Silence, it was infuriating, pacing his office Geros was about to go out of CPU just waiting. He had to wait to hear anything about Xerxes, he had to wait on the engineering team to excavate the rebel's base, he had to wait to find the survivors, it was almost more than he could stand. He wanted to get to the bottom of this entire situation and find out exactly what was going on and with who, in order to keep himself occupied he decided to head over to the lab and see if the science team there had anything to report about the stasis pod, maybe it held some of the answers he was looking for. Exiting his office before he fried a neural filament going over the situation the general walked through the halls of the administration building exiting the lobby on his way to the N.A.R.I. building, more than anything he was just as curious about what the boy was as much as he wanted to bring the conflict to an end. The one thing he had discovered through his own research before ever giving any of the information to Dr. Verdin was that he was using a bio-masking field, something he was wearing, or possibly something inside of him, gave a false sensor reading that said he was human. That much Geros already knew was crap there's no way a 'simple' human could stand up to him in hand to hand combat, it was physically impossible.

The neatly manicured lawns and white marble walkways of Neo Arcadia were beginning to thin out as night set in, the people were settling into their homes for the night and many a business had already closed their doors. As he always did Geros stopped for a moment looking at the statue of Dr. Light before continuing on into the N.A.R.I. building, even here things were toned down from the usual buzz of daily activity, only a few scientists and research assistants were walking the halls. Cutting a few sharp turns down the cold metal corridors the general walked into the lab where the stasis chamber had been brought and opening the door he found a pair of engineers taking it apart while the scientists themselves were all huddled around something he couldn't see from the doorway. It was curious because they should have already had the chamber stripped down to the frame by now, instead it sat in the middle of the room with only two people tending to it, walking up behind the group he saw them all intently studying what looked like black box with a hand print on it. Two feet long by one foot wide it was only a few inches thick and had no ports, no identifying markings, nothing that told him what it was for or where it might have come from. "General Geros," one of the scientists said finally noticing him standing there. His presence announced finally the entire group, save for the woman studying the box, turned to look at him, "What is that Dr. Fields," Geros asked.

"Well that's just it," an old gray haired woman said, "we don't know."

"Have you scanned it?" Geros asked.

"Yes, and the computer doesn't know what it is either," Dr. Fields said.

"Could you be a little more specific?" Geros asked.

"It has no access ports, no markings, no assembly seams, and it's made of a material the computer can't identify or scan through. It appears to be metal but it doesn't identify as any of the one-hundred eighty-six elements on the periodic table or a combination thereof, I think we may be looking at number one-hundred eight-seven. One of the lab assistants even volunteered to place his hand on the imprint but nothing happened, my guess it that there's a bio-scanner inside designed to activate only for one specific person, the question is who though," Dr. Fields said. Geros had a pretty good idea though he kept it to himself, "Have you found out anything else about the chamber?" he asked. "We did a complete structural analysis and aside from this black box nothing seem to be out of the ordinary, although we're still disassembling it for a full visual inspection. We were however able to reconstruct some of the data from the chamber's control station and I think you'll find this to be most interesting." Dr. Fields said. Having been talking to the general with her face in a microscope that was over the black box the entire time she looked over at him finally motioning for him to follow as she walked into her office at the far end of the room, taking a seat behind her desk in a small work area Dr. Fields accessed the computer inputting an encrypted passcode to access it.

Geros also noticed that when she accessed a data file, rather than bringing it up on holo-display she activated a flat screen concealed in the top of the desk. The information that scrolled along was almost entirely corrupted information and unreadable, but several sections appeared to have been reconstructed, "You're not going to believe this," Dr. Fields said. She scrolled to one section in particular bringing up a display, Geros stared at it for a moment, then pointed at it as he looked over at her, "Is that..."

"Yeah," Dr. Fields said.

"That's impossible," Geros said.

"That's what I thought too until I saw this, at first I thought I had reconstructed the information incorrectly, but after triple checking it the results were the same each time. It's an unknown type of metal... with a genetic sequence. Deoxyribonucleic acid, amino acids, proteins, everything needed to construct... something, with the ability to transcript itself into related nucleic acid RNA.," Dr. Fields said.

"How?" Geros said.

"That's what I'd like to, until now I didn't think something like this was scientifically possible. Organics and technology, humans and reploids respectively, have been mutually exclusive lifeforms since you species was first created centuries ago. But this, even a century old, this is beyond anything I've ever seen before in my entire life, if I didn't know any better I'd say someone found a way to bridge the gap between the two," Dr. Fields said.

"What are you saying doctor?" Geros asked.

"Simply put, someone took reploid technology, combined it with organics, and created an entirely new form of life, something like this would be capable of everything both a human and reploid were, possibly more," Dr. Fields said.

"Can you tell anything about how this was accomplished, the tech used to achieve... this," Geros said motioning to the screen.

"Not a clue, these are only scan logs from the stasis chamber, without being able to study what was in it in further detail this is all I can tell you, oh, actually there is one other thing I found," Dr. Fields said, scrolling down a little further she brought up another display, "whatever was in the pod has an XY chromosome composition, it's male."

"When you were scrolling though the information I noticed you reconstructed part of the time indexing logs for the chamber, it deactivated eleven days ago at 12:13 pm?" Geros asked.

"Yes, with part of the data from the index still being intact that was where we began trying to reconstruct the data," Dr. Fields said.

"Does anyone else know about this?" Geros asked.

"No, when I reconstructed the logs and saw what was in them I thought you would want to see this first. I would appreciate you throwing me a bone on this one though, I had to yank one of the memory chip out of the chamber's computer core without explanation and I've been fielding a lot of suspicious questions from my colleagues," Dr. Fields said. "Good call, just tell them the truth doc it's been TS-1 classified and you're under strict orders not to discuss it, because I just did and you are now. Do you have the memory chip?" Geros asked. Cutting the display off Dr. Fields leaned over opening the bottom drawer of her desk retrieving a small gray lock box with an electronic security pad on the top, covering her finger with her other hand she punched in eight numbers, Geros could tell by the small beeping noise it made each time she pressed a key, then removed the lid, taking a light green memory chip in hand.

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"It's all right here general," Dr. Fields said.

"And the other chips?" Geros asked.

"Unrelated to this project," Dr. Fields said. Geros took the chip placing it in a small storage compartment in the chest of his chassis, "I want you to delete all of this information from your computer, all back-up files, everything. I'm going to store this information on my personal computer at the office and provide you with an encrypted site to site link in case you need to study it further, but the terminal in your office here will be the only able to access the link. Keep working on the stasis chamber and keep me informed of any changes or new developments," Geros said.

"Of course," Dr. Fields said.

As Geros left the lab there was something nagging at him, eleven days ago at 12:13 pm, that was nine minutes before the mechaniloids attacked the rebels in Zergos, six minutes before he saw that strange boy via video feed for the first time. Standing there in the hall he began reviewing the data transmitted by the mechaniloids, watching the video feeds of them chasing the rebels, was it possible... upon further inspection he saw that the mechaniloids had classified the boy as a civilian and weren't targeting him at first. Several of the shot they fired at the rebels did come close to hitting him and he began to fire back soon after causing them to reclassify him as an imminent threat and thus target him as well. Was it possible that he had woken up from that stasis chamber only minutes before being caught up in the firefight between the rebels and the mechaniloids... was it possible that he was unfortunate enough to simply be in the wrong place at the wrong time? It wasn't uncommon for people in long term stasis to suffer from temporary amnesia, situational confusion, disorientation, and considering the fact he the chamber had been running for over a century it was a safe assumption that any humans he might have known were long dead by now. With these thoughts cycling through the general's neural net it occurred to him that the boy might have ended up with the rebels for no other reason than he had nowhere else to go.

Then there were the two confrontations they'd had personally, both of which he'd been the one to fire first, and as loathe as he was to admit it, the boy probably could have killed him both times but he didn't, a rebel wouldn't have hesitated in taking down a Neo Arc officer, especially him. Perhaps... in his zeal to destroy the rebellion he'd classified an innocent bystander as a rebel because of a series of events that were either beyond his control or current understanding about what was really going on. The next time he encountered this boy, and he had no doubt he would, it seemed that diplomacy might be the best course of action instead of the business end of a plasma buster. The rebels were still fair game to him though, he wanted them brought to trial and executed for treason. With a sigh his thoughts then turned to Major Xerxes, he was still out of commission, they couldn't purge the maverick coding from his chassis, but from they'd told him his memory files, personality template, neural net construction, basically everything that made Xerxes who he was were mostly unaffected and that they would probably be able to salvage the major himself for instillation into a new chassis. Despite the coding's vicious nature and seemingly unstoppable corruption of the chassis the one flaw it had was that it couldn't spread through software as fast as it did hardware, that combined with the major's neural net defenses had given him enough time to be uploaded from the chassis before he was lost forever.

Still lost in thought the general was snapped back to reality by the sound of a massive explosion inside the building followed by a series of panicked screams, from the direction of the commotion it seemed to be coming from the lab the major was in. Dashing through the halls of the N.A.R.I. building his sensors picked up particles of smoke in the air that got denser as he got closer to the source of the explosion, he was about to round another corner when a young blond haired scientist, running full speed ahead and not watching where he was going ran into the general hard enough to almost knock himself unconscious, Geros quickly pulled the man to his feet, "What's going on, what happened?

"It's Major Xerxes he... well not him... it's..." the man stammered.

"Speak English man, did someone reactivate the major?" Geros demanded.

"What? No, the major's being stored and a secured drive in the city mainframe, the maverick coding penetrated the neural net of the chassis and took control, it's trying to destroy everything in sight you've got to do something!" the man said. Geros took off running down the hall, by the time he reached the lab the entire room was in flames, he had already shifted his right arm to it's plasma buster configuration and was readying himself for another knock down drag out fight. When he actually saw the chassis he watched it for a moment, rather than methodically destroying everything in its path it was stumbling around in the flames that had engulfed the lab and seemed to be firing the chassis' plasma buster randomly, in fact it looked like a half-coded mechaniloid that couldn't get its motor servos to work properly. Since he knew the major was stored safely in the city's mainframe he had no problem feeding energy into his plasma buster until it reached it's maximum charge, then targeting the lumbering chassis he fired a single shot directly into the chest. Without the armor plating that normally protected the delicate internal components, that single shot caused a massive explosion followed by a shower of destroyed reploid parts that had once belonged to Xerxes.

"Now why isn't the fire suppression system working?" Geros said looking around.

Since his chassis' coolant system was rated for several thousand degrees fahrenheit he walked into the lab, when he reached the fire suppression control system he saw the problem, a shot from the major's former chassis had destroyed the entire command interface between the lab and N.A.R.I.'s main computer. Being that this was a science lab and not a military base systems here weren't normally designed to withstand a direct shot from a plasma buster, in light of this he ripped out a section of the wall and disconnected one of the command relays higher up where it was undamaged. Opening a small interface port in palm of his hand he connected the wire patching into the lab's internal systems and manually engaged the fire suppression protocols. "Warning, fire suppression protocols have been activated, this lab will seal in thirty seconds, all personnel must report to designated fire safety zones immediately, twenty-seven... twenty-six... twenty-five..." a computer voice announced. Now that everything was under control the general disconnected the relay from the port in his hand, he left the room allowing the automated systems to seal the lab and depressurize the room literally creating a vacuum similar to deep space. There had only been a single body in the room at the time but the the general's sensors could already tell the man was dead, he had no vital signs at all so removing the body wouldn't have mattered, the room wouldn't be depressurized long enough for it to implode anyway.

There was a small gathering of both scientists and security officers at the end of the hall, as he approached Geros held up his plasma buster, "Found a way to purge the maverick coding, might wanna get a clean-up crew for the chassis though." Continuing on he left the N.A.R.I. building the as he decided to call it a night, it was getting late and he needed some time at home to shut down and run a full diagnostic cycle to clear his neural net, tomorrow was going to be a busy day both in his investigation and explaining by he blasted the major's chassis to scrap metal.

The holo-screens throughout Geros's home activated at 8 am the next morning as they always did when the internal sensors detected his presence not only turning to the morning news, but also activating the general's audio sensors which brought him out of the previous night's diagnostic cycle. The general had been in standby mode, seated in a dura-leather chair in the living room, when all of his systems reactivated and his head rose glancing around briefly. Even though was the highest ranking officer in the Neo Arcadian army his home was modest by comparison, a single story white durotanium house with three bedrooms, one used for storage and another designed as a hobby room, and a two car garage, compared to some other high ranking human officers his house was tiny. When the house had activated, as per his programming, it had also opened the living room blinds allowing the rising morning sun to filter into the room giving everything a deep golden yellow glow. Similar to his office in the administrative building there was little in his home in the way of decoration, the chair he was sitting in in the living along with a recliner and sofa, a coffee table with a few data pads from the Neo Arcadian Tech Today publication, a few end tables, and a some pictures on the wall.

When the last of his systems had fully reactivated Geros stood up walking into the kitchen area directly behind the living room, there wasn't even a dividing wall between the rooms giving it a more spacious look. Even though the general didn't need to eat, and most of his chassis weren't equipped for food processing, he did have a fully functional kitchen complete with a dining room table made of wood and six matching chairs just in case any human visitors decided to drop by... which was almost never. He pressed a button on the wall over the recycling unit opening a small compartment in the wall, extending out of this compartment a single circular tray held two small clear plasteel (plastic/steel) containers one foot tall by four inches around, inside one were several smaller cylinders containing replacement fluids for the chassis, the other was empty. By releasing a latch on his abdomen the general opened a sealed compartment revealing two similar cylinders, both with the smaller containers and another filled with fluids that had broken down beyond use. Removing the two containers from his chest he placed them on the counter, then took the new ones from the tray and slid them into place with a pair of small clicks, "Yum, breakfast," Geros said sarcastically. Placing the two used containers onto the tray for recycling he pressed the button on the wall again retracting the tray as well as sealing the compartment in the wall, then in his abdomen.

"...and in late breaking news, not more than an hour ago we received word that the Neo Arcadian Historical Society acquired a truly breath taking artifact. It's been confirmed that Greggory Darvel, president of N.A.H.S. paid a staggering 2.5 million credits to acquire the chassis of the robot master Snakeman, you heard me right folks, the chassis of a robot master from the third Wily War has been recovered in amazingly good condition considering the age," the reporter said. That portion of the news broadcast caught the general's attention, he himself had long been a student of reploid history, having always had an interest in his species technological evolution he turned towards the holo-screen to watch. "Here with me now is the president of N.A.H.S. himself, Greggory Darvel," the screen then panned to show Mr. Darvel who was sitting across from the reporter in Channel 63 news room. "Thank you for joining us here today Mr. Darvel, now I'm sure the question on everyone's mind is how you acquired the chassis," the reporter said.

Mr. Darvel, a man Geros knew to be sixty-seven from his public profile, was wearing a modern bright red jumpsuit with lapels similar to a suit and a blue under shirt which was the local rage around the city lately, the general on the other hand considered the outfits loud and ugly, "Thank you Mrs. Sanders, I was approached early his morning by a reploid mechanic from the town of Bismark. He was interested in selling me this chassis and at first I was suspicious of course, with all the fraudulent technological relics out there today one can never be too careful. After several tests confirmed the chassis was real, along with memory engrams he had salvaged from the CPU itself of the battle with Mega Man, which will also be on display with the chassis, were proven authentic it was an opportunity I just couldn't pass up," Greggory said.

"The other question I'm sure others are asking is were N.A.H.S. came up with the 2.5 million credits to buy the chassis," Mrs. Sanders asked. Geros already knew the answer to that, they didn't, Greggory Darvel wasn't just the president of N.A.H.S. he was also known for being in charge of several successful large scale business ventures in Neo Arcadia which had made him excessively wealthy, the general paused for a moment thinking about the fact he had almost two million credits in his own account, but that was the result of nine decades of military service, some smart investments, and the fact he didn't spend excessively, his home and the hover car he was restoring were his largest purchases he'd made in decades. "It didn't, while N.A.H.S. relies on donations from the public and government funding to operate it's by no means a wealthy organization, I purchased the chassis with credits from my own personal account then donated it to the local museum here in the city," Greggory said. "That was an amazing act of generosity Mr. Darvel, do you plan to have the chassis repaired before it's put on display?" Mrs. Sanders asked. The donation wasn't just generous, it was also great for PR and tax write offs Geros thought. "Absolutely not, the battle with Mega Man is just as much a part of history as the chassis itself, but for those curious minds out there we will also have an undamaged replica chassis on display so everyone can see what Snakeman looked like prior to the battle," Greggory said.

Not due to start his shift until nine Geros decided to stop by the museum to have a look at this chassis, even though it wasn't on display yet he had made several donations to N.A.H.S. in the past to help fund research projects looking into reploid history so they often let him have sneak previews of interesting new items, that and he knew better than to touch anything. He checked his data-mail accounts both personal and at the office and finding nothing of interest Geros secured his house before leaving. As he was walking down the the sidewalk he waved back to several of his neighbors, the neighborhood he lived in was a middle class suburb where many of the houses were prefabricated, nearly identical, and it was easy for humans to get lost around here, but he liked it because of the people. Geros had noticed that the vast majority of humans or reploids that became wealthy also developed a serious attitude problem and thought that having millions of credits made them better than everyone else entitling them to better treatment... rich people annoyed him. In fact he had once pitched a bothersome rich human through a window, albeit he had only been activated for a little over a year and still learning to control his emotional sub-routines. Because the man had gotten in his face and shoved him, which was simple assault according to the law, he was allowed to claim self defense but given a stiff warning about the use of excessive force with humans.

As he moved into the city from the outskirts where he lived the bustle of morning activity had already overtaken the streets, bright yellow shuttles flew overhead transporting children to school, personal hover cars clogged the streets, and massive crowds of people were moving about in almost every direction. To avoid the traffic jams, both automotive and pedestrian, Geros walked down a series of lesser used streets, there were still people coming and going but nothing like the main roads. He finally exited onto 'Historic Avenue' where N.A.H.S. had set up several buildings including the museum where he was headed.

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At least the streets here weren't too busy Geros thought. He walked through the main plaza towards the museum there were a small group of people that were peering inside the front of the museum, likely trying to get a sneak peak at the chassis that was causing all the buzz. Activating his internal communicator Geros called the museum's curator, a Yvone Dios by name, the line picked up a few moments later with audio only.

"Hello," Yvone said.

"Good morning Ms. Dios, this is General Geros, although I know it's not standard protocol I was wondering if I could get a peek at the Snakeman chassis you acquired earlier his morning before I go to work," Geros said.

"General Geros, how nice to hear from you. Normally I wouldn't mind one of our financial contributors looking over recent acquisitions but I'm not sure opening the doors with so many excited onlookers would be such a good idea," Yvone said.

"How about the service entrance? I'm headed around back now," Geros said.

"Alright, I'll see you inside," Yvone said.

The call ended after that and Geros waited by the service entrance for a few minutes before one of the workers opened the door letting him in. Moving through several clutter back halls he finally moved through another door into the museum itself. The inside of the museum had a polished marble floor with a high vaulted ceiling, walls with numerous displays behind thick glasteel (glass/steel) windows, and several larger displays in the center of the room including the skeleton of something called a Tyrannosaurus Rex which seemed to be a popular attraction in most museums. One of the displays was missing the glasteel pane and several workers were already setting up the decorations for what Geros could tell would be the Snakeman display. Yvone's approach was given away by the sound of her heels clicking against the stone floor.

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"Hello general," she said, "how are you this morning?"

"I'm doing well Ms. Dios, you?" Geros said turned to look at her.

"I'm fine, thank you for asking, if you'll follow me," Yvone said turning towards one of the halls at the other end of the room. Geros followed after her quietly as she lead him past several doors, then came to a stop at the end of the hall. The door here appeared to be heavily reinforced by durotanium and there was a security access panel next to it with a key pad, hand-print scanner, and retinal scanner. Yvone punched in a series of numbers on the keypad, then placed her hand on the scanner while looking into the eyepiece, a moment later a series of locks inside the door released as it slowly opened, with a smile she looked back at the general, "Some of the items we have are quite valuable, such as our acquisition this morning, so we have to take more serious precautions with them."

"Of course," Geros said.

Inside the secured room there were several metal crate with various markings, a few items on tables, most of which the the general had no data about what so ever, but in the back corner of the room he could see the chassis he was so interested in. Encased inside a metal chamber with a glasteel front it stood quietly waiting to be put on display. "So this is it?" Geros asked walking over to the chassis. "That it is, the newest and quite possibly proudest addition to our collection here at the museum," Yvone said.

"So is it true that this Snakeman was built using pre-X ICMP technology?" Geros asked.

"Yes, he was a robot master during the third war that fought against Mega Man himself as you can see by the hole in his abdomen," Yvone said.

"That must have stung," Geros said inspecting the damage, "do you know who built him?"

"Actually we do, due to our obvious interest in history we already have a few files on him, he was constructed in the early twenty-first century by a corporation known as Tanaka Industries," Yvone said.

"Why would they develop a civil service robot? My data files indicate Tanaka Industries was a cutting edge weapons and arms dealer," Geros asked.

"Yes, they produced some of the most advanced weapons of their day, Tanaka Industries was a multinational ironmonger as some called them, that also developed some of the first hover systems under contract by the military, but you're right Snakeman was actually a civil service robot commissioned for work as a park ranger. Why an arms dealer developed a civil robot, we don't know. The numerous wars of the time caused so much damage and destruction that most of the historical records have been lost, the only reason we know as much about Tanaka Enterprises as we do is because of how large they were." Yvone said.

"Hmm, he appears to be quite advanced for his time period," Geros said.

"He was, Tanaka industries often did a lot of sub-contracting work of Light Labs developing cutting edge android technology, at least they did until the Sniper Joe incident," Yvone said.

"Sniper Joe?" Geros asked.

"Sniper Joe was a military grade mechaniloid created by Tanaka Industries from the technology they helped Light Labs develop, a few months later they sold a copy of the schematics to Dr. Wily. In light of their use during the numerous wars of the day, and Tanaka Industries penchant for selling weapon systems to anyone that could afford them Light Labs eventually severed all ties with them," Yvone said.

"Doesn't surprise me, arms dealers are rarely selective of their clientele," Geros said.

"Snakeman himself isn't still in there is he?" Geros asked.

"Unfortunately no, the mechanic that sold us the chassis said that he check the CPU and that the programming had degraded to the point it couldn't be recovered, our tests confirmed this as well. It's a real shame too," Yvone said.

"So how exactly does a reploid mechanic come into possession of a chassis over three centuries old?" Geros asked.

"From what I heard it was sold to him by a group of what he called kids who came into town desperate to make some credits," Yvone said.

"Really now?" Geros said looking over at Yvone with considerable interest, "I don't suppose anyone got a description of these kids?"

"No, why?" Yvone asked.

"Oh... just curious, thank you for the sneak peak Ms. Dios," Geros said.

"You're welcome general, I hope you enjoyed your visit," Yvone said.

"More than you know," Geros said walking out.