10-1011-1011 11-111 1101-10-11-101 001-10-00-1 0-000 0-1111-1 011-1-111-1001-1-101-10-0-1

Battery Life

1%

"Just look a li'l harder, Lex. We'll find somethin'."

"Not with this score, we won't," the young girl grumbled. She glared at him from a few yards away, an edge of tiredness in her tone.

She was too young to be doing work like this. Only nine or so, with a skinny build that gave away her lifestyle of scavenging and malnutrition. Her face still had a childish edge to it, albeit hidden under a permanent glare and almost ever-present scowl; she had a lovely tan that would be a coppery sheen if it wasn't covered in grime and smudges. Her semi-long, dark hair was pulled back into a messy, tangled ponytail that would lightly thump between her shoulder blades when she jerked or jumped—which was often.

She would look pitiful if she wasn't so sharp-mouthed, and perhaps decently pretty if she were dusted off and given some cosmetic appeal; but he thought that she fit the bill perfectly for an alley-crawling street-smart scavenger, almost as sharp as himself.

"Tha's what you said 'bout the one mound, didn't you?" he inquired. "We found a whole telly in there."

"Because things always seem to show themselves when you're hopeless and tired and hungry," Lex complained, rolling her eyes. She ducked back into the scrap heap she was rutting around in with several more complaints under her breath, her steadily-loosening hair tie vanishing behind her.

"I like to think'f it as destiny telling you to take a break," he scoffed. "Or telling you to get out of its beeswax."

"Ha. Ha. Ha," her dry laugher echoed on the metal she was surrounded in.

He frowned in her direction before turning back to the task before him. He was tiered and messy too, yet he wasn't complaining; that was a female thing, apparently, to complain to empty air about how hopeless you feel. He'd never do that. He'd loath it internally, instead.

His worn shoes scuffed up the ground beneath him as he approached the pile, tossing up little dust clouds that swirled aimlessly in his wake; they were soon destroyed by the wind gusts that hounded the dump, carrying away air born debris and chilling any semi-hopeful scavengers to the bone. Not like they weren't already chilled, granted their lifestyle, but it made them that much more cold.

He came close enough to a shiny plate of metal to see his reflection. It was warped by the bent, scratched-up steel, but he could still make out his shape. His lean build was magnified and thinned out by the outward curve, making an athlete out of an underfed teenager; his blonde hair became fans of a white-gold color instead of an overgrown rat's nest that hung past his ears with a weak state of permanent frizz. All the little white scars and gray smudges were omitted by it, but it seemed intent on focusing his bright blue eyes into ethereal markings on his face.

It was a nice image. He stored the idea of a warped mirror's reflection in his head before grabbing the edges of the metal plate (some sort of car hood in its past life, he presumed) and hauling it to a meager pile of somewhat valuable things.

Xave had been living this life for years now. He wasn't entirely sure when he stopped being a drag and started dragging others, but it was some time ago, as his memories of a warm house and abundant food were blurry and distant. They would bob up from his subconscious in dreams at times, random and without pattern, little bursts of sweet hope and wishes that struck as randomly and powerfully as lightning. They were steadily getting further and further apart as his old life drifted ever so further away.

He wasn't quite sure when he earned a street name, either. It came with finding multiple objects of value in a short time, he supposed, or perhaps with surviving in one place long enough. Most likely a combination of both.

Either way, he was Xave—long for X, short for some name lost with his cozy life. Known as the slum teen with attitude. Renowned as the one with two tag-alongs, Lex and his sister. Respected for his ability to keep both them and himself fed, clothed, and housed. (Or as much as someone who lives in the slums can house, anyway.) He wasn't exactly the great oracle of the back streets, or the giant boss plotting some sort of rebellion, or even that much of a good trader or anything in general, but he was notable. And respect can get you that much further in a life of poverty.

He mounted the pile without encountering anything of worth. He spotted Lex from the corner of his eye as she surfaced from an excavation with several flecks of colored metal and an old device of some sort. She didn't spare a look at him, intently focused on returning to their stockpile without tripping over the various obstacles in her path, treating him with the same sort of air as a coworker on the job. A lofty air. A grudging one, that girl.

He swept his gaze over the nearby objects: a few large chunks of a broken screen, a small cylinder that was red with rust, a coil of wire fencing with half the cells broken, several unidentifiable plates of varying sizes with varying recoverability. He pulled the fencing onto his legs as he sat at the top of the pile and inspected it; they had another bit of fencing with broken wiring that could be teased apart to use on this one. And he knew someone in the town outskirts that would pay for animal containment, even cheaply-made.

So he tucked the coil under his arm and slid down the pile feet-first, headed opposite the direction of the treasure pile. He hit the space between mounds and rose to his feet, glancing about the nearby area for anything worth hauling over a pile of rusting metal; he wound up turning about in a repeating circle, taking everything in.

He hoped to someday escape this life of searching and selling. Maybe find a nice, paying job, pick out a spot in the center city and make it his own—or, heck, move out of Tauplis entirely. Live in the country. Or near the beach. He liked the beach.

He told Lex and his sister, day after day after painstaking day, that things were going to get better—that they wouldn't be selling scrap forever, that there will be a time when they can kick up their feet and relax without worry, that the world was just throwing them a curveball they'd need to hit once more; after such a long stretch of repetition, he was starting to feel like a record as broken as the stuff they hauled out of the dumps every day.

But he was the only one of the three with any scrap of hope left to live on. A scrap of hope that made him snap at Lex's complaining and fight through human and garbage enemies alike. A small fire that wouldn't let itself be doused, even if he himself tried to snuff it.

Whether he should hate this streak of rebellion or love it and all its worth was still something he debated.

His heel hit something. The object was kicked away by the blind movement and knocked loudly into something metal, sending an echo through the cold air. He twisted around to identify it and found a small, rectangular thing sitting next to a garbage pile, looking as hopeless and desperate as he was.

His mouth twisted to a confused frown. He knelt next to it slowly, and his hand hovered at its side, evaluating it. Eventually, he scooped it up and inspected it—twisting it over in his hand.

It was a flat object. Not quite a hologram screen's lightness but not half as clunky as some things he'd pulled from the trach before. It had a metal back, with edges that stretched over their limits to hold a seamless screen into place; a few silver buttons shone on the sides, a touch of class on the dark gray coloring. A logo of some sort was stamped onto the back and a lifeless lens stared out halfway between the center and top.

He held it up to the weak, color-drained light from above and squinted into its little chips and scratches, like the crack in the bottom right of the screen and the scuff at the upper corner where it had hit the object his foot sent it soaring to. He hit one of the buttons with his thumb.

Nothing happened.

He tried another.

Still nothing.

His finger landed on the smallest of the three, pressed it, and earned a spark from one of the sides for its trouble.

"Still has batt'ry," he muttered.

"Who're you talking to, ya loony Brit?"

Xave whipped around to spot Lex on top of the scrap pile, staring down at him. The loose strands in her hair were being illuminated by the white sunset.

"None of your business," he snapped.

"Well fine then," she huffed back, assuming a lofty expression. "Feel free to join me when you're done talking to your imaginary friend."

"I w's just muttering to myself, tha's all," he grumbled. Holding the device high in the air, he added, "I've got us a juicy bit."

"Ooo. Tech," Lex awed as he clamored up to be on top with her. "Know what it is?"

"Notta clue."

"What it does?"

"I wouldn't know."

"How much it's worth?"

"I've never seen one in the trade before," Xave answered, flipping it about to look at it from every angle. He counted two ports, three buttons, and two cameras—one internal, one external.

"Does it turn on?" Lex noted. "It's gotta be worth something if it does."

"It doesn't want to," he responded. "Bet it would if someone tinkered with it f'r long enough."

"...or if someone talked to it," she grinned knowingly.

"...no."

"Aw, come on—"

"No."

"You know you want—"

"No."

"—to—"

"No."

"But I didn't even—"

"No."

"But it—"

"No."

"It could—"

"No."

"It might know—"

"No."

"Could be worth—"

"No."

"You're not being—"

"No."

"You're being—"

"No."

"Xa—"

"No."

"But Xa-aaave—"

"NO."

"Oh come on!" Lex groaned, exasperated. "It'd be worth even more if it could power on. It could be from, say, the early 2000s and know what caused the Eastern collapse and stuff like that and we'd never know because you didn't talk to it!"

"Lex," Xave started patiently, settling down next to her with the wire under one arm and the device in his other hand, "the last time I 'talked' to anything, I shorted out the whole block of 'lectricity and put the law on our section for the whole week it was out."

"That was just because you were standing next to a string of lights," Lex complained, folding up her legs and setting her head on her knees. "But we're out here in the middle of nowhere, without a single lightbulb or hologram in sight. Just this little device. As long as you don't bark a curse word at it like last time, it'll be fine."

Xave held back a wince at the memory. It had been a bad trade of an old pair of headphones with one of the speakers busted for only thirty-five Counts; he had been promised at least fifty. By the time he noticed, the dealer was already streets away, wandering somewhere where it would look bad in the eyes of the public for a street mongrel to appear and hassle him. So he was left to stare dejectedly after where the man took off.

A few key words slipped out of him; he heard glass snap overhead and felt the sharp rain of red and green shards on his scalp. He shook them out and jumped away, realizing his mistake. The entire world faded away around him, interior lights blinking out, hover lamps dropping to the ground, wire poles sparking out as they were relieved of constantly transferring electricity. The nearby streetlights were robbed of their namesake, and he heard the screech of hover pads in full reverse as vehicles jarred to a stop at the four-way—the four-way that had a blackened traffic light suspended over its center on a wire with no electricity.

He had fled the scene. It wasn't quite traumatizing, just...very, very interesting, and he wasn't in any kind of danger outside of a few glass shard wounds, but he still didn't want to be caught near the wiring of a malfunctioned zone. It would be suspicious.

He had not allowed another word of the language to slip out since that day, months ago, however much he was tempted to threaten the old lamps into working again or sweet-talk particularly stubborn equipment. Now he had a chance to. The local law force didn't have eyes and ears everywhere, however much they thought they did, and his slum town's continuing existence proved it; and if they wouldn't hook up at least a meager security camera to the alleyways outside fifteen feet to the local store fronts, there was even less a chance that they would put watch on a worthless-looking dump like this.

He hesitated anyway. "I don't want to get into the habit again, Lex," he argued.

"Old habits die hard," Lex stated, smirking with her chin up. She knew that she'd already won. "Old languages die even harder."

Xave rolled his eyes and she chortled to herself.

After she conquered a few more weak excuses, he pulled the device within hearing range of a whisper, glaring at her reproachfully from the corner of his eye before staring into device's inner camera. He fumbled for a few words in his head. Then he spoke.

100-10-010-1 110-1001

To Lex, it didn't sound vaguely like words. It barely qualified for a sound at all. She saw his lips move, and something echoed in her head—wedged between the corner of her ears and the side of her brain, like the lowest base known to man. It sounded a little like clicking and a little like pounding, though a lot like her ears were popping; it was quiet but irritating all the same, even at only a whisper, and made her ears ring if she listened for too long to too many words. She dearly hoped to never hear Xave shouting such a language.

He moved the device away when he finished speaking, just in time for a spark from the cracked glass to leap up and barely miss his face. The screen shone a dark gray for a few moments, went back to black, and eventually turned to white. A loading screen, consisting of seven blue dots as they circled the center of the screen, appeared.

"Lookit that," Xave muttered to himself. He still eyed the device reproachfully, like it could sprout blades or some kind of old-but-very-deadly weaponry at any moment.

"Ha! I knew that would get it working," Lex said, turning her victory grin to the screen. "Words of encouragement always work...or words of whatever you said, anyway."

"Ah. Tha's right. You can't understand a word of it," he muttered.

"Yea, you got that right..."

"...do I hear a hint of jealousy in your voice?" Xave asked.

"No," Lex snorted, switching her glare back on again. "I don't care if I can understand your weird language or not. It's useful and you can use it, and that's what matters in the end, doesn't it?"

Xave chuffed, giving her a sideway smirk. She didn't let her mask slip.

Deep, deep down, in the tiny part of her that was still curious in a dark and sad world, she wanted to know what such an odd language meant. But it was small and insignificant. She didn't need to know, and didn't honestly want to. (...although it would be fun to have an alternate language to curse in.)

Then a groan grinded her ears.

Lex yelped and clamped her ears as the language rattled her brain again, this time at least three times as loud and hard to listen to. Xave's face blanched and he stared at the device in hand, wide-eyed; he looked about ready to pitch the thing into the dump again.

Through the incoming migraine, Lex could tell it was a groan; it wasn't choppy or orderly like Xave's words. It was a long, drawn-out, nails-on-a-chalkboard sort of thing, focusing on one long syllable that she dearly despised.

It slowed to a stop after a bit, and words followed. But not from her friend the device-speaker.

100-1111-1-101-1

A pause. Lex took the opportunity to back away from the noise maker, almost slipping off the pile entirely as she scooted a good few feet away. The words started up again, slightly less scratchy and droning.

100-1111-1-101-1 10-00 11

Xave continued his one-sided staring contest with the system's camera. The shutters twitched feebly, like they wanted to open but couldn't quite figure out how, and he was both mystified and reproachful as the system's question echoed in his head.

He couldn't remember the last time anything had spoken back to him, if ever. If he were to chide a light for not working, for instance, it would always flip itself back on the instant the last word left his mouth. He could never carry a conversation with anything, as its lights would flicker or motor would hum in a machine's version of a shuffle or averted gaze after the first sentence. And if asked, they'd never respond in speech. So this one coming out and talking to him, right after being powered on, was a new one. He could have sworn it had an accent different than his, too.

He asked it a question right back.

0101-10-01 0100-000-110 1111-1-10-101 00-1

The loading circle faded away as the screen flipped to a menu, speckled with squares that he assumed to be apps. A series of blue and teal rings of color, which fanned out from the lower left corner over a gray backdrop, acted for a background photo.

0100-1-10 11-00 001-1-0-11-01-001 0100-000-110 0101-1011-1-10-101...100-1111-0100

"What's it saying?!" Lex shouted from a distance. He found it somewhat amusing to see her holding her ears shut. "And when will it shut up?!"

"It's confused!" he called back.

100-1111-000 11—

"—s that...? And who are you? And why shouldn't I be able to hear you? Is it some kind of telepathy, or...super-secret-extinct language, or...something that normal things can't hear?"

"...who's that?" Lex asked, removing her hands and glancing about cautiously.

"That's Me. Who're you?" the voice asked. It was a young man's, and he had a crackle of static at the end of his sentences—like he was talking into a broken microphone. But it was a perky voice. A young one. A hopeful one. And it originated from the small, sparky device in Xave's hand.

"So you do speak English," Xave noted quietly. "Odd for a device. Normally they don't talk at all..."

"I thought AIs were invented halfway through the 2000s!" Lex said, coming back and peering over the device from where she stood. "And most things had holographic screens by then!"

"AI?" the device repeated.

"Could be part of the longest through-device conversation on Earth," Xave noted idly.

"Earth...?" the voice mumbled in the background.

"Either way, the thing turns on. It ought to be worth a ton now, right?" Lex mentioned. "I mean, there's the broken screen and banged-up casing—"

"—and guy who is confused out of his mind right now—"

"—but still. Anything that turns on is instantly worth three times as much," Lex said.

"'m still cautious about this voice business," Xave noted.

"What about it?"

"Hey, do I get a say about my fate in this conversation? Because I'd rather not go into the black market. "

"It spoke back to me, Lex," Xave explained. "They never do that. And this one seems to have a bit of a personality to it, too."

"Why, yes, yes it does. ...I don't get a word in this, don't I?"

Lex scowled at it. "This doesn't mean we're...keeping it, aren't we?"

Keeping things that weren't edible nor immediately necessary was usually frowned upon in the slums. If you didn't need it or make use out of it, and it could be sold for a good price, then it didn't have any business being about your corner of the world. There were collectors out there, sure, as well as those who grouped up objects to get a better value, but having sentimental value over anything—be it a person, place, or thing—was a generally accepted bad idea. Things came and gone, and you had to struggle to stay on top of them. There wasn't any room for treasured artifacts, especially valuable ones like an early 2000s device with a self-aware voice installed.

"...for the time being," Xave said at last. "We can ask Daun about it tomorrow."

"Why not today?" Lex asked. "The sooner, the better."

"You're full of quotes today, aren't you?" Xave noted. "'nyway, he's halfway across Tauplis, and it'll be nightfall by the time we haul this stuff to our place."

"Excuse me? Hi. Can I get a straight answer on what's going on yet?" the voice chirped.

"Okay," Lex answered, humoring it. "We're in a dump on the outskirts of Tauplis. Xave found you and woke you up."

"'ello."

"Hiii. Nice words."

"Nice what?"

"Words. You know, how you say words. It's nice."

"...you mean my voice?"

"Yea! That's the word. That...makes a lot more sense, too."

"Ta you, anyway."

"'ta'—what kind of voice is that? With all the weird words?"

"You mean British?"

"What the heck is a British?"

Lex snorted. Xave was scowling.

"'British' is an adjective," Xave started, sending a glare at Lex, "that means something from Britain. Like a British accent."

"Oooohhh. Hey, then what's her accent?"

"'merican," Xave answered, smirking.

"What—?!"

"Merican? Huh. So that's a country, too, then?"

"Hey—!"

"Sure is," Xave continued.

"So...Britain and Merican...do all places here rhyme—"

"Anyway!" Lex interrupted. "I'm Lex. And we were just about to call it a day, but now we're having this big welcome-to-the-world talk. Wait, shouldn't you know this already? I mean, the location's not on the thing you're on? Because you should know that it's A-merican!"

"How would I know where I am just by being on a...thing?" the voice muttered. "Come to think of it, what the heck is this place I'm in...?"

"What, 'merican?"

"A-merica!"

"No, I mean like...this room," it described. "I mean, I don't know exactly what a dump in Merican looks like, but...this is certainly too clean to be one. And small. And empty."

"A-merican. Xave, I'm going to kill you for teaching it that."

"Maybe it's just your camera's perspective," Xave offered.

The voice momentarily wondered whether or not he should ask what a camera was. "Yea, I guess it could be."

...

"...I still say we sell him," Lex stated.

"But I just met you!" the voice protested, sounding heartbroken.

"Well, we just met you," Lex huffed. "Now who are you? And what are you? And can we delete you from that device?"

"W-why would I tell you how to delete me?!" the voice stammered. "I'd think that to be counter-productive on my end of things, don't you?!"

"I could care less about what you think. ...unless it concerns my country's name."

"'merican," Xave coughed.

"British," Lex coughed.

"Why are you coughing...? Is there something in the air out there?"

"Yes. It's called the start of a grudge," Lex muttered darkly. "Now STATE YOUR NAME!"

"Wha—?!"

"NOW."

"I—I—I don't have one!" the voice stammered.

"...what?" Xave asked.

"I don't have one," it repeated, somewhat more confidently. "I mean, I can understand the whole concept of a name and what-not—you're Xave, she's Lex, we're on Merica—"

"A-merica."

"—but I just...can't see me having one," the voice finished. "I'm looking through things on a first-person perspective. I don't really even want a name, just...yea...you know?"

"...I...suppose?" Xave answered, tilting his head back to take note of the sky. The sun was almost touching the horizon. "That's an unusual concept. You don't have anything to call yourself? No name, no species, nothing? And don't even want one?"

"I haven't had to call myself anything," the voice explained, sounding a bit stunned itself. "I mean, I just woke up this morning—or evening, or whatever."

"I think you're just cheating us out of targeting your program," Lex snorted.

"My what?"

"Shaddup, Lex," Xave scolded. "He doesn't even know he's a program."

"You shut up!" Lex snapped. "Maybe it's just playing coy! It could be some kind of malware designed to tear all the valuable bits out!"

"Virus programs don't do that, Lex."

"Not the ones we know of!"

"Listen, it's getting late," Xave started, standing up and facing her with a stern, listen-to-your-elders expression. "We've had a particularly long day, so I say we call it and head home. Half the traders ought to be hanging around by now, and I don't want to waste any more time and miss them. We'll handle this problem later."

"Fine," Lex snapped. "But we're not done talking about that thing!"

"I can hear you, you know! And I have feelings!" the voice whined.

"Nobody cares, box boy," Lex stated.

"I ca—'box boy'?"

"I don't care if you want a name or not."

Xave pocketed the device and began down the unsteady path to the ground, Lex soon following after. She jumped off near the bottom and sped ahead of him to closer group up the other things they found—pilling them onto the scrapped car hood.

"Hurry up!" she called.

"Fine!" Xave called back.

"What are you doing out there?" the voice asked.

"Carrying scrap," Xave answered simply.

"...why?" the voice said, sounding stunned. "Heck, why are you out here in the first place? I mean, not like I'm not thankful, but you two sound kind of young to be out here on your own."

"We're always on our own," Lex complained. She lifted their cargo from the back of the hood and waited for Xave to take up the front, shifting the edge of the metal so the sharp parts were a good distance from her prone hands. "Xave's sister Isa can't help us because of medical reasons, and I haven't had a guardian for like my whole life."

"Ahem."

"You don't count, Xave."

"'lright, but there's also a certain lady..."

"...okay, I guess my old den mom kind of counts."

"Huh. Hard-knock life, eh?" the voice muttered. "Suddenly, selling me sounds slightly more appealing."

"Ooo, so you're agreeing? Xave! It agrees with us! Let's pawn it!"

"Hey! I said sounds slightly more appealing, not that I'm gonna do it!"

"Dang it," Lex grumbled, stumbling on a rougher patch of road.

The two continued down the dirt path with their load, headed towards a large patch of towering structures in the distance. As they went on, the sun sank to just a sliver above the horizon, tiredly watching them conquer the distance and letting the city's night aura take over for a main light source. They stumbled over holes and hills in the road anyway. Tauplis had never a good beacon for anything in their lives, anyway.

As they carried on, the wind picked up, blowing at their backs. It sent long, steady waves down the fields that flanked their path, rustling the chap grass and casting illusions of sound. It was an advantage for the night creatures, whom could now slip about the blades and seem as inconspicuous as the wind. Neither scrap-scavenger was afraid, though; the worst thing out there were feral housecats and gardener snakes.

"So, where are we going?" the voice asked innocently.

"Home," Xave answered. "Or the pile of spare scrap we call a home, 'nyways."

"Into...Tauplis, right?" the voice confirmed.

"Yep," Lex answered.

"I wonder what it looks like."

"It's a big city full of equally big egos, where the sky is constantly smoggy and the local government can't get its head out of its butt," Lex stated.

"Hey, don't spoil it for me!" the voice joked.

"Trust me, isn't a thing in Tauplis that isn't spoiled to the bone already..." Xave muttered.

HEY LOOK AT THAT I FOCUSED ON A THING AND GOT IT DONE WITHIN A WEEK

I started this on Monday, if I can remember (which I can't, I've got moth memory) (don't trust my brain with anything important), and have been working on it all week despite it starting as nothing but a drabble to get an idea out of my head. Writing's a lot like coughing: You try to get one thing out, you end up hacking up the entire contents of your organ.

I've had this idea fooor...a year or so now, but I wasn't sure how to work out the setting. I've never written a book that takes place in the future, mainly because all other media that shows the future usually ends up getting absolutely everything about the future wrong. Like in Back to the Future part 2. ...I wish that version of the world was real—

So pardon my creative liberty. There will be hovering stuff and holograms no matter how much my future-wise self protests it. Because I happen to LIKE hovering stuff. If everything could hover, all the world's problems would be solved. Hovering books, hovering buildings, hovering cars, hovering lamps, hovering nuclear warheads...

...you know on second thought, most of these sound like they will just cause more problems. ...oh well. This future's leaning towards an apocalyptic one, anyway.

SEE Y'ALL LATER, I'M OFF TO OMAHA! I'm gonna see what real native Nebraskans look like. Then I can take notes and use them in Meow! RESEARCHING IS FUUUN -