Forest in the desert

The sun beat down on the scorched earth. The landscape was sparse, except for the occasional skeletal shrubs, scattered pieces of abandoned machinery, and bones. The faint but insistent beeping of his metal detector was maddening but was preferred to the anxiety inducing high pitched shrieks it made when it detected something. It could just be a piece of scrap from a long dead machine, or it could be a live bomb. He avoided all of them. He had lost track of how many days he had been patrolling the desert. It was becoming more difficult to tell what was real and what was mirage. He was beginning to think that each bush that he passed was in fact, a fallen soldier, baked alive by the relentless sun. Sometimes he thought that he saw them move, or that he heard their parched and raspy cries for help. Other times he thought he saw the half buried machines start to come alive again, he was afraid that they were going to pull themselves out of the sand and come after him. Despair was beginning to set in, a lot of the soldiers that were sent out into the desert didn’t come back. Even if he survived this he would be sent out on some other perilous mission. Scout soldiers were a dime a dozen. He kept telling himself that he was built for this. He had all the proper hardware and upgrades to prepare him for this mission. Standard scout soldiers are equipped with a bionic eye, a multi tool bionic arm, and genetic upgrades to be more resilient to extreme temperatures. His eye allowed him to see much farther than a default human, and could analyze parts of the environment. His eye also acted as a compass, so that he always knew what direction he was going in. His arm could function as a metal detector, a knife, and a screwdriver. His mission was to investigate an anomaly that had been detected by satellite. According to the coordinates he was given, his search was almost over.

It was morning when he found what he was looking for. The air and sand were still cool and the sun had just started to rise when he saw it. They towered over him. large deep brown objects with rough bodies, standing together like a battalion. Limbs reaching up to the sky with large clusters of green in defiance to the desolate landscape around it. It was a forest. He had only heard about them in stories, but he always had a hard time picturing them in his mind. He didn’t think that forests could even exist in a place like this. He thought that the only thing that this land could bring was death. But here it was, alive. He stood in awe for a moment, listening to the wind whisper through the leaves, and the faint songs of forest creatures. His curiosity overcame his fear of desecrating a sacred space. He stepped into the forest. Light trickled down through the canopy, gently touching his face, dancing across his skin. He wandered through the forest in a daze, still not really believing what he saw. Then he heard the sound of running water. Maybe this was just another cruel mirage and he was losing his mind. He found the stream just up ahead and with trembling hands, filled his bottle, and put a purifying capsule in it. He gulped it down eagerly, water streaming down his face. He had to force himself to stop and breathe. While he was refilling his bottle, he saw what looked like a piece of hull from a spacecraft. When he got closer he found a trail of debris leading him to a crashed spacecraft covered in thin wiry plants. Underneath the plants the ship was almost completely rusted out, but he could still make out a faded red white and blue flag and the words “Phoenix Dawn” . There was a large gaping hole on the side. Inside was a rusted docking station for a large machine, and several bags. Then, from the corner of his eye, a tree began to move. Or at least, he thought it was a tree at first. The dark, muddy colored appendage covered in moss had what looked like a shovel at the end of it. Rays‘s eyes followed the appendage up until he saw a rusted metal face.Ray looked into the robot's eyes and felt that it was looking back into his. They both sized the other up, trying to decide if the other was a threat. Ray couldn’t tell if the sound he heard from the robot was the groan of rusty joints or a territorial growl.

He recognized this model, it was a now obsolete Geo Shaper. The military used them often when claiming new territory. They were Robots built for terraforming, construction, and hauling heavy equipment. This model has interchangeable limbs for different tasks, and a massive build. Its head brushed the canopy, and its long arms were the same width as the trees around it. It had a long torso and short legs, so that it walked on all fours. That’s where the similarities ended though, this model had been altered. There were solar panels mounted to its back and a barometer and weather vane attached to its head, and it looked like most of its parts had been crudely repaired or replaced with pieces from other units. How long has it been here? The robot broke the stand still by reaching toward Ray. He cowered away but the robot ignored him, and reached behind him and grabbed a handful of small objects from one of the bags. The robot then turned and walked away. “Wait, come back!” “Where are you going?” Ray cried, following after the robot. They reached a clearing and the robot began systematically putting the small objects into the ground. They were seeds. “Did you plant all of these trees?”. The words had barely left his lips before a net shot out from behind the trees, entangling him and knocking him off balance. He couldn’t move, the material that the net was made out of was incredibly strong, and it seemed to constrict him. He looked up to find a crowd of people forming around him. The first thing that he noticed was that many of them were missing at least one limb. A few had prosthetics that looked like they were made out of machine scraps. The next thing he noticed was how many of them had eye patches, fake eyes, or just scars where their eyes should be, or big scars on the sides of their heads. “You’re deserters!” Ray said in disbelief. He didn’t think anyone who deserted actually survived.A wiry woman with piercing hazel eyes and a shaved head stepped forward and said “And you’re a threat. Tell us why we shouldn’t gut you and dump your body in the sand?” A few nods and agreements came from the crowd. A man with long unruly hair added “The military is probably already on its way because of him, we should get rid of him and get out of here before this place gets destroyed”. With a few more murmurs of agreement, a few pulled out knives and the crowd started advancing closer. “That’s enough” shouted an older man, stepping into the circle. The crowd stopped and fell silent. “You were like him once, have you forgotten already?”. The silence continued, as they looked at the parts of themselves that were missing. Remembering what was taken from them. Remembering what they took from others. They were ashamed. The hazel eyed woman looked up and said “Well, what are we going to do?” “We can't stay here, and we can't bring him with us, his tech makes him too easy to track and they are probably recording the data that his bionic eye is collecting.” “Besides, even if he removed his tech, how do we know that we can trust him?” The older man walked over to Ray, hoisted him over his shoulder, and carried him to the robot planting seeds in the clearing. “Well old friend, what do you think? Can we trust him?” He asked after placing Ray on the ground. The robot paused for a moment, staring into Ray's eyes.“I didn’t mean to! I… I didn't know!” Ray blurted out, tears welling up in his eye, “I didn't have a choice…… I've never had a choice”. The robot raised the sharp spade shaped tool at the end of its arm. Ray flinched as the Robot forcibly brought the spade down, grazing his mechanical arm and cutting the net that held him captive. The robot then reached down and pulled the net away, setting him free. “Well, You have a choice now” said the man with the unruly hair as he stepped forward. “It’s the choice we all had to make”. “You don't mean…?” ray said weakly, looking around at the missing appendages. “You can join us, or you can wait here for your friends to come get you. But if you come with us, their gear can't come with you.” 

Ray paused, considering the cost, then said “I can't go back”. He activated his arms screwdriver and jabbed it into his eye socket, prying out his bionic eye. He then ripped the screwdriver out and used it to unscrew the screws that kept his mechanical arm in place, then pulled the arm out of the socket. With one trembling hand and blood trickling down his face he said “I’m ready to go”. They could hear distant helicopters drawing near as they grabbed all the seeds that they could from the crashed vessel. As they were leaving, Ray looked back one last time and saw the robot waving goodbye. He felt the smooth outer shell of the acorn in his hand, imagining all of the forests that could grow from the handful of seeds in his pocket and said “We will bring life back to this wasteland”