Better Judgment:
The Dr. Wily Story

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 11

199X

“He'll never see it coming,” Tom smiled.

“We're not trying to surprise the poor man,” I told him. “We're trying to sell him on the idea that OUR ideas work.”

“What, and we can't have some fun with that?”

“Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the dramatic reveal,” I said, “but we don't need to sit him down in a pile of garbage and have the Fleas collect it from around him. Six little green things you've never seen before hopping at you is enough to give anyone a heart attack, let alone a man who's had one already. “

Tom considered this. “You're probably right.”

“Of course I'm right,” I sighed.

Walter K. Weisel was due to be here in a matter of minutes, and we had everything set up, but we were going over the finer details. Tom, for example, wanted the Fleas to move around and through our captive audience of one as a demonstration of how safe they would be, whereas I believed that startling an older man with documented health issues with jumping green cannonballs 'all up in his grill' as some might put it would be an astronomically BAD idea.

We eventually settled on a compromise, and I took the garbage bag I had stuffed with 'testing samples' (which was really just our garbage from our dorm, but hey, Science is about naming things that are useless in a cool way) and spread half of the contents around the 'staging area' which was really just the back half of the garage marked off by curtains, and I held the second half in reserve, to use later during the presentation.

We'd run a dozen tests of the system by now, and I knew that as soon as we powered everything on, the Cat (holding unit) would spew its payload of six Fleas (gathering units) into the air in a spread pattern. From there, the Fleas would scan their surroundings, identify any 'trash' (we had strict parameters for identifying 'trash', but they tended to go after any object they could pick up and return to their holding unit with, which was a programming error I was still working on), identify if any of the other Flea units were after the same 'trash' (to avoid collisions), move to and gather the 'trash' and then return to the Cat. If a Flea could not identify trash within its scanning range (about six feet, which was about two thirds their jumping distance), they would make a full leap in a somewhat random direction and do another scan.

Earlier versions of the software had them jumping into walls and each other, occasionally, when there was no trash left. I'd been re-writing code basically all morning, running a new test each time the revised programming was uploaded to all of the units. One time, I had accidentally designated the Fleas themselves as 'trash', which had led to a hilarious, albeit unproductive, series of events where the Fleas had literally tried to eat each other, Fortunately, they were pretty sturdy and not that strong, but it had been a laugh watching them chase each other in circles.

I had just added the final piece to the program, which recalled the Fleas after a set amount of time without positive trash identification and made the Cat move to a new location assuming it wasn't full, and the most recent test had gone swimmingly until three and a half tons of dumpster Cat had decided that its job was finished and that is was going to go somewhere else. I remembered the emergency kill-switch before it went crashing through the door to the garage, which helped to retain the element of surprise, but I'd have to remember to hit the switch after the demonstration again.

I made my final adjustments, and made sure everything was in order before I replaced the curtain over our 'staging area' and tried hard to calm down.

It wasn't long before there was the sound of a car outside, and Tom went out to greet our guest. I stayed inside, waiting for them to return, which they did promptly.

“Mr. Weisel,” Tom was saying, “May I introduce my partner and good friend, Albert Wily.”

I smiled an held out a hand, which was shaken vigorously, “I've heard so much about you,” I said with a grin.

“Likewise,” he returned with a smile,' instantly putting some of my fears at rest. “Alfred Gibbs won't shut up about either of you,” wow, fears, that was a short nap... “and I must say Tom makes quite the meal companion, so I can only assume that you're the smart one.”

Tom laughed. This must be something of Walter's sense of humor. “I do what I can to keep up with him,” Tom said, “but he doesn't make it easy.”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “You both flatter me so, and we haven't even gotten to the main event. Please, have a seat sir,” I said, nodding to a lone chair.

He took it eagerly. “So what do you two have for me to see?”

I glanced sideways at Tom, who looked nervous enough to faint. He gave me a slight nod and I ducked behind the curtain, listening for my cue.

“Densely populated urban areas,” Tom began in what may have been the worst opening line to a speech I'd ever written, “face a myriad of problems. Crime, poverty, vandalism, all of these and more which are indicative of the times we live in and the state of the human condition. With technology, we can fix all sorts of problems, but we've decided to start at the bottom and to work our way up.”

It dawned on me that this was setting the bar sort of high for a trash-collection service. I'd been writing code and writing the speech at the same time. Maybe I should avoid doing that in the future. Good note, Albert.

“Litter and trash dot every street, and there just isn't enough time in the day or volunteers in the world to pick it all up and recycle it properly. So, for the sake of our environment, both urban and not, Albert Wily and Thomas Light present to you the LWLN Series A Waste Management Drones.”

I pulled back the curtain to reveal the large and bulky Cat. This got an immediate laugh from Walter and Tom hesitated. Also littered about the floor was the half bag of sample trash, although I'm not sure he noticed it right away.

“Um... designed.. dammit, sorry,” he fumbled, then coughed. “Designed with a pleasing aesthetic to combat the idea that waste management is always dirty and unglamorous, the Waste Management Drones are capable of identifying, collecting, and depositing trash of all shapes and sizes, from every nook and cranny, and in any weather.”

The Cat opened its eyes and stood up slowly. The eyes were mostly decorative, to add to the appeal of the machine to make it seem more friendly and safe, but they did serve to give it personality, which was somewhat important to Tom. The more likable our machines were, the better people would receive them, which eased the transition from large dump trucks to mid-sized sedan sized Cats with Fleas.

And the award for strangest line in narration ever goes to...

Tom continued. “The Cat is a central holding unit and dumping location for its payload of smaller drones,” and on cue, the six Fleas launched, making Walter jump in his seat. “The drones propel themselves around by running a limited scan for debris and trash, leaping on their target, capturing it and returning it to the central holding unit. Once the drones return a number of negative scans, they pack back up and the Cat goes on the prowl for a more cluttered pasture.”

As he spoke, the drones went about their work, jumping, humming, this way and that. The Cat stood like a silent statue, opening its back occasionally to allow a Flea to deposit garbage. Walter was captivated, and Tom took the opportunity to take the rest of the garbage bag and sneak out of the door to set up stage two.

This left me with Walter, who watched with interest and occasionally asked a few technical questions that I was able to answer quite handily. It only took about 5 minutes for the Fleas to finish their work, and the Cat began to move.

“Where is it going?” Walter asked as it began to plod past him.

I grinned and hit the door control for the garage, the larger door sliding upward and allowing the Cat out into the street beyond. It deployed the Fleas again, and they set to work gathering up the trash Tom had spread all over the place with the second half of the bag.

Walter followed it, laughing as he did so. “Well, you boys did a fantastic job,” he said, the smile on his face threatening to separate the top of his head from his neck.

“Thank you, sir,” Tom said as I shut the Cat down after the Fleas were done with their task.

“You have quite the product here, and I'm interested in helping you promote it, so let's talk business.”

“We have a few more designs we'd like to prototype,” I said.

“And that's all well and good, but I'd like to see a return on my initial investment before we move on to any new projects,” he said with a kind tone.

“That makes sense,” Tom gave in. “We were thinking the units could be sold in bulk to cities and urban areas, and with some programming modifications they could also patrol highways and major roads and keep those trash-free as well.”

“That might take some time,” I cautioned. “It's one thing to keep them aware of and not bumping into each other, but to keep them aware of moving vehicles and out of harms way will take a lot more work, not to mention some hardware upgrades.”

“Let's take your prototype here to a few of my investor friends and see what they have to say,” Walter told us. “Trust me, they're going to love it, especially the ones I know who have kids. Have you considered a smaller, home use version?”

“Downsizing the series might make it more commercially acceptable,” Tom said, “but I also know that we ran into power issues the smaller we got.”

“Putting a big enough power source into the system gets complicated the smaller we go,” I confirmed. “This version runs off a pair of car batteries for the Cat, and the Fleas have about a four D-cells apiece jammed into the housing. If we had a bit more time and maybe a little more equipment, we might be able to find alternate, reliable methods of powering smaller units, but for right now we have an easily built and maintained robot and drones that do a very good job.”

“Right,” Tom said. “We can expand on things later, right now let's just sell the basic package.”

“Okay,” Walter said with a smile. “I'll set up some meetings and get you boys in front of the right people to make your presentation. I'll give you a call when I have something, okay?”

We said our thank yous and our good byes, and soon Walter K. Weisel was gone, leaving us with a very large Cat with Fleas in a garage. We talked excitedly about the system for a while, but eventually, Tom gave me a look.

“This is only the start, you know?” He looked tired, but also energized. “Stuff like this gets our foot in the door, but I don't want to be a garbageman forever.”

“I know, my friend,” I nodded.

“I'm serious, Albert,” he said. “We can do a LOT more. Truly independent, free thinking humanoid robots, with specific roles and purposes, doing the difficult jobs that humans can't, and making the world a more sustainable, more habitable place.”

“Setting the bar a bit high, Tom?” I smirked.

“Albert, we can change the world,” he said earnestly. “Hell, the whole course of human history may one day owe itself to our efforts. Of course I'm setting the bar high.”

“And we'll clear it with room to spare,” I assured him. “It's never too early to start.”

“Good,” Tom smiled, “because I have some ideas.” He fumbled around in his pocket and produced a small notebook, not unlike my own, and handed it to me. I opened it up and started to read.

“The DRLWN Series?”

“I figure by the time we can make these, we'll have our Doctorates.”

“You optimism astounds me, Tom,” I cracked as I flipped through. There were several ideas in here, some of which were fairly basic, while others were wildly improbable and would require years of research for the basic technologies to make them work. “Robot Masters, huh?”

“Like the Cat to the Fleas, they'll be work site managers as well as workers, capable of higher functions and decision making, and handing out orders to other robots while answering only to humans.”

“Wow, better hope they don't go crazy,” I laughed. “We'd have some real problems on our hands. What's this one, a lumber jack?”

“I took a page out of your book when I was coming up with the physical design ideas. Just a little whimsy to go along with the function.”

“He has scissors on his head, Tom. How will anyone take him seriously?”

Tom laughed. “We can work all of this out later, but we're going to be working even harder now.”

“Oh, most certainly,” I said, handing him back the notebook. “After all, the world won't change itself...”

20XX

“Do I have to?” Spring Man protested.

“Yes,” I sighed. “That light bulb isn't going to change itself.”

“This seems contrived. Like some sort of cosmic segueway,” Freeze Man mentioned.

“Shut up,” I said, continuing my walk to the Lab. I was holding the prize Freeze Man and his team had brought me from the arctic; a small round capsule, still cold and frosted over from its time in the ice. “I hope this is still intact.”

“Am I going to be in trouble if it isn't?” Freeze Man asked nervously.

“No,” I told him in a rare moment of honesty. Any damage the contents might have sustained would have happened when it had fallen to Earth a year and some months ago. As it was, the fact that the capsule was still intact gave me a lot of hope for the contents, but that would be a matter for the Lab. “Get back to work, Freeze Man. Into the Wreck Room with everyone else.”

“Yes sir,” he nodded, and he left at speed.

The Lab lit up like Christmas as I entered, and even before I set the capsule down the room was examining the contents and telling me things I already knew. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and wiped the frost and condensation off the capsule to reveal the flickering, purplish flame beneath.

It was called Evil Energy, although I had discovered a long time ago there was nothing inherently evil about it. In fact, being extra terrestrial in origin (much like the idiot Stardroid that had tasked itself with its elimination), it held some rather amazing properties. I could see why something out there might want to regulate or destroy it, as at its core is was a sort of virus, but it was its composition that was the most fascinating.

While it was energy, of a sort, it was also a program. A nebulous, physical program. It was the basis of my penultimate weapon against Tom's vision of the future. In fact, my Virus server was missing just a few pieces to make the whole package complete, and this capsule was one of the biggest pieces I had needed. Now all that was left were a few adjustments and, of course, the final upload and then download into my own advanced-AI analog, and everything would finally be ready, waiting for the day Tom's ridiculous machine came out of its 'ethical testing' hibernation.

I smiled inwardly. “You can have your X-Factor, Tom,” I said to myself, “but I'll win in the end.”

Satisfied with the capsule for now, I left it on the table and moved to a different, empty bench. “All right,” I said out loud, engaging the Lab computer's voice activated controls. “Let's bring up our Tac-Map.” A wireframe globe sprang into being above the table, different sections of continents being highlighted and defined. I sighed, looking at my target list again. I had done this so many times by now, it was almost boring.

With Cossack's creations added to my not unimpressive roster of Robot Masters, I now had eight teams of eight. Given the delicacy of the mission in question, I couldn't well leave it up to my old standard of a single Master for every tactical site, no. This time, a full eight Robot Masters would be in each location, and while I didn't have high hopes that they would be able to STOP Mega Man, their objective was actually to slow him down after completing their initial job.

Eight highlighted areas, each marked for a specific reason, awaited Robot Master assignments. Once I finalized the Tac-Map, orders would be sent out to all of my Robot Masters simultaneously, assuring a coordinated, well-timed strike on each location at once. My goals this time were slightly different than a simple 'take and hold' for valuable resources this time, however. And this was the first time I was ever going to order my minions to murder human beings.

I took a deep breath and set my mind to the task. Each location held its own obstacles and challenges, and I needed events to play out in a specific order, which meant some of my targets were going to be a higher priority for response teams and I needed to take that into account. Before diving fully into the planning stages of my grand assault, I made a pair of calls, the first being to Quick Man.

“We're up to twelve now, sir” Quick Man said, replying to my question of how things were progressing. “How many more do they have to send?”

“Thirty-eight, according to Mr. X's list,” I said. “The Book is bound to be getting impatient by now, wondering what the delay is. We're running low on time.”

“We've got this handled, sir,” Quick Man said. “You worry about your end, and we'll take care of this one.”

“Thank you, Quick Man,” I said. “Keep it up.”

My second call was to Enker. He was currently infiltrating the home of Dr. Daniel Vallie, who rose to some level of fame when I stole his Knight Man creation while posing as Mr. X to use in the ill-fated mission I undertook for the Book at the time. I'd stolen eight separate designs, all of which were in the 'pretty good, but not as good as mine' range, and Enker was tracking down a hunch. I didn't actually NEED a team composed of eight ideas from around the globe, I had enough already, but Enker was about to confirm my suspicions.

“He's not here, sir.”

“Dr. Vallie is missing?”

“It doesn't look like a kidnapping, but he left in a hurry,” Enker told me. “His mainframe is... well... It's just gone.”

“Dammit,” I hissed silently. “What about the others?”

“Dr. Ichigawa, Dr. Leader, Dr. Suda... Yeah, all pretty much missing.”

“Okay. Come back to base.”

“What about the others?” Enker asked. “I'm only half-done...”

“It won't be any different,” I said. “They've been shanghaied for something else. Get back here and get the other Mega Man Killers together. I'm going to need to speak to all of you.”

“Yes, Lord Wily,” Enker said compliantly.

I let out some minor frustration by slamming a hand onto my table, causing the Tac-Map to flicker and jump. Dammit all. Mr. X would be behind this, or worse, Tom. Sure, the Strongest Robot Tournament All-Stars would have just been icing on the cake, but now they were going to be in someone else's hands, being used to try and stop me, possibly. This was turning into a war, although nobody had declared it yet.

Now I was going to have to take this new development into account, and if the edge in Quick Man's voice was anything to go by, I was running out of time.