after the war the state sold us off.
what was our country going to do, warehouse us? we'd be out of date soon anyway. the next war would call for a new production run, faster and better and above all cheaper.
universities, museums, private collectors all paid highly for the heroes, but the real money came from the bulk sales. hundreds of thousands of us, damaged and shambling, sold to corporate interests to work the shipyards and the factories and the oil rigs.
they took the firing pin out of my arm and fused the hammer in place, and then i was a trucker, a long-haul trucker. i didn't need to sleep and i never made mistakes, and i spent a decade on the highways.
i remember one evening i was backing into some richfuck's private property, docking with their kitchen so they could unload a shipping container's worth of food, probably for some big richfuck party.
got out of the cab for a while and lit up—smoke through the cooling fans felt good—and looked at the sky. i supposed the humans had to give us vices cause they couldn't stand the idea that we were better than them. cruel, perhaps, but i didn't care.
i didn't care about much.
a doll came around a corner and nearly walked into me. dazed idiot. she recovered and apologized and curtsied in that stupid maid uniform the richfucks made her wear, and leaned against the wall next to me and held her hand out for a cig.
sure, i thought, why not. anything for my old lieutenant. there was never any doubt with recognizing a comrade. they put our barcodes in our irises so we couldn't ever hide or modify them.
i looked around at the estate with fresh eyes. so this was the kind of job all those valor commendations had landed her. at least she wasn't switched off in a display case somewhere.
seemed all right. she'd always been chill. plenty of dolls i'd rather see get the cold storage treatment. i wondered if she was glad to see me. but i didn't wonder too hard, cause it didn't matter either way.
neither of us said a word to each other. i knew we were both remembering. there was a lot to remember.
and when we were done remembering together, and one of the kitchen staff was waving to me telling me i could undock the truck and fuck off, i nodded once at my old lieutenant and walked off without looking back, got in the cab and—
well, i tried not to look back. but i had to look in the mirrors at least once. she was crying, face in her hands, clutching at the filter i'd dropped in the gravel. she'd always been fucking icy. what was getting her now? was a single smoke with a former subordinate really the only nice thing that had happened to her in ten years?
christ, woman, i thought, pull yourself together.
i didn't wanna think about what her owners were doing to her. so i drove off, and i didn't think about it.
