As the sun broke though the polluted brown sky, the sunlight bounced off the brick buildings and the daunting towers of rubbish. Built from compacted cubes, piled on top of one another, they stood higher than many of the buried cities buildings. The landscape was encased in a gold light, making everything look rich, unlike what it truly was. The area, and the planet were nearly barren of life.

Nearly.

Alfred jogged through the streets, followed vigilantly by his friend Tony, a small brave cockroach. Humming a tune, Alfred started to gather up rubbish and stuff it into the compacter he carried around with him on his back. Pressing a button, it started to whir and the thudding cracks and crunches emanated from the inside. Running a short distance away he shoveled some more rubbish into a smaller pile, ready for its fate with the compacter. After a few minutes, he collected the few cubes, and then started to climb the tower of rubbish he alone had created.

This was Alfred's job, his life. Shovel, compact, place, and repeat the process. He wiped at his brow as he placed the last cube onto the tower. Putting his hands on his hips, he grinned happily.

"Another tower done, only…" He turned and looked out across the city, taking in the rubbish, the mountains of compacted rubbish and the actual buildings. His grin faltered slightly, and he turned back to the cubes in front of him. "Only a few more to go…"

He looked to Tony, who had taken a seat on one of the cubes, smiling he held his hand out.

"C'mon buddy, time to head home." Alfred told the little bug. Chirping slightly, Tony jumped onto his hand and ran under his sleeve and up his arm. Laughing, Alfred waited till Tony jumped up out of his collar and onto his shoulder. Bounding carefully down the mountain, Alfred collected the compacter and his prizes of the day. He put the prizes in his box bag, which rested on his hip and the compactor on his back. Looking to Tony on his shoulder, watching the little bug get settled, he nodded and started walking.

Alfred passed the empty, scarred buildings. The vast labels of BNL littered everywhere, just like the rubbish. Passing numerous flittering newspapers, Alfred was forced to face the fact that everyone had left, all because they didn't want to fix this mess themselves. He was one of many who had been assigned to the clean up team, given a microchip implant to stay connected to a network. But, one by one, they started to diminish.

Alfred hadn't known why, but he had said to himself that it was the implant. He still had his, and somehow it hadn't broken like all the others. It makes him stronger, live longer, and see the world a little differently through his bright blue eyes. There had been many generations of workers that had managed to fight there way through living, but time caught up with them, as well as numerous other factors – making Alfred the only one left.

He still wore the uniform, and the yellow and brown wool jacket was comfortable, and the brown slacks were all right. The large workers boots on his feet had seen better days though. He tugged at his black leather gloves, and then brushed the dust off of the box bag on his hip and uniform. He jogged up some stairs, and arrived at the monorail platform. Looking both ways, he then made his way down one of the tracks. One of the benefits of being alone was being able to do whatever you want, whenever you want.

But Alfred was tired of being alone.

If he could finish his job, clean the Earth and be the hero – perhaps, everyone would come back.

After a while, the pain in his feet grew too much and Alfred took off a boot, only to see numerous holes and shards of rubbish in the bottom. Cursing under his breath, he looked around and luckily saw a shining new pair, sticking out from a pile of rubbish. Quickly, he grabbed them and swapped them with his old pair.

"There! Much more comfortable!" Alfred uttered, before throwing the old boots away.

As he moved through the terminal, adverts popped up, and then the final Axiom advert came on with all its glory. Alfred ignored them, he could recite them if he wanted, but he didn't. He ran the last stretch home, and quickly opened the door to his sanctuary. His sanctuary that was in the form of a large bedded truck, filled to the brim with items he had collected. Flicking the lights on, and pulling off his boots, he let Tony down and then hopped over to the little white technological doo-hickey. Putting his only movie on, he then enlarged the screen with a large pane of glass, smiling and then after nodding, he moved away. He pulled out the prizes of the day, and he stared at them awe. He rotated them in his hands delicately one after the other, and somehow he was satisfied.

As he busied himself around the truck, he was swiftly distracted when a serene scene played on the screen - a man and a woman were holding hands. He crawled over, so he was next to he screen, and held up a hand slowly. Staring at it, he turned it a few times, and then interlaced it with his other hand. Sighing sadly, he looked at the screen again and wished for some form of contact.

Later, while emptying the box bag of dust and grit, a hefty breeze of air passed over. He looked up and saw the clouds part, revealing the starry sky. He stared at the open space in wonder; he sang the song from the movie softly and quietly.

"And that is all, that love's about-" As he was singing, he was cut off by an alarm in his ear. Quickly tapping a small button on his glasses arm, an alert appeared on his scratched lenses along with other details, as he turned to see a large wall of dust approaching him.

"Aw crap." He mumbled, with slightly wide eyes. Quickly, he finished emptying the box and ran back inside to close the doors. He glanced around, and seeing that there was no Tony, he looked up onto the ledges of the truck.

"Tony!" He called, and then whistled to get the bugs attention. Tony squeaked and then scuttled into the truck as the door closed. Alfred smiled; kneeling down he opened a cake packet and let the bug jump into it as he set it down. "'Night Tony" Alfred whispered, turning the now flickering lights off; he jumped into bed at the far end of the truck. Pulling the covers up and over himself, and setting his glasses down on the spinning shelves, he yawned and then finally fell onto the pillow. Closing his eyes, it wasn't long before he fell asleep, and into the land of dreams.

A/N Corny ending is corny. Euh. Well, yeah, I'm going to make this a full thing! I need to get this thing out of my head. I'm struggling with future characters like M-O and the Captain... but I'll find a person for them eventually. (Hopefully '^') Reviews?