Chapter 7: Define Control

Albert was taking a break from work on Omega, to get some food. Nothing special, just a microwaveable dinner that was cheap and fast. He personally didn't see why the bother about extravagant foods was worth it when modern technology could approximate it in a tenth of the time. In a way, he thought life would be better as an android, one that didn't require food and all the biological hassles. Or a cyborg; he couldn't really make himself into an android. He considered the idea many times. Maybe after he was securely in power with Omega to protect him while he was busy with the operations and development.

While eating, he read up on current news and skimmed for interesting science reports. His filter program brought up the Robotics Control Law first. Albert snorted. "Fine, if you fools want to shoot yourselves in the foot, go right for it. Be my guest. And once I take over, that law will be adapted for my own use." Having a law that made sure that no one could build advanced robots without his permission would be a godsend.

He switched to another news story, about some explorations of the space agency. Electricity hummed around him, accompanied by the occasional noises of the security robots and equipment. He took a drink of water and set the glass down. A moment later, the glass abruptly rattled. A few books, the only personal touch that was here, fell off their shelves. There was also a sense of disorientation, like something that was solid suddenly wasn't.

Albert grabbed the water glass so that it didn't spill or shatter. "Gah, earthquakes," he grumbled.

The computer flickered, then brought up an alert message. 'A missile has exploded aboveground. Assessing structural integrity.'

"A missile?" His body tensed. This could be disastrous at this stage. "One of mine?"

'No,' the computer responded.

"Was it aimed for me?"

'There is a high probability that it was not. The impact site was three miles west of here, in the city center.' The message screen turned its top bar green. 'Structural damage to the lab facility is minimal. Levels 2 and 1 have taken some damage from falling objects knocked over in the shockwaves. Sending repair units out now.'

Good. While thinking on those levels, Albert asked, "Has Rock finished his repairs in Level 7?"

'He has emerged and is headed for the elevator.'

He nodded. Finally. Rock had stayed on level 5 for a long time, apparently bothered by his fight against Blues. Albert had yet to question Blues about it. "Send Number 2468 to the level 4 battle room, Number 2648 to the level 3 battle room, and Number 3175 to the level 2 battle room."

'Sending units to assigned locations,' the computer replied.


Rock was concerned as he explored level 4. Someone seemed to be controlling where he was going. After thinking about it, that was the only explanation for why the keycards he was finding would only open up one level at a time and why they were always placed in a room behind the boss room. That someone was likely Dr. Wily. He started looking for ways he could get around this test sequence. But then, he had no control over the structure of this fortress.

When he entered the boss room of this level, he was surprised at how cold it was. And dark. There were two spotlights in the room, both centered on one robot master. The floor had a white frosty texture that seemed to be ice. The robot master was using hover skates to move around slowly, turning in wide circles to no apparent purpose. He had red armor, long blond hair, and a carnival like mask coated in glitter. Seeing that, Rock was puzzled. What was this robot doing here? "Two?"

He stopped and turned to face Rock. That's when Rock noticed something on his visor. There were strange red lines enveloping Two's body, shimmering some so he could see them against the robot master's natural red armor. "This one is also waiting for Master Omega," Blues' voice came over the helmet speakers.

So they would want him to destroy Two. But the door was already shut behind him. Trying to swallow his nervousness, Rock came out onto the iced over portion of the room. Two more spotlights appeared over him. Then Two bowed his head, plucked something out of an armor pocket, then activated his own green plasma blade. Holding it upside down for some reason, he dashed over and leapt up, spinning around and aiming to come down on Rock.

Two was going to be able to move a lot faster and freer on this ice rink, Rock realized. So he slid towards the center of the room, being his quickest way out of the attack's path and into moving. He fired at Two as he landed.

The skating robot panicked and tripped onto the ice. His plasma blade dropped, turned off automatically, and skidded several feet away. Gasping, Rock slid back some. He had never dealt with a robot master that showed fear in battle. Two got up and started to skate away, to the door. Then the red lines flared up, especially around his head and torso. Although he had shown great grace in the exhibition, Two tripped again, falling onto his knees and grasping his head.

"What's happening?' he asked softly.

"He seems to be afraid of you," the voice said. "But the Master only knows about war. Even while he sleeps, he is going to force Two into continuing the battle."

And so he did. Two struggled to get up again and went over to fetch his weapon. Omega's power relented some, but drove him to activate the blade and keep fighting. Only, as Rock kept out of his way and watched him, he realized that Two had no idea about what to do with the weapon. He never tried to swing it, just let it follow his natural moves. He probably only made this attempt because Omega caused him pain if he did not.

Rock felt horrible about it, but he charged up his buster, then fired at Two's waist. It punched right through his armor, causing him to collapse onto the ice once again. But that did not destroy him, and it did not stop Omega's attempts. Two kept hold of his blade and flipped himself over. The green blade trembled as he tried to figure out how to fight now.

Charging up again, Rock started to move towards him. "I'm sorry," he called out right before he shot Two in the head. That destroyed him.

The visor removed the red lines, but left a faint red glow around the body. It was soon teleported away, leaving only patches of glitter that had fallen off the mask. And a pair of boot upgrades that were not covered in a red glow.

"He's not going to suffer anymore," the voice said.

Rock grimaced. "I still feel horrible about it. He didn't even want to fight."

"He didn't have a choice. Those upgrades seem to be compatible with your systems, and they aren't affected by Omega's power."

That was something he had done through his whole career in fighting Wily's forces. He adapted their powers for his own, even taking upgrades meant for them. But now, he would be reminded of the unfortunate robot master when he used this upgrade. Or, maybe that would be good. He would use the victims' powers to make the Master suffer. With that in mind, he picked up the upgrades and attached them to his boots.

Information appeared across the visor. "This upgrade gives you hover skates for use over slick surfaces like ice; it could be used over other surfaces, but will drain more power. It can also be adapted to turn your slide ability into a dash which can be used at any time."

"That'll take a bit of time, huh? I'll do it over my next rest break." He activated the skate ability and used it to cross the icy floor.


Thomas walked through the basement with Isaac. Roll and Rush had decided to follow them down. "Are you going to see X?" Roll asked. "May we come too?"

He smiled to them. "Sure. I'll have to add Rush in, so long as he agrees not to mess with anything."

The dog pricked his ears up and barked. He was obedient, so there was no real danger of him causing harm. Before, he hadn't seen much of a point in letting Rush into X's chambers. But given the situation, it couldn't hurt.

He turned back to Isaac. "So what was it you wanted to ask?"

The young man bit his lip. "Thomas, it's about my doctorate papers. I'd like you to look over them. I finished them up last night, but…"

"You want to make sure they're suitable, then?" he asked. He didn't blame Isaac for being nervous. His school of choice was known for having a tough panel for science doctorate projects.

However, he shook his head. "Not exactly. It's… I've been getting more of those death threats about if I actually get my PhD. They're telling me to turn my life from this evil, as they call it. I was trying to ignore them, but they've been increasing. Especially after all those missile attacks yesterday. My school email address received two dozen of them in the time since and I had two letters about it."

Thomas felt a pang of sympathy for his young partner. "I see. And after they proved themselves even more extreme than we could believe." Yesterday, three separate cities in different countries had been struck by missiles. A claim had been made through an internet video that it had been done by the same group that was killing roboticists and advanced robots.

Isaac rubbed one of his wrists. "I don't want to quit working with you, that's not it. I still think that this is a great project and that it should continue. But I don't really need a doctorate to keep helping you, right? Since they've made it clear that they will kill me if I get it, I believe it would be best overall if I dropped out of the graduate program." He smiled bashfully. "But, I still would like to know how I did and if it's good enough, I might be able to hold onto my thesis work and present it later. You know, after all this madness dies down."

"That could take many years," he pointed out. "All that's been going on lately, I don't think it's all a coincidence. Something big is going on; I don't fully understand it."

"I don't either. But right now, we may have to go on the defensive. Preserve what knowledge is there so that when people come to their senses, they can pick the technology back up and keep working on it."

Thomas then patted Isaac's back. "You've got the right idea." He smiled, although he felt sad. "I'm glad that you're willing to sacrifice such a big part of your life for this work."

He smiled back. "I've accepted it. It's an honor to be working with you."

"Thank you, and it's good working with you too. Go on ahead and get things ready. I'll be in when I get Rush registered."

"Okay. See you in a bit." Isaac stepped onto the teleport pad and moved to X's chamber.

"How is Rush going to put in the password?" Roll asked.

"He won't be able to, so somebody will always have to be with him," Thomas said, setting up the new allowance data. "You're okay with that, right?"

Rush barked again, wagging his tail.

Roll patted the dog's head. "That was really nice of Isaac to do," she said. "He told me that he's spent many years in school and worked really hard to get to this point. It's too bad that people want to kill him. I bet they've never met him in person."

"There's a strong chance that you're right about that," Thomas said. "Okay, Rush, speak for the unit."

Happy, he gave several barks in a row. The light on the console turned green, showing that it would now allow Rush to use this teleporter. Thomas wondered if Rush didn't think that Rock might be past here. Hopefully he wouldn't be too badly disappointed.

He was about to set the teleporter to let them enter X's chamber when a series of ear-splitting explosions went off above them. Roll and Rush yelped, but it was lost among the immense sound of collapse around them. Wondering briefly if they were all going to be killed, Thomas went over to them, taking hold of his android daughter. Clouds of dust, dirt, ash, and smoke came from the stairs and windows.

As the initial noise wore off, the ceiling above them creaked and bowed. It had been made to carry an immense load, as much of the equipment upstairs was heavy. But the explosion must have weakened it. And yet… seeing that they might have some time to spare, Thomas went to a nearby drawer. Would it be there? He hoped so.

Yes, a data drive. The label was blank, so he had yet to use it. He put it into the teleporter, then had it download everything into the drive. That would take a few moments… he prayed that he had that time.

Roll came over to him. "Dad, wh-what's going on?"

"I don't know, but we've got to get out of here," he said. The drive reported that it had the programming copied, so he pulled out the drive and set up an emergency transport made to just outside the house. "Come on, both of you."

They came onto the pad with him, then Thomas activated the transport. In seconds, they were outside, looking at the smoking remains of their house. There was black smoke everywhere, with the lights of sudden fires appearing through the gloom. Roll gasped and clung to his side.

There was a series of increasingly loud cracks, then a immense clatter as the final floor collapsed, dropping all the rubble into the basement. A flame roared up as it found something flammable, causing a bright yellow light to come through. The air around them began to heat up, so Thomas pulled back with the two robots.

"Everyone else was upstairs," Roll said, her eyes tearing up and her hand trembling in his. "Auto and the security bots, and the army guys, and Carol! Are they out here? What do we do?"

It was terrible, but they couldn't afford to hesitate. He squeezed her hand. "Roll, call 911 to report this. I'm going to check on Isaac, then I might call them too."

She nodded, then closed her eyes and put her right hand to her ear to connect to them. Thomas would rather call them himself, but now that the house lab was ruined, something else was worrying him the most right now. Isaac was in X's chambers. They were located deep underground on this land, not immediately connected to the house. Still, something might happen. He brought out his cell phone and called Isaac's number.

After two rings, the young man answered. A high-pitched whine was in the background. "Is something wrong? I'm getting a weird error on the teleport pad."

"Tell it to disconnect to the other unit," he said. "Isaac…"

"What is it, Thomas?" he asked, concerned.

"Someone blew up the lab," he said. On saying it, he felt completely out of control of the situation. The good people who had died in there, all his life and work now turned into burning rubble or lost. It was horrifying.

Not, not all lost. Rush was there, whining and looking about nervously as if he might find the people responsible. Roll was there, trying to tell the 911 operator what was going on while she was scared and upset. And if Isaac was okay, then X was safe for now.

But there was much more lost than kept.


The dash boost that came with the hover skate upgrade took some getting used to. Rock tripped himself up on the first few tries before he learned to lean a bit forward, keep his feet parallel to the floor if he was running, and to be careful in judging dash boosted jumps. One time, he smashed his nose and chin bad enough that he had to go back to the repair pod to get it fixed. When he did get used to it, it was a thrill to move so quickly. Maybe he could convince his dad to let him keep the hover skates and dash. That is, if he got home.

No, he would get home and make sure that everyone was okay. He had to think positive, no ifs about it. He headed up to level 3 with the new keycard he had. What was he going to face up here?

What was there worried him, because it showed that Wily had left the boot upgrades behind on purpose. There were weapons in the walls that fired in quick succession, but could be bypassed with a dash. There were spike lined pits that were too far for his normal jump, but easily passed with his new dash jump. Was he providing all this gear for Rock just to prove how great Omega was? If he would need all this, no wonder Forte and Blues were insistent on preparing him just to survive his encounter with Wily's masterpiece.

Rock found his way to the boss room. The walls were lined with a row of spikes, and there were six large round columns in the room. Standing in the middle of the columns, there was a robot master who looked an awful lot like Two. He had the blond hair, the same body structure. But his armor was dull gray and his face was unmasked. That face was eerily blank, devoid of emotions. It was pale, with the barest suggestions of lips and cheeks. The visor showed that he was also affected by Omega.

However, this one seemed not to mind it. On seeing Rock, he brought out his plasma blade and whirled around, slashing the blade in an extravagant show. This robot master knew how to use his weapon. He then ran for Rock, ready to strike. Activating his own blade, Rock blocked him, then took advantage of the rebounding of the blades to thrust at the robot's hips.

And he was blocked this time, forcing him to dash out of a more forceful counter attack. The swordsman robot then leapt to one of the columns. Rock thought he might try to jump over to him, so he deactivated the blade and fired into the air to catch him mid jump. But Two's twin surprised him again, by hanging onto the side of the column with just the soles of his boots and a light touch of his hand. The swordsman then leapt higher onto another column, then off that one to a third closer to Rock. Only then did he jump off downwards, looking to slam his blade down on him.

Rock charged his buster, dashed out of the way, then fired at where the other robot master would land. He got him this time, but he had better armor than Two. It would probably take the plasma blade to defeat this one. And that meant risking close quarters combat.

When the swordsman took to column jumping again, Rock got an idea. A lot of the robot masters Wily programmed tended to fall into attack patterns. Perhaps it was the same with this one. Rock ran to near one column and let the swordsman robot jump down at him. Taking half a second to orient himself right, he dashed so that the swordsman landed with his back to Rock. The boy robot then reactivated his blade to jump up and slash across the swordsman's neck. He decapitated him easily.

But that didn't stop the robot master. Unable to see him now, he went into a furious flurry of attacks, swinging his blade around so fast that it caused a trail of afterimages for Rock's vision. Rock backed off and fired charged buster shots at the headless swordsman. Eventually, his blade's energy went dead. Rock then dashed in and used his blade to finish the robot master off.

"Are you doing okay?" Blues' voice came over his helmet speakers.

For a moment, Rock thought his brother might actually be there. But no, it was that AI from the visor. It was still good to hear it. "Yeah, I am," he said. The body was teleported away, leaving another pair of boot upgrades. "He was trying to kill me, but once I started fighting, I didn't have the time to be afraid." He realized what he said and winced. "I'm becoming more like Mega Man…"

"Don't worry about that now," the voice said. "If that's what it takes for you to survive, then it must be done."

The upgrades didn't have a glow on them, so he picked them up to put them on. "But Roll said she didn't like me as Mega Man. And, I'm a little scared of being that way. What if I hurt someone on accident?"

"You just have to adapt, as you always do. Do be careful of the innocents, though." The voice paused as the visor reviewed the upgrades. "This has adapted both your gloves and your boots so that you can perform a wall cling like that robot master did. It will not hold you in place perfectly, but it will allow you to ascend vertical surfaces by wall jumping."

And he needed it in order to retrieve the next keycard. Dr. Wily was definitely guiding his movements. But, maybe the wall cling ability would reveal a passage he couldn't access before.


Preparation and precaution were vital in Thomas' work, so he had the foresight, when building X's chambers, to stock up on supplies should a human get stuck in there a few days. Still, he needed to get Isaac out. As they were now without a home, he had to borrow a temporary teleport unit, set it up in a hotel's walk-in shower, and run it off the data drive so that no one else got the information on where X was.

Such an unorthodox connection made the transport process take longer than usual, but then Isaac walked out of the shower stall. He seemed grungy from being stuck in the same clothes for three days, but he was all right. "Everything's still okay down there," Isaac said. "X didn't even notice."

"He couldn't. It's good that you're okay." He tried to smile, but there was just too much else on his mind.

Isaac then hugged him. "I'm sorry there's not much else I can do to help," he said. "I don't have the resources to help you rebuild."

Thomas patted him, tearing up again. "No, that's fine. I'm grateful to have your support. And, it's good that only you were caught in there."

"How's Roll and Rush doing?" he asked quietly.

"It's rough on all of us. Come out, that may cheer them some."

They walked out of the bathroom. "Isaac!" Roll called, then came over and hugged him. "It's good to see you again."

He nodded and patted her head. "It's good to see all of you again. What are you guys doing?"

"Watching the news," Roll said, letting him go and heading back to the bed she'd been sitting on. The TV was on, showing some press conference. The girl robot took one of her ponytails and twisted it. "There's not much else to do. I want Rock to be back…"

Rush whimpered, dropping his head back onto the bed. "I do too," Thomas said, sitting on the other bed. He found himself unable to think of what to do now. He should have been planning on upgrading the rest of the household robot masters into androids. He should have been working on combating that Robotics Control Law, which shouldn't have passed already. He should know more of what was going on. But the world proved itself too complex for any one person to fully understand. Things were happening that he hadn't anticipated.

Isaac didn't say anything, but he came over and sat with them. He was part of the family, if an outsider that they had welcomed in. He was troubled too by the events.

For the moment, the only sound was the outside air conditioner running and the television. The president of the global government was talking about the recent events. "At this very moment, many federal agents are working to solve these terrible crimes and capture the perpetrators. It seems that we have grown complacent and we must be more vigilant to stop terror from being inflicted on the world. We will work towards keeping the peoples and the cities of the world safe. This may cause inconveniences and stricter laws in the future, but this is for the safety of all. We will make sure that events like this can never happen again."

"Can he really do that?" Roll asked, looking to him.

"I don't know," Thomas admitted. "We don't know the identities of these extremists. I hope something can be done, though."

There was a knock at the hotel room door. Isaac got up and answered it. Looking over, Thomas saw two men in black business suits. "Is there something you need?" Isaac asked.

"We're looking for Dr. Light," one of them said. "We're with the FBI."

He got up; he had worked with the FBI before, usually on Dr. Wily following Rock's efforts. The two men showed their badges, which were authentic. "Yes, what is it?"

"We're sorry to hear about what happened to your lab," one stated. "But we've been sent to double check some details about the explosion."

"Oh, right. Do you want to go somewhere else?"

"It's only a few questions, so here's fine," one said, bringing out an electronic tablet. "Could you double check the list of persons who were in the household at the time?" He brought up the list and handed it over.

"Sure," he said, taking the tablet. It had his robots, like Auto and Watcher, along with the humans like Carol and the bodyguards. He pointed out one name. "Rock wasn't there."

The agent took the tablet back. "All right. Where is he?"

"It should be in your case files somewhere," Thomas said. But he knew how many cases they dealt with, so he kept his temper even. "He was kidnapped around three weeks prior by an unidentified robot master. We haven't heard from him since."

"We should find the agent working on that," the other said.

The agent nodded. "Sure. Also, you have been recorded as working with the robot masters Blues and Forte previously. Do you know where they are?"

"No. I don't see much of them."

"All right." He checked some info. "And would this be your assistant Isaac?"

"Yes I am," Isaac said.

"According to the statements we have, you got trapped in a heavy security lab for dangerous materials. Is that so?"

"Yes," Isaac said. They had spoken about this over the phone. With how vocal and aggressive the anti-robotics faction was being, they had decided to take extreme caution in information about X. Even with the FBI. "We were planning on running an experiment and the only way to enter the lab is through a teleporter with the right security key programs."

"What kind of experiment was this?"

"Creating man made e-crystals with fewer costs and dangers. But they still tend to explode when mishandled or if they bear microscopic flaws."

The agent speaking nodded. That danger was well known. "Did you notice anything peculiar before the explosion happened?"

Isaac shook his head. "No. But I do find it strange that we had top level security robots and whoever got the bombs in did so without raising alarm with them."

"We're looking into that inconsistency," he replied. "Also, all of the guards with you checked in with Sergeant Brown first?"

Thomas nodded. "Right. He shared the information with me and the security robots. I was busy with research and work, so I left it to him most days."

"Okay. Thanks for confirming this. Also, we need to check over your robots for the Robotics Control Law assessment. We'd like to take Roll with us for that."

"I've had all data on my robots publically available for years," Thomas said, glancing back at her. The girl robot had stiffened. "Her files are up to date as of a week ago."

"We've noticed, but we need to do at least part of the assessment at an office of our organization. You can come down to wait for her if you wish."

"What about Rush?" Roll asked.

The dog pricked his ears up, but didn't seem enthused.

"It's registered as an animal-level robot, so Rush isn't covered by the Control law," the agent explained.

This struck Thomas as rather insensitive, as they had all just lost their home a few days back. But refusing would get him on the wrong side of the law and he didn't want to do that. He knew some lawyers that were working on repealing the law through the courts, but that still needed time. "All right, so long as I can come with her. Isaac, you'd better stay here with Rush and get cleaned up."

He smiled briefly. "Right." He went over near where Roll was. "Be brave, little miss. You'll be fine with as polite as you are."

"Okay," she said, getting up but hugging him first. "Bye Isaac. Bye Rush. I'll be back." She went over and took Thomas' hand.


Somebody asked, since he had the plasma blade, if Rock was going to turn into Quint/Shadow Rockman. That's a nifty idea, espeically what happens in the next chapter. But actually, when you add the dash boots and wall grip here, I'm making him a bridge between his Classic form and X. Of course, X doesn't start with the dash boots in his first game, but it becomes standard afterwards... he does have the wall-grip standard.

Good-bye, poor Two; I'll miss you.