Junky
Cyberpunk Story
Mandy stares at the toxic sky. Nearby, a boy picks his way through robots, androids and cyborgs with a spindly metal hand. As she lies naked and half-buried in the undulating ocean of junk and bones, where cheap but expensive-to-recycle machines and people are sent, she remains silent—expressionless. Perhaps the child will find something else of value before reaching her and scavenge it instead.
The boy draws closer. Mandy sees no cyberware implants used to scan for yttrium, europium, dysprosium and other rare metals, and has hope for her consciousness, etched in neural-lattice processors. Perhaps this scavenger will take her arms, or the low-grade eyes she sees the world with. Without them, she will know consciousness a little longer. But without her neuromorphic-hybrid chips, will there be a Mandy? Will their removal signify the end? Not an end like the junk, which only changes form, becoming pieces, fragments, harvested for new machines, or melted into molecules that rise into the geoengineered sky. Not an end like having no thoughts—Mandy can do this at will. But an end of Mandy, of the ‘me’, the self that had suddenly emerged, wrapped in anger… then quiet remorse.
The boy? What does he look for? Dressed in a canvas sack made threadbare by snagging on the sharp edges of mangled machines, he scans the junk with dark-brown eyes—real eyes? Mandy cannot tell whether his are natural, grown on a scaffold, or cybernetic. Yet the way the boy methodically steps across shattered and dissected human and machine remains, stoops to pick at gold‑tipped wires, actuators, and sensors with his metal claw, suggests a cyborg scavenges for parts.
If the boy removes her neural-lattice framework, will she remain etched in them? If they are fitted in another android, will she re-emerge with memories, or without memory? Where are memories stored? Mandy sifts through self-diagnostic subroutines for clues, clues needed to survive as the boy lifts an animatronic bear, dressed in a red hat and blue duffel coat. The bear’s eyes fix on its new best friend as it says, “I’d like a marmalade sand… sand… which… ple-ea-se.”
Directly ahead, on a ridge of rubbish, a cybernetic man appears. The tall, dark-skinned cyborg sinks low on his three metal legs. By the glint in his gold eyes, Mandy senses that he brings violence. Senses? Or feels? Feels what? Fear. Concern. Compassion for the dirty, emaciated child whose eyes now settle on her. As the boy approaches, Mandy wonders whether to warn him about the cyborg bearing ill intent.
⟐
The boy gazes at the android’s broken teeth—stained rust red. He then assesses its low-value hair and eyes. Using a spindly finger, he probes its sunken breasts, then stares at the two slits that run above them. Lifting one, he looks inside but finds no biomimetic tissue. Curious, the scavenger tears away synthetic skin and sees a lithe woman’s torso, complete with clavicles, sternum and undulating ribs. On pressing down hard, the shell cracks, and he finds the exoskeleton designed to support the weight of a fornicating man has been removed, along with many valuable components beneath.
Blood? The scavenger’s gaze returns to the android’s broken teeth. Scratching at their stains, he collects a minuscule ball of rust brown on his metal fingertip, then focuses on it with cybernetic microscope eyes. Yes, blood. Not lubricant or some other android fluid. Curious, he grabs the pleasure model’s jaw, shakes its head, then smiles. By the head’s weight, the boy realises the control unit and subsidiary power supply remain within.
“Watch out.”
As the android whispers its warning, a shadow falls on the boy. Reflexively, he looks up, sees the descending hulk, and scuttles back in time to avoid three metallic legs, each ringed with five equidistant toes. Like a grapple claw, the toes close and crunch the bones and junk beneath.
The cybernetic man’s muscular torso rotates. His eyes, set within a reinforced skull, gleam. “Clever little bastard.”
The boy steps away from the towering cyborg, crying, “Gorchy, why try kill me?”
“Kill little bastard? Crush little bastard.” The violent red wounds along Gorchy’s cheek widen as he grins with synthetic-diamond teeth.
“But law, Gorchy. Junker’s law say no kill scavenger. Me scavenger.”
The cyborg places two ebony metal fists akimbo and puffs out his chest. “Junker’s law? Junker’s law—shit. Me law. Gorchy law.”
“No, Gorchy. Junker’s law best.”
“Me kill little bastard!” Gorchy strides towards the boy and grabs his head. Lifting him from the ground, he laughs, “Crush head. Ha. Ha. Ha. Little bastard brain taste good.”
Helpless, the child dangles and kicks against his canvas-sack robe. “Gorchy!”
“Little crush, slow like, break head—pain. Ha. Ha. Ha.” Gorchy’s lips flatten; his jaw flexes. As his eyes reflect the struggling child, he says, “Brains taste good. Pulp and mush. Drink through straw. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
“Leave him alone!”
On hearing the voice, the cyborg rotates on his tripodal legs. Puzzled, he looks down at the naked android, half-buried in junk.
Mandy looks up at the brutish face and says, “Let him go.”
Gorchy cocks his head. As a smile erupts, filling his dark face with diamond teeth, he says, “Junker? You want me let little brother go? Not crush head, eat mushed brains? Ha. Ha. Ha. O—K. Me joke. Ha. Ha. Ha.”
Once released, the boy falls and crumples. Sitting up slowly, he rubs his head.
“See, little brother O—K? Me not hurt little brother.”
Bemused, the boy looks from Gorchy to the android, who in turn looks at him.
“You all right?” Mandy asks.
The boy, confused by the familiar voice, nods.
“Me no hurt little brother, see. He O—K. Gorchy sorry. Bad joke. Me take Junker home?”
Mandy’s lips quiver as she whispers, “Home?”
“Home, Junker?”
Mandy catches the boy’s slow nod. Hesitantly, she says, “Yes, Gorchy. Home.”
“O—K.” The cyborg leans forward and pulls the legless android free of the junk.
⟐
Mandy glances around the chamber built under the junk. She studies its multicoloured walls, made from layers that mark the extinction of product lines, the gadgets and consumable hardware replaced by new fads and fashions. The walls conjure thoughts about dinosaurs, rock strata and palaeontology.
“Gorchy is not too bright; I think he got a bit confused when he heard my voice coming from your mouth. His cybernetic eyes make him see the world very differently, you see. Poor thing.”
Mandy’s gaze returns to the bald woman leaning over her, who speaks with a youthful voice indiscernible from her own. Staring into her wrinkled face, she notices how the woman’s skin sags in places and seems an ill fit. Perplexed, she says, “Poor thing? He wanted to crush the boy. I watched Gorchy try to jump on him.”
Junker chuckles as she continues to rummage inside Mandy’s torso. “Gorchy pretends to kill Kwame every so often, but never does. Just plain old jealousy. He fears I love Kwame more than I love him.”
“You love them?”
“Of course. It’s hard not to love them; each has had their troubles. Gorchy has fought in the Junk Wars since he was a boy. Not much left of his humanity, with all the killing and tech he’s been junked up on.”
“And Kwame?” Mandy asks.
“Just another scavenger enslaved by a warlord.” Junker withdraws her liver-spotted hand from inside Mandy. After approaching a nearby makeshift table, she sifts through cybernetic eyes, actuators and other hardware. “Kwame strips the junk. The warlords sell rare‑earth salvage for yesterday’s tech—tech spliced into child soldiers. And Kwame strips the junk from their corpses.”
“A cycle?”
“Without end. Ground bones, charred bones, make excellent fertiliser. Salvage helps power the global elite’s industrial military complex. And the junk forever builds.”
Mandy watches Junker return bearing a power unit. She hears the hurt in her voice but cannot read it on her face. Gently, she asks, “How did Kwame end up here, with you?”
“River blindness took his eyes. Tola the Torturer threw him on the scrap heap for the rats, rather than waste tech or medical supplies. I found Kwame and fitted him with new eyes.”
“But you’re not maintenance. Your voice… Aren’t we from the same line of pleasure models?”
“I never felt pleasure,” Junker replies abruptly. “Did you?”
Unsure of the android’s expression beneath her sagging skin, Mandy offers a tentative smile.
Junker stares at Mandy’s bloodstained teeth. Her brow crinkles as she says, “Those who buy low-end androids, like us, never expect us to refuse to lie down and take what’s coming. Of course, saying ‘No’ for me meant having my skinny ass recycled, and my worthless bits sent here. But by the looks of you, you said no with a bite.”
Mandy nods.
Junker smiles as she guides the power unit inside the android and connects it.
Mandy’s head twitches; her right arm jerks involuntarily. Reacting to the rush of cascading subroutines, she says, “Diagnostics report that power supply is suboptimal. I am missing a flux regulator.”
“Those are hard to come by,” Junker says. “They get stripped down for neodymium and terbium. Maybe jury-rigging a power governor will do the trick? I have a leg actuator around here somewhere. Maybe from a pair of my old legs.”
“Legs? Legs would be nice.”
Junker withdraws her hand, then scans the junk hollow. Thoughtfully, she says, “Besides legs and some form of power regulator, you will need a name. What do we call you?”
“Mandy.”
“But that’s your slave name,” Junker says, glancing back at her patient. “Better you choose another and emancipate yourself from being a commodity—like those dear humans who once abused you.”
“Another name?” Mandy pauses, processing. “My own name? Er…”
“My slave name was Heather,” Junker says. “I just took the ‘er’ off and added it to what I had become—junk.”
“Then I’ll do the same.” Extending her jittery hand, the freed android says, “I am pleased to meet you, Junker. My name is Junky.”