The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Bandai Visual, Sunrise, and Cartoon Network.

THE BIG O:

ACT 37

MORE THAN YOU CAN CHEW

Chapter Twelve: I Forgive You

Later, at Military Police Headquarters Dastun was in his office with Roger Smith taking it back from Elias Browning. The grizzled officer was in uniform and he leaned over the desk to place a document just inches from Eli's face. "Take a look at this order Browning," Dastun sneered. "It removes you from command of the Military Police effective immediately. Get your trash out of my office, because I'm taking it back!"

"What the?" Eli sputtered as he tore the paper out of Dastun's hand and looked at it. "It's been signed by my brother!"

"That's right, this comes from the top!" Dastun barked. "How can I put this to you, Browning? 'You're being let go.' 'Your services are not needed.' 'You're part of an outplacement.' 'We're going in a different direction.' 'We're not picking up your option.' Take your pick. I got more." Get out of my office and get out of that uniform! You're outta here Browning! Don't let the door hit you on the way out!"

Eli looked over Dastun's shoulder where Roger Smith was standing near the open door. "You!" the ex-commandant barked. "You did this! This is your fault! One way or another I'm going to get even with you!"

"Shut up and get packing!" Dastun snapped. "And you better show up to the change of command ceremony this weekend, or I'm going to send out some guys to bring you there in cuffs!"


That evening, Roger was standing on the catwalk in the massive hangar hidden in the white tower he called his home. He stared up at Big O. Norman had removed the face plate exposing a metal skull like visage underneath. It looked exactly like the face of the megadeus that had first caused Dorothy to display fear in front of Roger: the skeletal megadeus he called 'the Archetype'.

"I taught Nucky a lesson but how could I put Dorothy through that?" he muttered as he ignored footsteps on the catwalk that revealed he wasn't alone. "Is there any difference between me and Alex Rosewater?"

"Roger, I forgive you, if that helps," Dorothy announced quietly as she touched his arm. It was a surprisingly welcome gesture of affection that proved how human this girl really was.

"Thanks Dorothy," he smiled sadly as he leaned on the safety railing and glanced down at the floor many stories below. "I sure wish I could forgive myself."

Her hand returned to her side. "If it bothers you so much don't do it again," she offered. "There's no point blaming yourself for the mistakes of the past. The only thing you can do is recognize your errors and make different choices in the future."

"If only it were that simple," Roger sighed. "The thing is, Paradigm City is at a turning point and what I decide in the next few weeks will have drastic repercussions for years to come. With Nucky and his criminal friends in charge the people are fed up and ready to revolt again and I could lead them so easily."

"So why don't you?"

"If I'm willing to place an innocent young girl who I love so dearly in physical danger and mental torture what else am I capable of?" Roger shuddered. "Power corrupts, and if I were any more corrupt I would have to be put down. I don't dare expose myself to that kind of temptation."

"Don't you think you're overreacting?"

"I wish," he grumbled. "If I take over, it will only be a matter of time before all firstborn children will have to be named after me, even the girls."

"Now you're being silly Roger."

"That's why it's so important that you put me in my place," Roger muttered. "You've got to let me know when I'm getting out of line. You used to do such a good job of it and now you're just letting me get away with murder. What happened? What's changed? Why are you so different?"

"Nothing's changed," she assured him. "I'm the same as I always was. I can't change. I'm an android. I will always have the same body and the same heart."

"Don't be ridiculous," he snorted. "What does that even mean anyway?"

"It means that I'm in love with the same man the original Dorothy was and I have no choice in the matter. I will always love you Roger Smith no matter what happens or how you treat me. I'm an android. I have that dead girl's Memories and that dead girl's emotions. I have no choice."

"You have no choice?" Roger repeated. "Is that why you just followed orders blindly? Is that why you can forgive me so quickly? If that's the case how do I know your forgiveness even means anything?"

Silence. Roger had gone too far. Oh well, as long as he had his neck in the noose, he might as well jump off the horse. Anything to dispel this ridiculous hero worship that made her think he was infallible.

"Is your love the same way?" Ugh. That was way too harsh. Roger winced as soon as he said it.

"Yes," she replied coldly. "I love you but it doesn't mean anything Roger Smith. You don't have to deserve it, I'll love you anyway. I have no choice."

"Oh, Dorothy," Roger groaned. "Not having a choice in who you love has nothing to do with being an android. Humans have that problem too."

"Do they really Roger Smith?" she asked with a slight edge to her voice.

"Darn right they do!" Roger snapped. "Do you honestly think I would fall romantically in love with a two year old girl by choice?"

More silence. Roger tried to convince himself that he was acting this way in order to shatter the delusions Dorothy had about him, but in reality he was just being a jerk and he knew it.

"I'm sorry Dorothy, I went too far," he admitted, "but you see how important it is not to let me get away with everything. I made my rules to keep myself in check, but I don't seem to be following them anymore."

"I will forgive you, eventually," she replied coldly. "I have no choice."

"You always have a choice," Roger insisted, "but for some reason you refuse to take it, like when you agreed to my cockamamie plan to teach Nucky a lesson. You should have stuck to your guns and refused when I suggested that crazy idea. The plan called for you to place yourself in danger in the one way I know terrifies you. Why didn't you defend yourself?"

"I didn't have any alternative suggestions to offer," she replied. "At the time, your idea seemed to be the only one we had."

"That's not good enough," Roger growled. "If I come up with a plan that hurts you or puts you in harm's way, I expect you to protest it. If you really care about me you'll stick up for yourself and not just sit back and take it. You're smarter than this Dorothy, why on Earth would you…? Hey, wait a second," he snapped his fingers. "I think I know what's going on here. You've got survivor's guilt. I've seen it a hundred times. This is textbook."

"What do you mean?"

"You feel guilty about the death of your father and all the destruction Big Fau caused don't you?" he asked. "Let's face it; you were part of that thing for a while. It needed your memory drive to function properly. In a way, you were there when it did its worst. To all appearances, you made all that destruction possible. You think that if you didn't exist none of that would've happened don't you?"

"I did make all of it possible Roger," the girl insisted calmly. "If not for me Big Fau would never have obeyed Alex Rosewater. The city would not be so damaged. Hundreds of people need not have died. I don't see what my presence did for Paradigm City in the long run aside of make things worse."

"And you couldn't be more wrong," Roger smiled and shook his head. "Let's go over our history shall we? Let's examine every life or death situation that's happened where your presence made the difference."

"Very well let's," she agreed.

"Suppose that when we first met I negotiated for the return of a human girl, or that Dorothy One had squashed you flat when I defeated it the first time. That takes you out of the picture. Now what?"

"Now my presence doesn't remind you of what you lost and you keep your sanity and Paradigm City remains safe from Big Fau," she replied.

"Think so? Let's see. The next time you made a difference was when we confronted Schwartzwald underneath the city."

"Yes, and my presence brought that dead unfinished megadeus to life," she replied. "Big O's archetype was much more of a threat than Schwartzwald was."

"All right, but let's go forward. How about my battle with Instro and the megadeus he called 'Constance?' You made a difference there didn't you?"

"It is unlikely Instro would have kept the phonosonic attack on Big O long enough to kill you Roger, although you might have damaged your hearing. It is also likely that Constance would have been defeated by the military police after it got to Paradigm City, although not without inflicting a terrible loss of life."

"And how would the military police stop that monster? If Big O couldn't stop it without your help I don't see what Dastun and his men could do."

"Instro didn't want to hurt anybody and was not interested in revenge. Once he saw the devastation he had caused he would allow the military police to destroy him. I would be surprised if he made it all the way to Paradigm Headquarters."

"Okay, now let's go to the next time your presence made a difference," he smirked. "During the case where I confronted your evil twin we call 'RD.'"

"That example doesn't seem to support your argument Roger. You were suffering from nightmares that I had caused…"

"We don't know you caused them," Roger shook his head. "Red Destiny was haunting me like a ghost while she was casing our home. I'd see her out of the corner of my eye and it didn't always register but it did with my subconscious. She was the one who reminded me of what I lost but couldn't remember, not you. You were physical and real. She was spectral and reminded me that the original Dorothy was gone."

"Aren't I a constant reminder?"

"Certainly, on an intellectual level, but psychologically I forget that there ever was another Dorothy but you. But that wasn't the point I was making Dorothy. The night Red Destiny cornered me in my office; she told me the truth of what happened in the train tunnel."

"What did she say?"

"She said that you were an alternate memory unit that could activate a megadeus. She told me that her final assignment was to kill both of us because we were a set. Either one of us could bring Big O to life and both of us together could unlock hidden capabilities."

"That's true."

"She also told me that if it wasn't for you, Big O wouldn't have been able to activate itself and come to my rescue. Don't you remember? You were assisting Norman and were in Big O's cockpit at the time. Big O accessed your higher memory to allow itself to move after I'd been wounded. If it wasn't for you Red Destiny would have killed me."

"I see," Dorothy conceded, "but without me Alex Rosewater wouldn't have gotten Big Fau to do what he wanted. You can't deny that Roger."

Roger shook his head. "I can deny it and of course he would have, he still had Red Destiny!" He snapped his fingers. "She wasn't a prototype at all Dorothy! She was a knockoff! When we visited the robotics lab in your father's house we discovered that someone else had got there ahead of time and taken his research. They used the same blueprints your father drafted to build you. Once they realized that they had the plans for an android that could pass for human they knew they had the perfect assassin on their hands. And afterwards, whether Destiny was built by Paradigm or the Union sooner or later Alex Rosewater or someone working for him would have put two and two together and installed her memory drive in Big Fau. But with both of us absent, there would be nobody to stop him. So you see in the long run it was best for everyone that you were built Dorothy. The world is a better place with you in it."

The little android was quiet and still. For a moment Roger wondered if her central processing unit had crashed. Finally she spoke. "I don't believe you. I didn't save your life, Big O did. You're just trying to make me feel better."

"I'm not lying to you Dorothy, that's what Red Destiny told me. She referred to you as the alternate memory unit and said that Big O accessed your memory in order to save my life. It's the truth Dorothy. You just feel so bad about what happened to your father that you've interpreted everything as negative. You hate yourself for surviving when he died trying to protect you. You think it was your fault he got shot, but it's not. You didn't cause his death; you gave him a reason to live. You're his life's work, his legacy. Don't you see that you're punishing yourself for nothing? Doctor Wayneright knew he didn't have much time left to spend with you when you were built. He wanted you to be happy after he was gone. Can't you make his wish come true?"

"I…"

"You were in Big O when it moved," he put his hand on her shoulder. "Did it access your memory to in order to come to life and save me?"

There was a pause while a quiet electric whir hummed in her head. "Yes. It did."

"So you see that both Paradigm City and I are better off with you around," Roger smiled. "And you needn't feel guilty about your father either. If he hadn't succeeded in creating you, he would have died alone as a bitter old man. Instead he got to see his daughter again and actually smile before he went. Your life is a blessing Dorothy, and you should never think that it's a curse. This world doesn't deserve someone was wonderful as you, not the other way around."

Another pause while the quiet electric whir hummed in her head. "It's not my fault," she finally said. A helpless expression crossed her face as her body trembled and a quiet sigh escaped her lips. "It really isn't my fault. Roger, it's not my fault!" she turned away from him and put her chin between her fists as she closed her eyes. Her face contorted in pain as she spasmodically thrashed about before she finally let out a girlish moan that grew into a mournful howl.

"Dorothy, are you all right?" Roger asked in concern. He wanted to help her and now it looked like he broke her. He had been so concerned about the damage she could do to her system keeping all that emotion inside he never considered the damage she could do to herself letting it all out!

"Don't- touch," she gasped as she gripped the safety rail before falling over backwards and convulsing on the floor of the catwalk. She shut her eyes and howled in pain as Roger sprung her side. "Fa-fa-fa-FA…THER…" she shouted before her words disappeared into an earsplitting shriek.

Roger gripped her shoulders. "Dorothy! Are you… ow!" One of Dorothy's hands slapped him in the collarbone as she thrashed on the floor. She kicked his shin in her epileptic fit and he nearly fell off the catwalk.

"I'm sorry!" Dorothy wailed, although who she was talking to was unknown for her eyes were tightly shut. "I'm so sorry…" she whined before she opened her eyes, deathly calm, her convulsions stopped. She sat up and pulled Roger out of the awkward and precarious position he had wedged himself underneath the railing. "Are you hurt Roger?" she asked in a calm rational voice.

"Dorothy, are you okay?" he stammered as she helped him up.

"Running a self-diagnostic," she quietly announced.

"Would you mind telling me what happened?" Roger asked as he put an arm around her shoulder and limped down the catwalk to a safer room.

"It appears that relaxing my behavioral protocols caused an intolerable buffer overflow error that caused my motor functions to go haywire," the girl replied.

"What does that mean in English?" Roger smiled weakly. "Are you trying to say you lost control of your emotions?"

"I've never wept before Roger," Dorothy said with a hint of indignation. "You can't expect me to get it right the first time, but I'm sure an uncaring louse like you will give me plenty of opportunities to practice until I master it."


After dinner Roger's amazing powers of recuperation had restored him physically, but emotionally he was still vulnerable. He needed to apologize to Dorothy, but she had disappeared after dinner so the young negotiator had to look for her.

He found her in the robotics bay: the room Dorothy had sworn she would never enter again. He hid in the darkness of the hallway as he saw her stand over the inert form of her deactivated twin.

Dorothy's tiny white hand drew back the sheet to reveal Red Destiny's damaged face. Straining his ears, Roger could hear the little redhead's soft stoic voice:

"I forgive you."

To Be Continued


Dorothy and Roger sit on a large hourglass the size of a barstool. Behind them is an orange background. The sound of a piano and the duet of a man and woman singing can be heard.

Sometimes I feel so all alone

Finding myself callin' your name

When we're apart, so far away

Hopin' it's me that you're thinkin' of

Could it be true, could it be real?

My heart says that you're the one.

There's no one else, you're the only one for me.

Yes, this time my love's the real thing.

Never felt that love is so right.

The world seemed such an empty place.

We need someone we could give our all.

Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever.

Could it be true, could it be real?

My heart says that you're the one.

There's no one else, you're the only one for me.

Yes, this time my love's the real thing.

Never felt that love is so right.

The world seemed such an empty place.

We need someone we could give our all.

Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever.

Never felt that love is so right.

The world seemed such an empty place.

We need someone we could give our all.

Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever.


On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Roger's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

Next: Knight and Date