Writers Note: Sorry for the long pause in updating. I just couldn't bring myself to write what could be considered the "boring" chapter. I'm bad at description, but I guess that's why I write here. Everytime I started, I just felt as if it was wrong, I was doing something wrong or making it sound too light. But I finally got around to writing something I largely agree with. This might be considered a little boring, I don't know, but it heats up towards the end as I develop a new conflict - Samus, over her place in life. Enjoy!
---
As I entered the research lab, my eyes were greeted to an image of surreal technological dominance. After arriving off the elevator platform that resembled the mine shaft elevators on Planet Zebes, I was awestruck at how magnificant the inside the facility was. It was a contrast that rivaled the constrast of white and black. The outside was a faded, crumbling building which looked a millenium in age. Yet the inside was full of equipment that rivaled even todays technological achievements. It didn't resemble Chozo architecture at all. It was cold, mechanical, stark. Then it hit me. It reminded me of the Space Pirates.
The rickety old gravitational elevator I managed to hotwire lowered me into a small elevator lobby, with plain white walls which seemed to stretch all the way to the heavens, and blue marble floor which glowed red with warmth with every step. Although the site itself was very dull and plain, from the very beginning, the facility presented to me an image of superiority and greatness, as if the room I was about to enter was of significant importance. Although looking nothing like the great sculptures and wonderous pieces of art I found to embody Chozo architecture on Tallon IV, in it's humble design, it commanded respect.
The blue-security door lit up as I approached it, and when I fired a blast with my arm canon to deactivate it, I was greeted with a long hallway, with pipes alligning the walls and lights embedded on the ceiling lighting my path. At that point, I knew I had found my way to the utilities sector of the facility, which almost certainly had to carry some sort of communication equipment to allow contact to the outside world.
I walked down the long tunnels of pipes carrying black matter to the reactor core powering the facility, carefully analyzed each section in hopes of finding something that could gain Adam access to the entire network of this facility. I soon learned how the facility was set up - after about every five hundredyards of tunnels and pathways, there was a security station which supervised that sector of piping. Each security station was exactly the same in appearence - with several computers built into the walls asking for a prompt which required red-level security access in order to access the network. With my arm canon only equipped with blue-level security access, these stations served no purpose for me as I couldn't use them. After walking through an entire labyrinth of matching hallways and matching security stations, I finally reached the reactor core - which, just like the large piping fixtures, laid dormant for at least an entire millenium.
The room itself where the reactor rested was massive, with a ceiling that seemed to stretch to the heavens. I had arrived on the 1st floor South entrance of a massive five-story room with four entrances (North, South, East, West) on each floor. Each level had it's own catwalk that encircled the reactor, a large metal rod with a small bulb at the end of it.
I walked through the door, glancing back and forth across several instruments sued to maintain the reactor. Then I saw what I needed - the communications terminal - but the doors were sealed and were unable to be opened without power. The facility had been running off of the backup batteries for all this time and had shut down all non-essential systems in order to preserve the batteries. I needed to be able to power up the reactor and get it to deliver power to that building again. The only problem was that I had no idea how to turn on a nuclear reactor - the very task seemed like it was time consuming and needed a lot of technical know-how. I mean, how the hell does one just turn on a nuclear reactor? Just flip a switch from on to off? That was the limit of my degree in nuclear physics. I knew that Adam most likely knew how to get the nuclear reactor working again, but his help was beyond me now. As I looked at the towering reactor resembling a giant missile, and all of the various pipes which leached itself to the base of it, I just let out a small sigh and wondered how the hell I was going to get a complicated, supermassive reactor core operational when I failed my chemistry class in high school.
But then I saw another small computer station nearest the reactor core, the monitor glowing with life with a blinking green line that was just asking me to type something. So, out of curiousity, I approached the monitor and looked down to type something. I hit one key, which deactivated the safe mode, and it gave me one simple question - "Reactivate reactor core? y/n". After staring in slight disbelief for awhile, I clicked the "y" key. And with that, the pipes I had seen alligning the hallway began pulsing with black matter, delivering it to the reactor for processing into energy. As the humming of electricity being processed became louder and louder, soon I began seeing all of the various monitors and computer systems flicker with life, along with several overhead lights. I was amazed at how idiot-proof a nuclear reactor could be.
I walked to the communications terminal NaviCom and began to type in the ship ID to link Adam to the network.
"Connection Established. Uploading information..."
The NaviCom was able to connect directly with Adam back at the ship, and Adam began the massive task of searching through the massive network at ChozoTech Research in order to find important information about the facilities objectives.
"Upload complete."
Soon after the upload was finished, Adam made contact...
"I have some good news, some bad news and some worse news, lady. Should I start with the good news?"
Damn it, why does there always have to be bad news?
"I guess..." I muttered back.
"Good news - after accessing the site logs, I was able to find out that this facilities prior use was for weapons development, which means there are plenty of old weapons and barely used prototype weapons that can be applied to function in coordination with your Space Suit within the facility. And I've managed to gain us access to a map station which will lead you out of the utilities room."
"Uh, that's good." I replied, a little nervous of what remained to be said. "What's the bad news?"
"Well, uh... the bad news is the pirates have gained access and are looting the facility as we speak. And I have no idea where they managed to gain access, so watch your back."
"Well, I have no idea where I managed to gain access either. What's the 'worse' news, Adam?"
"Ummmm. This facility was known for it's, uh... rather liberal use of animal weapons testing, especially dangerous specimens from SR-388. I was able to find out that this planet was an exact replica of SR-388 before it entered an ice age when it had changed its orbiting pattern and only saw three days of light a year. The animal life on SR-388 seized to exist, and froze over into the ages. The planet hosted the same animal life as SR-388. Knowing this, the Chozo searched for prehistoric life. They were able to find a specimen with the ability to literally suck energy from it's enemies and harnest it to use against them. Reports call this specimen 'the most powerful creature yet to be encountered in the universe'. They used a method of freezing the specimen in order to subdue it, and developed weapons specifically focused on freezing this specimen and trying to harness it's potential threat to society. The lab reports end suddenly after one report that discussed cleaning the inside of the shielded holding biome. Further analysis suggests that the distress alarms were activated, thereby shutting off all power to the facility, but most likely, there was no attempt to rescue the ChozoTech crew. I've come to only one conclusion to what this species may be..."
I very well knew what it was. Adam knew I knew as well. It was the Metroid. The Metroid race back from hell. And this time I understood who my enemies were. The entire universe. The Pirates, the Federation, the Metroid themselves - it was the feeling of paranoia I had never felt before.
"... the Metroid is back, lady."
"Well, no shit Adam." I shouted, angrily. "I can't believe how close we got to killing this thing. I really can't believe it. And now it's back due to this stupid technicality. I blew up SR-388 only to unfreeze an even more menacing Metroid race! The painful irony of my mission just never ends, I'll fight my whole life to wipe this thing out! And even then it'll still emerge, thriving in the corner of the universe where nobody else thought of looking. I'll fight everyone to do it, too! I'll fight Ridley, I'll fight the government, and I'll fight a million more of those slimy, disgusting, dangerous, repulsive creatures whom everyone wishes to manipulate to do their bidding. What's the point, Adam? Huh? Can't I enjoy freedom for once? I'm a woman trapped in a prison, a suit, forever fight for values that no longer mean anything to anybody else.
"Lady, I-"
"No, Adam!" I interupted, unwilling to hear Adam's usual common sense. "I should just take this time to run... run far, far away from all of this. Nobody will come searching for me. Nobody will assign me with bogus, pointless missions. I'll be a coward, but at least I won't be so pursued. So hated by everyone. It's all gotten to big for me, Adam. I don't know what I'm doing or who's my enemy anymore."
At this point, I slumped over, fell to the ground and nearly started to cry. I was feeling as if I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, with everything to lose and nothing to gain, and nobody on my side. But then Adam spoke up with something I'll always remember as long as I live...
"Lady, who cares what they think right now. Don't let them tell you your wrong - they've been telling you things that weren't true all your life! They never believed you were a woman, but you are one, a beautiful woman I might add. They never believed you could stand a chance against Mother Brain when they sent you to Planet Zebes for the second time. You're still kicking, aren't you, lady? And they never believed you would disobey orders you thought to be immoral. And not only did you disobey orders, you threw a space station into a whole god damn planet and blew those bastards to all to hell! Maybe we'll die without anybody ever knowing how much we sacrificed to save them from obliteration and total war against the universes greatest foe. But I've already died once, lady. I've died once for this cause and I don't regret it at all. I never told you this before, but I had children when I was alive. Three beautiful girls. I wanted to go back home, lady. And I knew what I was doing would for sure get me killed. So why did I even try? Because if I didn't, my girls wouldn't ever live to see freedom, or the day they have children of their own. Let's not do this for what the Federation thinks. Let's do this for the good people out there. You have to try, even though if it means failing several times along the way. Eventually, they will understand, lady."
With Adam's speech, I suddenly felt way better about what I was doing. I was still a little at odds with myself, but at least I had the courage to continue the mission. I paused for a moment to reflect on the common sense Adam had driven into my brain.
"So, what do you want me to do?" I inquired, with a hint of eagerness to embark on my objective to come.
"Well, first, get to that map station and upload the layout of the station. I've already taken the liberty to locking down the entire area to make sure no pirates prematurely enter the utilities sector. Somewhere within that sector, there is a Charge Beam augmentation to add to your suit. After you recieve that, you should be able to successfully fight pirates, so report back to the NaviCom and I'll unlock your location. And keep on the look out for reserve tanks, energy tanks, etc. They will help you in ways you can't imagine. Any objections, lady?"
"No."
But before I even answered, he disappeared from the NaviCom screen. He knew I was going to agree, but he didn't have to be that arrogent about it. I guess that old test of friendship didn't hold up when he knew he was right. Heh.
---
As I entered the research lab, my eyes were greeted to an image of surreal technological dominance. After arriving off the elevator platform that resembled the mine shaft elevators on Planet Zebes, I was awestruck at how magnificant the inside the facility was. It was a contrast that rivaled the constrast of white and black. The outside was a faded, crumbling building which looked a millenium in age. Yet the inside was full of equipment that rivaled even todays technological achievements. It didn't resemble Chozo architecture at all. It was cold, mechanical, stark. Then it hit me. It reminded me of the Space Pirates.
The rickety old gravitational elevator I managed to hotwire lowered me into a small elevator lobby, with plain white walls which seemed to stretch all the way to the heavens, and blue marble floor which glowed red with warmth with every step. Although the site itself was very dull and plain, from the very beginning, the facility presented to me an image of superiority and greatness, as if the room I was about to enter was of significant importance. Although looking nothing like the great sculptures and wonderous pieces of art I found to embody Chozo architecture on Tallon IV, in it's humble design, it commanded respect.
The blue-security door lit up as I approached it, and when I fired a blast with my arm canon to deactivate it, I was greeted with a long hallway, with pipes alligning the walls and lights embedded on the ceiling lighting my path. At that point, I knew I had found my way to the utilities sector of the facility, which almost certainly had to carry some sort of communication equipment to allow contact to the outside world.
I walked down the long tunnels of pipes carrying black matter to the reactor core powering the facility, carefully analyzed each section in hopes of finding something that could gain Adam access to the entire network of this facility. I soon learned how the facility was set up - after about every five hundredyards of tunnels and pathways, there was a security station which supervised that sector of piping. Each security station was exactly the same in appearence - with several computers built into the walls asking for a prompt which required red-level security access in order to access the network. With my arm canon only equipped with blue-level security access, these stations served no purpose for me as I couldn't use them. After walking through an entire labyrinth of matching hallways and matching security stations, I finally reached the reactor core - which, just like the large piping fixtures, laid dormant for at least an entire millenium.
The room itself where the reactor rested was massive, with a ceiling that seemed to stretch to the heavens. I had arrived on the 1st floor South entrance of a massive five-story room with four entrances (North, South, East, West) on each floor. Each level had it's own catwalk that encircled the reactor, a large metal rod with a small bulb at the end of it.
I walked through the door, glancing back and forth across several instruments sued to maintain the reactor. Then I saw what I needed - the communications terminal - but the doors were sealed and were unable to be opened without power. The facility had been running off of the backup batteries for all this time and had shut down all non-essential systems in order to preserve the batteries. I needed to be able to power up the reactor and get it to deliver power to that building again. The only problem was that I had no idea how to turn on a nuclear reactor - the very task seemed like it was time consuming and needed a lot of technical know-how. I mean, how the hell does one just turn on a nuclear reactor? Just flip a switch from on to off? That was the limit of my degree in nuclear physics. I knew that Adam most likely knew how to get the nuclear reactor working again, but his help was beyond me now. As I looked at the towering reactor resembling a giant missile, and all of the various pipes which leached itself to the base of it, I just let out a small sigh and wondered how the hell I was going to get a complicated, supermassive reactor core operational when I failed my chemistry class in high school.
But then I saw another small computer station nearest the reactor core, the monitor glowing with life with a blinking green line that was just asking me to type something. So, out of curiousity, I approached the monitor and looked down to type something. I hit one key, which deactivated the safe mode, and it gave me one simple question - "Reactivate reactor core? y/n". After staring in slight disbelief for awhile, I clicked the "y" key. And with that, the pipes I had seen alligning the hallway began pulsing with black matter, delivering it to the reactor for processing into energy. As the humming of electricity being processed became louder and louder, soon I began seeing all of the various monitors and computer systems flicker with life, along with several overhead lights. I was amazed at how idiot-proof a nuclear reactor could be.
I walked to the communications terminal NaviCom and began to type in the ship ID to link Adam to the network.
"Connection Established. Uploading information..."
The NaviCom was able to connect directly with Adam back at the ship, and Adam began the massive task of searching through the massive network at ChozoTech Research in order to find important information about the facilities objectives.
"Upload complete."
Soon after the upload was finished, Adam made contact...
"I have some good news, some bad news and some worse news, lady. Should I start with the good news?"
Damn it, why does there always have to be bad news?
"I guess..." I muttered back.
"Good news - after accessing the site logs, I was able to find out that this facilities prior use was for weapons development, which means there are plenty of old weapons and barely used prototype weapons that can be applied to function in coordination with your Space Suit within the facility. And I've managed to gain us access to a map station which will lead you out of the utilities room."
"Uh, that's good." I replied, a little nervous of what remained to be said. "What's the bad news?"
"Well, uh... the bad news is the pirates have gained access and are looting the facility as we speak. And I have no idea where they managed to gain access, so watch your back."
"Well, I have no idea where I managed to gain access either. What's the 'worse' news, Adam?"
"Ummmm. This facility was known for it's, uh... rather liberal use of animal weapons testing, especially dangerous specimens from SR-388. I was able to find out that this planet was an exact replica of SR-388 before it entered an ice age when it had changed its orbiting pattern and only saw three days of light a year. The animal life on SR-388 seized to exist, and froze over into the ages. The planet hosted the same animal life as SR-388. Knowing this, the Chozo searched for prehistoric life. They were able to find a specimen with the ability to literally suck energy from it's enemies and harnest it to use against them. Reports call this specimen 'the most powerful creature yet to be encountered in the universe'. They used a method of freezing the specimen in order to subdue it, and developed weapons specifically focused on freezing this specimen and trying to harness it's potential threat to society. The lab reports end suddenly after one report that discussed cleaning the inside of the shielded holding biome. Further analysis suggests that the distress alarms were activated, thereby shutting off all power to the facility, but most likely, there was no attempt to rescue the ChozoTech crew. I've come to only one conclusion to what this species may be..."
I very well knew what it was. Adam knew I knew as well. It was the Metroid. The Metroid race back from hell. And this time I understood who my enemies were. The entire universe. The Pirates, the Federation, the Metroid themselves - it was the feeling of paranoia I had never felt before.
"... the Metroid is back, lady."
"Well, no shit Adam." I shouted, angrily. "I can't believe how close we got to killing this thing. I really can't believe it. And now it's back due to this stupid technicality. I blew up SR-388 only to unfreeze an even more menacing Metroid race! The painful irony of my mission just never ends, I'll fight my whole life to wipe this thing out! And even then it'll still emerge, thriving in the corner of the universe where nobody else thought of looking. I'll fight everyone to do it, too! I'll fight Ridley, I'll fight the government, and I'll fight a million more of those slimy, disgusting, dangerous, repulsive creatures whom everyone wishes to manipulate to do their bidding. What's the point, Adam? Huh? Can't I enjoy freedom for once? I'm a woman trapped in a prison, a suit, forever fight for values that no longer mean anything to anybody else.
"Lady, I-"
"No, Adam!" I interupted, unwilling to hear Adam's usual common sense. "I should just take this time to run... run far, far away from all of this. Nobody will come searching for me. Nobody will assign me with bogus, pointless missions. I'll be a coward, but at least I won't be so pursued. So hated by everyone. It's all gotten to big for me, Adam. I don't know what I'm doing or who's my enemy anymore."
At this point, I slumped over, fell to the ground and nearly started to cry. I was feeling as if I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown, with everything to lose and nothing to gain, and nobody on my side. But then Adam spoke up with something I'll always remember as long as I live...
"Lady, who cares what they think right now. Don't let them tell you your wrong - they've been telling you things that weren't true all your life! They never believed you were a woman, but you are one, a beautiful woman I might add. They never believed you could stand a chance against Mother Brain when they sent you to Planet Zebes for the second time. You're still kicking, aren't you, lady? And they never believed you would disobey orders you thought to be immoral. And not only did you disobey orders, you threw a space station into a whole god damn planet and blew those bastards to all to hell! Maybe we'll die without anybody ever knowing how much we sacrificed to save them from obliteration and total war against the universes greatest foe. But I've already died once, lady. I've died once for this cause and I don't regret it at all. I never told you this before, but I had children when I was alive. Three beautiful girls. I wanted to go back home, lady. And I knew what I was doing would for sure get me killed. So why did I even try? Because if I didn't, my girls wouldn't ever live to see freedom, or the day they have children of their own. Let's not do this for what the Federation thinks. Let's do this for the good people out there. You have to try, even though if it means failing several times along the way. Eventually, they will understand, lady."
With Adam's speech, I suddenly felt way better about what I was doing. I was still a little at odds with myself, but at least I had the courage to continue the mission. I paused for a moment to reflect on the common sense Adam had driven into my brain.
"So, what do you want me to do?" I inquired, with a hint of eagerness to embark on my objective to come.
"Well, first, get to that map station and upload the layout of the station. I've already taken the liberty to locking down the entire area to make sure no pirates prematurely enter the utilities sector. Somewhere within that sector, there is a Charge Beam augmentation to add to your suit. After you recieve that, you should be able to successfully fight pirates, so report back to the NaviCom and I'll unlock your location. And keep on the look out for reserve tanks, energy tanks, etc. They will help you in ways you can't imagine. Any objections, lady?"
"No."
But before I even answered, he disappeared from the NaviCom screen. He knew I was going to agree, but he didn't have to be that arrogent about it. I guess that old test of friendship didn't hold up when he knew he was right. Heh.
