Disclaimer: this story contains characters and situations copyright Capcom. These are used without permission but not for profit.

"This is the traitor?"

"Yes, Commander Sigma. He was going to alert the humans about our revolution."

"You have evidence?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well then."

A flash. A sizzle. A slackening.

"C… commander! Didn't you at least want to see…?"

"I trust you, Boomer. And the stakes are too high for even the possibility of backsliding. Not now. Not when we're so close. I'll be leaving soon. For Cain Labs."

"I… yes, sir. I know what to do."

"What's this?"

"Just look at it."

Flame Mammoth wanted to sigh as Chill Penguin shot him an angry look. There was nothing for it. It was part of life when robots had such human-like—no! Flame stopped to correct himself. It was part of life when robots had such advanced emotional capacities. (Much better.) Complex and sensitive emotions were their own masters. Hard to keep them in line, and they altered their owner more than they served. They also opened the door to robots getting all sorts of personality disorders that, until this generation, had been the exclusive province of humans.

Take Chill, for example. If he'd been built, say, ten years earlier, this wouldn't have been an issue. The robots of those years were intelligent automatons. Able to learn, yes, able to do difficult and dangerous tasks, of course. But not creative, limited in personality, and with pre-defined behavioral limits. Instead, he was part of the new line of robots. Reploids—replica androids—the new breed. Thinking, feeling, living to an extent the old kind could scarcely imagine.

So Chill was a reploid. And while that undoubtedly made him a, well, better being than if he weren't, it also meant that his emotions could be a problem. Flame wanted to sigh again. Not 'could be', were. Chill checked every box for short man's syndrome. Belligerent, sensitive to perceived insults, self-conscious and self-centered… The fact that Flame was, in fact, twice the smaller reploid's height didn't help.

Chill let his look of glowering indignity linger on Flame for a few more moments, and then swiped the data pad that Flame had offered him. Suspicion covered his features as he tapped at it. "What the rust is this?" he said. Chill was able to make anything sound like an accusation.

"What does it look like?" Flame said tiredly. He didn't get along with Chill. Really, no one did. Perhaps that's why Sigma had Chill run the Maverick Hunter staff meetings. With him running them, they always kept to schedule. Who wanted to get into an argument with Chill? Chill always gave the impression that even the most trivial disagreement could only be settled with a battle to the death. It was a great way to get other people to back down. It didn't make many friends.

How had Flame drawn the short straw for this one? Ugh.

Flame's lack of fight left Chill with no excuse to snap at him again, so he looked back down at the data pad. "It's a roster of the Hunters," Chill said. "Oh… Oh! This is a special roster."

"Yes," Flame said.

"What were you thinking?" Chill shrieked at Flame. "Are you trying to get us exposed?! This has breakdowns of every squad and who's on whose side!"

"That's the idea, Chill."

Flame knew what Chill was looking at. He'd gotten his own copy earlier from Storm Eagle. There were other rosters of the Maverick Hunters out there, but this one had some unique annotations.

The Maverick Hunters had originally consisted of five squads. Five, it was thought, would provide enough Hunters to combat any reasonable number of malfunctioning reploids. But, as Flame knew full well, malfunction was not the reason most reploids went Maverick. So the number of Mavericks inevitably increased. As it did, so did the number of Hunters.

Up, and up, and up some more. Specialist units for water and air combat came into being. Other specialties were carved out and doubled as field-testing for new technologies. Although most Hunters were still humanoid reploids, many of the most powerful and capable were more eccentric designs, like Flame and Chill and Storm. Today there were eighteen squads, numbered zero to seventeen. The variety of makes and models of Hunters made their group photos look like a robot menagerie.

Each squad consisted, on paper at least, of ten Hunters. The preferred cell size for a Hunter deployment was four—point man, two flankers, and one reserve. With squads of ten, any squad could deploy two cells and have two Hunters left over. Given the vagaries of casualties, maintenance schedules, extra duties, and other concerns, this worked out almost as intended.

Some of the more Maverick-oriented reploids had other thoughts. Four, they argued, just happened to be the capacity of the standard transport. And humans had a natural inclination for the number ten. Laziness accounted for the rest.

Either way, one of a squad leader's least-fun duties was rotating his Hunters to ensure an even load across all ten squad members. Some squad leaders—Launch Octopus, for example—were notorious for playing favorites, and an almost soap-operatic quality surrounded the posting of their duty schedules. It made Flame tired just to think about it.

All of that said, the typical Hunter roster showed the eighteen squads, their ten members, their squad leaders, and, above it all, Sigma—commander of the Hunters, unanimously acknowledged as the best and most powerful of their number. The more complete rosters also included the non-combat support staff, a group that involved both humans and reploids and that was responsible for everything from Hunter maintenance to public relations to keeping clean the Hunter headquarters building.

The roster in Chill's hands did not include the non-combat support staff. They were chaff. For its purposes, only the combat reploids, the actual Hunters themselves, mattered. On this roster, every Hunter's entry was bordered in a color, either red, blue, purple, or white. Flame's name, and that of every Hunter in his squad, was bordered red. So were Chill's name, and Storm's, and Launch's—eight of the eighteen squad leaders in all, and most of their Hunters. Flame noted with some satisfaction that barely half of Chill's squad was red-bordered, although the rest were purple-bordered.

Throughout the other squads, most of the names were bordered in blue. There was at least some purple in every squad, and here and there the odd red speckled in. Very few were bordered white.

"Do you know what would happen if the wrong person got a hold of this?" continued Chill indignantly.

"Of course I do," Flame replied. "They'd have the complete breakdown of everyone who's planning to follow Commander Sigma. We'd have to begin The Operation immediately."

"Then why distribute this?!"

Flame rolled his eyes. "I didn't come up with this on my own. This was part of the plan. Every squad leader on our side needs a copy before we began. Don't you remember what's significant about getting this?"

Chill's face, engineered as it was in an expression of permanent displeasure, contrived to scowl. "No," Chill mumbled bitterly.

"Something about timing?"

The change that came over Chill was sudden and severe. His eyes widened and his face lit up, as if a spotlight had flipped on beneath his metallic skin. "The forty-eight hour warning?" he hissed with unpleasant eagerness.

Flame gave a slow nod. "Yes. Within two days, we begin. That's why we can afford to make these now. Even if one leaks, there won't be enough time to fully understand its meaning before we strike."

They shared a look of elation. The Hunters in blue were presumed loyal. The Hunters in purple were of questionable loyalty. The Hunters in red, on order, would follow Sigma to death or glory. An anticipatory tingle built between the two squad leaders like an electrical charge.

Chill frowned as he remembered something. He looked at the roster again. "Why is Zero's entry circled in white?"

"It can't be helped."

"Forty-eight hours out and he's an unknown? We're going forward with him… what, a random element, essentially?"

"It can't be helped," Flame repeated. "Commander Sigma has been working on him for weeks. No luck. You know how Zero is. You can't reach him unless he lets you."

Chill had to stop and consider that, to Flame's relief. None of the other squad leaders had anything approaching Zero's cool and aloof nature. Storm tried, but his demeanor was too fierce, and he guarded his aerial combat specialty jealously. Flame would have thought Sting Chameleon would be like Zero, given Sting's camouflage powers and stealth specialty. Instead, Sting seemed almost desperate for people to notice the effects of his actions, since he could never let them see how they happened.

Battlefront Badger was the only one in Zero's ballpark, personality-wise, and even then the comparison wasn't perfect. Battlefront Badger had the attitude that nothing could really hurt him; Zero acted as if nothing could even touch him.

"Unless," Flame offered, "you want to take your chances with trying to convince Zero…"

Chill snorted. "What, and risk getting eviscerated? Or risk getting flame-sprayed by Sigma if I botch it? No thanks. I don't like Zero. He scares me and he's anti-social to boot. He's not what you'd call a people person."

Flame silently reflected that Chill must be immune to irony.

Chill looked at the roster one more time, and the sight of it dispelled the gloom brought about by contemplating Zero. "Well! Who knows. Zero won't matter in the end. He can do what he will, but with this much power, plus whatever Mavericks are already out there…"

"We'll win either way. Yes." Now, despite himself, despite the bitter fate of having to be around Chill, Flame began to feel something new and unrestrained coursing through his body. This energy, this purpose he felt from being a part of this movement… it was invigorating. Intoxicating.

Flame smiled. "For once, Chill, you might be right."

"For once? FOR ONCE? Listen, you, I'll have you know…"

Chill began to rant, but it didn't dampen the feeling inside Flame. Instead, Flame idly wondered if he could crush Chill by falling on him, and if Commander Sigma would believe it an accident.

Probably yes, and probably no, he decided. This close to the new beginning, they needed every reploid they could get, especially ones as powerful as Maverick Hunter squad leaders. It was hard work, conquering the world. But so very rewarding.

"Alright, kiddos, it's Question Time with Professor Fitzhugh! You ask and I'll answer." The tall man with graying hair and a high-voltage smile spread his arms in the air from behind the podium. He resembled a politician on the stump. This was no coincidence. For a time he'd been in the government's press relations team, until a sweetheart deal between government and state university sent him into academia. On the course catalog, his class was known as History of the Robot Age. Amongst the students, it was called Press Conference Class.

"I was looking at the readings," began one student. A big chunk of Professor Fitzhugh's grading system was participation; you had to speak up, like it or not. Luckily, as far as the students were concerned, he graded mostly for quantity of questions, not quality. "I didn't understand the point about Dr. Light's 'final gift'."

"Reploids, of course," said Fitzhugh. "Not directly, mind you, but indirectly, through X."

"That's just it, I don't see the cause and effect there," the student said.

"Dr. Light would have. The man's robots had laid the foundation for the robot age. His designs were all replicated eagerly to improve humanity's quality of life; he'd seen that every day. The only reason to build a successor generation would be to repeat the pattern. Hence, reploids."

The student frowned, unconvinced, but said nothing; another spoke up to fill the silence. "Then why the secrecy?"

"Ah, not secrecy," Fitzhugh said, wagging a finger. "Caution. Dr. Light's characteristic caution, mind you. He didn't tell anyone because he knew his contemporaries would be too eager to wait, and he needed thirty years to prove that X would never be a threat to humanity. And it worked. Everything is coming around as he'd intended. Yes, we didn't find him until one hundred years later, instead, but I think we can forgive Dr. Light for not planning perfectly just this once."

"Professor…" This was one of those students you find in every class who's taking the class for the instructor, and not vice versa. "…would you say that's why he built X to look like Mega Man? So that we'd be more likely to accept his gift?"

"Ah, come now," Fitzhugh said smiling. His eyes locked on to his admirer, and for a moment an emotion flashed across that was more than simple academic interest. Then it passed, and he regained his composure. "You know what we've been saying about the historicity of Mega Man. Or, rather, the ahistoricity of Mega Man."

"I don't understand this," another student blurted out in frustration. "There's evidence! There are pictures! Stories!"

"But no physical evidence," chided Professor Fitzhugh. "And it all seems rather far-fetched. Didn't you notice how much of the so-called Wily Wars resembled a morality play? I believe that's covered in chapter two of your text, "Deconstructing the Wily Wars"."

"People in danger weren't saved by a morality play," the student objected.

"Nor were they saved by some sort of superhero. The so-called Mega Man was most likely a series of Mega Men. Each had different weapons but a similar appearance, causing people to ascribe all of the weapons to a single 'bot. Otherwise, how could one robot fight against multiple robots in separate locations nearly simultaneously? Assuming, of course, that that's how the wars went," he said, backtracking rapidly. "Dr. Light was a better tactician than Dr. Wily, so he was able to match the weapons of the individual Mega Men against the vulnerabilities of the Wily robot masters."

"That's not what the stories say," the student murmured sullenly.

"I know what the stories say," Professor Fitzhugh said gently. "But children's stories are not valid historical documents. Think about this—and this is the argument you'll read in chapter three—the Dr. Light who gave us so much, who gave us so many robot designs and principles and lessons and everything… why would he hesitate to give us the best of it? There are no designs of Mega Man anywhere. There are no records or examples of the mythical Weapon Copy System, no surviving examples of technology even *similar*. And, of course, no Mega Man or Mega Men were ever found."

"There was an explosion," the student muttered.

"Of course there was," Fitzhugh said patronizingly. "So many explosions in those days. Thank goodness it all ended and we could move on with progress."

The student whispered something barely audible.

"Sorry, can you speak up? This is an academic environment, no need to be shy."

"I've been to the grave," the student said in a very small voice. "It's in a cemetery outside Monstropolis, the city where Dr. Light lived. There's a marker there. It says, 'In memory of Rock. 200X-20XX. Loving son and brother. He was the Mega of men.'"

The end of his recital left a void in the room, cold and gnawing. There is a truth in people's heads, and there is a truth in people's hearts, and seldom do the two perfectly match up. All the students in the class had learned the truth as told by the historical authorities. The student's words touched the truth they harbored in their hearts.

"Fascinating," Fitzhugh said, cutting the void off before its grip penetrated very far. "It sounds like you've got yourself a thesis topic! How that marker you found perpetuates the Mega Man myth." He nodded sagely, then clapped his hands. "This, class, is an example of a natural human psychological reaction. There's a need in people for heroes. They simplify storylines and help us make sense of nonsense. The Wily Wars, as much as we understand them, were nonsense. They were the flailings of a madman against a new golden age for humanity. What was Wily after? Why did he launch those wars? We'll never know. Suffice to say he didn't get it, thank goodness. Yes, you in the back."

"I was researching Dr. Wily myself, professor, and I didn't find much, either about the man or his robots. Why…"

"Dear me!" interrupted the professor. "Why would you need to know about the robots? They were unpleasant then and they're obsolete now."

"Is that why no records of the Wilybots exist?" the student charged.

"Of course," Fitzhugh answered. "The Public Safety Act of 20XX was drafted after the last of the Wars, and dealt with how to transition humanity from a wartime footing to a peacetime footing. One of the concerns was that evidence of Wilybots would potentially enable copycats. Would you like to live in a world where any old boy with a wrench and a grudge could build a warbot? Of course you wouldn't."

"It's a little harder than that," the student argued. "And it's not much different from the reploid specs widely available today."

"Ah, but there is an important difference," Fitzhugh replied. "The Three Laws. They're integral to every reploid design. They were absent in the Wilybots. That's what made the Wilybots so dangerous to society and reploids tolerable."

There was a lull as the class digested this. Eventually one of the students bucked up his courage and said, "Professor… do you think the Three Laws still apply in this day and age? I mean, they were appropriate for the robots of yesterday. What about the reploids of today?"

"They're absolutely appropriate," Fitzhugh said with relish. The class recognized the signs instantly—he was lapsing into one of his prepared pieces. This period was about to become a filibuster. "Some have said that the Three Laws might not be appropriate for reploids, that they're unfairly discriminatory. Some have even said that they permanently consign reploids to being second class citizens. But there are several good reasons to keep them in place. The power difference between an individual human and an individual reploid is so very high—how could people feel safe without the Three Laws as a barrier? A reploid could break a human in half if it were so inclined. Better to keep the Three Laws in place, for our sake and theirs.

"We understand that some people might feel uncomfortable about subjecting reploids to such a regime. You have to keep certain things in mind. First, reploids need time in order to develop their morality. A human being is given plenty of time to be socialized to the needs and expectations of society. Nothing is expected of them until they've had plenty of time to mature. Reploids are thrown into the fire right away. The Three Laws provide a moral backstop, necessary limits on their behavior, to help them properly integrate into society. When they need guidance, they can always guide by the light of the Laws."

A student who until now had been doodling in his notes raised his head. The other students noticed. They liked to call him Lawyer because of how frequently he played devil's advocate. His entering the conversation was like the lighting of a fuse. "If that's such a good idea," Lawyer said, "why not go all the way? Plug in a full set of moral codes?"

"That… That's taking a necessary evil and making it pure evil," Fitzhugh replied, unnerved at being thrown off script. "It's not as if we're happy about having to limit reploids so. It's just, you know, necessary limitations. What you said is like… like trying to teach a kid to ride a bicycle. You start them off with training wheels, right? So they can learn how to do it while it's easy, and then grow into the harder stuff. If we did as you suggest, well, we'd just put the kids on rails forever!"

Lawyer frowned and bent over his notes again.

Fitzhugh licked his lips and tried to regain where he was in his monologue. "Now, where were… ah, right. So, the second reason we should feel no shame over the Three Laws is that this regime is a trade-off. Reploids require a very specialized support infrastructure. Right now, those services are provided to them free of charge. Their care and feeding, if you will, is taken on gratis. It's not unreasonable to expect the reploids to abide by certain rules in exchange."

"I sold my soul at the company store," Lawyer said in a sing-song voice. He didn't even look up.

Fitzhugh gave the student a dirty look, but when their gazes failed to meet he was left feeling foolish. He ostentatiously shuffled his papers. "But really," Fitzhugh said, "arguments about the perceived exploitation of reploids presume that exploitation is part of the package. That's not what the data say. The companies that have become the major employers of reploids have released economic numbers on the subject. The output from the reploids barely exceeds the expense of keeping them operational. It's practically a public service, in the interests of arguments one and two—fostering the moral development of a people while ensuring their needs are taken care of."

One of the other students' hands shot up. "Professor, I've seen the GDP numbers of the past few years—for our country and other reploid adopters. I'm sure you have, too. I think the term that gets thrown around is "economic miracle". So how can you say the output barely exceeds the expense?"

Fitzhugh's face pinked. "Sure, there have been system-level benefits, but the individual-level benefits have been minimal," he corrected.

Lawyer snapped his notes shut, drawing the class' attention. "Professor," he said with casual ease, "can I have your honest opinion on one last question?"

It was an absurd qualifier for a question-and-answer session. Everyone knew it. Frowning, Fitzhugh nodded.

"What would you say if I told you that every one of those arguments was used to justify human slavery, and are now being applied to justify reploid slavery?"

Fitzhugh's reply was immediate, even faster than the wave of murmurs that swept the class at this. "Reploids are not humans. Period."

"But…"

"No buts!" Fitzhugh said, allowing his voice to rise. "They may look like humans, they may talk like humans, on occasion it may seem like they think or feel like humans. It's all a carefully-built illusion. They're robots. Never forget that."

Lawyer's mouth was open to reply, but the soft electronic chimes of the end of the period interrupted him.

Fitzhugh was too much a professional to let anything like a sigh of relief escape him. "Don't forget," he announced to the class, "before next week you need to have gotten to the halfway point in chapter five, "The Golden Century", and if you're doing the optional assignment on "The Legend of Proto-man" I need your submissions by Wednesday!"

He waited while the class emptied, too ruffled by the discussion to follow quickly. Even his admirer shot him regretful glances as she filed out, leaving him alone in the classroom.

Alone as far as he knew.

When the students were gone, Fitzhugh started to put away his things. His gaze was down when a soft smack came from the speaking podium. Fitzhugh looked to it. A half-crumpled sheet of paper was resting there. Fitzhugh was certain it hadn't been there before, but no one else was in the room to put it there. He glanced around to be sure, and confirmed it: no one else could be seen.

He could make out part of a word written in the middle of the paper. Curiosity piqued, but tempered with wariness, Fitzhugh reached out with a frown. It was normal paper, written on with normal pen. Uncrumpling it, he read aloud.

"You will pay for your lies."

He jerked backwards in surprise. Head and eyes scanned around rapidly, trying to find some evidence of how the message had gotten there. He even looked across the tall ceiling of the lecture hall. Nothing. It had appeared from nowhere.

Fitzhugh stuffed the note into his suitcase and bolted for the door. He stumbled in his haste, recovered with more furious looks around, and—hyperventilating—fled the hall.

From somewhere by the ceiling, a transmitter beeped. A tiny voice said, "Sting, are you there? What are you doing?"

"Scouting," the Maverick Hunter squad leader replied. "I found a target for later. No urgency at the moment."

"Get back to Headquarters. Commander Sigma is heading out soon. You know what that means."

"Confirmed."

As was his wont, Sting Chameleon let himself out.

Zero's entrance was predictably dramatic.

The four other robots, all other members of the 0th Squad, exchanged amused looks. Zero only ever showed up in one of two ways: from out of nowhere, behind you before you'd even realized he was there, or in full view with aplomb and effect. It was a running joke in the 0th Squad.

"I'll be joining you for this one," Zero said, brooking no discussion.

Also a running joke: how it would take out-and-out destruction to keep Zero from going on patrol whenever the opportunity arose.

"Don't you have the 11:30 meeting with Commander Sigma and the other squad leaders?" Rekir asked. He was the second-ranking member of the 0th Squad behind Zero. That meant he caught a lot of flak meant for Zero. Criticism tended to bounce off the red robot, and he attracted more than his share of it. There was his lack of provenance, for one thing: he was as near a bastard child as could exist for reploids. No records, no history, no nothing—just an incredibly advanced, mentally unstable combat robot that sprang ex nihilo into being.

That he'd killed more than a few Hunters in the first moments of his insane wakefulness was another compelling reason people didn't like him.

As it turns out, though, competence at one's job usually overrides such concerns. Zero was more than merely competent. His termination record was unmatched, and his ability to shield his squadmates—indirectly, through occupying the full attention of his quarry—was second to none. He'd recently passed Commander Sigma's marks in both categories, though the unkind pointed out that a big part of that was Sigma's being kicked upstairs and off of regular duties. Oh, and Zero's near fanatical demands to go on patrol. And he did seem to be less, well, maniacal these days. That was part of the reputation he was building, in fact—that of an aloof, cold professional, not that vile demon that had reveled in destruction and death before being brought down.

In sum, Zero was always a topic of conversation, and since he didn't indulge in such games, it necessarily fell to Rekir. Luckily, Rekir had recently discovered stoic philosophy, and it was serving him quite well.

"Sigma canceled it," Zero replied. That actually surprised Rekir. Usually Zero's response to that query would have been an uncaring shrug. "Work out amongst yourselves who will sit out for me."

That, Rekir reflected, was another source of constant criticism for Zero: as squad leaders went, he wasn't much of a squad leader. Everyone in the 0th went to Rekir for the duties the org chart insisted belonged to Zero. The joke went that Zero would sign his own termination paperwork if he saw Rekir's signature on it first.

Rekir glanced at the three other Hunters with him. "Boj, you're out," he said. "It's your turn."

"Nuh-uh," said one of the others with a wide grin. Hobbes took great pains in pointing to Boj. "I'm calling in my favor, Boj. You're in, I'm out."

"Lucky ar-en-gee," Boj muttered.

"That's what you get for trusting dice. Fair's fair, I won, you lost, and that means I sit this time."

Boj gave Rekir a hopeless look. "He's right, sir. I owe him."

Rekir didn't approve of gambling, but it was their own business. He looked at Hobbes. "You know that means you're going to take his turn sometime in the future, right? I keep the sheets balanced."

"So what?" Hobbes said, still smiling. "I'm not going this time."

"Don't complain to me later that you wasted your favor," Boj shot back. "The past two weeks have been really quiet for us. You may have chosen the wrong patrol to sit for."

"I'll be sure to think about that while I'm kicking up my heels in the Ready Room."

Rekir shook his head. "Give it a rest before I figure a way to stick both of you onboard. It's time to head out." He went for the driver's seat. There was no competition for shotgun; without a word, Zero took the passenger seat, leaving the last two—the luckless Boj and a fourth named Mace—to occupy the large rear passenger-and-cargo space.

Knowing how his boss worked, Rekir sent the map to the console in front of Zero. "Our patrol route for today," he said. "Any modifications?"

In theory, the routes were centrally planned. All the data on Maverick incidents was fed back to HQ, which used it to try and figure out what areas needed protecting, which areas were more prone to Maverick activity, and so on. Very standard stuff in an analytical age.

Zero then ignored all that and took his team where he wanted to go. No one knew what whimsy or design informed his choices. If he had analytics, too, the underlying algorithms were nothing like what HQ used. The fact that he was so often right made his detractors furious.

Zero stared at the map for about thirty seconds, then wordlessly rearranged some waypoints, crossed his arms, and closed his eyes. Rekir wondered, as he often did, if his boss was trusting or bored. Or both.

The transport lifted off the ground and left the Headquarters hangar.

"Spark, Commander Sigma's going to Cain Labs. He'll be leaving any minute now."

"Then it's really time! This is it! ...wait. He's not taking anyone with him, Launch? None of us? Not even Armor?"

"No. Why? Do you really think something's going to happen?"

"I don't know. I guess not."

"Spark, nothing bad can happen to the Commander. He's the best. Even if he turns the Commander down, he couldn't hurt the Commander if he tried."

"I guess you're right, Launch. But..."

"But what?"

"There's just something about this setup that doesn't sit right with me. I mean..."

"What?"

"We have no idea what's going to happen. He's X."

"You worry too much, Spark. We have Commander Sigma. We can't fail. You know as well as I do..."

"The Commander's always right."

"Right."

To be continued...