Better Judgment:
The Dr. Wily Story

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 18

200X

It was time to show the world what Dr. Wily could do.

I stood back stage, looking at Tom's handiwork. I had already provided a few modifications of my own, and it was just a matter of time before the show really got started, but for now, it was enough to anticipate that moment.

He'd actually done a really good job on the DRLWN series. They were superbly crafted, ahead of anything I had actually built to date. Not to say I was slacking, since I had some plans of my own in the works for my own DRWN series. Once I had dragged Tom's name through the mud and destroyed Light Labs, certainly. But the original six... it was like a pantheon of gods given metal flesh and made real. The power in these six robots could conquer a city for a man with the right mindset in a matter of hours.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I smiled at the thought, giving Tom the wrong impression as he approached.

“So... how do they look?” he asked.

“Good enough,” I nodded. “And they functioned okay in testing?”

“Oh yes, they did very well,” he beamed. “I count myself lucky that I've only had one really bad testing phase, but that was a long time ago with a prototype, and I've worked out all the bugs since then.” He turned as a young boy approached. “Ah, and speaking of which... how is everything looking out there, Rock?”

Believe it or not, this little boy would be the source of all of my problems for years to come. He looked like any other 10 year old, and acted about the same aside from being much smarter. His features, while not flawless, held a humanity about them that was quite deceiving. He and his sister, Roll, were Tom's children, and the proof of concept for his Near-Human Replica idea that he'd been working on as a side project since only a few months after we'd known each other.

“Dr. Light, there's a LOT of people outside,” Rock was saying, “Are you gonna be okay?”

“Relax, my boy,” Tom smiled, “I've done this before.”

“Stick to the cards, Tom,” I told him. “You're terrible at improv.”

“Thanks, Albert,”

I grinned. “Don't mention it.”

Personally, I was of the opinion that the more humanoid and likable robots were, the less effective they were, overall. Sure, they were still robots and capable of things humanity was not, but if you developed an emotional investment with such a thing, especially one that looks and acts like a 10 year old son, you might never ask it to do the things it was built for because you don't want it to suffer, or for you to seem like a slave driver, or any other ridiculous nonsense like that. Emotional attachment to your tools is simply the beginning of the end of progress.

That was why I looked upon the DRLWN series as the means to the end that they were. To me, they existed solely to crush Tom's dreams and lift me up to the public prominence I deserved. I suppose that neither way of looking at such a thing is wrong, it is down to personal taste, but it was another difference between Tom and myself. He viewed his creations with love and affection, I viewed them as a step in the process.

Which is why I was grinning like an idiot when the curtain rose. Beyond was a gathering of press and investors, along with a large population of the Monsteropolis public. The stage was set up in the city's second-largest park, the name of which at the time I cannot now remember. After today, it was renamed Memorial Park.

“Hello, everyone!” Tom smiled as he stepped forward. “Welcome to the official unveiling of Light Labs flagship product: The DRLWN series Humanoid Robots!”

I'm sure you know it all by this point. The entire spiel. It's famous. The original six Robot Masters. Cut Man, Guts Man, Ice Man, Elec Man, Fire Man, and Bomb Man. Currently, Oil Man and Time Man weren't out for display, because Tom was still working on the finer points of both models, but I had confidence they would perform as they were supposed to. Or at least, as I had re-programmed them to.

It was halfway through Tom's speech that Rock tugged at my sleeve. “Dr. Wily?” he whispered, “do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” I whispered back.

“That... woo woo woo woo noise?”

I stared at him for a moment. Designed like a child, hearing like a damn dog. “No,” I said.

“It's really loud.”

“Maybe you have a malfunction,” I told him.

“I don't think so,” he whispered, a concerned look on his face, “I think it's getting closer.”

Indeed, it was. I could hear it now, and so could a few other in the crowd. Tom was still blathering on, and I couldn't help but smile as the attention slowly shifted from him to something in the sky.

The Saucer was a gift from one of Gibbs's associates. Unearthed during an exploratory survey in the Arctic, it was fairly positive proof of life on other planets. The fact that this surprised no one in Gibbs's organization was telling, but I digress.

Strangely colored in a pearl blue on top and a striking golden on the bottom, the Saucer hovered down from the sky, its two distinct colored sections spinning in opposite directions. No one had been able to get the thing in working order until I had come along, and figured out how to get it in working order. It was a remarkable piece of technology, and not nearly as advanced as one might be led to believe. It was a single person all atmosphere capable vehicle, and it was all mine.

Tom trailed off as the crowd backed away to make room for the thing. No one could quite process what they were looking at. Some thought it was part of the demonstration, others were convinced the aliens were landing. Tom, for his part, was left a sputtering, confused mess as I strode forward.

“Albert?? What is this?”

I threw a grin over my shoulder. “Oh, this old thing?” I laughed. “It's my ride, Tom.” The bottom of the Saucer slid open as I approached, and I hauled myself up inside, popping the top hatch and standing up to look over the crowd from my new vantage point. “Pretty neat, huh?”

“Albert! Tom shouted over the noise of the whirring machine, his face red with embarrassment. “What are you doing?”

I laughed, high as I could, loud enough to be heard by the assembled press. “Well Tom, you went to all this trouble designing the perfect weapons, I figured the least I could do is take them on a real test run! Wake up, boys! It's time to take over the world!”

Hammy, I know, but it got the point across. The Robot Masters opened their eyes at the sound of my voice, each of them striking a different pose in a bow to my somewhat overblown sense of style and showmanship, and after a brief moment of the terror settling in on the astonished crowd, they flung themselves from the stage and set themselves to work on a truly magnificent display of destruction and firepower.

Explosions tore through the air and the sound of wild, open electricity and screaming shattered what had been a peaceful afternoon. Innocent bystanders ran for cover, and Tom, the fat fool, stood there,s taring at me with his mouth agape, his robotic 'son' attempting to pull him away and get him to safety.

Right now, the news organizations would be receiving a copy of my pre-recorded message demanding the total surrender of the world's nations to me, along with a not inconsiderable amount of testing footage showing how powerful Tom's Robot Master really were. Soon enough, the whole city would be in a panic, Tom's name would be attached to every fatality and every red cent of property damage, and the world would know that NOBODY screws with Dr. Wily.

Nobody.

20XX

“You're nothing, now, Wily!” Robotnik was shouting, “A nobody! I'm in control here, and you haven't got a prayer!”

“Would you shut up, you insufferable buffoon?” I shouted over my shoulder. His mechanical monster, which my targeting system was designating the Egg Titan, was hot on my heels. In the middle of fleeing for my life, I was trying to learn as much about it as I could. It had a missile system, the large hands made mostly out of spikes, machine guns built INTO the spikes (don't ask me how that works), and it was capable of flying (again, no clue. I suspect cheating is involved). Currently, it was squeezing through a hallway I really thought would slow it down more while I sped toward the access elevator, looking for a good way down to the next floor and the Wreck Room.

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up as a volley of bullets flew past me. I swore and dived the Combat Pod, scraping along the floor as I righted it again and kept it going top speed down the hallway.

“I almost got you that time!” Robotnik crowed.

“A 10% accuracy rating is AWFUL for a robot!” I screamed at him. “You have TERRIBLE design specs!”

I weaved under another spike studded punch, almost missing my elevator shaft exit. I took a second to blow the door open with the plasma cannons and dove into the shaft, almost hitting the walls a few times as I tried to get my bearings at my speed.

“All of the parts for my Titan were from your assemblers, Wily!” He thundered down the shaft. I could hear the superstructure of the bunker scream in protest as his machine forced its way through it. “Can't blame the user if the manufacture is faulty!”

I took the chance and spun the Pod facing straight up, firing another plasma shot at him. The shot bounced harmlessly off the body casing before detonating on the wall, causing some minor debris to rain down on me. “I'll blame the VIRUS that's been living in my system for the last few months,” I coughed as I started to descend again.

I shot out of the elevator shaft and down the hall, the Egg Titan's oversized fists only seconds behind me. “Stop running you little coward,” his muffled voice boomed. “You're only making me wreck my future home.”

“This is MY base, you ASSHOLE!” I screeched, firing another shot blindly at him.

“Not for long!” Robotnik shouted in response, pulling himself out of the elevator shaft.

Crap crap crap crap crap-

Not helping! I ducked another burst of machine gun fire and shot down another incoming missile, rounding another hallway corner and ducking into the Wreck Room before he had gained on me.

The Wreck Room itself was huge. Given that it usually held piles of wreckage and refuse from some of the biggest things I had ever built, including a few of my less fortunate buildings, it was about the size of a football stadium, with four shafts that led directly to the processors which fed raw material into the automated assemblers. The smaller the pieces, the faster the processors worked, which is why I usually had Robot Masters not on active duty in here using their abilities to render my garbage down to more manageable sizes.

Right now, however, with a tremendous amount of materials in the field, the room was empty. This gave me a lot of space to maneuver and dodge the Egg Titan while I figured out a way to kill it.

“Ah, you found an arena for us,” Robotnik laughed as his Egg Titan stomped into the room. Now that I could see it in its entirety, I realized it wasn't really THAT big. Three stories tall at most. Still quite imposing, though. I found myself wishing I had spent the time to gather the elements needed to power Gamma again. It would have been a headache, but at least I would have it for something like this.

Then again, considering Robotnik was a virus, he might have just stolen Gamma and used THAT to try and kill me. Hm. There was really not a lot of winning here for me.

I let a pair of plasma cannon shots fly and desperately hit my communications button. In theory, if I could keep him busy long enough to recall a team, maybe two, of Robot Masters, they could handle the Egg Titan with ease and I could get back to the important things. I swore when the communications window came up dead.

“No use calling for help,” Robotnik chuckled, the Egg Titan shrugging off the plasma cannon shots like mosquito bites. “I blocked all the signals to your robots, and once you're out of the way, I'll have time to reprogram them all to serve ME instead.”

Dammit, dammit, DAMMIT. “Look, Isaac, I know I make this look easy,” I called out as I shot down another volley of missiles, “but this whole 'take over the world' thing is a lot of work! You don't want this, man!”

“On the contrary!” he laughed, “You've been an excellent study in what NOT to do.” The Titan charged forward, and I cursed the low ceiling as I tried to pilot the Combat Pod out of his reach. “I'll have the world under the thumb of the Eggman Empire in a matter of days, and there won't be anyone who can stop me!”

“Think of the paperwork!”

“I'm a computer, Al.”

“DAMMIT!” I shouted, finally diving the pod dangerously between the Titan's legs. I bounced off one of the knees and careened out of control for a moment before I wrestled the Pod to some semblance of right-way-upness. I snapped off a wild shot into the Egg Titan's rear, hoping for some sort of vital spot I could exploit.

No such luck. The plasma shots again bounced harmlessly off the Egg Titan's hull. I smacked my controls in frustration, and a window popped up that gave me an idea.

“Calling Dr. Light?” Robotnik laughed. “What, do you think HE can save you? Do you think he WOULD?”

“Nah,” I admitted, “I burned that bridge with napalm. But I CAN bounce a signal through his house and into the satellite network to reach my own forces, and you can't block that signal!”

“Nonsense!” he hissed. “Your communications system isn't that sophisticated, and even if it was, I would have shut it down by now!”

“Big talk for a copy of a copy of a sub-par scientist,” I grinned.

“Shut up!” he hollered. Both arms came up and the spikes sprouted machine gun barrels. “Just DIE!”

The penalty for insulting the computerized copy of a dead college friend made itself apparent to me in the hail of fire that spattered my Combat Pod. What am I, stupid? The thing was bullet proof, but even bullet proof has its limits. I tried to pilot away from the worst of it, but the impacts were screwing with both the Pod's balance and my own. Warning lights came on in the pod and I swore out loud, fighting to keep it aloft.

“Oh, look, someone's on FIRE!” Robotnik laughed. Indeed, smoke was pouring out of somewhere on the Combat Pod. Likely one of my communications or tactical systems had caught fire, since all of my more vital systems were embedded safely below my seat. I killed the auto-repair request almost as soon as it came up. With communications down anyway, I might as well keep the look of the bloodied foe to make Robotnik think he was winning.

The Egg Titan, pardon the pun, was proving quite difficult to crack. I'd singed the paint job with a few plasma shots, but that was about it, and since the Combat Pod MK 6.1 was equipped with very little else in the way of offensive options, I was pretty stuck. I needed a way to bring another weapon to bear, but the only other weapons I had right now were scattered across the globe, operating on their last set of orders or waiting for more. The downside of having such loyally programmed minions is that they tended to lack initiative when I really, really needed them to have some.

Reflecting on this took a second long than it did to react to the Egg Titan's next charge. I swung out wide, ducking under one of the flailing arms and trying desperately to put some distance between the monstrous machine and myself. I couldn't even get a fix on where Isaac... Robotnik, whatever, WAS in this thing. It didn't seem to have a cockpit...

Then it dawned on me: He didn't NEED one. He had literally melted right into the machine when it burst through the floor. That meant either the humanoid body I had seen was a hologram or some sort of flimsy construct, and that this thing, right here, was his physical body. And it was pretty much impervious.

Son of a bitch.

Well, always a last resort.

“What are you doing?” Robotnik demanded.

“Nothing,” I said, working furiously in the Pod getting back into the bunker's systems. Robotnik had firewalled me out, but it was pretty slapdash, and I knew my lab's programming better than anything. It only took me a second to crack back in.

“Hey, stop that!” he shouted, bringing his guns to bear again.

I only needed to activate a single system. It took four seconds.

“What in.. What did you just do?” he demanded.

I shrugged in my Pod. “Nothing.”

He paused for a moment. “You activated a beacon? What... Why? Do you think someone will find you in the next two minutes and come save you before I kill you?”

“Nope,” I smiled.

“... So you're just senile, then?”

“If that helps you sleep at night, sure,” I said with a grin.

“Don't you toy with me, old man! What did you REALLY do?”

“You're hooked so deep into my system I'm going to need a flamethrower to get you out,” I snapped at him, “YOU figure it out.”

The Egg Titan paused. This was curious to me. In all that time Isaac had spent as an uploaded human mind, had he not thought about upgrading his cognitive clock speed? It would have been child's play in that amount of time to come up with a way to think faster than the average human. To that end, he SHOULD have been wiping the floor with me even more than he already was.

So why hadn't he? Was it a lack of knowledge? That made no sense. The original Isaac upload would have had ample access to the internet before he'd copied himself to here, and any information he might have needed would have been available. Did it just not... occur to him?

Then it struck me that the original Isaac's basic inability to complete a thought before moving onto the next was probably working against this Robotnik upload. Isaac had a big imagination, and thought about all kinds of things. Translating that to a computerized mind would slow and clutter any processor, not too mention all of the fragmented half thoughts it might have right now that wouldn't be wiped away by the human mind's sleep cycle.

Maybe Robotnink was in need of a good Defrag. I mean, it's a silly thought, but it might hold some truth.

“No, it's just beacon. It's just a tower, and a bright flashing light, and a broadcast signal that is just a tone for ten miles... It's useless. No one could ever find it... ”

“Unless you were looking for it,” I corrected him. “and I know someone who is.”

“Doesn't matter!” Robotnik shouted, “they can't save you! NOTHING can save you now!”

That's when the voice came. Calm, almost serene, from the door. One of those voices that annihilates all volume and background noise and instantly attracts the attention of everyone inside. A voice with confidence, experience, and power all rolled into one tiny package.

“Technically, mister,” Mega Man said, “I'm not here to SAVE him.”