A Note From the Author~ Here's Chapter 2, I hope you like! Isn't my
favourite chapter. . that would be next chapter or chapter 4. Anyways,
thanks for reading this far, and please review! I'll try to get Chapter 3
up next weekend, but I'm going up to Utah for Fourth of July, no internet
access, so it may be a bit late. Plus, I've just been struck with the need
to write a million cute fluffy Zeta fics to make up for this one. . .it'll
pass.
Thanks for reviewing, Dragoncat! I'm hoping Best Laid Plans won't take so long next time to update, as I really like it! ^_^
Chapter 2~ Titus Sweete
Zeta stared blankly at Sweete for a long time, seemingly at a loss for words. The man grinned back at him, as if enjoying the reaction.
"Whaddya mean you owe him one? We didn't do anything for you, and you'd better not hurt Dr. Selig. Don't forget that Zee is an Infiltration Unit, and he can be pretty dangerous when he wants to be," threatened Ro in place of Zeta.
"I know Zeta's an Infiltration Unit. Who d'ya think sent him after Selig in the first place? And he isn't gonna do anything, 'cause he works for us. Maybe you'd better watch it, Rowen. We might send him after you."
Ro shook her head. "No. Zee doesn't work for you. You don't, right Zee? Tell him."
Zeta remained quiet for a second, and then recovered himself. "No. . .I wouldn't hurt Dr. Selig or Ro. Give me back Dr. Selig now, and we'll leave. Otherwise, Ro is right. I am fully capable of dealing with your henchmen and destroying your headquarters."
Sweete chuckled. "Zeta, if I gave you Selig, you'd somehow manage to get him back to us. You can't help it; it's in your programming. I should know, it was our scientists who reprogrammed you."
"You. . .reprogrammed me?"
"Why d'ya think you've had the urge to find Dr. Selig for so long? Why d'ya think you brought him straight here?"
"But. . ." he turned to Ro, and seemed to be pleading with her instead of Sweete. "I really did want to save people, I really did want to be free. . ."
"Naw," grinned Sweete triumphantly. "Just thought you did. Genius part of the programming, really- if you believed all that saving lives crap, then Bennett couldn't prove we'd tampered with you."
"So Bennett was right about me all along," he conceded gloomily. "I should have let him erase me."
A broader grin from Sweete. "But that woulda gone against your programming."
He waved his hand, and his henchmen removed Dr. Selig from the room. Zeta thought to follow, but decided better of it. A second later, he realized it was Brother's Day's programming that kept him from following. He glanced over at Ro, who was glaring at Sweete with an expression of deep malice. He chuckled once again at her narrowed eyes and thin lips.
"I don't know how you came to be involved, kid, but you've turned out pretty lucky for us. Nice of you to convince the bot to look for his creators. We were wondering when he'd get around to that."
"No!" she shouted furiously. "No, you're wrong, you're lying! You couldn't have programmed Zee, because he's too good. He risks his life to save people every goddamn day! He saves people all the time! When have you ever cared about anyone but yourself?"
"I care about people, Rowen." He remarked, suddenly serious. "I care about the future. Technology is weakening our society, and it needs to be done away with. Originally, we were gonna destroy the robot. That's what Brother's Day is all about, doing away with the technology that's polluting our society. But I had a better idea. Why not use the feds' own tech to destroy technology? Now that we got the mastermind behind the Infiltration Units in our clutches, we can create an army of synthoids so powerful the feds can't do nothing to stop us. 'course, it wasn't easy. Some of the big guys in charge of our little corporation thought that creating synthoids was backwards. I had t' do some convincing, and there's still branches of the organization who won't accept it.
"And then came the work. We've been looking for Selig, although we didn't know his name, for over a decade now. Then, Zeta comes along, tries to mess up a nice little deal we have going with Dolan, and gets brought in for reprogramming by one of my agents. We give him some idiotic story about a kid and a bike, and the desire for freedom. Unfortunately, the bot wastes our valuable time trying to bargain with the NSA instead of finding his creators. That's where you come in, Rowen. And the rest is history."
He winked at Ro, and she continued to stare, as if no words could express her disgust. Zeta also stared, but as one in severe shock. Finally, he spoke in a quiet, passive tone.
"It was all a lie? Everything that I am?"
Sweete shrugged. "'fraid so."
"It can't be," he said finally.
"Why not?"
Zeta was silent again, and it looked as though he had no answer. When he spoke, he was defeated, begging. "Because it all seemed so real. All of my feelings and thoughts. All of my friends. Ro. They mattered."
"Except they didn't. You just thought they did."
"Zee, don't listen to him!" Ro interjected. "He's lying!"
Zeta's gaze fell upon her for what seemed to be an eternity.
"No, he isn't, Ro," he spoke in a steady tone. "I brought Dr. Selig just as I was programmed to."
"There's got to be another explanation!"
Zeta turned to Sweete once more. "When the NSA tried to erase my CPU, and found that module. . .it was yours, wasn't it?"
"The one in your head? Yeah, among others. We've got a couple back up modules, Zeta. Can't risk you going back to work for Bennett! Hope he didn't try to open it," grinned Sweete as though he hoped very much the opposite. "We left a couple of surprises, just to make sure that if we were discovered, you'd go out with a bang."
Zeta nodded. "I destroyed half of the lab. Ro said having bad inside me made me more human. She was wrong. I was more a machine than either of us suspected."
"That isn't true, Zee!"
He imitated a deep sigh. "Why won't you believe it, Ro? I do. It all makes sense. . .it explains things that I couldn't understand before. Coming here was the proof. Why would I have come here if I wasn't under their control?"
"I can't believe it, Zee. If I believe that you aren't real, then I'm alone again, back to where I was a year ago, on the streets of Spring City. I can't go back to that. Not without putting up a fight."
"Ro. . ."
Sweete frowned at the two of them. "This is really sweet and everything, but I don't have time for this. Get her outta here, put her in the back or something. We'll deal with her later." He waved his arm, and the men holding Ro dragged her out of the room with some difficultly, as she was kicking them at every opportunity. She began to shout to Zeta as she was dragged into the back elevator.
"Zee, don't believe a word that bastard says. You're you, and I know it, and. . ." Her voice began to fade with distance. Zeta still heard, but he blocked her out of his mind. Her every word did not give him hope as was their intention, but instead reminded him that he didn't care about her or anything, that everything that he had ever felt was a lie. And even the pain he felt at this didn't exist.
"'smatter, Zeta, identity crisis?" sneered Sweete.
"Nothing is wrong," he remarked, trying to keep the anger from his voice. "Nothing can be wrong. I couldn't feel it if it was. I didn't mind not feeling before, but now that I understand what it means to feel emotion, I can't stand it. I'm like Ro- I don't want to believe because I cannot go back to before. I've come too far. But unlike Ro, I cannot fight. I have to go back, because I've never really gotten anywhere."
Sweete laughed at this, a hearty laugh, not just a slight chuckle. "Don't worry, Zeta, it won't last long. You know the truth, so your state of enchantment won't last. We've got plans for you- a new mission, new programming. Brenner! Gupton!" he shouted suddenly, and two Brother's Day members in lab coats rushed into the room minutes later- a middle aged woman with greying brown hair, and a young blond man with thick rimmed glasses.
"Why don't you two take our friend to the lab. He needs prep for the next operation. I have to deal with Selig and the girl."
Zeta opened his mouth to object, but the woman, Brenner, slapped a small cervo-inhibitor on his neck, causing his hologram to fail and causing the synthoid to shut off and fall to the ground. Several of the men from earlier came to lift up the body and carry it down to the lab.
Sweete didn't follow, but took the main elevator up one floor. He entered floor 14, a typical hotel floor with three large suites on it. Opening the door to Suite 2, he found Dr. Selig lying on the dusty cot, surrounded by guards. Ro sat on the floor, her wrists bound and a sidearm pressed against the back of her head. Sweete frowned.
"I don't like the idea of the girl in the same room as Selig. This girl's trouble. We'll move her to Suite 3 when I finish up here." He approached the bed and shook Dr. Selig's shoulder gruffly. The scientist's eyes opened slowly, and he looked around in confusion.
"Where am I? What happened to my car?" he muttered curiously.
"Eli Selig. Good to meet you at last. I've heard so much," grinned Sweete.
"Who are you?" he asked, a note of panic in his voice as he sensed the hostility in Sweete's greeting.
"Name's Titus Sweete. Maybe you've heard of me? Run the Spring City branch of a little organization known as Brother's Day."
"I've heard of you," said Dr. Selig sadly. "Well, if you intend to kill me, then do it quickly," he said, gritting his teeth. Ro did have to admire him for this, she hadn't expected bravery from the frail looking elderly man. A good sign, as she had personally been afraid that Selig would turn out to be a dislikeable person and let Zee down, or reject him.
"I don't want to kill you, Eli. I need a mind like yours, on my side."
"I don't want to work for you," said Selig again, bravely.
"You don't really have a choice," grinned Sweete, pressing his sidearm against Selig's forehead. "Just a word of warning, before things get messy. You might not want to refuse. But we can deal with this later." He withdrew his sidearm.
"Dr. Selig?" said Ro softly. "I'm really sorry. This isn't Zee's fault. . .Zee, that's Zeta, you created him. He wants to meet you, wants you to convince people he can be good. He's. . ."
"He's the one who brought you here," grinned Sweete.
"No! Well, yeah, but he didn't want to. He's good. . .he'll get you out of here."
"Only problem is, he's been reprogrammed by now."
"What?! You can't, he's. . .why?"
"That really wouldn't be your business, now, would it?"
Dr. Selig interrupted. "Actually, I would like to know what you're using my synthoid for. I happen to be a bit partial to that one, my best work!"
Ro couldn't help smiling, even though the situation was serious. Once she'd gotten Zee out of Sweete's hands, they could save Dr. Selig, and she didn't have to worry about him rejecting Zee. He liked him! She gave Sweete a triumphant sneer.
"Yeah, and I'm sorta partial to him, too."
Sweete chuckled. "I noticed that. Well, let's just say Zeta has another mission for us. Every heard of the Spring City Robotics Convention? Real annoying, seeing as it's based in the city we like to do our work, but security's too good for us to do anything about it. That place is where the feds recruit most of their techies. Only one way to deal with them."
"Blow it all up?" remarked Ro innocently. "You remind me of a certain insane anarchist I know."
"Stan was never smart enough to think his plots through. You can't go in there guns a blazin' and get caught. It has to be delicate," he said seriously.
Ro shook her head "Sorry, I was wrong. You're crazier than he is. I'm not gonna let you use Zee to hurt people."
"It ain't up to you. I like you, kid, you're tough. I don't wanna kill you, so don't gimme a reason."
Ro gave him a sly grin. "Actually, Titus, I like crazy guys. Thought maybe I'd join up with Brother's Day. Down with technology and everything else that dares to make our lives convenient!" she exclaimed in a serious tone. "Maybe I could help ya out with the Robotics Convention mission, you know, sort of a club initiation type thing."
Sweete smiled back, and adopted a sugary tone. "Sure thing, Rowen, I'll get you a sidearm right now, and let you tag along with your robot friend!" His tone was hard again. "I've been in this organization for thirty years, kid."
She shrugged. "Still worth a shot. Could you at least tell tubby here to stop digging into my skull?" she asked, waving her arm at the guard holding the gun to her head.
"Nope, best to keep you under control. Bye bye, Eli. Later." He said, bashing his sidearm against the doctor's head, causing him to groan and slump down on the bed.
"Well, c'mon, Rowen, better take you to your new quarters." He tugged on Ro's arm and hoisted her up, the other guard's laser point still attached to the back of her head. Sweete dragged Ro out the door, and shoved her onto the floor in Suite 3.
"Remember, better be a good girl. Don't go getting in trouble, 'cause you're expendable. Bye!"
He shut the door behind him, and Ro could hear the key turning in the lock.
Thanks for reviewing, Dragoncat! I'm hoping Best Laid Plans won't take so long next time to update, as I really like it! ^_^
Chapter 2~ Titus Sweete
Zeta stared blankly at Sweete for a long time, seemingly at a loss for words. The man grinned back at him, as if enjoying the reaction.
"Whaddya mean you owe him one? We didn't do anything for you, and you'd better not hurt Dr. Selig. Don't forget that Zee is an Infiltration Unit, and he can be pretty dangerous when he wants to be," threatened Ro in place of Zeta.
"I know Zeta's an Infiltration Unit. Who d'ya think sent him after Selig in the first place? And he isn't gonna do anything, 'cause he works for us. Maybe you'd better watch it, Rowen. We might send him after you."
Ro shook her head. "No. Zee doesn't work for you. You don't, right Zee? Tell him."
Zeta remained quiet for a second, and then recovered himself. "No. . .I wouldn't hurt Dr. Selig or Ro. Give me back Dr. Selig now, and we'll leave. Otherwise, Ro is right. I am fully capable of dealing with your henchmen and destroying your headquarters."
Sweete chuckled. "Zeta, if I gave you Selig, you'd somehow manage to get him back to us. You can't help it; it's in your programming. I should know, it was our scientists who reprogrammed you."
"You. . .reprogrammed me?"
"Why d'ya think you've had the urge to find Dr. Selig for so long? Why d'ya think you brought him straight here?"
"But. . ." he turned to Ro, and seemed to be pleading with her instead of Sweete. "I really did want to save people, I really did want to be free. . ."
"Naw," grinned Sweete triumphantly. "Just thought you did. Genius part of the programming, really- if you believed all that saving lives crap, then Bennett couldn't prove we'd tampered with you."
"So Bennett was right about me all along," he conceded gloomily. "I should have let him erase me."
A broader grin from Sweete. "But that woulda gone against your programming."
He waved his hand, and his henchmen removed Dr. Selig from the room. Zeta thought to follow, but decided better of it. A second later, he realized it was Brother's Day's programming that kept him from following. He glanced over at Ro, who was glaring at Sweete with an expression of deep malice. He chuckled once again at her narrowed eyes and thin lips.
"I don't know how you came to be involved, kid, but you've turned out pretty lucky for us. Nice of you to convince the bot to look for his creators. We were wondering when he'd get around to that."
"No!" she shouted furiously. "No, you're wrong, you're lying! You couldn't have programmed Zee, because he's too good. He risks his life to save people every goddamn day! He saves people all the time! When have you ever cared about anyone but yourself?"
"I care about people, Rowen." He remarked, suddenly serious. "I care about the future. Technology is weakening our society, and it needs to be done away with. Originally, we were gonna destroy the robot. That's what Brother's Day is all about, doing away with the technology that's polluting our society. But I had a better idea. Why not use the feds' own tech to destroy technology? Now that we got the mastermind behind the Infiltration Units in our clutches, we can create an army of synthoids so powerful the feds can't do nothing to stop us. 'course, it wasn't easy. Some of the big guys in charge of our little corporation thought that creating synthoids was backwards. I had t' do some convincing, and there's still branches of the organization who won't accept it.
"And then came the work. We've been looking for Selig, although we didn't know his name, for over a decade now. Then, Zeta comes along, tries to mess up a nice little deal we have going with Dolan, and gets brought in for reprogramming by one of my agents. We give him some idiotic story about a kid and a bike, and the desire for freedom. Unfortunately, the bot wastes our valuable time trying to bargain with the NSA instead of finding his creators. That's where you come in, Rowen. And the rest is history."
He winked at Ro, and she continued to stare, as if no words could express her disgust. Zeta also stared, but as one in severe shock. Finally, he spoke in a quiet, passive tone.
"It was all a lie? Everything that I am?"
Sweete shrugged. "'fraid so."
"It can't be," he said finally.
"Why not?"
Zeta was silent again, and it looked as though he had no answer. When he spoke, he was defeated, begging. "Because it all seemed so real. All of my feelings and thoughts. All of my friends. Ro. They mattered."
"Except they didn't. You just thought they did."
"Zee, don't listen to him!" Ro interjected. "He's lying!"
Zeta's gaze fell upon her for what seemed to be an eternity.
"No, he isn't, Ro," he spoke in a steady tone. "I brought Dr. Selig just as I was programmed to."
"There's got to be another explanation!"
Zeta turned to Sweete once more. "When the NSA tried to erase my CPU, and found that module. . .it was yours, wasn't it?"
"The one in your head? Yeah, among others. We've got a couple back up modules, Zeta. Can't risk you going back to work for Bennett! Hope he didn't try to open it," grinned Sweete as though he hoped very much the opposite. "We left a couple of surprises, just to make sure that if we were discovered, you'd go out with a bang."
Zeta nodded. "I destroyed half of the lab. Ro said having bad inside me made me more human. She was wrong. I was more a machine than either of us suspected."
"That isn't true, Zee!"
He imitated a deep sigh. "Why won't you believe it, Ro? I do. It all makes sense. . .it explains things that I couldn't understand before. Coming here was the proof. Why would I have come here if I wasn't under their control?"
"I can't believe it, Zee. If I believe that you aren't real, then I'm alone again, back to where I was a year ago, on the streets of Spring City. I can't go back to that. Not without putting up a fight."
"Ro. . ."
Sweete frowned at the two of them. "This is really sweet and everything, but I don't have time for this. Get her outta here, put her in the back or something. We'll deal with her later." He waved his arm, and the men holding Ro dragged her out of the room with some difficultly, as she was kicking them at every opportunity. She began to shout to Zeta as she was dragged into the back elevator.
"Zee, don't believe a word that bastard says. You're you, and I know it, and. . ." Her voice began to fade with distance. Zeta still heard, but he blocked her out of his mind. Her every word did not give him hope as was their intention, but instead reminded him that he didn't care about her or anything, that everything that he had ever felt was a lie. And even the pain he felt at this didn't exist.
"'smatter, Zeta, identity crisis?" sneered Sweete.
"Nothing is wrong," he remarked, trying to keep the anger from his voice. "Nothing can be wrong. I couldn't feel it if it was. I didn't mind not feeling before, but now that I understand what it means to feel emotion, I can't stand it. I'm like Ro- I don't want to believe because I cannot go back to before. I've come too far. But unlike Ro, I cannot fight. I have to go back, because I've never really gotten anywhere."
Sweete laughed at this, a hearty laugh, not just a slight chuckle. "Don't worry, Zeta, it won't last long. You know the truth, so your state of enchantment won't last. We've got plans for you- a new mission, new programming. Brenner! Gupton!" he shouted suddenly, and two Brother's Day members in lab coats rushed into the room minutes later- a middle aged woman with greying brown hair, and a young blond man with thick rimmed glasses.
"Why don't you two take our friend to the lab. He needs prep for the next operation. I have to deal with Selig and the girl."
Zeta opened his mouth to object, but the woman, Brenner, slapped a small cervo-inhibitor on his neck, causing his hologram to fail and causing the synthoid to shut off and fall to the ground. Several of the men from earlier came to lift up the body and carry it down to the lab.
Sweete didn't follow, but took the main elevator up one floor. He entered floor 14, a typical hotel floor with three large suites on it. Opening the door to Suite 2, he found Dr. Selig lying on the dusty cot, surrounded by guards. Ro sat on the floor, her wrists bound and a sidearm pressed against the back of her head. Sweete frowned.
"I don't like the idea of the girl in the same room as Selig. This girl's trouble. We'll move her to Suite 3 when I finish up here." He approached the bed and shook Dr. Selig's shoulder gruffly. The scientist's eyes opened slowly, and he looked around in confusion.
"Where am I? What happened to my car?" he muttered curiously.
"Eli Selig. Good to meet you at last. I've heard so much," grinned Sweete.
"Who are you?" he asked, a note of panic in his voice as he sensed the hostility in Sweete's greeting.
"Name's Titus Sweete. Maybe you've heard of me? Run the Spring City branch of a little organization known as Brother's Day."
"I've heard of you," said Dr. Selig sadly. "Well, if you intend to kill me, then do it quickly," he said, gritting his teeth. Ro did have to admire him for this, she hadn't expected bravery from the frail looking elderly man. A good sign, as she had personally been afraid that Selig would turn out to be a dislikeable person and let Zee down, or reject him.
"I don't want to kill you, Eli. I need a mind like yours, on my side."
"I don't want to work for you," said Selig again, bravely.
"You don't really have a choice," grinned Sweete, pressing his sidearm against Selig's forehead. "Just a word of warning, before things get messy. You might not want to refuse. But we can deal with this later." He withdrew his sidearm.
"Dr. Selig?" said Ro softly. "I'm really sorry. This isn't Zee's fault. . .Zee, that's Zeta, you created him. He wants to meet you, wants you to convince people he can be good. He's. . ."
"He's the one who brought you here," grinned Sweete.
"No! Well, yeah, but he didn't want to. He's good. . .he'll get you out of here."
"Only problem is, he's been reprogrammed by now."
"What?! You can't, he's. . .why?"
"That really wouldn't be your business, now, would it?"
Dr. Selig interrupted. "Actually, I would like to know what you're using my synthoid for. I happen to be a bit partial to that one, my best work!"
Ro couldn't help smiling, even though the situation was serious. Once she'd gotten Zee out of Sweete's hands, they could save Dr. Selig, and she didn't have to worry about him rejecting Zee. He liked him! She gave Sweete a triumphant sneer.
"Yeah, and I'm sorta partial to him, too."
Sweete chuckled. "I noticed that. Well, let's just say Zeta has another mission for us. Every heard of the Spring City Robotics Convention? Real annoying, seeing as it's based in the city we like to do our work, but security's too good for us to do anything about it. That place is where the feds recruit most of their techies. Only one way to deal with them."
"Blow it all up?" remarked Ro innocently. "You remind me of a certain insane anarchist I know."
"Stan was never smart enough to think his plots through. You can't go in there guns a blazin' and get caught. It has to be delicate," he said seriously.
Ro shook her head "Sorry, I was wrong. You're crazier than he is. I'm not gonna let you use Zee to hurt people."
"It ain't up to you. I like you, kid, you're tough. I don't wanna kill you, so don't gimme a reason."
Ro gave him a sly grin. "Actually, Titus, I like crazy guys. Thought maybe I'd join up with Brother's Day. Down with technology and everything else that dares to make our lives convenient!" she exclaimed in a serious tone. "Maybe I could help ya out with the Robotics Convention mission, you know, sort of a club initiation type thing."
Sweete smiled back, and adopted a sugary tone. "Sure thing, Rowen, I'll get you a sidearm right now, and let you tag along with your robot friend!" His tone was hard again. "I've been in this organization for thirty years, kid."
She shrugged. "Still worth a shot. Could you at least tell tubby here to stop digging into my skull?" she asked, waving her arm at the guard holding the gun to her head.
"Nope, best to keep you under control. Bye bye, Eli. Later." He said, bashing his sidearm against the doctor's head, causing him to groan and slump down on the bed.
"Well, c'mon, Rowen, better take you to your new quarters." He tugged on Ro's arm and hoisted her up, the other guard's laser point still attached to the back of her head. Sweete dragged Ro out the door, and shoved her onto the floor in Suite 3.
"Remember, better be a good girl. Don't go getting in trouble, 'cause you're expendable. Bye!"
He shut the door behind him, and Ro could hear the key turning in the lock.