Puppet and Master
AN: This takes place before the movie and is based on the diary entries on the 9experiment website. According to these, the Scientist denounced the Chancellor when he learned that his BRAIN was being used to make war machines. He then sought help from the Rebels, a resistance movement who had been fighting against the Chancellor, his wars and his machines. When the Chancellor and the army fell, the Rebels were the ones left fighting the machines. It says in the diary entries that he was hidden by the Rebels and that they assisted (somehow) in the creation of the Stitchpunks. This is my take on that period of time; the dates correspond to the events and timeline given in the diary.
And if anyone is confused by the name, Geppetto was the old guy from Pinocchio. Any usage of that name in this story refers to the Scientist.
Disclaimer: Don't own 9, the Scientist, the Stitchpunks or the setting.
August 6
His guards called him Geppetto. He didn't remember which one of the youths first chose the name, but within a week it had spread to most of the Rebels, and he never protested it.
It was an appropriate name, they decided, for the toymaker whose creation came to life and went wild. The difference was that the story's Pinocchio had never done anything worse than run away from home.
"Time to pack up," one of his guards announced, walking down the stairs of the empty house. "We're moving." She tossed a bottle of water to the other, younger guard who reclined in a corner—they were all so young—"And you can go home, Pete. Shift's over."
"'s about time," the other muttered, pulling himself up. "Took you forever." He yawned, trudging up the stairs.
"Yeah, you can sue me when we win." She deposited another bottle on the Geppetto's desk, far more careful than she had been a moment before. They couldn't risk disturbing the Scientist's work. Especially not this piece. Geppetto looked up at her, one of his eyes grotesquely enlarged by the jeweler's loupe he wore. "Get this stuff together, we're moving you."
"What's the occasion?" He asked quietly, gathering the papers from his cluttered desk.
"The machines are heading this way," the guard said, taking the stack of papers from him and stuffing them into a large envelope. "They're bombing civilian houses, and they're not skipping the basements. You're going to a bunker on the south side of town."
"I see." He removed the loupe and returned their proper place on his face. The eyepiece, as well as the series of awls and screwdrivers and drills, was deposited into a box. "You live in this area, don't you?"
"Not anymore."
"Is your sister all right?"
She looked away. "I moved her when I heard. She'll be fine."
"Which is why you kept our friend Peter waiting." The guard swallowed, but a soft half-smile crept onto the Scientist's face—the first in a long while. "I'm glad she's safe. It's refreshing that some of us can still keep our priorities intact."
"The priority is keeping you secure so you can help us stop the machines," she said sharply. "Everything else should come after that."
"That's where you're wrong, Samantha" Geppetto said, shaking his head softly. "Machines see a world of means and ends. If we lose sight of ourselves—of our humanity—then this fight will be meaningless." He packed the last of the books and supplies together—only about a tenth of the materials he'd accumulated in the half month he'd spent with the Rebels. Most of those didn't matter anymore. The task was already finished.
"Whatever," the girl muttered, but her eyes hadn't left the prized possession that still lay on the table. The Scientist noticed her gaze and picked up the thing he called the Talisman. It was just a tiny disk, no bigger than a coin. If she hadn't known better, she might have mistaken it for a particularly gaudy button.
That stupid, stupid, damnable button. Geppetto had demanded that they retrieve it from the BRAIN. He'd suggested that removing it might cripple the monstrosity, or let it run out of power on its own, or kill it outright, and the Rebels couldn't ignore that possibility. No expense had been spared to retrieve the Talisman because of that hope. Twenty-five men and women went on the mission. Only one returned, but he brought with him the stupid little button and all the hopes and dreams that were nestled inside of it.
It might as well have been a button for all the good it did them. The BRAIN didn't die or slow down—as far as they could tell, it hadn't even noticed the loss of the Talisman. It just kept churning out killing machines and mowing down anything in sight.
"I finished it," Geppetto said quietly, pulling her from her memories. He held up the Talisman for her to see before tenderly setting it inside a velvet pouch.
"Lovely," she said impatiently. "Do you expect us to stick that thing back where it came from or something?"
"No." He tucked the pouch into a pocket beneath his lab coat. "No, nothing like that." The guard didn't ask him to elaborate; she just stacked up a few of the boxes and began carrying them up the stairs. The boxes were heavy—heavier than what a girl her age should have to lift—but she didn't cringe under the weight. She was like most of the Rebels: once a student at the nearby university, now a soldier against an enemy they couldn't possibly defeat. Books and pencils had been replaced by guns and grenades, and long hours of study and education had turned into shifts of guard duty. Peter was hardly sixteen; this one couldn't be older than twenty.
A few minutes later she returned for the second load.
"Come on," she said, piling the rest of the boxes in her arms. "The car's waiting outside." He squeezed the Talisman through its velvet pouch and followed her up the stairs, out of the house and into the sunlight for the first time in weeks.
The sky was dark despite the early hour, choked with the fumes of the nearby factories. Every surface within sight of the house had once been plastered with posters and slogans; most of them had been torn down or painted over. Once this might have warranted police action—currently every available weapon was busy keeping the machines at bay. The air was dry and the grass below his feet had faded to a dull yellow since he had taken up sanctuary in this house.
"Keep up," his guard said, leading him to the van that would take him to his new workshop. Just a van—it looked like it had once belonged to a plumber, whose child had been (according to the bumper sticker) an honor student at the local elementary school. Now it was filled with armed Rebels and the remains of his old lab. Sam handed her load to her fellow soldiers and climbed inside, turning to give the Scientist her hand.
"Come on. Time to go."
