Heartless - The Legend of Tim

Tim hummed pleasantly along the top of the dune, his treads carving fresh grooves in the sand. Scanners to his left and right hummed as well, reading the infant storm-sculpted valleys to either side of him for scrap. The terrain wasn’t more than a day old, and the Master sent him out before the swirling clouds of dust had even let up. Whatever treasures the wind uncovered, he would be the first to find them. When he did the Master would be happy with him, and with herself for thinking of sending him out so early. Master was so smart, and she didn’t smile often. It was nice when he could make her smile. Hopefully today would be one of those days.

It wasn’t, as it turned out. Night came and went. Tim scanned 182 troughs between the rolling dunes on the next day, which was 12 above target. He hummed his song 338 times. He didn’t have a target number for that, but it was above his average. Night came and went again. By noon on the third day he was getting discouraged. Since arriving on the surface he’d scanned 427 troughs, but found nothing. An unprecedentedly bad run so far.

Maybe it was time to turn back? He swivelled his optical sensor as he hummed across the dune top, tried to judge the optimal route. He wouldn’t leave yet. The other scavenge bots might still not have made it to this area. Besides, what would the Master say when she saw his empty load compartment? She wouldn’t smile, that was for sure. She’d probably blame herself for sending him out in the storm, second-guess her programming of his scanners, doubt herself even more than she already did. Whatever happened, the spark he’d seen when she decided to let him go early would be gone. He couldn’t allow that.

As he finished calculating a path, his optical sensor picked up an object. Black, flying, moving at considerable speed. A bird. He tracked it as it landed in a dune one trough away. A trough he hadn’t planned on scanning. Going there would be sub-optimal. So what was it hiding? What precious thing had the storm uncovered? Something, obviously, or the bird wouldn’t have landed there.

Tim faced a problem. He knew intuitively something must be in that valley, but he hadn’t scanned it first. He couldn’t go look, that would take him off the optimal search path. But he knew something was there. Processing this kind of conundrum takes a lot of power, and the sun only give so much in a day. As his tertiary core came online he felt heat blossom against the inside of his lead-lined patchwork steel casing, white cloth wrap flapping in the wind.

Rumbling along, he lurched suddenly to a dead halt. An exceedingly rare thing to do, but there was no sense in overheating while he tried to sort it out. Route-mapping and navigation alone took up 43% of his processing power and 81% of his heat sink capacity.

It took him 8 minutes to formulate a solution. He hadn’t scanned anything in the trough where the bird landed, but he had scanned the bird. The bird was a thing other than sand, which meant he could go get it. Maybe the bird would even be dead, and then he could bring it back to Master for eating. Food was a very precious find. He scanned the databanks Master installed for information on the creature matching his brief recording of its flight. A crow. Bird of the Genus Corvus. 34 recorded species globally, 20 confirmed extinct, only 1 native to the horn of Africa. A Somali crow then. Of course, there was no information about threat assessment or caloric content, just records of beak size and colour differentiation. Some nesting habits as well. So much of the old data was both extremely detailed and completely useless. Tim wondered how humans ever managed to get by on their own.

He hummed down the side of the dune, treads sliding in the sand. Then he slowly shifted to a lower gear and fought his way up the other side. Cresting the ridge, his optical sensor picked up the bird again, pecking at something in the sand. Something shiny.

There wasn’t a moment to waste. Tim slid down the dune at top speed, heading straight towards the bird. It caught sight of him immediately and flapped its wings. Classic bird behaviour, according to some of the more useful databanks. It was just trying to look bigger.

“Back off clanker!” It cawed alarmingly. “This is mine! I found it!”

“I do not recognize your authority to claim finder’s rights over items.” Tim hummed in return. “You are a bird.”

“Well I’m still a person.” It grumbled.

“No.” Tim pointed to it, then held out his grabber expectantly. “Bird.”

“A bird with feelings! You semantic lump of lead!”

Tim had no time for this. He needed the thing, whatever it was. He rolled forward aggressively, and the crow had no choice but to back off. He was 4.8261 times its volume after all, and likely many more times its mass. Accurate density estimations became difficult with heterogeneous life-forms.

“Good luck.” The crow mocked. “It's real stuck, whatever it is. You’ll never get it out.”

Tim saw at once what it was. A golden heart-shaped locket glinting in the sun. If he’d had a heart, his would surely have skipped a beat. He rotated in place so his left scanner could read the item. It was 4.1 centimetres long by 3.8 centimetres wide by 2.2 centimetres thick, 91.7% pure gold content. Even if it was partially hollow, Master could sell it for a week or two of food, maybe some tools. Not the find of the year by any means, but perfectly adequate. Not to mention pretty. He could already picture the smile that would spread across her face when he gave it to her.

“You’re wrong.” He growled at the crow. “Master needs it. And so I will get it.”

His gears strained and he worked to pull it up towards him, but to no avail.

“Ha!” The crow mocked again. “Told you.”

“You’re not being helpful.” He let out angrily before trying again.

“I’m not trying to be helpful.” The crow replied.

Tim could see what the problem was. A thin chain trailed from the base of the object and down into the sand, clearly hooked on something. Even better. If the chain was gold as well it would be worth more. Without transmitting another word, he planted his digging arm and began to work away at the sand.

The crow flapped forward to get a better look as the anchor began to emerge, but Tim paid it no mind. After exposing some more of the chain and loosening the sand, he at least revealed what was holding it in place. A human skull.

Then all at once the side of the dune began to slide away beneath him, its integrity compromised by his digging. The crow let out a surprised squawk and took to the air, while Tim desperately kicked himself into reverse. It was no use, and he plummeted downwards, treads-over-optical scanner.

When the spinning finally stopped he was on his back, sand in his joints gumming up the lubricant Master so carefully applied before he was sent out. A quick system check indicated no meaningful damage, and his grabber was still clutched firmly around the locket. The skull had fallen with him. Not only a skull, it turned out, but two complete human skeletons, one larger and one smaller. They were not useful for his Master of course, but interesting to see.

The ordeal survived and prize in hand, Tim turned to leave.

“Could I keep it?” The bigger of the two skulls pleaded.

“No, I’m sorry.” He replied, already trying to make his way up the dune, tracks spinning in the loose sand for a moment.

“Please!” It begged again. “It's all I have left of my daughter. My poor daughter. And you disturbed our rest! Please, have a heart!”

“You know.” The crow landed in the sand nearby. “I’m starting to feel like you’re a pretty rude guy. First you shove me off, steal my find. Now you’re taking this poor dead human’s things?”

“I’m not worried about being rude.” Tim swivelled his optic sensor towards them. “I have a job to do.”

And with that, he took off back along his route. The skull fell silent, and the crow took off searching again for something to grab its attention.

He didn’t feel bad about what he’d done, because the truth was he did have a heart. It was just that sometimes, you had to be diligent about who you lent it to. He’d already devoted his to Master, and there was hardly time to spend thinking about what every rock, animal, and skull wanted from him. The wastes were a harsh place after all. Untold millions of dead humans were buried beneath these sands. If he listened to one, where was he supposed to draw the line? There was only so much time in the day.

Besides, he had a living human to take care of. The dead were hardly his concern.

Locket tucked safely into his load compartment, Tim hummed joyfully along the circuitous and perfectly optimal route he’d set taking him through the desert. Back to Master, and home.