My first Astro boy story, based on the 2003 series. I recently re-watched the whole series having not seen all the episodes when it was on, including the last two, so it was nice to finally finish. I have to admit, having been a big fan of the 80's series (yep, I'm an Aussie ;)) I was a bit put off initially by the fact that they cast Temna as one of the villains. I found it... very odd. I still gave it a chance and came to realize he was the best thing ABOUT the reboot. I still feel bad for the character, though, and wanted to write an epilogue for him, so here it is. Hope you enjoy.
He had been falling; for how long he wasn't quite sure but he was pretty certain it had been from the time he had broke. That day had been it, when he had been called to the hospital over an emergency and had found himself staring down at the recent corpse of his 9 year old son. Something had broken in him then, something he had been unable to repair and it had caused him to topple and flung him down an ever decreasing spiral until he lay shattered at the bottom.
Now here he lay, in a single room with a bed containing a mattress that could double for a doona and the whitest décor that could make the most pristine toothpaste commercial envious. It was a very clean room though, so he supposed one must be grateful for small mercies.
He did find a certain irony in his current position. His case had been overruled in the end due to insanity and, instead of being locked away in a jail cell for an uncertain length of time, quite possibly life, he had instead been thrown into an asylum with pretty much the same privileges as a criminal and as much chance of ever seeing the outside world again.
At least he was comfortable here, even if he did routinely count the slats sticking into his back as he drifted off to sleep. He wasn't allowed anything electronic or sharp or could in anyway be used to cause himself or someone else harm. They had, however, allowed him paper and pencils so he could write as well as any books he wished to read which helped to not only pass the time but to escape from bleached white walls and the occasional unsettling moans and yammers that filtered from up the hall.
Doctor Umataro Tenma, possessor of what was arguably one of the greatest, if not the greatest intellect of this age, had once been the Minister of Science. Tall and long without being wiry, possessing a rather distinct profile and a certain amount of superiority and determination in his stance made him, if not handsome then certainly a rather impressive and distinctly memorable figure.
Currently, though, he was sitting at the small desk, which for some irritating reason was also the same damn white as everything else in the room, and pondered. Tenma had a lot of time for pondering these days, something he had always managed to avoid on the outside by occupying his mind with other activities, which was largely why he was here really.
His gaze was on the two photographs resting on the pristine surface that, apart from his clothes, were his only possessions in this goddamn pristine world. Each was of a small boy, or rather one was a boy with bright eyes and scruffy brown hair, the other was an android designed to look exceedingly similar to the boy in the other photo.
The scene was replaying again in his mind as he stared. It had been his son's birthday. Tenma himself had been away, his duties at the ministry had required him to leave Tokyo for the weekend, but he'd left his boy in the care of their robot servant who had filmed the boy's ecstatic reaction to the very large gift he had left him and had allowed the Doctor to watch him rip into the paper. Inside was a car kit, assembled it would be a child sized car that could really drive.
The boy, Tobio, had excitedly turned to the camera and had happily exclaimed "Thank you, Father!" before diving into the box and instantly started to assemble the vehicle. Umataro had beamed at the screen, pleased to see his son so happy.
Tobio Tenma, he was certain, would have the little car together in no time at all. The boy had the makings of being a genius, like his father, and Umataro was determined to give his son all the advantages he had never had growing up on the farm. He had been certain that one day Tobio would surpass himself and become the greatest scientist of this day and age.
Then, the very next day, he had received the phone call from the emergency section of the hospital. He'd abandoned everything to be with his son, only to arrive too late. There had been nothing the hospital had been able to do and the boy had died while the doctors had frantically tried to piece his broken little body back together.
Umataro had stood there, numb from shock for he didn't know how long. It wasn't real he felt, it couldn't have been real. He'd woken up the next day, not really remembering going home and expected Tobio to come running down the stairs apologizing for sleeping in while hastily throwing on his school uniform.
It didn't happen.
Slowly he had walked up the stairs to the boy's room and carefully opened the door, sweeping aside several toys as he did so. The room was a complete mess, as he knew it would be. Clothes were flung about in any haphazard fashion, video game packages and books littered the floor and the blankets on the bed were in complete disarray.
He was always yelling at Tobio to clean his room. Always, he reflected. Or to do his homework, or turn down the television, in fact right then he couldn't really think of them spending time together when he wasn't yelling at the boy over something.
With an ever growing weight he sat down on the bed and turned his head towards the pillow. A stuffed lion with a white pelt was sitting there, its glassy eyes staring at him soullessly. His wife had given it to Tobio, he remembered, the last thing she had ever given him and the boy had treasured it. Tenma picked it up and looked at it. Did it have a name, he wondered? He didn't know, but he held the white lion to his chest and wept.
"You have a visitor professor." A voice said, breaking through his thoughts like a bucket of cold water and once again snapping him back to his cold reality. He tore his eyes away from the photos and looked up at the nurse.
"Visitor?" he queried. He never had visitors! His mind raced for a few seconds trying to think of who would want to visit him and came up blank.
The nurse stepped aside from the door and gestured. "Yes, he's waiting for you down stairs in the visitation room." He said and with no small amount of annoyance added "Come on."
Slowly the doctor unfolded himself from where he sat, despite his crumpled appearance he still manage to pull himself up straight and give off an air of dignity. Outside his room were several guards, scrutinizing him as if he were about to do something unpredictable and no doubt annoying. He gave them a thin smile and, with one hand in his pocket, he followed the nurse with his procession through the corridor, down the lift and to a room near the front of the building. The guards took their places around the door before it was opened and he was ushered through.
With a small hesitation he walked through the entrance, and stopped in surprise. He didn't expect visitors, but any visitor he hadn't expected he certainly wouldn't have thought it would be him! Well, he had wished, but he knew that was in vain. And yet there, sitting at the table in the middle of the room setting up a shogi board was a little boy. Well, maybe he wasn't a real boy. Maybe he was a robot, one that was made to look and act like Tobio. Tenma had come to acknowledge that he wasn't Tobio, not really, but right now that didn't matter to him.
It was his son! His son had come to visit!
"Astro?" He ventured quietly.
The little robot boy, Astro, looked up and smiled a genuine smile at him. "Hello Father." He said and then gestured at the board in front of him before continuing. "I thought you might like a game. We haven't had one for a while."
Tenma blinked at looked at the board and then back at Astro. "No." He answered, a small smile creeping onto his features "No we haven't."
He sat down opposite the child and the two played their game in relative silence. Neither had many words for the other, things were either too big or painful to say right now. Still, it was a companionable silence and Tenma was grateful even for that.
Just something small. One day I'll finish one of my novels and upload them (one of which I'm planning is my own interpretation of the Astro Boy mythos. Really hoping I can get that done.)
The flash back about the car being Tobio's present was in the short film that accompanied the 2003 reboot series, "The Secret Birth of Atom". It... kinda contradicts what happened in the series (I wonder if the film was in production while they were still finalizing the tv series) but I kinda liked it more. It fits in better with the manga (or at least the most common back story in the manga. Dr Tezuka liked to re-work it a lot).
Please review, positive or negative it all helps me grow and makes me happy!