Better Judgment:
The Dr. Wily Story

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 13

199X

“Just one more thing, Mr. Wily,” the security guard was saying. “I just need to check you for weapons.”

“Really?” I said incredulously. “Do I look like a trained assassin?”

“Nobody ever really does,” the guard replied with a smirk, a point I had to concede on. He waved a black wand-like device over me a few times, seemingly disappointed when it failed to report anything. “Okay,” he nodded to Alfred Gibbs, who was patiently waiting just inside the door, “he's clean.”

“I told you,” Gibbs sighed. “This is five minutes I'm not getting back because of you, Alan.”

“Have a nice day,” the guard, Alan, I suppose, said in the tones of a man who really hoped you didn't. It was a somewhat comforting thought that not even Gibbs's allies seemed to like him all that much. We walked through a marble hallway to a set of elevators. This was a fairly nice building in downtown Monsteropolis, housing several very nice law firms that could afford it after prosecuting or defending millionaires. Gibbs pushed a call button for an elevator and we stood in silence for a moment.

“So is this supposed to impress me?” I asked eventually.

He rolled his eyes. “You genius types are all just freakin' insufferable, you know that? The universe doesn't revolve around you.”

“Oh, really?” I snapped, crossing my arms. “Then why have you been trying so hard to get me here? I swear, I felt like the prettiest girl before the prom-”

“What part of 'It's my job' was unclear to you?” He groaned. “Honestly, I would rather be doing a LOT of things rather than drop in on you and be creepy. God, Al, I have a life.”

“You could have fooled me,” I said. “Just saying.”

“Shut up. I'm happy I get to hand this up the ladder, get you out of my... off my schedule,” he said, running a hand over his head. “One way or another, I'm going to have to worry about you after today.”

The elevator dinged, and the door opened. Gibbs motioned me inside. We both got in and he took out a key, putting it into a slot under the elevator's console before hitting a button. A penthouse, presumable. The 46th floor. The elevator began to move, and that grating music filled the silence.

“So what's he like?”

“What?” Gibbs asked, confused.

“What's Mr. X like?”

“Ah,” he said, giving this some thought. “Honestly? He's a jackass.”

“Well, he DOES employ YOU, so I guess...”

“No, really,” Gibbs said, cutting me off. “Mr. X is the kind of guy who will do crap that annoys you because he knows it annoys you. He likes pushing people to see how far they'll let themselves be taken before the lose it. Since pretty much everyone he deals with WORKS for him, that's pretty far, usually.”

“Sounds like a nice guy,” I said sarcastically.

“He's not BAD, just a jackass.”

“So what does he do? Why does he want me?”

The elevator dinged, and the doors slid open. “I think you're about to find out,” Gibbs shrugged.

The room beyond the doors was totally different than the marble, vaulted hallway we'd left behind on the ground floor. Here, up in the sky, glass walls gave a commanding view of the sprawling metropolis below, and artistic arches and floors were accentuated by small streams of water that lined everything like some sort of living picture frame. The effect was rather striking, if not a little strange. The beauty of it was undeniable, but the sound of all that water left one looking for a restroom.

I stepped out of the elevator, my shoes making clear clicking sounds on the polished floor. “This is as far as I go,” Gibbs said as the elevator closed again. “Have fun.”

The doors closed and he was gone, leaving me alone in the designer penthouse. I walked around tentatively for a moment before I heard the voice. It was low, with a sort of hissing quality, and carried an inherent... I don't know how to describe it other than 'darkness', like the person who used it had used it to order minions around and laugh manically.

“Albert Wily, I presume?”

I turned, looking at a door that might have led to a bedroom of some sort. In the doorway, a short, bald, rotund man stood, his hands folded in front of him in that 'evil mastermind' way that fit with the voice he was using. There was something... strangely familiar about him, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

“You're Mr. X?” I asked cautiously. “Not what I expected, I admit.”

“Expectations lead to disappointment,” he smirked in a way that made me think his next words were 'disappointment leads to the dark side' or some such nonsense.

“I expect you'll be disappointed then.”

“Quite possibly,” he nodded. “I am prepared for that. I know that Alfred Gibbs has not been the most effective agent for recruiting you.”

“That's putting it mildly,” I commented. “So why did you want me? Gibbs made it sound important.”

“Oh it is, it is,” he said, his voice trailing off. “In fact, it is a matter of life and death.”

“Sounds serious.”

“Indeed,” Mr. X hissed. He walked into the room, and it was only now that I realized that one of his arms and one of his legs were prosthetic. The made a much different, more metallic sound as they struck the polished floor. They were high-end, to be sure, not the minimalist bone-like replacements many people had, possessed as they were of some sort of mechanical musculature. They certainly didn't look real, but they did look menacing.

“I am a man on borrowed time,” Mr. X said, “and I have pulled together some of the world's most brilliant minds to find a way to extend that time.”

“You need a doctor, not a scientist,” I told him. “Especially not a student.”

“Students are the best,” he smiled as he moved past me toward something that could be a couch. “They are still learning what is possible, and have not rooted in their minds what might be impossible.”

“I suppose,” I said. He sat down heavily, and I could hear now that he was closer that his breathing was labored, possibly due to his weight, but more likely due to his degenerating general health. “You still seem to have more medical needs than technology needs, though.”

“Tell me, Albert Wily,” he said, gasping once. “Have you ever heard of the Singularity?”

“A super artificial intelligence?” I asked. “I think I heard the term Superintelligence at one point. The concept has been mentioned a few times in my classes, but we very rarely go into detail.”

“Close,” he chuckled. “The Singularity, as I understand it, is the perfect merging of man and machine, the moment when a human mind can be downloaded into a computer and the subject can live forever within a mechanical system. It's the time in human history when things take a turn and being human becomes an option rather than a requirement.”

“That... That's a monumentally improbably task,” I told him. “For starters, you'd need a unique type of system, something that operates off of a more expansive base of variables than simple ones and zeroes. You can't break the human mind down into simple 'yes and no' choices, it doesn't work. To truly capture a human mind, you'd need a four or preferably a sixteen-base computational system to-”

He raised a hand to stop me, “Yes, yes, the techno babble is quite fascinating,” he said with a smirk. “I have been told as such by several men so far, and this, I believe, is the problem. There is no team of renowned minds working on this idea, so I have decided, for completely selfish reasons, to put one together.”

“You want to be uploaded into a computer?” I asked.

“I want to live beyond the years my physical body can supply, yes,” Mr. X affirmed. “Is that so wrong?”

“Not entirely, unless you have a less than noble purpose.”

“Fishing for reason,” Mr. X smiled. “You're crafty. In all honesty” and I knew this wouldn't be honest at all at that moment, “I am possessed of a vast fortune that I use for a lot of charitable projects in a lot of disadvantaged countries, and while I love my son dearly, his is an idiot with money and I know that such a fortune would only be squandered in his possession.”

“How would the legalities of an uploaded human mind work? He could make an argument that you're technically dead and claim an inheritance anyway.”

He sat for a moment. “You see, this is why I need you!” he laughed. “I have spoken to 15 scientists about this, all of whom have an IQ apparently in the low to mid 200s, and not ONE of them has ever mentioned the legal aspect. You almost have to ask yourself what IQs are for.”

“What makes you think I'm the man for the job?” I asked.

“You're ONE of the men for the job,” Mr. X smiled. “As I said, it is a team that I am trying to put together, and you come very highly recommended. Excellent grades, and enough time to work on some rather interesting sounding side projects. You could have almost any job you wanted once you graduate, if the buzz around you keeps building.”

This didn't surprise me to hear. Walter K. Weisel was something of a big deal, and he knew a lot of people, and we'd amazed him pretty handily. Of course he was telling anyone who would listen about the promising work of two young roboticists. Hell, I wasn't even a roboticist, technically speaking, just a programmer, but by this point I considered the terms interchangeable with regards to myself.

“So what if I say no?” I said, crossing my arms. Nothing he had said had really captured my interest, and I was eager to end the meeting and get back to work without the shadow of Alfred Gibbs over my shoulder.

“Beg pardon?”

“If I tell you 'thanks, but no thanks', does Gibbs put a bullet in me? Do I wake up in one of your disadvantaged countries never to be heard from again? What's the deal here?”

He laughed at this, the mirth devolving into a coughing, hacking fit that looked like it was shaking his body apart. “Good heavens, Albert, who do you think I am, the Godfather?” He took a moment to catch his breath. “I'm a businessman. We don't KILL the people who don't agree with us, good lord no. You are in no physical danger.”

“Good,” I said, breathing a sigh of relief.

Then his face turned nasty. “We crush them.”

“What?”

He laughed, this one much more menacing, and it sounded right at home in the hiss of a voice he had. “You and your little friend, Thomas Light? Planning to build a company, are we? Let me take a wild guess as to how that will go for you. You'll run into some rather silly financial hurdles that will plague you well into your third business year, and by that time you'll be so strung out trying to keep up with an overbearing work load that the stress will claim you, and don't try to snow me, Al, because stress claims EVERYONE eventually, and the money will be just a little TOO tight to let you work, and nobody will be happy that a pair of apparent prodigies couldn't deliver on their incredible promises and at that point, I won't even have to do anything else because the court of public opinion will convict the pair of you to true obscurity, and you'll both die known that you had more to give the world, and I'll still be alive and living, if you could call it that, anyway.”

The gasping was gone. The physical mannerisms that identified him as unhealthy were gone. He has transformed, over the course of his run-on sentence, into a completely different, vicious and sneering person. One of the most startlingly obvious examples of villainy I had ever experienced. Even as my shock set in, he continued.

“I have friends in low place, and friends in high places, Al,” he chuckled. “Sure, I could have you mugged, robbed, or burn down your house with a fantastic little arsonist I know, or I could just ruin you financially and blacklist you with every bank from here to China. Maybe I'll do all of that, but know this: if you say no to me now, you also walk out on your other dreams. All the robots, all the fame, that charmingly cartoonish DRLWN series, Thomas's side project to build children, and any ambitions of changing the world you might be so foolishly possessed of. One way or another, if you deny me, I will rip the heart out of you.”

I was fighting to keep my composure, and I realized I was shaking with... was it anger or fear? I honestly couldn't tell. “So I would advise,” he continued, “that you determine how important your future is to you, really, before you make a decision that could affect your entire life.” He was standing now, none of the theatrical weakness in his frame.

Oddly enough, it was at this moment that I realized what had seemed so familiar about him earlier. I started to actually laugh, more out of nerves than joy. The look of confusion that crossed his face only made me laugh more.

“What?” he hissed.

I took a few deep breaths. “Nothing, nothing” I said, wiping a tear from my eye. “It's just... I know who you are.”

He looked honestly shocked at this. If I knew who he was, I could report him to someone. He was certainly not a man who wanted scrutiny in his life from any sort of authorities. “What? How?”

“I just realized,” I said with a smile, “Isaac probably gets his legs from his mother.”

There was a stunned silence, and I prayed I was right. He looked me up and down, and started to laugh, slowly at first, and then louder and longer, until it finally dove once again into a coughing fit that betrayed the villainous facade he'd been portraying. The coughing drove him back onto his seat.

“How did you know?”

I couldn't stop grinning. “A friend of mine called him the Eggman, and I guessed the shape is somewhat genetic.”

“Well played, Albert Wily,” he said offering a hand in introduction. “Julius Kintobor.”

I stepped away and back toward the elevator, purposefully not shaking his hand and leaving him there looking like a fool. “I'm sure we'll meet again,” I said over my shoulder. “Not because of some cliché thing like the world not being big enough for the two of us, but because great ambitions will always collide on the fields of human history. The world will only remember one of us, Julius, and I intend it to be me.”

“The world won't have to remember me,” he laughed as the elevator opened. “I'm never going to die.”

20XX

I lived for days like this. Days that became landmarks when people looked back over the years. Days that I took and crafted into memories that stained human recollection and sent insurance agencies into an orgasmic tizzy.

Days when Dr. Wily terrorized the globe once again.

First things first, a decent breakfast. I had four different Robot Masters deliver eggs, pancakes, bacon, and orange juice. Only about half of them didn't think it was a waste of their time. Sometimes I love doing things like that, especially when I'm in a good mood.

Next was the pre-recorded message. I was VERY busy during these world conquering things, and I usually recorded my 'Hi, it's me, on your planet, conquerin' your world' announcement for the various news organization well in advance. I took a deep breath and set up my Lab to record my face as I spoke. This particular speech was going to be... different.

“Hello, world,” I began, adopting my evil look. “I know it hasn't been very long, and I know that what I'm doing might seem a little brutal and a little bit of an overreaction, but I also know that there are some of you who understand what I am doing, and why.

“There is a group of people out there, people you may know of, and people you may never have heard of, called the Book of Revelations. They're one of those shadowy groups that every conspiracy theory believes exists, and they have crossed me. In response to this grievous offense, which I won't detail here, I have taken it upon myself of doing the rest of you a public service by wiping these wretched little fools off the face of the planet.

“Of course, once they're out of the way, my non-trivial amount of forces will be holding the locations they are attacking for my own extended purposes, so, hey, it isn't so strange that I'm doing this because, let's face it, its what I do. Seriously, though, world leaders, don't try to stop me on this one, because the Book of Revelations is going the way of the dinosaurs, and anyone who gets in my way is going to be eradicated right alongside them.

I started to turn off the recording and then stopped myself. “Oh, and Mega Man? Believe me this time when I say that I am the LEAST of your problems.” I ended the recording on a laugh that could have won me an Oscar. I saved the video file and set the window aside, bringing up another, smaller one for composing an E-mail. This one I recorded a video call into, as well as dumped several files on top of.

“Tom,” I said as the recording began, “trust me on this one. Just this one. For old times sake. I included in this message every piece of dirt and evidence I have on the Book of Revelations, and I hope you can see that they are a very real danger to the world, and maybe you'll hold your little blue attack dog back for an hour or so and let me do this. Heck, I'll even keep a line open in case you want to call me, y'know, for any reason. Oh, and the direct-feed footage from Quick Man and Shadow Man I'm sending you? Before you ask, yes, that IS your house in the background. I tasked them and a few of my other fast and stealthy heavy hitters to protecting your fat ass so I can humiliate you later. Ta ta.”

I saved the E-mail and loaded the files into it, setting that one aside as well. I brought up my Tac-Map and made some final adjustments, letting my refreshed state help correct some of the errors of fatigue, and went over my plan one last time in my head.

I set up the video for the News networks to be sent out ten minutes after the Tac Map finalized, and the E-mail to Tom a further five minutes later, when he was sure to have seen the breaking coverage (because I was a big deal, lets face it). I copied my files on the Book of Revelations into a separate dump file and tagged it to drop itself into the servers of the CIA, MI6, the KGB (although I held no illusions about such a thing patching up my earlier intrusion), and about a dozen other intelligence agencies, where it was programmed to give a quick intrusion signal to attract attention and show itself off to anyone who might be looking. Given the... juiciness of the material, I doubted it would be ignored.

I set that filed up to drop a full minute after I finalized the Tac-Map and kicked off my invasion of the Books various worldly holdings. Unlike my normal list of industrial targets, I was sending my armies to attack specific banking buildings, hardened vaults, and oversized server farms that contained the financial and informational backbone of the Book. Striking and destroying key targets at these locations would throw the entire organization into chaos, probably putting the puritanical morons into a panic and making them easier for the authorities to catch the ones I wasn't planning on killing myself.

The Book operated, in its past, from a council of high-minded and prideful people who felt they were worthy of ruling to world from the shadows. Their front man, Mr. X, was usually not a council member, but I was given to understand that was no longer the case. With Mr. X on my personal hit list, I knew I only had twelve other people to hunt down and kill to take the entire ruling head of the Book of Revelations out of the picture for good, effectively destroying the organization. Granted, I was working on a hodgepodge of hijacked information and hearsay, but considering my sources were some of the Book's own servers, I had a lot of faith in my information.

While the bulk of my forces were going to be targeting the aforementioned sensitive locations, the Mega Man Killers and I would be paying a personal visit to Mr. X's humble abode. A sprawling, three square mile complex hidden in and around a remote part of the Alps, near Italy. I hear its lovely this time of year. After personally putting that smug son of a bitch down with a little something special I was planning to bring with me, I would come back to the bunker and direct my forces, guiding the Mega Man Killers in the direction of any of the twelve other Book of Revelations head honchos I could find.

It was going to be a busy day, and I needed to make sure just a few more things were ready, not the least of which was the MK 6 Combat Pod and the minor repairs it required after the attack on Cossack's lab. I set about working, budgeting two hours to get everything prepared before I gave the Tac-Map one last good once-over and set everything in motion.

I found myself humming as I worked, and realized that for the first time in a long while, I was actually quite pleased with myself. Maybe it was the warm, fuzzy feeling of doing the world a public service for a change, or maybe it was just anticipating that delicious moment later when Mr. X would finally meet his end. Who's to know?

I hadn't felt this good in years.