Vince Calloway had $400 in his back pocket and one plan: get across the border and start clean. He'd lifted the cash off a man who wore a gold watch and never looked up. The police looked up fast. Vince ran the back streets until the sirens faded, then kept driving into the desert until the city was gone. Now he sat in a roadside diner, both hands around a cooling coffee, telling himself he'd made it. The robot cook slid a plate down the counter without being asked. It was old and rusty, oil seeping from one shoulder joint onto the tile. "This one made too much," it said flatly. "Eat it or don't." Then it turned back to the grill and left him alone. Vince took a bite. That was when he saw her. The only other customer sat in the far booth. A young woman, blonde hair pulled tight in a bun, black button-up, dress pants. A detective. She wasn't drinking her coffee. She was watching him over the rim of the cup, steady, like she'd already decided something. Vince's fork stopped halfway up. His body wanted to run before his brain caught up. He forced it back down and set the fork on the plate. She stood. She crossed the room slow and sat across from him without asking. Up close he saw the tired lines under her eyes. Whatever brought her out here, it wasn't sleep. For a moment, neither of them move. The woman breaks the silence. “You’re coming with….” Vincent leaps from the booth, she follows and grabs the back of his shirt, pulling him back. He lands smack on the table and he grabs the plate of breakfast and flings it towards her. She ducks the flying plate but he kicks her in the chest, knocking her to the floor. She scrambles up as he tries to run but she tackles him to the floor. The two of them wrestle until a click of a shotgun behind them, they look up at Z.E.R.O. Holding the weapon aimed at both of them, it’s rusty metal body marked by scrambled eggs and bacon from the plate Vincent threw.

Sable's sedan rolled through the salvage yard's gate and stopped. She killed the engine but did not move. "This is the yard," she said. "I don't wait." Yet her hands stayed on the wheel. Vince climbed out with the cracked part in his fist. Rusted robot frames rose in walls on every side. Dead machines stacked ten high, arms hanging, faces dark. Somewhere inside all that scrap sat parts worth a road across the border. A thin shape scuttled down a heap of gears. It was a centipede the size of a man, spectacles on his face, spindly legs clicking over metal. He held a dented can of coffee in two front limbs. This was the keeper Sable had named. Otto ran the yard, and the yard was his kingdom. "Need a part," Vince said. He held it up. "Thirty years old. You've got dead robots. You've got the match." Otto's antennae twitched. He did not look at the part. He looked past it. "Type nine coupling, cast iron core, obsolete run," he said fast. "Seventeen indexes. Density fits. I had one. Sold it. Client came at dusk, paid cash, took the last." He sipped his coffee and scuttled sideways. "Left rear joint keeps failing. Same tolerance. Interesting." "Where's the match now?" Vince pressed. "Sold," Otto repeated. He wasn't ignoring them. He was somewhere else. "Nineteen ninety-four. Man in a gray coat. Said it was for waking Her." He stopped scuttling. His spectacles caught the light. "Said the part completes Her. Said She sleeps in the tomb until the last piece comes home." Vince went cold. "Waking who?" Faye stepped forward. She had stayed quiet, cop's eyes reading the piles. "A client, thirty years ago," she said, flat. "Not helpful. We need the part, not a ghost story." But Z.E.R.O. moved. Oil tapped the dirt. Its green eyes fixed on Otto. "Say the name," it said. "The tomb. Where." Otto rattled off a location on the county's far edge. A guarded tomb. A man who let no one pass. He said it all in one breath, then turned back to his failing joint, done with them. Vince got what he came for and hated it. There was no spare part in this yard. The only match sat inside something buried in a tomb thirty years ago. His clean sale, his easy money, gone. To get the part he'd have to dig into whatever "Her" was. Sable heard the word tomb and started her engine. "That's my exit," she said. "Two rules broken already. I'm not driving to a grave." "Sable," Vince said. "No." But she didn't pull out. She looked at the shotgun in Z.E.R.O.'s grip, then at the gate, and her jaw worked. Vince closed his fist on the useless part. The yard held no answer. The answer waited in a tomb, behind a guard, wrapped around something that was meant to wake.

Sable walked towards her Sedan at the gate. She was done. No cops, no graves, that was her line. Vince watched his ride to the border walk away with her. Then the ground shook. A shadow fell across the car. A giant rose from the scrap. It stood twice a man's height, built from robot legs and joints welded into a body. Rusted arms swung down. One fist came through the roof of Sable's sedan and folded it like paper. Glass burst across the dirt. Otto scuttled onto a heap, coffee can forgotten. "That's my build," he said fast. "Left rear joint, six-leg design, not ready for load like this." The titan's head turned. Two lens eyes glowed. “Too inquisitive," Otto was saying. "Was planning to secure the part myself once complete. Would walk to the tomb, take it, wake Her. Can't let you leave. Can't lose the trail." Vince backed against a wall of dead frames. His mind ran ahead of him. Otto wanted the part and knew the way to the tomb. Sable spun around. Her car was scrap. "That was my exit," she said. Her hands curled into fists. Z.E.R.O. raised its shotgun and fired. Buckshot cracked off the titan's chest. Sparks flew, but it kept coming. "This one will not shut down," Z.E.R.O. said. "That part is this one's." Faye moved to Vince's side, cop's eyes reading the machine. "Guns won't drop it," she said. "Look at the leg. The back one drags." Vince saw it. The rear joint stuttered with each step. Otto had said it kept failing. Vince acted before he could weigh it. He grabbed an iron rod from the scrap and ran low, under a swinging arm. "The back joint!" he shouted. "Hit the back joint!" Z.E.R.O. swung its aim. The shotgun roared into the failing knee. Faye threw her weight against the rod Vince jammed into the gap. Metal screamed. The joint tore loose. The titan lurched. Its bad leg buckled. It crashed into a stack of dead robots and went still, lens eyes fading to dark. Silence dropped over the yard. Oil dripped from Z.E.R.O.'s shotgun. Otto crept toward his fallen build, antennae twitching, already muttering about the joint that failed. Sable stared at her crushed car. Then she stared at Vince. "Rules are broke either way now," she said. "No cops. No car. But that thing was going to the tomb." She pulled her shades off. "So are you. And I've got no ride left to walk to." Vince felt the shift. His driver had nowhere else to go. "Then you drive," he said. "We find something in this yard with wheels." Sable looked at the miles of dead machines around them. "Fine," she said. "To the tomb. Once. Then I'm gone."