A LITTLE KNOWLEDGE
Chapter 11: The Disciple
A Sailor Moon fanfic
By Bill K.
"A-Are you," Serenity gasped out, "Nick Devlin?"
"The same," Devlin replied.
"Why?"
"Why am I Nick Devlin?" he asked in confusion.
"Why are you creating robots that kill?" Serenity asked, her voice faltering from the pain she was in. "Why are you killing people?"
"Terror," Devlin answered matter-of-factly. Serenity stared at him, unable to comprehend. "Instill terror in a population and they're more likely to respond favorably when you offer them peace in exchange for control." When she didn't respond as he expected, Devlin continued. "People want to be safe. They'll turn to anyone who they feel can make them safe and give that person anything in exchange for that safety. That's why they turned to you after the invasion of those ice monsters. They wanted to be safe and you were their best hope." He grinned mirthlessly. "Now they'll find out differently. And when I offer them the safety they so crave, they'll turn to me."
"They'll," Serenity gasped out between pants, "find you out - - turn on you."
"Let them find me out. I'll hardly keep it a secret. Anyone who opposes me will die," Devlin stated. "No human can stand up to the Daiyaku Automaton. Even your senshi are hard-pressed to do so. Eventually they'll wear down and my robots will kill them. You were really the only threat. That's why I had to take," and his eyebrow cocked, "measures."
Two metal appendages resembling hands slashed down, intending to drive the sharp spikes at the end of the fingers through Serenity's body. But at the last moment, somehow sensing the movement through the blinding pain she was enduring, Serenity swung her hand back just enough to create a barrier. The spikes glanced off, their sharp tips bending or breaking on impact.
Undaunted, the automaton clamped its hands onto Serenity's upper arms and lifted her up into the air. Her dainty slippered feet dangled four feet off of the floor. The pressure on her arms was great, but the pounding in her skull was worse.
"The more you resist, the more it will hurt," Devlin told her coldly. "When I set this plan into motion, the first thing I did was ensure you wouldn't be able to stop me."
"What did you do?" Serenity whimpered.
"There's a nanobot in your brain," Devlin replied. "You see, I've theorized that this 'Crystal Energy' of yours is just amplified psycho-kinetic energy. So at your last appearance, I injected you with a nanobot. Every time you use your crystal energy, the nanobot injects you with an electric current that stimulates the pain centers in your brain." He smiled and this smile was one of reverence. "Just one more gift from the great Viluy."
"V-Viluy? But she's gone!" wheezed Serenity.
"...and all citizens are required to stay off the streets. This has been deemed by the Tokyo Metro Police as a Class One emergency situation and institution of curfew regulations has taken effect."
Sanjuro Ikegami sat in front of his television watching news coverage of the battle in Shinjuku. An overhead helicopter was broadcasting live pictures of the Sailor Senshi in combat with a squad of deadly looking automatons. Every so often his wife, Sailor Jupiter, would flash across the picture and his heart would stop. Sanjuro had accepted his wife's duty when they first got together. Much like the spouse of a soldier, he knew the risks that came with the job.
But it didn't make it any easier to watch.
"Is that Mom on TV?" Akiko shouted from the doorway. Sanjuro sighed. The one saving grace of this battle being at night had been that the kids would be in bed.
"Maybe you better go back . . ." he began, turning to his daughter. She was already at the arm of the sofa.
"Don't tell me to go back to bed!" Akiko snapped. "Not with Mom on TV!"
His first inclination was to rap his daughter on the head and send her to her room just for raising her voice to him. But cooler thoughts prevailed. Akiko's defiance was born of her hero worship of her mother's senshi identity as much as ill manners. She was a passionate child. He knew that. Taking another huge breath to calm himself further, Sanjuro gestured the girl to him. Akiko took a seat between her father's legs, his massive arms wrapped securely around her. As she watched the television avidly, Sanjuro rested his chin on her head.
"Don't snap at people, Akiko," he said as they watched. "It's not nice."
"Yes, Dad," she murmured. Then she tensed. "That robot almost got her! Why doesn't she use her lightning?"
"Maybe lightning can't affect it," Sanjuro suggested, giving voice to his own fears.
"She probably already used her max attack and she has to regenerate," Akiko replied. At that moment, the automaton lunged for Jupiter, trying to impale her on its finger spikes. Instead Jupiter grabbed the limb and judo flipped the machine over her and onto its back. "YEAH, THAT'S IT, MOM!"
"Akiko, you'll wake your brother," Sanjuro admonished quietly.
"Is Mom on TV again?" Ichiro asked sleepily. The boy wandered over to the sofa. Sanjuro reached over, grasped his son by the upper arm and effortlessly pulled him onto the sofa next to them.
"They're fighting killer robots from space!" Akiko told him.
"You don't know that they're from space," Sanjuro corrected her. The three watched the senshi continue to struggle against the automatons.
"It's not fair," Ichiro said suddenly. "It's not fair that Mom has to keep risking herself. Why can't someone else fight for a change?"
"No one else is as good as Mom," Akiko proclaimed, her eyes still glued to the set. "She has to do it."
"I think your brother is talking about other people becoming dependent on your Mom fighting for them," Sanjuro explained. "It can be tough, being the one who always stands up for what's right. You endure physical pain or suffer emotional losses. And sometimes you wonder why does it have to be you. Your Mom hasn't reached that point yet. To her, the fight is worth the pain and suffering, because she's fighting for something she thinks is important. Maybe one day she'll reach her limit." He glanced down at Akiko. "I hope you won't look down on her if she does." He looked over at Ichiro. "And I hope you won't be angry if she doesn't."
Sanjuro felt Akiko tense between his legs. He looked back at the screen. While some of the other senshi were still fighting, Sailor Jupiter dangled limply from one hand of an automaton. It's other hand was raised, spikes out, ready to slash.
"Yes," Devlin murmured and Serenity felt the genuine sadness he experienced. "But she left behind her notes - - her ideas - - her writings. I found them when I transferred over here. They were," and his lip quivered, "brilliant. She was brilliant. Sixteen years old and she already had the world figured out. Humanity was a cesspool of emotional, illogical organisms trying to satisfy their avarices. Love. Money. Power. Sex. Status."
"They're more," Serenity said. She found the calmer she was, the less it hurt. But it did nothing to get her freedom.
"No, they're not. They have their uses, but only if properly managed," Devlin scowled. "Viluy was right. Machine was destined to rule man."
"That's where you found the plans for these," Serenity asked, and couldn't resist scowling at the end, "things?"
"The general ideas were there," Devlin replied. "I tried to extrapolate them, but she was too much of a visionary for me to hope to finish her work. But my attempts attracted the attention of Arnold Beliveau." Devlin snickered. "He was so desperate to live forever that he would give carte blanche to anyone who could make it happen. He was already employing Yogen Heiwajima. Heiwajima is brilliant in his own right. When I showed Heiwajima my attempts to complete what Viluy had conceptualized, his face just lit up. If I took Viluy's work to step two, he took it to three and four, and that in turn inspired me to take it to what you see now."
"He knew what you were doing?" Serenity asked.
"No," Devlin shook his head. "Yogen, for all his brilliance, just couldn't see humanity for what it was. He had this stubborn belief that he would make servants instead of soldiers and humanity would be lifted up on the backs of his creations. So while he worked on that, I took his innovations and converted them to my ends."
"But you're wrong," Serenity argued. "Wrong about humanity and wrong about what you're doing with these creations. Viluy was wrong and it led to her defeat. And if you follow in her footsteps, it will lead to yours as well. Please don't let this obsession destroy you."
"It's not going to destroy me, just as it didn't destroy someone as great as Viluy," Devlin said. He grew stern. "You destroyed Viluy. But I'd taken precautions. To do that, I needed to distract you. I superceded the A.I. programming on the Daiyaku prototype so it would run amok. I needed to see if an automaton could be programmed to kill. And I needed you to occupy Yogen's attention, so neither he nor you would realize what I was doing.
"To that end, I sent the computer hack from his station to implicate him and leave me a free hand," Devlin continued. "You all reacted very predictably."
"That poor man," Serenity whispered. "How could you make him suffer so?"
"It was necessary," Devlin responded. "I actually admire him. When I assume power, I'll find a way to use him. He's a mind that shouldn't go to waste."
"We'll stop you," Serenity maintained.
"Unlikely," Devlin said. "I was behind the robotic roach invasion as well. Your computer tech, whoever he is, was getting too close. I needed another distraction. And they served multiple purposes. The robots recorded telemetry of every building in Tokyo, as well as any information previously stored on RFID chips. I know everyone's secrets and every vulnerable place to strike. They also initiated a delayed sabotage of the city's computer network. All I have to do is press a button," and he touched the screen on his pad, "and the city is blind, deaf, and mute."
Serenity closed her eyes. Suddenly the automaton holding her vanished into mist. But once again she clutched her head and no sooner did her feet touch the floor than she was again on her knees.
"You just don't learn, do you?" Devlin commented. "Still, you did get me to talking about my favorite subject, so your delaying tactic did work in the short run." He gestured and a shadow fell over Serenity. "But I've got more robots."
Behind her, an automaton opened its mouth, revealing the laser projector concealed inside. The laser prepared to cut Serenity in half.
The automaton had its arm raised, ready to drive the spikes at the end of its hand into the limp body of Sailor Jupiter, who dangled from its other hand. It had struck her from behind with a section of loose concrete, the mass ripped up from the sidewalk with those same hands. Overhead, a news helicopter recorded events for an eager and anxious television audience. In the distance, sirens wailed as police tried to corral other automatons loose in Shinjuku and give assistance to the Senshi.
"Venus! Love and Beauty Shock!" rang out over the battleground, followed by a blast of golden energy that struck the automaton where the rib cage would be in a human. The impact bowed the robot at the waist joint, whipped it off its base and sent the thing rocketing across thirty-six feet of pavement before it came to a landing. Unfortunately Jupiter was pulled part of the way with it before the cloth in her sailor kerchief ripped. She landed in a decorative planter on the sidewalk, sprawled awkwardly in a bush, still unconscious.
Venus whirled at a sound and saw Sailor Mercury tumble forward. She had been caught across the back by the slash of another attacking automaton. Mercury had managed to avoid a deeper, fatal wound, but the machine had drawn blood. Struggling to get up, Mercury couldn't see the robot looming over her and certainly couldn't move fast enough to avoid a killing stroke. Venus was about to launch an attack, even though she could hear an attack coming up on her fast from behind.
Then one of Uranus's force spheres slammed into the robot over Mercury. The machine was propelled through a street light and against the side of a building, striking hard. It was in the process of pushing away as Venus turned in time to catch the thrust of the one attacking her. Leaving her feet, Venus rode the arm and allowed the robot to carry her to prevent the spikes from impaling her. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw an electric wire from the lamp jump to the automaton that had attacked Mercury. Current poured into the metal beast and it seized up. Venus wondered if the current would be enough. Then a wave of water inundated both the wire and the automaton. Sparks flew and water sizzled and spat.
Suddenly the entire area blacked out. Street lights and traffic signals went dark. Lights in buildings winked out. Then Venus felt the free arm of the robot she was riding swing and strike her in the side. Pain shot through her. Knocked from the arm she was riding, Venus hit the sidewalk and rolled to a stop. Drifting out of consciousness, her last thought was that it looked like the entire prefecture was blacked out.
Sailor Neptune backed up against Sailor Uranus. She surveyed the situation as best she could in the darkness of the night illuminated only by a sliver of a crescent moon. One automaton was deactivated due to the massive electrical overload it had taken. A second was on its feet and striding purposefully toward Jupiter. A third was stalking Venus. Five more were converging on them, her only clue to their locations being the red glow of their optical sensors and the heavy fall of their steps on the pavement. In the distance, she could hear random screams and wondered if others were being murdered by these killing machines.
"Ready?" she heard Uranus ask.
"We'll give them everything we can muster," Neptune replied. "Haruka - - I love you."
"I'll always love you," Uranus replied curtly. "World Shaking!"
"Deep Submerge!"
Serenity turned and wondered if she could cut through the pain gripping her skull fast enough to transform the automaton into atoms before it could launch its laser point blank at her. At no point did she think of transforming Nick Devlin into atoms. Though it would have solved her problem, it was as foreign a thought to her as could be imagined. She was Serenity and she didn't believe in such things.
Moments before the machine opened fire, a blur of green and red shot by the kneeling queen. One moment it wasn't there; the next, a red rose was sticking out of the automaton where the head swivel was connected to the torso. Sparks escaped on either side of the rose's stem. The robot froze in place. One beat became two, and then the device exploded. Miraculously, Serenity was untouched by hot shrapnel from the doomed machine.
"Endymion," Serenity smiled, tracking to where her husband entered. He wore his black armor and carried his sword in his right hand. The King walked easily but purposefully toward Nick Devlin.
"Surrender now," Endymion demanded calmly, but Serenity and Devlin both could see the emotion bubbling just under the surface, for Endymion never took kindly to people threatening his wife, "or pay the consequences."
"You don't grasp the situation," Devlin told him. "The time of humanity is past. You're an anachronism. You fight with a sword while I fight with superior technology provided by the most superior intellect the world has ever seen."
"Anachronistic, I'll grant you," Endymion whispered to Devlin, for in the blink of an eye he was right in front of Devlin, the tip of his sword pressing into the engineer's throat. "But no less deadly. Surrender now."
"Endymion, please don't hurt him!" Serenity begged.
The sword didn't move away immediately. Endymion wanted to acquiesce to his wife's wishes. He wanted to be as pure and as pristine as she was. But she never believed anyone was beyond salvation. He never believed anyone was truly neutralized until they were dead.
Finally the sword moved away from Devlin's throat, but not for altruistic reasons. Serenity screamed as another automaton lunged for Endymion, its spikes splayed. But Endymion was already moving, drawing his cape up to deflect the slash as he moved away from it. As he brought his sword down on the robot, another was moving into view. The sword stroke stopped on the surface of the automaton, the edge skidding down the side of its shoulder as momentum drove it.
The nearest robot swung its arm, readjusting to Endymion's movements. Though Endymion avoided the spikes, the arm caught him on the side. The momentum and the tremendous strength of the mechanical warrior sent Endymion to the floor. He skidded to a stop some ten feet away, the side of his armor visibly dented. A third automaton appeared and began to converge. At a disadvantage, Endymion produced three roses from under his cloak and flung them at his first opponent. The stems all pierced the metallic surface of the machine where his sword couldn't. Sparks came from each impact point, but none of the hits were in vital areas. The other two automatons were nearly upon him. By now a fourth one had appeared. Its mouth was open in preparation for its laser attack.
Lashing out with his foot, Endymion shoved one of the automatons away. As the other lunged for him, the King somersaulted over it, landing behind the thing. He stood still long enough for the fourth robot to draw a bead on him. Launching himself into the air once more, Endymion avoided the laser strike and the beam hit the robot behind him instead. The beam struck the automaton along its neck joint. The head slid off and bounced on the floor. The body stood still for a moment, then sank to the floor, inert. Endymion's leap took him close enough to the fourth. Crouching under the beam, the King swung his sword, targeting the knee joints of the metal man. The stroke cleaved the joints and the upper part of the automaton toppled backwards, landing on the floor unable to walk.
To his left, the robot wounded by the roses was advancing on him. It had a heavy piece of equipment and sought to bludgeon Endymion with it. Pulling out another rose, Endymion took careful aim and fired. The stem pierced the robot's left eye and lodged deep in its circuitry. The robot made several jerky movements, then ceased to function.
"ENDYMION, BEHIND YOU!" shrieked Serenity.
But her warning was too late. The last automaton seized Endymion from behind, wrapping its powerful arms around his chest. The King roared out in agony as it began to squeeze. It pulled him off of his feet, leaning back to gain more leverage. His chest was caught in a metallic vise, the pressure drawing another howl of pain from him. Serenity looked on in horror. She had to do something. She had to save him.
But would the piercing pain in her head allow her?
Concluded in Chapter 12