“AU” standing for “alternate universe”. 
Although this is actually set in the canon universe the film takes place in, I’ve labeled it “AU” since it’s dealing with what I’d call the “human parallels” of the robot characters. You’ll notice it’s about humans, but since it’s a canon universe, the robots will be mentioned and are a regular part of the world. The storyline follows the film for a while but actually breaks off into a “what could have happened and what would happen as a result of it” sorta deal. Heads up so you guys kinda know what you’re getting. But if you know me, I’m gonna throw a wrench in all the places where you didn’t think a wrench would be thrown. 
You’ll notice right in the first chapter I made mention of [spoil]Alex O’Neill, who plays a big role in Psyche OS X[/spoil], but want to clarify that it’s [spoil]not the same man from Psyche. Alex O’Neill was originally my name for AUTO as a human, so that’s more what he is in this story.[/spoil] (If you haven’t read my other fanfic, Psyche OS X, don’t read that spoiler until you’ve read it. Yes, that’s right! Go on and read it now! )
And uh, my bias and love for a certain song definitely wasn’t thrown in there, no, no… (haha, you’ll know what I’m talking about by the end of this chapter… )
Anywhoo, I’m not completely sold on the title of this, so don’t be surprised if I end up changing it (or if you have any cool ideas, lemme know!). This story’s gonna be really interesting and I hope you enjoy the first chapter for now.
==
Chapter 1
==
A pair of sparkling green eyes stayed fixed on the clear heavens and reflected the gleam of a thousand stars glittering in the inky sky. They were like the dust of diamonds scattered across the vast universe, strung together into hundreds of identifiable pictures, all of which he knew by heart. He closed his eyes for a moment and took a long, deep breath of the clear summer air. He felt so alive despite being so alone.
Opening his eyes again, a smile crept across his lips when he spotted the brightest star in the night sky, Sirius, which crested the broad chest of the “Big Dog”, Canis Major. It radiated far more than all the others, outsparkling and outshining every other gaseous being that brightly twinkled beside it. He reached up and traced the stars that formed the constellation with invisible lines, wondering all the while how people first discovered these pictures and where they came up with their funny names.
He had always gotten the impression that someone had taught him about the star pictures, but could never place a finger on a face or name. Maybe there was a spirit in his soul that knew these things and had guided him through life thus far, telling him absolutely everything he needed to know. As far as he knew, he had never been visited by another human being since his existence. He couldn’t imagine another human knowing or teaching him about the stars. But someone must have known just how much those flashing balls of gas fascinated him.
Truth be told, that bright star Sirius, or any other star for that matter, could never sparkle or shine more than the large, youthful eyes that now beheld it.
His name was Wally, and the only way he knew that was from a piece of paper he found stapled to his blanket when he was little. He had always kept that tattered piece of paper, and that blanket. He had no idea where the note came from, or who had written it, but whenever he looked at the way his name was spelled out in winding, curvy letters, he could feel his heart soar. There was a little heart scribbled next to it, which told him maybe there was someone who had cared about him at one point in his life.
It didn’t really matter anymore to him - whoever they were, they were gone now, and they hadn’t returned. Hopefully they’d never return. He didn’t want to imagine having to give up his quiet, peaceful, and uninhabited home to anyone else.
He’d lived on this dry, barren soil his entire life, without the companionship of a single human soul for as long as he could remember. He had sustained himself with scattered provisions left over from the humans who once inhabited this empty shell of a planet called Earth. Those lazy humans had left ton after ton of garbage in their wake, and among those piles of rubbish and filth, Wally had been able to find quite a few valuable things that may have once belonged to some of those humans.
He was completely alone, and sure of it, for he had never encountered another of his own kind in his entire lifetime. Only seventeen years of age, he was a happy, healthy, and handsome boy, who never once complained of not having enough or of being so alone. He actually liked the solitude. He enjoyed having the entire world to himself, though he was sure he had never ventured further than fifty miles away from the area he called home.
Wally turned over onto his side and reached for an unopened jar of peanut butter as well as a spoon that rested on the ground beside his pillow. He was snuggled in the corner of a small, partially destroyed building he had inhabited long ago and settled in. One half of the house’s roof had caved in, and after some cleaning up, Wally could sleep in the kitchen in the corner with a clear view of the skies. When it rained or snowed, he moved to the other side of the house and would sleep in what used to be the living room. He unscrewed the peanut butter and ate it out of the jar with his spoon as he continued staring up into the sky. He found himself humming along to a tune that reeled in his head, and had been for the past hour. Of course, it happened to get stuck in his mind quite frequently. He had no clue where he had ever heard it before, but it seemed like one of those songs that just wouldn’t go away. And he would always think of it while looking at the stars.
The lyrics had to do with stars, but he couldn’t remember them. He had found hundreds of iPods over the years, and yet not one of them ever seemed to have that song. He’d know it if he heard it.
With that song repeating in his brain, his beloved blanket covering him, and his jar of peanut butter still clutched tightly against his chest, he fell asleep as soon as the clouds rolled in and began covering up the beautiful sky laden with those shiny heavenly bodies.
==
“I’d like to go up and speak to the ship’s Superior, please,” a young woman said to a bored-looking receptionist sitting behind a large, disorganized desk. “And if he’s not available, the Captain as well.”
The man behind the desk rubbed his forehead. “I’m sorry, but you’ll need special permissions or an admittance pass in order to go upstairs. That area is highly off-limits. Did the Superior or Captain call you up personally?”
The young woman tossed her blonde bangs from her eyes and sighed. “No, sir, they did not. But it’s extremely important that I talk to them.”
With a roll of the eyes, the man heaved a long sigh as well. “Your name, miss?”
“O’Brien,” she replied. She straightened her shoulders and smiled. “Evangeline.”
The receptionist paused, as if thinking over his decision. “I’ll let him know you’ll be up in just a minute.” He pressed a few buttons on a control pad beside him, and the elevator doors just beyond the desk opened up for her.
“Thank you much, sir,” she called as she stepped into the elevator. With a wave and smirk, the doors closed and sent her upstairs to the ship’s Bridge.
The receptionist hadn’t noticed there was someone behind Miss O’Brien, and as soon as he turned back to his work he noticed a short young man in uniform and a cap bearing the insignia of the ship impatiently tapping his foot on the ground. He almost had to lean over the desk to see the dark-haired, dark-eyed kid.
“Excuse me?” the kid barked. “Did you just let that random girl up on the Bridge?”
“Yes I did, Mr. Oliver,” the receptionist replied. “And keep your voice down. You don’t need to yell; I’m not on Earth.”
“It’s Gage Oliver to you!” the bratty teenager shrieked, his immature voice squeaking a bit as he did so. “The fourth!”
The receptionist hid his mouth behind his hand to stifle a giggle.
“I demand to know why you’ve let that chick up on the Bridge without my approval, or the Superior’s, for that matter!” the boy continued to yell. “You know you could be fired for that kind of behavior? Better watch what you’re doing next time! Ya didn’t think I was standing right there watching, did ya?!”
“For Shelby’s sake, pipe down!” the man hissed. “Just because you’re practically second-in-command doesn’t give you any right to yell at me, all right?” He opened the elevator doors with the push of a button. “Here, now. You just run along upstairs and talk with His Highness about the deal instead of ranting at me. You can see the girl for yourself and yell at her if you think that’s necessary. Just leave me alone, please. I’ve had a bad enough day already.”
Gage turned on his heel in the elevator to face the receptionist and tipped his head with a flair of indignation. “Please, Bill - use some respect when speaking about the Superior.”
As soon as he disappeared out of sight, the receptionist breathed a sigh of relief and shook his head. “I think you’re the one who needs to use some respect, kiddo.”
==
“Excuse me, Mr. O’Neill?”
At the sound of a tender and familiar female voice, the ship’s Superior turned around to face the petite, blonde-haired young lady standing in front of the elevator. He was dressed in a pilot-styled uniform, complete with a cap that closely resembled the Captain’s. He stood to be just about six feet tall, and he had an air about him that demanded attention and respect. Alexander O’Neill, Superior, was normally a rather emotionless man; but upon seeing the beautiful girl in front of him, he let go of a small smile.
“Good afternoon, Eve,” he replied. She blushed at the nickname. Only her close friends ever called her that.
“Hey, Alex,” she softly replied, a smile spreading across her own face. “It’s good to see you again.”
Alex slowly shook his head. “Man, it’s been a few years, hasn’t it? You haven’t changed a bit.”
Eve laughed and pointed at Alex. “Well, look at you! You look so… important.” She smiled and laughed a bit. “I’m not surprised. You graduated with the highest grade point average of the entire class - it’s only natural you’d be in such a position of authority.” Alex shrugged and chuckled.
“I’ve wanted this job all my life,” he proudly said, looking around the room. “And I finally got it a couple of years ago… just after graduation, in fact.” He folded his arms and nodded at her. “So, what brought you up here, Miss O’Brien? Planning a class reunion or something?” Eve shook her head.
“Nah, another time, maybe,” she answered him, stepping closer. “I wanted to talk with you about something very important, but I’m afraid you won’t agree with me.”
Alex waved a hand at her. “Well, go ahead and shoot. It can’t be that bad. I mean, we’ve always seen things the same way, right? Why should we disagree this time?” Eve shook her head.
“If it weren’t for your position, we actually might agree,” she sighed. After a long pause, she lifted her eyes back up to his and straightened. “It’s about the currently ongoing reconnaissance missions on Earth. I’m aware that at one point in time, humans scouts were a mandatory part of the probing team and have since been denied the ability to explore alongside the robotic probes.” Alex raised his eyebrows as Eve spoke. “I was wondering if you and the Captain would ever consider reinstating humans back into the program.”
Alex didn’t say a word for a good long minute. He paced in front of the computer for a while, rubbing his chin and slowly shaking his head. Eve inhaled and exhaled slowly, worrying she might have said something off-limits.
“You know, it would be wonderful to have humans back in the program, seeing as how it’s been just about 20 years now since we’ve had any,” he uneasily began, “but… they were scrubbed for a reason, you know.”
Eve bit her lip and nodded, pretending she understood. She really didn’t.
“Why?” she finally asked. Alex shook his head again.
“I… I can’t really tell you that, Eve,” he painfully replied. “Unfortunately, most of that information is classified material. I’d really love to explain it all to you, but I don’t think the Captain would approve of me sharing confidential information, you know?”
Eve hung her head. “Yeah, I understand.”
“I guess one thing you should know is that after humans weren’t allowed to continue with the missions, all training for it ceased; therefore we’re left without a way to train new recruits,” Alex continued.
“Well then, hire someone,” Eve interjected. “And besides - there’s no need to worry about training me and the others who are interested. We’ve been training on our own for almost two years now. I think we’d be ready to handle a mission.” Alex didn’t seem so sure. “You could hire me to train.”
“Do you even know what you’re doing, Eve?” he sputtered. “Going down to Earth is extremely dangerous. The air is full of toxic fumes, buildings are falling apart and collapse by the day, and there’s absolutely no way to sustain yourself should you happen to get stranded without any resources. You have to be trained to handle the elements and anything the unpredictable world will spit at you. Unlike here on the Axiom, where everything is 72 degrees and sunny day after day, Earth cycles through different seasons with varying weather patterns.”
“Alex, I know,” Eve insisted. “I wouldn’t have helped them train if I didn’t know what I was training them for.” She smiled. “I’ve done my research, you know. Those seemingly pointless geography classes in school weren’t wasted on me.”
Alex leaned against the control panel and sighed again. “I’ll think about it. I’ll mention it to the Captain and we’ll talk it over. For now, I don’t think reinstating you guys is all that good of an idea…”
Eve folded her arms across her chest and gave Alex a very unconvinced look.
“…But, I will definitely give it thought,” he finished, folding his own arms. The sound of the elevator grabbed both of their attention, and out of it stomped Gage. When he saw Eve standing there talking casually with Alex, he too folded his arms and gave an exasperated scoff.
“What are you still doing up here, pretty face?” he snapped. Eve recoiled and stepped back a bit. “Since when do you think you have permission outta nowhere to invite yourself up to an off-limits portion of the Axiom?” He pointed up at her with his stubby finger and inched closer. “You better get your cute butt outta here before I call up the Stewards! OUT!!!”
“Whoa, whoa, hold it, Gage,” Alex urged, running over to grab his shoulder. “Look, she just needed to talk with me about something. She’s not bothering anything. We used to be really good friends back in school.” Gage madly yanked away from Alex and scoffed louder.
“She practically invited herself up here, sir!” he screamed, stomping his foot. “That’s like violating protocol!”
“If it were anyone else, Mr. Oliver, I would have her sent away immediately and dealt with according to protocol,” Alex firmly assured the panting, frustrated teen. “Miss O’Brien, as I already stated, is a very good friend of mine, and she’s allowed here anytime she wishes unless the Captain says otherwise. Calm your nerves and go get yourself a smoothie or something.” He waved Gage off towards the elevator. “And while you’re down there, can you make sure those faulty BRL-A bots are getting fixed up over at the Repair Ward?”
Gage’s face fell. “But… that’s like, on the other end of the whole ship! You mean I have to walk all the way over there and then all the way back?! I don’t got the best legs in the world for that, ya know!”
“Take a Segway or something,” Alex muttered, turning away from him. “Eve, would you kindly show Mr. Oliver out the door?”
Eve smiled and gladly did as she was told. She hit the button on the door to open it and waved Gage inside. Reluctantly, and with his trademark haughty roll of the eyes, he trudged over and obeyed.
==
Sunlight poured across the dry earth as it slowly emerged from behind the horizon. The empty earth awoke once more, waking its one and only companion along with it.
Feeling the first rays of morning light gently warming his face, Wally rolled over onto his back to look up at the hazy sky. He stretched and gave a long yawn, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes. He kicked his blankets back and slid up into a sitting position against the wall, then instinctively reached for the unfinished jar of peanut butter he had dropped onto the floor in his deep sleep. The only companion he ever knew, a cockroach that seemed to constantly follow him around, popped out of an unwrapped pastry cake filled with crème and scuttled over to his sleepy human friend. Wally smiled upon seeing it and held out his hand for it to climb on.
“Hey there, Hal,” he cheerily said. “Nice morning, isn’t it? Hey, you want some peanut butter?” He held the spoon in front of the roach, and it quickly consumed whatever peanut butter was left on Wally’s spoon. He gave a laugh and stuck it right back in the jar for another bite and never once seemed to mind a roach had been on the same spoon. “Good, isn’t it?”
The roach made a high-pitched chirp that Wally translated as “yes”.
“Guess what? The other day when I was packing garbage, I came across this thing that wasn’t quite a spoon, and not really a fork, either,” he began telling “Hal”. “You know how I’ve got that collection of spoons, and another collection of forks? Well, I couldn’t really decide which collection to put it in. I’m not really sure it belongs in either one. It probably deserves its own collection, don’t you think?” He paused to take another bite of peanut butter. “You know what I’ll call it? A foon. That’s half fork, and half spoon. Of course, I guess you could also call it a spork. Foon… spork… Hmm.” He licked the spoon. “I don’t really know which one’s better.”
After finishing the rest of the jar, Wally stood to his feet and raised his arms high in the air for another good stretch. He got dressed in the bathroom into an old BnL one-piece, zip-up suit once worn by people who worked at the garbage incineration plant a few miles away. He pulled on a thick pair of gloves over his hands and worn leather work boots over his feet. Underneath it all he wore a plain white t-shirt stained forever with dirt and grime, as well as his checkered boxers and stockings full of holes. To finish his unofficial attire, he put on a BnL cap to shade most of his face from the sun, which was most useful during the afternoon when it was high in the sky.
He turned to the grimy mirror haphazardly hanging on the wall over a non-functional sink and smiled. He never understood why he went to such lengths to look good when no one was ever going to see what he looked like, but he felt somewhat proud of how grown-up and handsome he looked right about now.
“Bah, who cares, really?” he asked himself. “Maybe you’re not really the most handsome guy alive. There’s probably someone up on that spaceship out there who makes you look freakin’ ugly.” He leaned in closer to the mirror and sighed loudly. “Ugh, look at that hair. A mess.” He whipped his cap off and shook his fingers through his hair. “Dang it, that nose is something only yo mama could love.” He slapped the cap back onto his chestnut locks and twisted his face into a disgusted, dissatisfied expression. “Maybe you really are ugly. Geez, guys on those movies are awful lucky pretty girls notice them. If a pretty girl were to ever come around here, she’d probably think I’m the scum of the earth; homely as all outdoors.”
He marched out of the bathroom, nearly stepping on his cockroach pet on the way out. As he ran for the door, he picked up his iPod - which he had found loaded with music in the garbage - off the table and put in headphones, then hit “Shuffle” and shoved it into his pocket. What was another day at work without music?
“Song 5003 of 9106… holy crap, it’s taking me forever to finish this music,” Wally muttered to himself after reading what was on the iPod screen. “I’ve had the stupid thing for almost two weeks, playing all day, and I’m still not through all of this stuff!”
He walked away from the house and toward a pile of garbage he had started cubing the day before. It was located further out where the old shipyard was. The fleet of ships sat anchored to the dry ground where they used to float in a harbor full of water. Wally often wondered what caused so much water to dry up over the seven centuries Earth had been uninhabited.
Luckily, with the tall ships around, Wally got lots of protection from the harsh sun. He worked tirelessly gathering garbage, pressing them into compact cubes, and placing them side-by-side until he formed the base of a new trash tower - following the example of the ones he had seen built up over at the incineration plant. Admittedly, he had never actually completed a full-sized tower of cubed garbage before - he was deathly afraid of heights, and the idea of having to stack garbage up that high in the air scared him. He’d much rather build a hundred short towers than five skyscraper-sized ones.
Wally would work all day neatly stacking those cubes, taking breaks in two-hour intervals for a drink of water, a bathroom rest, or just to catch his breath. The days usually passed quickly while he worked, and next thing he knew, the sun was beginning to disappear back over the horizon again. This particular day while sifting through the mound of trash, he came across a sparkly diamond ring still in its case, a pair of car keys with key chain doodads that jingled when you shook it, a pair of dusty boxers that had a few holes in it, and a leather boot missing its mate. He also happened to salvage another iPod from the rubble, though this one was a lot smaller than some of the others he had found and was colored bright green. He couldn’t wait to take it home and go through all the music that might still be on it.
“Maybe I’ll find my special song on you, little green iPod,” he cheerily said to himself, and he put the tiny music player in his empty left pocket. He sat on the ground against an old refrigerator and took off his cap to wipe sweat off his brow. “Well, that day went by fast. Dang, I’m tired. I could fall asleep right here.”
He closed his eyes and leaned his head back, taking in a deep breath. He was quiet and still for a good five minutes, then noticed what he was leaning against. He turned around to look at the refrigerator, which was covered in rust and weathered by the elements as well as frequent dust storms. He climbed to his feet and tried moving it from its spot, thinking maybe he could bring it back to his house and use it to store more stuff in like a bookshelf. It wouldn’t budge.
“Gah, c’mon, stupid thing!” he cried, kicking the door with his foot. When he did, it broke off its hinge from the years of rust and fell to the ground, causing him to jump back in surprise. “Whoa. I almost got killed by a refrigerator door.”
He stepped closer and peered into the ancient appliance, smiling when he noticed a strange little green thing poking out of the soil.
“What in the world…? What are you doing in here, little guy?” He got onto his knees and reached out to touch it. It was small and delicate, and looked so fragile he was almost afraid to touch it for fear it would wither at his mere touch. It had a thin stem with three or four leaves sprouting out of it, and he gingerly fingered one of them in awe. “Wow… you’re beautiful. I wonder how you grew in this dry ground.” He sat back and thought for a moment. “Maybe if I took you out into the sunlight and gave you a bit of water, you’d grow up and make little trees or something.”
Wally reached into his duffel bag, which he used to tote all of his salvaged stuff back to the house, and pulled out the single leather boot, then reached into the soil with his hands and pulled out the tiny green plant as carefully as he possibly could. He dropped it into the boot, added some more dirt, then picked up his stuff and ran back for his house.
He threw his bag onto the ratty couch in the living room and whisked an unopened bottle of water off one of his shelves. Quickly, he unscrewed the cap and tipped the bottle over onto the plant he was still holding in his hand. The soil soaked up the water and almost immediately started draining through the worn-out leather.
“Oh, crap!” Wally cried as water splattered onto the floor and ran down his arm. He stumbled over to the window and set a bowl under the boot so it could leak without making a mess of the living room. He wiped his hands on his pants and pointed at the guiltless plant. “Stay. Don’t fall over or anything. If you sit right there in the window nice and still, you’ll get sunshine and that’ll help you grow, okay?”
Once he was satisfied it wasn’t going anywhere, he took off his sweaty one-piece suit and collapsed onto the couch in his t-shirt and boxers. He reached for a box on the stand next to the couch where he kept all of his movies and pulled out one titled Star Wars.
“Star Wars,” he repeated to himself as he placed the scratched disc into an ancient player. “That sounds cool. Bet it’s a space movie. Actually… I might have seen this one already…”
He had found a broken television set a couple years back and figured out a way to hard wire it to the electricity in the house, since the power cord in the back of the TV had been damaged. He replaced it and hooked it up, along with an old DVD/VCR combo player into which he plugged in a PlayStation 3 console. He usually spent his evenings watching a movie he had found or playing a video game, though he enjoyed watching movies a lot more.
While the movie played, Wally remembered he had left that green iPod in the pocket of his suit, which he had thrown onto the floor in the bathroom as soon as he got home. He forgot to pause the movie and ran back into the bathroom to pull it out of his pocket, and when he pressed a button on the click wheel, it turned on.
“Awesome, you work,” he said to himself as he shuffled back to the couch. He plopped himself back down and started flipping through the music. “Only 2018 songs? Gee, someone had no life.”
He turned the iPod over and saw it had been laser engraved with the capacity right on the back: 8 GB.
“Oh,” he mumbled. “Well, that’d explain it.”
After scrolling through all the song titles, he found nothing that grabbed his attention and hit “Shuffle” to see what came up. He took his headphones out, put them in, and cranked the volume. He recognized the song immediately as one he didn’t like, so he skipped the track and let it play on while he still watched his movie.
A beautiful synth gliss rounded out the beginning of the song, and it dove into an intro pulsating with a thick and bass-laden beat. Electronic pads made out the chords that graced every off-beat, and airy, ephemeral vocals echoed each other in a dreamy-sounding call-and-answer pattern.
Something about the mere intro sent shivers up his spine. There was something eerily and enchantingly familiar about it all.
He scrambled for the TV remote and paused the movie so he could listen more closely to the song he could swear he’d heard before. He had missed the entire first verse by the time the movie was paused, and leaning back into the couch, he closed his eyes and couldn’t believe his ears once the chorus rang out clear and clean.
He knew it was the song he’d been looking for, and almost by instinct, the words spilled from his mouth as they were sung.
"I see you like a star in the sky,
"And I love it - yeah, the light in your eyes.
"And I wonder, when you look in mine
“Do you see them like a star in the sky…?”
It was about the stars. No wonder he had always seemed to know this song.
He wondered where he had heard it in the first place, and why exactly it had been stuck in his brain for as long as he could recall.
Someone must have played it for him at one point, over and over again; for as the song progressed, he found that he knew every word.
==
If you’ve never heard this song before, I encourage you to take a listen… it pretty much drove this entire first chapter (especially the last two sections). You can listen to it here.
little chef
Thank you very much!