Before the Axiom, the On-Topic Wall-E Fanfiction Prequel!

This was a just thought up representation on the events before Wall-E’s adventures with EVE, about 700 years before! Since I noticed that many people were stumped on how Wall-E became the only turned on robot, had Hello, Dolly!, and developed sentience, i decided to make an explanation for it!

Enjoy! i’m working on the next chapter right now, so don’t wait too long!

Chapter 1: Roger and Earth

Earth Seemed Sustainable, Roger told himself as he began digging up some organic scraps off of his living room floor, left over from his constantly indulging family.

The Year 2105 had some remarkable step ups to the economic world, the mega-conglomerate company Buy N’ Large not only had maintained the international economy of every single citizen kept onto this planet, but almost controlled every single aspect of their lives. This was a good change for us, thought Roger, he had everything he needed to live comfortably in the world, except for the excessive flow of garbage piled around his house.

Roger Simmons had a simple family, living in a small urban Tennessee town with the simple aspects of garbage loads and what not. Not much had been done to resolve this mess, but it seemed that no one even cared. To Roger, everybody just went around the towns, drank their drinks, ate their meals, talked their talks without the sole attention of the dirty contents laid at every single square feet of the world. The smells and odorphonics that Buy N’ Large had emitted to rid the smell of the garbage infestation didn’t help much, in fact, to Roger, it seemed that it was only making the problem worse. Some couldn’t ignore the very garbage that stalked among them, at every corner, at every doorstep, at every street, out in the open.

But Roger didn’t seem all too concerned about the mess. He heard some attentive news about Buy N’ Large holding a grand meeting in regards to the solution of this whole mess. It was surprising for him to actually find any real news because, as Buy N’ Large had maintained constant flow of advertisements and wealth at their hands, real TV programs were reduced to a small 4 minutes every 30 minutes to allow 26 more minutes of BnL advertising.

Why did they need so much time?, thought Roger. They already control this entire nation, why don’t they allow us to watch the things that we really want to watch?

But it wasn’t so obvious to Roger that the advertisements WERE the things that everyone wanted to watch. It was so strange to Roger, that when Shelby Forthright had been the new CEO of BnL, that BnL was really starting to take a huge step in fabricating our very lives. The things we eat, the clothes we wear, the things we see outside of our houses, all had the very icon of that abundant company.

But, to Roger, we needed BnL, more than anything else.

Roger was interrupted of his contemplation and his garbage picking when his young daughter, Sally, asked him, “Can We Watch Hello, Dolly! ?”

Roger perked up at the thought. “Sure we Can,” he gratefully answered.

Sally had walked in Roger from outside, from all the filth and the dry Earth, all the BnL outside, to be introduced to the TV with the advertisements, the products, the life of BnL inside.

Sally enthusiastically placed the tape inside the VHS casette, and the age old optimistic love story had displayed before them, playing the song “Put on your Sunday Clothes” in a cadence of upbeat rhythm.

Roger always liked watching Hello, Dolly!, it was one of the few things that didn’t have anything to do with a BnL product. It was special for him to have this tape, this piece of history that once held a open market, free competition world. But, he was born in a different time, he thought, a time of monopoly and utopian life, a time of consumerism, a time of garbage.

This garbage has got to go, he thought.

After watching the entire video, in the night of the day, after tucking his children in and warming himself up on the bed, he suddenly asked his wife, “Caroline, have you noticed all this garbage recently?”

Caroline answered tiredly, “No, why do you ask?”

“Why don’t you notice it?” Roger embarked on the situation. “It’s all around us, in our eyes, ears, noses, mouths, it’s all around. And yet, you still can’t seem to notice it.”

“I’ve been busy with other things, other than garbage.” Caroline explained.

“With what? Watching the commercials, eating food, throwing it away?” Roger was getting upset by her pathetic excuse.

“No, I have to work and take care of the kids too,” Caroline softly replied. “Roger, what’s up with you?”

Roger sighed and burrowed his face in the pillow, trying to get this sheer annoyance of ignorance out of his mind. Caroline attempted to comfort him, but he shrugged it off. “I don’t know. I feel like, we’re completely ignoring our situation, our environment, our own lives it seems. I thought I was used to it once, but now it seems I don’t even know this world we’re in.”

“Well, it is our only one.” Caroline remarked. Roger continued to suffocate himself to sleep inside his pillow, attempting to put any hope left on that meeting BnL would announce the next day. Was it really alright to live like this? He contemplated. Do we really need to rely on BnL, or ourselves? He thought.

“Should I even be here?” He quietly whispered himself to sleep, on the comfortable pillow, not more than 2 feet away from a steaming pile of garbage.

Edit: Grammar Check, Paragraph Spacing. POV Check.

Chapter 2 is here! this is where the Wall-E’s are introduced!!!

Chapter 2: The Good News

Robert awoke in a restful manner, the hopes and resolutions of this day kept him at ease. He awoke the children, cautioned them from their garbage, gave them the best meals they had ever had, and had prepared their selves for the BnL meeting.

The kids, Sally and John, seemed excited to visit their friends on this worldwide announcement, and Caroline felt just as fine being informed of some universal news, but, Roger still felt a little skeptical on what BnL’s plans were to rid of this garbage. He didn’t see why it had to take so long to develop a solution, wasn’t the world’s environment at stake, at this very moment? Why didn’t BnL react faster?

But, Roger thought, they already did react fast to the commercialism…

The commercialism gave BnL all the chance to react much more slowly with more problems at hand. The original trash trucks that used to regulate the garbage were now becoming immobile and obsolete due to the large influx of garbage, so they went from dump trucks to dump machines, the same machines that were once used to bury deep the beautiful ground of the Earth were now used to bury deep the afoul ground of the garbage, above the delight of the ground. Roger wondered what the ground looked like before, before all this garbage played a new role in society, before BnL played a new role in society, before a new life played a new role in a new society.

What do we stand on, anymore?, Roger wondered.

The kids headed toward the car, surrounded by small ledges of garbage, and Roger took one look at his cleaned-house-turned-dirty, he could notice that the plaster on the side of the house seem to pull and wrinkle around in a strange curve. This confused him, the plaster was just brand new a few years back, why would it be so mangled so quickly? The smell of the odor around the house gave him a clue, he sniffed curiously, and went back to attend the car.

The car ride was silent except for the kids getting excited about the very car ride, Caroline had to silence them from their overjoyed zealotry, while Roger continued to peer through the dusty window onto the landmarks and mountains of garbage. He noticed that the neighborhood’s were so full of garbage, that they took their empty cups and wrappers and threw them directly at the landfills other than piling them in the trash cans. He could remember, at one point, where BnL had warned some of the civilians who were more fragile to the toxic odor to apply insulation masks to not suffer a poisonous death from the garbage. When he was a boy, Roger would always play in the filth, as if it was a marvelous treasure of water and springs. He wondered why it seemed so typical to indicate the garbage as just a minor inconvenience, and more of a plaything for the children. Even the parents didn’t seem to mind the children possibly breathing in toxic influences that could damage their lungs, the children were already using enough kinetic energy in their breath’s to exhale it quickly enough.

Roger continued on the road, the dusty, garbage-crowded road onto the BnL terminal.

The terminal was big, especially the BnL logo that exemplified it. There was a small overpass with no railings that allowed the people to walk by, including another wider overpass for the cars to walk by, with the rails included. This was the heart of all information, where the giant Buy N’ Large corporation would replicate it’s utopian government across the land, announce the news that was solid because it HAD to be solid, that had to be truth, that had to be just. Roger and his family would head their way to a giant Infocom, recessing the dire news that all, or just Roger, wanted to hear.

They, Roger’s family, had parked nearby at a giant parking lot, almost 20 times larger than most parking lots, considering that all the people wanted their products more badly than anytime needed. Roger, Caroline, Sally and John had cautioned many, many people around the terminal, wearing all the gritty BnL products and surplus that was available to them in a gaudy way.

“Oh, look at that one! He has a cute red jumpsuit on!” Caroline pointed out. Roger looked by to notice this strange new outfit BnL had to offer, it was a one-piece clothing, covering the legs, torso, hell, even the whole body was encased in one single outfit. He also noticed how it was easily flexible for a one-size-fits-all purpose, the bearing of the BnL logo stapled in several places around the outfit, the simplicity of the suit interested Roger, but he continued on to the real interest that he was keeping all in his mind.

What was BnL going to do?

The Simmons had finally reached the Infocom, so tall and large, hanging possibly 20 feet over them in a angled position. Everybody stood to watch, as they were about to be informed on the news.

The Infocom blipped a small dot that spread around the screen, the white luminescence transforming into a tall, upright, familiar man.

Forthright.

“Howdy, Citizens!” Shelby Forthright called out blankly to the crowd. They did not reply. “Now we know we have a, um, messy problem to deal with, but, after much discussion with our BnL officers, we have come out with a solution!” and with that, a giant sliding gate, unnoticed by the crowd, 20 feet below and 30 feet away from the Infocom had opened in a bright light, while some small, cubed shadows had approached toward the crowd in a orderly fashion.

Roger was stunned to find out what had crawled out of the gate. It was a small, yet seemingly heavy, burnt yellow and plausibly cubical mechanism. It had large binocular eyes, 3 pronged steam shovel fingers, tank-shaped treads, and a little yellow LED display that represented some solar energy level. But what had intrigued him the most, was the small little buttons slightly below the binocular eyes that appear to have three buttons, “Record, Stop, Play”, all color coded for use. Another thing that interested him was some colored letters just at the bottom of what appeared to be it’s robotic gut.

It spelled out: W-A-L-L-E.

“These Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth Class, or Wall-E’s, will dispose of your trash and compact it into geometric cubes, which, will in turn, be burned to rid of the trash.” Shelby Forthright continued, as the small Wall-E’s had trudged off away from the terminal, doing their so called task. “Their directive is to get rid of the trash crowding our streets, our homes, our community, one cube at a time. We will send individual Wall-E’s to maintain the garbage at the homes, some may have 2 considering the garbage level and the size of the home. Since we are sympathetic on saving energy, these small robots are Solar powered, so they must be charged by the sun daily!” Forthright finished with, “So, have a safe, and garbage-free day!”

The kids were excited to see the little cube robots do about their business, while Caroline and Roger looked with intrigue on the companions.

“Directive?” Roger randomly asked to Caroline. “What’s that?”

“That’s their sole purpose in life, Roger,” Caroline answered. “It’s what they’re built for.”

Roger felt somewhat disappointed about BnL’s new resolutions on this garbage. For one thing that bothered him, those robots were too small and seemingly clumsy to take care of so much trash so quickly, and second, in a more aesthetic way, he felt sympathetic about their exploits, they seemed so cute to him, yet they’ve been sent to do a monotonous and mundane task for a overly confident yet delirious company, picking up the trash with senseless eyes, how their binocular eyes had gotten to Roger, their simple forms, their names.

The buttons, which seem to hold no use to their duty.

He still went with the grace that at least he would have a little garbage maid around to take care of his mess. And at least he wouldn’t have to become that garbage maid, seeing that his family are ‘constantly busy’ with other works, while all he has to do in life is live in the filth.

The rest of his family would be happy too, at least.

Edit: POV Check, Paragraph Spacing, Grammar Check.

Chapter 3: Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class

Roger's Wall-E had entered on some random day at his house, with an almost automatic entrance once Roger had opened the door. "He, or whatever this thing is, came by Caroline!" Roger called out to Caroline about the delivery. She walked in, awfully graced by the Wall-E's arrival. "Oh, look how cute he is!" she exclaimed childishly.

“Yes, he is cute.” Roger replied blankly. After Roger had told Caroline about Wall-E, the kids immediately rushed in to watch the small robot in action.

It seemed to do it’s duty well, shoving the garbage up in it’s square gut, packing enough up to void it’s bowels into a neat cube of garbage. Then, using it’s clumsy shovel hands, had picked it up out of the house to start it’s skyscraper of garbage. The kid’s had followed the Wall-E, everywhere it went, often looking over it’s magnificent work. Roger didn’t take much interest in it, only watching the kids for a few glances watching the Wall-E work it’s geometrical magic. Roger had even attempted to ignore taking any more glances by doing pointless things around the house, such as watch the TV (with it’s cluttered commercials), drink his coffee (with the coffee beans stamped with the BnL logo, prolific in it’s product), read a book (with the history of how BnL came to be), it seemed all of his antics had something to do with Buy N’ Large, which led him to finally attend to the kids emotional curiosity for the automaton of a robot.

“Why do you take such interest for him, um, it?” Roger asked the kids, while correcting himself.

“He’s so cool,” John answered. “It’s like we have a new friend around here!”

“Yes, but he’s been doing that same thing over and over again, just in a different spot. Also, don’t you have friends at your…school?” Roger hesitated a little. The school, the school that John and Sally went to wasn’t about arithmetic, chemistry or history, it was about business, commercialism and most importantly, outsourcing.

Can you even make friends like that? Roger thought painfully, seeing the loneliness that his children had.

“Oh come on dad. He’s cute.” John explained, totally ignoring the school situation. Roger was getting more annoyed with how cute the Wall-E was, even if it was, it was only for a mere moment until it just became a boring, important robot for all human life to have.

Or was it something more, to Roger?

Roger had to get a closer look at this thing, without the kids notice, without Caroline’s, or the town’s, any witness was a problem for what he was trying to accomplish. There’s got to be something more than just an empty shell in this thing, Roger explained himself over and over again at the thought of the Wall-E, still doing it’s endless task of cubing garbage in a skyscraper. Once the sun began to set and the children walked in to get their supper, Roger scored his chance to investigate the little robot.

Roger felt somewhat embarrassed to do this, interrupting this poor little robot’s very task, it’s directive to forever cube trash, lifelessly. Roger wanted to help him, her, or it into developing a sense of life, some sentience couldn’t hurt the poor fellow.

“If the children thought that this robot could be their new friend,” he whispered to himself and the robot, “then maybe I could make them their friend.”

He stopped the robot in it’s track, undoubtedly stopping by the very force of Roger’s arms, as he began looking face to face to the small fellow.

He remembered the recorder that these Wall-E’s had on top of their cube-like bodies, it confused Roger to the point of question why BnL decided to install this small device, yet the Wall-E’s ‘directive’ was to pile trash. He decided to test this device by speaking directly at the robot, while he attentively pressed the record button.

“Waste Allocation Load Lifter Earth-Class,” Roger spoke clearly at what he thought was a receiver for the sound. When he finished his phrase, he slowly pressed the play button to allow Roger’s voice be spoken out from the Wall-E.

But, nothing came out. When Roger pressed play, all that stirred was a silent fuzzing in the sound, but nothing that uttered his words back at him.

“Damn it!,” Roger angrily yelled out. “Why you have this thing if it doesn’t even work!”

Roger lost all hope in playing with the Wall-E’s sound, he had let go hopelessly of the Wall-E in his grasp, as he walked back home, defeated of his utter chance to bring this thing to life. It was strange to Roger, seeing how he attempted to bring this empty robot to fruition, yet, that Wall-E was one of the few things he ever did see make a life out of itself. The rest of the people have tried to ignore it, he sank it deeply in his chest, but this Wall-E knows what he’s built for…

Roger just wished that the Wall-E knew what it was meant for.

Roger joined his family to dinner, noticing the less filthy aura of the room. “Isn’t it nice, Roger, how we don’t have to walk around in it thanks to that Wall-E!” Cheered Caroline, as she gave him a plate of spaghetti.

Roger was glad, but he didn’t know why. “Yeah, I just wish we could have done it ourselves.” repelled Roger. He coldly ate his spaghetti, as if something bad was stirring in his stomach and it refused him to eat. His mind wasn’t on the food, it was on that Wall-E, the other Wall-E’s, and how oblivious the people had come from their own surroundings.

“Oh come on, Roger! It’s so much easier taking care of trash when you have someone else who can do it all day, free of expense, and do it so, geometrically!” Caroline retaliated at his sour remark. She didn’t seem to care about Roger’s slow eating, since she was too busy eating her own. The kids enjoyed eating their own food, playing it while Caroline had ordered them to stop doing so. Then, almost as if Sally were reiterating, she asked her father again. “Dad, can we watch Hello, Dolly! Again? Please?”

Roger had forgotten he was eating his meal, and suddenly had a spark of life emitted all around his body. But he also had a spark of wisdom. Maybe the Wall-E only works on video/audio!, thought Roger.

“YES! We can definitely watch it!” Roger almost jumped out of his chair from the offer, exploding the children’s excitement even further. Caroline lost control of the chaos, as Roger joined in with the kids to rush into the living room, with the carpets of their BnL logo’s, reminding them again and again, that “Buy N’ Large is the Super Store, with all that you need, and plenty more.”

Roger and the kids ran in, once again, to enjoy the upbeat rhythm of “Put on Your Sunday Clothes”, the 1950s opera music cheered up Roger and his children as they enjoyed the watch. Roger was getting more intensified from this discovery he had, awaiting the final moments of the movie to do what he really wanted to do. He quickly tucked the kids in, allowed his wife to be alone in their bedroom as he caught the Wall-E entering the house. He brought it over to the TV, rewinding the tape to the most memorable part of the whole video. He quickly tapped the Record button on the Wall-E, attempting it to record “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” through the entire song. He immediately turned it off once he was fulfilled with the record, and pressed the play to be delightedly responded with the same song, from beginning to finish. Caroline had heard the raucous from afar, and had gotten up to find Roger with the Wall-E, playing it’s music.

“What are you doing Roger?” Caroline answered, yawning and slowly blinking. Roger didn’t want her to know about the thing he was doing, so he lied with, “Oh, I’m just making sure this thing’s still working, Cary!” Roger excitedly lied.

“Didn’t I hear ‘Put on your Sunday Clothes’?” Caroline asked. Roger thought out an answer for a few moments. “Oh, that was just the kids, humming to the song in the other room.”

Caroline looked at him for confusion, then went back to rest. Roger patted a sigh of relief as he enthusiastically peered at the new Wall-E. It seemed so ironic to him that this song had everything to do with what the people needed to do at this very time.

“Wall-E,” Roger whispered to it. “Just always remember to put on your Sunday clothes, because, there’s lots of world out there.”

The air that Roger was breathing seemed to be more poisoned since the Wall-E’s had arrived. Roger did remember that these cubes had to be rid of, and during his ride around town, he saw giant conveyor belts, angled 45 degrees, pulling up the cubes to what seemed like a giant incinerator. He choked on the Carbon Dioxide that was emitting around the ride to the incinerator, he couldn’t believe that destroying garbage had in fact only made things worse, it was hard for him to believe that there was any Oxygen left on this planet. He sped on by, trying to rid his car of the intoxicating smell. Roger knew it in his gut that these Wall-E’s were inefficient, but yesterday night gave him something to grasp onto life, to these empty, monotonous robots. Even more disappointing, the people nearby had taken in the smell as if it was their own breathing life, despite the ultimate consequences of doing so.

The Wall-E’s that Shelby Forthright brought in several days ago weren’t solving the problem, and Roger was afraid that someone could die from this infestation that was suffocating the town, the country, the whole world.

Another thing that jabbed in his heart was that not much, or not enough trash was being taken care of. The Wall-E’s did their work efficiently, and as BnL continued to make more and more Wall-E’s at their disposal, quantity did not solve the problem. The trash that had been compacted for so many years was too much for one 1 foot by 1 foot by 1 foot mechanism.

It was quality they needed, Roger admitted.

Once again, Roger had caught some news about another BnL meeting addressing the situation with the air. Roger had to taste the bitterness of the Carbon Dioxide slowly enveloping around the house, while the Wall-E had been left untouched by the smell. What had surprised Roger about the news was that it was being aired, live on the television longer than the televised programs should, about 10 minutes!

Roger tasted something else bitter in the house, something he could remember so well.

“Caroline, did you activate the odorphonics in the house?” Roger asked.

“Yes, what’s the problem?” Caroline approached Roger from the kitchen, holding a pot of noodles.

“I’ve already told you I don’t like the smell, it’s only going to make it worse.” Roger complained. Caroline was most stubborn to disagree. “So you’d rather have this smell evaporating around?” Caroline suggested sarcastically.

But, their interrogation was interrupted by the live show, surprisingly representing a small commercial, surprisingly on, while they argued about the air they breathed in, while the real air they needed was the Oxygen.

The TV relayed with several video slides, “Too much garbage in your face? There’s plenty of space out in space! BNL starliner’s leaving each day, we’ll clean up the mess while your away!” The commercial narrator announced. Caroline and Roger had noticed the giant odd shaped ships, flying away in virtual reality, seeing the Wall-E’s, working on the cubes of garbage, waving away as they continue to work.

Both Roger and Caroline were dead silent, as they continued to listen on.

“The Jewel of the BnL Fleet: The Axiom. Spend your five-year cruise in style. Waited on 24 hours a day by our fully automated crew, while your Captain and Autopilot chart a course for non-stop entertainment, fine-dining. And with our all-access hoverchairs, even Grandma can join in the fun! There’s no need to walk! The Axiom! Putting the star in executive starliner!”

Roger and Caroline were speechless from the commercial, while it finished with Shelby Forthright waving at a virtual Axiom, “Because, at BnL, space is the final “fun”-tier!” as Roger and Caroline shared glances at each other. After a long pause, Roger finally spoke.

“We’re leaving Earth?” Roger seemed awfully disappointed of this ‘vacation’ everyone was taking. Caroline hopelessly cheered him up. “Well, at least we can get away from the garbage, and the air, and enjoy a vacation!”

“But that’s not the point, Cary,” Roger took a step closer at the TV. “I mean, we’re just going to leave our home, our things, our Earth for a vacation like this? For five years even! I don’t think our kids could handle such a dramatic move like that!”

“What if we just tell them it’s a vacation? Maybe they’d like being up in space, Roger…” Caroline suggested to Roger. It seemed unfair to Roger to have to lie to the kids like that, but what he really was worried about was leaving that Wall-E behind, with nothing but a emotionless glare and a constant urge to cube trash.

He was worried, about leaving all the Wall-E’s behind on Earth…

“It could be worth a try,” Roger sullenly replied, his head down and his concern wrinkled in a small crumbled piece of paper. He sat before the TV, relaying another commercial from BnL about some giant, tasty burger, as his face was mantled with his hands in anguish, his face exhausted from this huge move for not only himself, but all of mankind. As he breathed, he could smell the lurking Dioxide, trying to strangle him in his one moment of thought. He couldn’t think with all this clutter around him, his very privacy was being invaded by the garbage outside, the Carbon inside, the Wall-E’s outside, his family inside, the consumerism outside, his…

Desires, inside.

But there was nothing that Roger could do, what could one civilian do to stop a whole world from leaving Earth? How could one simply extricate all this poison and filth in enough time for sustainability? How could one rid of a corporation that has absolute control of their very lives?

He could stay here, in this Earth, maybe, with the Wall-E’s beside him…

EDIT: Grammar Check, Paragraph Spacing.

I’ve finished all the chapters at this point! I really wanted to concise with this fanfiction, so the document is practicly only 38 pages long (printer page sized, 2 columns, 0.5 margin on the left and right, 0.25 margin on the top and bottom), so give me some time to put them all up for your reading pleasure!

Chapter 4: Something Strange

Several days later, Roger was informed that the Axiom would begin it's 5-year cruise in two days time. He was introduced to the giant ship, with the BnL logo prominent on the odd ship. There was a giant cradle below the the ship for maintaining it's odd shape, while the crowd gathered at it's magnificent size. There was also "AXIOM", stamped high above the ship, seeming even more prominent than the BnL logo itself. To everyone else, they were excited about a space cruise from their filthy lives on Earth, but Roger was still disgraced, disappointed and skeptical about this whole ordeal. Would five years be enough?, thought Roger, as more people came to take a gander at the other Starship Fleets gathered around. Roger had no idea what was beneath this ship, what would behold of the future for these people, or how life would change for them once they came back.

Would they come back?, Roger examined this thought process. He finally was finished witnessing the ludicrous size of the ship, and, while everyone else still awed at it’s sized, Roger walked disgracefully, hands deep in his pocket, uncomfortably but ignorantly in his pockets.

He came across a newspaper, flying around in the windy afternoon, still intact in it’s flaps. Roger had caught it, freeing his hands of the dark cave in his pants, and when he looked at it, he was introduced with the headline:

TOO MUCH TRASH!!! Earth Covered! CEO Calls for Global Emergency!

Roger had noticed the CEO, Shelby Forthright, displaying a weak smile on the overwhelming headline. But, this was old news for him, for so long, he knew what was to come, but at least now everyone could open their eyes…

Roger had left the piece of paper were it was, all piled on top of some other pieces of paper, Like one piece of paper could trash the earth, coldly remarked Roger. Instead of flying away like it usually should, it maintained it’s position, living a sedentary life, 20 meters away from a BnL Ultrastore, where everyone could look down at the paper, physically and…

Hypothetically.

Roger walked around town, introduced to new pieces of garbage, introduced to new Wall-E’s, slightly torn from the countless scraps of garbage, introduced to new incinerators, exhaling it’s beautiful poisonous death, the Carbon Dioxide sneaking behind Roger to his lungs, forcing him to cough out more Carbon Dioxide than he was breathing in Oxygen. It seemed painful for him at first, doing this for so long, it seemed so typical that living a life of poisonous gas and garbage was the thing that people assumed was called living. Was living in a life of filth and garbage LIVING?, argued Roger. Could it even be called living?

Or was it, living in denial?.., thought Roger.

Something was strange about this whole cruise, Roger wondered, they made something as simple as these Wall-E’s over several years, and then they come out with a Giant ship with all the luxuries you could ever possibly want in a few days?

Roger could see how easy it would be to make those Wall-E’s, just glue a few pieces from older machines onto a small, geometrical companion, but never in his life could he believe that Buy N’ Large could make a ship, 1,000 meters long, 300 meters wide and almost a mile high, for everybody to just assume that it was done just as simply as making the Wall-E’s.

Roger’s true definition about BnL seemed to going faster than ever, or maybe that BnL can just go that fast so easily, without disregard, question or opinion…

Nobody seemed to care, Roger kept stabbing himself in the brain with that mental notation. Roger felt like the ugly duckling of the crowd, the only one who felt so opposed to all this light speed change that BnL was pressuring on the people, but as far as they knew, it was only a vacation from their humble planet. It was all that they cared about, the entertainment, the hygiene, the ship was all that critiqued their interests. But Roger?

He cared about the problem at hand…

Roger continued to fleet away from the garbage, the Wall-E’s working away, the gas attempting to kill him, trying to find a means of safety. He could see the loading trucks for the Wall-E’s, driving by him, pulling out more and more Wall-E’s at his disposal. He continued to walk away, the constant stress of cube compacting and skyscrapers all seemed to be the very essence of his life now. He could notice, the giant skyscrapers of garbage, getting taller and taller and even taller than the actual skyscrapers which did not emit the toxic smell around the city. The incinerators did their work, but the skyscrapers increased in quantity and size. The garbage was being moved, but it wasn’t being taken care of.

So was the environment, reacting very negatively to the situation. The trees that once held life, seen out in the distance by Roger, we’re slowly decaying from this rotting filth around them. The trees could enjoy their Carbon Dioxide, but for only so long, much like our Oxygen, too much stored in the brain can cause it to suffocate and die out, like these trees, the only real solution to this gaseous waste that BnL still continues to produce. The garden’s that Roger had happened to pass by were severely wilted in the very air it inhaled. He also noticed that the climate was also changing too, the sun relented an unforgiving heat, while the rain had never came or came once, in a very violent way. BnL had warned everyone of some upcoming dust storms, which had cautioned everyone to head into their homes for safety. There was not one scheduled for today, but Roger always wondered, what this Earth used to look like back then, when the Roses bloomed beautifully, when the trees grew large and tall, the sun was a dazzling and not a painful sight to see, the moisture rampant, the skies so reflected with the atmosphere of the air and the ocean, with a calm and soothing blue, while in Roger’s time, it gave out a uncomfortable and heated charcoal display. It was strange for Roger to look out in the sky that way, seeing that everyone on Earth was heading out there, in that uncomfortable, heated stratosphere that held a growing, inhabitable Earth.

I bet BnL looked out to the sky as well, Roger wondered.

Roger had finally headed back to his home, greeted to the Wall-E, continuing it’s endless duty. He noticed by this time, after all the time this Wall-E had struggled to clean this house, all the garbage was now neatly cubed outside, in a small skyscraper almost as tall as Roger’s house.

When he went inside, the house was spic-and-span, not one trace of the house exhibited any filth, and the kids were overjoyed by the Wall-E’s completion, actually able to run around the house without the worry of tripping or falling onto or into trash. Without the Carbon Dioxide invading the house, the house actually smelled…good…to Roger.

He noticed the briefcases, packed neatly on the bed, fully anticipated for it’s marvelous cruise into space, while Roger still needed to pack his. He reluctantly pulled out his briefcase, opening it sullenly, while painfully stacking each piece of clothing, one by one.

Roger’s wife had noticed him do so. “Oh, Roger, your packing! I was afraid you’d forget!” Caroline entered, almost catching Roger by surprise.

“How could I,” Roger replied, while still focusing on the clothes. “These ships are literally right next to us if they make any more.”

“Faster for us to travel to space, then.” Caroline remarked. Roger looked up to her, as if a stranger had walked into his house. He went off the subject with, “Caroline, if we leave, how are we supposed to know if it’s O.K. To come back?”

Caroline paused for the moment, trying to gather up a solution. “Oh, I heard from BnL that the Axiom’s, yes, the Axiom’s, would send off ships with these probes, called…” Caroline tried to coin up the name. “Extra…terrestrial Vegetation Evaluator.”

“EVE?” Roger had summed up the abbreviations. “How frequently are they going to send these, EVE’s, out?”

“They can’t send them on a daily basis is all I know,” Caroline answered. “Also, they have to launch them at different places in the world.”

“How do you suppose they can tell us if we can come back?” Roger asked, and then he thought…

If we come back.

“Well, their name really speaks for itself,” Caroline sneered. “They evaluate vegetation, and then they come back to the Axiom, and send it to some kind of big giant cylinder, which sends the Axiom back home.” Caroline announced.

Roger kept packing, slightly uninterested by these new EVE probes brought out. Caroline waited for a reply out of Roger, but decided to continue with, “But, they’re so cute! Look at their eggshell shape, and their Blue LED eyes!” Caroline had insisted that Roger go see these EVE probes.

Roger continued to ignore her, while complacently packing more things inside his briefcase. It’s not that Roger wasn’t listening, but he already knew the outcomes of all this, the evidence was literally all around us, all around our eyes, noses, ears, in earth, just like Roger had put it, before these Wall-E’s were brought upon the world.

Are we coming back? Roger stood, in between folding some clothes into the briefcase. That same thought, going through his mind, as he began packing the things he thought he needed. There was something he forgot to bring with him, something important, something that he knew he could never recover if he were to leave here right now, forget all the things his house once attained, neglect the Earth forever. If they weren’t coming back, Roger thought, maybe, just in case, I should bring one more thing with me…

Hello, Dolly!…

He quickly picked up the tape from the VHS cassette, and jammed it deep in his pocket, just to make sure that it would be forever with him while this intergalactic cruise would span forever in the cosmos.

Put on your Sunday Clothes, there’s lots of world out there…, Roger sung in his mind.

EDIT: Paragraph Spacing, Grammar Check.

Chapter 5: Goodbye’s

4 hours left, Roger continued to annoy himself, 4 hours left…until liftoff.

The Simmons were all bustling around the house, making sure every collection of toys, shoes and dresses were all managed for the exciting ride to space. Roger had to keep his enthusiasm and composure for the ride, despite all his doubts and concerns for the distanced vacation. He was bound to brake this tradition that BnL was forcing on everyone, even if it meant he would die doing so. He still loved his family, but they’re eyes were just as closed as the rest of the people, like puppies sucking on the teat of the BnL indulgences that they could prosper with unlimited power, the milk being the food, the life, the very opinion of the people, controlled day by day, by the Buy N’ Large corporation, especially Forthright.

I was not a puppy, I was an adult, Roger aforementioned.

The family was forced to walk to the Axiom, as their vehicles would be deserted in the parking lot for a good five years if they were to ride down. This was one of the few things that didn’t discourage Roger, at least he could have his silent goodbye to the Wall-E, still maintaining the garbage outside of their house, without the slightest regard of abandonment from their human masters. His family walked ahead of him as Roger maintained a constant glare at the attentive Wall-E, working at it’s garbage, completely unable to join his family to this vacation. It would be nice for him to, Thought Roger, I mean, he was a part of our family.

He waved goodbye, silently, to the Wall-E, while the robot had payed no absolute attention to it, nor did Roger’s family. He didn’t seem to care, but what seemed so strange to him was that, listening closely, ignoring the sounds of the incinerator and the motor that the Wall-E had ran on, he seemed to hear a small hum…

The hum of ‘Put on Your Sunday Clothes’…

Roger had realized he was trailing behind the family, so he quickly yet reluctantly followed them, constantly looking back at his home, getting farther and farther away with each careful glance, each careful step. Once he could not see his house at all, all he could ever see now was the miles upon miles of trash, forming an orderly queue line to their next destination: the fabled Axiom, standing upright, the edifice projecting at Roger almost a mile away. He couldn’t see clearly, but he noticed some blurred, ant-sized objects entering the ship in a crowded formation. Roger had guessed it was the passengers, all deliberately entering the Shuttle, all awaiting their cleansed vacation. Each step that Roger took, while heading closer towards the Axiom seemed like a cadence of jumping heartbeats, pounding into his chest as the Axiom projected wider, closer and larger to him. He attempted to remember everything else that he could from his town, for a good five years, so that when they came back, he wouldn’t have to adjust so difficultly. The kids were excited about the vacation (since that’s what Caroline and Roger had told them), jumping out of Caroline’s reach, running around, chasing each other, looking up at the stars to their new home. Caroline needed assistance from Roger, so he took a grasp of the overjoyed children, attempting to calm them down for the big moment. It was strange for Roger to imagine the children thinking that this vacation was like their new home, Roger didn’t want to move, he didn’t even want a vacation, he just wanted to be with his family in the same home, the same town, the same earth, forever.

But that’s not enough for them, is it?, Roger wondered…

Roger continued to hold the children, from their overjoyed independence, from their star gazing abodes. The Axiom seemed so close to Roger that he could grasp it in the palm of his hand, letting go of his children, gazing at the wonder of the ship, examine it, crush it. The ant-sized objects were becoming more clear and larger, the people entering the ship seemed limitless, Roger couldn’t even remember how many people were in his town, let alone this country.

Maybe 4 million? Guessed Roger, it was also strange for him to have his town be the heart of all of this controversy, this mass deportation of human’s into the known, or unknown galaxy. What could one town, bring itself to so many people?

The Axiom was nearly in front of Roger’s feet now, the people were almost as tall as him from the distance, the bustling of the crowd now auditing the dry air of the Earth. It was so close, Roger and Caroline had to hold the children tight, while they got slowly closer and closer to the mouth of the ship, gulping the passengers in to it’s luxurious bay.

The cacophony of the crowd was confusing Roger’s focus, as he narrowly entered the ship. He had absolute no control over the passenger’s movements, as they were automatically eager to enter. It was so difficult for Roger to concentrate, that the momentary darkness of the ship had lost him all contact of his family, or where he even was at. He was continually pushed however, and once he had finally entered into the light, the display was, intoxicating, to Roger.

The Ship seemed so hollow, considering the empty space among it. There were trams, escorting the already suited passenger’s around the ship. He could see a giant pool, maintained in the center, with the classic beach parasols and recliner’s, while somehow, it reflected sunlight inside the ship. Roger looked up, and saw a holographic sun, patched onto the ship, giving it a ‘72 degrees’, always orbiting near the sun. He could see the BnL logo, proudly stamped onto the sun’s core. He could hear the ship talking to the passengers, or was it, as he thought, just an AI?

“Buy N’ Large. Everything you need to be happy. Your day is very important to us.” boomed across the crew members, Roger was absolutely astounded by the gaudy display BnL had to offer, despite the advertisements surrounding most of the area, there were plenty of color and vibrance within what he believed was a dull ship.

He wanted to check deeper into the ship, but he was suddenly halted by a short, stout robot, no taller than his foot. It had a alarming signal around it’s head, some kind of roller for arms, and a mouse ball for it’s feet. He could hear the beeps alarm at him, as it charged at him. Roger remained still, unsure of what this bot was going to do next. The only thing he could identify it by was two small letters.

M-O…

The little robot had used it robot arms to uncomfortably scrape something off of Roger, to his surprise, it was the filth covered around him. Then, he started to notice the other people, being cleaned by similar things, such as a Vacuum Robot, or, looking carefully, VAQ-M, literally sucking out the filth from the passengers with it’s strange suction. While Roger had maintained his position, he could hear a strange beep that sounded much like the phrase, “Foreign Contaminant”, coming out of the small M-O robot.

The Earth is foreign to us?, Roger assumed.

Cleaning up the filth was not the major problem to him, but what this robot had done next. He had sent some human-sized, rectangular security bots, who had in turn spoke with Roger.

“We will discard your clothes for the new BnL outfit.” the Bot had demanded and offered to Roger. Roger remembered those outfits he saw during the convention for the Wall-E’s, but he ignored the style and had refused to remove his clothes because he still obtained the Hello, Dolly! Cassette in his pants. He tried to get some time to bring the tape with him, but the Bots were quick to order him. “Please, just let me-” Roger attempted to buy some more time.

“Citizen, we must discard your clothes-” the Bots had closed in on him, while he frantically had pulled out the Hello, Dolly! Cassette. The M-O robot had noticed the tape as a foreign contaminant, and had ran into Roger to obtain it. “No!” Roger pleaded, as the robot had scurried off away with it, the bots in his way. “I need that!” Roger grabbed on to the empty hope of having a second chance of re-acquiring it. The bots continued to demand him to switch clothes, which he had done so, in a depressed and defeated way. He had found his family, who were excited with the atmosphere of the Axiom’s interior, while he restlessly had agreed with them, still clinging on to that sullen pain of losing the Hello, Dolly! Tape.

Meanwhile, the M-O had headed his way to a garbage disposal, almost about to throw away the tape when the very look of it captivated it’s eyes. The M-O believed it to be something not worth throwing away, so instead of keeping it for itself or dumping it away, he had taken it directly to the Captain of the Axiom, at the most prominent part of the Axiom, the cockpit.

The Captain was giving out orders to ready for liftoff to the Autopilot, who willingly accepted his commands. The Captain was suddenly greeted by the small M-O, who had handed him the tape. Autopilot had noticed the tape as well, disregarding the flight plan to inspect it.

“It appears to be a tape,” The Captain obviously pointed out. He noticed the filth it contained outside the tape, the dust and rubble scrubbed around the captain’s fingers. The M-O was desperate to clean off the small indication of garbage, but the Captain was too objective and tall to do so.

“I guess we can keep it. It’ll be a nice souvenir for the ride onto space.” the Captain had finished, placing the tape on a lonely desk, while everyone else had resumed back to their duties.

Roger, his head still down about his lost, wearing the new, clean and yet uncomfortable one-piece suit, discontenting his desire to free himself of any BnL products. The new, slightly cramped complex that was shared with his Wife, while their children shared the next complex, had a extremely modern and clean aspect to it; the entire room could had been reflected from it’s cleanliness. The way that Roger had walked around the room, he could hear the rubber squeak’s that the room had made, due in part to the incredible work and effort that BnL had put through to make what the Earth was outside totally opposite to what the Axiom had to offer inside.

Caroline was looking at the new outfit she had on her body, adjusting her hair to match the new outlook, while Roger had a mere disappointed look on his face, head down on the bed, hands clenched, face weary from his constant battle with life, dirt, and consumerism. He heard an intercom from inside the room, relaying an important message, “The Axiom will lift-off in 15 minutes”. Yet this was exciting for Caroline to hear about these news, Roger still had no sense of care in the world, all except for that tape.

“We’ll be in space in no time!” Caroline cheered, vigorously rubbing Roger’s shoulders as he continued to look painfully at the scrubbed floor, he could see the very sadness in his eyes through the hard reflection in the floor. He could see, through the transparent window, the people who had tried out the Hoverchairs that he had seen on the commercials several days ago, on Earth. Earth was a mineral rich planet, there were so many resources, so unlimited that BnL could harness, despite all the riches they had intended. But now, being trapped in the large yet small world of the BnL’s Axiom, Buy N’ Large really did have control over everyone’s lives. This was BnL’s world now, laced around in it’s constant stream of advertisements, the logo stamped on every single individual straw of object, furniture, people. The Logo was the Deity of the people, while Shelby Forthright was their downright preacher, pacifist, Jesus, healer, spokesman of the entire population. The products are the bread and wine, the holy grail is this very metallic hunk of ship that the God’s people had rested in, their ears all laid upon the sound judgment of their preacher, pacifist, Jesus, healer, and spokesman, their Deity, their ship.

Roger missed the Wall-E’s, the tape, the garbage, that he once disgraced, only for the moment…

“3 Minutes until Lift-off,” The announcement continued to relay every single waking moment of the launch. Caroline had asked Roger, still moping on his bed, “Do you mind if we have the kids with us in our complex, for this moment?”

“Sure, that’s no problem to me.” Roger softly answered, still staring at the ground with thought, either counting his looks or counting off the ground that did not mirror his image. He could hear the excited cries of the passengers from afar, anticipated for the light speed cruise of the ship. He saw through the transparent wall, Caroline, going next door, bringing out the children to meet their father, who they envied toward him, “I wish we could watch Hello Dolly! For this moment!”

Roger sank those words down his gut, choked them, and threw them out with shame. He hardly replied, “Yeah. I wish” while he felt more down on himself, for letting his children down with the opportunity to watch it, but, as far as he knew, there wasn’t a VHS cassette around this room, or anywhere else. And as far as they know, the cassette had remained back at their home, back outside, back on this Earth they were leaving.

He could feel the room shaking, his family shaking, his heart shaking, the ship shaking, while the rockets he and no one else had seen, fuming below the cradle of the ships. “30 Seconds until Lift-off,” the announcement reared again, the children jumping off and on the bed continuously, Caroline grinning blissfully, Roger’s heart sinking away from his Earth, his old life, with each second. He stopped looking at the ground, as the rattle of the ship was destroying his empty concentration on the steel floor. The excitement exploded all around the Axiom, Roger thought, for this very moment, the people would at least have one slim chance of freedom, away from BnL.

His heart sank so deep, it seemed to escape away under his foot. The Axiom rattled and blew up so high, Roger’s feet had shaken from the undeniable height that his very body was reaching, the rockets undeniably flying at ultimate speeds, first a few miles, out the atmosphere and finally, several hundred galaxies away from the Earth.

Liftoff…

Roger had looked out the one window to the complex, displaying the very dark beauty of the cosmos, the space clouds, intricate designs of the age of the universe, the awesome mystery behind such wonders would be too much for one to grasp. The completion of space travel, the excitement of the crew members, were all dead silent to Roger. All he could think about, was what had waited out in the dark universe, the very asteroids and comets could enlighten Roger’s path to his core destination.

There was so much world out there, unlike here, Roger finally concluded.

Chapter 6: Microgravity

5 years later, 5 years of traveling into unknown cosmos, comets, meteors, galaxies, inside the giant icon of the conglomerate corporation, Roger had looked out from afar, seeing the very EVE probes that his wife had told him, back on Earth. He was hoping they would find sustainable life on Earth soon, the five-year cruise was at it's deadline, and he counted every single year, every single day, every single waking moment for the return back.

He was hoping so much, because the passengers around him had transformed so rapidly from the microgravity and the limitless luxuries BnL had to afford. Roger had ignored these luxuries, some that forced him to do the manual labor himself; When the people ‘walked’ in their hoverchairs, Roger would walk on his feet; When the new liquid cups would be introduced, Roger would eat little or just enough to get by; When these makeup robots, or PR-T’s, would fashion him, he would fashion himself; whenever he wanted to play golf, instead of virtually ‘shooting golf balls into space’, he had done it by himself, without the need of the robots. He seemed like a stranger to the Axiom, because everyone else was using the indulgences to the best of their benefits, while Roger had still clung onto doing the things he was taught, back on Earth. He also noticed how this little spare use of physical activity had begun an overwhelming obesity crisis, while Roger remained in his slim self.

What had scared him the most about this obesity strangulation was that his family was experiencing it too, almost systematically with the rest of the crewmembers. He attempted to urge them to use what physical movement they could harness, attempting to play tennis with the movement of their hands and feet, jog on the jogging track that BnL had to offer, to lose a few pounds and recover their physique, but a new crisis was at hand for Roger, one that would be challenging for his desire to allow the people to work out and get their muscles working: The reality they were in.

As he experienced life in the Axiom for a full 5-years, a holo screen was padded either on the ear of every citizen or near a head rest of their hover chairs, which 99.99% of the public would use in favor of the earpiece. Although Roger thought of the earpiece conventional for on the go travel, he couldn’t seem to find a valuable use for it, since he walked all the time and when he did attempt to use it on his family and friends, they were already posthumously acquainted with the system and used it, every second, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Just like any fast food restaurant, Roger thought.

He was fantasized five years ago from the color and contrast that the Axiom interior had to offer, but, seeing this was a consumerist’s world, all he could see now was sedentary, dependent, clueless passengers.

He was worried about his family, but only by the slightest.

When he entered his complex, the same one he moped on 5 years ago on liftoff, he could notice his wife, laying on the bed, eating some fatty meals beside her, looking with absolute focus on what appeared to be the same holo screen that Roger tried and failed to use for himself. She had not realized at all that Roger had entered the complex. He could see the kids, but they were exactly the same; they had paid no attention to him, and instead of being as hyperactive and ecstatic as they used to be, they seemed more slouchy, lazy, and, painful as Roger to hear this, useless.

They were eating their meals at a constant rate, totally unaware of their weight spike. Roger went to his wife, and being right next to her, she still did not notice him. “Caroline,” Roger called to her, as if she was miles away, in the echoes of the Axiom.

She seemed way too intrigued in the little heads-up display she had, completely isolating what Roger had said, while continuing to talk with her friends.

“CAROLINE!” Roger had to yell out, while the children had continued to eat, and play lifelessly at the display. Caroline had noticed, but just barely. “Huh?” Caroline had weakly paid attention to him, her eyes still glued onto the screen.

“Can you first at least look at me!” Roger had cried, attempting to position her head to his eyes, making her open to the world. Caroline shrieked somewhat, a little afraid of what Roger would do next.

“Calm down Roger!” Caroline attempted to push his hands away, while he tried to get any smidgen of attention out of her.

He fleeted, absolutely hopeless of her ever being able to pay attention. But, he jabbered on, “Caroline, look at you! Look at your kids, you’ve become lazy slobs! You won’t pay attention to me, and it’s like your dying of hunger every single second, and, those hover chairs are for the elderly, not for people who have two fully functioning legs and can walk briskly!” Roger pleaded for any focused answer on Caroline, or the kids.

While he did this, the kids still had no clue that anyone, or anything, was around their home. Caroline returned to her holo-screen, as if the sudden increase in the buzzing in their ears was a mere nuisance that could be solved with the senseless escapism of the holographic, gritty screen, glued, no, bolted, to their faces.

Caroline answered inattentively, “OK, I’ll see you at the tennis court…”, totally unaware of what Roger was trying to get at.

He gave up, storming out of the complex in a heated anger, while a HAN-S robot had interrupted his wrath. It beeped at him for a massage, but he refused, attempting to walk farther down some unknown goal. The HAN-S had continued to urge him, and his temper had exploded.

“I DON’T WANT A MASSAGE! I WANT TO GET OUT OF HERE!” Roger yelled at the robot, his anger so hyped that he threw the robot out from the rails, disregarding the possibly destroyed robot while trying to run away from anything BnL-related. The robot had survived the fall, but it malfunctioned, and began attacking the passengers with it’s massage hands…

Roger was senseless in anything that had to do with BnL, the only reassurance he could get out of all this was that at least the passenger’s could return to their posts, their low wage jobs, their filthy lives, back on Earth. The puppies now, to Roger, have not merely opened their eyes with the solution of outer space travel, but now have closed them even tighter, making various folds over the closed pupil’s, deforming the young pup back into the embryonic stage of maturity. The Pup’s didn’t even need to feed on the physical outside of the Mother’s milk anymore, they found plentiful resources inside the womb of the mother, the life giving nutrients, handing them out to them day by day, night by night, hour by hour, moment by moment, the womb, attempting to make the last abrupt adult dog, Roger, crawl back into the womb which is now the citizen’s life, feeding off like a malnourished parasite, picking the chicken, the bone, all the cartilage off the nutrients, feeding off, in the womb, in the ship.

I have to get out of here, before they get me, Roger warned himself.

Chapter 7: They’re not telling us something…

Roger didn't know he was heading his way over to the captain's deck, totally unaware of his travels. He sought It as a way out from all the crewmembers, the BnL corporation, everything. Yet he didn't know he was heading his way over there, he wanted to have a very, very hard word with the Captain about this issue, this devolving aspect of the true human superiority. What Roger didn't know was that the Captain was 'privately escorted' out of the captain's deck by the Autopilot, so as Roger was unknowingly being escorted into the Captain's deck with no captain present, he was about to get a rude surprise.

He had entered, but he heard commotion from inside. He had just realized at this moment that this was the captain’s office, so he found his ultimate opportunity to talk personally to him. But hearing the commotion, he didn’t want to interrupt any interrogations going on inside, so he had quietly entered, and to his surprise, he saw the Autopilot, watching to what seemed like a message from Shelby Forthright, and also, he saw something that he thought was gone long, long ago.

The tape, he found the Hello, Dolly! Tape, sitting on top of a desk.

But he maintained his position, and listened on to what the Autopilot was watching. Roger still assumed that the Captain was present for this, as well being present of what the Autopilot was watching, so he waited until he would have his just words with the captain.

" Uh, got some bad news. Operation Cleanup has uh, well… failed! Wouldn’t you know, rising toxicity levels have made life unsustainable on Earth. Darn it all, we’re going to have to cancel Operation Recolonize. So just, uh… just stay the course. Rather than try to fix this problem, it’ll just be easier if everyone remains in space."

“Easier?” Roger thought to himself, still dumbfounded by this message. He heard some urgency from the officers in the video, while he could see Shelby, dressing himself in a full life suit.

“Alright…uh…uh…I’m giving override directive: “A113”. Got to full Autopilot. Take control of everything! And do not return to Earth! Repeat, do not return to Earth! OK, let’s get the heck out of here.”

The message blanked out, and so did Roger. His feelings sank even deeper about BnL, his intentions to return to Earth were futile, his sense of support from anyone diminished. He was already tired of staying around here in the Axiom, and now, just passing by to hear those news, he didn’t want to believe it in himself that Earth wasn’t sustainable anymore, but, thinking to himself, if Earth was deemed unsustainable, they probably turned off the Wall-E’s!

He was disgraced at this theory. The Wall-E that he had programmed, with his very own tape, the only opportunity of having a life, was shut down, several billion life years away from him. He sadly but cunningly walked out from the deck, still in belief that the Captain had some notice of this bad news. He just couldn’t sit and let BnL do this to his Earth, he couldn’t just let these people continue to live a life of dependence and ignorance, and he had to find some way to make life sustainable again. The only way that seemed possible to him, was to reboot one of the Wall-E’s, most importantly, his own. But he didn’t know how, or he couldn’t think up of the plan so quickly. There were many witnesses around the Axiom, but, seeing as they were too focused on their Holo-screens, Roger was his only witness.

Roger wasn’t going to let BnL push him around anymore, to sit in the chairs, relax at discomforting issues, eat involuntarily, at the expense of his health. He wasn’t going to let BnL isolate the real place the people could call home, despite the environmental scars that it had endured, he still kept onto the little hope he had that Earth could be sustainable again, but not short enough for him to realize the sustainability of life in his eyes.

Seeing that he was the only one who could make his move, as he was the enemy of the corporation, a single pawn, against ten million kings and queens, not sure which one to check or checkmate, uncertain of his next move, but determined, to play his role, in beating this one-sided chess game that Roger was about to get himself into, Roger was the only destiny left for the people who would never know that he was their destiny. Roger knew it may take so long for this destiny to happen, but, he wasn’t going to wait any longer to enforce it.

I’m going to make life sustainable, I’m going to get my tape back, and most importantly, I’m getting off this ship, Roger had persuaded in his mind.

Chapter 8: Ignorance

Roger had planned this for several days at a time, several moments while his family continued to ignore him accidentally, eating their meals. He remembered each interior of the ship, each piece of equipment he needed, each thing he needed. He needed something to defend himself while he was getting the equipment, something to keep him alive on Earth, the tape, something to work on the Wall-E when he had gotten there, if he had gotten there, and something to carry all this with him. He found an igloo box for sale at one of the various shops in the Axiom, buying it gracefully, the robots totally unaware of his plan. He decided to do this during the 'night'; he had noticed that the holographic display above still kept track of the night, as he thought so. He remembered a scarf that he brought with him for no reason, he didn't realize at first hand that the outfit he had would be his permanent and only piece of clothing. He fixed it in his box, hoping he could use it for the ride to Earth. Later, he had found a Fire-Axe that some of the robots had used for emergencies, secretly stealing it from them in the meantime. He had a Fire Axe in one hand, the igloo box in another, and remembered everything there was to remember in the ship. He studied on the escape pods down below the ship, something he could use to navigate his way directly to Earth. He could remember how to plot the coordinates and get it launching, studying by himself, quietly under the radar.

Roger had kept the Fire Axe concealed awkwardly, once again heading his way up the Captain’s quarters, ready for anything before him. He headed up, readying his Axe, but he wasn’t intending to kill anything, just to use the axe to give him some time to escape with it.

He headed inside quietly in the deck, fortunately with no one inside. He could see the tape in the distance, still in it’s original edition, still dusty with the Earth of the Earth.

He grabbed it prominently, stored it inside his igloo box, and began to head out, but he was interrupted by the Captain, who had just noticed him stroll by, and vice versa.

“What are you doing?” The Captain asked tiredly, awaking from something unknown.

Roger became frustrated, and clenched the Axe with a hard grip, pointing the blade provocatively at him, threatening him with it. “Keep Away!” Roger distanced the Captain away with the Axe. The Captain suddenly woke up with that hostile morality from Roger, and backed many paces away from Roger’s distance with the Axe. The autopilot had heard the commotion above, and had stirred in as well. “I don’t want any trouble, I just want my tape back.” Roger pleaded, Axe clenched deep in his hand. The Autopilot insisted him, with a dull Monotone. “Sir, I suggest you put the Axe down, and give back that tape.” nearing closer to Roger.

Roger swung wildly at the Autopilot with his one free hand, trying to keep his distance from both the Autopilot and the Captain. He managed barely to miss Auto, it’s stem-like position was less than fortunate for it not to get an Axe 3 inches deep in it’s hardware.

He neared closer to the garbage chute, the only means of escape. “It’s Mine!” Roger yelled out, the two closing in on him.

“What’s your problem, mister?” The Captain asked, still uncertain of Roger’s actions. Yet, the Autopilot seemed awfully suspicious and almost certain of what Roger was about to do…

“I’m tired of living this life that BnL has given to the people! I’m tired of being so depended on just one corporation, and I’m tired of just being here at all!” Roger admitted, still flailing around with the Axe, now only a couple footsteps away from the chute. “You can go right ahead and stay here, but I’m Leaving, NOW!”

The Captain was confused, but the Autopilot was sure of his instincts, hoping that the Captain wouldn’t catch on. Roger had jumped into the chute, unsure of where he was heading, screaming as he fell.

It was dark, considering his falling velocity in a near pitch black tunnel, but he found a small light below, another garbage chute, farther down from the quarters. He had to stop down somehow, so he used the Axe as a mantle to keep him upright, the sudden jerk almost dislocating his arm. He used the momentum in his body to jump start him out of the chute, collapsing with the momentum and finding himself in the Lido Deck, as they had called it. He had lost his Axe, but he had his tape. Now he needed two more things: A tool for Wall-E, and some oxygen. He had to be careful, the captain and Auto were bound to send the same rectangular human-sized robots, or Stewards as the name implies to the people, against his will, and he heard from across the deck, “Caution: Rogue Citizen”, as he trudged his way along. Suddenly, as Roger began juggling his way around the Axiom, the whole deck turned into a intensified Orange and Red, sirens spewing across the Deck. Roger continued to run around, finding all the meaningful shortcuts and exits away from the Stewards, using the Hover Chairs and his scarf to disguise himself as one of the innocent passengers. The Stewards passed right by him, while he could see his menacing face in their display, with the Axe in hand, determination in his face. He went down in the medical office, found a gas mask with a canister, broke in with his igloo box, and had careened off more alarms around the room. He got out of there, quick, steering his way down lower into the ship, finding a Defibrilator and a Light Torch, bringing it with him in his igloo box as well. He had all the necessary items to escape, heading his way to the nearest escape pod. Once he reached there, all the commotion of ‘Rogue Citizens’ and Stewards were wiped out of his mind, the dark pod silent and safe. He threw the igloo box in the cabin, and had readied the coordinates to Earth. His determination was so strong, he had forgotten that he even had a family. But, he didn’t, not anymore to him, they would forget about him soon enough, once he jettisoned out to the known Universe, back into Earth.

He was almost done with the coordinates and had almost pressed the launch button, when, one single steward had halted behind him. He turned, frustratingly motionless, awaiting it’s next move.

It appeared to talk him, and strangely, the LED display showed Auto. “So, you know, don’t you?”

“Yes, I’m very well aware of that.” Roger sneered towards it, trying to get his hand to inch the launch button, without the Auto’s realization of this.

Auto continued to persuade and even intimidate him. “You cannot go back, you’ll die if you do.”

“I don’t care,” Roger utterly replied. “I’d be more alive than I ever was if I was dead.”

Auto continued to insist Roger with what little enthusiasm he had in his voice. “What do you plan to do in disregarding my directive?”

Roger was getting increasingly anxious in trying to worm his hand towards the launch button, much to the robot’s inattention. “I don’t know! I just know, whatever I’m doing, that some day, it will get us back to Earth, whether it be unsustainable or not! Even if it takes me 700 years to do it, I won’t hold back on that opportunity!”

“Please,” apathetically insisted the Autopilot. “You can survive on the Axiom.”

Roger had finally gotten his hands to feel the launch button, but before he said his goodbyes to Auto, the Axiom, this universe, he told him,

“I don’t Want to Survive, I Want to Live!” Roger yelled at him, and he jammed his hand into the launch, sending him flying away, farther and farther from the Axiom.

He fell all over the place from the incredible speed of the cabin, but it slowly calmed down, and then, suddenly, the cabin stopped so instantaneously that it sent Roger flying around again. He had absolute control of the ship, once he regained his coordination. “You are Free to move around the cabin.” the voice called around the cabin, to no one in peculiar. Roger rested for the long cruise, checking the equipments he had with him. He gracefully cradled the Hello, Dolly! Cassette, resting on the long, comfortable bench, the only thing that could be his only friend, acquaintance, love.

It only takes a moment, Roger whispered to himself, as the ship headed it’s days long trip to Earth.

Chapter 9: One Last Hope

Roger awoke suddenly, his stomach bothered him with hunger, his mind once again at his desire to sustain Earth, one way or another. He looked up to the view of the universe, the stars so perfect in the black sky, the planets he could remember before stirred around his flight. He remembered, [i]That one's Jupiter, and that's mars, and there's the asteroid belt, and there's...[/i]

Roger stopped when he noticed his old home, just slowly arriving toward him, covered in a mighty stream of Satellites. It’s Earth! He thought cheerfully in his mind, excitedly gathering his supplies, gazing at the desolate terrain and water, all wrapped around in the Earth.

Roger braced himself, seeing as how fast the cabin was going, heading directly to Earth, hopefully, in his direction.

He was hoping that the Cabin would bring him back to his town, but, this thing could go anywhere. He braced himself with the satellite collision, but it went briskly, the satellites calmly sliding off, as the cabin darted down into the atmosphere. He could see the flaming velocity, the heat building up around the probe as it went farther and farther down to Earth. Roger didn’t have much to cling onto, so he took the bench and hoped for dear life it would save him from the collision. He also attached the gas mask onto his face, just so he could be braced for the ‘toxic atmosphere’ of the Earth.

Everything happened in a flash, as the cabin crash went through some garbage skyscrapers, falling down into a petrified river, completely dry from the toxic humidity. Roger was dazed and confused, trying to get himself up from the confusing clutter in his mind, realizing that the pod had dumped down in a steep angle, the escape hold high up. He jumped pointlessly on the hold, pulling it out while the back end of it exploded out from it, letting in the Carbon Dioxide that had waited for him for the past 5 whole years.

The sun was burning his eyes, and so was the mighty dust storms ahead. He jumped out, carefully placing the scarf over his eyes while he checked his oxygen levels. Full, it read, and with the igloo box close with him, he headed off into what he believed was a city. The heat of the sun and the toxicity rising here, his head was sweating unbearably from the scarf’s intense heat. He continued to trudge on, however, noticing all the abandoned Wall-E’s, some in the middle of compacting, others about to place cubes of trash geometrically in order, the trucks that once held them stopped in their very places, one such was hanging off of a Overpass, the very decaying toxic levels destroyed the pass coming off of the cliff, or, in reality, the plateau for what was a giant ocean body.

Roger was already hungry from the long trip, it was exhausting for him to walk any further in this heat, his eyes tearing up from the insatiable burn of the sun’s rays. But, that was the least of his problems. He was most concerned with the Oxygen tank running dry of Oxygen, and if that happened, the Carbon Dioxide could finally kill him, like it always wanted to. He had finally entered his city, or a city, trying to reminisce what his town had looked, after a solid 5 years of international human neglect. He could remember the same streets, the cars, the stores, and especially, the cradle that had once held the Axiom, that should have come back at this very moment. Roger realized, while recognizing this was his town, I’m the first human who came back to Earth, on time, ever.

Roger realized that his home was several miles away, but what had frightened him even more was that his Oxygen levels were falling, fast. The Fuel Tank was now at Low, and he had to hurry up fast, not to use too much oxygen that he didn’t need, and find a quicker route to his home. He realized he had a slightly better advantage over the rest of the people, if they had attempted into what he was about to do, they couldn’t be turned away from their food and holo-screens and would have easily failed this mission, while Roger was slim and healthy, and he had already encountered plenty of Carbon Dioxide emissions before he had left, so he would have a little bit more life in him to do what he wanted to do.

He had walked faster, trying to hold his breaths in to relieve Oxygen, trying his best to sometimes breath into his scarf to reserve his Fuel tank. He got closer, he could once again see his house from the distance, the same one he had looked back at 5 years ago, uncertain of what consequences this planet would go through. He didn’t keep his eyes off it, attempting to search for the same Wall-E that cleaned his garbage for him beforehand, trudging farther into this dangerous atmosphere. He finally reached the house, finding the Wall-E in the middle of placing a cube, which was toppled on top of his head. He pushed it off, and had desperately pulled the 700 pound Wall-E into his house, hoping that the electricity would work. He turned on his TV, but nothing came on. He used the Defibrilator and had shocked the TV to life, frantically placing the cassette in the TV one, last time. He got that far when he realized his tank was finally empty, now slowly choking his breath out from the poisonous gases around the world. He coughed, trying to record the defunct Wall-E while the video played. He once again used the defibrilator to shock it back to life, and used the light torch as a source of solar energy to the Wall-E. Roger was getting weaker, dying a slow and gaseous death of suffocation, trying to fight off the Carbon Dioxide into a duel of longevity, hoping there would be just a few more inches of Oxygen left in him to even move a finger of effort, just to finally make his way towards reincarnating the once livable Wall-E.

He was hoping that the Wall-E would turn on just in time for him to record the ‘Put on Your Sunday Clothes’ song, just one more time. The Wall-E had turned on, but began automatically moving away from Roger, attempting to do it’s very directive, once again. Roger had just barely stopped it with his last strength, pulling it back towards him as he painfully pressed the Record button just as the song had begun.

This was so proud and painful for Roger to accomplish, getting the Wall-E to recess the noise around it, that he had fallen down immediately, after pressing the record button, unable to get up, unable to get up, walk out, and live the Earth.

The Wall-E had blankly looked at the video, listened to it with it’s record button, while Roger had crawled down, removed the cassette, and, as a token of gratitude to his success, had successfully placed the tape in between the Wall-E’s shovel-like hands, falling down once again, coughing slowly, closing his eyes slowly. His body was nearly crowded with the Carbon Dioxide, taking in it’s victim, controlling it like a puppet, to it’s very will, it’s very destruction. Roger grinned slowly, proud of his accomplishment, despite the suffering he had to go through, to get this far, to go so long into being the only human being of his time, to take in the world around him, to act out among others in a unorthodox, unconventional way, to speak among the speechless, help among the helpless, die among the living, to be, unique.

Hopefully, he thought lastly, The Wall-E will be…unique.

“It…only…takes a…moment…” Roger whispered with his last breaths, on the hard floor of his house, finally resting, forever.

With his death, he could finally…live.

Chapter 10: Let him Work his Life

The Wall-E had continued to stare at the empty TV, still obtaining the cassette that the now dead Roger had given him. The way the Wall-E saw it at first was just part of his directive, almost about to destroy it, but, before it did, the Wall-E had looked gracefully at it, studying it's small rectangular shape, the weird film roll inside, the way it somehow got to him.

The Wall-E…felt curiosity.

The Wall-E wondered about why this had got to him, the strange intricate design of the cassette, how it played to him. The Wall-E remembered how the human, Roger, had pushed the record button, and now, it looked curiously at the buttons below it. He pressed the big green arrow, that had, before his very eyes, audited the sound that the cassette had to offer, through him. He liked it, the Wall-E did, but, although he did, he wasn’t quite sure how it was possible for him to convey his like for such a small thing as upbeat music. He wondered, if anything else, other than this cassette, could intrigue him.

Soon, the curiosity exploded. The Wall-E had played the song that Roger had recorded for him again, discarded the items in the igloo box, and taken the igloo box for himself. Soon enough, it moved outside, song playing, cassette in hand, grabbing just about anything that seemed…curious, to him. Garbage wasn’t it’s directive to him anymore at that moment, it was curiosity that was his directive. After jam-packing the igloo with anything it could find, the Wall-E had needed of something to put all this before him, so he could continue to collect the things worth saving and compact anything not worth saving. He found the very same truck, that Roger had seen before him, laid just on the broken overpass, on the hill, where the Wall-E had remembered to open it, and, instead of using the racks for the deployment of these Wall-E’s, this Wall-E had the very intention to use it as storage for all the knick knack’s he would collect…

In the next 700 years.

So, Roger was forgotten about from all of the people on the Axiom, even from the Autopilot and his family, but, Roger’s legacy would go down into the Wall-E that he kept his hopes on, who had first gave him the sentience that Roger wanted everyone else to see, through one simple cassette. Throughout the 700 years, the Wall-E had continued to develop it’s curiosity and sentience, compact all the garbage without the need of the incinerators, make it’s simple, humble life, until a fateful moment with an EVE probe, which, with the help of one person’s care of the environment and the open mind 700 years ago, would bring everybody back into Earth, in the year, 2805.

After being made into what it was built, the Wall-E finally realized what it was meant for, through the mind of Roger Simmons.

Anyone finished reading it yet?

I’m halfway thru it. Didn’t know about this till you mentioned it in one of the Wall-E subforum threads. Won’t comment on it until done…

I’ve been wanting to post a review of this story…very amazing.

Your explanation of how WALL•E became the only robot on Earth working was really touching and emotional. I love how you describe all of the events that set the stage for WALL•E. The garbage problem, the introduction of the WALL•E droids, the Axiom solution, A113, and even how WALL•E ended up with Hello, Dolly! in the first place. It’s a wonderful explanation of how our favorite garbage-bot came to be.

One thing that really got me was the fact that in one part, you even wrote about Buy N Large practically being a religion for the people…like, oh my Buy n Large! The description of it was so powerful!

Overall, great story. I really enjoyed it!

BTW, do you have it uploaded on your deviant art account?

In answer to your question, yes, i so definitely do!

Also, did you also notice how i threw in some of the context from the movie into this story? Like the Newspaper, and the Wall-E commercial, and the “Everything you need to be happy” announcement?

Yes! I did notice all of those!

I’m really glad you enjoyed it! I hope Dark hand of Sigourney likes it, as well as anyone who passes by this story!

Ok, after the leave, i have decided to make a sequel to the prequel (if anyone is still reading this), called, simply enough, “During the Axiom”. It’s my further investigation on Wall-E’s personality, most notably his more selfless and diligent acts and of his friend Hal and collections and non-verbal speech. I’ll start submitting these up to the Before the Axiom thread once i got them up on my deviantart.

PS: I will also update the chapters to my DeviantArt update, since there is some few errors and other mentions i haven’t noted on the chapters, so i’ll get to work on that too!