For the last time (not really), I do not own Big O or any of its characters. I am making no $$$ off this whatsoever. It is futile to sue me. So there.
Act 19: Rise of the Dead
It was a quiet night in the heart of Paradigm. A light rain fell, just enough to cool the street but not enough to be frigid. Most of the denziens were in their homes, sleeping or trying to sleep. A sliver of a crescent of moon bathed the area in a pale light, lending an air of romance to the scene. Dorothy sat on the rail contemplating life, in particular, her life over the last week.
She was puzzled. Her programming had been experiencing odd behavior over the last few days, so she had run an intense diagnostic. It had revealed a very curious result. Her primary systems, those that ran her most basic functions, were functioning normally, as if none of the recent events had affected her in the least. The more complex systems, those that governed her behavior, the timbre of her voice, and what little body language she could manage, were in a state of cybernetic rebellion. Her memory banks, for instance, would not acknowledge the fact that Roger was dead. They would always refer to him as 'missing' or 'away,' even when she purposefully corrected them. Her grammar subroutines were also corrupted; whenever she reffered to Roger in her speech, it always came out as 'he does' or 'he likes,' instead of 'he did' and 'he liked.' It was a most bizzare phenomenon, something she had never experienced before. It was unsettling that her circuitry would not let Roger go.
After dinner, she had mentioned her findings to Norman.
"Dorothy, humans lose someone they had care about, they often refuse to accept that loss, and sometimes go for the rest of their life convinced the lost companion was still alive, or awaiting discovery."
"Norman, I am an android. I am exempt from the faults of humans." She also had noticed that she was having to remind both him and herself of that fact more and more recently.
Norman smiled. "Perhaps, Miss Dorothy, you are more human than you realize."
That remark made little sense to her, so she dissmissed it as a quirk of being human. She had done that so often with Roger, too...
Now she was coming back to what Norman had said. If androids were capable of feeling, or of acting human, then what she had felt before Big O had vanished might not have been another programming error...could what she had felt when Roger was near...actually...be...
Her train of thought derailed at the first thunderous footstep. Dorothy jerked her head up and caught a glimps of something moving between skyscrapers. Could it be...
Whatever it was, it was moving away from the mansion, down the street on the far side of a line of buildings. She would not lose sight of it.
Dorothy ran along the railing, and when it stopped she leaped high into the air. Instantly beating every human record for the long jump, she landed on the roof of the next building and continued running. The robot she was trailing had a lead, but at her present speed she could keep up. Sprinting across each rooftop and hurling herself across the broad gaps between, she followed it to a single building.
When Dorothy finally jumped to a building that afforded a good view of the machine, something inside her cried out. It was not Big O.
It was not even a true Megadeuce. Pieces of the many robots that had risen throughout the city had been sloppliy gathered together to form one functional unit. It was a hideous patchwork quilt of armor, no more than four or five bits from the same Megadeuce. One arm was short, and terminated in a huge gatling gun, the other stretched nearly to the ground and had three joints. It was a nightmare Megadeuce.
The hideous construction had stopped next to the Prime Bank, the leading institution in Paradigm. Using the triple-jointed arm, it smashed through the wall and pulled the safe out. Not bothering to crack it open, the robot turned and stomped back down the street with its prize. Dorothy watched it go.
Act 19: Rise of the Dead
It was a quiet night in the heart of Paradigm. A light rain fell, just enough to cool the street but not enough to be frigid. Most of the denziens were in their homes, sleeping or trying to sleep. A sliver of a crescent of moon bathed the area in a pale light, lending an air of romance to the scene. Dorothy sat on the rail contemplating life, in particular, her life over the last week.
She was puzzled. Her programming had been experiencing odd behavior over the last few days, so she had run an intense diagnostic. It had revealed a very curious result. Her primary systems, those that ran her most basic functions, were functioning normally, as if none of the recent events had affected her in the least. The more complex systems, those that governed her behavior, the timbre of her voice, and what little body language she could manage, were in a state of cybernetic rebellion. Her memory banks, for instance, would not acknowledge the fact that Roger was dead. They would always refer to him as 'missing' or 'away,' even when she purposefully corrected them. Her grammar subroutines were also corrupted; whenever she reffered to Roger in her speech, it always came out as 'he does' or 'he likes,' instead of 'he did' and 'he liked.' It was a most bizzare phenomenon, something she had never experienced before. It was unsettling that her circuitry would not let Roger go.
After dinner, she had mentioned her findings to Norman.
"Dorothy, humans lose someone they had care about, they often refuse to accept that loss, and sometimes go for the rest of their life convinced the lost companion was still alive, or awaiting discovery."
"Norman, I am an android. I am exempt from the faults of humans." She also had noticed that she was having to remind both him and herself of that fact more and more recently.
Norman smiled. "Perhaps, Miss Dorothy, you are more human than you realize."
That remark made little sense to her, so she dissmissed it as a quirk of being human. She had done that so often with Roger, too...
Now she was coming back to what Norman had said. If androids were capable of feeling, or of acting human, then what she had felt before Big O had vanished might not have been another programming error...could what she had felt when Roger was near...actually...be...
Her train of thought derailed at the first thunderous footstep. Dorothy jerked her head up and caught a glimps of something moving between skyscrapers. Could it be...
Whatever it was, it was moving away from the mansion, down the street on the far side of a line of buildings. She would not lose sight of it.
Dorothy ran along the railing, and when it stopped she leaped high into the air. Instantly beating every human record for the long jump, she landed on the roof of the next building and continued running. The robot she was trailing had a lead, but at her present speed she could keep up. Sprinting across each rooftop and hurling herself across the broad gaps between, she followed it to a single building.
When Dorothy finally jumped to a building that afforded a good view of the machine, something inside her cried out. It was not Big O.
It was not even a true Megadeuce. Pieces of the many robots that had risen throughout the city had been sloppliy gathered together to form one functional unit. It was a hideous patchwork quilt of armor, no more than four or five bits from the same Megadeuce. One arm was short, and terminated in a huge gatling gun, the other stretched nearly to the ground and had three joints. It was a nightmare Megadeuce.
The hideous construction had stopped next to the Prime Bank, the leading institution in Paradigm. Using the triple-jointed arm, it smashed through the wall and pulled the safe out. Not bothering to crack it open, the robot turned and stomped back down the street with its prize. Dorothy watched it go.