Genesis End


 

Chapter Ninteen - Judged

"Explain to me again how in the five minutes since I left you, you managed to get your arm shot off?" Omni griped. He was patching me up with a soldering gun, to make sure I wasn't leaking coolant or anything. "Do you just get attacked everywhere you go?"

"I guess I'm just a natural people person," I said. He had a point though. Hu Man, the Mechs, the Harbinger... seems like everyone wanted a piece of me these days. And I was no closer to figuring out how I was going to catch him... or clear my name with the Mechs.

"Yeah, well don't go losing any more of this Spin Man armour," he grunted. "We can't afford to get new armour every time we pick a fight with someone."

"Spin not cheap," Golem grumbled in assent.

"You know, I get that you miss your old teammates, but there's gotta be a better way to honour their memory," I said. "I'm not Spin Man. Quite frankly, I couldn't stand the guy. But maybe that's for the best. You're not the Evil Eight anymore either. You don't have to chase after rumours, you don't have to be in service to a ghost. Why not just start over fresh, and live your lives?"

"Do you not feel a sense of duty to someone?" Omni replied. "Could you do the same yourself, simply leave what you were built to do? Stop caring?"

"No, I guess I couldn't." I thought back to when the War had broken out, and even though I didn't pick a side, I hadn't given up - I'd gone out to bring Dr. Light back, to try to set the world back on track. Even now, on the run, with no duties to anybody, I was still trying to catch a killer, to bring what little peace that was in my power to bring back to the world. Omni was right, you can't stop caring. I wondered if that's just a part of our programs, some obligation to mankind... or if it's something more than that. A genuine desire to help.

"Besides, once we find Wily, he will reforge our ranks, and a new Evil Eight will arise! Then we can restore our name, and our fallen comrades will get the glory they deserve."

Golem clapped giddily, while I tried to hide my eyes rolling. I couldn't help but pity them a little, they were like a broken record at this point. Omni was never going to give up on finding Wily, and it will one day ruin them. He'll just keep doing the same mistakes again and again until he succeeds or buries his own grave.

Wait. Wait wait WAIT. I was on the verge of something... Doing the same thing over and over again until you succeed... could he have...?

I'd run into the Harbinger twice before our encounter at the church, and both times were in the same place - a protest led by Emerald Spears activists. At first I'd thought he'd been following me - but then why nowhere else? Why just those two times? Unless he wasn't after me. What if he was after somebody at the rallies?

Like that woman. The one who called herself "Hu Man" - Esmeralda Ocana. She was at both the rallies, and with how much attention she'd drawn to herself, it was easy to imagine she might have caught his eye. Maybe the first time he was scoping her out, deciding which "judgement" to give her. Then the second time, I'd chased him into the alley, he'd never gotten close enough to her. What if he was still after her?

I waited until Omni was done patching me up and then stood up to leave.

"Where Spin go?" Golem asked.

"There's something I have to look into," I said briskly. Even if I was right about Esmeralda, there was no telling how long the Harbinger might wait to strike - for all I know he might have already done it by now. I didn't have time to spare. "You're in no condition to go anywhere yet, Spin," Omni said, "the solder's not even cooled yet!"

"I'll be fine," I said with a one-armed shrug.

"The Mechs are still after you," Omni said, raising his voice. "We barely won the first fight, what if we're outnumbered the next time?"

I looked back at them. Golem was nursing about thirty different puncture wounds across his body, and Omni was still operating on minimal energy after being drained by Snake's drones. It was my fault. They'd come to rescue me.

I shook my head. "I don't want you to risk yourselves for me again," I replied. "I owe you guys one, and I won't forget it. But the Mechs are my problem, not yours."

Omni looked pissed off, but he was in no shape to stop me. "I don't understand," he said, "what's so important that you have to do right this second?!"

I turned to look at him over my shoulder as I headed out the door.

"The right thing," I said.

****

At this time of night, getting to the hospital undetected wasn't a problem. The streetlights on main roads were quite bright, but Monsteropolis had more than its share of dim alleys to get me there unseen. Wearing my leather coat over my black Spin Man armour, I looked nondescript enough to walk through the hushed halls of the hospital without any wayward glances, and with confidence I gave my RPD ID number to the front desk - they probably wouldn't check up on it until morning. The nurse directed me to the room on the sixth floor where Esmeralda Ocana lay unconscious.

After the nurse left me - I made sure to ask if they'd run a recent test for KADE symptoms, she'd tested negative - I stood over Esmeralda's bedside. Lying still, she looked much younger than I'd remembered from all the zeal and venom that had filled her eyes. She couldn't be older than 20. She had a sharp nose and jaw that in this serene state gave her a look of certainty, determination and poise, and her brow quivered as she lay dreaming.

None of the violence that had fueled me during the fight was surfacing. I didn't look at her and immediately feel malice towards her, as I had the first two times I'd encountered her. In fact, I felt remorse. What was going on with this Wily chip? It fills me with a murderous rage one day, then the next I'm doing visiting hours at a hospital? I just didn't get it.

In my confusion, I'm ashamed to say I actually let my guard down enough that someone came in the room behind me. "...it's you!" a woman's voice cried out from behind me, and I couldn't risk that this someone had recognized me. I pushed past her without looking, straight out the door. I couldn't use my wheels - it would get me noticed for sure - so I started to make a run for it. But behind me, she called out, "Wait! Top Man!" And despite it all, I couldn't help turning to see who it was. And when I did, I stopped cold.

For a split second, I didn't recognize her. It took me a second to strip away the aged features, the shorter, primmer hair, the make-up. But after a moment, I knew it was her. It was Amatista.

"Please, don't run," she said with her hands outstretched in a gesture of peace. A garment bag was draped over one arm, and in her hands was a sandwich and a cup of coffee. "I just want to talk to you."

****

We walked down the halls of the sixth floor slowly. She said it calmed her nerves to walk, and I didn't mind - it'd make us harder to locate if she'd called the RPD on me. Though by now I was pretty sure she was telling the truth, that she just wanted to talk to me.

"Esmeralda's my niece," she explained as we walked the corridors. "During the War my sister was raising her practically on her own - the father was never in the picture. Times grew tough on them during the War, for a lot of people I guess, so I offered for them to stay with me, and I helped where I could. Esme and I grew quite close. Eight years after the War, my sister died of a heart condition, and Esme continued to live with me, and I've raised her ever since."

"I had no idea you had a sister, or a niece," I said dumbfounded.

"Is that so surprising? You don't even know my real name, do you?"

"...no, I guess I don't." I felt incredibly sheepish.

"That's alright, I was hardly forthcoming in those days. It's Maria. Maria Ocana."

I turned to look at her. This was the second time in that many days that someone had reminded me that sometimes the enemies I'd fought against were real people, with names, families. Lives.

"I'm... I'm sorry about Esme. I didn't..."

She stopped me. "No, it's not your fault. Sadly, this has been a long time coming. I'm as much to blame as you are. When the Shutdown code was being enforced, I was very... vocal about my hatred for robot-kind. She was much younger then, and I was her idol... I'm afraid much of it stuck with her. By the time my sister passed away, that part of my life was a distant memory, but the bitterness I'd instilled in her had grown for so many years. I tried to convince her I was wrong, but she was set in her ways now - you know how teenagers can be. And so, in college, after she'd joined some activist groups, her behaviour just got more and more radical. It was only a matter of time before she provoked a fight that she couldn't win."

"She put up a hell of a fight, though," I said to try to lighten the mood.

Amatista let out a laugh, high and bright, something I'd never heard her do before. It was pleasant... weird, but pleasant. "Yes, that's the Ocana blood in her veins, certainly. She's a fighter, even the doctors say so."

"So she's going to wake up?"

"They're very hopeful, yes."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"I know you are. You have your demons, Top Man, just as I do. But I have been given many chances to redeem myself in my life. Who am I to deprive you of those chances too?" She patted the garment bag on her arm. "And when... if Esme wakes up, I'll give her that same chance. Just because she picked the wrong opponent doesn't mean she shouldn't fight." She unzipped the top of the bag, and I recognized the colour of the fabric. It was Amatista's old costume, with the razor-sharp wire-and-jewel weapons. "Perhaps the Jewel of Hope can fight to protect humanity again, but this time alongside you."

I smiled. "I'd like that."

We rounded the corner back to the middle of the hall where Esme's room was.

"I don't remember closing the door to Esme's room," Amatista said as we got into view of it. "Did you?"

"Oh no!" I said. I threw open the door, and leaning over her bed was the distinct, tattered backside of the Harbinger.

He straightened up, turned around, and looked me in the eye.

"She has been judged," he said.

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