Robert was already feeling like every liquid in his body was about to boil, so when his crawler stalled from overheating just 50 metres away from the nearest source of shade, he jumped out of his seat, screaming, and went on to kick the side of the offending personal vehicle. This affected the crawler in no way and only led to Robert hurting his toe on the right foot.

So what if it was his own decision to head out towards the landfill in the middle of the day, in summer, when even school and orbital train facilities had to be shut down for several weeks. He would’ve come yesterday, when it was windy and therefore cooler, but Gatien, that elitist piece of shit, bailed on him at the last moment with a made-up pretence. There’ve been signs over the last months, ever since Gatien’s dad got promoted at his already pretty good job in the Southern mine’s Operation Centre, and suddenly their family had money for new clothes, better gadgets, and different classes outside the engineering workshop run by the college students who needed to accumulate teaching hours. It also meant Gatien no longer cared for scavenging for useful scrap and preferred to assemble his projects from pre-manufactured kits or second-hand details bought on the market. They didn’t work together on the last two assignments, and yesterday just sealed the deal definitively. 

Despite his drowning anger at Gatien, rich kids, and the world in general, Robert didn’t leave home alone. As he screamed and cussed, making circles around the crawler, the tarp of its cargo compartment moved, and a head peeked out.

Nikolai didn’t handle Port’s summers well, as they found out last year. Unlike the majority of the locals, he didn’t tan in the sun and instead immediately burned, and even in the shade he didn’t react well to the ambient heat. Yet, when Robert mentioned going to the landfill in the morning and needing a second pair of hands, Nikolai immediately volunteered. In the relative coolness of the cargo compartment and under the heat-dispersive tarp, he had slept through the hour it took to get here on the old family crawler, assembled from several old carcasses with an engine from a transportable water pump, until he got woken up by Robert’s outburst.

Another thing Nikolai didn’t handle well was people being angry. Despite being already 13, the guy had a very childish face, and now it was scrunched in a guilty, ready-to-cry expression.

“W-what happened?” he asked in a small voice, his lower lip developing a tremble.

Robert stopped and closed his eyes, taking a deep breath. He hated not being able to just get this all out right now, but he couldn’t risk dealing with tears on top of his already gut-ripping frustration.

“Get out,” he tried to say as calmly as possible. “We need to pull the crawler into the shade so it cools down by the time we head back home.”

Nikolai disappeared under the tarp again, before sliding out of the back of the compartment a moment later. He put on his wide-rimmed recycled fibre hat and rolled down the sleeves of his light tunic. Robert pulled out a skein of cable and attached its ends to the bars on the front of the crawler; they were scorching hot, and he could’ve burned his fingers if they weren’t already calloused from all the electrical burns he was stupid enough to expose himself to. Harnessed into the loop of the cable, together they towed the crawler into the shade of the nearest cistern. Robert wasn’t sure if Nikolai was any help, but at least he wasn’t adding his weight to the heavy vehicle.

The space between old rusting cisterns was never exposed to the sun, so it was pretty cool here; if not for the stench of goo, leaking from under the cisterns, it would be the best place on this side of the planet. Robert didn’t know and didn’t care about what exactly was stored in them, but as long as he could remember coming to the landfill, they’ve been standing here, old and untouched. Nikolai took several moments to steady his breathing, then rummaged inside the cargo compartment and pulled out the signal detector. He held it in both hands and went over to stand by Robert’s side, awaiting orders.

“Dude, relax,” Rob snorted. Compared to what he’s been like when they first met, Nikolai went a long way in acting like a normal person. But occasionally, his weirdness came to the surface again.

“I want to be helpful. I’ve never been here as a helper.”

“Yeah, you don’t need to be one.” Robert pulled his t-shirt off, put on a pair of sturdy gloves, and picked up some instruments from the side of the crawler. “But if I call, you’ll help me carry stuff, okay?”

Nikolai frowned, as if confused. His tendency not to meet anyone’s eyes meant he was now staring at the side of Robert’s bare torso. “What if I want to be a helper?”

“Well… Then you’ll have to be careful and only climb where I am climbing, okay? If we cause a landslide, there is a risk of getting buried under the trash.”

“I’ll be extra careful.” Nikolai looked excited as he responded. Following Robert’s example, he also found a pair of oversized gloves and put them on. Now, he looked like a farmer from historical media.

Without saying anything else, Rob headed in between cistern 2 and 3 and into the sun. Here, they could finally see the slope of a massive human-made crater and the endless hills of trash at the bottom of it. They didn’t head down right away; instead, Robert followed the edge of the crater towards the main entrance to the landfill. There was a platform for a railrunner, which brought unsorted trash from Port, the surrounding settlements, and mines for storage. It was stuff that either couldn’t be recycled, or that someone didn’t bother to prepare for recycling. Rich people trash. Poor people’s treasure.

Over the years, Robert scavenged all the useful stuff from the piles near the cisterns; now, he had to delve deeper into the landfill territory, closer to new (and stinky) trash. Not too close as to encounter workers and active machinery, of course; that would get him in trouble. And he didn’t want to end up like Ehud.

He stopped near the distinctive ledge – far enough – and looked back. Nikolai got tired of holding the signal detector correctly and was hugging it to his chest instead. Robert snorted.

“Only follow my steps, remember?” He said, even though it was unnecessary. When Nikolai agreed to follow a rule, he would follow it as if his life depended on it.

“Yes!” And to indicate it, he stared intently at Robert’s feet.

“Let’s go.” Rob chuckled and started making his way down the slope of the crater. His feet sunk up to the ankles into the sandy ground, but he had the legs of his trousers tucked properly into the boots so as not to let any pebbles reach his skin. Nikolai, who wore sandals, let out a gasp but stayed quiet the rest of the way.

They took a moment to rest in the shade between two piles of trash, now towering above their heads, taller than the Hoffmans house. Nikolai was already tired, his face red, his tunic sticking to his back from sweat. Despite it, he finally held up the signal detector properly and turned it on. While he sorted through signal filters, Robert picked up several shards of machinery plastic from the bottom of the closest pile to use as climbing anchors. He walked along the curve of the pile, looking up its slope and trying to spot anything interesting worth climbing to.

Then the signal detector emitted a deafening shriek, making him jump. He turned around, wide-eyed, and stared at Nikolai, who held the detector at arms length, wincing. 

“Holy fuck, dude, what the shit?!”

There was a moment where Nikolai clearly fought an urge to say ‘You shouldn’t curse’ but he lowered the volume and leaned in closer to read the data on the interface.

“There’s something nearby.” He offered, helpfully.

“No shit, I could hear that.” Robert rubbed his face and turned to continue his walk.

But Nikolai gasped and turned around, pointing the sensor in the opposite direction, which made it beep with a higher frequency. “In this pile.” Hands outstretched, Nikolai held the sensor above his head and pointed north-east. “An active ping.”

This gave Robert a pause. Reluctantly, he walked over to Nikolai and peeked at the interface screen from over his shoulder. “Like, from an actual working processor?”

“Yes!” Nikolai turned around to grin at him. “Could be an automated house system. Or a retired digger from the mine?” His eyes went wide in excitement. “What if it’s an actual spaceship?!”

“Yeah, I wouldn’t hold my breath about the latter.” Rob snorted. But he eyed the side of the trash pile. He wouldn’t have picked this one on his own; it still stank with rotting organics, so it must have come from the city, and at the bottom there was a fraction of entangled cables which could shift when he tried to climb up. But a working processor was too enticing a possibility to ignore it. 

“Do you think it’s on the very top?” Nikolai asked in a whisper, as if sensing Robert’s growing excitement.

“Nah, I doubt it. If we are lucky, it’s somewhere close to the slope. I’ll have to check it out.”

“Do I also need to find some plastic to hold on to?”

“No. You are staying here. And to the side, just in case I cause a trash slide.”

Nikolai didn’t look happy about this but did not object. Obediently, he handed in the sensor and walked to the side, closer to the edge of the landfill where it would be easier to escape in case of an avalanche caused by a chain reaction. Robert tied the sensor over the shoulder like a backpack, checked his gloves and boots, and finally started his climb.

He got over the tangles of cables without his feet getting caught on anything but then the slope got steeper. Trash here consisted mostly of human-sized splinters of old plastic, occasionally looking like pillars, roofing, and insulation. This must have come from a disassembled building; maybe, it was a planned removal, maybe, it crumbled in an accident; it didn’t matter now (and the stench of organics didn’t come from human remains; Robert didn’t know how that would smell but he convinced himself it wouldn’t be like this). The frequency of beeping steadily increased, until he climbed high enough to get out of the shadow of the neighbouring pile. He immediately stopped: the processor was now below his position.

Fuck, perhaps, it was in the middle of the pile after all. No way he could dig deep into it, but maybe if it was close to the surface… Robert carefully moved down, to the altitude where the beeping was the fastest and carefully skidded around the circumference of the pile, trying to see if it changed the frequency. Moving to the right helped. He felt like his heart beat accelerated at the same rate as did the beeping.

And then he saw it. 

At the point where a layer of construction debris ended and a fraction of disposed cooling generators started, something white was peeking through. Robert trailed his hand over the rounded surface that ended in a broken edge, then back and into the pile, where he found a very similar broken edge on the other side. If there was a way to get inside this shell, it was hidden under the trash. But even with only a small part of it visible, Robert recognised what it was.

“Holy shit, Kolya, you’re not gonna believe it!” He couldn’t help but laugh.

“Is it a spaceship?!” Nikolai hurried back towards the pile, the excitement making him forget about the previous promise.

“No, but it’s not that different. I’m looking at a personal plane.”

A tiny whimper echoed through the air between the trash piles. Robert looked down to see Nikolai nervously rocking from one foot to another, a strong tremble shaking his body. It looked like he was being hit with powerful electrical current, only it wasn’t caused by electricity but by the intensity of his excitement. “Can I see it?! Can I get up there?” Trembling turned into proper shaking, and he even noticed it and tried to hug himself still. “Please, I really want to see it.”

“Shoosh, calm down.” Robert frowned and watched him for a moment just to make sure the guy wouldn’t try to climb without direct permission. “Breathe, okay? No climbing up to me, BUT-” he had to raise his voice to stop Nikolai from shouting in protest, “-I am bringing it down. Just give me some time to figure out how to do it safely. Okay?”

Nikolai squeezed his eyes shut and pressed his elbows tightly to the sides of his body. One breath, two, and the shaking subsided. “Okay,” he finally replied in a hoarse voice.

“Now, go back to where you’ve been before. I will be pushing debris down and wouldn’t want you to get caught under it.”

Later, he wondered why he thought about Nikolai’s safety but didn’t consider his own. Probably, because he couldn’t imagine his mom screaming at him if he broke his own neck the way he could if the same happened to Nikolai.

First, Robert tried to pull some of the generators from above the plane; he hoped to create a little landslide until the aircraft was on top. He made some progress, but then realised how long it would take at this pace and decided he wanted to finish before he graduated from school. So instead, he loosened the plastic splinters under the white shell. They were surprisingly easy to pull out. Encouraged, Rob pushed the nose of the plane down, seeing if there was a chance of dislodging it this way.

The trash rumbled. Robert froze and looked up. The thing about ‘fresh’ piles – they were yet to settle through seasons and weather. And the minimal change he just brought was enough to shift the whole thing. Above all the capsule-like generators, something much larger tilted and started slowly sliding down the slope. 

Instead of running for his life, Robert started pulling on the side of the plane even harder. The greatest thing about atmospheric vehicles was that they were very light. And with fear-boosted strength, he could feel how its shell shifted and moved forward. He found the opening of the cockpit and got a better grip to tug again and again, as hard as he could.

“R-rooobeeert?” Nikolai called out from somewhere below. For fuck’s sake, did he come back again?!

But there was no time. The large piece of debris roared above him and started gaining speed. At the same time, the trash under Robert’s feet gave way and sank, which dislodged the plane from its grave. Both of its wings were broken off, just as he discovered earlier, and he could see that it was missing the tail and any control surfaces, not like they would have been of any use. Still, Rob jumped into the cockpit, even if it lacked any seating, and hoped the vessel would work well enough as a sledge.

He couldn’t recollect what exactly happened next. The slide down was pure chaos; every bone in his body rattled with the rolling trash, the open cockpit filled with smaller shards of plastic and generators, and the giant piece of debris roared closer and closer. For a moment, it almost felt like it was going well. 

Then, the plane hit the cables.