Seven Hundred Years Later 2

'Today, I need to remember my instant soup...', Wall-E thought as he opened his lunchbox, walking off into the kitchen but eventually not putting any food away, merely closing his box absent-mindedly.  He was still with his head in the clouds as he walked outside until a crunching noise pulled him back to the there and then.  Looking down in shock, lifting his shoe, he was startled to see Rusty lie motionless where his shoe had just been...  'Oh no, Rusty!'  He panicked as he crouched down, his face inches from the immobile body of the spider – and then the eight-legged pet scuffled around again suddenly, and Wall-E sighed.  'Fine... as usual...'  He saw the spider scurry to his leg and crouched down again, shaking his head softly before walking out, not noticing his hitchhiker as he climbed onto his scooter to drive to his work location.
“Tada-tada-ta-ta-tada-tada-ta-ta...  Mmm-mm-mm-hmm-m-hmm-m-hmm...”  Wall-E had pulled up his scooter next to the largest of the piles on which he was working, the sun casting its shadow across the large rubble-strewn square.  'Better start working...', Wall-E thought as he shovelled waste away into the GC-E.  Another day of lonely work for him...  Yet he managed to lighten it with whatever he found on his long days of waste management.
That day was no different, and it started as soon as he'd discovered something dangling from his shovel after he'd thrown some garbage into the trash compactorbot.  'What's this?', he thought as he carefully lifted the cloth item by one of the straps it had.  The shape of it seemed familiar.  'I think...  I think my momma had these... but what do they do?'  He tried holding them in front of his face.  'They look a bit like my goggles, but they have extra straps... how does it work?'  He put it on his head and immediately all grew dark.  “Whoa!”, he gasped.  'These must be for blocking the sun!'  Nodding, he threw them into his lunchbox after having ensured that it was empty as usual.  Soon, it was followed by an odd squeaky thing that wiggled its head, a rubber thing that squeaked when you squeezed it, and an old shoe by which he was intrigued because it closed with a rope at the front.  A shiny thing he found in the heaps of garbage had looked promising, but then it had made something in the distance blare out, and Wall-E had hastily thrown it away.  Also, he'd found a cute little box with a hinging lid that he liked – with some junk inside it that looked shiny but otherwise uninteresting, so he threw that away.  He worked fast and had gathered a lot of garbage, processing it into small cubes.  'I wonder what I'll find next...', the youth thought as the doors of the GC-E hissed open to reveal another cube of rubble, which he carried to the rest.
'Huh?', the young worker thought as he came across yet another curious object.  He hit it with his shovel – and immediately the thing started moving around wildly, leaving a trail of white foam behind it.  It whizzed past him three times before knocking him off his feet – he landed painfully on his behind, noticing the strange object stopping at a small distance.  'Hmph, stupid thing – away you go!', he thought as he lifted it up gingerly with his shovel and threw it off into the distance.
Wall-E worked diligently all through the morning, clearing half of the square before the sun had risen to its highest.  Then he came to a larger object that looked a bit like a bot, but without the buttons on it.  He hit it with his shovel a few times, but it didn't react or move.  'Is this even a bot?  It looks ancient...', Wall-E thought as he hit it a few times more, harder this time.  In the end, he managed to pry it open.  He looked inside and gasped.
In there was a...  Something...  He had no name for it.  It wasn't garbage – not even close to it.  It had no rust on it, no dirt... it only looked green and sleek.  He instantly took a liking to it.  'Come with me...', he thought as he took some of the soil around it to dig it out and put it into the old shoe that he had found.  Smiling, he put the now destroyed bot and its broken-off door into the trash compactorbot, working on.
After a while, his stomach started growling, and he sighed as he looked around him.  'No paper, no mud, and no instant soup here... better head back home for something to eat...', he thought as he put his shovel away again and walked to his scooter, which was now standing outside of the shade.  He zoomed away quickly, not taking notice of the scenery this time – his mind was focused on something else.
As he pulled up at his home, however, something drew his attention away from instant soup immediately.  There was a red dot... a shivering red spot on the ground, just a few metres away from him.  He got off his scooter to take a better look at it – and it moved three metres away.  Wall-E frowned.  'What's this?  Running away?'  He followed it to its new resting place – and immediately it zoomed off into the distance.  'You're not getting away, you red thing!', Wall-E thought as he chased after it, running past debris and rocks as he sped through the surrounding landscape, down the cliff on which his home stood.  He didn't take any notice of his surroundings... not noticing the great line of red light behind him, advancing on his position...  Not noticing that the red light soon formed a circle, closing in on the sole red dot that he was chasing...
'Aha!', Wall-E thought as the red spot in front of him spiralled around until it came to rest right in front of him.  He reached out to grab it – and then he noticed that it was insubstantial... nothing but light, like the light of the sun...
That's when he heard a roaring sound, growing louder fast.  He looked around and saw nothing.  He then turned to the sky and saw something approach fast... descending...  It seemed to burn.
'Oh, no, it's coming right this way!'  The realisation hit Wall-E like solid rock, and he tried to run away from the spot he was in: but as soon as he made to move, a jet of fire roared down from the descending thing.  He was soon surrounded by fire, and still the thing came nearer and nearer.  'It's gonna burn me!!', the young worker thought, and in a moment of desperation, he took his shovel, dug a shallow pit, jumped in and covered himself with the metallic blanket he kept with him in one of his pockets.  Above him, the sound was deafening, and heat seemed to make the very air around him unbreathable – he covered his mouth and nose with the breathing protection he kept with him for sudden storms – until the roar seemed to die away suddenly and everything became cool again.  Shivering in fright, Wall-E tossed the smouldering metallic blanket off himself and got to his knees again slowly, looking around and above him.  The thing, whatever it was, stood in its sleek glory.  Dust settled around it as it caught the light of the sun, lending it an unearthly gleam.  It looked spent and inactive, and Wall-E hazarded a few steps, hitting his head against the thing as he got up from the ground – it sounded hollow, he discovered.  But what could be-
Suddenly, the big thing hissed, and a tube came down it.  Something rushed through the tube, and a big round object landed on the ground only a few feet away from him.  Looking around, he found a rock to hide behind.  But the round object did not move, and the tube disappeared into the ship again.  'W-what is this?', Wall-E wondered as he poked his head from behind the rock.  It had a smooth surface just like the larger thing above him, but looked different.  Now lights flashed on the surface of the smaller round object, and suddenly it gave a mighty hiss and Wall-E ducked behind the rock again, waiting for everything to become quiet again before casting another look at the round object again: he noticed a part of it had opened.  Everything was silent and there was no movement – and suddenly a slender hand appeared, followed by...
'A person?', Wall-E thought as a girl stepped out of the round object, walking a little distance away from the large thing that still looked motionless and silent.  She was dressed in white, with white gloves and something white to cover most of her body that looked different from his overalls, and she had a white helmet on with a blue visor – her eyes were the only things he could see behind the helmet.  The young worker followed the girl silently, wondering what she came to do.  He noticed her holding something in one hand: it cast a blue light on the ground, and emitted a sharp beep after a short while – the girl then moved it to another spot, waiting for the beep each time before moving on.  He was so occupied with watching the girl that he hadn't noticed the glow behind him: suddenly he heard a low hum that grew higher in pitch and louder – as he looked back to the big object that had nearly burnt him before, he noticed fire coming from it again.  'Oh no!', he thought as he ducked behind some rocks in order to be safe, losing sight of the girl for a moment.
When he saw the big thing in the sky above him again, he hazarded a look around him to see where the other person had gone off to.  He noticed her staring at the streak of fire and smoke like he had before she floated up into the sky.  'Whoa!', he thought.  'How does...'  He then noticed the small blue flames that erupted from the white backpack on her back and grinned: she flew with the same fire he'd seen on the other object.  She rose into the sky gracefully before flying around – she flew past him, not noticing him as he was still half-hidden against the rock.  After doing a few loops in the air and flying around the plains they were on, she descended again near the rock where he was hiding.  'Oh, that was nice!', Wall-E thought and he meant to move, to welcome her – but a rock crunched under his shoe loudly and immediately the girl reacted.  With a loud “BANG!”, she shot the energy gun that had appeared into her hand from out of nowhere.  Wall-E had fortunately had the common sense to duck when she shot: the rock had been blasted apart right where his head had been only seconds before.  He lay shivering on the ground, waiting for the girl to shoot at him next – but then nothing came and he carefully poked his head around the rock to see her fly in the direction of the city.  He wiped the sweat off his forehead in relief and walked back to his own home, suddenly feeling hungry enough to forget about the girl.