The Voice in Your Heart
Page 88: Truth
"What the fuck…?" Axl blurted out.
"You can't be serious…" Marino remarked as she looked at the harmless-looking ball of purple light.
The scientist in charge of scanning looked at the scan history, then at the floating Epsilon, "Well… as experimental as this scanner is, it's never failed since the last update."
"I have to agree," another scientist added, "This scanner is a simple device from the very beginning. It just matches the subject with the Maverick database. And the last error was months ago."
"Which means this… thing, is the real deal?" Massimo questioned.
"But… how?" Cinnamon asked as she stared at Epsilon.
More concerned and scared than everyone else is Axl, who balled his hands into fists in his anxiety. What is he supposed to say? What will this mean for him, and for Epsilon? How can he save them both? He can't lose Epsilon, not again—
"I'm sorry for deceiving you all."
To the surprise of everyone in the room, the one to respond was Epsilon.
"So you admit to being Epsilon? And Lumine?" Massimo asked.
"Correct."
"Well, this is interesting," Marino commented, "But what have you been doing in Axl's head the entire time? Does this mean the Epsilon who died in Giga City was a fake? Or what, now?"
"More importantly than that, what is your intention of coming here? We're not going to assist in any kind of rebellion," one of the scientists said, "The purpose of this guild is to change lives without violence. Even so, we won't hesitate to retire you a third time if you force our hands."
"I know," Epsilon answered, "I know. I've learned my lesson already… I know you have a lot of questions, so why not I just tell you my story, and then you ask whatever unanswered questions you still have?"
"Sounds about right…" Axl chimed in, mostly so that he doesn't look too suspicious. "Tell us everything, or else."
Epsilon heaved a sigh, "Okay… okay… let's start from… oh, where… where do I start?"
Everyone in the room proceeded to groan.
"Moment killer much?"
"Dude's had a colourful life story. I won't blame him. Hah!"
"Start from Jakob, maybe?"
"Oh, yes, silly me… of course. Man, that was so long ago…" Epsilon replied. "Yes, I kickstarted the New-Gen rebellion. That ended badly, as you all know. But that was our only option. We were overworked hardcore in that project. Like slaves. So instead of dying like animals, we decided to die fighting. Except it caused the mass retirement of New-Gens…"
"How did you survive?"
"No, more like, how did you get into Axl's head in the first place?"
"I heard it's because of one last attack or something like that. Is that true?"
"Yes. Yes, it is. I thought to myself, I didn't want the truth to die with me. Someone has to know. Somehow, Axl approached me. I took that chance and transferred myself to his head, through the head crystal in his armour and remained as a passive entity in his head ever since."
"Did you ever have any intentions of taking over me and…" Axl pretended to ask; again, to prevent himself from looking suspicious.
"No! Just… I want to… live. With you."
Everyone in the room started to make various kinds of confused expressions: raised eyebrows, dropped jaws, scratching heads, the works.
"What the fuck?" Axl swore, with an expression of genuine surprise on his face.
"Hey! No swearing in front of Cinnamon!" Marino yelled.
"Oops, sorry…"
"I…! I was so lonely. I just talked about how overworked we were in Jakob. By that, I meant that I spent most of my life in a small office. The only way to communicate to people outside the project was a… phone. On my desk. The only person I knew outside of the workers was my creator Laurentia Myst. And I could tell that she wanted me off the phone as soon as possible whenever I called.
And the workers… are tired and stressed all the time. So was I. I never really had a decent conversation outside of work matters and thoughts of running far away. So I… wanted to know how it feels to have a normal life.
Well, the life of a maverick hunter isn't normal. But it was better than Jakob. So I was content as an observer and a power-up, so to speak… I think it was tit for tat. Axl got Stealth Mode from me, after all. While I managed to get some form of freedom and perhaps some rest. Although eventually, the life of a hunter is not what Axl is looking for, I guess.
When he resigned, though, I began to see more instances of racism against reploids. It kept going and going, until I couldn't take it anymore. I left his body to possess a dead reploid body. It was then that I… gained agency again. So I went to the Force Metal experiments. The rest you know."
"So you were planning to rebel from the very beginning?" Massimo questioned.
"No! Not at all… I and the rest of the Liberion wanted to use our Force Metal powers for diplomacy. But… you know what the professors were ordered to do. I overheard them and got angry. Violently angry. I guess that was what you'd call the beginning of the end. Either way, I'm tired from fighting. All I did was make things worse for everyone. Now that I can live peacefully among reploids… I just want to have that."
Everyone in the room nodded and hummed with approval. Until…
"Can I ask you one thing, though?" Marino asked.
"Sure."
"Axl here had fought hard so that your Maverick status is lifted. Not the love-and-peace guy X. But Axl, of all people. Now that it's come to this, it got me thinking… you knew each other, didn't you?"
Axl froze. What is he to do or say now?
"I thought it was implied? When I said that I was lonely and wanted to continue living with him. And yes, he did try to stop me from going to the Force Metal experiments. And then he went to Lagrano to… to try and save us, prevent us from going to the rebellion path. But we were stubborn."
Axl could only bite his lip and hang his head. He just got them a nice new life, he can't have it taken away. He can't—
"So that's how it is." said the scientist in charge of the scanning.
"Dr. Alois? What'd you mean by that?" Massimo asked.
"It was a tragedy," Dr. Alois explained, "And they were trying to protect each other the whole time. But it doesn't mean Epsilon is entirely blameless. Especially not when he's… somehow evolved to become what he is now."
"Evolved…?" Axl questioned as the flashbacks of the things said by Lumine during the Jakob crisis filled his mindscape.
Dr. Alois nodded, "Yes. I'm not quite sure what caused it yet. But somehow he's able to exist without a body. Even Dr. Thomas Light needed his capsules to manifest in the real world. But Epsilon has become… a cyber electronic life form."
"So…?" Marino questioned.
"Which means he is a specimen worth researching," Dr. Alois concluded, "But he will need to be heavily supervised. And to prevent him from flying off where we can't follow, we'll need to restrict him. Of course, it has to be in a humane way. So the best course of action is to build him a physical body."
"Doc… are you serious?" Epsilon asked. It was obvious to whoever heard him that he's so happy, he could cry.
Dr. Alois nodded again, "I am serious. But in the end, I am only one member. What about you guys? What do you think?"
"I think this is another breakthrough that we can't miss."
"Of course there has to be a tracking chip in the body, and he cannot leave the base alone, there has to be supervision…"
"I'm thinking of designs already, let's do this."
"There better not be weapons or Force Metal involved in the designs…"
"Hell no. He'll be a normie like the rest of us."
"Looks like it's a green light. Welcome to the guild, Epsilon." Marino said.
Massimo put his axe aside and folded his arms, "You better not cause any more trouble, you hear?"
No words are exchanged between Epsilon and Axl. But when Axl raised his hand as if to gently cup the ball of light, Epsilon could see the tearful smile on his face. The smile remained, even when they were led into opposite directions: Axl to his room, and Epsilon to one of the laboratories.
By the time they saw each other again, a few months had passed. The capsule containing Epsilon's newly-finished body was opened, with Axl waiting in front of it. The first thing Epsilon did upon opening his eyes was to reach out his arms and hold Axl close.
"I always wanted to do this."
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Yes, Epsilon is the first Cyber-elf ever. Hue hue hue hue hue hue...
