Definition of Life
Chapter 2: The Joys of Delivery
"Come.. Come again?" Doctor Cain's voice shuddered, after
a long minute of silence had passed.
"T-There is.." The Reploid doctor was unsure of how to
phrase his next statement. "M-maybe you'd better just come and see.."
Dr. Cain shakeningly nodded, and followed the Reploid
over to look at a computer display. Rockman X was about to follow them,
but when he took a step to follow, he felt a tug of his hand.
-Idiot!- X mentally scolded himself for forgetting about
the girl, and turned towards her again, trying to give her a comforting
smile.
"D-don't leave me.." She whispered, then bit her lip against
another cry of agony.
"I won't," he promised her. How could he leave? She was
obviously tramatized by not what was happening. She needed comfort, and
he was the only one there at the moment. And he needed time to think.
How could a Reploid become pregnant..? And why? Why would
Doctor Light have given the female Reploids the ability to become pregnant?
Could they not just have children made for them in the factories?
X knew very little about his creator; only what he had
been told, and what had been recorded in books, on television, and in the
newspaper. He knew only what they had, nothing that his predecessor, Rockman,
would have known. He had even heard the rumors that some thought he was
the original Rockman, just redesigned and given a new body. But he did
not know if any of it was true.
He knew that Doctor Light had always cared deeply about
his creations, and even told someone, in an interview, that he considered
his robots, Blues, Rock, and Roll to be his children. And that he would
do anything to protect his children, and make sure they were free to do
as they pleased. Because, he argued, if he ever found how to produce free
will on a global scale (Rock and Blues were lucky mistakes), then he would
make sure that their wills were protected.
But how did he protect the free wills of Reploids? X realized,
that there was nothing, *NOTHING* that the old doctor had done to protect
them. Humans could still rule over them, and they were destroyed if they
endangered, or killed a human, sometimes even when it was accidental. They
still reined surpreme. He could almost understood the position of the Mavericks,
and their hatred towards humans.
The girl let out a scream, and he whispered to her reassuringly,
like a father, or an older sibling would to a scared little one.
Yes, the Reploids could react to stimuli, and could think
for themselves.. Yes, they could even regenerate some of their systems,
such humans healed their wounds. They took in energy, used that energy,
and even excreted what they did not need. (Zero thought it was a drag they
had to go to the bathroom like a human.) They had a lung-gill function
that allowed them to go underwater without problems. (Oxygen was needed
to keep some of the chemical reactions going in their bodies.. Making their
energy usage more efficient.) They experienced all the processes of life.
But they could not reproduce.
With a jolt, X realized it was possible that was no longer
true. Had not the doctor said that the girl was in labor?
And if they experienced all the life processes, that would
make them living beings, would it not?
And if they were sentient living beings, could the humans
truly bend them to their will?
X froze. If Doctor Light truly wanted to protect the free
will of the Reploids, that would be the most effective way of doing it.
But, humans had to become pregnant from an external source,
right..?
He looked down at the girl, and felt anger rise in his
chest. Why did the two doctors leave him alone with this girl, if she was
truly in labor?? They should have helped her! She was not programmed to
know what to do during the last stage of pregnancy!
"Is.. Is your owner a Reploid?" X found himself suddenly
asking, and mentally reprimanded himself again. This was not the time,
nor the place, to ask such a question. She had no need to be further scared..
If that question surfaced bad memories..
"Y.. Yes.." She winced, but not from pain. Damnit, that
question had hit something she did not want to think about, or remember!
But he found himself asking the question he wanted to
save for later, when she was calm. "Did he ever.. ever.." He stopped himself.
No, he would not ask. He would not.
However, she understood what he wanted to know, and nodded
again, shaking slightly in fear. "A.. A few times.. I couldn't d-do anything
to stop him! W-why?! Why did he force me to do it over and over?!" She
began crying again, on top of everything else
that was happening to her. "Please, d-don't make me say anymore, p-please!
D-don't make me remember!"
Rockman X stared at her in shock. He had hoped that she
would fail to hear his unfinished question, but not only had she heard,
she answered. And now the memories were scaring her worse.
And it was all his fault. He could have stopped himself
from asking.
-No, you couldn't.- Some little voice said in his head.
-You had to know!-
The sound of metal against metal coming towards the lab
made X jump in surprise, and look up in alarm.
Zero looked back and forth in a panic, before his eyes
landed on the girl, and his eyes went wide in terror and fear. "W-what's
wrong with her?!"
"She's pregnant, and in labor, Zero," Rockman X stated
simply.
"WHAT?!"
"The doctor.. Did a diagnostic. That's what it came up
with.. It makes sense, Zero!"
The red Maverick-Hunter opened his mouth to argue, but
X did not give him the chance to say anything.
"She's a slave model, and she was able to disobey and
run from her master! And slave models can only disobey their masters if
someone's life is in danger! Someone's life *IS* in danger, Zero! If she's
pregnant, then being with child is why she could escape and come to us
for help!"
Zero was speechless, as any other Reploid would have been,
receiving that sort of news.
"Zero, don't you know what this means?! If we deliver
the baby, this proves that we're sentient life forms! We even have DNA!
And if we're sentient life forms-"
"-Then the humans must treat us like equals, and can no
longer keep us like property?!" Zero finished sharply.
The girl had stopped crying, and was looking at them with
widening eyes, full of shock, but at the same time, understanding.
"Exactly!" X exclaimed, trying hard to keep down his excitement.
Not only that, but it was a scientific breakthrough as well! Doctor Light
would have created the first true artifical lifeform!
Doctor Cain had returned with the Reploid doctor minutes
ago and had listened to the entire conversation. "If that is indeed true,
then let's have this baby."
"Right!" X agreed, then suddenly went red. "Uhm.. A-are
we going to have to do it the human way..?"
Zero grinned. "X, sometimes you're such a whimp."
"A-am not! I'm just trying to show some decency!" He defended
himself
"Never stopped you from looking at those magazines before,
X," Zero muttered.
"I-I've never looked at any of those! T-they were yours,
and the magazine was open!"
"... Can you all please stop fighting and get this thing
out of me?!" The girl shouted among the bickering Maverick-Hunters.
They got quiet very, very quickly.
"Right, Zero, you received the update about emergency
situations that could happen in humans. So you should know exactly what
to do."
Zero nodded and X watched as Zero helped the girl into
the correct position and then started to...
Rockman X closed his eyes and turned away, blushing furiously.
He only opened them after he was certain that he was looking at the girl's
face, and only her face.
The girl blinked, before grinning. "Oh c'mon, it's not
that bad. I'm sure you've seen it before. I mean, you *ARE* cute."
X found that he could only sputter incoherently, and blush
even more.
Zero looked up and laughed. "X, I swear, if I hadn't seen
you destroy Mavericks plently of times, I'd think you weren't capable of
hurting a fly! C'mon, stop being so innocent, you know you aren't."
He only sputtered more.
"Z... ZERO!" He finally managed to choke out. "K-keep
your mind on what you're doing and not my lovelife!"
"Yeah, we all know you don't have one..." Zero snickered.
The pregnant Reploid blinked up at X. ".. You don't..?
Well, once I'm over this, I can fix that!"
Zero found himself unable to stop laughing from the look
on X's face. He had somehow gotten even redder, and was staring at his
feet, his cheeks flaming.
Doctor Cain sounded thoughtful. "It seems that, like in
humans, Reploid females have altered hormones while in labor."
X buried his face in one of his hands, the other still
holding the girl's hand. "Why me..?"
Zero smirked and was about ready to say something that
would probably embarrass the blue Reploid even more when the girl let out
a cry of pain.
"Woah, her water broke!"
In less than a second, X's face went from bright red,
to very, very pale. He shut his eyes tight, so not a single bit of light
came through. But he could do nothing to block out Zero's voice.
"Alright, the baby's on it's way.."
X paled.
"Alright, start pushing, and don't forget to breathe!
X paled.
"C'mon, big pushes!"
X paled.
"Yeah, just like that, now keep on doing it, and the baby
will be out in no time!"
X paled.
"C'mon, don't give up now, keep it up!"
X paled.
"Okay, give me one big push, and I think its head'll start
coming out!"
X paled.
"The head's coming out, keep on pushing!"
X paled.
"Keep on pushing, you got 'im about halfway out..!"
X paled.
"C'mon, what did I say about giving up?!"
X paled.
"Okay, just a few more good pushes.."
X paled.
"Alright, I'm going to pull it out the rest of the way!"
X fainted.
And he knew no more.
"X..? X? C'mon man, how was I suppose to know that birthing
made you nauseous?!"
"Nnn.. What..?" Rockman X moaned weakly, shaking his head
side to side.
"C'mon, get up. Doc Cain needs to talk to us.." It was
Zero.
"Zero, I told you, I put your magazines down the garbage
disposal.. You left them in my room.. Didn't you listen..?" He continued
mumbling, half-asleep and not aware of what he was saying.
"You did *WHAT?!* So *THAT'S* what the hell happened to
them!! DAMNIT, X, if I wasn't feeling sorry for you, and the Doc didn't
want to see you, and if you weren't a good Maverick-Hunter, I'D KILL YOU
RIGHT NOW!!!"
Rockman X bolted up, fully awake after Zero screamed at
him. "AHH!!"
"Remind me to do something mean, nasty, and evil to you
later, okay?" Zero muttered, leaning over X's bed.
The blue Maverick-Hunter gulped, and whimpered.
Zero ignored X's pleading look.
"The Doc wants to see us." He repeated.
"He does..? Why..?"
"About Bleu, you idiot!"
"... Bleu..?" X blinked.
"The girl, and her son!" Zero stated, in such a way that
it made X feel like an idiot.
"What's her son's name..?" X asked, excited.
"She hasn't decided yet."
"O-oh.. I was.. uhm.. W-what happened?" He felt himself
going red. He must've done something stupid.
"You fainted."
Yep, that was stupid alright. Not to mention it was the
last thing a Maverick Hunter was ever supposed to do.
X buried his face in his hands. ".. Please don't tell
anyone I did that.. I'd never hear the end of it."
He could pratically hear Zero's evil grin.
His core processor skipped a cycle. "You wouldn't." X
looked up in horror.
"You chewed up my magazines with the garbage disposal."
"B-but Zero!!"
"Alright then, take off you armor and I might just forget--"
"W-WHAT?! YOU'RE GAY?!" X's eyes widened with a deeper
horror.
Zero cracked up and pat the again-pale X on the back good-naturedly.
"X, I'm joking. I'll let it pass, this time. Mainly because I was borrowing
those."
"O-oh." BIG relief. Pause. "T-then you're not gay..?"
"Of course not you bolt-head! I just went for your response."
Zero smirked.
".. I hate you sometimes, I really do." X pouted.
Zero only laughed again. "C'mon, let's go before the Doc
gets old and dies."
".. Now that's mean." More pouting.
"Oh just shut up and follow me."
"Hey Doc, I brought X. The slacker finally woke up." Zero
grinned, waiting for X to complain.
"Zero, that's not true! I'm not a slacker.. I just er...
fainted." Sweatdrop. Blush. Nervous shuffle of feet and adverting of eyes
to the floor in shame.
Zero rolled his eyes, as Doctor Cain shook his head. "So.."
"Don't you even say it."
".. You mean, 'What's up Doc?' " Zero grinned. Lately,
he had been watching some old American cartoons due to extreme boredom,
and found the rabbit's saying to be extremely funny. Everyone in the room
knew English, even though they lived in Japan.
Cain sighed. "Why do I even bother?"
"Sir, why did you call us..?" X asked. "Something about
erm.."
".. Bleu." Zero stated helpfully.
"Yeah, Bleu. About her and her son."
"Yes.. There's a certain.. matter we must worry about."
Zero blinked. "Doc, aren't they out of the danger zone?
They're prefectly healthy, according to the medical staff."
"That's not the type of danger I'm talking about, Zero.
Something far, far more dangerous." Doctor Cain sighed, looking suddenly
old.
"Sir.. You don't mean.. N-no one would hurt them, would
they..?" X asked fearfully.
"I'm afraid they would, X."
"Why?!" Zero became alarmed, afraid.
".. This, as you said earlier, would prove that Reploids
are sentient beings. Some..." He paused for a minute, considering how to
put it. "Some of my.. fellow humans would not like that, and would destroy
any proof that exists. You may be wondering why we heard not of any other
cases of births.."
X inhaled sharply.
".. Because they killed them, didn't they?" Zero finished,
his lips drawn into an almost snarl. "Because they don't want to loose
their 'precious' slaves, do they?"
Rockman X blinked innocently up at the angry Zero. Sometimes
Zero found the humans hard to tolerate, but he had never before been like
this..
Doctor Cain sighed yet again. "Yes, I'm afraid so." He
looked up, staring hard at the two Reploids, as if trying to tell them
the graveness of the situation with his eyes alone. "At all costs, we must
protect them. At all costs. This means the freedom from slavery for your
people. When I make the announcement of this.. discovery to the rest of
the scientific community, you will be ready for the worst. The very worse.
Even war."
"WAR?!" X shouted, eyes widening. "Why war?!"
"You see, X, how much of a problem they would be. Many
humans would want Bleu and her child destroyed, but the Reploids would
refuse. It's the typical powder-keg situation. Anything, anything, such
as one wrong word, or move, could set off the entire world into a war."
"And they're in the middle of it.." X whispered.
"Yes, they are. It's frightening.." Doctor Cain, turning
his back to them, hit a button on his computer.
X looked at Zero, and Zero looked back at X, both unsure
of what to say.
Doctor Cain turned around, continuing. ".. That when my
collegues get the announcement I just sent, that our species may very well
indeed become enemies."
End of Chapter 2
Thanks all that reviewed this! I *STILL* can't believe I finished this
in one night! Sudden inspiration hit me, and I knew what to write. ^^;
About time. I wrote the last chapter a few months ago, and only now did
I get the idea for this one. Heh, well anyways, please review!