Lucy lives in a robot-dominated world where everything is falling to pieces, even the people. Those who come down with the Rot are ground into biofuel for the dominant Droids, a race of sentient robots who believe organics inferior. When one day she wakes up with a finger missing, Lucy realizes the epidemic has finally caught up to her and escapes into the Wasteland. With the help of a roller skating robot, a living mannequin, and her cowardly goat, Lucy sets off on an adventure to find a cure for the Rot . . . and the Dominion of Droid.
--
One morning it rained bananas. Sometimes it just did that.
--
Meanwhile, outside in Surge City, the buildings were colorless and frayed with sparking wires and dripping pipes, their walls constantly tumbling open in sudden avalanches of brick and debris. It wasn't uncommon to walk down the street through a cloud-storm of falling stop signs, shattering glass, clocks dropping from towers, cars falling apart in the middle of traffic, people crumbling in sudden piles of limbs. The city was falling to pieces, even its citizens, and had been for quite some time.
--
"What did you think would happen when I asked to live inside you?" returned Janet, still very amused. "I have access to your brain and nervous system. It is a symbiotic relationship. You were right. I am a parasite, Lucy. I never pretended otherwise."
You're unflinchingly honest, I'll give you that, Lucy thought dryly.
--
"Allegra hates half-cats," explained Betty Blue when Lucy appeared confused. "Still mad that one broke her heart . . . literally."
"I've offered to repair her about six times," said Roxy with a shrug, "but she refuses to let me. She likes being hurt and angry. It feeds her poetry, I think."
--
I keep forgetting that you lack the proper senses, said Ella into Molly's mind. You can't hear. You can't smell. You can't taste. What a sadly limited existence your maker gave you.
It is my existence, Molly answered. I'll decide if it is sad or not.
--
The Droids would then come along to arrest them, and they were never seen again. There was never a body, not even a funeral. People just vanished, and there were no graveyards in Surge City. The Droids let nothing go to waste, not even corpses.
--
Lucy stared at the woman in disbelief. "Forget it's happening? We should be doing something about this! Every time one of us falls apart, the robots use us for biofuel. They are eating us, and we all just go along with it!"
"What do you suppose we do?" said Mango, eyes hooded indifferently.
--
In all the time she had presided over Quadrant 5, Droid 0.748921 had made it a point to never look twice at the prisoners. Her soldier units had been tasked by her to scan each one daily. Doing so herself was too painful, and she felt a coward for her aversion. It was always easier to ignore suffering than to risk ones self in ending it.
--
Lucy scowled. "How am I naïve? Because I think you should do something to help us?"
"Yes," Droid 0.748921 answered simply. She shook her head and offered her hands. "I am just one robot, Lucy Socket. I can not liberate your people." She dropped her pincher hands and added unhappily, "I can not even liberate myself."
"How do you know? Have you ever tried?" said Lucy pointedly.
