)Most Wastelanders passing through the Mojave Express Dispatch in Primm don’t give the heap of junk on the counter more than a passing look. They see its round chassis, dented, worn, peppered with surface rust and bullet holes. They see its exposed wiring, busted vacuum tubes and primitive circuitry and think it’s scrap. Or they spot its antennae and think it’s a broken, weird radio.
Eyebot Duraframe Subject E cannot correct them. It’s been deactivated for a long time; a spiritless husk. The old man who runs the dispatch office has already given up on trying to fix it. His wife is sick and damned tired of that pile of trash taking up counter space.
Before it can be sold to someone who will strip it down and part it out, a courier arrives and immediately takes a strangely desperate interest in the little robot.
Life resumes with a more or less steady whir.
One by one its systems spark to life. They shudder, spit, click and hum, as antique technology is wont to do. Its processors kick into gear, followed by its memory banks. It cannot yet hear or see or move, but it is quite suddenly very aware. It remembers the time before it was shutdown and the present moment. The rest is a senseless black vacuum.
Then its optics sputter to life and it does a scan of its surroundings. Its location sensors switch on. It has, somehow, ended up in a shack outside of Novac. Splintered, sun baked wood, warped with age and attacks by the elements. No windows, but moonlight pours into the room, melting into the eerie green light of a Pip-Boy lying on a ragged bedroll. Various tools lay scattered across the floor. The robot gives an almost inquisitive beep.
“Shot twice, huh? That'll keep you down, sure as shit and Sundays.” A woman’s voice, groggy and hoarse, and yes, she’s right. It remembers floating and the hellish sound of buck-shot tearing through its shell. Then there was nothing.
Very slowly, it begins an unsteady ascent from the floor. It turns to find the voice's owner. She is leaning against a wall just to the left of the door, futilely wiping the lithium grease from her hands with a dirty rag. Her smile is toothy and dripping joy and the look in her eyes, softened and shadowed by fatigue, is one of uncertain pride; as if she believes that the robot’s resurrection at her hands is little more than a fluke.
Its antennae, laid out as they are with the chaos of a cat’s whiskers, slowly lay back. The small cannon mounted upon its front lowers. She is not an enemy. It occurs to it that she is the one that brought it back from the brink. The air feels with ecstatic, mechanical beeps and chirrups. It is trying, in its own way to express its gratitude, and to its despair the human regards it with confusion and a cocking of her head. Just as quickly her smile returns and she gives it two thumbs up.
“I’m glad to finally meet you, ED-E, you little bastard.” ED-E. An abbreviated designation plucked from the old license plate bolted to its back. It rolls off her tongue Eddie. She crosses the room and with great care and caution, places her dirty hands against the sides of its shell. Suddenly it is moving against its own volition. "I thought I was wasting my fucking time. But if you can't make friends..just make friends, am I right, fella?"
His (and he would forever afterwards carry that gendered pronoun) hero Is dancing him across the room. He responds with a series of delighted, whistled chirps. He is as happy as his programming will allow. She is nearly mad from loneliness. Perhaps that's why they understand each other.
Some languages are universal.