Garbage, toxic and poisonous, stretched as far as Sylis could see as the hover pod bounced up and down over the uneven terrain. He judged the landfill to be about thirty miles in every direction in this zone. This was the last contaminated zone they would have to visit tonight before the sun came up and the pillars of hazardous vapor could be seen more clearly by the floating cities above.

It wasn’t like the people cared what happened to their trash but they did care about the radiation that it occasionally gave off. He looked down with a perhaps a bit of loneliness, to know that these pieces of property were abandoned so easily.

“Can you imagine holding a toxic substance up to your face every day?” Sylis didn’t understand what Darius was talking about until he saw a small cellphone from the early 2000s passed by in the garbage heap below. And then he remembered the substances inside that caused neurological problems in humans. Mercury, lithium, and lead being the most common among these ancient devices.

“What are old phones doing on the surface?” Said Sylis. A pillar if heat appeared on the infrared scanner through his biohazard helmet. It was ahead, emanating from a mound of metal robotic appendages.

“Scavengers?” Replied Darius. “They have those big claw machines they rig up to dig deep for the old stuff. Better than blowing the stuff up with iodide bombs.”

Sylis felt for the canister under his seat. Only two left but they should do the trick. Still, he hated this part of his job because it displaced tons of noxious chemicals in the air while they remained so close to contain the gases with nano retardants. The faster he got this over with the faster he could move on to the next hazard inspection. Such hazardous incidents of trapped foreign substances leaking out was becoming all too common.

As Darius veered the hovercraft to a stop Sylis jumped down and felt the flex suit grip his body tight. It was light and sturdy and provided enough radiation protection to survive twelve nuclear bombs. He looked up at the heat signature coming from the mound and wanted to tell Darius how silly it was that their jobs as hazard specialists were to make sure the past wouldn’t come back to haunt society but he chose not to, throwing the iodide capsule up the hill.

Darius was getting the long narrow retardant gun and backing away. “You think we’ll find any treasure this time?”

“I wouldn’t call it treasure. Picking up old garbage won’t stop people from making new crap they don’t need and tossing it here when they’re done with it.” Sylis walked toward the craft and pressed the detonate button which caused a heatwave to hit his back softly, along with several robotic arms and metal. He didn’t have time to worry about minor injury. The bombs weren’t really that powerful anyways.

He turned to scan for immediate radiation but his eyes grew wide when he saw, or thought he saw, scurrying creatures in the blue iodide mist. As the mist settled, doing its job to reduce the radiation, the movement disappeared. Sylis groped for stability, moving forward up the garbage slope and squinted.

“Yo, get out of the way.” Said Darius.

“You didn’t see that?” He blinked his infrared display OFF.

Darius followed behind up the rough slope and it was Darius who spoke, “There, look, it’s like a little hole. Is that a cave? The bomb didn’t do that. It supposed to just create a vapor cloud and seep down to the bottom.”

Sylis looked at the small crater and saw the dark crevice. He got close and peered inside. The tunnel was rounded inside and extended further into complete darkness. “This doesn’t seem right. Could a scavenger do this?”

Darius slipped and corrected his footing. “Hmm, from a long time ago, maybe. Should we throw another bomb?”

Sylis caught a glimpse of movement and quickly activated night vision but he didn’t see anything. “No. There’s something…”

“You’re not going in there, are you? You’re crazy.” Said Darius as Sylis squeezed his lower body in.

“This did not form naturally. Someone did this and if there’s someone down there, they won’t survive the radiation.” Sylis knew that the ancient materials from the lower layers would be decomposing and rising to the surface more easily through this tunnel. If he could reach the base, he could place the iodide capsule there for optimal results. “The past always comes back to haunt us.”

“Be careful. And bring back a souvenir.” Darius laughed, not understanding that the devices further down would have turned to essentially dirt.

Inside Sylis had barely enough room to turn his body. It felt more like a coffin than a tunnel. “Hand me the capsule. Don’t leave without me. I hate being thrown out with the trash.” He slid further in and grabbed the capsule from Darius’ hand.

He gently pushed metal sheets out of the way and swiveled his hips to make room. Once further inside he could feel that there was more space as the tunnel opened up. He kept wiggling and finally came to an open area, cursing himself for being so eager about his job. Here he was able to move his head and he could see that the tunnel curved downward and to the right. As he turned back to ask Darius to widen the hole the metal sheet that he was laying on gave way and slid down the tunnel, carrying him with it. As he fell down the tunnel he tried to turn and grab for any object that was poking out of the garbage but the chute seemed to be coated with a greasy biofilm, accelerating his descent, which was like falling down an esophagus.

The fall became steeper, every few feet driving further from the surface. He tried to focus on rational thoughts, ridding his mind of despair in the darkness and trash around him. The layers were at least one mile high. If he went that far down, he would indeed be doomed. But the hole, as it rushed around him, had to be made by someone…. or something. The thoughts gave him chills right before the chute dropped away and he was falling straight down. The plastic layer that covered the older layers was also punctured he imagined. His breath was sucked away. He could sense that he was in a large chamber of emptiness. That was until his legs collided with debris and he toppled backwards down another slope. He watched the hole fall away from him as the hope of escape also fell away and he hit the jagged ground hard.

The pain woke him up, throbbing from his forehead. He sat back and groaned. The visor display glitched with random text, the night vision was no longer active. His helmet was busted but he was still breathing normal air. His oxygen wasn’t busted at least but his head felt like a swirling toilet going down the drain. As he stood, he realized the flooring was more uneven than his equilibrium. Around him, as his eyes focused, he found that the chamber was cave-like, filled with small mounds of black dirt, and had a thirty-foot high ceiling. He had to find an exit before the radiation burned through the suit.

But judging from the warmth around him, emanating from the dirt piles, he only had a few minutes. He ran and stumbled over the rocky surfaces, pulling himself up and tumbling over other mounds. There was no telling what chemicals were down here, decomposing, evaporating; chemicals dissolving and mixing with other chemicals. It hurt his head to even think about what type of byproducts existed this far underground, this far into the past, and hurt even more thinking about how he never even considered what lay beneath the trash. The debris he was trampling over would have been at least a century old. The rubble likely contained ancient phone devices, components of old computers, entire cars, AI modules, and advanced robotics

His eyes started to adjust and he noticed several other holes above and below, going in various directions like an ant hill. One of these had to lead to the surface, or they would lead directly to whatever was making these holes. It couldn’t have been the vapor. Vapor, even the most noxious and toxic couldn’t have made these. But if it wasn’t made by gas then what could it….

The ground rumbled, softly, very softly. At first, he thought it was due to the head trauma but it was becoming more apparent. He leaned down and tried to listen. The rumbling became audible, growing louder and louder like a coming thunderstorm. There was nowhere to hide though, nowhere seemed safe from the disgusting and sticky surfaces of the black dirt, which was likely not dirt at all but a composite of decomposed metals and chemicals. The ground seemed to shift underneath him as the thunder turned to a crackling as if the earth were opening up. He looked at the sticky black tar that stuck to his gloves and realized that he could see it more clearly as if…. there was light.

Above, on the ceiling, on the mounds in the chamber, spread out everywhere, was light…but it was a sickly light, dim at first. Then with a shimmer brilliance it grew to create an eerie incandescence that bloomed from every corner and crevice. Blue, yellow, and green specks were like gemstones on the walls of the garbage cave. Several spots of the ceiling were leaking, dripping down red liquid embers. It was beautiful and most likely deadly. He was left standing there frozen in awe.

Never before had he believed there would be so much beauty in a place buried in trash but then again natural cave systems were renowned for their visual splendor. There were natural forms too, stalactites hanging down, dripping glowing sediment all to the wavy chamber floor.

Sylis breathed deeply and almost forgot the rumbling, which by now was shaking the earth below him. He stepped over a few mounds and leaned over one of the holes. It was big enough for him to fit inside. Down below he could see movement again, like the scurrying he saw on the surface. But this time he wasn’t so eager to stick around, especially with the rumbling down below. Something was coming. He jumped back and fell on his back. A hundred insects came pouring from the hole, scampering up his legs and creating a chorus of clicking. One leapt up and he swatted at his face violently and scurried back. They were machines! Little insect machines with soft plastic-like bodies and multiple legs, about the size of a large centipede, ran over his body, flooding the floor of the chamber. He choked back a scream and held back vomit when he sat up. He almost wished the room had remained dark so he wouldn’t have to see their disgusting bodies and small curious eyes, searching, examining, staring at him.

Letting out a loud gasp he grabbed one and looked at it closely, trying not to shiver. The machine didn’t seem man-made but what could have made this…? It wasn’t uncommon to find robotic devices still operating with battery power sources still active but this…this was something else. This was a bio-mechanical nightmare that evolved from decades of decomposition. He couldn’t imagine what the effects of being buried for so long would have on an AI device or robot and how it would adapt if it had a protocol of self-preservation, which were only in military robots. These small robotic creatures couldn’t have made themselves and he shivered again at the implications.

The heat was becoming stronger. He needed to get out now or he’d be trapped in this melting pot of old, decaying tech forever. These mechanical bugs seemed nonviolent and non-predatory. He tossed it aside and was able to sit up when the crackling exploded from the hole and a giant metal worm shot out, peering down at him from its twelve-foot height. This time he did scream and clutch at his tightening chest. It had a metal shell around its length, made up of several thin sheets of metal around its circumference and ending in its midsection, all shifting and widening, occasionally revealing a glimpse of its soft insides. The bio-mechanical creature shook its plates of metal disgustingly. At its tip the worm had a tricone drill head, or what looked like one, the three circular grinder heads were spinning.

Sylis wanted to run but he was struck with how big the worm was and if he ran, he would surely be crushed. The creature seemed to shimmer in the glow of the blue and red light while its metal plates shifted, flexed, and widened like fingers gripping a writhing, undulating piece of flesh. He was about to speak, to plead with the monstrosity, to pray to an unseen god, any god, even if it meant praying to the worm itself, but his voice was seized by dread. The giant mechanical worm lurched back, its various pieces clanking together, as if about to fall and crush him.

But the worm did not fall. Instead, it’s metal pieces expanded and separated down its center, like the unfurling of some horrible flower. He froze completely when he saw the inside of the worm and saw that it wasn’t a worm at all. Attached inside the metal fingers, at the thing’s center, was a robotic figure in the shape of a nondescript human without legs. Blue light around its torso and back nearly blinded him. The appearance of the figure was less horrifying and more recognizable but did nothing to calm his nerves.

The human figure leaned down on a snakelike lower appendage and the head and body of the robot were clearly cannibalized from an assistant bot used for common household chores. Sylus wasn’t normally afraid of house bots but in the abhorrent mix of man and worm, wires and nano-infused cables holding the creature together, suffocated any thoughts of juxtaposed humor in the situation. He could have never imagined a nightmare like this could have survived under his feet for so long, even after being confined to the lower depths by layers of plastic, waste run-off pipes, and dirt. Clearly someone disposed of a military robot long ago and did not properly deactivate the AI module, leaving the robot to find another shell and create…. improvements to survive the harsh reality it was in.  He could distinctly see the blue cooling wires for a quantum computer, the chest plate of a house bot, and the tubing of a stomach implant. And now it was poised to strike at him and likely devour him.

The mutant robot slammed its body around him, the metal plates hitting the dirt on his sides and kicking up the dirt of man-made sediment. Two robotic arms grabbed at Sylus’ suit and brought him closer to the eye sockets. There was no mouth to the face, only a grate where a speaker would be placed but it was likely useless now. On closer view the bald head and white chest plate of the bot was standard but the intricacies in which the metal plates connected to each other and shifted like the wings of a bird inspired awe in him. The glowing green eyes of its face were also somehow comforting in that they examined every part of his face and chest with curiosity. It was that almost intimate moment of curiosity that they shared with each other that prompted Sylus to reach out and touch the back, fluttering spine of its outer shell, the hard wires were almost like a rib-cage.

He would have spoken, offering the mutant comforting words but it slammed his body into the ragged dirt and shook its head aggressively. Sylus held the thing’s arms tight, feeling the hurried, machine motion of being pummeled. But he chose not to fight it. Through blurred eyes he tried to understand why but then he realized this was the creature’s domain and he didn’t belong, which meant soon he would be dead.

The mutant clacked its spinal plates and picked him up, holding him up and examining him one last time before closing the metal ribcage around him. His vision started to fade as Sylus embraced the robotic body with his arms. Trash had been his life, cleaning up hazardous materials had been his mission. This mutant, whether benevolent or cruel, should be respected for its unique circumstance and accidental existence, formed by nature’s laws as a result of man’s disposal of crap they didn’t want. He tried to look into its lifeless eyes to identify its needs and purpose but it probably didn’t have any. His heart ached for such a lonely creature, if it could even be called that. Perhaps it would take him deeper and give him a chance to see how the mutant lived and survived. His curiosity of seeing this, seeing something no one else may ever see, was more important than his own life, which consisted of ridding the garbage fields of chemical hazards.

He touched the robotic mutant’s face and wanted to tell him that he was ready to be taken, to experience a sight that no man had ever seen. The mutant suddenly grabbed him by the neck and Sylus held on as the giant worm dove into one of the tunnels. There was that rush of falling and the sound of metal clanking against dirt and the impact of the dirt hitting the spinning drill. The impact was like a hammer to his head and slowly his eyes started to fade to black. He was being taken. Somewhere deep. Somewhere forbidden. Somewhere beautiful and terrible.

His eyes opened; the world was fuzzy yet bright. Time had passed since he was unconscious but he couldn’t tell how long. The mutant entity was gone. As his eyes adjusted, he realized he was on the surface and he sighed deeply, closing his eyes tightly. There were no holes around, the surface was relatively flat. Darius or the hovercraft were nowhere to be seen but he didn’t care. The mutant had rejected him, thereby denying him the truth about its origin. Rejected like so much trash and refuse that lay around him. Rejected by what may have been a superior being. The sunshine was warming, less warming than the radiation he had felt below. He mourned, his head in his hands, to know that he was not worthy enough to be accepted by a being born of waste and decay.