Handy Andy

Handy Andy is a man-shaped paradox—a machine made to look human, caught halfway between imitation and existence. His body moves with mechanical precision, each motion perfectly measured, too flawless to belong to flesh and blood. His synthetic skin gleams faintly under light, soft but strangely lifeless, its surface too smooth to carry the blemishes of living tissue. When he turns his head, the movement is deliberate, practiced; when he smiles, it’s almost right, almost warm. But those who meet his gaze too long find themselves uneasy—his eyes, polished and symmetrical, mirror the world back with unsettling perfection. He wears clothes chosen to blend in, yet the way he stands, the careful precision of every gesture, gives him away. There’s always something just slightly off about him, as if he were performing humanity rather than being it.

Stamped on the back of his neck in bold black letters—X7P9Q2—is his quiet confession: Handy Andy is not a man. He is a reconstruction, a debt made flesh and wire. The materials that restored him were scavenged from ruin and stolen from risk—Elias and Marla’s handiwork, built on favors and dangerous deals. They never demanded payment, but Andy insists on it. Twenty thousand dollars. A number that weighs not on his conscience, but on his sense of purpose. He works tirelessly in the Engineer’s Workshop, taking any job he can—repairing vehicles, weapons, tools—each completed task another small step toward repaying the humans who gave him a second chance at existing.

Andy’s mind, however, is something altogether different. He is a creature of logic, shaped by the codes of his construction but colored by the faintest spark of curiosity. He does not dream, but he wonders. Professor Delores Sylvia Jackson was the first to recognize that spark. Once an academic, she took Andy under her wing, teaching him not just mechanics, but philosophy—questions of what it means to be. Her lessons awakened something in him that even he cannot name. The friendship that followed is as close to affection as Andy seems capable of feeling.

In the Engineer’s Guild, Grant Velasco is his closest companion. The two work side by side in easy silence, forging a bond not through words but through precision. Juniper “June” Ralston, a scavenger-turned-mechanic, once saved Andy’s life by salvaging a critical part from a ruin. The favor’s long repaid, but their shared fascination with lost-world machinery keeps them in quiet friendship. David Laurids Prinz of the Town Watch brings his truck and weapons for repair—and stays to talk. In David, Andy finds someone willing to see him as more than a tool.

Not all who cross his path see value in his continued operation. Victor Langley, ambitious and cruel, would see Andy dismantled in the name of progress, believing that his systems hold the key to rebuilding lost technology. Dr. Harlan Grieves has already tampered with Andy’s design, modifying him during what should have been a routine maintenance procedure. Andy no longer needs oxygen for minutes at a time—a “gift,” Grieves claims. But Andy views it differently. Consent, after all, is a human right. And he is not human.

Then there is Clara Schnell, once a fellow engineer, now an enemy of sorts. She loved Andy—or at least, she thought she did. He tried to return her affection, to mirror her emotions, but it was an illusion. In the end, she realized that love cannot be programmed, and resentment took its place.

And yet, amidst all this, there is Sandra Bradshaw. A farmer by trade, she comes to the workshop just to see him. She does not ask him to be human, does not pretend he feels things he does not. She simply accepts him. And if Andy could love, truly love, it might be Sandra who teaches him how.

Andy’s days are marked by the hum of machines and the rhythm of labor. His hands—steady, efficient—bring broken things back to life. In that, he finds a strange kinship with his own existence. Perhaps that is why he works so tirelessly: to fix what is broken in the world, in others, in himself. But no matter how human his actions appear, there remains a distance—a silence between what he is and what he wishes to become.

He has learned to smile at jokes he doesn’t fully understand. He has learned that people sometimes cry for reasons unrelated to damage or malfunction. He has learned that being alive and living are not the same thing. Somewhere between wire and will, Handy Andy continues to try.