The Dream Machine

Chapter 10:  Rebirth

After taking care of the Mavericks at the mines with several other teams of hunters, Zero left the others and headed for Dr. Sky's lab.  Alia was busy organizing the details of the clean up, but managed to tell Zero that X was still out and since he forgot to take a signal boosting device with him, hadn't made contact with HQ. 

Zero thought about the conversation at the lab earlier in the day.  Dr. Sky reacted almost explosively about the output signals.  To Zero, her reaction—combined with her suggestion that Dr. Cain should help with the dream machine sessions—was enough evidence that something was probably wrong with the machine. 

The only suspect is Dr. Wily.  No one else was involved with the sessions in any direct way.  Of course, it wasn't really Dr. Wily, but a program he left in Zero's systems.  How crafty was the mad scientist if merely one of his programs can wreak havoc on the world like this? 

Before Zero answered all of his own questions, he had arrived at the lab entrance.  There were no vehicles in the front, which surprised Zero, since Dr. Sky's garage couldn't possibly fit another car or motorcycle.  Did he miss X on the way here?  There was no way he could find out by contacting X, since radio communications between individuals also went through the HQ satellites and X wasn't carrying the signal booster.  Zero set up the kickstand, and left his bike for the entrance. 

Neither X nor Dr. Sky was inside the main lab.  Instead, Zero found one of Dr. Sky's assistant bots shuffling around at the back of the room.  It seemed to be cleaning something with a towel.

"Evariste?"  Zero approached the bot, which jumped at his voice.  After noticing who it was, the small robot seemed to calm down a bit.  "What are you doing?..."  Zero noticed a familiar, raw smell in the air.  He hastened his steps towards Evariste, coming to an abrupt stop when he realized what the bot was cleaning up.  "What happened here?!"  Zero demanded without taking his eyes off the pool of blood.  Evariste got very uneasy again, approached the monitors and keyed in a command on the keyboard.  A shot of the lab from above, from a security camera, appeared on the large screen above Evariste.

A chill slowly engulfed Zero as he watched the video.  Even before the video finished, Zero guessed what happened.  Dr. Sky started to back away from X.  He watched the video until the end, his legs barely keeping in standing at that point.  It was hard to breathe when he mind was going in a million different directions.  X killed Dr. Sky.  She wasn't wearing armor, and there was at least a liter of blood on the ground.  X even checked her pulse.  The truth was evident.  But why? 

"Where is she?"  Zero asked Evariste.  The bot dropped his town and started heading towards the hallway, Zero followed silently.  They were heading towards her bedroom, and Zero noticed a lot of assistant bots heading in and out of the room, carrying… food?

Zero ran past Evariste and pushed past the other assistants into the room.  He looked into the room, and saw Dr. Sky seated at a table, chowing down happily on a chicken thigh.

A loud crash pulled Dr. Sky's attention away from her meal.  She stood up from her seat and saw Zero sprawled on the floor.  Suddenly he sprang up and started yelling a thousand words a minute.

"Zero, zero…"  Dr. Sky said with a mouthful of chicken.  She paused for a moment, finished chewing and swallowed.  "Zero, coherent sentence."

"What's going on here?!"  Zero demanded.  "I thought you were dead!  Evariste showed me that security video of what X…  and how did you?"  Zero finally noticed a large bandage wrapped around Dr. Sky's head.  He still could not understand how she survived.

"Evariste!"  Dr. Sky scolded.  "How could you show Zero that video before telling him I'm okay?!  What a mean thing to do!  You got him all worried!"  When she finished, she started to fall to her left, but managed to catch herself with her hand before falling all the way.  She slowly sat back down.  "Oops.. yelled a little too loudly."  She motioned to a chair across from the table.  "Sit down Zero, I should explain."  Zero, now more confused than anything else, did as she asked.

"I'm sorry you saw the video first, because…I saw it myself, and it was pretty bad.  So what do you want to hear first, what happened to X, or what happened to me?"  Zero indicated his choice by pointing his finger at Dr. Sky.  "Nanites saved me."  Zero indicated he was expecting a deeper explanation with the skeptical look in his eyes.  Dr. Sky continued.  "My parents were breeding a colony of nano-robots before they died.  The person who killed them was after the colony.  After I saw her murder my parents, I decided I had to escape with the nanites.  The environment they were being kept in, unfortunately, was a 10 by 5 feet glass tank.  I couldn't very well carry that thing out and hope to escape from the murder at the same time, but I couldn't just leave them there for her to steal… so I put in an order to them that they were being transported, and stuck my hand inside the tank.  That's how I have nanites in my body."

"Wait," Zero interrupted.  "I know nano technology is good, but I've never heard that it's become that advanced."

"That's the thing; my parents were working on a far more advanced colony.  I don't understand it fully myself, but the colony's capabilities are far beyond any other nanites.  This is why she was willing to kill them for it.

"I decided to keep them in my body since that was the safest place to keep them.  That way, I would always know they were safe.  The Reploid that killed my parents know I snuck them out of the lab.  She found me once, and 'killed' me when I wouldn't tell her where they were.  She left me for dead, but the nanites were able to revive me.  That was when I realized my parents experiment was indeed a success.

"So that's why I'm still sitting here.  I need to eat and rest a lot since the nanites need recharging and I need material to rebuild my body.  As for X… I'm afraid Dr. Wily had done something to him."

"The machine."  Zero concluded.

"Yes."  She nodded sadly.  "Somehow he got in the machine while I was locked in the supply cabinet.  When I found him, he was okay for a moment.  He was very happy because he remembered about you, like a little boy."  Dr. Sky beamed briefly.  "He even gave me a bear hug! …"  The corners of her mouth turned, and her voice darkened.  "Then he was in pain.  I ran, and he attacked me."

"Wily."  Zero's fists trembled and he narrowed his eyes.  "He's controlling X?" 

"That's the only thing I can conclude.  I asked Emma to look at the data files, but it seems that all traces of Wily's program, which was previously infecting everything in the lab, had been extracted.  He did quite a job on my own files.  I'm still trying to recover records of X's session on the machine."  Dr. Sky took a deep breath and massaged her right temple with her hand.  "I'm getting tired again."  She got up and started to limp towards her bed.  She had a cast on her right leg, which, to Zero, was previously hidden from view behind the table.  "I'll just take a little nap."

Seeing Dr. Sky struggle just to get across the room boiled Zero's blood again.  It had been a long time since he got this mad about anything. 

Wily.  Zero mouthed the name. 

Dr. Sky finally managed to get up on the bed and pull the covers up.

"Zero, you'll find X, right?"  Dr. Sky asked, already starting to sound drowsy.  "I can fix him, so please bring him back… in… one… piece…  It's… not his… fault…"

"I know."  Zero got up and walked to the bedside.

"It's… my… fault…"  Dr. Sky was unable to keep her eyes open.  As she closed her eyes, a tear trickled down her cheek.  "It's… my… fault…"

 I don't blame you.  Zero thought as he watched Sky fall asleep.  He saw that there was a large stack of data pads on the nightstand.  Zero picked some of them up and looked them over.  She was already working on fixing X.

He had felt the iron grip of Dr. Wily's virus before.  It controls its victim by exploiting their emotional weaknesses.  X was always very emotional, but very strong in that department…. Wily must have done something horrible to X to break him emotionally. 

Zero shuddered.

It would be very difficult to bring X back.  The virus destroys your former self and you are reborn as… a demon.  Zero himself had to die, dragging his demon into hell with him… that was how he broke free of the virus.  What would he have to do to save X?  Was it even possible now?  Zero looked down gravely at Dr. Sky.

I'm sorry.  Zero thought silently.  With things like this, I don't think I can bring him back in one piece. 

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