********************************************************************************************
Metropolis and all of its characters, concepts, names, art, promotional junk, etc are
owned solely by their respective creators, unless of course someone bought them, in
that case they own them, but whatever happens I don't own them. Understand?
'Didn't think so.
Anyway, first chapter of my second fic coming up, in fact this is my first real one
since Tima's log wasn't really a story I suppose. So please, be nice.
Enjoy.
********************************************************************************************
Kenichi watched his Uncle's plane fly into the distance from his vantage point atop a
pile of rubble, then scrambled down to join Fifi. He pulled the metal box from its
place at his breast and opened it. Inside was all he had left of Tima, her tiny bionic
heart.
"Fifi... can you take me to the place you found this?"
The maintenance robot emitted a small sequence of beeps and nodded, then began to
walk away. Kenichi followed close behind.
As the two walked silently, Kenichi thought back on everything that had happened
over the past few days. It was as if he had experienced an entire lifetime in less than a
week. Kenichi's thoughts turned once again to Tima, as they had a thousand times
recently. A terrible sense of guilt threatened to overwhelm him as Kenichi
remembered those last horrible moments with Tima. How he had called to her to grab
his hand, how she had sluggishly lifted her eyes to his. When her eyes met his and he
had seen the terror in her eyes, Kenichi had almost let go in shock. It was then that he
had realised something was wrong, that for some reason she wasn't going to be able
to help him save her. By now Tima's remains must be buried under several hundred
tons of rubble...
Kenichi shivered and focused on Fifi, trying to clear his mind. But the thoughts kept
on forcing themselves upon him. Tima had needed him desperately during those final
seconds, and he had failed her.
He was brought sharply back to reality as he stubbed his toe on a stray pipe.
Grimacing he picked himself up and looked around.
The two had reached a particularly difficult area of rubble. With a number beeps Fifi
pointed towards a flat area about a hundred metres in front of them.
"Ok Fifi, I'll go on from here. I guess you weren't designed for this sort of thing."
In a short time and with a little work Kenichi had made it to the clear area, and what
he found there caused Kenichi to come close to being sick.
Scattered across a five-metre radius were Tima's remains. Although it would be
difficult for someone who didn't know what to look for to identify them as such. In
one corner lay Tima's head, the metal skull rent by a massive crack, and only a few
pieces of skin remained. All that was left of her hair was a single dried out tuft
hanging from behind the only remaining ear. The rest was much harder to put to a
specific use, with what appeared to be six pieces of her torso scattered around, a
kneecap, a hand and a lower leg being the only barely identifiable pieces. The only
word that could possibly describe the rest was 'mess'.
Kenichi knelt down beside the now expressionless face and lifted it up. He put it
down again quickly when a collection of unidentifiable electronic components
dropped from the neck.
"Tima..."
A solitary tear dropped down on to the paralysed face. For a second Kenichi could
have sworn he saw a movement in her only remaining eye. That was it. Kenichi
threw his arms about the severed head and cried until not another tear could be
squeezed from his eyes, then sobbed for another few minutes.
When Kenichi was spent, he sat down quietly before Tima's head and allowed
himself to daydream for a while. Thinking of all sorts of ways in which he and Tima
could be together again, and what he would say when she opened her eyes.
Strangely as he wondered the vestiges of a plan began to form at the back of his mind.
Again and again Kenichi's thoughts turned to Laughton's notebook, and its wealth of
knowledge on Tima's workings. If he could just find it he might be able to bring her
back, do what he failed to do for her as she dangled from the Ziggurat.
Like something possessed he leaped up and ran back to Fifi. The robot took a step
back as Kenichi nearly crashed into him.
"Fifi, go gather as many others as you can! Were going to try and repair Tima!" he
yelled, screeching to halt inches from Fifi.
Fifi made a few surprised bleeps and it took a few moments for Kenichi to collect
himself enough to be able to make any real sense.
"I think I know how we can repair Tima. She's there. Every last part of her. Go and
gather as many other robots as you can. If we can just find her creators notebook we
can put her back together! I know it!"
* * * * *
Kenichi sighed as he looked out over the vista of rubble and the small group of robots
Fifi had managed to rally to their cause. The search for the remains of the throne
room and hopefully Laughton's notebook was not going well. The only clue they had
was that it would be somewhere in the middle of the ruin, since the tower had in its
last moments imploded drawing the upper levels toward the centre.
Tima's remains had a long time since been moved into an abandoned sewer and were
being kept in the best possible storage conditions, an old industrial freezer, with the
heart in a worn out vacuum sealed container.
"Fifi, anyone find anything yet?" Kenichi called.
Fifi shook his head and turned back to his task as overseer. This was pretty much the
norm now. Kenichi would wake up, stare at Tima's head for an hour or so, put on
some clothes, try to understand whatever component was defying reason that
particular morning, then get annoyed and go for a walk down to the excavation site to
pester Fifi. Eventually Fifi would tell Kenichi to find something else to do and
Kenichi would return to his room and work on the damaged computer terminal he had
salvaged early on. By now Kenichi had become quite good at repairing and
reprogramming robots, in fact roughly a quarter of his assistants were working with
him out of a debt of gratitude of some kind. As soon as he had finished repairing the
computer terminal he was going to connect it to what little of Tima he had repaired
and run a scan to see how many of her operating systems were still functional, and if
whatever had possessed her before was still in control.
* * * * *
"OW!"
Aki bleeped worriedly into dark mass of screens and keypads containing Kenichi and
his toolbox. Aki had been working with Kenichi for only a short time now. The
Albert 1 derivative had joined the group out of gratitude after Kenichi and a small
scavenger group of robots had saved her from a gang of extremist thugs, the kind of
people who blamed robots for Metropolis' current financial depression and therefore
the poor living conditions.
Kenichi skidded out from under the mess on his reconditioned skateboard/wooden
plank sucking his finger.
"I'm okay Aki. The screw diver slipped, that's all. Still, it's done, start it up."
Kenichi rolled back under the terminal and Aki pushed in the power lead. A soft
crackle could be heard and the screens came to life, and then with a bang went black
again.
"Switch it off! Switch it off!"
Aki quickly cut the power and ran to Kenichi, whose face was blackened, his hair was
standing on end, and his eyebrows were missing. He looked more than a little stupid.
"The transformer exploded."
With a few consoling bleeps Aki turned and fetched a glass of water for Kenichi.
When she returned she was also carrying a damp cloth.
"Thanks Aki..." Kenichi said taking a sip of the water and wiping his face.
"We were so close... There aren't any spare components are there?"
Aki walked away towards the storage room while Kenichi slipped back under the
terminal to check for damage.
* * * * *
The next morning Kenichi was awakened by a cacophony of synthetic human voices
and beeping noises. As he stumbled into the room still so close to sleep he couldn't
understand why the shirt he had put on backwards felt so uncomfortable, he was
sharply awakened by another blast of noise and surrounded by the robots from the
excavation site. He was quickly channelled toward the back of the room where Fifi
was standing, holding a small leather bound red book.
********************************************************************************************
How was it? Any hints as to improvements for the next chapter would be real nice.
Thanks!
Metropolis and all of its characters, concepts, names, art, promotional junk, etc are
owned solely by their respective creators, unless of course someone bought them, in
that case they own them, but whatever happens I don't own them. Understand?
'Didn't think so.
Anyway, first chapter of my second fic coming up, in fact this is my first real one
since Tima's log wasn't really a story I suppose. So please, be nice.
Enjoy.
********************************************************************************************
Kenichi watched his Uncle's plane fly into the distance from his vantage point atop a
pile of rubble, then scrambled down to join Fifi. He pulled the metal box from its
place at his breast and opened it. Inside was all he had left of Tima, her tiny bionic
heart.
"Fifi... can you take me to the place you found this?"
The maintenance robot emitted a small sequence of beeps and nodded, then began to
walk away. Kenichi followed close behind.
As the two walked silently, Kenichi thought back on everything that had happened
over the past few days. It was as if he had experienced an entire lifetime in less than a
week. Kenichi's thoughts turned once again to Tima, as they had a thousand times
recently. A terrible sense of guilt threatened to overwhelm him as Kenichi
remembered those last horrible moments with Tima. How he had called to her to grab
his hand, how she had sluggishly lifted her eyes to his. When her eyes met his and he
had seen the terror in her eyes, Kenichi had almost let go in shock. It was then that he
had realised something was wrong, that for some reason she wasn't going to be able
to help him save her. By now Tima's remains must be buried under several hundred
tons of rubble...
Kenichi shivered and focused on Fifi, trying to clear his mind. But the thoughts kept
on forcing themselves upon him. Tima had needed him desperately during those final
seconds, and he had failed her.
He was brought sharply back to reality as he stubbed his toe on a stray pipe.
Grimacing he picked himself up and looked around.
The two had reached a particularly difficult area of rubble. With a number beeps Fifi
pointed towards a flat area about a hundred metres in front of them.
"Ok Fifi, I'll go on from here. I guess you weren't designed for this sort of thing."
In a short time and with a little work Kenichi had made it to the clear area, and what
he found there caused Kenichi to come close to being sick.
Scattered across a five-metre radius were Tima's remains. Although it would be
difficult for someone who didn't know what to look for to identify them as such. In
one corner lay Tima's head, the metal skull rent by a massive crack, and only a few
pieces of skin remained. All that was left of her hair was a single dried out tuft
hanging from behind the only remaining ear. The rest was much harder to put to a
specific use, with what appeared to be six pieces of her torso scattered around, a
kneecap, a hand and a lower leg being the only barely identifiable pieces. The only
word that could possibly describe the rest was 'mess'.
Kenichi knelt down beside the now expressionless face and lifted it up. He put it
down again quickly when a collection of unidentifiable electronic components
dropped from the neck.
"Tima..."
A solitary tear dropped down on to the paralysed face. For a second Kenichi could
have sworn he saw a movement in her only remaining eye. That was it. Kenichi
threw his arms about the severed head and cried until not another tear could be
squeezed from his eyes, then sobbed for another few minutes.
When Kenichi was spent, he sat down quietly before Tima's head and allowed
himself to daydream for a while. Thinking of all sorts of ways in which he and Tima
could be together again, and what he would say when she opened her eyes.
Strangely as he wondered the vestiges of a plan began to form at the back of his mind.
Again and again Kenichi's thoughts turned to Laughton's notebook, and its wealth of
knowledge on Tima's workings. If he could just find it he might be able to bring her
back, do what he failed to do for her as she dangled from the Ziggurat.
Like something possessed he leaped up and ran back to Fifi. The robot took a step
back as Kenichi nearly crashed into him.
"Fifi, go gather as many others as you can! Were going to try and repair Tima!" he
yelled, screeching to halt inches from Fifi.
Fifi made a few surprised bleeps and it took a few moments for Kenichi to collect
himself enough to be able to make any real sense.
"I think I know how we can repair Tima. She's there. Every last part of her. Go and
gather as many other robots as you can. If we can just find her creators notebook we
can put her back together! I know it!"
* * * * *
Kenichi sighed as he looked out over the vista of rubble and the small group of robots
Fifi had managed to rally to their cause. The search for the remains of the throne
room and hopefully Laughton's notebook was not going well. The only clue they had
was that it would be somewhere in the middle of the ruin, since the tower had in its
last moments imploded drawing the upper levels toward the centre.
Tima's remains had a long time since been moved into an abandoned sewer and were
being kept in the best possible storage conditions, an old industrial freezer, with the
heart in a worn out vacuum sealed container.
"Fifi, anyone find anything yet?" Kenichi called.
Fifi shook his head and turned back to his task as overseer. This was pretty much the
norm now. Kenichi would wake up, stare at Tima's head for an hour or so, put on
some clothes, try to understand whatever component was defying reason that
particular morning, then get annoyed and go for a walk down to the excavation site to
pester Fifi. Eventually Fifi would tell Kenichi to find something else to do and
Kenichi would return to his room and work on the damaged computer terminal he had
salvaged early on. By now Kenichi had become quite good at repairing and
reprogramming robots, in fact roughly a quarter of his assistants were working with
him out of a debt of gratitude of some kind. As soon as he had finished repairing the
computer terminal he was going to connect it to what little of Tima he had repaired
and run a scan to see how many of her operating systems were still functional, and if
whatever had possessed her before was still in control.
* * * * *
"OW!"
Aki bleeped worriedly into dark mass of screens and keypads containing Kenichi and
his toolbox. Aki had been working with Kenichi for only a short time now. The
Albert 1 derivative had joined the group out of gratitude after Kenichi and a small
scavenger group of robots had saved her from a gang of extremist thugs, the kind of
people who blamed robots for Metropolis' current financial depression and therefore
the poor living conditions.
Kenichi skidded out from under the mess on his reconditioned skateboard/wooden
plank sucking his finger.
"I'm okay Aki. The screw diver slipped, that's all. Still, it's done, start it up."
Kenichi rolled back under the terminal and Aki pushed in the power lead. A soft
crackle could be heard and the screens came to life, and then with a bang went black
again.
"Switch it off! Switch it off!"
Aki quickly cut the power and ran to Kenichi, whose face was blackened, his hair was
standing on end, and his eyebrows were missing. He looked more than a little stupid.
"The transformer exploded."
With a few consoling bleeps Aki turned and fetched a glass of water for Kenichi.
When she returned she was also carrying a damp cloth.
"Thanks Aki..." Kenichi said taking a sip of the water and wiping his face.
"We were so close... There aren't any spare components are there?"
Aki walked away towards the storage room while Kenichi slipped back under the
terminal to check for damage.
* * * * *
The next morning Kenichi was awakened by a cacophony of synthetic human voices
and beeping noises. As he stumbled into the room still so close to sleep he couldn't
understand why the shirt he had put on backwards felt so uncomfortable, he was
sharply awakened by another blast of noise and surrounded by the robots from the
excavation site. He was quickly channelled toward the back of the room where Fifi
was standing, holding a small leather bound red book.
********************************************************************************************
How was it? Any hints as to improvements for the next chapter would be real nice.
Thanks!