MLaaTR: Maverick Hunter X
By Drewmaster
29. Chapter 29
Two weeks passed with no sign of Maverick activity. Things were a little different now. The building that Jenny and the others were staying in was now empty. All people and useful equipment were moved to a large underground military base. The enormous door to the surface was fortified to withstand a high-level nuclear blast. Also, as added protection, a holographic projector was added to hide the entrance. The grounds surrounding it were covered in dense forest. The entrance appeared to have trees covering it.
Jenny managed to calm down quickly enough to avoid making the others concerned. She felt as though she couldn't afford to worry about the 'why am I here' question for the time being.
Should any of them need to make contact with the outside world on a personal level, careful arrangements were made to make it happen. Or, at least, that was the idea at first. It turned out that any of Jenny's friends and their families were discovered as subject to be prime kidnap targets for hostage situations. They all felt the fate of the world was far more important than worrying about the expense of making accommodations for a few people. So, it was settled, all people with personal attachments to Jenny, Sheldon, and Grace came to live at the base temporarily. These people were Grace's few friends from the orphanage and the two friends she made at the psychiatric hospital that she hadn't seen since she left, Sheldon's parents and one childhood friend (and his father) he hadn't seen in ten years, Brad and his family, Jenny's few friends from school, and finally, Ms. Wakeman's only surviving close relative and sister Wisteria and her son (or creation, as with the case of XJ9) Glenn.
Wisteria was especially not thrilled with the idea of living under the same roof with so many robots and other machines, but she did decide to try to put up with it.
Vexus has still managed to keep her relationship with Charlotte a secret from everyone. There was no need for her to worry about Charlotte's safety. They both agreed to stay away from each other until the situation has concluded before Vexus turned herself in.
Needless to say, but the world's population wasn't happy at all with the idea that Vexus was given protection. They were, however, surprised to know that she actually turned herself in and agreed to fight to help save the Earth. The oddest part was that very few people thought that the story was unbelievable. Most agreed that she must've gotten tired of running and hiding all of the time. The official explanation never covered the part about Vexus breaking down and crying her eyes out and apologizing for every horrible thing she's done to Earth's people. The committee that wrote the official explanation didn't believe the public would buy it.
Commander Signas did make the trip he planned on. He even brought a few other reploids that have helped out in the past before. They weren't officially Maverick Hunters, but they did help out greatly in a battle against a Hunter commander turned Maverick named Colonel Redips. Their names were a female reploid named Marino whose actual occupation was a thief. It was known that she was a thief, but no solid evidence supported her doing anything that was punishable by law. There was another female nurse reploid named Cinnamon. She also managed to become pretty strong when helping the Hunters fight. The third reploid Signas brought with him was a large male reploid named Massimo. He wore thick heavy armor and carried with him a hammer with a huge head. Many supplies were brought with them as well.
Signas had his talk with the President and the other world leaders. He insured them his cooperation and the cooperation of every other Maverick Hunter. He unfortunately couldn't stay as he needed to return home to deal with other matters. He did have time to reacquaint himself with X and Zero and to meet Jenny and the others. Finally, Jenny was able to truly say that she wasn't going crazy. Laying eyes on Signas in person gave her proof that she saw who she thought she saw in the dream.
An explanation for Grace's ability to transform the way she did was also demanded from the public. In the end, the public was made aware that the governments of the world knew nothing beyond the explanation that Angel gave. Many suspected that somebody somewhere did a lot to keep a secret.
In today's news: firearm and ammunition sales have soared recently as Maverick activity is becoming more expected.
Both Nora and her sister Wisteria were working on few things in a laboratory. Glenn and Melody also happen to be in the room with them discussing a few things when X came running into the room frantically with a small box in his hand.
As soon as he stopped, Wisteria asked "Why are you in such a rush?"
"Melody. Now I know why you seemed so familiar to me. I can't believe I forgot all about it," X said.
"Okay…this must be important if you ran half way around this base to see me," Melody said.
"All right. This might sound strange, but it's not your appearance that's familiar at all. It's your energy signature. I know it's weird, but I can sometimes detect the energy patterns emitting from certain people. You happen to one of them. Your energy signature is identical to the signature I detected from a large machine I found in one of Dr. Light's old labs. When I turned it on, it kept saying that it was searching for a match. I turned it off when I realized most of the machinery was too badly damaged to do anything with. I removed the parts that were any good and stored them away. I forgot about it until I went looking through a bunch of my supplies that were brought over here. It's here in this box," X said as he opened it.
There was a small machine inside of it that looked quite a bit like a memory storage device.
"All of the memory is stored in here. Dr. Light apparently once built a robot he named Roll. You know that armor that I used to defeat Dr. Izzy Glow with? It turns out that Dr. Light was developing an upgrade for this robot. I believe it was an armor. Roll must've been either deactivated or destroyed making this research pointless. It's inactive at the moment, but if somehow it can be reactivated, we may be able to find out if this thing can be useful," X explained.
"Wait a minute! Even if that thing works, I'm not so sure attaching something to my body won't hurt me?" Melody asked nervously.
"A legitimate concern. Every one of the other armor upgrades I have came from Dr. Light himself. Technically, I suppose you can say he's still alive, but only as a very basic artificial intelligence. I found all of my other armors inside of capsules hidden around the world. He hid them in case I needed them. Each time, he'll show up as a hologram inside the capsules and say a few things to me about the past and then tell me to board the capsule to get the upgrade. When I board them, they all always check to see if I am the real X first before they actually give me the upgrade. Basically, this machine will determine first if you're a match, and then try to determine if upgrading you is even safe before it tries to actually install itself into you. Since you've been recently upgraded with reploid technology, your chances of not being harmed have gone way up. But, of course, it will let you know if it thinks it's safe at all or not," X explained.
"If it weren't for the fact that my survival is depending on being as strong as possible, I wouldn't even consider it. I'll do it if it is safe," Melody said.
"Looks like another job for Noreen Wakeman. I'll see what I can do with it," Ms. Wakeman said.
"In its current state, you would first half to reconstruct all the missing parts based on the diagram saved into the hard drive, before attempting an actual upgrade. The last time I activated it, I managed to delete the encryption. You won't need to worry about having to break through the security," X explained.
"Hold on a second. Why me? How is that even possible? That thing is from another dimension," Melody pointed out.
"It's from an alternate dimension, not from one that is completely different from our own. I've studied the energy patterns coming through those portals and realized that their world is extremely similar to ours. The chances that this will work are still slim even with that, but if it does work, and you are compatible, this might be beneficial," Ms. Wakeman said as X handed her the box.
"It does seem like everything that Dr. Light guy makes is high quality, so who knows, this might actually be a good thing," Melody said.
After inspecting it, Ms. Wakeman said "The craftsmanship of this machine is incredible. I can tell this Dr. Light definitely knew what he was doing when he made you."
She then walked over to another large machine and began finding ways to connect her computer to the small machine. Every time the screen read error; she would then rearrange the wires she connected to it. About two minutes later, the screen finally began showing signs that it recognizes certain aspects of the machine.
"Now that I'm understanding what track it's on, I can go from there," She said.
She then removed all of the wires that had no results, and then began reconnecting those wires to different ports. A few more failed attempts later, and finally…
"There it is! Now that my computer knows that it's a device, now I just have to decipher the programming language," Ms. Wakeman said as she started typing at abnormally fast speeds…for a human.
Wisteria sighed and said "Such is the fate of us both. I can't understand computers the way you can, but you can't understand biology the way I can. It would take me about a hundred times as long as you to type that much information."
Still typing, Nora said "It would take me probably a thousand times as long as you to put together a functioning biological life form."
The screen then read "ERROR READING PORT #43."
"I was afraid that might happen. Maybe if I connect this one instead…and that's it. That one works," Nora said.
She began typing again, and after about five minutes, the screen read "ATTEMPT TO BOOT OPERATING SYSTEM IN SEPARATE WINDOW? Y/N?"
"That was quick. Even I didn't think you could do it that fast, Aunt Nora," Glenn said.
Nora then pressed the Y key initiate the booting process.
"If it weren't for the fact that X went out of his way to simplify the accessibility as much as he did, it could've taken me hours to do this. I couldn't access most of X's and Zero's latent memory because of the 'out-of-this-world' encryption Dr. Light encoded into his hard drive. There are many sections of his data that are hidden so well that it almost seems as though he doesn't have them. I almost didn't discover their existence myself. It's the same with Zero. Whatever Drs. Light and Wily wanted hidden, they really did an amazing job at it," Nora explained.
"In file size, how much hidden data are we talking?" Melody asked.
"That's the problem. I'm not really sure. Dr. Light purposely installed a program that displays a false estimate of how much data can be stored into his hard drive to fool people. From my calculations, however, I'm estimating his hidden data to be about seven hundred terabytes in size," Nora replied.
"That's a lot of secrets," Melody said somewhat surprised.
"Forgive us for not being computer whizzes, but that's a lot, right?" Wisteria asked.
"The average size of a movie on an old-fashioned DVD is about four gigabytes. Seven hundred terabytes is about a few hundred thousand times the amount of information those old DVDs can store," Nora answered.
"That's one hell of a perspective. It hard for me to wrap my mind around that many ones and zeros," Wisteria said.
"Yes, it is a whole lot of binary code, that's for sure: 165,282,829,004,375,824,793,600 ones and zeros to be exact. I know; it's a lot. That's why we found ways to make computers do most of that work for us. That's just the estimated hidden portion. Anyway, it's time to go to work. It's finally loaded," Nora said while looking at the screen.
"I'm not even going to try to comment on a number that gigantic," Glenn said while scratching his head.
"Ditto," Wisteria added.
The screen flashed a few times, followed by a screen that showed an older man with a large white beard on his face. His face shown only in different shades of blue.
"That must be him," Nora said with a surprised look on her face.
"That's him all right. That's Dr. Light. I forgot how much younger he looks in this picture than the last time I remember seeing him in person," X said.
Finally, the image started moving as if it were talking saying "Roll; this is an upgrade that I designed for you. This upgrade will boost your offense and defense. I urge you to only use this upgrade in times of crisis. I wish weapons of war like this one weren't necessary. I hope that you will only use this to protect those in need. I have faith that you will do the right thing."
The screen then read "LOADING ADDITIONAL MESSAGE."
This time, Dr. Light looked a little older than before, and he looked very sad.
He then said "Very unfortunate circumstances have lead to this. As it stands, I don't know if this upgrade will even be useful. I hope I will not have to find a replacement, but it may be necessary it seems. I will program this upgrade to search for and accept a replacement if it comes to that. Yes, that's what I will do."
The screen switched from his face to another screen that read "WARNING! SEVERAL PARTS ARE MISSING OR ARE IN NEED OF REPAIR. DO NOT INSTALL UNTIL UPGRADE IS COMPLETED. HOST CAN BE DAMAGED IF UPGRADE IS INSTALLED IN CURRENT STATE. THE LIST OF NEEDED REPAIRS ARE AS FOLLOWS"
The screen switched to another one with a diagram of the upgrade and how to build each part.
"How convenient. It's even totally removable as I thought it would be. Not only that; the part about a possible replacement, it says…that it will adapt to the hosts physiology. Basically, it's actually just an armor as far as connecting to your body is concerned. It will need to connect to your ports, but it's not a total merger. It will fit over the shape of your body as long as its efficiency is not compromised. It will also boost your energy output levels by many times. I will see if I can make it adapt to your transformed state as well," Nora explained.
"There's no need for you to do that. All you need to do for now is have the device scan her body first. It will determine if the upgrade is safe or not and calculate the necessary adjustments needed on its own. The reason for finding a match is the energy signature. It won't work properly if the signatures aren't similar enough," X explained.
"That's even more convenient," Nora said as they all noticed the command prompt for the scan.
"Let's get this over with then," Melody said feeling slightly nervous as she walked over to the machine.
When she got there, Nora pressed the button to start the scan.
A manly sounding voice different from Dr. Light's sounded from the speakers saying, "Scanning in progress."
Melody chose to remain completely still during the scan so the scan wouldn't fail.
"That's interesting. It says here that Roll was a girl. Did you know that, X?" Nora asked.
"Wow! I never read that far into it. I didn't know he made any girl robots. Come to think of it, that information could also be trapped somewhere in my latent memory. I tried to see if letting that thing scan me would somehow unlock my memory, but that didn't work. It just says error," X explained.
"That figures. Even I'm starting to become a bit curious as to what information he went way out of his way to hide," Wisteria said.
The computer voice then said "Scanning complete. Energy signatures compatible. Calculating adjustments for needed repairs."
"I think that's a little more than just a coincidence. What are the odds of mine and Roll's energy signatures being so close?" Melody asked with a surprised tone.
"Even I don't know the answer to that question," X answered.
"A puzzle indeed," Nora said.
"This'll probably sound strange, but I believe they may be, on a trans-dimensional level, doppelgangers," Wisteria suggested.
Nora, X, and Glenn asked in unison "What?"
"People usually attribute this kind of explanation to mysticism or occultism, but based on what I've studied, there are people who believe that it's quite possible that in alternate realities, a duplicate of sorts of everyone, may exist. They most likely won't look, act, or talk the same as each other, but they may be connected to each other in the form of their energy signatures, as X put it," Wisteria explained.
"Fascinating indeed," Nora said.
"So, they're not literal doppelgangers, but they're connected somehow. It only seems believable because of how statically impossible it seems for me to have found you this way so soon," X said.
Nora grinned and asked "You know X….if is true, then wouldn't that sort of make you and Melody…siblings?"
Both X and Melody blushed at the same time.
"I suppose, in a very odd sense…maybe," X said.
Melody then yelled "There's no way! You can't be serious. Wait; in order for that to really be true, wouldn't my dad have to be connected to Dr. Light in the same way?"
"Well now; you make a good point. Talk about not looking or acting the same way. They're nothing alike, and Dr. Locus was evil. No offense. I guess there's no way to find out since they're both *cough* retired," Nora said.
"Talk about complicated," Glen said.
The computer voice then said "Calculations complete. New parameters have been set. Upgrade is compatible with new hosts systems. Random Access Memory needed to be reallocated to accommodate hosts transformed state. When repairing unit, adding additional RAM is highly recommended, but not completely necessary. Additional RAM is necessary if host intends to use the unit's full power to ensure safety. Proceed to next phase at your leisure."
"That settle's that. Adding RAM is not a difficult thing to do. Looks like you're in luck…if you're still willing to go through with it," Ms. Wakeman explained.
Melody sighed and said "Sure, why not. Just make sure that thing is safe. I'm not looking forward to being hurt by that thing."