The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network.
THE BIG O:
ACT 38
KNIGHT AND DATE
Chapter Eleven: The Revelation of Roland Knight
"The mind of the subject will desperately struggle to create memories where none exist…" —R. Lutece 1889
"I'm right here, 'Roger Smith!'" his adversary challenged as a second spotlight revealed a balcony overlooking the chamber. A man wearing a tattered raincoat was standing behind a bank of controls that seemed to consist of large bulky levers. His face was wrapped in bandages and a green lens hid his left eye from view.
"Schwartzwald!" Roger snarled. "What do you want?"
"Surprised to see me, 'Roger Smith?'"
"Not really," Roger snorted. "When Beck was in charge he released Paradigm City's most dangerous criminals from prison. You were one of the first ones he let out. I spotted you following me earlier this week and later questioned the driver of your taxicab. The description he gave me left little doubt."
"I'm surprised it took so you long to get here, 'Negotiator!'" Schwartzwald chortled. "A blind man could follow the trail of breadcrumbs I left you!"
"Where's Angel?" Roger demanded. "What have you done with her?"
"You don't have to worry about the woman 'Paradigm Dog!'" the phantom known as 'Schwartzwald' cackled harshly. "She's right here!" He pulled a switch and a rectangle of light shined out of the darkness to reveal the buxom blonde sealed inside a glass tank that seven feet tall, four feet wide and four feet deep. Lights were installed on the floor and the ceiling of the tank in order to illuminate it.
"You rat," Roger muttered. He flinched when he heard Dorothy's footfall somewhere behind him. Roger placed his hand behind his back and waved her away. Hopefully she could get the hint and realize that he wanted her to rescue Angel while he kept Schwartzwald busy. With a delusional fanatic like Schwartzwald, keeping him occupied shouldn't be difficult. "Why did you drag her into this?" he called out to keep his adversary talking. "I'm getting jealous. I thought you were after me!"
"The woman who calls herself 'Angel' was sabotaging your investigation," Schwartzwald explained, "covering up the few clues that remained one by one. It was only a matter of time before she tried to erase the Memories in the computer underneath Roland Knight's old home. I had originally planned to confront you in the cave under the Knight mansion, but then I remembered this place… and left behind the map and the coordinates that brought you right here!"
"Let her go!" Roger ordered. "This doesn't concern her, not anymore!" Was that even true? Who knew, and more importantly who cared? He had to keep him talking.
"Why should I 'Roger Smith,' when she has access to all the Memories I need?" Schwartzwald gloated. "But you're right; I don't need her anymore. Now that I've captured the true architect of this false and pitiful world, I can get all of the secrets straight from the source!"
"What?" Roger sputtered. "You mean?"
"Correct!" the bandaged apparition sneered. "I have Roland Knight in my power, and this foolish woman led me right to him! You can't imagine the irony…"
"Oh yes I can!" Roger shouted up at the mummified gargoyle. "That was you warning me to stop looking for Roland Knight wasn't it? It was all reverse psychology! By threatening me to back off you knew I'd press forward, didn't you?"
"You seemed to be losing interest in your quest, Mister Negotiator," Schwartzwald grinned a wide lipless smile. "I needed to instill a feeling of urgency. The Union wouldn't have given you any warning! I myself had to dispose of one of their agents before he could inform his superiors that you were looking for Roland Knight. I couldn't have that! They would have eliminated you before you could lead me to him… or before this woman calling herself 'Angel' could lead me to him. Threatening your life was just the thing! Or so I thought. You seemed too interested in playing house with your mechanical doll to discover the Truth about this world, so I had to… remove it from the equation," he admitted before breaking into a sinister laugh. "That got you moving didn't it?"
"You son of a-! It was you who shot Dorothy! What did she ever do to you?" Roger tried to control himself but he couldn't think at that moment. The rational part of him told himself that needed to shut up about Dorothy or he'd risk giving her away but he didn't seem able to keep his mouth shut. Oh well. Maybe Schwartzwald would be too entertained seeing Roger foam at the mouth to notice a stealthy android. "She's a total innocent; she had nothing to do with this!"
"That windup doll is the perfect example of the illusions that blind the ignorant denizens of this world to the Truth!" the bandaged gargoyle retorted. "It's a symbol of a lie being far more attractive than reality! You really are in love that lifeless hunk of tin aren't you? You'd rather embrace an illusion than pursue reality or even a real woman wouldn't you? In that case, so be it!" With that, he pulled a lever on his board. "Forget the woman! We don't need her anymore!"
Water started pouring into the glass tank that Angel was trapped in. There must have been a pipe hidden in the darkness that Roger hadn't noticed. It was hard to see anything with that spotlight shining down on him, which must have been the idea when Schwartzwald set this up. But with the lights installed in the fish tank, he could see the Angel shouting at him and pounding her fists against the glass.
"No wait!" Roger cried. "Stop!"
"Are you ready to listen to the truth, Negotiator?" Schwartzwald asked with murderous calm. "Or do we need to find out how long that woman can hold her breath?"
"Yes! Yes!" Roger gestured helplessly. "I'm ready! Whatever you say! Just stop it! Turn the water off!"
"As you wish," Schwartzwald replied with deadly politeness as he pushed the lever forward. The water that was now past Angel's knees slowed to a mere trickle. "I'll keep a little flowing so you don't interrupt me," he sneered. "There's no point wasting our time on such trifles," he continued in a sardonic tone. "You want to know about Roland Knight. It's an interesting tale. The tale of Roland Knight is the tale of Paradigm City, this place, why it's the tale of our entire world…"
"Get on with it!" Roger demanded. "Angel doesn't have all day!"
"Don't act as though you care," Schwartzwald snorted. "I'm going to tell you what you are dying to know! But let's start at the beginning: or more accurately, at the end… The Event that destroyed the world before was a long time coming. Humanity never stood a chance! Our ancestors built the megadeuces and turned the best and brightest of their youth into domineuses, but it was futile! The end of humanity was planned long before our species ever existed! The unknowable creatures that reclaimed this world don't…"
"Is there a point to this drivel?" Roger snorted. "This is the third time I've heard this joke, and it wasn't funny the first time!"
"The only joke was what was left of humanity when it was all over!" Schwartzwald snorted back. "Only a tiny fraction of humanity remained! Lost and without direction, their entire society was shattered! But by either careful planning or by happy accident, one man had both the resources and the ruthlessness to create a new one!"
"Roland Knight I presume?" Roger interrupted. "Where is he?"
"He's here, Mister Negotiator," Schwartzwald replied cryptically. "Right here. But let me enlighten you before the introductions: Humanity couldn't live with the Truth of what they knew. If they knew that humanity was never at the top of the food chain they would become as they perceive the planet's true rulers: Free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and reveling in joy! The only way to keep humanity from destroying itself would be to tear those painful Memories out of their skulls! To bury their frail psyches in the comforting oblivion of amnesia and replace the world that was with a completely new paradigm!"
"Paradigm," Roger repeated. "Let me guess, Paradigm City? Paradigm City is the world mankind created in order to hide from reality?"
"Paradigm City is just one, just one, of the different societies the man calling himself 'Roland Knight' created. His first attempt was the most successful: He used the assets of his father's company to build a new city on the ruins of the old one. He modeled the society off that of his grandfather's day, for it was a simplified version of the civilization he knew. It was capitalism at its worst, with the corporation controlling the government, and all of civilization divided into the haves and the have-nots!"
"Paradigm City," Roger grumbled in disgust. "A city divided between the rich and the poor. That's an apt description if I ever heard it…"
"When he saw the greedy, divided, objectivist city he created, the man calling himself Roland Knight was disgusted with the world he made and decided to start again," Schwartzwald continued. "He handed over the reins to his trusted partner and subordinate and took a handful of rebels and intellectuals into the wilderness and created an alternative society: A village where instead of being divided into the rich and the poor, everyone was treated equally regardless of merit. Rather than being a community of greedy individuals they were a glorious yet totalitarian Union!"
"The Union," Roger shook his head. "He created that place too?"
"His last and most disastrous attempt to create a new society is the one you see here," Schwartzwald reported with perverse pride. "In this society mankind was completely free to the point of anarchy. It was the individual who ruled! Down here, he created a society where humanity's greatest surviving innovators and thinkers could prosper in a laissez-faire environment safe from interference by Paradigm, the Union, or the ancient abominations who took the planet away from mankind. Naturally, the lack of government made many people uneasy," the bandaged apparition sneered in contempt. "Most people just don't have what it takes to possess freedom. It wasn't long before the masses sheepishly followed political activists and formed cryptic alliances. Before long, the city was turned into a dystopia; and then, almost fourteen years ago, a civil war broke out, leaving most of the population dead."
"What was the point of putting it underwater?" Roger asked. "He couldn't find enough good growing room on land?"
"The Eldritch Abominations who rule this world communicate by the simple expediency of transmitted thought," the sinister mummy explained, "but their advanced and utterly alien thought patterns are incompatible with our fleshy brains. You see the creatures that rule this world aren't made out of flesh or matter as we know it but rather…"
"What does that have to do with building a city that's underwater?" Roger interrupted.
"For protection," Schwartzwald explained condescendingly. "The same reason Paradigm City has its domes; the same reason the Union is situated in a bowl shaped valley and mentally conditions its citizens every night when they go to sleep. Here beneath the waves, the deep waters are full of the one primal mystery through which not even thought can pass! Too bad the denizens of the under deep decided to experiment with things that man wasn't meant to know! It created a power struggle and hastened the end of this underwater city!"
"This is the man I thought could save Paradigm City?" Roger snorted in disgust. "He's useless to me! You can have him! Isn't there anyone left down here at all?"
"Almost no one Negotiator," Schwartzwald shook his head. "The few remaining are insane or mutated beyond description, or both! Before he fled the hell of his own creation, Roland Knight took the city's children back to the surface, brought them to Paradigm City and had their memories erased and replaced with ones that would allow them to fit in with society. Gordon Rosewater was only too happy to oblige, for he was finally ready to try transferring Memories of those who lived in the past into the minds of the living! All he needed were minds that were easy to manipulate; minds he could take over and rebuild almost from scratch…"
Roger saw an eye. A bar code. Bald children looking into the fire. A doddering old man offering him a tomato. Three giant robots marching through a burning city, lighting fires with lasers shooting from their eyes. A torrent of flames rushing through a subway tunnel. Shelves of books burning. Devastated cityscapes filled with giant broken robots.
"The children!" Roger gasped as his vision was obscured by the spectral image of a vision of bald children staring into the fire. "I was one of the children… I was rescued by Roland Knight and became one of Gordon Rosewater's tomatoes… My Memories of the orphanage, of my foster parents, it was all a lie!"
"Is that what you really think 'Roger Smith'?" Schwartzwald snorted in contempt. "Truly, your capacity for self-deception is staggering! Or is it a post hypnotic suggestion that makes you so obtuse? You think as an innocent child your Memories were taken from you? That's not what happened to you at all! You fool! You demanded that Gordon Rosewater alter your Memories! You practically forced him!"
"What are you talking about?" Roger protested. "I was a child! How could I force the head of the Paradigm Corporation to do anything?"
"Oh you must have had thorough mental conditioning to keep you from putting it all together," Schwartzwald shook his head in derision. "Haven't you figured it out by now? Roland Knight wasn't the first name he called himself, and it certainly wasn't the last! You blind fool! Do I have to spell it out for you? You are Roland Knight!"
He pulled another lever and stage lights in the ceiling illuminated a huge bust that had been hidden in the darkness, a bust created in the likeness of Roger's head, neck and shoulders. The monument the city's creator was Roger Smith's impassive face four times greater than scale gazing scornfully at his creation from a smooth cylindrical base that was six feet tall on which the capital letters were inscribed:
FREEDOM IS THE RIGHT OF ALL MANKIND
Roger's heart skipped a beat as his legs threatened to collapse underneath him. In his mind's eye he saw a curtain of flames burning down a bookshelf. An eye. A barcode. Children with shaved heads looking into the flames. No, that wasn't right. They were looking at him!
Roger had the sensation of sitting down, of being pushed along in a wheelchair past the rows of bald children. Sitting down, his face was level to that of the much shorter children, giving him the impression of being one of them. Small wonder, his head was shaved just like the others. He still wore the bandages from the surgery on his head.
Gordon Rosewater, over a decade younger than when Roger had seen him last, was wearing surgical scrubs smiling beatifically down at him. Roger's head was numb, but he felt his head being placed in a vise and was made to stare into some kind of apparatus that looked like it was used to take an eye exam.
Inside, Roger could see the reflection of his own eye, before the image was replaced with that of a barcode and a number. 9 701330 570415. Then a blinding bewildering array of images, all images of a false past of a man who didn't exist. A man called Roger Smith.
Roger Smith. A fiction. A man who didn't exist. Those years in the orphanage, that was someone else's childhood imprinted into his mind to explain away the fact that he didn't have any family. The foster couple who took him in and provided for his education, they had never met. Did they ever exist? How much of who he was now was based off an identity he couldn't remember? How much of his current personality was the product of implanted memories of things that never happened?
Who… was he? Who was Roger Smith? Was he Roland Knight? Who was he? What had been his name before that? Was any part of his life real?
As he fought the bewildering assault of half-forgotten memories, he could sense the room spinning around him, and had a sensation of falling into the deepest abyss before being hurled through the sky past dead planets and whirling comets. He clutched at his chest in a vain attempt to get his irregular heartbeat under control, coughing as he fought to breathe, trembling, as his water and sweat soaked body shivered in the chill of the dark chamber. Nothing seemed real anymore. It was as if his whole life was a dream, a nightmare from which he could not awaken. As he crouched on the floor and clutched his chest, he heard the shattering of glass that might as well have been the shattering of his identity.
In the meantime, Dorothy had used her android strength on Angel's plexiglass prison. Roger's collapse and Schwarzwald's triumph was more than enough distraction. Thankfully, the water was only up to Angel's waist and Dorothy shattered the top part of the glass before kicking out the bottom.
"Dorothy!" Angel gasped as the pull of the water forced her to stagger into the android's arms. "Thank goodness! What's happening to Roger?"
"He knows the truth," Dorothy replied lifelessly. "He knows that he's not the man he thought he was."
"Oh my gosh, Roger!" Angel gasped. "Roger! Can you hear me?"
Up on the balcony above the room, Schwarzwald pulled a lever that activated a spotlight that fell upon the two women. "What?" he sputtered as he looked down at the lineless white face looking back at him. "The android! It seems that the creator of these lies can't let go of his delusions! I'll have to destroy that infernal automaton once and for all!"
He pulled a switch and the room lit up revealing its dimensions and the fact that in each of the corners was a large hulking, vaguely humanoid shape. They were large hulking things that seemed instinct with a fearsome and unnatural malignancy and were of a somewhat bloated corpulence. The things were vaguely reminiscent of the strange diving suits that Paradigm's men had worn the last time Roger and Angel visited an underwater city, but were of a heavier type. For each one, the entire torso was covered by a thick metal carapace. The head if one could call it that protruded directly forward from the upper chest area, and is encased in a hemispherical helmet studded with eight lit portholes. A large, fully-functional conical drill was attached to the right arm just forward of the elbow, and these started noisily spinning as eight little portholes in the hemispherical head glowed red with menace. As one, they shuffled forward, surrounding the cowering women who had retreated to the center of the room.
On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:
Next: The Man You Want to Be