MONSTEROPOLIS EPISODE 1:
Heroes and Villains

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 3

-Megaopolis Science and Technology Center
-February 13th, 2096 AD
-Account Subject: Dr. Albert W. Wily

“Mr. Hikari,” I smiled as I approached. “What do you have for me?”

Leonard Hikari returned my smile as I approached. He wasn’t a scientist like many of the rest of the inhabitants of the complex. At least not in the usual sense. Hikari was primarily an engineer, and had a doctorate almost as an afterthought. “Always good to see you, sir,” he said.

“I do apologize for being late. I stopped by the cafeteria and caught the instant replay of the Commando beat down.” That was something that had put warm fuzzy feelings in my heart. Amadeus Caine’s pet project getting his butt soundly thrashed? Oh my, yes please. I’d have to make sure I asked GLaDOS to find me a copy of that news report.

“Satisfying as it may have been to watch, this Megaman clown has some proprietary STC technology now. Are we sure that’s a good thing?” Hikari wondered.

“He can’t do any more damage with them than Commando ever did. Remember when he destroyed the old Blue Water bridge?”

“Point taken,” Leonard sighed. “Anyway, fire and lightning throwers are pretty old hat these days, especially when you see what I’ve got for you today.”

“Nice lead in,” I grinned. “Ever consider a career as a game show host?”

He ignored me as he turned toward the test chamber beyond the glass behind him. “What we’ve done here is come up with a technology that can be used to instantly transport materials from one location to another.”

“Let me stop you there,” I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I know the files are classified, but we’ve tried teleportation technology before. It… ended badly.” VERY badly. It was of the STC’s most private skeletons in the closet. We lost the test subject, the teleportation unit, the test chamber, two scientists… well, okay, we only lost HALF of two scientists, so it was like losing one… and almost 200 billion in taxpayer money.

Yeah, we covered that one up.

Hikari smiled. “I heard rumors that you guys botched that one, but let me assure you this isn’t anything like that. This is fully functional wormhole technology.”

That caught me a bit by surprise. “You have my attention,” I told him.

He gestured to the test chamber beyond. Inside was a thick wall that separated two small rooms. One was empty, while the other seemed to containing some sort of baseball launcher on a spinning base.

“We’ve made a set of frames that we call the Sender and Receiver. That’s pretty much a misnomer, because it’s a two way wormhole, but it sounds better than ‘Orange’ and ‘Blue.’” He pointed into the room at a blue lighted frame on the wall of the room containing the launcher, and then to an orange frame on the same wall in the other chamber.

“So what’s the idea?” I asked, “shoot a ball from one room to another? Proof of concept?”

“Pretty much,” he nodded. He pressed a blue button on the console in front of him. “We’ve run into some limitations, obviously. The surface the frames are applied to has to be… well, flat. Very flat. Anything that’s got more texture to it than drywall won’t let the wormhole open. That said, if you turn on one, and not the other…” he nodded toward the room, and the launcher spat a ball at the wall, which bounced off ineffectually. “The system only works when both portals are open.”

He pressed an orange button, and the room changed tone as a blue tinged hole in the wall appeared. In the other room, a similar, orange hole opened up as well. This time, the launcher shot the ball through the blue hole, and I watched as it sailed out of the orange.

“There’s no loss of momentum or change in direction, relatively speaking, between the portals,” Hikari explained. “Basically, speedy thing goes in, speedy thing comes out.”

“Fascinating…” I murmured, mulling over the possibilities. “Is it safe for human use?”

“Still testing that,” Hikari admitted. “There’s… some sort of background radiation the portals give off once they’re connected and working. We’ve been doing a lot of tests to see if it’s harmful to living tissue, but no concrete results so far.”

“If it could be commercialized, it would render pretty much all public transportation obsolete,” I said thoughtfully.

Hikari made another sound. “The other catch… well, there’s a maximum operational range of about two hundred yards. We’re working on figuring out why, but I think it has something to do with the power draw used to create the wormhole. The frames we’ve made are a little flimsy, but with the concept proven, I can come up with a better prototype that may not suffer from the distance limitation.”

“But to do that, you need to be green lighted by a Council vote,” I nodded. “I don’t think that will be a problem at all. This is good work here… I’ll talk to the others for you.”

“Thank you, Master Wily,” he smiled. “I appreciate it.”

“No problem. I have another appointment, though. Keep working…”

I wandered away in a daze. Hikari’s… portal technology, combined with my own plans… It was like the collective human subconscious was TRYING to make sure I succeeded. It was a challenge not to break out into a run back to my office. It was even harder not to laugh in the elevator.

The lights undimmed as I stepped into the office. I locked the door as GLaDOS came out of sleep mode. “Welcome back, Dr. Wily.”

I threw my lab coat over the back of my chair and sat down. “Hook into Hikari’s private network. I want all of the schematics for his wormhole technology, as well as any notes pertaining to it.”

“Are we stealing his work?” GLaDOS asked. It wasn’t out of guilt or concern, it was just a question.

“Oh lord no. No, he deserves the credit he is due… But I’m going to need those portals faster than the red tape of a Council vote will let me have it.”

“Speaking of council matters,” GLaDOS said as she began to work, “Cortana has asked me to tell you to visit Dr. Light.”

“Back in town so soon?” That was surprising. Thomas and Vladimir had been out of the city pitching the sale of Intelligent Mechanicals to a few of the power brokers of the Middle East, which was a deal that would no doubt draw fire from the USA. We didn’t really give a damn, though. “Tell his pet AI that I’ll drop by his office in the morning. I have a lot of work to do tonight.”

“Certainly, Dr. Wily.”

I admit the most fortunate thing about my friendship with Thomas was that his personal AI, Cortana, wouldn’t make any investigation into my activities unless he asked her to. Cortana was the only AI in the STC that could probably make it past GLaDOS and her numerous firewalls and tricks, and if anyone ever managed that, my plan might be in jeopardy. Luckily, Thomas wasn’t even a little suspicious of me.

Great things, friends. Even if they might secretly be working with an organization bent on the destruction of this city that I like so much. It was, of course, ridiculous to think Tom would find himself in with a crowd like the World 3, but I also knew that it was no coincidence that paranoia was linked to a longer than average life span in my line of work.

Now I just had to keep myself under control around other people. I couldn’t let them know how much fun I was having.

It’s almost time to start phase one, and that’s when we’ll find out just what side everyone is on…