Better Judgment:
The Dr. Wily Story

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 17

200X

“I'm so glad you could make it,” Tom said, a smile on his face. “I saved a seat for you.”

“Appreciate it,” I nodded, sitting down across the small table from him. “What's good here?”

“They make pretty good subs,” Tom grinned. “I already ordered one for you.”

“Aw, you remembered,” I smiled.

“Yeah. It's been a while, though...”

“Almost three years now, yeah,” I said.

“So how've you been?”

I shrugged. “Not terrible. I've found work, doing odd jobs, here and there.”

“It shocked us all when you got expelled. What happened?”

“A misunderstanding, really,” I said carefully. “Something happened on the base during an experiment and... well the investigation wasn't very kind to anyone. The Dean of admissions felt he needed to distance the university from me in case of anything... well, bad. He kept insisting there were no hard feelings, though.”

“I wish I'd have been there...”

“So what? So you could be in the same boat I'm in? Lost to obscurity? There was nothing we could have done for Isaac. It's pretty much just luck that you were in the garage that day anyway instead of there.”

“Still,” Tom sighed. “It just doesn't feel right, you know, doing all of this without you.”

“Yeah, you've become kind of a big deal, haven't you? I've heard a rumor your starting a company?”

Tom's poker face was still as terrible as ever. “No,” he lied, “I'm just looking at all of my options.”

“Light Labs?” I said, raising an eyebrow, and Tom's face broke into an involuntary smile. “Bonus points for the alliteration. You couldn't have done it with my name.”

“Wily Works?”

“Okay, that's weak and we both know it,” I smiled.

“Well, I'm not confirming anything. I couldn't have done ANY of this without you.”

“Do me a favor and just remember that, okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, I will.”

Our minds wandered, as they ever did, in different directions. “So how's Noele?” I asked eventually.

Tom's face became downcast. “I don't think it's going to work out, really.”

“I heard you two moved into a house together or something, right?”

He nodded, but said “We've had some hard spots. You never really know someone until you live with them, right?”

Sometimes, not even then, I thought to myself. “That's rough, man. I'm sorry. I figured you two were built for each other.”

He shook his head glumly. “I'm not so sure. I still like her, you know, but I'm all wrapped up in the work... I don't feel like I have enough time to be a good boyfriend.”

“Well, if nothing else, you two will stay friends. I can't see her staying mad at the nicest guy she ever met for long.”

“I hope so,” he sighed, trailing off. “So what about you?”

I shrugged again. “Living in an apartment on the east side of the city. Doing some light contracting work for a guy I know. Working on getting my Doctorate through RIT, that sort of thing.”

“Making any great advancements in science?” Tom almost joked.

“Just trying to pay my bills, Tom.” It was the most honest answer I'd given him since we'd sat down. “So is Light Labs going to announce the DRLN line?”

“I'd like to keep the W in there, if you'd let me.”

“Nah,” I said. “I'd take credit if I'd done any of the work, but we only had some basic concepts down before everything went sideways. I think our last collaborative project that I can claim any sort of input on was the Sniper Joe series.”

“The military boxed the whole line, I heard. Financially untenable or something like that?”

“You'd think they would have figured that out before they had bought 10,000 units,” I smiled.

“10,000 robot soldiers, sitting in some warehouse somewhere. God, that's just ASKING for trouble,” Tom laughed. “Still, though. Thank you for doing that. With the money we made from that contract, I was able to put together Light Labs.”

“So you ARE starting a company,” I smirked.

“Well, yeah,” he admitted sheepishly.

“Congratulations.”

“I'd love it if you could be there, at the opening. That's when I'm going to show off the DRLWN series.”

I thought about this. “I'll see if I have the time in my schedule. When is this thing?”

“Next year, maybe. If no delays happen, probably sometime next August.”

“I'll save the date, then” I smiled.

“It would mean a lot to me, for you to be there.”

We made small talk for a while, eventually running out of anything of substance to discuss, and we made our awkward excuses to get back to our lives. Tom picked up the bill, probably out of pity, and then left in a cab. I kept my seat for a few minutes, waiting. Eventually, I was joined by another man.

“So, how did it go?” Gibbs smirked.

“Horrible,” I sighed. “He's doing so damn well for himself.”

“Sounded like he's having some woman troubles.”

“That does little to make me feel better,” I grumbled.

Gibbs looked around. It would have taken a trained eye to see his bodyguards in the crowd, but I recognized a few faces that had no business being here. Gibbs, it turned out, was the new Mr. X. I had learned quite a lot in the last three years, and the people who employed Gibbs were quite dangerous and powerful, indeed.

In that day in the penthouse, now seemingly ages ago, I had been as far gone as I had ever been. There had been blood everywhere, two dead bodies, and a gun in my hand. Add to that the fact that my finger prints had been planted all over Isaac's experiment by Gibbs or one of his cronies, and the only thing that had kept me free from a life in prison was Gibbs himself, and his seemingly endless connections. I had played right into his hands, and all to save the fat, smiling, kind-faced credit stealing weasel that had just paid for my lunch.

I had resolved to put my issues with Gibbs aside for the time being, knowing that I would have a chance in the future to deal him a fitting punishment. Right now my mind was focused on Tom. Three years of bitter rejection and the total loss of everything I had worked for, not to mention attending a second rate university, online, and under a fake name, had done quite a number on my world-view.

I think the worst part about all of this is that, at the time, I knew what a bad position I was in, and that really, I only had myself to blame. Gibbs had outsmarted me, plain and simple, by betting that I would behave the way I did based on my relationship with Tom, and even with Isaac, to a lesser extent. But in my anger, I refused to believe he was actually smarter than me, and I had convinced myself that he was just a means to an end. That if I let him play me long enough, I could play him right back and get my revenge and my rightful status again.

I knew how to get my revenge on Tom. It would be easy. Stealing his DRLN series would be child's play, since I'd written the baseline for the security subroutines he'd probably STILL be using in them, and even if he HAD renewed them since, it wouldn't stop me. All I had to do was make sure Tom would have me around, willingly, when he went to unveil them, and I could make the rest happen in mere moments.

But Alfred Gibbs would require a much longer plan. So for now, I would have to bide my time. For his part, he seemed sympathetic enough to the events that had led me to this point, and was eager, almost giddy at the thought, of helping me get my revenge on Tom, so for the moment he was an ally, but I knew he would turn it around at some point, and demand something from me for his help. I just had to be sure that when such a time came, I had a plan in place.

“Did he mention his Blues project?” Gibbs asked.

“You were eavesdropping. You tell me.”

“Typical,” Gibbs scoffed. “That project was pretty closely based off the Sniper Joe-”

“I know,” I interrupted him, “you showed me the report. You don't have to convince me, Gibbs. I'm going through with this.”

“You're sure? It doesn't seem overblown to you?”

I chuckled. “Are you kidding me? This will be a blast.”

“Then let's go keep making sure appearances are kept up,” Gibbs said. “Your government watchdog is going to start wondering where you are.”

“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed. Having been booted off an Air Force Base, I was not on the good side of the American Government, and given my background and skill set, it wasn't surprising they had someone watching me. Even after all of this time. Someone would notice if I was gone for more than a few hours, so it was back to my dreary apartment, in penniless squalor and dejected loneliness, to stew in my own remorse and anger.

So, pretty much every Friday night for the rest of my life.

It would be another year of this hateful, blackening spiral before I got my chance. Another year of Gibbs and his secret society being my only haven from a cold, uncaring world that held Thomas Light in such high regard. Another year of scattered news reports about a young, brilliant scientist who never mentioned in any of his interviews or conferences all the people he stepped on to reach his current height of fame.

I'd been referred to as his lab assistant in more than one publication. An ASSISTANT. And he'd done nothing to correct that? The audacity of that fat bastard. The gall.

I vowed, like I did every night as I sat alone in my apartment, staring at the wall that would be blank but for my scribbled notes and half-remembered formulas, that Thomas Light would suffer each and every injustice that I had in the years since I had given up everything to protect him from a world he wouldn't, couldn't comprehend.

So what if he had all the money and fame now? Soon enough, it would be my time, and nothing that fat idiot could think of would stop me from getting my revenge. In ten years time, the world would be singing the praises of the REAL genius behind the humanoid robotics advancements they were all so amazed by, and that genius would be Dr. Albert Wily. Hell, in FIVE years, Tom would be little more than I am now, a broken, dejected shell of a man, wondering where his life could possibly go wrong next.

And in just a year, a scant twelve months, I would command six powerful Robot Masters to lead a rebellion the likes of which the world has never witnessed before, and I would use that power to tear down Thomas Light, his precious Light Labs, and if I had the time, Alfred Gibbs as well.

Just twelve more months...

20XX

Shut up. I don't even want to hear about it. Just shut up, right now.

“I'm not in a talking mood, Gibbs,” I growled.

“I couldn't tell,” he smirked. “You've only caved in my front door, slaughtered several human mercenaries and scrapped eight of the most powerful robots I've ever seen built. By all means, let's talk, I'm sure it'll be oh-so productive.”

“Is that...” Noele asked.

“Yes,” I growled. “It was ALWAYS him.”

She stared, dumbfounded. “But... that doesn't make any sense!”

This caught my attention. “Wait... why?”

She looked at me, and then back at him. “He's...”

Gibbs raised a hand to his mouth. “Shush now, girl, let's not spoil it for him.”

“Spoil what?” I snapped, turning back to Gibbs. My Mega Man Killers were already surrounding him, ready for him to try something stupid. If he so much as twitched, he'd be dead before he hit the ground. “Don't try to toy with me.”

“I'm not trying anything,” Gibbs smiled. “I'm succeeding.”

I brought the Combat Pod forward, aiming the plasma cannons at him, and digging into my lab coat for my precious cargo. “Spill it, Gibbs. What the hell are you up to?”

“He's a robot!” Noele blurted out.

“WHAT???”

Gibbs laughed. “Oh my god, the look on your face was so worth it!”

“HOW???”

“Cain's process, of course! It was all set up and ready to be used, we just confiscated the equipment and used it later. It worked like a charm, and Dr. Lalinde here, who specializes in Near-Human Replicas, was kind enough to provide me the body I needed to pester you well after the original me died of lung cancer.”

“Lung cancer? Really?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Something genetic, apparently. Be that as it may, while you were spoofing me with quite honestly the worst disguise I have ever seen, my biological self was put down and my hardware 2.0 body, if you will, was brought online with little trouble. Since the world was so wrapped up in you and your little schemes, no one was the wiser.”

I frowned. “So you accomplished what Julius couldn't.”

“Functional immortality, yes.”

“I thought they were putting an advanced AI program into the body I built,” Noele admitted softly. “I didn't think it would be a real person...”

“It isn't,” I sneered. “Alfred Gibbs died a long time ago, if what you say is true. This is just some replica. An emulation.”

Gibbs... or his clone or something... Mr. X, fine, spread his hands wide. “Oh, come on, Al. If YOU, one of the best in the business, couldn't recognize a robot when he stood right in front of you in your own LAB? What else might you have missed?”

“... wait, what?”

“You aren't NEARLY as smart as you think you are,” he laughed.

I growled, pulling the Beretta M9 from my lab coat. Almost 40 years ago, I had fired a single shot from this same pistol at Julius Kintobor, and now I aimed it at Mr. X. I had cleaned it recently, but the clip was still the same ammunition from that day, less one bullet.

“And I'm betting you aren't nearly as tough as you think you are,” I snapped, pulling the trigger.

The bullet hit Mr. X in the neck, near the base, and pitched him backwards. I kept pulling the trigger in a rage, emptying the clip into his chest and driving him to the ground. As the ringing in my ears died away, I heard him laugh.

“Okay,” he said, his voice now fuzzed with static. “I'm a big enough man to admit I didn't see that coming.” He started to stand back up, the old bullets having only done superficial damage to him. Noele had built him pretty tough, I suppose. “But what about you? All spent, already? Going to have to have someone else do your dirty work, just like always? Without me holding your hand, Wily, you would have died in a gutter years ago! Forgotten by everyone! You OWE me!”

I screamed incoherently and stepped down with my foot on the fire control, unleashing both plasma cannons at almost point blank range. The effect was spectacular, twin spheres of white-hot energy bursting forward and enveloping Mr. X in a flash of light, eliciting a broken, electronic scream. The blast pitched him backwards, and Punk dived out of his way as he skipped along the ground and slammed home into the wall of the chamber.

The Mega Man Killers looked at each other nervously, and I tossed the Beretta on the ground. I glided the Combat Pod over toward his smoking husk and spat on the ruined remains of the robotic Mr. X.

“Paid in full,” I said acidly.

There was a noise like an elevator door opening, and Gibb's voice could be heard on some sort of PA system. “Oh, well done, Al. You killed me. Of course, I'm a computer program now, and I could always have made a back up of myself, but wherever could I have hidden my program in a place you wouldn't suspect?” He laughed a laugh that sounded... actually nothing like Gibbs. It sounded more like Julius. A hissing, deeply disturbing laugh. “There's no place like home.”

Ice dropped into my stomach, and a flashing light on the console of the Combat Pod was desperately alerting me to something I already knew. An intruder. In the bunker. In my Lab. In my HOME. I sat down, closing the hatch and activated my recall signal, a one-use battery-powered teleportation device that would instantly send me back to my bunker from anywhere in the world. I'd used it several times before to escape an exploding fortress or a pursuing Mega Man, but this time I was going back to my base to deal with an intruder.

And it only occurred to me as the world turned white that I had nothing actually in the bunker to support myself with. It was going to be me, and me alone, in my Combat Pod, against whatever... or whoever... I found in my Lab. Against my better judgment, I was about to play right into Mr. X's hands and face an unknown enemy with no support.

Oh hell.

Intrusion alarms were going off in the bunker when I arrived. I swore loudly and drove the Combat Pod through the halls and toward the lab, ignoring the multiple incoming calls from my now very confused Robot Masters. From the Lab, the Tac Map and all of their orders could be accessed, and someone who knew what they were doing could end my attack on the BoR and save the organization while simultaneously destroying my last resort base. All of my research and progress. All of my work.

Zero.

I spun the plasma cannons up as I rounded the last corner and swooped through the door to the Lab, which lit up as I entered, running immediate diagnostics on the Combat Pod. Nothing came up immediately as a threat to the Pod's targeting systems, and I relaxed for a moment, until my eyes caught sight of something sitting on one of my tables.

I hovered down closer and peered through the Combat Pod's view port. I stared for a while, uncomprehending.

It was a sandwich.

“It's been such a long time, I figured I would bring you a peace offering. Show there were no hard feelings.”

I wheeled the Combat Pod around again to see the impossible, standing in the door and smiling like he always did. His mustache twitched a little as his smiled widened. “How's life, Wily?”

“... Isaac?”

“Power down your guns, man, I'm not armed.”

I felt no inclination to do that. “How are you still alive?”

“Careful planning,” he replied. He produced an apple in his hand from somewhere and took a bite. “Wow, science HAS some a long way. Do you have any idea how great it is to taste things again?”

“I've never been dead, so no.”

“I'll tell you, it makes you appreciate it all a lot more.” He took another bite of the apple, and leaned against the door frame.

“How are you alive?” I repeated. “I saw the teleportation accident. You were ripped apart. There was never any trace of you.”

“I heard about that,” he nodded. “Something pretty nasty must have happened. No, see, I'm an upload from about four days prior to that accident, so I have no memory of that.”

“Four days? But...”

“Gary Cain needed a test subject for a secret project, and I knew exactly what it was. My father wasn't kicking the bucket fast enough for my tastes, and I knew he was working on a plan to remove me as well, so I hijacked his scheme and gave myself the tools I needed to overwrite his mind and masquerade as him to the Book of Revelations big wigs.”

“Wait, so you've been... Mr. X this whole time?”

“Sort of,” he admitted. “I ran the emulation of Alfred Gibbs for a long time, biding my time when a good chance came along. I knew that if I made it seem like the Book was trying to kill of Tom, you'd get just as pissed off as you'd ever been and wreck the Book right back, which is what I needed you to do.”

“Wait, you BET on me destroying your secret society? What in god's name for?”

Isaac smiled. “Why, because of this! I uploaded a copy of myself, sans the Gibbs emulationware, into your lab's servers months ago! It was poking around in your systems that caused a rather unfortunate security leak on your part.”

“The Roboenza outbreak? YOU did that?”

“Not intentionally,” he said sheepishly, “and I'll admit that I'm sorry about that. But once I had integrated myself into the system, it was a matter of waiting until your assemblers had enough raw material and there was no one around to build myself a new body. Plus a few other toys.”

My mind felt numb, unable to cope with what I was seeing or hearing. It was like I had become detached from the reality I knew, and was now lost in some product of some sick and twisted imagination, just watching events that would be otherwise impossible unfold with impunity.

“Hell, all that's left is to kill you, take over your assets, and use it to build my new Empire. Pretty simple, actually. Explaining this all to you is really just gloating.”

I shook myself out of my stupor. “Kill me? You and what army?” I brought the plasma cannons to bear to emphasize my point.

He grinned. “Get a load of THIS.”

Almost on cue, the floor and wall beneath and around him erupted, and a spherical body with his face emblazoned on it seemed to swallow him whole. The machine was easily eight times as large as my Combat Pod, with huge arms decked out in spikes and armored fro a brawl. It reminded me of Gamma, in a way, but with a distinctly more... Eggish motif.

“Isaac, this is NUTS!” I shouted. “You're going to bring this whole place down on our heads!”

“So?” I heard his voice boom out from the machine, “I'll survive. Will you?”

One of the massive arms swung toward me, and I drove the Combat Pod down and through the torn up floor in desperation, my mind racing. If I could reach the Wreck Room, I could minimize further damage and have more space to outmaneuver his larger weapon, maybe at least buy some time until I could recall some help. ANY help.

“And it isn't Isaac anymore, Albert” I heard him thunder. “It's more like Robotnik now! It's a shame you won't see the Eggman Empire, but I have a place all planned out for your corpse, probably a nice museum somewhere, showcasing the last fool who stood between the world and its true master!”

Oh good, and from the sounds of it, the upload process and being a copy of a copy had driven him a little mad. Robotnik, huh? Time to show this egg-shaped idiot what Dr. Wily could do...