WINDSTORMchapter5
Rabbit in your headlights
He scares the hell out of me as he comes closer and closer.
He doesn't know I'm here, of course.But I know he's coming and I just can't stand it.
I know who he is: he is Trunks Briefs, the hero of the day. The one who destroyed Juunanagou aand Juuhachigou. Wait, who killed. Destroy is a word I refuse to accept for someone who once was human.
Just like me.
I'll bet you know who I am by now: right, I am a jinzouningen, an artificially modified human. Don't tell me you hadn't understood it: stronger than any other human being, faster than an engine-propelled car, who would i like to fool? Not even your granny would believe me if I tried to pass myself out for the girl next door.
What are you saying, the boy? No, he's stronger than me, but Trunks is not human. Hell, he's got a good half of alien blood in his veins! And he pretends he's more human than me! No,you don't believe him. He's never been one hundred per cent human, and he will never be. I have.
Are you surprised? You shouldn't. All that you know I know it too, and also something more: including the answers for the questions you are asking yourselves right now.
One fact everybody has well in mind is that Gero got rid of all of his faulty creations up to Number Sixteen: what happened to the other jinzouningen has been a mistery so far.
Well, I'll tell you now: he dismantled them. That wasn't so hard to guess after all.
Harsh as my words may sound, they are not completely so. For the most part, they were really worthless creatures, poor pitiful beings that never even gained any consciousness of themselves.
In a word, robots.
Never call me that: you'd have to regret it.That word is nothing but an insult to me. A robot is just what I described: a brainless heap of dross.
But I was not. I am a human in my brain and in my heart.
I taste.
I love.
I fear.
I'm alive.
So why did Gero discard me? Easy answer that. First, I have a mind of my own. When I am ordered to do something I see no reason for by a person whom I loathe, I disobey. And of course I did hate Gero. Have you in mind that tiny pretty song by Nine Inch Nails that is called "Head like a hole"? And that goes I'DRATHERDIETHANGIVEYOUCONTROL!!!! Well, that's it.
Me and him never had a good relationship, mostly because of our mismatching bad tempers. And believe me, it was better that way. For what is about him, I never regretted going away. For other reasons of any kind, just let me get to the point.
As if it weren't enough, I was by no means as strong as he'd hoped me to be. It soon turned out during the tests I carried that I had a lot of problems and weak spots that were no good for what I was expected to do.
In other words, I would never be able to complete my mission. As if I ever wanted to have anything to do with a man whom I had never seen before, let alone kill him. Hey, Gero had told me how strong he was. I'm not stupid and I love my life. I'd never do it anyway.
Gero never informed me directly that he would dismantle me and recycle the pieces into his next experiments. I understood it on my own. I have told you, I'm not stupid. And did you think that a cyborg like me doesn't cost any money? Hey, where are you living? Everything has a price, and he wanted to be sure to recover mine. Nothing against thrifty attitude in general, mind you. It's just that he had removed most basic organic components from my body, and without the artificial substitutes he implanted in me I would no longer be able to live.
So I ...hum...took care to discard myself, so to say. Before he could do it.
He had to resign himself to lose my price.
It is to be said that in the following years I had both the time and the reasons to regret my choice.
Because after me Gero built four other androids, which is machines resembling a human shape, but completely artificial, all of which eventually turned out to be a complete failure, more than I ever was. And after that he put on the stocks the project for the Perfect Android.
Misfortune wanted that in the project two other human beings remained involved: a brother and his sister, I don't remember their names. Gero noticed them, small criminals living in the streets of the Eastern Capital, and got them kidnapped by one of his androids, I suppose Number Fifteen.
The Earth would never be the same again.
The siblings soon revealed their nature: vicious and nasty, just like Gero wanted. To complete the Perfect Android he needed strong personalities. But he committed the most serious mistake, for he gave the siblings two bodies endowed with a source of neverending energy, which had took him years to bring to perfection.
It was like giving a child a toy too poweful for his small hands. The twins became a real danger for Gero and for everybody else, impossible to control and unable to restrain themselves at all. When he finally was able to disactivate them, thanks to no other thing than a stroke of good luck, they had destroyed almost a third of his laboratory.
He believed the controller he implanted in their bodies would make good children out of them, the great man. He also thought the explosive device he added like a nice extra little present would be something of a deterrent for them from disobeying him. A really moving attempt, don't you think so? It was brutally obvious the way it would end. With Gero deprived of his head and the siblings going out for their favourite pastime: total destruction.
Needless to say there weren't many who appreciated it.
I felt guilty. I couldn't help thinking that if I hadn't ran off like that the world wouldn't be an ugly mess now. Not that I could have prevented Gero from turning the twins into deadly weapons, but maybe I could...I could...who knows, give them something better to do.Blah, even as a cyborg I'm still an idealist. How do I want to deceive myself?
And now they are dead. Damn it, I knew I should find them before it happened. I've always been watching them, I knew they had found a good match in the boy.
And in this very moment he's walking towards me and he hasn't got the slightest clue that in this corner an enemy is hiding. Of course it's him who will think I'm an enemy, so far he's done nothing to me, at least not by purpose.
Maybe I can try to fool him, to pretend to be what I am not.
But he will discover me, he will sense I have no ki.
And I would like to tell you more but believe me, in minutes I'll have to face the biggest trouble of my life.
Rabbit in your headlights
He scares the hell out of me as he comes closer and closer.
He doesn't know I'm here, of course.But I know he's coming and I just can't stand it.
I know who he is: he is Trunks Briefs, the hero of the day. The one who destroyed Juunanagou aand Juuhachigou. Wait, who killed. Destroy is a word I refuse to accept for someone who once was human.
Just like me.
I'll bet you know who I am by now: right, I am a jinzouningen, an artificially modified human. Don't tell me you hadn't understood it: stronger than any other human being, faster than an engine-propelled car, who would i like to fool? Not even your granny would believe me if I tried to pass myself out for the girl next door.
What are you saying, the boy? No, he's stronger than me, but Trunks is not human. Hell, he's got a good half of alien blood in his veins! And he pretends he's more human than me! No,you don't believe him. He's never been one hundred per cent human, and he will never be. I have.
Are you surprised? You shouldn't. All that you know I know it too, and also something more: including the answers for the questions you are asking yourselves right now.
One fact everybody has well in mind is that Gero got rid of all of his faulty creations up to Number Sixteen: what happened to the other jinzouningen has been a mistery so far.
Well, I'll tell you now: he dismantled them. That wasn't so hard to guess after all.
Harsh as my words may sound, they are not completely so. For the most part, they were really worthless creatures, poor pitiful beings that never even gained any consciousness of themselves.
In a word, robots.
Never call me that: you'd have to regret it.That word is nothing but an insult to me. A robot is just what I described: a brainless heap of dross.
But I was not. I am a human in my brain and in my heart.
I taste.
I love.
I fear.
I'm alive.
So why did Gero discard me? Easy answer that. First, I have a mind of my own. When I am ordered to do something I see no reason for by a person whom I loathe, I disobey. And of course I did hate Gero. Have you in mind that tiny pretty song by Nine Inch Nails that is called "Head like a hole"? And that goes I'DRATHERDIETHANGIVEYOUCONTROL!!!! Well, that's it.
Me and him never had a good relationship, mostly because of our mismatching bad tempers. And believe me, it was better that way. For what is about him, I never regretted going away. For other reasons of any kind, just let me get to the point.
As if it weren't enough, I was by no means as strong as he'd hoped me to be. It soon turned out during the tests I carried that I had a lot of problems and weak spots that were no good for what I was expected to do.
In other words, I would never be able to complete my mission. As if I ever wanted to have anything to do with a man whom I had never seen before, let alone kill him. Hey, Gero had told me how strong he was. I'm not stupid and I love my life. I'd never do it anyway.
Gero never informed me directly that he would dismantle me and recycle the pieces into his next experiments. I understood it on my own. I have told you, I'm not stupid. And did you think that a cyborg like me doesn't cost any money? Hey, where are you living? Everything has a price, and he wanted to be sure to recover mine. Nothing against thrifty attitude in general, mind you. It's just that he had removed most basic organic components from my body, and without the artificial substitutes he implanted in me I would no longer be able to live.
So I ...hum...took care to discard myself, so to say. Before he could do it.
He had to resign himself to lose my price.
It is to be said that in the following years I had both the time and the reasons to regret my choice.
Because after me Gero built four other androids, which is machines resembling a human shape, but completely artificial, all of which eventually turned out to be a complete failure, more than I ever was. And after that he put on the stocks the project for the Perfect Android.
Misfortune wanted that in the project two other human beings remained involved: a brother and his sister, I don't remember their names. Gero noticed them, small criminals living in the streets of the Eastern Capital, and got them kidnapped by one of his androids, I suppose Number Fifteen.
The Earth would never be the same again.
The siblings soon revealed their nature: vicious and nasty, just like Gero wanted. To complete the Perfect Android he needed strong personalities. But he committed the most serious mistake, for he gave the siblings two bodies endowed with a source of neverending energy, which had took him years to bring to perfection.
It was like giving a child a toy too poweful for his small hands. The twins became a real danger for Gero and for everybody else, impossible to control and unable to restrain themselves at all. When he finally was able to disactivate them, thanks to no other thing than a stroke of good luck, they had destroyed almost a third of his laboratory.
He believed the controller he implanted in their bodies would make good children out of them, the great man. He also thought the explosive device he added like a nice extra little present would be something of a deterrent for them from disobeying him. A really moving attempt, don't you think so? It was brutally obvious the way it would end. With Gero deprived of his head and the siblings going out for their favourite pastime: total destruction.
Needless to say there weren't many who appreciated it.
I felt guilty. I couldn't help thinking that if I hadn't ran off like that the world wouldn't be an ugly mess now. Not that I could have prevented Gero from turning the twins into deadly weapons, but maybe I could...I could...who knows, give them something better to do.Blah, even as a cyborg I'm still an idealist. How do I want to deceive myself?
And now they are dead. Damn it, I knew I should find them before it happened. I've always been watching them, I knew they had found a good match in the boy.
And in this very moment he's walking towards me and he hasn't got the slightest clue that in this corner an enemy is hiding. Of course it's him who will think I'm an enemy, so far he's done nothing to me, at least not by purpose.
Maybe I can try to fool him, to pretend to be what I am not.
But he will discover me, he will sense I have no ki.
And I would like to tell you more but believe me, in minutes I'll have to face the biggest trouble of my life.