Friday Flash Fiction – Coin Op Boy

Coin Operated Boy Copyright 2009 Bryl R. Tyne

(unedited excerpt)

His eyes opened to darkness. With a simple command, he adjusted his vision to the lack of light. Cold and empty shells, once full of life, were crammed, shoulder to shoulder, front to back, on every side. Twisted together, some skinless others not, disembodied limbs, wires and diodes hanging, filled the pocketed openings amongst the ruins. Starting with his toes, he wiggled each in turn, meticulously checking the connections from circuits to sensors, until he’d completed the body scan.

His first attempt to free his trapped arms proved futile, the pile of death too heavy. Determination set in his jaw; he forced his arms from his body, exhaling only as the pile gave way. Metal grated metal. The dead moaned. He braced himself atop the headless droid beneath him as layer upon layer of broken robotics tumbled down around him.

Hoisting himself up and out through the opening he’d created, he froze, mid-motion, and watched a lone head tumble a lopsided dance along the sloped mound, until it landed with a thud. With another heave and a solid push, he cleared the mound and alit on the cold, packed dirt. He brushed the residue from his backside, blew the dust from his palms. Where am I?

He scanned the area, the soil, the atmosphere, searching his memory for familiar climes, finding no reference to anyplace with orange dust or two moons. The haze on the horizon told him night would soon fall. Climbing around and over edges of mountainous debris—some piled twice his height, he spotted a square of light in the distance.

Scanning his systems, he focused on the light and stumbled onward. His processes worked fine, however, his memory was void, missing, perhaps of not only the information necessary to tag this wasteland, but of all information.

All that is, except his name….

Chal ran a more thorough analysis. Basic data was intact; but he was not. He walked on, his brain working double-time to understand the hollowness within him, something inside as empty as his memory banks…. But what?

As Chal approached the light, he noticed an aged gentleman in stained coveralls rocking solemnly on the porch of the rundown building.

His eyes wide, the man removed a cigarette from his mouth and stood. “Well. Hello there.”

Chal scanned and interpreted the man’s vitals. Other than increase in heart rate, the man appeared unaffected. “I am Chal.”

“Are you now?” Flicking the cigarette to the porch, he crushed it with his boot and chuckled. “And you’re naked, son.”

Chal combed over his body before meeting a different look, an unknown glint, in the man’s eyes. “Is that a problem?”

Coming October 12th to Noble Romance Publishing!