Better Judgment:
The Dr. Wily Story

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 3

199X

Classes had started in August, and I had moved in to the dorm a mere week before that, and it was late January when I came back to the dorm after acquiring some dinner for myself after my Applied Physics class one night to find something of some curiosity on my door. A sock on the door knob.

I stared at it for a while, caught up in no small amount of disbelief. Not to be mean, but Tom did not seem the type for this sort of thing, either personality wise or, well, physically. He'd put on almost 45 pounds since we'd first met, a byproduct of student eating habits coupled with a genetic predisposition to be heavier set. It was hard to imagine this kind of thing going on with Tom involved at all. At least, I was making an effort not to imagine it.

I decided I needed to not be standing in the hallway and staring at it, so I made my way down to Mikhail's room and knocked. Isaac answered the door.

“What's up, Wily?” he asked, his mustache bouncing a little with every word.

“Mind if I take up some room? I have food and mine seems to be... in use.”

Isaac's eyebrow arched, and he leaned out into the hall and looked. He stifled a laugh when he saw the sock and walked back into his room, leaving the door open, and sat down on his bed. I followed him in and sat down on the room's only couch.

“Subway again?” Mikhail commented from his desk. He hadn't bothered to look up when I had entered. “American fast food will kill you, I don't care how many formerly fat men they line up to say otherwise.”

I glanced at the empty McDonald's bags that took up the majority of Mikhail's waste basket. Isaac shot me a wink and a chuckle and I began to eat.

“He's just pissed off because he can't find the Subway on campus,” Isaac said with a smile. “Come to think of it, neither do I. Huh. So, Tom's gettin' lucky, huh?”

I held up a hand and nearly gagged. “Isaac, please. I'm trying to eat.”

Mikhail turned at this point. “What is?”

“What's what?”

“What is 'gettin' lucky'?” The slight inflection of his Russian accent threatened to eject the food from my mouth it made me want to laugh that hard. Isaac was not so handicapped, and Mikhail's face screwed up into an annoyed expression I was familiar with. He was such a smart man that is was always funny to see the simple things he didn't understand, especially in an accent best used to threaten a moose and squirrel.

Isaac made an attempt to explain. “Well, see, when you're in college or a university, you put a sock on your doorknob when you don't want to be disturbed because, well...”

“Why didn't you just say 'sock on the door knob'? I understand THAT,” Mikhail sighed.

“Wait, wait, wait” I said, swallowing my bite before continuing, “you know that, but NOT what getting lucky means? How does that happen?”

Mikhail shrugged. “I attended two years of college in Minsk before transferring to here. It was a party college.”

“Ah,” Isaac and I shared a nod of understanding. I got two more bites into my sub before Isaac spoke up again. “So who do you think it is? Lalinde?”

“Isaac!” I almost shouted. “Still eating!”

“I let you finish that bite before I said something.”

“Not helping.”

“Why would Lalinde go for Tom?” Mikhail asked. “I mean, I see it a

little, I guess, but that kind of behavior doesn't fit in with their normal mannerisms.”

“You studied behavioral psychology in Minsk, didn't you?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“Sure. Of course,” I sighed.

“Maybe they're drunk?” Isaac wondered aloud.

“On what?” I threw up a hand in exasperation. “Honest to god, guys, I've never seen Tom drink. I won't lie, I have a bottle of Crown Royal-”

“You have my attention,” Mikhail grinned.

“-hidden in my desk. In my room. With the sock on the doorknob.”

“Point taken. I'll just remind you to share later.”

I sighed. “Seriously, guys, Tom doesn't GET drunk.”

“Are you sure?” Isaac asked me. “There are times when I go over to your guys' room to compare notes that the place smells a whole lot like peach schnapps.”

“Yeah, those are actual peaches.”

“Wait, really? Like, from a can?”

I shrugged. “He loves them. I have no idea why, but he does. I think he might actually die if he goes a day without digging into a can of them.”

“That explains his new spare tire,” Mikhail chuckled.

“Okay, seriously, you understand spare tire is a euphemism for getting fat, but NOT getting lucky as a euphemism for sex?” Isaac asked, his face twisted into a lack of understanding. “What the hell, man?”

Mikhail looked confused again. “Um, what is a 'you-fem-ism'?”

“I withdraw the question,” Isaac said, exasperated. He buried his face in his hands and ran them over his head, then shook it in a small ritual he would do when moving on to a different train of thought. “Maybe we should call your room?” this was directed at me.

“And interrupt them?” I said, almost choking on my next bite of sub. “Why would I do that?”

“I don't know,” Isaac shrugged, his mustache bouncing. “Revenge?”

“For the minor inconvenience of having to eat my sub while listening to you pontificate on the prospect of my roommate having sex?” I paused and stared thoughtfully at my sandwich. “You know, I was pretty sure this wasn't revenge worthy until I finished that sentence.”

“Isn't that how it always is?” Isaac grinned.

“I don't believe calling your room would do you much good in that regard,” Mikhail commented dryly..

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because that.” He pointed toward the still open door, where Tom was standing, looking thoroughly confused.

“Tom? What the hell?”

“I was just about to ask you the same question, Albert.” I insisted he call me Albert, as the nickname 'Al' was simply degrading. Still, this particular explanatory aside will have to wait, since there were more pressing issues at hand. “Who the heck is in our room??”

I stood up and took another bite of my sub. “This is probably something we should investigate.”

“You think?” Isaac put in.

The four of us bustled down the hall to our room, and the door was unlocked. It only took a moment to open it and realize no one was there, but the window was open and the room was close to freezing. I closed the window while Tom took stock.

“They didn't take our food,” he said.

“They ransacked the place, though,” Isaac said, surveying the cluttered mess.

“Tom? Did they?” I asked.

“No, I don't think so. Most of this stuff is pretty much where I left it.”

I looked at Isaac and Mikhail. “Tom is a bit messy.”

“A BIT?” Mikhail exclaimed, his expression a mix of disgust and disbelief.

“Well, so am I,” I admitted, “and two smaller messes make a very

large mess, I suppose.”

“Albert, I don't think anything is missing...” Tom spoke up. His tone was a warning one, though. He had noticed something.

I looked around the room. Our computers were still in their proper place, although it would take a closer look to discover if they had been tampered with. Our clothes and beds looked thankfully the same. A few of our desk drawers were open, but their contents weren't strewn about, which led me to think that someone had been looking for something specific.

And I had a reasonable guess as to what that might have been.

“Well, I think we'll be okay, guys. Thanks.”

“You sure, Albert?” Isaac asked. “This is a little freaky. I mean, someone climbed up 8 stories and into your window?”

“A fact I'm sure we can report to the RA, but I am not afraid of any sort of returning thugs, and nor should you be.” I took another bite of my sub, and then stuffed the remainder of it in my mouth and chewed happily.

“Albert's right, guys,” Tom nodded. “Thanks for helping out.”

“We're right down the hall if you need us,” Mikhail said.

They closed the door behind them as they left, and once they'd been gone for a while, Tom looked at me. “Okay, so what did you notice?”

“Someone went rooting through our notes,” I said, nodding to a previously neatly stacked pile of notebooks that was now scattered all over the floor.

“Yeah, I saw that too,” Tom nodded. “Any idea why?”

I shrugged. “Those notebooks don't hold any course-related material, which means someone, somewhere on campus is interested in something beyond the purely academic.” I picked up the top notebook and began to leaf through it, looking at some designs Tom and I had thought up for modular construction drones and unmanned short range surveillance fliers. “Can't imagine what someone would think of when they saw these.”

Tom booted up his computer and ran a few scans of his hard drive. “Well, it doesn't look like they did anything electronic.”

“Run a check for spyware, just in case,” I said, sitting down with my own computer and starting to do the same. “We're on someone's radar, and I'd like to know why.”

“Agreed,” he nodded.

“I've got Computer Engineering pretty early in the morning tomorrow,” I said, “can you go fill out a report with the RA?”

“Yeah,” Tom said distractedly. “I can do that on my way out the door to Robotics with Ivo.” Ivo was Isaac, who used his first three initials as a moniker in chat rooms and online games, and responded almost as often to that as he did his real name.

“During lunch tomorrow, I'll drop by the MEU store and pick up a lock box for our notes.”

“Sounds like a good investment. Maybe we should look into getting a USB hard drive for the related files and data that we haven't written down yet, as well.”

“My thoughts exactly, Tom.” This wasn't purely being overcautious. As I had said, some of the areas of intersection in our two fields of study were proving to be very interesting indeed, and we'd starting putting the pieces together, as best we could, for some truly marvelous breakthroughs in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. Obviously, we were still working on those ideas, and they still needed a lot of time and effort (not to mention funding) to turn into a reality, but Tom and I were collaborating quite well on a number of projects that I hoped would one day be available to the general public.

“I have a feeling the next few months are going to be quite interesting indeed.” I said thoughtfully, staring at my computer screen.

20XX

The last few months had been hellish. My rough schedule, plus the general lack of care and attention I would afford myself in between schemes, had left me with some severe flu-like symptoms. I'd been dosed with a significant amount of antibiotics during my brief stay at the hospital after my last battle with Mega Man, and I'd stolen a decent supply of them on my way out the window as well, but I was still pale and gaunt when I stormed into the Wreck Room.

Maybe I should explain. While normal organizations have a recreation area for its bored and lazy employees, I used my various Robot Masters and their spare time a bit more efficiently. To wit, all of the recyclable garbage and burnable waste funneled into a single room, and Robot Masters not tasked to patrol, attack, make contact with some of my seedier allies, or serve me personally in some way, worked their mechanical asses off in the Wreck Room, so named because it was a total wreck, and that's where things went to get wrecked.

Currently, Stone Man and Hard Man were working on compacting the giant shark ship down into a tiny cube the automated assemblers deeper in the fortress would later use to build something else. At least, that was their assignment. What they were CURRENTLY doing was fighting. Again. The DRWN series II and III Masters were not friends, by any stretch of the imagination, as the series III's believed they were 'the charm' thanks to that stupid phrase and Star Man's constant use of it. The series II's were much more reliable and versatile, but they made use of some of the more basic concepts I had ever made into reality. This meant they were easy to keep in good repair, but they weren't as flashy or glamorous as the III's.

Stone Man and Hard Man stopped trading blows as soon as they noticed my presence, which did not take long. My annoyance with them must have been radiating off me.

“What the hell.”

It was like a starting gun. Two multi-ton Robot Masters launched into simultaneous and conflicting explanations. “Boss He I always was starts just these mindin' stupid my fights business, he breakin' can't down win th' because thing he like knows I you'll was just supposed come to, in and yelling this and guy I just won't walks be right able up to ta hand me him an' the makes beating a he snide really comment, deserves! so It's of not course fair! I He's punched being him stupid in and his childish! stupid Make face! him It stop was being the such only a logical wuss thing all ta the do! Time!”

… Yeah. This is how I spend my down time, and people wonder why my hair is thinning and I'm such an unpleasant person. Or maybe they don't. Shut up.

“Both of you,” I said evenly, “are strong personalities. And assholes. And that's why I don't send you two out on missions. You are also both quite large and prone to being stupid.”

“Thank you, Boss,” Hard Man said proudly.

I rolled my eyes in tandem with Stone Man. “I don't freaking care if

you two don't like each other. In fact, I'm pretty sure I built you both that way. And rebuilt you both that way. Several times now. So how about you set aside your retarded little fight, and put that energy you waste being pissed off into your work.”

“Sure thing, Boss!” Hard Man smiled, saluting before tottering off to his job.

“Suck up,” Stone Man muttered as he followed the other Robot Master.

“Play nice, you two, or I swear on my dead mother's scattered ashes that I WILL send Forte down here to keep you in line.”

Their silence told me this threat would be all that was really necessary for the rest of the job to get done. Still, I smiled to myself, maybe I'll send Forte down anyway. That fin-headed psychopath could use a dose of humility. If he hasn't run off to play soccer with Mega Man or something again.

A Mega Man Killer that borders dangerously on being Mega Man's friend. Great job, Wily. Really nailed that particular design specification down, didn't you? I could feel my eye twitch returning as I walked back to the lab, resolving to put some more antibiotic in my system and delegate some of my more stupid and wasteful work to a Robot Master I could trust.

Now if only I could think of one...