Chapter Two
Skull Fortress is quiet. Very few missions get carried out, and even then, they're all covert supply runs, the opposite of Wily's usual bombastic style. There have been periods of downtime before, but this is different. There's an absence no one wants to fill, a fear of wrathful retribution for standing out.
It's an unfounded fear. Wily has not left his personal rooms in months.
Elec Man treats his new position with exasperation. He didn't realize how much of Proto Man's job involved keeping Wily functioning, making sure he ate something, forcing him to sleep. Few of us did. I now understand why Roll was built, and why she keeps up her domestic duties despite yearning for more. Dr. Cossack is the only scientist I've seen who understands the limits of the human body.
Elec Man cannot affect an attitude, like Proto Man did, to get Wily to take care of himself. Nor can he nag like Roll. His polite difference is keeping Wily alive, but it does not have much results beyond that. The scientist does not emerge from his chambers. He launches no attacks on those who took his son from him.
Not yet.
Wily's personal space is as chaotic as his mind must be, but that's nothing new. He has not been paralyzed by grief, despite the Lights' hopes. His workbenches are covered with new Robot Master designs. They're meaner, these robots, no elegance in their structures, little art in their forms. Wily's anger is clear in every blueprint, nothing more than weaponry. Whatever city is doomed to face them would not come out intact.
A particular set of plans give me pause—a robot called King, some sort of wolf support unit—but they are only plans at this point. Wily has no means to make them reality, and he shows no drive to change that.
Instead, he spends most of his time in front of video screens, watching—for what, I'm not certain, but the possibilities alarm me enough to keep checking. The Cossacks are still on his radar, out of reach in Russia but not safe. Wily's been watching other roboticists, especially now that the Robot Master ban is being repealed.
He's watching one now. An older woman, speaking English, her accent so slight I can't place it. Though dressed unremarkably, her jewelry carefully modest, a hint of her wider personality can be found in her purple hair, with a streak of gray running through.
"We need to consider carefully the future of advanced AI," she's saying. "While progress is inevitable, we must remember that robots are merely tools to be used. Is it necessary to give a calculator feelings to do its job? Is it moral to do so?"
She's speaking to a university classroom in the video. Wily watches it hunched, eyes narrowed.
"Dr. Lalinde, what are your thoughts on Dr. Light's position for the need for robotic emotional intelligence?" a more ambitious student asks.
"Ah, yes," the woman responds. "Thomas Light does hold considerable sway over the current field with his thesis. He's done wonderful work and I do not begrudge him for it, but that does not mean it shouldn't be questioned. Why do we feel the need to make robots like us? What purpose does it serve?"
The student seems taken aback, clearly not expecting to be called out. "A-according to Light's theory, emotional intelligence is needed to allow a robot to make more complex decisions."
Dr. Lalinde nods. "A drone cannot abandon their pre-programmed specifications to save lives, in other words," she says. "Since Mega Man so often saves the world, why not make all robots like Mega Man?"
The students begin muttering among themselves uneasily. Whatever easy day they thought they were getting, this was not it. Dr. Lalinde smiles.
"Don't worry, this isn't a test. I merely want to introduce alternatives to what seems to be an accepted truth," she says. "Emotional responses are something humans still struggle with. We've yet to crack the human brain, yet we're rushing to make our robotic tools to be as human as possible. We make them our children to get attached to, only to send them off to jobs we're no longer willing to do. Sure that should cause some pause, yes? Or the thought that their emotional intelligence is just as capable of betraying them as ours?"
"She's not wrong," Wily says.
My flinch is fortunately hidden by my shadows, but I'm still irritated about it. I should have been watching Wily, not the video.
"But she's not right either," he continues. "A pre-programmed drone will always be conquered by a more capable mind."
"Then how is she right?" I step free from my shadows with a slight bow, and only then do I notice the pair of aviator sunglasses he's holding.
"A tool is meant to be used," Wily responds, turning the aviators over in his hands. "To give them a cognitive ability we recognize as human is to create a vulnerability in both. What happens when the tool is too emotionally compromised to obey his master? How will humanity react to realizing that's possible?"
"Dr. Wily," I say, aghast. The last time I saw those sunglasses, he'd taken them from Proto Man. He must have kept them close this entire time.
"Humanity will never accept robots as their equals," Wily says, shaking his head. "And they will panic once they realize they are superior. Best to conquer them before that happens, hrm?"
I watch him run a finger along the glass, wiping away some invisible dust.
"I understand Elec Man's concern about my well-being," Dr. Wily adds. "But I do not appreciate being spied on. I won't die here, Shadow Man, I've too much to do. Do not come to my chambers without being ordered again."
I cannot disobey a direct order. With another bow, I leave.
It's dark where I emerge. It takes a moment, as my eyes scan my surroundings, to realize where I am. A bedroom with very little personal touch. A sketchbook sits on a mostly empty desk. The actually used one is hidden under a mattress, currently protected by the figure curled up in the bed.
Blues' room.
I didn't mean to come here, but here I am. My hands are curled into fists, and I watch them shake with a sense of detachment, as if they don't belong to me. Is it rage? No, what I'm feeling isn't anger. Disgust is what runs through my circuits, as if I've been tainted by what I've witnessed. Disgust at a man unworthy of being called master. Disgust at how gently he held his son's possession with the same hands that tore his eye from its socket.
In his sleep, Blues whimpers.
A robot should not dream like a human. They should not have nightmares of a trauma they can't release. Is Dr. Lalinde right about the cruelty of making robots more human? Is humanity on the path of replacing themselves with what they do not understand?
Blues whimpers again. He's quiet. It's a learned behavior, not built-in. His brother's nightmares are loud events that toss his body back and forth in his sleep. Blues' hands barely twitch, but his face twists with silent agony.
I stroke his hair until the expression passes, his face slackening as he sinks into deeper, darker sleep. Despite its color change, his hair feels just as soft. His pale face has all the same contours I've found myself studying too often, searching for something I don't know how to find.
I pull away, not wanting to wake him. I won't find my answers here.