Flesh and Bolts AU

Chapter 2: Separate Lives

In Rivet Town, things were uneventful, yet at the same moment, it was all peaceful. And no one's complaining at the moment.

At least except one.

As the sun shone over the small town and a few clouds floated across the blue sky, a few people walked around, occasionally greeting those they pass by. Some kids yelled happily as they ran around on the sidewalk and played with their friends. With the heat becoming hotter by the day, bots had to find more ways to cool down or avoid the hot sun.

A lot had changed since bots were banned from the world of humans, mostly because of the discrimination against their robotic limbs. Some say humans had died not long after the exile, others believed them to have moved somewhere else far from their towns and cities. No one knows, all they know is they haven't seen another fully-fleshed human in the longest time. As far as they believe, they were all just legends, myths, stories to recount at night.

Since then, bots lived on one side of the world, not knowing whether the rest of the humans lived or died, afraid of getting hurt or, worse, killed, at first sight. However, some wondered what would have been like if bots weren't discriminated against just because of their lost body parts that had to be replaced by cyborg-like limbs. It was only a dream far out of their reach, but it was a sincere hope.

Perhaps it was a bit of both for him.

Rodney had been living in this town for most of his life since he was born. His parents never had much, but they did what they could to give him the best childhood as he got older. Hand-me-downs from cousins were also not uncommon, since they didn't have much money to buy him new parts. It's been hard for him and most of his people. They barely had enough to buy parts, new, old, or spare, to last themselves or their loved ones. But then again, living far from the hatred and prejudice of humans is better than not having enough parts.

Right now, helping his dad work as a dishwasher at his boss's diner is important.

Graduating from high school a year ago was a breeze for him, but it wasn't easy in the early years, either. When you're the only kid whose interest in inventing things to make lives better like his idol before him living in this small town, you'd know when or how others are going to look down on you like you had some screws loose, no pun intended. No matter the circumstances, though, he wasn't going to give up, even when his inventions seemed uncommon.

Now he is nineteen, working as a busboy at the diner his dad is. He had hoped that a few extra dollars would be enough to get him to Robot City.

Not only that, but maybe get a few parts for his father.

No matter how much his old man tried, it wasn't enough to satisfy his boss. But Rodney was not going to give up now. He was determined to help him keep up with the newer, more improved dishwashers, despite having no parts for him to work faster.

Rodney entered the dishwashing and saw his father, the tired, browbeaten expression on his face as he fixed himself with tape.

"Oh. Oh, hey, hey," Herb chuckled when he saw his son standing there.

Rodney set down the dirty dishes on a counter and walked towards where his father stood. "Soon as you reach the age where your warranty expires, you start falling apart," Herb continued as if his falling apart was not a bad thing. "Pretty soon, there's gonna be more duct tape than me."

Rodney picked up something from his carrying case. "Can I try it now, Dad?"

"Oh. Oh, uh, Rodney...have you worked all the kinks out of it yet?" Herb stammered. He was unsure about it.

"C'mon, this is gonna make your job easy. I invented it for you," Rodney urged. He was determined to help his father, and he had faith that his invention could work.