Rusty Gears awoke as the sun began to peek through his window. He stretched out on his bed with a yawn before checking his clock. The little glowing numbers showed that it was close to 7 A.M.

The reddish brown unicorn lazily slid out of his bed. He tried to fix his brass colored mane with a hoof but to little avail. Clearly, that was a thing that would be easier with water, he decided.

As Rusty made his way to the bathroom, he listened to the sounds of his hooves on the cold, firm, dull metal flooring that was so common around in the little town where he lived. The bathroom door opened with a squeak.

The door remained open as he began his business. There was no need to close it, as he lived alone. He sometimes considered himself lucky for it. Some houses had an entire extended family crammed into it.

The reason he was alone, though, was not lucky. It's not because his family was rich enough to afford a new house. No pony around here was. It wasn't because he was one of the government officials in the town. He was just an average pony.

When he was a foal, his father was lost in a quake. His father had been a construction worker. He was one of the many that were trying to fix the building, which had been damaged by a terrorist attack. A quake struck without any of the normal warnings, and the building collapsed.

His mother was lost to an illness a few years ago. The doctors knew what was wrong with her, but the New Moon had been blocking requisitions for medical supplies at the time. They said that the town had already received its medical rations. The rations given out are barely enough as is, though, and the town was suffering from a wave of disease.

Shaking his head, Rusty pushed aside those memories. After fixing his mane with a comb and some water, he left the bathroom. He walked lazily through his bedroom and into the kitchen. It was in the same state as the rest of his house, which was in the same state as the rest of the town.

The centuries-old structures were mottled with spots where the metal has been eaten away or worn down by the activities of ponies over time. Most of the machines have long been reduced to relatively crude patchwork. Exposed wires, missing cases, welds in places they obviously weren't originally.

Most of his house looked slightly more worn down than others, though. There was rarely enough time to go around and fix every little thing. It didn't matter too much to him, so long as everything is kept running properly.

In his kitchen, the only current source of light was from the outside, shining through the two small slots near the roof. It wasn't enough to illuminate every corner of the room, but it was plenty for him to navigated to his fridge. It was full of any of his perishable rations, for obvious reasons. Rusty pulled the door open and smiled as he grabbed an unlabeled bottle with his hoof.

Alcohol has its benefits. Of all the illegal substances, it held the lowest penalty if you're caught with it in your possession. It was also his favorite.

He popped the bottle open and took a few sips of the liquid. The pleasant warmth landed in his stomach and slowly spread outward. Carrying his guilty pleasure, Rusty climbed the stairs to his little workshop.

The windows let in much more light than in his kitchen, despite the shutters being closed. This was due to the fact that the whole ground floor was one room, windows lining the wall that faced out into the street. Rusty set his bottle on the desk where he usually started his day. He flicked the switch, turning on the lights. The sudden brightness caused him to squint slightly as he made his way to his desk.

The screen on his personal console lit up as he jabbed at the keyboard. He clicked into the shipment log that he received yesterday and read through it. It was all normal things. Broken machines, probably pulled out of some scrap yard far away, separated into small shipments and sent to grinders all over the land.

That's what Rusty Gears was, a grinder. He had been since he was born. Most ponies would take on the jobs that their parents do. Usually, they would stay that for the rest of their lives.

His job was to sort out old machines, cut them into pieces, and then organize the pieces. The sorted components would be picked up, examined, and then taken away to be sold or recycled. He would receive a pay on the quantity, quality, and overall value of the parts.

Unfortunately, that meant his pay varied depending on what he got in the shipments. Sometimes, the scrap would mostly be too old for even a single piece to still work. He'd still get money for the recyclable material, but it was much less than what he got for working parts.

With a quiet sigh, Rusty got up from his chair and walked over to the unorganized pile of scrap. He did a quick survey of visible machines, taking note of the cheaper and more simple ones. Another sigh escaped his lips as he observed mostly scrap that will have to be sent off for recycling.

He pulled a smashed toaster out of the pile and brought it to a table. Rusty grabbed a toolbox and placed it on the table next to the toaster. He opened up the box, pulled out a screwdriver, and began his work.

Several hours had passed since Rusty had started his day. His bottle of rum was now hidden away in his fridge once more. A third of the pile of scrap now sat in many separated bits placed into labeled boxes.

Rusty grabbed what looked like the handlebars of a scooter and pulled on it. The rest of the scooter seemed to be buried in the scrap, but he didn't feel like digging it out. He pulled harder, causing the pile of junk to shift.

Suddenly, the scooter pulled free, sending half of the pile of scrap to fall, quite noisily, to the floor. Rusty winced, his ears ringing slightly. He looked up from the mess on the floor and spotted something unusual. A cylinder of blue protruding from the pile. It looked sort of like a hoof.

Rusty gave it a closer look and his eyes widened. It was a hoof! He quickly lifted most of the scrap up off the table, revealing the form of a blue pony.

His heart began to race. A pony! It appeared to be a pegasus mare with a blue coat and purple mane. She had been buried in scrap on his table for how long now? Four, maybe five hours? There was no way she could still be alive under all the weight of the jagged metal.

Just as Rusty thought he was going to throw up, he spotted something unusual. Where this "pony's" skin was torn, pristine looking metal and wiring was revealed. He got up close to examine it and let out a sigh of relief. It wasn't a pony, just a well made android.

Only one problem remained. The dead machine looked too new on the inside. The blue fur and rubber exterior were covered in dirt, rust, and even a little mold. Aside from some abnormal damage, the interior looked like it was made just yesterday.

He knew it wasn't. Nothing that arrived here was ever cleaned off or new. He had to do that himself. Aside from that, the exterior would also be clean, but it wasn't.

Rusty pushed all the scrap that was on the floor under the table. He picked up the android and moved it to the washing area. He rinsed the fur thoroughly, being slightly creeped out by the fact that it felt like real fur. It didn't help that where the skin still stayed on, it looked like a relatively normal mare. When he was done scrubbing, he started drying her off with a towel.

It quickly occurred to him that he was being needlessly gently. It was just a dead machine, not a real pony. He finished drying it off and set it down on a table, examining his work.

The fake fur had been remarkably easy to clean. Before he started, the android looked almost like a corpse dug out of the ground. Now the color showed much better. The blue fur looked almost pristine. As did the mane, but the mane was still a tangled mess.

He started checking the android for any sort of data ports. He figured that if the metal showing through the holes looked so fresh, maybe the circuits still worked. He checked all the normal spots, the base of the skull, between the shoulders, behind the ears, and even some androids have ports in the pits of their forelegs.

Rusty didn't see a single hole. He continued to search down the body until the get to where the hind legs attached. A blush crept onto his face as he slid his hoof between her legs. He sincerely hoped it wasn't there as a guilty feeling crept into him.

Much to his frustration, he felt an irregularity on the skin. He spread the legs apart to get a look and sure enough, the port was there. He silently wished he could assault the designer with a wrench as the grabbed a data cord.

His face heated up further as he plugged the cord in between her legs. He tried to shake the awkward feelings out of his head as he walked over to his console. Rusty furrowed his brow as he saw a strange window on the screen.

It bore a simple image. Two black letters, "NC," sat over a blue symbol on a white background. A small bit of text sat beneath the main image, simply reading, "Loading, " in little black letters that pulsed slightly.

The image was suddenly replaced by a little spinning circle that and a box that declared that the program was running a diagnostic test. He figured that this must be the control program for the android. What confused him is the fact that it was automatically downloaded. The only other time he worked with an android, he had to requisition a disc to download the interface program.

The screen changed once again. This time, it showed a bunch of boxes around a silhouette of a pony. Most of the status indicators were red except for one. The box labeled, "SCC," was shown as, "Resting." The thing that Rusty paid most attention to was the status of the power core. "Missing or damaged"

Without a power core, he couldn't awaken the android. He moved back to the android. To him, it almost looked like she was asleep.

He started searching for a way to remove the skin, but there didn't seem to be one. He grabbed a knife and began cutting at the skin where the computer claimed the power core was.

Rusty didn't even need to wonder if the core was damaged. Something had punched a hole straight into the chest of the android. He peeled the skin off of the machine and began unscrewing the damage panel covering the core.

He set the panel aside, keeping the screws in their respective holes so that he didn't lose them. He looked into the machine and frowned. The power core was there, alright, but he didn't quite recognize the design. As he pulled it out, he frowned even further.

The connection of it looked quite curious. There were two plugs with three pins in each one and an empty hole. Looking through the hole, he could see the light of the room shining through the hole that had been made against the core's design.

He set the power core down on the table. It was too different from anything he had seen before. This means that nothing he might have will work to give her power.

He sighed and looked back to the rest of the scrap sitting under the table where he left it. He knew somepony that might have an idea where to get a power core for the android, but he has a work quota to meet. He took one last look at the android.

"I'll get you fixed." He said, his voice hoarse from disuse. "That's a promise." He rested a hoof on the broken power core for a moment before he turned back to his work.

Author's Note

Hello and thank you to anyone who made it this far. This is the first time I've ever written anything and posted it for everyone to see.
Constructive criticism is welcome, so if you see anything wrong or feel like something could be better, please tell me.

Thanks for reading!