Better Judgment:
The Dr. Wily Story

By Hadrian (Hardman) Howell

Chapter 6

199X

“Just a half, today, Scott.”

“Is something wrong, sir?” the fresh-faced youth on the other side of the counter at Subway recognized my face, but didn't know my name. To him, I was just a regular customer, despite the weight of the world on my shoulders. “You usually get the whole foot long.”

“Just not quite as hungry today, I suppose,” I said distractedly. My encounter with Alfred Gibbs was plaguing my mind almost constantly. It was now the middle of the day on Sunday, a day and a half later, and that kind-yet-menacing smile of his was all I could see when I closed my eyes.

Scott was a pleasant enough person, but he always tried to make small talk with me. He was droning on about his new girlfriend and something about her seven evil ex-boyfriends as I turned a myriad of thoughts over in my head. I knew I was falling into a trap set by my own brain, arriving at thoughts and conclusions based on what I THOUGHT I knew, but knowing that the truth was much more nebulous than I could probably guess at. Assuming Gibbs was some sort of military spy was really all I had been doing, and every instance where he and I had been in the same room together was getting revisited and strange connotations were being attached to his every action.

This was not healthy, OR productive. I knew I was going to have to sit down and have a more candid conversation with Gibbs at some point, and soon, if only to satisfy my curiosity, but I also wanted to make sure that Tom wasn't alerted to some sort of problem before I knew for sure if there was one. As it was, I had spent an inordinate amount of time being wherever Tom wasn't yesterday so he wouldn't catch on to the fact that something was bothering me.

I had spent almost 20 solid hours trying to find out everything about Gibbs that I could, and I could now only say two things with any sort of certainty: He was not what he appeared, and he was a talented pickpocket.

Whatever Gibbs was peddling, all I knew for sure was that I wanted to keep Tom out of it. He was much too good a person to get sucked into this sort of cloak and dagger nonsense. I was almost certain I was, as well, but that never really entered into it. I was certain that I could handle myself.

Besides, Gibbs had approached me, not Tom. This would have more to do with my background in psychology and current focus on Program Design than Tom's Robotics work. Perhaps Gibbs was looking for someone to develop some sort of Artificial Intelligence for his military friends.

Or he was playing to my ego.

See, this is what I mean; I didn't have enough information, and I was just guessing.

I paid for my lunch and took a walk, not really focusing on anything. I wasn't surprised that I wandered in the direction of Alfred Gibbs's office. I was even less surprised that he was in. I stood in front of the door for a while, silently at war with myself over what I was about to do.

… Caution be damned. I needed more information before I could proceed.

I knocked on the door.

“Come in, Al.”

I let myself, closing the door behind me before I responded. “Albert. I prefer Albert.”

“Of course you do, Al,” he said with a smile. “Now come in and sit down. You missed class yesterday.”

“I wasn't feeling up to it.”

“We had a remarkable presentation. The future of networking by a Dr. Hikari. I think you would have enjoyed it. He was telling us that soon, every appliance man ever made would be capable of networking with each other and accessing the internet.”

This relieved some of my tension. “That's... that's just stupid.”

“Oh?” he asked, playing dumb. “Why?”

“What use would a microwave or an oven or a refrigerator have for an internet connection? At best, it's a convenience only a few would be able to afford, and at worst you would acquire viruses in some of your basic home appliances that might be dangerous to both your home and yourself.”

“Who would write a virus to attack someone's oven?” he laughed.

“There will always be someone.”

“You're probably right,” he said, shaking his head. “Still, it does beg the question then: You're one of the sharper minds I have seen attend MEU in several years. Where do YOU believe the future of mankind lies?”

“I'm not sure one person should be the one to decide such a thing,” I said carefully.

“And yet it is ALWAYS one person who decides such a thing,” Gibbs said with a glint in his eye. “So, I ask again, Albert Wily, what would YOU do?”

20XX

What the hell are you doing, Albert Wily?

This is the question I had been asking myself for the last thirty minutes. The contents of Mr. X's folder had been absurd. A list of hit men. Security layouts for Tom's HOUSE. A list of untraceable poisons. A list of medical professionals that could be paid off. A list of the LISTS in the folder.

The message was clear: If the Book of Revelations was going to kill Thomas Light, there was nothing anyone could do to stop them. They were leaving the... method of his execution up to me. This was my role in his death, deciding how he would die.

This was by far the worst thing that could have happened today.

I pulled Tom's message of redemption out of the virtual trash bin (yes, I know, I hardly ever empty the damn thing) and set it to play as I stared at the reams of papers detailing the myriad ways he could die. There were contingency plans for dealing with Mega Man in here, as well, and they were not subtle. The simplest one started with setting off an EMP device on Tom's front lawn. The plans of action in here were similar to America's plans for forcefully removing terrorists from the face of the world. I was certain there was a folder like this with my name on it somewhere. Probably a LOT of somewheres.

My rivalry with Tom had always been about who was BETTER. He may not have seen it that way, but this conflict would ultimately end when one of us finally proved he was smarter than the other, and I was planning on winning THAT fight, not this one. Simply removing Tom from the world also stole my chance to rub the fat bastard's face in my victory away from me.

Tom and I defined each other, in the end. To remove one of us removed BOTH of us. If I didn't have that stupid Santa Claus reject to match myself against, why should I bother getting out of bed in the morning? Nothing would be a challenge anymore. The world would just fall into my hands, the Book be damned, and no one would be able to stand against my genius or my armies. Without Tom, I would just be a despotic dictator who ruled with an iron fist. I wouldn't have a purpose anymore.

To just KILL him? To even suggest it? It almost didn't seem fair.

I looked over the 'recommended' courses of action again, and I could just FEEL my blood boil at the idea. It would take another hour to finally voice my decision to my assembled Robot Masters after Shadow Man's return from the arctic, but it was really now, right here, when I decided what had to be done.

I was going to win. For once in the stupid little war, I was going to win, and I was going to do it MY way.

I chucked Tom's message back into the bin and opened a new call window.

“Well that was fast,” Mr. X sounded mildly surprised.

“I hate your ideas.”

“That goes a very short way toward surprising me,” he commented dryly. “Are you merely complaining, or-”

“I have a better idea. An idea that takes attention very far from you and your little gang of thugs and lets the whole damn world know that I am a force o be reckoned with.”

He was silent for a moment. “Are you going to tell me or are you waiting to cut me off aga-”

“The downfall is going to be loud, and public, and its going to be ugly and its going to be something the world talks about for years to come.”

“You're letting revenge get the better of you again,” Mr. X cautioned. “If you couldn't top Mega Man before, what makes you think you can do it this time?”

“Because Mega Man won't even be a factor. And because I'm going to hit with everything I have.”

He hesitated. “Everything?”

“Everything. The Robot Masters, the Sniper Joe armies, the Mega Man Killers, the Yellow Devil, the Mecha Dragon, as many Wily Machines as I can stuff robot duplicates into, EVERYTHING.”

“You realize you sound crazy, right?”

“Hey, you told me it was something the Book of Revelations wanted to see me do. So I will.”

“Excellent,” he said, sounding uneasy. “When do you launch?”

“I'll be moving my forces soon to help secure some of the necessary materials, and I expect to have the full plan in motion within the week.” I was just making crap up at this point, trying to buy time. I knew that if they felt I was taking too long, they'd just send out an assassin after Tom anyway if they really felt he was going to be a problem.

“Well, keep me posted,” Mr. X said, hanging up on the call.

I closed the window with his name on it and opened a new one.

“Sir?” Shadow Man's voice responded.

“How soon before you teleport back?”

“We're getting everything that isn't dead loaded into the zone right now,” he told me. Mass teleportation was tricky, but I'd long ago devised a large platform that was easily built and easily moved that would act as a beacon for teleport signals with the proper encryption codes. Shadow Man and his team had arrived in the arctic after a small, winterized Metool squad had finished construction of the platform. I had another one like it in the upper levels of my bunker.

“Give me an ETA,” I said.

“No more than an hour, sir.” There was an edge in his voice, like he didn't want to make me wait, but he also couldn't get the job done faster. Shadow Man's sense of duty put him at odds with some of the more flippant or lazy Robot Masters sometimes, but this was also why he was one of my more trusted operatives.

“When you get back, recall the rest of the series IIs and meet me in the lab. I want to see you all here in an hour and ten minutes.”

There was a brief silence. “Sir... what's going on? Why do you need us?”

“Because your team is the best mix of infiltration and assault power I have at my disposal, and we're going to be making some noise.”

“Where will we be going, sir?”

“I'll have a more solid location for you in an hour,” I told him, already bringing up an older archive of data mined from various governments. “Dress warm, though. I doubt we'll be going to the tropics.

“Not more snow...” was the closest I got to hear Shadow Man complain before the call ended.