[ WP ] A mythological tale rewritten as science fiction .

It was deep into summer. The dusty wind blew the heat around, barely cooling off my sweat, which was heavy even by ten in the morning. I was at my uncle's scrapyard, helping him out for a hundred bills a day. Looking back it did n't seem like a lot of money, but it helped me start my own business later on. 
 
 I was working on my pile, Uncle Dayvon about a hundred meters away. He was smart and still wore those cowboy hats that people in this part of the country still did even though the occupation of cowboy was long died out. The sun was beating in my unprepared eyes so that when I saw something unusual, I had to shield them to make sure what I was seeing was n't really a man. 
 
 Uncle Dayvon had warned me that he sometimes caught people making shelters from the debris. The cockpits from old airplanes and a few pieces from a mech could ward off the hottest Texas weather. I almost called my uncle over but realized the man was scattered in the debris, not protected from anything. 
 
 I walked over to the man and found that he was either asleep, dead, or deactivated. It was then I realized he must be an android, perhaps a model I had never seen before. I touched his skin; if he had been activated it might have been supple, but without his systems working it felt like leather on top of metal. 
 
 `` Ah, you found Rusty,'' my uncle said. `` I do n't have the heart to scrap him yet.'' 
 
 `` What happened?'' I just then noticed a tattoo on his face. It read QQ-LAN across his left cheekbone. He was a very old model indeed. 
 
 `` From what the guy who tossed him told me, he was an older model. Hand-made, sturdy, but flawed. You know how androids used to be deregulated, when they first started being made?'' I nodded; androids had always fascinated me. `` Well, this one did n't have the normal protocols. He was actually what they called an `` androne'' - fighter'bot.'' 
 
 I looked back at the android. There were subtle dents here and there that buckled the skin. This guy had seen some action. `` Well, the maker of this here androne put some protocols that conflicted with each other. That way, if he ever needed to control his androne, all he had to do was cross the protocols and the androne would shut down.'' 
 
 `` What were the protocols?'' 
 
 `` Well, this was one of them real life-like androids. He would do everything humans would do. He ate, he made friends, he sh- um, crapped. If I recall correctly, the creator made this guy have to accept every meal anyone stranger made for him. He could digest anything quickly, so that was n't a problem. He also could n't eat dog meat. Can you figure out what happened?'' 
 
 `` Stranger made him a meal of dog meat?'' 
 
 `` Yeah. Sadly, it was n't his owner. I guess it was opposing military or something- this androne was doing too well so they tortured his creator to find out how to stop him. Alright, let's get back to work.'' 
 
 I continued looking for coils, which is what my uncle had requested, but could n't shake the feeling of hollow sadness that had eaten inside me after I had been told that story.
