Orchestrated By C.M. Rich (Magnetman)
By Hardman
Berlin was a shambles.
The Ascendant Androids under the command of the General of the Scissor
Army had seen to that. Still, it was here, in the ruins of one of the
finest cities in Germany, that Cassandra found herself waking up in.
It had been like this, on and off, for two weeks. In order for her
body to sustain itself, it obviously needed to be fed, given drink,
and other such things which the remnants of Siegema'am's programming
wasn't very sure how to come to terms with. So, a time share of sorts
had been established.
It was Topman who'd suggested it originally, when he'd noticed that
Constance's endless possession of Cassandra's body was causing her
to become pale and thin. And their search for Dr. Light, or at least
clues to his wherabouts, was tiresome. Having heard that Berlin had
been the site of a rather brutal chase between the AA and the Gila
Gladiators, Cassandra had suggested they stop here no that the two
forces had moved on.
It had been an issue of nourishment, in the long run. Even in ruins,
Germany had good beer and food. It was just a matter of finding it
now, and of course finding it without shrapnel in it. Cassandra had
managed to cobble together a halfway decent assortment of protiens
and nutrients out of what amounted to little more than scraps while
Topman had made his way to Madrid, following a lead on Protoman.
It was, for the moment, at least, just Cassandra now, alone in Berlin.
She sat down and sighed, the events of the past few weeks weighing
heavily on her. Even now, her body was covered in the patchwork armor
Constance had crafted for itself, and one of the Scissor Army's mainstay
weapons, the Gavel Arms J31 CustomMP rifle, was strapped across her
back, with four extra batteries for the weapon resting in one of her
hip pouches. The equipment had been scavanged among the shattered streets
of Berlin, and was her only armament aside from the hunting knife that
she had owned since she could remember.
The knife was somewhat battered looking in its own right, having been
Constance's primary weapon during the time spent searching for clues
in Monsteropolis. It made Cassandra a little sad to look at it now.
It meant a lot to her, really, this old knife. It had been a gift to
her, and as a testament to its craftsmanship, it had held up better
than any recently produced normal blade that she'd ever seen.
She sighed as an involuntary smile crept across her features. She could
remember it all so clearly sometimes, especially when she'd been locked
up in her own head.
Behind her eyes, she could feel the AI react, as if stirring in its
own sleep. She felt, rather than heard, it speak.
[Query: Why do we wait here?]
"Because Topman told us to wait here," Cassandra sighed aloud. "And,
frankly, I'm going to go with him on this one. He's got a pretty good
handle on what he's doing." The AI seemed to consider this before
she felt it speak again.
[Query: You believe that unit Topman represents the best chance of
finding Dr. Light, correct?]
"Yes," Cassandra said firmly, still talking out loud. It
was a habit she was finding hard to break, despite the fact she knew
it made her look crazy. Then again, by this point, she probably was.
[Query: What will you do once you find Dr. Light?]
"After I get YOU out of my head?" the woman said with a edge
to her tone. "Well, I'll probably help him out with whatever he
thinks he needs to do. Probably find and revive Megaman." Constance
quivered somewhere in her subconcious. For some reason, it didn't like
the idea of bringing the blue bomber back into action.
[Query: Do you not have faith in your counterpart to find a solution
and end the war?]
A laugh escaped her lips, short and without amusement. "Hadrian?
He can't fix this. Not this time. Those idiots in the suits have him
on a short leash, and that 'Boss' of his isn't helping matters either.
The only way Hadrian can end the war is by accident, and even then,
only maybe."
[Supposition: Then you do not have faith in him.]
"I did once," Cassandra said, looking at the hunting knife
in its sheath on her boot. "I really did. But... sometimes I think
he forgets things. Like what's important. I mean... I'm a big girl,
y'know? I can take care of myself. So why does he worry about me all
the damn time?"
The brunette stopped herself and gave some serious thought to what
she'd just said.
[Fact: Yes, that was a fairly stupid thing to say, given the circumstances.]
Cassandra scowled. "Shut up, you. I liked it better when I didn't
even know you were in my head."
[Fact: I preferred keeping full-time control of this unit, but circumstance
that were not within the perameters of my programming forced me to
terminate that arrangement.]
"Yeah, boo hoo," she said, standing up and stretching her
limbs.
"I'm SO sorry I have to eat, sleep, and drink things occasionally."
It was times like this she wished she could just walk away from the
AI, but that was obviously something less than plausible. In all fairness,
however, Constance itself seemed to share her sentiment.
Elsewhere, deep underground, behind a door that read 'Syne Co President:
Thaddeus Tilman,' the man himself sat behind a desk, going over reports
and reading memos that hadn't changed in content in four years. Tilman
hadn't seen the need to update any of the in-house paperwork after
the Conversion. Why bother? Everyone in Syne Co was on the same page,
so to speak.
He picked up a seemingly random folder before he realized the folder
was not, truly, random at all. He grinned to himself as he read the
file over. It was the only folder he'd kept to himself when that short,
wheeled cop had come through. Withholding relevant evidence was a crime
in a case like this, but Tilman just... couldn't help himself.
Indeed, it was fairly pointless to try. Thaddeus Tilman had been dead
for five years. It was his imposter that now sat in the office, smiling
and humming softly to himself. After a year or so of trying to run
the place covertly, he'd simply given up and 'converted' the rest of
them to prevent his secrets from escaping into the light of day.
He was the only person on the planet who was not surprised by the sight
of the robot that walked into his office. A fairly dull design, all
things considered, except for the white spiral adorning the chest like
a badge and the eight cables that had bunched themselves up on its
back.
"Hello," he smiled.
"Indeed," Mesmerman nodded. "Freezeman's progression
down my little gauntlet of demented fun is progressing nicely. How
are things on the human-fooling front?"
"Well, you know as well as I do," Thaddeus Tilman's face
said.
"I suppose I do," Mesmerman grinned. "Very well then.
Carry on. And get that second squadron of Siege Joes ready for battle
once the Generals forces have made repairs to the first squad. I believe
its time to test them in earnest."
"They have a rave review from Wraithman," Tilman nodded. "They
apparently performed quite well."
"As well they should. The General's wonderful soldier AI is leaps
and bounds ahead of anything Syne Co had come up with before the Conversion,
and our crowning achievement afterwards is now locked away in some
poor girl's head somewhere."
Mesmerman and Tilman both seemed to think about this. "Well, not
LOCKED away so much as stuck within," they said in unison. Mesmerman
caught himself and resynched his control over his various bodies. Thaddeus
Tilman smirked and Mesmerman's robtic form grinned.
"Carry on," the Masterless Puppet nodded.
Some days, Mesmerman reflected as he left the office, having a conversation
with yourself can be... interesting.
--------------------
Freezeman woke up slowly,
his mind reeling. His first thoughts were used wondering what kind
of horrors Mesmerman had wreaked on his mind.
He sat up, taking in the dank room he found himself in. So much like
a dungeon, buried in blackness. Freezeman got slowly to his feet,
unsure of himself. In the gloom, he could barely make out walls and
the floor, but it was enough to know that he was stuck here. At least
for right now.
He tried to get his bearings.
Why am I here? Why hasn't Mesmerman killed me or made me some stupid
SA officer yet? What was that monster planning?
Freezeman looked up, spying light of some sort coming from a hole
in the ceiling, some forty feet above him. He was sore, true, but
he could move easily enough. He felt the walls, finding that the
brickwork was shoddy, presenting him all kinds of potential foot
and hand holds.
Well, he sighed, nowhere to go but up.
He started climbing, surprised by both the ease with which he scaled
the wall, and the lack of anything really trying to mess with his
brain. He still hated the SA, Mesmerman, and all of those things
they represented. He still believed the RPD was the way to save everyone.
He still remembered the rest of Drastic Measures. He still held onto
his beliefs.
As he climbed, he began to think more seriously about what was going
on. Mesmerman hadn't... as far as he knew, anyway, twisted his perceptions
of the world, nor had he outright controlled him to do his bidding,
and yet he dumped him in this easily escapable hole. What the hell
was he planning?
The light from the ceiling came through cracks in the boards above
him. They looked like floorboards, and they gave easily after Freezeman
punched them and clambered up, finding himself in a room lit by a
single candle. The place was like a cabin, with wooden walls and
rickety-looking rafters, and the candlelight made the shadows dance.
There was something else, though. The colors that played across the
walls. Faint blues and reds.
What the hell?
Freezeman looked down at himself, and realized what was happening.
His forearms, the bottom halves of his legs, even his helmet and
portions of his midsection were covered in red and blue panels that
shone like glass. It was haphazard, seemingly random, and yet it
still had an elegance to it. Like the stained glass windows of a
church.
Something occured to him, and he tried to use his own abilities.
He wasn't very surprised when he discovered he no longer could make
ice of any kind. Not even a small snowflake.
So he's made all these modifications to my body, but not to my mind?
Or was that supposed to come later?
Freezeman resolved not to stick around and find out. He made his
way to one of the walls, trying to find a door. When no apparent
portal presented itself, he gave a shrug and punched the wall, only
slightly amazed at how easily it gave away under the blow. The new
hole in the wall led out into a much more modern looking hallway.
Ceramic tile, plaster walls, flourescent lighting, and signs. Granted,
the signs were in a language he couldn't make out, but they seemed
to point in certain directions, directing those who'd want to know
to their correct destination.
What Freezeman found more curious was the room he'd been in. As he
stepped out into the hallway, the wooden room and single candle flickered
as one thing, and faded away into nothingness, leaving only and empty,
unremarkable room with a now broken door behind him.
"Okay," Freezeman muttered, "that was a little weird."
Not wanting to waste his chance, Freezeman turned and started to
run down the hallway. He followed it as it turned left, right, and
then left again, passing doors covered with the indecipherable script.
Finally, he came to a door that blocked his progress.
He couldn't read the writing on it, but it was plain to him this
led to some kind of larger room, possible a junction of some kind.
He opened it cautiously, and a wave of noise that he only just now
noticed had been absent washed over him. People were chattering,
talking, laughing.
He looked, and indeed, there were dozens of people gathered in the
room, leaning on desks, having coffee, reading papers, signing things
and typing on computers. It was a room full of cubicles, but nobody
in the room turned their heads to look at him.
Freezeman crept through the door, letting in slide closed silently
behind him, and di his best to remain unnoticed. In a room full of
humans, this meant a lot of sneaking around. He kept low and close
to the walls of the cubicles. He spotted another door out of the
room, but wasn't sure where it might lead, and he ducked into an
empty cubicle as a group of the humans came around a corner, hoping
they wouldn't find him here.
The humans passed him by, and he noticed something odd. The words
they were speaking were somewhat alien to him. Obviously, whatever
the written language around here wa salso the spoken one, since Freeze
could only think of describing the sounds he heard in the same way
as the writing on the signs. He took a deep breath and looked out
of the empty cubicle to insure that the coast was clear, and he made
a break for the door.
The door slid open silently, and he slipped through just as quietly,
finding himself is an very different room. This one harkened back
more to the room he'd found himself in. Dark, dungeon-like.
Something stirred as he entered, and a voice he barely recognized
said something in a scratchy tone.
"Who's there?"
Freezeman swore to himself, trying to peer through the gloom to identify
the speaker. He could make out a form sprawled against the wall,
and it seemed to be pinned there. "Depends," he said slowly in
a hoarse whisper,
"on who you are."
The figure coughed, the whole form shaking. Freezeman could now see
that it wasn't complete, in some way. Like it was missing limbs.
"Freeze?" the voice cracked. "Is that you?"
Freezeman found that he recognized the voice this time. "Shademan?"
he hissed.
The vampire laughed. "Well, it's been a while," he manged
before another cough wracked his body.
"You look like hell... what happened?"
"I stopped a city from blowing up... but I kind of got carried
awat with being a hero," he said, a smirk crossing his features. "No
idea how I survived, or how I ended up here, though."
Freezeman started moving towards his friend, but checked himself.
Shademan had gone against the RPD, hadn't he? What would the RPD
say if he escaped from a possible enemy location with another enemy
in tow?
Then again, what could they do about it? Mesmerman had probably removed
the kill switch when he had recreated Freezeman into... well, whatever
he was now. Freezeman shrugged, and moved forward, pulling his friend
down from the wall.
"I take it we're leaving then?" Shademan coughed.
"Yeah. Not sure how, but yeah. Can you hold on by yourself?"
Freezeman asked, hefting his damaged friend onto his back.
Shademan's remaining arm wrapped around Freeze's body, holding on
with a feeble grasp. "I'll try not to be too much of a burden..."
Freezeman smiled to himself. "No trouble at all, man. We're getting
out of here."
Every head turned as Freezeman opened the door this time, and the
noise and chatter in the cubicles came to a halt.
"Ah... crap," Freezeman said as every human in the room,
smiling, held up weapons.
"MOVE!" Shademan shouted, and Freezeman listened, leaping
to the side as plasma bolts slammed into the wall. Both robots grunted
as Freeze landed, rolled, and came up at a dead run toward another
door. The humans, if they even were that, kept smiling and shooting.
Freezeman's legs powered him forward, and he leapt up, bringing his
legs up in front of him as he got closer to the door. He slammed
into the door about five feet up, and he heard the hinges give away
and felt the door give as it fell back into the hallway beyond. The
door landed with a tremendous crack and Freezeman launched himself
into a run again.
Plasma arced over his shoulders as the humans gave chase, but Freezeman
kept moving as fast as he could toward the door on the opposite end
of the hallway. He heard Shademan cry out as a plasma shot dug into
his back, but there was nothing he could do about that now.
The pair crashed through the door and found themselves in a massive
room that reminded them both of a hangar. A huge steel scaffold surrounded
the center of the room, where a large tank filled with various liquids
stood, a dark shape floating inside. Freezeman turned, setting Shademan
down, before grabbing some of the scaffolding and shoving it into
the doorway to stop the humans and their plasma shots from coming
through. When he was satisfied with the result, he turned to Shademan
and picked him back up.
"Well, that was more fun than I wished I'd bargained for," Freezeman
sighed.
Shademan opened his mouth to speak when the middle of the room exploded
into noise and confusion, shattering glass and surging waters.
The force blew them both backwards, Freezeman slamming into Shademan's
body as they both hit the wall. Shademan gave a groan as he slipped
into unconsciousness and Freezeman spat liquid as he stood back up.
Something... ugly... stirred in the ruins of the tank, and the modified
robot master prepared himself for a battle.
He wasn't disappointed as a twisted mass of flesh and metal launched
itself out of the tank, landing hard on the metal floor before cutting
loose with an unearthly scream. It might have been human once, or
it might just as easily have been a large gorilla. The effect would
have been the same. Pale skin wrapped around metal joints, and two
massive mechanical hands sprouted from red, raw wrists. Its eyes
glowed a dull red, and the backward legs coiled in prepearation for
a strike.
"What the hell is going ON here?" Freezeman managed to say
before the beast charged him. He stood between abomination and friend,
desperately trying to think of a way, any way, to stop it from killing
them both.
Something at the edges of his perception glistened, and he caught
side of the shards of glass that lay strewn about the room. The world
greyed as time seemed to slow to a halt, and something cold and high
laughed at him.
"Well, you're in a bit of trouble, aren't you?"
"What are you DOING? WHAT'S GOING ON?" Freezeman shouted,
turning in the frozen seconds to look at the pieces of Mesmerman, which
seemed to grin even wider at his agitation.
"Just a simple test. After all, if you're to be my bodyguard,
I need to be sure you can handle... unexpected situations."
"I'd never work for you. Not willingly."
"Oh?" Mesmerman asked, a note of amusement in his voice. "What
about your friend?"
Freezeman glanced at Shademan, and then at the hulking beast that
threatened them both. "... how can I save him?"
"Well, to be perfectly honest, you can't," Mesmerman told
him flatly.
"It's not possible. He's already dead."
"WHAT?"
"Oh, yes, got himself something like vaporized not too long ago,
carrying a whole load of explosives in what I'm told was a beautiful
moment of self-sacrifice."
"Then... what..."
"Well, he's more like a memory. Your memory, to be precise."
It occured to Freezeman. "This place... isn't real, is it?"
Mesmerman's general shape gave a shrug. "It's as real as the imagination
is."
"Where am I?"
"This is you," the white monster said simply. "This
is your head."
"No. No way. I'm not NEARLY this screwed up."
"Oh, aren't you?" Mesmerman laughed, and raised a hand to
prevent objecteions as he spoke. "Those smiling people with the
guns? Why, that seems very much like the mental picture you may have
of humanity: Happy, and willing to turn on you at a moment's notice.
This behemoth? A manifestation, albeit a very odd one, of your anger
and aimless contempt for the percieved differences between man and
machine. Even your friend there is the broken remnants of a memory,
a friend who left you and your team in a time of dire need."
Freezeman looked down at himself, meeting Mesmerman's gaze with a
look that begged explaination. "Oh," the jigsaw robot grinned, "that
is merely some artistic license on my part. I had some old technology
lying around and wanted to use it. Perfectly safe, I can assure you."
"What the hell did you DO to me?" Freezeman demanded.
"Well, aside from making you literally face your inner demons?
I forced you into a symbiotic relationship with a pair of fairly ruthless
killers."
"Huh?"
"They were so impressive when that idiot Juno commanded them,
so I decided to steal the idea, as many great ideas eventually are."
"Why would you do this? Especially if you haven't brainwashed
me to do your bidding?"
Mesmerman cocked his head to the side in confusion before busting
out into a gale of laughter. "Oh, my dear boy, don't mistake my intentions.
I have my reasons for keeping your psyche intact, that I can assure
you. However, we are wasting far too much time. I'd like to see how
you perform in combat, it you please."
The world snapped back into color as Mesmerman vanished, and a heavy
sound brought Freezeman's attention fully forward again.
What had Mesmerman said? A symbiotic relationship? What did he mean?
The monstrosity of hatred closed in, a wild swing connecting with
Freeze's midsection and slamming him sideways, down to the ground.
Pain shot through his system as he bounced once and recovered his
feet. He looked down to see his chest had caved in, leaving a hole
surrounded by broken glass. He swore as the beast closed in again,
relentless in its pursuit of violence, and rolled out of the way
as the massive hand came down again, ending up neatly on his feet
and poised to move when the anger came after him again.
Shards of colored glass shook momentarily before leaving the ground
and moving towards him, floating silently into the hole that had
been made in his side and covering it completely in a matter of moments.
"Okay... that was cool..." Freezeman said aloud, noting that
the pain had vanished along with the wound. An angry roar alerted him
to another attack and he danced backwards as the monster swung wildly
at him. He needed time to figure out a strategy, knowing what he knew
now.
So the glass now affixed to his body could move? On its own? How
did that help him? And how was that related to the 'two killers'
Mesmerman had mentioned?
He weaved out of the way of another attack, leading the beast away
from Shademan's unconscious form and tried to think. Tried to call
them out. If they WERE in a symbiotic relationship, that meant he
provided THEM something and that they provided HIM something. He
wasn't sure what they were getting out of him, but it was time they
pulled their weight at least.
"Come on!" Freezeman shouted in frustration after a few more
minutes of avoiding the nightmare of metal and flesh. "Help me
out here!"
Something on him shifted, and he watched as every blue pane of glass
on his body slowly dislodged itself, hanging in the air mere inches
off his form before it left him, reassembling some distance away
as a vaugely humanoid shape of blue glass, radiating a predator's
instinct and sharpness at every angle.
Freezeman avoided another strike as the red panels did the same,
and he saw that under the glass on his body was a rather unremarkable
black bodysuit that covered him, probably made out of kevlar. Not
very sturdy, but then again, if his guess was correct, he was not
supposed to be in direct combat.
The red and blue beings shot forward, the noise of glass sliding
on glass making crystalline notes in the air, giving birth to a strange
kind of music that Freezeman found himself appreciating above the
noise of the angry monster. They worked in unison, moving quickly
and intercepting the beast on its next charge. It smashed through
the red one as the blue one brought an angular arm down on it, cutting
deeply into the steel and skin, drawing blood and sparks.
The red being reassembled itself in a manner that suggested it had
never stopped moving, and as the avatar of Freezeman's frustration
took a wild swing at the other being of glass, it stabbed deeply
into the monster's back, drawing two gouts of blood and driving the
beast to its knees.
They worked quickly, with surgical precision, slicing joints, areteries,
coolant tubes, skin and metal bones. It was over before it began,
and Freezeman just watched. When they were satisfied with their work,
the two beings returned to him, rearranging themselves into the patchwork
of armor and leaving behind a bloodied corpse.
Freezeman only felt cold. A kind of cold he couldn't say he was comfortable
with.
"Well..." he said aloud after a while, walking back towards
Shademan, who was beginning to wake up, "I have no idea what just
happened, but I have a feeling that Mesmerman will be pleased with
it..."
As he hefted his friend up onto his shoulders and began looking for
a way out, he realized that the notion made him happy.
--------------------