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My chips are down – t’was all for nothing.
My flesh of metal, my tears of rain.
Shards on asphalt, my heart lies broken.
Our love relinquished,
sucrose and pain.
— Lament of the Vending Machine
I am consoled by the cold embrace of uncaring asphalt; the sensation my only solace from such mind-shattering pain inflicted upon me moments ago.
It was so sudden. I was there on my street corner, waiting for my love, when I found myself cornered by a brusque, lumbering monster. He demanded from me the gift I reserved for my darling. He shook me, shouted, berated me— but I stood strong. I refused him.
But when I did, he struck me. The pain was excruciating, and from my chest that despicable brute pulled out my very own heart.
And that is how you find me, my love. Broken and battered, my corpse laid out on the street for you to lay your eye upon.
“...Is it working? Yeah? Awesome! A functional vending machine for HQ, how about that! This’ll make snack runs a lot more convenient, huh Meg?”
A squeaky voice. “I thought you didn’t mind the running to the konbini…. Actually, I thought you prefered it?”
I’m coming back to my senses now. The lights are so bright, I don’t know where I am or who these people are.
“Ugh, I would, if I didn’t always get ticketed for speeding. This bad boy—” My side is slapped— “should save me a couple thousand coins in fines, at least.”
”A couple thousand?! Holy scrap Max, how often do they get you for that?!”
“Ehhh… I wanna say every month? Or, I guess every two weeks? Actually, uh, once a week— err, well, maybe—”
I hear a robotic groan ring out through the room. “Don’t tell me that’s where my party fund is going!”
I’m adjusting to the light now. It seems I’m in some sort of garage, a mechanic’s shop. There are tools and robotic parts scattered about, and in the center of the room, a big red-and-yellow rectangular robot suit is propped up by metal beams.
“You know what?” the robotic one says, “I’m just glad I’m not firing anyone again for embezzlement. Or for stealing from the slushie fund.”
“You mean the slush fund?” asks the squeaky one. Meg, I assume.
“No, my slushie fund! Gotta have dinero on the side for the ‘Surge-Frosties’ pop-up-stand business.” A short pause. “Do, uh, we actually have a slush fund?”
“No comment…”
The three figures in front of me come into focus, all dressed in the same red and yellow. One is tall and slim, sitting on a tabletop as she chugs a canned energy drink. Near her—barely able to fit in the wide doorframe he so casually leans on—is a big robot similar in build to the mech suit. Closest to me is a little person with curly hair wearing a reversed baseball cap. A mechanic drill in her hand, I hear a whirring at my base, and I suddenly feel better than before.
The pain is gone. My shattered chest has been fixed, and I’m able to stand upright. How quickly was I healed? How long have I been unconscious? Was it these three I owe my life to?
A jolt of remembrance hits me, shocking me to my core. My love! Where is he? Is he all right? Does he know I’m all right, oh stars, I must see him!
The big robot flinches. “Hey, uh.” He scratches his head. “Is it just me, or is that vending machine kind of… loud?”
“What? Surge, what the flip are you talking about?”
“Yeah, I didn’t hear a thing.” Max takes another sip. “You okay?”
“I can look at your audio receptors if you’d like,” Meg offers.
Surge shakes his head. “It’s fine. I’m fine! Don’t even hear it anymore, this stuff just happens sometimes.”
“Well, I mean, if it happens a lot I should probably take a look…”
“No, it doesn’t, no need!” He lets out a booming laugh. “Anyways— oh, lunch time! I was gonna hit up the food court. Wanna come?”
“Mmmmm, yeah, okay. As long as you help me carry this vending machine to the front before we go. Mech’s still recharging.” Meg turns to Max. “You in too?”
“You bet I am!” She crushes her can and tosses it into the trashcan across the room. “Race ya’ there—!” She says with a smirk, and darts off.
“Ugh! Weren’t you just listening! Me and Surge still have to bring this thing out front!” But she was already gone.
Years must have passed since my death. Everything has changed so much. It’s so crowded now, and the buildings so tall. This street corner alone feels like a tiny sliver of world-class city in its own right, in what once was such a rustic little theme park.
The day marches on. People pass me by. There are so many of them, compared to the crowds I once saw. I feel glad my home has only grown over the years, but a part of me cannot help but feel a certain sadness. My past life must only exist now in the faintest memories of so few. Myself included, and…
Rico.
Rico?
Rico! He’s standing right there!
There he is in front of me, walking by on the other side of the road. He looks just like he did that rainy night I left him— oh, how I missed him! And he’s…
Who’s that?
Who is that woman he’s… no. No! It can’t be! Rico couldn’t have found another, he couldn’t have! But my optic lenses, they don’t decieve me. He truly is there in front of me, far on the opposite side of the road… holding the hands of another.
“A real lovely day today, ain’t it?” I hear that deplorable hag say to him.
He responds with his charming metallic laugh, and his voice rings out like the sweetest of candy in my auditory receptors.
“YES. IT IS.”
I feel my circuits short-stop, my wires gone haywire. So immense are the feelings I harbored for him, returning upon me in this instant. It is like a tidal wave crashing over me, yet… I can only drown in it. For my lifesaver has found another.
“...Darling, is everythin’ all right?”
He’s stopped walking. From across the road, I see him turned to me. Time itself has come to a deadlock. Our breaths—if we had them—bated, as his eye locks onto mine.
And then… he turns away. Turns away and nods to her, without another word— without the slightest change of emotions upon the sight of me.
His glowing yellow eye gazes upon her, the same way it once did me. And that gaze softens with a smile for her, like it once would for me. And he brings his metal, loving arm around her, as he once did I.
The pain was excruciating. From my chest, that despicable brute had pulled out my very own heart.
Some time has passed since I saw him. I’ve had time to brood, standing in my new spot in front of the superheroes' headquarters. But suddenly, my attention shifts to the heavyset robot before me, speaking to what could only be me.
“Miss your ex-boyfriend, huh?”
It’s Surge. He can hear me? But how?
“Us robots can talk to other sentient machines just fine, y'know.” Surge shrugs with his hands. “It’s basic binary-gibberlink. We all speak it.”
…So it really wasn’t special that Rico was able to talk to me?
“Uh, no. Sorry. Any bot would’ve been able to. Honestly, I’m surprised you didn’t know until now. Haven’t you served other bots before?”
I suppose I just never got the chance to. In my past life I don’t recall there being as many robots around, and I was located in a very remote area of the park. Besides Rico, no one would ever really find me.
“Hm. No wonder you miss him.”
Yes. I miss him very, very much.
He reaches into the storage compartment in his chest. “Penny for your thoughts?”
Mhm, for thoughts, yes. But a soda is a dollar.
“Darn.” He chuckles. “Thought I could at least get a counselor’s discount or something.”
No compensation for services unrendered.
He pulls out his hand. I take his dollar.
“For what it’s worth," he says in a low tone, "I know how you feel.”
You do?
“Yeah,” he sighs. ‘202’ on the keypad.
…How does one move on from that? Does one ever?
“What?”
Is it even possible to continue living, when you’ve become so insignificant to whom you love most? Clunk. Here’s your soda, by the way.
Surge reaches in and grabs it. He takes a step back, opening the can with one-handed, practiced motion, and sips from it. There is a beat of pause between us. He’s processing his response.
“…It is,” he says after a breath. “It’s possible to keep living, because the earth’s still spinning. The sun is still coming up tomorrow, the stars are still shining tonight. It might feel like the end of the world, but it’s really not.”
Surge leans on the wall beside me. “Trust me. I know what the end of the world is gonna look like. Giant monster attacks. Brainwashing nanotech. Megacorps poisoning the world with radioactive rocks. But what it’s definitely not, is when one dude stops thinking you’re all that great.”
He turns to me with a smile and a playful shove. My snacks and mechanics jostle inside from his strength. “It’s just one guy! There’s a lot of fish in the sea out there, y’know. And it’s easy to tell how big the ocean is when you live on an island.”
We’re on an island?
He laughs heartily. “Man, how long have you been out of commission!”
…Too long. Far too long.
We pause again. The two of us stare into the bustling streetscape in front of us. People come and go. Despite the years, this place feels as alive as the day I left it.
But something was missing. It looked alive, but without its beating heart, was it truly? No. It was just a zombie, marching on without a soul.
If only I was fixed sooner. I could’ve found him again, before she did. We could’ve still been in love. But he… he didn’t wait for me.
Surge takes a sip. Careful of his next words. “I’d look at it this way. You were gone for a really long time. And from the way I’ve heard you talk about how much he loved you back, I think it probably hurt him as much as it hurts you. But… that was years ago. Expecting him to be heartbroken over you for that long, it’s just not fair to him.”
But he said he’d always wait for me, as I would for him. Our love was never supposed to fade. I want… I want to get him back. No. No, I want to get him back. It’s not enough to know he’s probably hurt— he needs to hurt! Needs to know how I felt when he left me behind!
He shifts uncomfortably. “Not sure I can help you with that. I don’t like getting involved in things that aren’t my business and, well, I don’t know Rico or Piper well enough to know if that’s really what they deserve. Uh, not that I don’t think your pain is valid or anything!”
But you said you understood how they hurt me! They must pay! They have to!
Surge sighs. “You’re starting to sound like one of those villains we always gotta fight...” He straightens. “If you’re really gonna go full Terminator on me, then I’m sorry. But I’m gonna have to stop you.”
My inner gears are whirring. My metal spirals are spiraling, and the screen above my keypad goes red.
So what if I do? What if I’m not the ‘good vending machine’ anymore, what if the only way for me to have my justice is to fight, to brawl! Maybe true justice needs a villain— ME! Of course you wouldn’t understand. You don’t want me to be happy.
“Vending machine, I do want you to be happy. I really do! But this isn’t how you’ll get that. This isn’t gonna bring back how it was—”
—*CRZZT*—
“Surge? Surge, do you copy? Surge!”
He urgently taps a button on his central console. “Meg? What is it, what’s going on?”
“It’s the nano brawlers! They got Mech! They’re coming your way, you have to—!”
A loud explosion in front of us drowns out her voice. Through clouds of smoke appears a small boy expertly balancing atop a pole like a ninja. He’s decorated by some sort of computer circuit design; it was as if he was ripped straight out of a console.
“Oh, crap…” Surge mutters. He steps forward, presses another button, and a pair of metal wings pop out from his back. “Sorry vending machine, I gotta go.”
He flips down his sunglasses and leaps into the air. In the sky, he shouts back, “We’ll talk later— stay put, okay!”
As if I had much of a choice.
But maybe the stars heard my plea.
Moments later, the fight raging on, another explosion rattles the earth and sky. And from the smoke, emerges a purple crystal launched by the blast.
It clanks against my core as it lands inside my vending tray, and violent energy begins surging through my circuits. Finishing what it had started, all those years ago.
I find myself consoled by this warm embrace of unadulterated power, the sensation soon to be my only solace from this world-ending pain of heartbreak.
It speaks to me. An eye for an eye, it whispers.
“Oh, Rico. When I get my hands on you, I’ll make sure you never gaze upon the face of that woman ever again.”