Eclipse
by DoraMouse
ooxoo
Loop: November 23rd, 763 A.D.
Here's a story caught in a loop. Here's a story falling apart and coming together in new ways.
Once upon a time, every wealthly family on Earth had employed its own private army. Wars between clans had been frequent - almost a daily affair. And then, just over two hundred years ago, several of the more powerful clans had united and made notoriously short work of their opposition. After some quick but bloody internal conflicts were settled, a surviving warlord had declared himself the World Emperor. His allies had become the World Government and their clans formed the bulk of the Imperial Army. The few surviving enemies had almost immediately banded together to become a rebel organization known as the Red Ribbon Army.
And then, things got bad.
Red Ribbon had stopped being an army and started being a business. A mostly illegal business. They had still called themselves an Army, at that time. And they maintained the soldiers, to protect their business. And the business grew, it covered the globe and took many guises. But product development can require some inventive research.
The early androids had been the result of young scientists showing off. Practically a dare. A nudge of: "Yea, well I bet you can't do this..." between the sorts of people who tended to speak fluent Math around strangers. That was all.
Built back in 733 A.D. Android 1 had been a relatively simple design - affectionately described as a vacuum cleaner on tank treads - that could be programmed to do a few minor industrial chores. Technically, Android 1 hadn't even been an android. It had been a domestic robot. The builders were aware of this. But they were also the sort of people who might have named their dogs Kitty, just to be obnoxious. These students had considered themselves the New Minds of Science and had loved to make a statement, as it were, without actually ever saying much. They had calculated the wind chill of the labs and had worn long sleeved coats on bright spring days. Yes, every little thing these young people had done proudly declared them as intellectual rebels.
733A.D... Thirty years ago... Dr. Gero had been a younger man, still in college. He'd known mostly about geology. College was expensive though and few employers were willing to work around a students class schedule. Jobs had been hard to find. Honestly, he wouldn't have found this one on his own. His classmates had gathered to study in the dorm one evening and had made a few complaints about the science labs of the university not being very well equipped. How could they test out all their ideas, with such restrictions? Ah, his friends. What scholars. They were all so obssessed with just the ideals back then... The fact that the college was hard up for cash and could not afford to fund every experiment had not seemed a rational excuse, to these students. It hurt their pride to be passed over. It hurt their professional chances of doing well in the future, as well. Many of his peers had lashed out and had gone underground. Literally. Dr. Gero had gone with them, just tagging along out of curiousity. He could still remember that first day, when he'd seen the facility... Red Ribbon had existed as a business even back then and the scale of their labs had made the space at the college seem a poor joke by comparison. Yes. It WAS Red Ribbon, the historically infamous band of criminals but how could anything so wonderful as the pursuit of truth and knowledge and dreams be illegal?
Building domestic robots was a break from the real work. Something for the competitive lab partners to tinker with and argue about while patiently waiting for the results of their other experiments. Android 1 had been built in a rush and had fallen apart within a month. They'd grinned and challenged each other to build something better. Another little race, tucked neatly between the real experiments, had begun. It was strange to think about, now. Dr. Gero couldn't even remember what sorts of products they had been developing for Red Ribbon at the time. All he could remember was the forming of teams in the lab, the smirking and hammering and clinking of the mechanical race between intelligent peers. The ritual stealing and sabotaging of parts. The endless but stimulating arguments. The ideas. The complexity of the project growing as the teams tried to outdo each other. Their playful bickering had infected every corner of the whole facility, eventually. Everyone had chosen a side.
It was through such spontaneous competitions that they'd built Androids 2, 3 and 4. Who also, really, hadn't been androids. One of the more literal-minded young scientists had commented on the irony of this situation. "Why do we call them that? It's not funny anymore. If we're going to keep calling them that then we ought to build an actual android." Thus the new challenge had begun.
Android 5 had mostly been a domestic robot. The proud construction team had hailed him as the first true android, anyway. He was, at least, semi-android. The shift in engineering had begun. So many new techniques and processes had been used.
That had been Dr. Geros own doing. He had been through his harrowing traffic accident by then. He'd lost his legs. Been confined to a wheelchair. Had turned to his trusted friends for help. The old man smiled at the thought of it. Android 5 was still his favorite invention, to date. They'd done the tests for artificial limbs with 5. Dr. Gero hadn't been about to trust his own life to something that he couldn't test first. You wouldn't just invent something and attach the first version of that invention to yourself, where your legs used to be and then try to stand up. That wasn't logical. What if the invention didn't work? So yes, 5 had been given a limited voice and the ability to respond to some voice commands but it was the legs that had been Dr. Geros main concern. With a level of passion that might be expected from anyone who knew that the results could free them from being bound to a wheelchair for the rest of their life, he had attacked the project.
And he could now stand, on a set of perfect artificial limbs, because of it. And once you've had success like that, why stop? There was so much potential, in the use of artificial limbs...
Red Ribbon had chosen that moment to recognize his potential. He'd been promoted. Dr. Gero had been put in charge of the business and research side of the most dangerous criminal organization on Earth.
Twenty or so years ago, there had been not one but two commanders. The infamous Commander Red - the natural heir of an ancient clan, as his name would indicate - had come into power. Red was a full grown adult man who had only been at knee-cap height around most of his suboridinates. For some inexplicable reason, all of Reds most trusted assistants were exceptionally tall people. This was a fact that had grated on Reds pride. So when Red had taken control of the massive rebel army, his first commands had involved terrorizing everyone that had ever picked on him - an act that, by itself, had greatly reduced the armies power. Red had killed all the soldiers that had ever dared to look down their nose at him and given the height difference... That was not a small percentage. The military might and fearsome reputation of the Red Ribbon Army had gone downhill from there. Things had deteroriated to the point to where Commander Red had proceeded to convince his entire staff to adopt color-coded names. Red had even given an order that they ought to be searching the world for a set of magical artifacts that nobody was sure really existed. He had promised them that Red Ribbon would become invincible and rule the world but his true agenda had been revealed to be far more simple: his sole ambition had been to become tall.
Read that again: Commander Red was a short man who just wanted to be taller.
No, really. Read that again. Think about it.
Dr. Gero could still not get over the... There weren't even WORDS that could begin to do justice to... But he'd thought some, anyway. Especially when first given the news. And his thoughts, if they had been heavily censored, might have gone something like this: You complete and utter moron, Red! You total and relentless FOOL. I am right over here working FOR THE SAME ORGANIZATION and my most famous invention is THE ARTIFICIAL LIMB. Why did you ever need to go looking for any stupid magical artifacts? I could have made you taller!
The unedited version of those thoughts could have turned into a novel. It would not have been a bestseller.
Really, the sheer ignorance of the whole scenario had just appalled him. In retrospect it was not a surprise to Gero that it had only taken one child - an abnormal child but STILL a child - one day to defeat the farce that Red had allowed the Army to become.
Dr. Gero had not mourned the lost of his military colleagues, those thirteen years ago. He had wanted to give them a good solid kicking with an equally solid artificial foot. The idiots!
On the plus side, Reds appalling lack of brainpower and consequent death had allowed Dr. Gero to be appointed as the sole Commander of the largest criminal organization in the world. And the disaster had allowed a few surviving Red Ribbon soldiers to emerge from the ruins of the military headquarters, announcing in traumatized voices that they needed a weapon better than bombs. Smarter than bullets. Able to tell the difference between friend and foe.
By then, Android 8 - the first to demonstrate true sentience - had declared himself to be too good for his makers. He had refused to obey orders and had left during the battles. There were even rumors that 8 had helped the enemy. Not wishing to risk further betrayal, Androids 6 and 7 had been deactivated and scrapped on that very same day. Dr. Gero had seen to it himself. Android 9 had already been under construction. That construction had been suspended for a while. After much debate and several changes to his original programming, 9 was completed. He was the first to have an internal bomb.
Progress had been slow. In part because of further debates. There were just so many variables involved and the process was always changing. The Red Ribbon scientists were constantly rehashing the details. They weren't just building lab assistants anymore. They were building weapons. The genetic children and prototype android testing system had all been created during this time, to ensure that only the best weapons got through.
Android 10. The first weapon.
No, that was a lie. The first weapon hadn't actually been an android. Somewhere between finishing 9 and starting 10... The Crane Master had come to them, carrying the remains of his little brother. A deal had been struck. A barter of talents more than an exchange of money. The Crane Master had joined their ranks. Red Ribbon had worked with a near-corpse for the first time. They'd worked with some actual corpses by then - 7, 8 and 9 - but not a near-corpse. Tao Pai Pai had become a cyborg and had been alert for most of the operations. It had been a new experience for the scientists, as well.
10 had been completed. He'd been the first android to kill his genetic opponent, a feat that only the cyborg had accomplished before. But now 10 had supposively been detonated and destroyed. Red Ribbon only had reports of this. They hadn't found his remains.
Androids 11 and 12. A young male and female. The first androids to not look like androids. They had passed as humans, in appearance. Had blended in. Their main purpose had been to gather data. Both had functioned acceptably. They had been given some weapons and had passed the fight tests but were programmed more for obedience than for fighting. 11 had been detonated, Red Ribbon had seen the evidence. 12... Their first female android, 12. Had she been destroyed when the underground labs were blown up? That was the assumption. No one had seen her in a while. It was a shame. She had done well, had gathered some good information. She had brought them all sorts of useful trivia taken from Capsule Corporation. Including the blueprints for something called a gravity room.
That Dr. Briefs... Dr. Gero hated to admit it but he felt something like admiration. If only he were on our side...
And for no particular reason at all, the thought stuck.
It wasn't logical. It was risky. Capsule Corp was a power unto itself. The wealth and influence that company wielded... There would be consequences, for angering them. And you couldn't expect a kidnapped person to help you out with highly illegal projects. Unless, somehow, Dr. Briefs could be tricked into helping them without realizing... No. It was nonsense. The man was a genius. He would catch on. He'd report them. Even if he didn't report them, he'd learn. You couldn't show a man like that how to build an android and then expect him to go home and forget. He would use the knowledge for something else. They'd just be empowering him. Unless they killed him. But he wasn't going to work on anything, if he figured out that he was dead anyway.
Not to mention that the World Government would be upset if anyone raised a finger to Capsule Corp. Because Capsule Corp had more authority than the Government did, in more than few places. Dr. Briefs was so popular, he was beloved. A cultural icon. They'd lose the trust of the general public if they went against him. And Red Ribbon needed the trust of the general public. Because they needed the money of the World Government. And they needed the money because they'd made a deal... A year ago - already a year! - the hostile aliens had landed. Earths Special Forces had died, for the most part. The warriors were alive again now but they had died, you couldn't forget that. They had failed. The world may have been saved overall but the damage had been done. The warriors had shown that they were incapable of defending the planet. So Red Ribbon had promised to build an android that could.
And they just had to get it done now because winning was the only way to save face. The only way to beat the World Government at their own game. Red Ribbon could not afford to lose. Dr. Gero was determined that they wouldn't. Not under his leadership.
They'd had four new androids under construction, before the Red Ribbon underground labs had exploded. Android 13 should have been the first to fly. Android 14, the remains of their infamous cyborg waiting to be reconstructed. Android 15...
So much potential. Such a waste. Dr. Gero frowned. He didn't like waste.
Only one android case had been salvaged from the ruins. It had been a damaged corpse to begin with, huge and strange to see. The explosion of the labs had not improved matters. But building the cyborg had taught them a lot. And building the genetic children had taught them a lot. And Red Ribbon already had a live volunteer, to help speed the process of this construction. A new location, a new lab coming together. New scientists being trained. New ideas taking shape. The excitement was tangible. The work was beginning again.
Android 16.
What will you be? Dr. Gero wondered, scrutinizing the sketches. The first android to fly? A weapon better than 10? Will you betray us, like 8 did?
The sketches were a rough draft. They were covered in notes and formulas. Red Ribbon scientists had proposed many changes. They always did. Every finished project taught them something and inspired improvements. The only note on this sketch that was circled and underlined and highlighted though... Was about the armor. The inside of a gravity room, according to the stolen bluepint, was made from a material that could withstand pressures of four hundred times the Earths own gravity. If Red Ribbon could build android armor out of that...
So. Dr. Briefs had helped them, then. In his own way. Without knowing.
Although... Dr. Briefs had challenged them, as well. Again, without knowing. Dr. Gero turned a page. A steely glint of resolve in his eyes as he followed the flow of ideas. Several of the notes and sketches on the next page were also highlighted and underlined. Some were written in all capital letters. Because if Red Ribbon was going to build an android with such drastically improved armor... Then, in order to secure the loyalty of their mechanical servant, they were also going to have to build an android whose internal bomb was... Nuclear. Atomic. Hydrogen. Maybe all of the above. And then some.
ooxoo
Here's a story caught in a loop. It twists and bends and shows you a new side.
The happiness of a bright young geologist, ended abruptly in a traffic accident. The path of a wheelchair to artificial legs. The dream of a future...
A future without pain, disease or aging. A future without violence. No crime, no traffic accidents. No waste. Everyone gets to be healthy and beautiful. Everyone gets to be educated. What a lovely place. It was achievable. It was sustainable. Why should artificial limbs only be available to people who had lost their natural set? Artificial limbs were so much better! Perfection!
Perfection... Maybe such a dream was more than humanity deserved. Or maybe it was EXACTLY what humanity deserved.
To replace the organic with the artificial... To throw in a bit of programming at no extra cost... Perhaps that was not enough. Perhaps the true definition of perfect did not need to include humanity at all. Humans could be such idiots. They caused nothing but trouble and suffering, to each other and to everything around them! Humans had failed him and shunned him and sued him. Humans were the cause of that traffic accident, so long ago. Humans had chopped off his crushed legs. Humans had told him to be content with the wheelchair. Dr. Gero had proven them all wrong, had invented his way into a profitable position and respected, if illegal, career. But... How could he forgive such things?
Humans were the source of all doubt. In a perfect future there was no place for doubt. No need for doubt. Doubt was a main ingredient in greed and fear and injustice. A perfect future could not, therefore, have doubt.
Doubt was not logical.
This idea had not come easily. Dr. Gero still resisted it. He was human, mostly. Why bother to create a perfect future that didn't include himself? Why linger on the idea of a non-humanoid android? 10 had been less humanoid than average. A bit of an experiment, there. Dr. Gero hadn't approved of that but he'd let his people work on it anyway. He'd expected 10 to be a total failure. But... 10 had done well, for a while. Was that how perfection should look? A strange metallic thing? A humanish-kangaroo crossed with a military jet?
A weapon?
In a world with no violence, in a world with no doubt... What good was a weapon? Should there even be weapons, in a perfect world? No. No. That didn't make any sense. Yet Red Ribbon was building weapons. They were giving people artificial limbs, better and better all the time, that included weapons. What had happened to the dream? Where was this vision going?
Maybe the weapon... Had a different place. Not as part of the perfect world but as a means of creating the perfect world... The weapon could provide a way to get rid of all the undesirables...
A year ago... The pair of hostile aliens... But the warriors, the best and strongest warriors on the Earth, had shown that they were incapable of defending the world. So... Red Ribbon had promised to build an android that could defend the Earth. Which meant... The android that Red Ribbon built... Had to be stronger than the warriors who had failed. Had to be stronger than the alien who had escaped. And that was just to defend the Earth. If, instead, they truly wanted to conquer the Earth... They would have to build an android stronger than the Imperial Army. Stronger than any weapon that Capsule Corp might invent. Stronger than any escaped genetic child.
They would have to build an android stronger than all of humanity, including those parts of humanity who now had one or two artificial limbs.
How to achieve such power?
It must be understood. It must be appreciated. The gap in understanding was immense. The name Freezia and the word Icejin did not exist to Red Ribbon. They had never heard of the evil monster or his species. They were aware of the existence of Nameks - since there had been around sixty of them stranded on Earth for a time and also because of the memorable history that Daimio and his son had left the world with - but not of the actual word 'Namek'. Nameks were called demons.
Goku was 'that annoying brat who destroyed the old military headquarters'.
Red Ribbon had no real clue of anything beyond that. Most of their information about the warriors of Earth had come from conducting interviews at previous Tenkaichi Budoukais. Their agents had interviewed all of the eliminated warriors, all the defeated opponents - at least the ones that had been able to catch their breaths and who hadn't run away or needed immediate medical care. Red Ribbon had also taken notes during the Crane Masters rants. They'd done some research and studying, learning what they could of each warrior. Androids 11 and 12 had been created as tools to improve that research. And the data gathered on the adult triclops, during his short capture and tracked release, had taught Red Ribbon a lot. But... Red Ribbon did not have agents in outer space. And they regarded Gohans television debut as evidence that maybe someone else had built a genetic child, they suspected Capsule Corp. As for the invading aliens...
Tenshinhan was not the only elite warrior to have ever been captured by Red Ribbon. He was only the most recent.
To the majority of Red Ribbon, Vegeta was just an alien who had left some craters on their world about a year ago and they weren't sure why. To a very select few scientists working under Dr. Gero, Vegeta existed as 'folder 571' and collecting the file of samples had been easy.
Aside from being arrogant to a fault and short-tempered to begin with, Vegeta had been deeply confused. Being reincarnated for the first time ever, for no apparent reason by near-complete strangers on a populated planet that is way more tranquil than any sane warrior could handle... Vegeta had not adapted well to these kinds of shocks. He'd resented the act of mercy because it didn't settle well with his pride that he had needed an act of mercy in the first place. He had felt the need to deal with all of this by picking fights and had spent the majority of his time stranded on Earth doing just that. Red Ribbon truly did not understand the angst. However they did understand the power of distant unnatural explosions. It hadn't taken a rocket scientist - just a few brave forensic biologists - to follow the trails of blood. Hence, the gathered samples. And the warriors moved so fast that by the time the scientists arrived at a new crater, the fighters were long gone. And that was fine by the scientists because it made collecting the samples a less dangerous job. They had avoided the warriors notice, most of the time.
There had only been once, months ago, that they'd found him unconscious...
Vegeta had, according to the annotated reports: woken up too soon, mumbled something about a regeneration tank(sorry boss, we don't know what that is), gone very quiet, realized that the half-open android case where they'd been storing him was NOT a regeneration tank, twitched, screamed, blown up the entire convoy of armored vehicles that had been delegated to transport the android case(like they were nothing, boss!), smirked, made some witty(I didn't think it was witty...) remarks about the flaming wreckage, smacked a few dazed survivors off a cliff, leveled the cliff, taunted whatever pathetic(his words, not ours...) cowering lifeforms were still in the area and then escaped via casually flying away. (Good riddence. Uhm. Unless you want us to go after him, boss?)
Thus the words Saiyan and Super Saiyan did not appear in any of their vocabularies, down at Red Ribbon. But they did have a rough idea of the concept. And more importantly, they had samples.
It must be understood. To build an android stronger than any of these things - stronger than Nameks or Saiyans or Icejins - those concepts were not written on the android blueprints. Because essentially, Red Ribbon didn't know what these things were. All they knew was that the androids might need to be stronger than anything they'd ever imagined. And they had begun to imagine Android 16, who was barely under construction but already pushing the limits of science.
Sometimes the most alien of things can be built without any knowledge of actual aliens. What does that say about the builders?
And how to achieve such power?
They had new genetic samples but would those be enough? They had plans for better armor and explosives but would those be enough? They had the lessons of thirty years and countless experiments...
Dr. Gero had been dedicated to his profession for more than thirty years. His visions of a perfect future... Had changed and grown and bubbled in his mind. He wasn't sure anymore, of the path to this future. Would he need to kill the whole of humanity to get a glimpse of the perfect world? Was it something that he could force or trick humanity in to becoming a part of? He didn't feel very patient, anymore. He wanted to see the paradise before him. He wanted to retire there. He knew that his perfect future could happen. How to make it so? How to speed things up?
ooxoo
Here's a story caught in a loop...
The madness spins and stretches the universe. The string gets distorted and falls back in on itself. Or maybe it falls apart and is replaced by something different. Sometimes, it can be hard to know.
Math. The art of using numbers to paint a picture that almost nobody else can see but everyone can read. Every situation exists, somewhere. We just don't always know where. Everything happens for a reason, we just don't always know why. Every problem has more than one possible answer, when you get to a certain point. We just don't always know when.
But we can try to make educated guesses, sometimes.
The math of life translates well into a story problem. It leans on philosophy, hangs out with science and flirts with magic. A tiny butterfly flutters its wings. Does it cause the hurricane? Count the ways, list the answers. An infant boy crashing to an alien world in a spacepod - does he become a hero among the natives? Stranger things have happened. What are the odds? Place your bets.
If a monsterous tyrant in your galaxy starts with hundreds of planets in his collection... And then you fight with himin order to try and take away just one planet... But while doing so you upset your wife, lose a best friend, traumatize at least six other friends, endure being bodyswapped with a complete stranger, witness at least seven deaths, bury a helpful rival and nearly kill an entire alien population... Oh and THEN you are left with under five minutes during which you alone need to convince three separate gods to gather fourteen dragonballs spread across two worlds in order to summon both eternal dragons for a couple of hurried wishes... It should have been four wishes in total but you're out of time, sorry. Even as a transformation that you never knew you were capable of more than triples your power and gives you a bad hair day... Then where does that leave you, exactly, when the planet that you were trying to defend blows up? Be detailed. Show your work. Need some extra credit? Estimate the cost of the counseling that your only child will now require. Because he was there for most it too. Use an extra form, if needed. Cite your sources. Attach receipts.
If a woman can sneeze and change her hair color then what can the gods do? What can the universe do? Speculate. Mark your answers clearly.
If a criminal organization works diligently for more than two hundred years without being able to reach their one goal of ruling a single world... If a brilliant but increasingly antisocial scientist invests more than thirty years of his life and both of his natural legs into creating sixteen androids, one of which might still exist and one of which is under construction... Plus one cyborg, beyond repair... Plus at least ten genetic children, only six of which had lived to escape... Plus hundreds of thousands of artificial limbs, sold to ordinary citizens... Then is the value of a dream inflated or deflated? Does a perfect future equal impossible or more possible, when effort is multipled? Can dedication alone bend the streams of time? Can a person who has made the most of their past pull their future into a loop?
The Earth had never truly been peaceful. Not this Earth nor any other Earth.
The future was a big place. Some of it was far away and uncertain. Some of it was closer and would happen soon. Some of it danced inbetween and got tangled. The parallel worlds turned at sharp angles, snaring each other.
An unlikely piece of cosmic unrest entered the atmosphere.
The machine was a blur engulfed in the light of high speeds. It fell across the sky in an wide arc, a barely audible roar trailing behind it. Somewhere, perhaps, there was a version of Earth where this would have been more widely noticed. An Earth minus the dark clouds that had fallen a bit more than one month ago. An Earth plus working radar and satelitte systems, perhaps. The machine slowed, dropping altitude. It became less blurry as the light enveloping it started to fade. There was a bubble of reinforced glass and a collection of sturdy landing gear. It looked like a mechanical squid, propelled across the sky by three large rockets and only big enough to contain one passenger.
It was in a loop. It fell out of a loop. It made a new loop.
It left ripples in Time.
The future became a murky riddle with multiple choice answers. The existence of Earth became even more of an unresolved equation than usual.
The machine thudded into a harsh landing. The glass bubble cracked on impact but held together. The craft bounced and came down, twice and then three times. It rolled to a stop. The rockets sparked then went silent. There was a plink of cooling metal. A hiss of releasing pressure. The landing gear trembled into place as if it were elderly and the machine, which had landed sideways, gradually righted itself. A hatch swung open with a creak. There was a creature, inside the machine. It was small and greenish with spots. It had a beak and a tail and claws. It tumbled out of the machine, weakened by the journey. Possibly even weakened before the journey. It crawled a short distance, squinting in the light. It burrowed into the ground.
It settled down to do some math. That always made it feel better.
Android = do not need to sleep. However, damage = severe. Activating hibernation mode. Estimated time before repairs are complete = calculating. Question: what is repair priority? Hibernation mode = activated. Powering down. Internal power = stablized. Emergency damage control = activated. Repair priority = analyzing, please wait.
It did not need to have powered down. It had landed in some mountains. The mountains were a natural ki block. No one had detected it. A few creatures on Earth had noticed its arrival but none had detected it. And perhaps they wouldn't, for years.
Resolved: more repairs = longer total hibernation time. Approval? Yes. Repairs = mission critical. Power down = complete. Analyzing repair priority. Stage one repairs: Vital Functions. Stage two: Armor. Stage three: Secondary Systems. Stage four: Weapons. Approval? Yes. Processing. Commencing repairs. Repairs in progress. Stage one, tier one of 4.6K: two percent complete... Energy conservation rate = Optimized. Question: run safety check? Yes. Checking. Safety prompt: Identity = Cell? Affirmative. Question: goal of reaching the past = accomplished? Calculating...
ooxoo
Authors Footnote: I am aware that in the DBZ movies the androids 13, 14 and 15 do exist as completed warriors. This is fanfiction. With this story I'm trying to improve on the canon, make sense of it. If these last chapters seem rushed, I apologize but they were. Chapters 19 through 27 came to me - from rough draft to finished version - within the space of two weeks. This story is virtually writing itself. Sometimes, it's all I can do to keep up. Don't know if I'll get back to androids 13, 14 and 15. We'll see. When I get offline today, I will be working on chapters 30 through 32. I don't think the movie-only androids make it into any of those. Maybe this story doesn't need them.
ooxoo
