My name is Charlie, and I might as well be a dog. That's about the value of my life right now. I've lived in Lynxville my whole life, and I'm frankly tired of living. There's practically no reason for living here. 

I have a job that earns me some money, but my rent takes up about 2/3 of what I earn. The other third is divided between food, phone bill, government-mandated insurance, and an occasional trip to the bowling alley. 

And I'm one of the lucky ones, just scratching out a living. Even though my rent is so expensive, it's literally the cheapest place I can find, aside from being homeless. And my job requires that I have a phone, though they don't pay anything towards the cost. 

Maybe I should move out to the country. I'd be dead in ten years from the radiation, or so they claim, but at least I wouldn't be paying so much for such a paltry lifestyle. 

The richer ones in this city live in relative luxury; at least, they're not scraping through trash all day just to pay their bills. They hire uneducated scrubs like me to do that for them. 

As I'm thinking about this, I'm driving my garbage truck. Everything gets recycled in this city; even the waste. My garbage truck mostly consists of remanufactured parts. Thankfully, though, it's the one part of my life that's stable. 

My route every day goes around the outer edge of this bubble city. That's how I know that life exists outside of it; I see people working in the fields, supplying our food. Lucky sods. They know that their time is limited, but they have what I don't; freedom. Lynxville pays for their housing and other expenses; a sort of crooked way to say "Thank you for dying for us."

There's an unusual part about my shift; I take my company truck home with me. Since my route goes around the city, and since I live basically straight across the city from the recycling center, they have me pick up in the morning as I go around, then deliver to the center, then pick up again in the evening on my way home. I then stay home with the half-loaded truck, and repeat the cycle the next day.

I'm at my last pickup for today. I stand outside as the truck's automated system grabs the dumpster and scans it for heat signatures to make sure there's nothing alive in there. Finding nothing, the truck then lifts the dumpster and tilts it into the truck box. I hear the usual sounds of rubbish going into the truck. Lots of plops, swishes, and a few occasional plunks from household garbage and small appliances. 

But then, there's a loud THUD! Something unusual has been thrown out today. I stop the automated process, and I pull the hydraulic lever to manually lower the dumpster back to the ground. Then I pull the second lever to open all the guards and flaps. And finally I pull the third lever to apply the locking safety pins. 

I then walk around the back of the truck to see what someone tried to sneak past us. People occasionally try to throw away refrigerators, kitchen stoves, bottled gas tanks, old tires, etc., because the city charges extra money to recycle those items. People think they can get rid of those things for free if they're sneaky. But they're almost always caught because Lynxville has advanced facial recognition cameras everywhere. 

It just makes my job harder because I have to report what I find. Though, an odd perk of this job is "dibs." If I find something I want to keep in the garbage, I just fill out a short form with a basic description, and I get to keep it. It saves the city from having to track down who put the stuff in the dumpster. I've actually gotten a decent kitchen stove and a bigger than average refrigerator this way. 

So, I look into the back of the truck, expecting to see a refrigerator or somet-AND HOLY PRETZELS; IT'S AN ANDROID! What the hay!? Who throws out an android!? They're worth at least six months of my current paycheck, even in nonfunctional condition!

I reach in and grab the thing...or at least I tried. Even though at full height it's only five feet, eight inches tall, the crazy thing must weigh three hundred pounds!

I take a deep breath and brace my muscles; this isn't going to be easy, but I've picked up things just as heavy. More cumbersome, too. Okay, here we go!

I strain, and I manage to start pulling the Android out of the truck. Then I stop, because I notice it's going to get scraped up if I keep doing this. I quickly run and grab some old clothes I keep in the cab, and I wrap the android in them. As I'm wrapping, I notice its face. It's actually very cute. Unusual, considering how most androids are built with zero facial features whatsoever; just a flat computer screen that emulates some basic expressions. But this particular android was built with a silicon face. 

After swaddling the android, I heave and pull it out of the truck. Whew! I need to work out more. I then manage to sit the android on the back of the truck, and I position it so that its chest drapes over my right shoulder. It's rather comfortably squishy in the right places, I notice. Then I carry it up to the cab. I don't know who designed my truck, but I say a prayer of thanks to whichever saint decided to give it so many grab handles and good steps on the passenger side. 

After the...experience...of getting the android in my passenger seat and buckled in, I return to the back of my truck. I then notice that, somehow, there's a charging cord lying on the ground. Strange; how did I miss seeing this before? I stuff it in my coat pocket and finish emptying the dumpster, watching carefully as I do so. 

After the dumpster is fully emptied and the load compacted, I walk back to the cab. I climb in my driver's seat and decide to plug the android in, just to see what happens. It's only a five minute drive to my apartment, but I might as well see if this thing will accept a charge. I plug the charger into my truck, and then I look for the charge port on the android. Ah, there it is, behind her left ear. 

Unexpectedly, merely five seconds after I plug in the power connector, the android starts humming to life. I don't mean the usual "I'm charging" notification; I mean actually moving!

It looks at its surroundings, then looks at me, and then smiles! Okay; something's DEFINITELY going on here! As soon as I get home, I'm calling the police. There's no way this thing doesn't have any owner!

(Part 2 will come tomorrow, if I remember.)