MONSTEROPOLIS EPISODE 2:
Rock and A Hard Place
By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell
Chapter 5
-Private Bunker, Designated Skull Fortress Mk III, Lake Erie
-February 15th, 2096
-Account Subject: Dr. Albert W. Wily
My little home away from home had been months in the making. Specially designed Intelligent Mechanicals had worked very hard to construct my very own complex under the ice cold water, and it had taken even long to construct the tunnel.
Filled with all sorts of redundant equipment to keep my trip from my office to the fortress as smooth and quiet as possible, the entire system took fours hours to move me three miles. I was fine with the sacrifice of my time because, as I’ve already mentioned, it lets me catch up on some sleep, and secondly the silent movement doesn’t raise any questions or draw any undue suspicion.
As a soft noise brought me fully out of my sleep and the door to the small room reopened, I drew in the stale taste of recycled air and the smell of fresh coffee, even now being offered to me by one of my numerous mechanical assistants. “Thank you,” I nodded as I stood up and left the mobile chamber, moving into the vast expanse of the complex that I called the Workplace.
Another robot handed me a packet of information; progress reports, radar readings of the surrounding waters, daily checklists of factors and equipment maintenance reports. I skimmed through it, looking for the black skull mark by any of the bullet points that signified a major problem. Satisfied that there were none, I handed the packet off to some other robot and continued walking.
The Workplace was the hub of manufacturing for my operation. It had, not long ago, housed the nine separate projects that I was on my way to check personally, and more recently the deck had been cleared for work on some projects that I had an interest in. Hikari’s Portal technology, for one, was already being replicated. One of Ivo’s designs for a floating battle platform, with some modifications of my own, was also under construction.
I swiped a key card and submitted to an eye scan before I passed into the next room. This large circular chamber was the real home of my AI GLaDOS; the Genetically Linked and Decoded Operating System. The bulk of GLaDOS’s form hung suspended from the roof of the chamber, and while the mass resembled a mish mash of different parts and pieces, there was an unmistakable poetry to the construction of the mechanical whole that gave the Intelligence behind it her charm.
“Welcome to the Fortress, Dr. Wily,” she intoned. Down here, her voice had a much softer edge to it. Almost seductive in a way. I’m not sure why, though. “It is 10 days, 6 hours, 34 minutes and 12… 11… 10… 9…”
“GLaDOS.”
“Apologies. That is the remaining time until the projected date.”
“Thank you,” I smiled, taking a sip of my coffee. “Everything is on track, correct?”
“Yes, Dr. Wily.” There was a beeping sound and a whir, and GLaDOS slowly turned her main… well, eye, toward me. “I would like to state one more time that some of your design decisions have remarkable inefficiencies that could be greatly improved by-“
“So noted, GLaDOS,” I sighed, waving my hand. “But that’s not why I have you around. Monitor traffic on the STC’s Mother Brain and keep me posted if something comes up I should know about.”
“Yes sir.”
I left the chamber through another door and walked down a long hallway to the next portion of the bunker. Here was my personal office, complete with a bed and a refrigerator, stove and cupboards. I even had a fully stocked book shelf and a few different videogame systems down here. I needed a space like this for my plan. And in the next room…
There they stood. Different shapes and sizes, different themes and wildly different operational capacities. But all of them were my Weapons. True, some of them bore a more eccentric air than others, but that was a necessity for the plan to work. At least, that’s what I told myself. And I’m always right.
When Thomas and I had been designing the Six, I had taken some of my personal time to design eight others, each less focused on public service than a particular goal. In fact, public disservice seemed to be the order of the day for these Intelligent Mechanicals. They all stood at silent attention, branded by code names.
Shade had been the first, and was by far the most wild in his design and execution. Possessed of two large, working bat wings and a capacity to produce frequencies that were damaging under proper circumstances, his entire form had been designed to be terrifying. I’d even co-opted a failed ‘energy leech’ experiment and installed a system in him that would let him literally drain other Mechanicals dry of energy.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Submersible was practical and no-nonsense. Meant for underwater warfare, he was the third largest of the bunch, but still small enough not to register on radar. After getting a close look at the Bomberman’s rather stunning fabrication technology, I’d devised a way to make torpedoes out of disparate matter in water. With this at his disposal, Submersible made the perfect bodyguard for my bunker, and would also serve well as an attacker of ships and barges going to and from the city.
The Six robot known as Elec had been the inspiration for Electrode. Two large conductive spikes and the capacity to generate millions of volts of electricity would be the main source of terror it employed. I had plans for getting him inside the STC building and hooking into the power grid to slow down effective response to my efforts.
Of course, as my plan did call for the crippling of rapid response, Wrecker was just the robot for the job of road control. The most massive, pound for pound, of the eight I had designed initially, he resembled a large freight train. He could certainly move quickly on busy roads, and he was fantastic at moving things out of his way.
But the fastest I had designed was Kinetic. Taking a cue from Kintobor’s S.O.N.I.C. project, Kinetic was more human sized, fast beyond belief, and vicious. I had installed a system in him that had originally been an idea for a force field, and I had turned it into a sort of battering ram powered by Kinetic’s motion. If I was correct, some of the creativity software I’d shoehorned into his system would be very brutal in its application.
Nothing causes terror like the nondiscriminatory force of fire, and Blazer fit the bill nicely. When active, he actually had the tendency to engulf himself in flames. Of course, his head was always on fire, because nothing frightens poor human police than a guy who doesn’t care if his head is on fire, but when he went full out he was able to burn things that SHOULDN’T BURN.
The last of the eight was almost the most basic. Large, heavy, and almost impossible to damage, he was also slow, strong and unstoppable. I simply called him The Tank. Lacking in any real ranged weaponry (except the fact that he could fire his fists short distances), his main role was that of a defender. Unlike the other eight, he wouldn’t be leaving the fortress.
But it was the last one that was my pride and joy. Not a part of the initial eight, it was really an effort to capitalized on a lack of resources by exploiting a known flaw in the program design of the average Intelligent Mechanical. By broadcasting a scramble signal, one could drive some of the mass produced models out of control and send them on a damaging rampage. My final unit had been designed to do both that and strike the maximum amount of terror into anyone who tried to stand in its way.
Large, coated in a dull purple radar absorbent paint, Shade’s bat wings had been adapted and enlarged, fitted with tiny solar panels to help supply power to the unit. Also equipped with Blazer’s fire launcher, a lighter version of the Tank’s armored hide, it was large and imposing, resembling the mythical dragons. GLaDOS had called it such, but I had wanted a better name, and I had dubbed it Ridley.
I smiled to myself. Of course this was going to go poorly. A lot of the work I had put into this so far would back fire, go wrong, or be totally destroyed. But then again, as long as I accomplished my goal, it didn’t matter.
GLaDOS’s voice came over a speaker. “Dr. Wily, he Council is planning a meeting. Subject: Megaman. Your presence has been requested.”
“Move it from lunch to breakfast, did he?” I sighed. “Very well.”
I made my way back to the mobile room, humming to myself. Soon enough, I wouldn’t be bothered by banalities like this anymore.
-Megaopolis Catacombs
-February 15th, 2096
-Account Subject: Samantha Aran
I returned to consciousness in a painful way. My head was pounding, and my arm was on fire. Once my eyes cleared the haze of pain, I could tell my arm was broken. Dammit, that was my good arm, too.
I was… well, hell, I have no clue. Underground, to be sure. Back up through the hole I’d fallen through wasn’t an option. The remains of the Dozer were in the way. I tried to get to my feet, and only really managed to sit up. Just as well. This next part was going to hurt.
I put my broken arm’s wrist between my legs and leaned back. The pain was brutal, but I gritted my teeth and toughed it out. I heard a sickening click as the bones started to slide back into place. I swore and lifted my other hand, taking a moment to prepare myself before punching the break. The arm set as best as I could down without actual medical attention, and I know I blacked out in mid scream.
I woke back up what must have been much later. The minimal light that had been filtering through the wreckage over my head was gone, and I fumbled around in the dark for my flashlight. This time I did manage to get to my feet, and I fought off the pounding in my head. I still had my sidearm, but down to one functional hand, I was going to have to be careful. I couldn’t have both light and firepower.
I choked down another wave of pain and started to move into the darkness. There had to be some sort of access point to the street from down here…
-END OF EPISODE 2
