Genesis End

By Spinning Demon (Topman) and Gauntlet (Shadowman)

Chapter Thirteen - Battle Against Honor And Humanity

Hard and I spent the next several hours escorting Ha'Khael around the city as he swept for spell activity with his divining... spine. We thought we got lucky a couple of times, but both trails led us to already-dead victims. At the very least, it proved that the damned thing worked, which was already a step up from where we were just a few hours ago. Ha'Khael had even shown Gemini how to stop the effects of the spell - although he made sure to point out that at Gemini's level of training, he'd only be able to undo spells that had been cast within the past couple of hours. All in all, despite his tendency to get on everybody's nerves, Ha'Khael was proving quite the asset. Although maybe I was the only one who thought so.

"What kind of range does this thing have, anyways?" Hard asked. "We've been all over the city and the only thing we found were more dead bodies."

"You must keep in mind, behemoth, that the stronger the spell is, the easier it will be to detect. The bodies are easiest to find because that is when the spell is at its strongest. It will take a much closer range to detect those who have just been affected... or those who have just cast it."

"Yeah, well going in circles until we find something isn't exactly my idea of a good time."

"What would you be doing right now instead?" I laughed.

"I dunno, sitting in the dark. Brooding." It was a joke. I think.

["Any luck?"] A voice crackled through my communicator, grim and deadpan. Snake Man.

"Not much so far," I replied. "Just more bodies. Ha'Khael thinks we need to be pretty close by to catch someone who was just infected. What about on your end?"

["Not really. Shadow Man's been lobbying for some jurisdiction all day, but it's not looking good. He thinks emerGEnesis is trying to freeze us out. Makes sense, if they were involved somehow."]

He sounded bitter. More than usual. Maybe I was bolstered by the bit of success with Hard this morning but I felt like reaching out to him.

"You know, it's not your fault. You led the mission the best you could."

["Shadow doesn't seem to think so."]

"Yeah, well he's had a stick up his ass about everything lately," I said. "In all the time I've known you, you've been the most dedicated and resourceful guy I've met. If you say that you think emerGEnesis is something other than it seems, then I believe you. It sounds mental, but I believe you."

There was a pause. I'd like to think it was for a smile, but I wouldn't put money on it. ["...I actually had an idea of something I could try."]

"Oh yeah?"

["Yeah, something Ha'Khael said actually made me think of it. Those guards, they're getting paid to be there, right? Someone's paying for all of it, the space, the equipment, the personnel... So if I'm right and emerGEnesis is just a shell company, then it would take some serious financials to back that big of a cover-up."]

"Sure, stands to reason. We should check out the company's founder then."

["Way ahead of you. His name's Adam Everett, I've done a bit of digging on him but not much has come up. Wealthy, reclusive, your standard rich eccentric. But I'm thinking that if he's funding this whole operation, if he's somehow involved with the creation of KADE, then we're going to see some interesting activity in his account statements. And those are a hell of a lot easier to hack into than what I faced up against last night."]

"Great! So what're you waiting for?"

["Top, hacking into someone's bank accounts isn't exactly legal."]

"Neither was breaking into emerGEnesis."

["Yeah, but that was Shadow's call. Somehow I don't think he's going to take my side on this one."]

"Dude, who cares what the boss-man says? It's a good plan. Sometimes you gotta break a few rules to save lives."

["The last time I broke the rules I got kill-switched by Amatista, in case you forgot. I haven't."]

"Well, for what it's worth, I think you should do it. And it's only a problem if you got caught, right? I thought you were supposed to be the number-one badass hacker now."

I could hear him groan on the other end, but secretly, I think he loved it, because after a long pause he said: ["Doing it."]

There were a few minutes of silence while I let him do his thing interrupted. I tried to focus on Ha'Khael's lengthy explanation of how he'd made the divining rod while we worked, but I was barely listening. Most of my attention was on waiting for Snake's voice to crackle again in my ear.

["I've got something."]

"Let's hear it," I said, cutting off Ha'Khael mid-sentence. He didn't look amused.

["This guy's got some serious cash to spend. And spend it he does. It's going to take me a long time to go through all these transactions to figure out just what he's up to with emerGEnesis, but I don't think I have time for that right now. Listen to this. Late last night he withdrew two million dollars. In cash. He's making a move."]

"You think he's buying KADE off someone?"

["Too soon to tell, but it's suspicious."]

"That's an understatement. You've gotta tell Shadow."

["...not yet. It's not enough to go on. But maybe we can catch him in the act. I'm gonna stake out emerGEnesis tonight, and Needle's going to go to his address. Just keep your communicator on, in case we need to move on him."]

"Gotcha. Good luck."

He didn't answer. Pretty typical, but a 'thank you' or 'you too' would've been nice. I turned to Hard. "Something big might be going down tonight with emerGEnesis, if it hasn't already. Snake's looking into it, but he wants us to- hey!"

While I was speaking, Ha'Khael broke from us into a run. The little bugger was fast. But fast was my specialty.

"Where the hell you going?" I shouted at him as I started to close the distance.

"The divining rod is picking up something," he shouted back. "Hurry up!"

Oh. I felt a little silly. For a second I'd thought he was trying to make a run for it.

I had to slow my pace to not overtake him as he led us down a few streets toward a cluster of people in the distance. Hard, meanwhile, was thundering behind us, trying to catch up.

We'd arrived into a scene of chaos. People were chanting angrily, breaking things. Many of them had green armbands on. I could hear the familiar distortion of a voice shouting amidst the crowd through a megaphone.

"Robot JAILORS! Robot POLICE ENFORCERS! Robots in power everywhere! Just look at how easily our tools of convenience turn against us! Lest we forget! Lest we forget!"

I turned to Ha'Khael. He frowned a little at the spine in his hands. "There are too many people here, too close together. I can't get a proper reading."

Last time I'd nearly been swallowed up by the crowd. But last time I didn't have a ten-foot friend at my disposal.

"Alright, listen UP!" I shouted as I climbed onto Hard's shoulders to be seen better. "On behalf of the Robot Police Department you are ordered to settle the hell down! Some of you may be in danger and we need to-"

"It's you!" shouted the hispanic woman on the megaphone, who I could now see clearly from my higher vantage point. Her thin spectacles gave a startling look of intelligence to her otherwise dangerously crazed eyes. "You Robot Masters! You started all of this! Before you Mechanical Maniacs came back things were getting better for humanity. We had jobs. A purpose! Dignity! It all went wrong the moment you people came back, bringing all of your corruption with you." She turned to her fellow protestors, many of which had quieted down since my warning. "Don't fear the robot oppressors! Look to me!"

The woman pressed a button on what had looked to be her watch and her body erupted in a flash of light. It dissipated quickly and I could see now that it was a teleporter. Because she was wearing a green and yellow armor now. It had large, spiked, shoulder pads, pointed boots, a domed head, and a surprisingly simple breastplate. It looked kind of familiar.

"I wield the hand of machine, strong but merciful under my command! I wield the brain of man, calculating and caring! I am Monsteropolis' champion, a 'Robot Master' without the capacity to hurt those I've sworn to protect! I am ... Hu Man!"

The air was silent. The last of the protestors had quieted down, maybe not even sure if this was to be taken seriously or not.

"Hu Man?" I said between buckets of laughter. "Couldn't you come up with anything better?"

Even Hard was laughing. "If you're taking up a Robot Master name shouldn't you be Hu Woman?"

"Hu Ma'am?"

"Hu Chan!"

"Hu Gal!"

My laughter ended somewhere between Hu Man's frantic shrieks and a large .... something smacking me right in my face and knocking me off my precarious position on Hard's shoulder. Yeah. I guess I kinda deserved that.

Hu Man leaped at me while screeching something I couldn't hear. A Hard Knuckle sent her flying .... or should have. That armor made her surprisingly agile. She used it as a base and leapt to the side. She quickly leapt out of the way as another Hard Knuckle came crashing into the ground in front of her.

Before Hard's knuckles came back one of her arms spat out some kind of weird ball. I saw her kick it and it turned into this weird black ball which glowed purple energy. I registered this right before it smacked me in the face. Again. I heard Hard cry out shortly after, so I guess it smacked him too.

"Feel the power of a weapon wielded by an intelligent mind instead of just a program!" More black-purple glowing ball things smacked me in the gut. At least it wasn't in the face this time. Recovering a bit from the surprise assault Hard and I made our way to opposite ends of Hu Man. Well, I skated to the other side and Hard Man leapt up and crashed into the ground close by Hu Man. Not really a standard police procedure. It actually could have hurt this psycho, not that I minded.

I needn't have worried. Hu Man slid away quickly and pummeled the big guy with energy ball after energy ball. From my vantage I could see the weapon clearly now, and then I realized I recognized it. "That's Wily tech! It's from that stupid attempt of his to ruin Mega Man's soccer game! And that's Dr. Light's stupid Mega Ball!"

Hu Man laughed manically and readied another Mega Ball. I tried to dodge, but she was as good at angles as Gemini was, and it smacked me in the back of the head as it ricocheted off the ground. I heard Hard growl as she hit him again.

I felt my anger rising. This was humiliating! Being beaten by some insane zealot with a lot of cheap shots in armor she didn't even make? She hit me in the head again, and again, ball after ball. I was starting to see stars from being hit so many times.

But then it hit me. She had an inherent weakness. One I didn't have. She could feel pain. I could make her feel it.

She dropped another Mega Ball, but this time I was ready. Using long dormant abilities I readied my own kick and hit the Mega Ball for all it was worth. Hu Man wasn't expecting it, and the ball spun back at her and hit the firing mechanism. Hard.

She tried to fire another shot, and to her detriment the mechanism backfired on her with a small explosion that sent her sprawling to the ground. But there was still fight in her and I was just getting started. With a spinning kick I shattered the helmet of her armor and glass fell down on her face like glitter. She cried out something, but I was too pumped to care what it was. I used another super shot aimed at her stomach to drive her down.

She wasn't struggling anymore, and I got ready to show her how it felt to be hit in the face once and for all when I was pulled up off my feet by something large. Hard was holding me high in the air and spun me around to face him.

"Holy crap, Top, I'm supposed to be the borderline psychotic. What the hell was that!?"

What was that? It's not like I hadn't killed in the line of duty before. But not when an enemy was already incapacitated. Had I gone too far this time? I couldn't even tell anymore. Had Mesmerman gained such a strong footing in my mind that I couldn't even tell right from wrong anymore?

And that's when I saw him. I might not have even seen him among the crowd if I hadn't been hanging mid-air. But there he was, the same guy I'd seen before, with the too-wide grin, looking up at me from the crowd. Mesmerman. He turned to leave.

"NO!" I shouted, and wriggled out of Hard's grasp. I fell to the floor but immediately used the velocity to my advantage, ducking between Hard's legs with a roll and then leaping up to skate after Mesmerman. The people who had been too stunned to move during the fight were frightened now, running away from me as I tried to push past them. It made it hard to keep tracking him with so many panicking people in the line of sight.

"Top! Top, god DAMN it!"

I ignored whoever kept calling after me. I wasn't going to let him disappear again. I caught a glimpse of him as he rounded a corner into an alleyway. I followed him in. He was trying to climb over a chain-link fence, but I cleared the alley's length in no time and pulled him off, sending him to the ground. I picked him up and pinned him to the wall.

"Alright, Mesmerman, you've-"

I stopped. This wasn't a robot. He was human. He stared at me with dark eyes, and he let out a grin. I saw now why I'd thought the grin looked impossibly long - the corners of his mouth were ripped open, exposing teeth deep into his cheeks. It looked horrible.

"You've been a bad boy," he chuckled.

I was about to respond when someone shouted for me again. I realized it wasn't coming from behind me. It was coming from my communicator.

["Top, get your ass OVER here NOW! The Ascendant Androids are at emerGEnesis! We're -"]

The line was cut short and I expected the worst. I looked over the man once more, but I was pretty sure he wasn't some Mesmerman illusion. I could even feel his heart beating, and his breathing against my face. I didn't have time to linger. I punched in the coordinates on my wrist and waited for the teleporter to take effect.

He tipped his hat, and looked back at me with one dark, dead eye. "Be seeing you," he said as I was whisked away.