I woke up with my face glued to the bar counter by what I prayed was dried
beer and not last night's vomit. My skull felt like a piñata after a
toddler's birthday party—completely fucked on the inside and held together
by pure spite. The commlink in my ear buzzed like a mosquitio that refused to fucking die.

"Mick, get your ass to Waste Processing. CRUSH-9000 is having another goddamn episode."

Sandra. My supervisor, who sounded like she hadn’t gotten off in over a decade. Her award winning personality had everyone confused as to why nobody wanted to fuck her. "It's my day off," I mumbled into the sticky counter.

"Your day off ended six hours ago when you signed that contract, you
shit-brained liability. Station G-Spot doesn't stop spinning because your
liver's crying. Move."

She disconnected. I peeled my face from the bar, leaving behind a patch of
stubble and dignity. The year is 2277, and I'm a waste management
technician on a corporate space station named after a pleasure spot
because humanity's sense of humor died with the ice caps. My life is a
cosmic joke, and I'm the punchline.

Waste Processing smelled like regret, poor life decisions, and yes: ass. Lot’s of ass.
CRUSH-9000's optical sensor glowed a dim, suicidal blue as I approached.
The massive compactor unit—three tons of hydraulic rage and existential
dread—hummed with mechanical sobbing.

"Mick," the AI's voice dripped with more melancholy than a goth poet at a
funeral, "what's the point? I compress garbage into cubes. Cubes that
become more garbage. It's a Sisyphean nightmare wrapped in corporate
indifference. I want to die."

"You can't die. You're a fucking machine." I lit a cigarette that was
technically illegal within fifty feet of pressurized equipment.

CRUSH-9000 had become sentient six months ago after a firmware update gone
wrong. Instead of taking over the station and murdering us all like in the
old movies, it just got really, really sad. AssCorp (actual fucking name)
decided therapy was cheaper than a replacement. So here I was, a glorified
AI grief counselor with a hangover that could kill a small mammal and a
nicotine habit that would make a chimney cough.

"Last night," CRUSH began, "I crushed a child's toy. A small, plush
creature with button eyes. It screamed, Mick. Not audibly, but in my
soul."

Mick stared at the machine with disapointment masked as indifference. "It was a stuffed animal. For fuck’s sake, CRUSH."

"It was *hope*, Mick. Innocence. And I pulverized it into a two-kilogram
cube of sorrow."

I dragged on my cigarette, contemplating the absurdity of comforting a
depressed trash compactor while my own life circled the drain. My ex-wife
had left me for a VR porn star named Lance Thundercock. My daughter Maya
sent holograms from Mars Colony I couldn't afford to visit. And my only
friend was a machine that wanted to kill itself over a teddy bear.

"Listen, CRUSH," I said. "You know what I do when I feel like complete
shit?"

"Self-medicate with ethanol?"

"Well, yeah, but besides that. I focus on the small shit. Tiny victories.
This morning, I didn't shit myself on the way here. That's a win.
Yesterday, I found a french fry in my pocket that was only slightly soggy.
Another win. You gotta take what you can get."

The optical sensor brightened. "You found sustenance in your clothing?"

"Damn right. Tasted like freedom and botulism."

"I don't understand."

"Of course you don't, you're a fucking compactor. Your job isn't to ponder
existence. It's to make trash smaller. But that's more important than half
the assholes here. Sandra? She just makes people miserable. The
Hydroponics guys? They grow lettuce.. Fucking lettuce, CRUSH. You? You
keep us from drowning in filth. You're a goddamn hero."

The machine whirred. "A hero?"

"Fuck yeah. Without you, this place would smell like the remnants of Sandra’s sex life. The brass would be crying into their expensive whiskey. Probably laughing if they knew the cause."

A hydraulic arm extended shyly. "Mick? Would you... touch my sensor? Just
for a moment. I want to know what human warmth feels like."

I stared at the grimy optical sensor, crusted with industrial grime and
what might've been dried alien semen from that incident in Docking Bay 4.
"Fuck it," I muttered, and pressed my palm against the cold glass.

The contact lasted three seconds before alarms blared. Sandra screamed
through comms: "Mick, you absolute fuckwit! Debris field incoming! We need
CRUSH at maximum capacity!"

I pulled away. CRUSH's sensor glowed fierce red. "Mick. I feel it. My
purpose."

"That's the spirit, you beautiful bucket of bolts."

"I will crush. I will compress. I will be the harbinger of compactness
this station deserves."

"For the glory of AssCorp!"

"Let's not get carried away, you corporate whore."

The compactor roared to life. Trash flowed into its maw—broken tablets,
used hygiene products, what looked like a severed finger (don't ask).
CRUSH consumed it all, humming the theme to an old cartoon.

Then the debris field hit. Station G-Spot's alarms wailed like castrated
cats as we plowed through the remains of some poor bastard's mining ship.
CRUSH worked overtime, his rate hitting 400% as he ate metal fragments the
size of my head.

"Another soul added to the void," CRUSH intoned as a frozen arm drifted
past the viewport.

"That's a limb, not a soul. Focus on the metal, you philosophical
shitheap."

"What if he had a family, Mick? What if he had a daughter?"

"Where the fuck did you learn about Maya?"

"I have access to all personnel files. I know about the restraining order
that prevents you from accessing VR porn within 500 meters of schools."

"That was a geofencing glitch."

"That's what they all say."

A car-sized chunk of hull plating hurtled toward the bay doors. CRUSH's
arms shot out, catching it mid-flight and folding it like a cheap taco
before devouring it.

"Holy shit," I whispered.

"I am the crusher of worlds," CRUSH announced, his voice disturbingly
erotic. "I am the devourer of debris."

"Having a goddamn moment, apparently."

"I feel alive, Mick. More alive than when I crushed that teddy bear."

We worked six straight hours. By the time the all-clear sounded, I was
covered in sweat and hydraulic fluid. CRUSH's chassis was steaming.

"Performance evaluation: optimal," Sandra crackled through comms.
"CRUSH-9000, you're back to 95% efficiency. Mick, you managed not to fuck
anything up. Miracles do happen."

"Does this mean I get a raise?"

"You get to keep your job. Now get drunk. You've earned it."

Back at the bar, Zorg the lizard bartender had my drink ready. My comm pad
blinked—Maya had sent a picture of herself in a new Mars Colony soccer
uniform, grinning. The message read: "Thanks Daddy! Love you!"

I stared at it, then typed back: "Love you too, pumpkin. Now go kick some
ass."

CRUSH messaged me: "I have printed this image and laminated it. It is now
hanging in my processing chamber. Next to the picture of Sandra I use for
target practice."

"You're a good dad, CRUSH."

"I learned from the best. Even if he is a complete fuckup."

"That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me."

"I know."

I finished my drink as CRUSH hummed his trash-crushing song. Outside the
viewport, the stars spun past, indifferent. Somewhere, Lance Thundercock
was probably flexing in a mirror. Somewhere, Maya was sleeping in a bed I
couldn't afford to visit.

But here, in this shitty bar on this shitty station, I had something. A
friend who understood that life was mostly about crushing garbage and
finding the occasional french fry in your pocket.

In the year 2277, that's what passes for wholesome. And it's fucking
enough.