Even Vincent, the loudest voice of rebellion, fell quiet.

“Oh, hell…” Vincent whispered, and the mob seemed to shrink behind him.

Wally’s throat tightened as he realized just how cornered they were. His knees trembled, his hands shook violently around the plasma rifle. He shrank behind the weapon, as though it might shield him from their accusing stares. The rifle felt impossibly heavy, more like a burden than a tool.

Gary, by contrast, stood rooted, jaw hard, eyes narrowed like a predator sizing up his opposition. Wally admired him even now. How did he always stay so unshaken, even staring down armed men?

The mob, however, wanted nothing to do with them anymore. The exultant mania dissolved into pure survival instinct. They began to shuffle back, pointing fingers, desperate to push blame onto someone else.

“Uh… they did it!” Vincent blurted, stabbing a finger at the brothers. “Them two, right there!"

Gary’s mouth dropped. “You fucking snitchers!” He cried, betrayed.

Vincent scowled back, voice cracking with desperation. “Look, man, we jus’ wanna get outta this alive!”

The stewards’ line stiffened. The leader’s gaze shifted, visor locking onto Wally. His eyes traced the plasma rifle clutched awkwardly in the scavenger’s arms. His hand dropped to his belt and, with crisp precision, drew a stun gun.

“You!” The lead steward barked. “Surrender your weapon. Now.”

As one, the other stewards mirrored the motion, hands poised over their sidearms, fingers twitching, ready to unleash a storm of electricity at the smallest provocation.

Wally froze, every nerve in his body screaming. His heart pounded so hard it hurt. His eyes flicked from one visor to the next, each reflection of himself looking smaller, weaker, guiltier.

He whimpered. His voice cracked, pitiful. “Wh-why me?”

Gary’s eyes flicked towards him, sharp as razors.

This was strange. Why was Wally's face painted? He looked like a clown. Soap seriously doubted it was warpaint. The trash collector didn't appear capable of such thoughts.

Nevertheless, the Deputy tapped his earpiece. "Hunter Two-One, neutralize and apprehend; but only non-lethal. Let's show them we're doing this primarily for their own safety."

All at once, the mob of patients was shoved aside with surprising force. Out of the chaos, Eve stormed into view, her boots striking hard against the deck as she marched straight for Wally and Gary.

“Wally!” She barked, fury blazing in her eyes. “Give me that gun, now!”

Her hands tore at the plasma rifle in his grip. Wally stumbled back, holding it like a child clutching a toy, but one look at her face, flushed with rage, eyes sharp enough to cut glass, made him retreat. She wasn’t just angry. She was furious.

The lead steward’s visor swiveled towards her. “You, citizen! You are in violation of the Axiom Peace Code. Cease your hostility at once!”

But Eve wasn’t listening. Her attention was squarely locked on Wally, and now Gary, too, ss she ranted, her words lashing like whips. Wally trembled beneath her glare, while Gary simply stood there, sighing through the storm as though he had already expected this.

The steward raised his voice, harder, sharper. “Citizen! Final warning! Cease hostility at once, or you will be subject to arrest!”

Still, Eve ignored him. Her temper boiled over. She snapped, swinging the rifle in a wide arc and smacking both Wally and Gary across the head with the butt of the weapon. Wally yelped in pain; Gary merely winced, jaw tightening as if enduring a drill.

The steward’s visor flickered. He tapped the camera feed mounted in his earpiece, recording the moment: Eve, armed, visibly enraged, with two frightened men and a panicked mob cowering behind her.

It looked, from every angle, as if she were holding them hostage.

The steward tagged the footage. 

At once, Eve’s face flashed across every holoscreen aboard the Axiom. Her image replaced advertisements, wayfinding signs, corridor displays, even the private screens in passengers’ hoverchairs. Across the decks, the ship’s computer echoed a single, chilling warning:

"CAUTION: ROGUE HUMANS."

Stewards across the ship received the same snapshot, a live feed of her holding the plasma rifle in a threatening pose. The label beneath her photo scrolled in bright red text.

Eve froze when she saw the image plastered across the nearest screen. Her fury twisted into something raw and dangerous. Her mind reeled; violence was the last thing she wanted to be accused of, yet here she stood, weapon in hand, branded a traitor in front of the entire ship.

Her eyes burned like fire as she turned back to Wally and Gary, lips curling in a growl. The air around them practically vibrated with her rage, sending a chill down both their spines.

“Wally. Gary.” Her voice was low, venomous. “You’ve ruined everything.”

The lead steward’s order cut through the air like a knife. “Deputy MacTavish has declared her dangerous! Arrest her, immediately!”

Stewards raised their tractor beam binders, the hum of charged restraints filling the corridor.

Eve realized what was about to happen. Her pupils narrowed. There was no time to argue, no time to curse them for dragging her into this. She grabbed both Wally and Gary by the shoulders, her antigrav boots roaring to life beneath her feet.

In an instant, the three of them blasted forward in a streak of motion, the shockwave from her sudden departure slamming into the steward line like a concussive blast. Armored men were thrown back, shields clattering against the walls.

The mob of patients gawked at the display, mouths wide, eyes gleaming with awe. To them, this wasn’t just an escape; it was defiance incarnate.

“They stood up to the stewards…” One whispered.

“If they can do it..." Another shouted. “...so can we!”

Vincent, grinning like a madman, pumped his fist in the air. “This ain’t over yet, boys. LET’S PARTY!”

The crowd erupted, a tidal wave of mania returning in full force. Like a spark thrown onto dry kindling, rebellion ignited again. Patients surged past the stunned stewards, scattering in every direction, spreading havoc through the ship’s arteries.

Order had been shattered. Chaos ruled.

Eve tore down the service corridors, antigrav boots howling with every push as she forced herself faster and faster. Crew members and technicians scattered aside, some shouting in alarm, others pointing her out as the rogue human now plastered on every holoscreen aboard the Axiom.

“There! It’s her!” One voice called, followed by a chorus of others.

She ignored them all. Every set of eyes that marked her was another reminder of how badly this day had spiraled out of control.

Behind her, Wally and Gary bounced and scraped against bulkheads as she dragged them along. Wally yelped with each collision, his glasses askew, his arms flailing uselessly. Even the Sergeant, hardened soldier that he was, gritted his teeth at the blows and near-misses.

Eve didn’t care. Not about their bruises, not about their comfort. Rage drowned out everything else. They had humiliated her, cost her her proof, and now, thanks to them, she was branded across the ship as a violent criminal.

Even at breakneck speed, she couldn’t shake the stewards. These corridors weren’t designed for evasive maneuvers, and every tight corner bled away her advantage. Behind, the thunder of armoured boots and the jeering cries of psychiatric escapees chased her like a storm.

A choice. A split second.

She veered suddenly and dove headlong towards a darkened viewport alcove.

The mob of rejects stormed past the intersection nearby, led by Vincent Va-Qum, Vingo, Perdie, the wide-eyed EMT, and the shrieking umbrella addict.

“Uh... over ’ere, guys!” Vincent called, charging into a random hall with his crew tumbling after him. The stewards barreled close behind, their pursuit turning the junction into a battlefield of toppled carts, scattered equipment, and desperate fists.

From behind the viewport’s cover, Eve pressed herself flat against the wall, holding both men tight. Her hand clamped hard over their mouths, silencing Wally’s whimpering protests and Gary’s muttered curses. She needed quiet. She needed to think.

But her mind spun uselessly. Her chest heaved from the sprint, her nerves sparking with anger, humiliation, and desperation. Todaythis had been a downward spiral through one impossibility after another, and every turn seemed worse than the last.

She risked a glance through the viewport. Beyond the glass stretched the docking bay levels: a vast deck lined with emergency escape modules, waiting like lifeboats to be claimed.

The thought struck her fast, sharp, and tempting. One of those pods could end this nightmare. Take her far from the humiliation, from the accusations, from Wally’s idiocy and Gary’s smug calm.

But doubt hit just as quickly. Could she even reach them? The turbolifts to the bay would be crawling with patrols by now. Even at full burn, she’d be spotted, cornered, dragged down before she could make it halfway. And escape pods weren’t toys; they required access codes, clearances, programming. A mistake at that console could cost her everything.

Her jaw clenched hard. For the first time in years, Eve felt hesitation clawing at her resolve.

She had a chance, but no clear path to reach it.

“Holy crap! Mr. Sanderson?”

Eve flinched at the voice. A young delivery boy had stopped his tram at the end of the hall, gaping at Gary as though he’d just seen a ghost.

The female scout turned sharply, her curiosity piqued. The boy couldn’t have been more than a teenager, freckles visible even in the sterile corridor light.

Did they meet before? While I was still in hypersleep?

She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. Perhaps this could be useful, if she played it right. But first, she needed the two to talk.

Eve released Gary, who stumbled forward, quickly regaining his balance. He brushed off his raincoat, coughed into a fist, and gave the boy a lopsided grin.

“Yeah, yeah. It’s me, Jeremy.” His smirk was equal parts charm and command. “How’s my little Fitzgerald-ino doing?”

So that was his name. Jeremy Fitzgerald.

The boy grimaced at the nickname but didn’t correct him. He glanced behind his shoulder, scanning the corridor nervously before looking back at the trio.

“Sir, what’s going on?” Jeremy asked, his voice trembling slightly. “The ship’s plastered with holograms saying you’re Rogue! You, and them...” He jerked his chin towards Wally, who was still catching his breath, and Eve, who crossed her arms with a glare. “I thought he was your colleague?”

Oh, if only he knew what these two had done to her.

“He is.” Gary replied smoothly. “There’s been… a misunderstanding.”

He shot Eve a brief, unreadable glance before continuing. “Listen, Jeremy, can you give us a strap to the escape pods? There’s something important there, something that could clear this mess up once and for all.”

Eve’s brow twitched. What are you playing at, Sergeant?

Gary’s eyes flicked towards the tram’s cargo bed. “Are those crates empty?”

“Yup.” Jeremy puffed up a bit, clearly proud of his work. “Just finished a delivery run. Shipped the contents off about ten minutes ago.”

“Good.” Gary nodded approvingly. “Then maybe we’ve got a plan.”

Jeremy hesitated, his hands tightening on the tram’s controls. “I dunno, sir. If the stewards catch me helping you, I’ll be grounded, or worse. They’re scanning everything that moves right now.”

Gary tilted his head, a hint of that cunning smile tugging at his lips. “What if they don’t see us?”

The boy blinked. “Meaning?”

“We hide.” Gary said simply, pointing at the crates. “If they’re big enough to hold cargo, they’re big enough to hold us.”

Jeremy rubbed the back of his neck. “Uh… I mean, I had to ship off some heavy components earlier. There’s definitely room if you squeeze.”

Eve stared at him for a long, incredulous moment.

Okay, so maybe he was infuriatingly calm in the face of a full-scale manhunt, and perhaps a sadistic fool for not realizing he’d helped Wally tank her career, but…

…he was also cunning.

And dangerously smart.

Chapter Text

Wally rode the elevator beside Eve and Gary in heavy, uncomfortable silence. The hum of the lift was the only sound between them, punctuated by the faint crackle of damaged wiring overhead.

He kept a trembling hand pressed against the swelling bruise on his temple, a souvenir from Eve’s pistol-whip, and refused to meet her eyes. The Sergeant, however, stood tall and unflinching beside him, only occasionally brushing the back of his hand across the dried blood on his own brow. Wally couldn’t tell if Gary was just used to pain… or simply better at hiding it.

After Gary’s friend, the young courier, Jeremy,  had dropped them near the maintenance elevators, the kid bolted the moment the doors shut. Not even a goodbye. He must’ve been terrified to be seen with them.

Eve hadn’t said a word since then.

Her face remained an icy mask, her sapphire eyes burning with quiet, merciless fury. Even now, standing perfectly still, she looked like she was on the verge of tearing them both apart with her bare hands.

The silence was suffocating.

Wally’s mind spun in circles, desperate for something to break the tension. His heart thudded unevenly, his throat dry. He’d take a firefight over this silence any day.

And then the lift’s display flickered to life.

"CAUTION: ROGUE HUMANS."

Their images, Eve, Gary, and himself, flashed across the projector screen above the elevator doors.

Wally blinked. Then his face brightened with sudden, naïve excitement.

He tugged on Gary’s sleeve like a child spotting his reflection for the first time.

“Look!” He exclaimed, pointing. “We’re on TV!”

Gary stiffened beside him. He darted his eyes towards the display, his expression darkening with recognition.

“Uh… sure, buddy.” The Sergeant managed a tense grin, patting Wally’s shoulder. “Guess it’s better than Earth, right? We’re famous.”

Wally beamed. The weight in his chest eased for just a moment. Maybe Eve would see this, and they could all laugh about it later. Maybe she’d forgive them.

He turned to her eagerly. “Ohh, Evah, look! We’re on televisio—”

A deafening CRACK! cut him off.

Eve’s fist smashed through the projector screen, shattering it into a burst of sparks and molten glass. The sharp tang of ozone filled the air as the display fizzled and died, leaving behind only the hum of the elevator and the sizzling remnants of burnt circuitry.

Wally stumbled backwards with a startled yelp, shielding his face from the sparks. Gary flinched too, though he recovered quickly, crossing his arms over his chest in a defensive stance.

Eve stood motionless, her knuckles bleeding, chest rising and falling with each seething breath.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t have to. The glare she leveled at them both said enough.

It was the kind of look that could peel flesh from bone.

Wally shrank into the corner of the lift, his heartbeat hammering in his ears. He didn’t dare move or breathe too loudly, afraid even the sound of his pulse might provoke her further.

This is it... He thought miserably. This is the worst day of my life.

The one person he cared for most, the one he wanted to protect, to impress, now looked ready to pulverize him into paste.

Gary, on the other hand, didn’t flinch.

He simply met Eve’s stare head-on, calm, unyielding. The two of them locked eyes like predators sizing each other up. Neither spoke. Neither blinked.

Wally watched them, awe mixing with fear. How can he do that? He wondered. How can he stand there like that and not be afraid?

He wanted to be like Gary; brave, composed, impossible to intimidate. Maybe then… maybe then Eve would trust him again. Maybe she’d see that he wasn’t just a fool with good intentions.

Maybe she’d see the real him.

The turbolift stopped at the main Boarding and Evacuation levels of the Axiom. With a muted chime, the doors slid open, and Eve stepped out first, wordlessly guiding Wally and Gary through the dimly lit corridor beyond.

They walked through a long hallway lined with bright emergency doors, their safety lights pulsing faintly like artificial heartbeats. The door they approached opened with a tired hiss, its gears screeching as if grinding awake from decades of disuse.

Eve entered the shadowed chamber beyond; a forgotten control room, coated in dust and silence. A single, dormant console sat at its center like a relic of another age. The air smelled faintly of ozone and old machinery, untouched by crew, passengers, or maintenance for what seemed like centuries.

The scout approached the console and began to work, her fingers gliding across the interface as she coaxed the ancient machinery back to life. Sparks flickered from the panel’s edge as dim lights flickered overhead.

Wally lingered a few steps behind her, unsure whether he should move closer or keep his distance. He watched her in silence, confusion and awe twisting inside him.

Wasn’t she about to crush his skull in back in the elevator, just like she’d smashed the projector screen? She seemed angrier than ever before, a storm bottled inside a fragile frame. Yet here they were, not dead, but following her deeper into the ship’s bowels.

Nothing about today made sense anymore.

So much of his confusion seemed to orbit Eve herself; everything she did, every reaction she had. From the moment she had awakened from cryosleep and seen him again, it had all gone wrong. The surprise in her eyes had turned into fury, and after the chaos of the Ward, everything had spiraled downhill.

He hadn’t meant for any of it. He’d only wanted to help her, to make her proud, maybe even happy to see him again. After all the time he’d spent searching for her across the stars, this was the last kind of reunion he’d imagined.

Still, Gary had stayed by his side through it all. The Sergeant stood nearby, arms crossed, his boot tapping against the metal deck in a steady rhythm; some quiet tune Wally didn’t recognize.

Curious, Wally tried to mimic the rhythm. He shifted his weight and tapped his foot too, but immediately lost balance and nearly slipped on the smooth floor. His cheeks flushed bright red. He straightened up quickly and averted his gaze before Gary could laugh.

Whatever strange path had brought them to this point, Wally couldn’t stand seeing Eve like this; furious, wounded, and distant. He wanted to fix it somehow, to chase the anger from her eyes and bring back the warmth he remembered.

He would do anything.

His gaze drifted toward her hand. Dried blood marred her knuckles, and her fingers twitched as she tried, and failed, to move them without flinching. A pang of guilt twisted in his chest.

He thought of Hello, Dolly! The movie that had once taught him about gestures of kindness, about touch. Slowly, he clasped his own hands together, as gently as his fingers allowed. It felt strange… but full. 

Maybe if he just held her hand, just for a moment, she’d understand. Maybe she’d see that he still cared. That he always had.

Yes… this was the right moment.

He took a quiet step forward, ready to reach for her hand and finally speak the words that had waited in his heart for years—

—but before he could, the room came alive.

A deep hum resonated through the walls as the console flickered to life beneath Eve’s touch. The ceiling lights blazed on, bathing the chamber in gold and white.

Yellow emergency arrows glowed to life along the deck, leading their gaze toward an open hatch at the far end of the bay. Beyond it lay the bright interior of an Axiom Escape Vehicle.

Inside, twenty crash-harness seats formed a perfect circle around a glowing command pedestal. Racks of terrestrial survival kits lined the walls, and the polished helmets of EVA suits reflected the amber light like tiny suns.

Through the viewport, they could see the endless rows of identical escape modules stretching across the ship’s vast outer hull; thousands of them, slumbering in silence, waiting for the day they would be needed.

Eve turned towards Wally and Gary, her expression blank. It wasn’t anger this time, nor even irritation. It was the look of someone who already knew what was going to happen next, as though every word and movement had already been decided in her mind.

Wally, of course, didn’t know. He blinked between her and the yawning hatch of the escape vehicle, confusion flickering across his dirt-smudged face. Gary, however, narrowed his eyes, his jaw tightening slightly. The Sergeant understood something that Wally didn’t; or at least, suspected what was coming.

“Get in. Both of you." Eve ordered, pointing to the A.E.V.

Her voice was level, but there was steel beneath it; the kind that left no room for argument.

Wally tilted his head, glancing between her and the pod again, as though trying to decode her meaning. “Get in?”

“I said get in." She repeated, sharper this time. “It’s going to Earth.”

She gestured towards the holoscreen above the control console. The image flickered to life; a celestial map dotted with soft blue lights, a single glowing trajectory leading back to the third planet from Sol.

Wally followed her finger, staring up at the projection. Earth.

His mouth fell open in awe as understanding finally dawned. “Oh! Uhmm… okay!”

He scrambled into motion, his clunky boots echoing against the metal deck as he half-jogged, half-stumbled into the pod. The interior hummed faintly.

Wally climbed into one of the crash seats, his hands clasped together in his lap like a schoolchild waiting for his teacher’s praise. A smile stretched across his bruised face, wide and innocent. After all the chaos and shouting, they were finally going home.

Gary didn’t move.

He stood outside the hatch, his arms still crossed, eyes locked on Eve in a silent standoff. The low hum of the pod filled the gap between them, an invisible tension that neither spoke of.

Why was he hesitating? Wally leaned towards the doorway. “Gary!" He called, waving one arm enthusiastically. “Come on! There’s some really interesting stuff in here!”

The Sergeant didn’t respond immediately. His gaze flicked towards the control panel, then to Eve, then back to Wally. The younger man could almost see the gears turning behind those calm blue eyes.

Still, after a long moment, Gary exhaled softly through his nose and stepped inside. The deck creaked under his boots as he took the seat beside Wally.

Wally brightened instantly. He reached over, placing one hand on Gary’s thigh with a relieved grin, as though proud that his brother had decided to join the 'mission.'

Now all that remained was Eve.

Wally twisted in his seat to look back at her. She still stood by the entrance, framed in the soft white light spilling from the hallway. She hadn’t moved. Her face was expressionless.

“Well… are you coming?" He asked, patting the empty seat beside him. His tone was hopeful, almost pleading. “C’mon, Eve. We’re going home! Home’s better than… uh…” He glanced around the sterile pod interior. “Better than this, right?”

He smiled, trying to make light of her silence. “And I’ve got more stuff to show you when we get back! My collection’s way bigger than that! Plus—” His voice faltered slightly “—I still gotta clean up. Earth’s not gonna tidy itself, you know?”

He chuckled nervously, his smile beginning to waver. “A Directive’s a Directive…”

But Eve didn’t smile. She only shook her head once.

“No." She said flatly. “I’m not.”

Wally’s grin vanished. The air seemed to drain from the room all at once.

“H-huh?” His voice cracked slightly. He leaned forward in his seat, confusion twisting into unease. “W–Why not?”

Eve shook her head again.

She lifted a finger and pointed to the glowing green emblem on her chest; the stylized plant that marked her as a probe unit. “Because I need to follow my own directive." She said, her tone even but distant. “I need to find the plant.”

“The… plant?” Wally repeated, blinking. That was it? She was staying because of the plant? “B-but it wasn’t our fault! You had it secured in your pod!” His voice trembled, words stumbling over each other, until Gary placed a steadying hand on his shoulder, a silent reminder to breathe.

“I did.” Eve admitted, lowering her gaze. “Until…” She paused, her voice faltering, the certainty slipping for just a second. It was the first sign of hesitation Wally had ever seen from her.

But then she forced herself to look away, regaining that icy composure. “It doesn’t matter anymore. That’s why I’m sending you back to Earth. Unless you hold information vital to the plant’s recovery, I don’t need you here.”

She turned away, back towards the console, her movements sharp.

Wally stared after her, his chest tightening. None of this made sense. He had thought—no, hoped—Eve would be happy to see him again, to just be with him like they had been on Earth. Maybe the three of them, him, Eve, and Gary, could have stayed together, lived like a family.

But her words crushed that dream like brittle glass.

He swallowed, voice soft but trembling with earnest confusion. “Is that why you’re so mad?” He asked quietly. “Just because… you can’t find the plant anymore?”

Eve froze.

Then, without warning, she spun around. Her eyes blazed with fury.

“Why am I so mad?” she echoed, her voice rising sharply. “Why am I so mad? I’M PRACTICALLY PISSED OFF BECAUSE—OF—YOU!”

She lost whatever calm she had left and stormed towards them, an accusing finger leveled at their chests. Wally shrank back in his seat, trembling as she advanced. Gary immediately stood, stepping between them with the easy instinct of someone used to breaking up fights.

“I GOT COURT-MARSHALLED BECAUSE OF THIS DERANGED AFTERNOON!” Eve shouted, the words spilling out like fire. “YOU SENT ME TO THE WARD! YOU BROKE IN AND SAW ME NAKED! YOU MADE OTHER PEOPLE SEE ME NAKED! YOU MADE GARY SEE ME NAKED!”

Her eyes were wild, her voice trembling with humiliation as she shouted past Gary’s shoulder. When her gaze finally landed on him, it was like steel meeting flint.

“Hey!” Gary protested, holding up his hands. “I covered my eyes!”

“Shut. Up!” She snapped, breathing hard as her fury boiled over. “It doesn’t count! You still saw my body, even for a second!” She jabbed a finger at him, trembling with outrage. “YOU TWO LET EVERY CLINICALLY INSANE CONVICT ON THIS SHIP ESCAPE! YOU CAUSED A RIOT! YOU ALMOST KILLED SOMEONE! AND WORST OF ALL, YOU TURNED ME INTO A WANTED CRIMINAL AND A LAUGHINGSTOCK!”

Her voice cracked on the last word.

Wally could barely process her words, his mind was a whirlpool of fear, confusion, and heartbreak. Everything she accused them of seemed twisted, impossible, and yet she believed it all. He remembered the chaos of the Ward, the screams, the alarms, the broken glass, and her face, horrified and furious, reflected in it all.

It hurt worse than any physical wound.

Gary pointed a finger right back at her, his tone controlled. “Any of those accusations can be discussed later." He said evenly. “But do you really think we stole the plant? And for what reason?”

“I know you didn’t steal it.” Eve spat through clenched teeth. “Do you really think Wally’s toy laser or your tiny knife could even scratch those pressure pods? The alloys were chosen to withstand atmospheric re-entry and explosive decompression!”

She gestured sharply, first towards Wally. “You—are clumsy, idiotic, immature, and hopelessly absent-minded. Despite your basic knowledge of computer systems and the remarkable display of competence in space navigation, you could never have opened that pod.”

Then, she turned on Gary. “And you! All I can diagnose is sociopathic tendencies at best. You knocked out a guard in the Medical Ward without hesitation! We could have resolved that issue peacefully! You have discipline, I’ll grant you that, and a soldier’s calm under pressure, but you’re not an engineer. You’re a weapon, not a repairman.”

Wally’s stomach twisted. Sociopath. He knew that word. And he knew what it meant.

But Gary wasn’t that. He couldn’t be. His brother had protected him, had cared for him when no one else did. Sociopaths didn’t do that.

Eve held their gazes a moment longer, her chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. Then, with a bitter exhale, she turned back to the console.

Wally sank deeper into his seat, silent and shattered, his mind an echo of her words.

“I’m sending you both back to Earth." Eve said without turning around. Her voice had gone flat again; the emotion drained, replaced with cold finality. “That’s final. And good riddance. I don’t need either of you around to make my life worse than it already is. Even if you didn’t steal the plant, you bring chaos wherever you go. This is for your safety, and for the safety of everyone aboard this ship.”

Her hand hovered over the launch controls. She tsked softly, almost under her breath.

“At least...” She muttered, her tone dipped in venom. “...I’ll know it’s far more comfortable here in the brig than rotting on that crap-hole planet you call ‘home.’"

Wally lowered his head, his eyes blurring with the dim light reflecting off the console. For the first time since they’d arrived, he didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t even breathe. He just sat there, the weight of her rejection pressing down until his heart felt hollow.

But one look at Gary’s steady, reassuring expression, and something inside Wally snapped.

No.

No, he wasn’t going back.

A tremor ran through him, not of fear this time, but awakening. In just a few moments, they would be sent away; discarded, exiled, forgotten. If he stayed on that pod, Eve would launch them, and he would lose her forever.

He didn’t have time to cry, or to plead. He had to act. For his sake, and for Gary’s.

I’m innocent. I love her. And I’m not going to let her send me away; not like this, not for something I didn’t do.

It was clear the Sergeant was ready to take charge, but Wally could feel something deeper stirring in him, something stronger than obedience or fear. It was resolve. For once, he had to step up. To act as a man. To be as brave as the one who had helped raise him from the truck into space.

A new emotion coursed through him; something he had never thought he could feel toward Eve: defiance.

He rose from his seat, his movements deliberate, his spine straightening as he turned towards the hatch. When he stepped out of the A.E.V., it was the first time in a long while that he walked taller.

Gary followed without a word, his presence shadowing him, calm and watchful.

Eve’s eyes caught the motion, and she frowned sharply. “Get in the escape pod, Wally.” Her voice was clipped, commanding; final.

Wally met her gaze. “No.”

Eve blinked, stunned, as though she had misheard him. “Wally! Get in the pod. Now!” she barked.

But Wally didn’t move. His feet were rooted, his heart hammering, yet steady.

“I said no, Evah!” His voice rang out, not in anger but in conviction. “I’m sorry for being clumsy. I know I messed things up. But I’m not going anywhere; not for something I didn’t do.”

He took a step forward, his voice gathering strength with every word. “I’m not a scapegoat! We’re not scapegoats!” He gestured between himself and Gary. “We didn’t mean for anything bad to happen!”

Eve stared at him, her expression unreadable; her fury still simmering, but now laced with disbelief.

“It doesn’t matter." She said coldly, brushing off his plea as if it were wind. “As I said, I’m doing this for your safety. Consider it a favour.” She turned her head slightly, jaw tightening. “But if you’re so stubborn as to defy authority until the end…”

Her hand began to drift towards the grip of her plasma rifle, fingers brushing the weapon’s edge; and with a soft, audible click, she released the safety.

Wally’s eyes flicked to the weapon, then back to her. Slowly, he raised his left hand; not in fear, but as a quiet signal. His palm pressed against Gary’s chest, urging him to stay back.

He didn’t want protection. He wanted to assert himself.

For a heartbeat, he hesitated. Every instinct screamed at him to back down, to apologize, to hide, to beg. But something greater held him firm.

When he finally spoke, his voice was calm, firm, and heartbreakingly clear.

“Evah…” He met her burning blue eyes, unflinching. “I’m not leaving this ship.”

Eve pressed a button on the rifle’s flank. The plasma barrel flickered from blue to green.

That was strange. Wally had never seen that colour before. But her finger still lingered dangerously close to the trigger, hovering like the strike of a serpent.

“You gonna shoot two harmless men, Lieutenant?” Gary’s voice cut through the tense silence. He took a step forward, his tone firm but steady. “Do they teach cowardice too in the E.V.R.E. scout program?”

Eve’s eyes snapped towards him, icy and precise. “On the contrary, Mr. Sanderson…” She hissed his name like venom. “…my weapon comes with alternate fire modes, if you know how to use it.”

Her glare slid back to Wally. “This particular setting unleashes a kinetic shock. You’ll be thrown clear and knocked unconscious, leaving me free to launch this pod.” Her head tilted slightly, voice lowering to something eerily calm. “Any last words, so to speak?”

He could have stayed silent. He could have let fear win. But something deep in his chest, that small, bright ember that had survived years of loneliness and loss, burned too fiercely now.

He had to continue. He could still fix this.

“Evah..." He began softly, stepping forward, his voice carrying none of his usual stammer or hesitation. “Please, listen to me. We never meant for any of this to happen.”

She didn’t move, but he could see the faintest tremor ripple through her stance.

“Do you remember...” He went on, his tone gentler now. "...when you were in my home, back on Earth? When I showed you all my things; my treasures? The lighters? The plant?”

Eve blinked. Her finger slackened slightly on the trigger, the weapon lowering by a fraction.

“They were gifts." He said, smiling faintly at the memory. “The plant was a gift for you, Evah. From the bottom of my soul.”

The hum of the plasma rifle seemed to fade as her eyes softened; hesitant, uncertain, her breath quiet and uneven. His words must have struck something in her, something buried beneath the fury and the duty.

Wally hoped she could see the truth in his face; the unwavering honesty in those wide, amber eyes. He didn’t blink. He didn’t tremble. There was no deceit there, no hidden motive; only a fragile, aching sincerity that even she, in all her cynicism, couldn’t ignore.

For a few seconds, time stood still. The sound of the ship beyond the walls dulled into nothing.

Gary stood beside him, ready to act at the first sign of danger, but even he could feel the moment shifting.

Then, quietly, almost like a confession that had been waiting for too long, Eve spoke:

“So then… why did y-you come all this way for?” Her voice cracked slightly. “For… for me?”

Wally’s chest swelled. After everything, the cold, the wrecks, the stars, he finally heard the question he had dreamed of since the moment she left Earth.

It was the moment he had waited an eternity to answer.

The turbolift at the far end of the bay corridor chimed.

Before Wally could utter another word, all three of them, he, Gary, and Eve, turned towards the sound. The overhead screen above the doors displayed the readout: a lift descending to *ltheir exact level. It was only seconds away.

Someone was coming.

Eve and Wally exchanged a panicked glance, while Gary’s eyes darted across the bay, searching for cover. The A.E.V.’s lights abruptly dimmed; its hatch sealed shut with a mechanical hiss. One by one, the consoles and emergency strips along the walls flickered out, casting the room into shadow. Even the main entrance doors screeched as they closed, sealing them in seconds before the turbolift doors parted.

They ducked behind the nearest console. Gary grabbed Wally by the shoulder, dragging him down, and Eve followed without a word.

The echo of footsteps entered the room; slow, deliberate, and solitary. Judging from the crisp, even rhythm of the steps, it wasn’t a steward. Stewards wore combat boots that clanked heavily on the deck. These were polished dress shoes.

Someone of rank.

The steps drew closer, stopping right behind the console they hid beneath. The figure’s silhouette loomed over the flickering glow of the control panel. Fingers tapped on the console; systems hummed to life. The launch bay brightened once more, and the A.E.V.’s hatch unsealed with a pneumatic hiss.

When the lights stabilized, Wally’s eyes widened.

It was him.

Master Chief of Security Gofer, his immaculate uniform pressed, expression unreadable,  stepped into the A.E.V. bay. In his other hand, partially hidden, he carried something small and dirt-caked.

Wally’s gaze snapped towards Eve.

“Chief Gofer?" She mouthed silently, her brow furrowed in disbelief.

Gary didn’t answer; he only stared, jaw tight, watching the Security Chief’s every movement.

Leaning out just enough to see, the trio peered over the edge of the console.

Then Eve gasped.

In Gofer’s gloved hand was a scuffed, familiar object: the battered old boot Wally had used as a makeshift pot back on Earth. And sprouting from the soil within it, small and stubborn as ever, was the seedling of an Ailanthus altissima.

“The plant." She whispered, her voice trembling with relief and realization.

Gofer crouched and set the boot down in the middle of the deck, but there was nothing reverent in his gesture. His face twisted, not with care, but with disgust. He scanned the room, paranoia flickering across his eyes, and then began inputting a string of commands into the A.E.V.’s launch console.

Whatever he was doing, it wasn’t good.

Wally’s heart pounded. The plant — the plant — was right there. If he could retrieve it and return it to Eve, maybe she would forgive him and Gary. Maybe this entire nightmare could end. Then he could finally tell her what he had crossed half the galaxy to say.

His brother and Eve were too focused on Gofer to notice him slipping away.

Carefully, Wally crawled from behind the console, silent as he could manage. The hum of the systems masked his movement. Inch by inch, he approached the open hatch of the escape pod. His fingers reached for the boot, and when his hands closed around it, he grinned in triumph.

He’d done it!

He turned, holding the plant high, mouthing soundlessly towards Eve:

“Evah!”

Her eyes widened in horror.

“WALLY—!” She exclaimed.

But it was too late.

Gofer’s hand slammed down on the manual launch command.

The A.E.V.’s hatch sealed shut before either Eve or Gary could reach it. A violent rumble shook the bay as the pod’s clamps released, followed by a blinding surge of thrusters.

With a roar of ion engines, the escape vehicle blasted free from its moorings and hurled itself into the void.

(Please. Read the Author's note!)

Chapter Text

Here we go!

It wasn’t as if Roach hadn’t seen this coming. On the contrary, he had practically counted on it. If the Master Chief of Security Gofer was anything like his cinematic counterpart, then gullibility would be his defining trait.

And sure enough, the scene unfolded almost exactly as he had imagined. The launch, the panic, the misfire; all of it had played out with grim pperfection. It was a pivotal moment for Wally and Eve’s relationship. And now, it had happened.

Still, he couldn’t help but wonder; what would have happened if Wally hadn’t been launched?

Across the bay, Gofer stood motionless for a few seconds, his eyes flicking towards the direction where Eve’s horrified exclamation had come from. The scout was sharp enough to duck down in time, pressing herself flat against the deck plates. Not a sound escaped her.

Gofer scanned the shadows, then shrugged. Either he had convinced himself it was just an echo, or he simply didn’t care. Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode back towards the elevator.

As the doors slid shut behind him, Roach finally let out the breath he’d been holding. The tension bled from his shoulders, replaced with a mixture of relief and disbelief.

“That could’ve gone way worse.” He muttered under his breath.

Eve didn’t share his sense of relief. She sprang to her feet, white and gold armor flashing under the overhead lights, and bolted for the nearest service airlock.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Roach gestured at her retreating figure. “Shouldn’t you, I don’t know, put on a helmet before decompressing yourself into the vacuum of space?”

For a second, he thought she might flip him the bird. Instead, she tapped the side of her helmet, the faint ring of her finger against the alloy echoing through the bay.

“These models generate an invisible energy shield." She provided curtly, already typing a sequence into the airlock’s control pad. “It creates a self-contained atmosphere, equalizing air pressure and letting the wearer survive in open space without a full-body pressurization suit.”

The force in her voice left no room for argument. She pointed sharply towards the elevator.

“You should head for the upper levels. If Gofer catches you here again, this entire mission’s compromised. I’ll go after Wally.”

Roach blinked, then saluted with theatrical crispness. “Aye-aye, ma’am!”

He sprinted for the elevator, boots clanging against the metal deck. Just before the doors closed, he caught one last glimpse of her through the narrow gap; Eve activating the force field. A pale blue shimmer wrapped around her entire form, rippling like light across water before sealing into a faint, translucent aura.

The airlock hissed open, and without hesitation, she stepped through, vanishing into the black.

Roach exhaled through his teeth as the elevator began to rise.

“Well..." He muttered to himself. “...there she goes. Chasing her man through the void. Classic.”

Still, he couldn’t just let the romantic finale between the two lovers slip away, could he? No; not after everything. 

And that’s when the idea struck him; brilliant, reckless.

Peeking left and right as the elevator doors slid open, he scanned the corridor. It was mostly empty, bathed in the soft glow of the ship’s artificial dusk. Only a few passengers floated lazily along in their oversized hover-chairs, half-dozing on what passed for 'evening walks.'

Perfect.

He darted out and sprinted for the nearest doorway, boots echoing faintly across the polished deck. His eyes caught the sign overhead: VISTA DOCK.

“Bingo.”

He burst inside. The chamber was oval, cocooned in reinforced glass and polished chrome, dimly lit except for the flicker of a terminal panel awaiting input. Without wasting a breath, Roach slammed his hand onto the console.

The system beeped to life, the interface shimmering in soft blue light.

“WELCOME TO THE BNL VISTAPOD.” A cheery female voice intoned. “HOW MAY I BE OF SERVICE?”

Roach tilted his head, eyes rolling. “Right, the pleasant deathtrap voice. Okay, listen; I need you to take me on a space walk. Can you track a rapidly fleeing escape pod?”

“SCANNING...”

He swiped his sleeve across his sweaty forehead, glancing nervously towards the sealed door. Every second counted; Eve was already out there, and Wally was getting smaller by the moment.

A soft chime interrupted his thoughts.

“ESCAPE POD NUMBER ELEVEN LOCATED. ARE YOU READY TO PROCEED?”

“Yes, I’m very ready." He breathed.

With a mechanical hiss, the panels covering the glass began to retract, peeling away like flower petals under sunlight. A wash of silver light flooded the chamber, unveiling the endless sprawl of stars beyond.

Roach’s jaw slackened in awe. Even after all the insanity, the sight of open space, unfiltered, immense, impossibly beautiful, hit him right in the chest.

Then the Vistapod began to move.

The magnetic track beneath it hummed to life, and he felt the entire glass capsule lift, gliding forward with unnerving smoothness. Outside, the massive hull of the Axiom curved into infinity, a gleaming leviathan suspended in the void. Along its outer rim stretched the rail system, like a necklace of light girdling the giant vessel.

“TRACKING ACQUIRED.”

A holographic projection bloomed before him: a three-dimensional rendering of the Axiom, with a small red dot blinking rapidly away from the ship. The pod.

Roach grinned despite himself, gripping the control yoke as the Vistapod adjusted course.

The chamber accelerated smoothly, gliding along the rails like a bullet of glass and light, following the tiny beacon hurtling into the dark as best as it could despite the ever-growing distance.

Wally had no idea what had just happened. One moment, the hatch had sealed shut, cutting him off from Eve and Gary; and the next, he was slammed against the bulkhead as the A.E.V. rocketed away, the sudden burst of acceleration nearly snapping his neck.

The pod jolted violently, pressing him into the seat before the thrusters finally steadied. A monotone voice chimed over the internal speakers:

“CRUISING SPEED. YOU ARE NOW FREE TO MOVE ABOUT THE CABIN.”

He collapsed onto the deck, gasping, trying to get his bearings. Relief didn’t come. The vibration in his bones, the hum beneath his palms; it all told him one thing: he was moving fast, far too fast.

Then he saw it.

Through the viewport, the Axiom was shrinking, its enormous white hull dimming against the stars. Each second carried him farther away. Farther from Eve. From his brother.

“Uh-oh…” He breathed, his voice cracking.

He stumbled to his feet and lurched toward the controls. There had to be a way to turn back. His hands clamped onto the steering yoke, and he pulled with everything he had. Nothing. He shoved again, slammed the console, cursed under his breath.

“Come on!”

The controls didn’t budge. Gofer must have locked the system on autopilot.

“Dang it…”

He scanned the panel; dozens of flashing lights, endless lines of data he couldn’t read. No manual override, no comms link, no obvious switch that could give him control. Whoever set this up had meant for the pod to stay gone.

Then something caught his eye.

A small monitor near his elbow pulsed red, a circular dial counting down fast...

...twenty seconds left.

His stomach dropped.

“SELF-DESTRUCTION SEQUENCE ACTIVATED. T-MINUS TWENTY SECONDS.”

“What—no, no, no!"

He must have activated it when he attempted to interface with the controls.

Panic took over. He slammed the button, nothing. Tried again, harder. Still nothing.

“Computer! Cancel! Cancel self-destruct!”

The voice didn’t respond. He began hammering every switch he could reach; flares burst from the hull, rafts inflated, parachutes deployed inside the cabin, and the wipers squealed uselessly across the glass.

“T-MINUS TEN SECONDS."

His pulse pounded so hard it hurt. Ten seconds left. He’d die here; alone, floating in the void.

But then, he saw it.

Scattered along the wall: several E.V.R.E. equipment crates.

Hope hit him like an electric shock. He dove for them, tearing one open with trembling hands.

“Ten… nine… eight…”

He grabbed a helmet and yanked it on, the field generator flaring to life. A shimmering blue aura wrapped around his body, sealing in air.

He spotted a halon extinguisher, perfect for propulsion, and snatched it up.

Then he remembered. The plant.

He spun around, eyes locking on the small green sprout resting in its container. He couldn’t leave it. He stuffed it carefully into his pack and turned back towards the hatch.

“Five… four…”

He pulled at the release handle; it didn’t move. He pulled harder, screaming now, every muscle straining. He slammed the extinguisher against the hatch, metal ringing out.

Nothing. It wouldn’t open.

“Three… two…”

Wally froze. For a split second, everything was silent; the countdown, the alarms, even his thoughts.

He wasn’t ready to die.

Four thousand meters…

Eve’s nanosuit diverted every remaining ounce of circuital energy to propulsion. The antigrav servos screamed under the stress, heat flaring off her thrusters in blue-white arcs as she pushed far past safe capacity. The stars blurred around her—she was a streak of light hurtling through the void, closing the distance at over a thousand meters per second.

Three thousand meters…

Her sensors locked onto the A.E.V., a single glimmer against the endless dark. She could see it now; small, fragile, spinning slightly from its own exhaust. Hope surged through her chest.

Two thousand meters…

Eve’s breathing steadied. The trajectory was perfect. The readings told her she’d reach him in less than five seconds.

One thousand meters…

Her pulse soared. “Almost there." She whispered, voice trembling with relief. Wally was right there; so close she could almost feel his signal again, faint and flickering.

Then the universe went white.

A violent flash consumed her visor, blinding her. The A.E.V. vanished in a blossom of fire and molten debris. Eve threw up an arm to shield her face as the blast washed over her. The shockwave hit a heartbeat later; an invisible hammer that sent her spinning head over heels through the void.

Her gyros screamed warnings as the suit fought to stabilize her. Stars and wreckage whirled past in chaotic bursts of colour and light. For several endless seconds she was weightless and powerless, tumbling backwards into the dark.

When her thrusters finally caught again, Eve steadied herself. Her chest heaved, her eyes wide with disbelief. The place where the pod had been was now just a cloud of glowing fragments, scattering like dying fireflies.

Her voice broke through the comm silence, raw and small against the emptiness:

“Wally…?”