Author notes: Ahem. Still dark, still don't own Metropolis. This story's going to get updated on kind of a whenever-I-feel-like-it basis, which at present is fairly quickly. I am happy because I realized today that on August 11th, My fanfiction.net account will officially be one year old. Happy premature b-day to my account!
Thanks to reviewers Kenichi's Gal (Yay! Chocolate!) and Rocku (Thanks immensely, but now the others will hunt me down and kill me... *hides in a hole* eep...)
My father announced the first day of official celebrations for the newly-completed Ziggurat this morning. All day, I've seen it repeated again and again on every monitor, giving hope for the future and joy for the present, but Marduks don't get the day off.
As we patrolled the evening crowds, there were people everywhere. They parted like the red sea before my uniform and blank gaze. The day was remarkably quiet, given the sheer amounts of swarming people- I caught myself envying them for a moment as they lived so carefree and unworried, but then was called off to break up a group of protesters campaigning for robot rights.
Idiots.
Robots were fake, artificial intelligence, if you could call it that. Nothing more than an attempt at creating a human mind in a metal body. It was ironic- people worked so hard to give the things thought and some measure of emotion, then send them to do the work they themselves shun. Though really, I thought cynically, people on the whole weren't very smart either- But I'd take real over artificial any day.
I stopped in the street, unaccountably reminded of my sister. As a distraction I looked up... The Ziggurat loomed over me, lit by spotlights and fireworks sending golden trails through the sky- and I was hit by a sudden wave of foreboding. Something was going to happen here, and for a moment I saw flames reflected in the arched windows.
A lone spotlight began to move, sliding downward- bizarrely, it showed the Marduk emblem. A sudden crackle of static over the radio, and a body fell from the platform. I watched, stunned, as it sailed through the air, rebounding from a car roof, a fatal impact. I heard the crunch and groan of metal, the spattering of shattered glass. I felt sick as I realized I'd just seen someone die.
Then it got up and limped away.
Incomprehension, then suspicion dawned. Suddenly a blinding anger took hold- A robot! I could see the green-painted face clearly now, the red markings of zone one prominent now that I knew to look. I drew my gun, startling the crowd into silence, and fired off a well-aimed shot to the leg, crippling it. Oil spurted from the wound as wires disconnected, and it fell. I saw the creation with my sister's face superimposed there for a moment and fired again, a direct shot between the shoulder blades.
I tucked my gun away, looking down on the thing with a fierce joy and imagining Tima's mechanical twin spread out like this, helpless and dying on the pavement. "You're out of your Zone," I said, and a smirk curved my face. The people stared.
I didn't care. Let them whisper about the Marduks, a little fear might do them good. I would avenge my sister and make my father see the truth if it was the last thing I did. I promised myself that at the lab a long time ago.
Leaving the body to be picked up by my subordinates, I left to give a report to my father. He would want to know about the incident.
The elevator ride was slow, as usual, and though I hid it behind tinted glasses I often had the awful feeling that the car would fall and smash to the ground forty floors below. The glass front and gracefully worked iron grate that passed for doors didn't do much to help the hovering edge of fear.
Seems odd, doesn't it, that someone like me has a phobia of heights? I suppose it's the one fear that Duke Red hasn't yet beat out of me, probably because I've never mentioned it- But my father loves me. I know he does.
I stepped out onto the marble, the tightness in my chest vanishing along with the sight of city and sky spread out below my feet. I stand at the door, for my father has a visitor. I glance sideways at the guards without moving my head, mentally mocking them. The truth is that I both pity and envy them- Pity because they don't actually get to do anything (They're really more decoration than anything else) and Envy because they got to stay near Duke Red all day, something I often wished for as a child but grew out of quickly.
My eyes shift around the room, taking in the rich marble inlays and the immense windows open to the gardens above. My men often refer to it jokingly as the hanging gardens, but I've never quite gotten the reference. I suppose that's what happens growing up in a war- you miss out on a lot of things.
"Tonight, Doctor Laughton," I heard my father say, and I looked forward again, focusing for the first time on my father and the visitor. I just managed to hold back a gasp and a growl of fury at the sight of the squat, shabby man. The scientist. I clench my hands into fists and hide them in my pockets, keeping myself from killing him with my bare hands.
My fingertips itch for my gun.
Whatever business he had here concluded, the horrible little man slunk out. I scowled at him as he passed, longing to wrap my hands around his throat for what he'd done to my sister, but let him be. The guards, the pitiful guards even noticed his air of uncleanliness, brushing imaginary dirt off immaculate uniforms. I scowled at the guards as well, cursing them for never having to get their hands dirty.
I took off my sunglasses and knocked, announcing myself. "It's Rock," I said, tentative.
Duke Red didn't even face me as I approached, and he lay a framed photograph on his desk. "I heard there was a problem in the main plaza."
I stopped, worried. How can he have known that so quickly? I'd just come to tell him! "Yes," I said, "a robot agitator tried to make trouble."
He still didn't turn, but I could hear the anger in his voice. "I put you in charge," he grinds out, "to prevent this kind of thing."
"Yes, father."
Ah! Did I really say that?! It just slipped out- I mentally panic but keep a calm front.
He turns slowly, furious now. "You idiot!" he says loudly, "I'm not your father, understand?" he slammed his hand down on the desk, punctuating the last word. I flinched. "I found you during the last war," he continued, more calmly, "you were an orphan so I took you in." He looked disgusted with me. "You're dismissed."
I look forward, concentrating on a spot just above my father's- no, Duke Red's right shoulder. "Yes," I said, almost inaudible, and walked stiffly out, feeling that the guards were laughing at me every step of the way. But my resolve was stronger now- I'd clearly heard the word "tonight" in reference to the lab. I'd thought on this for a long time.
It must be done. The machine must be destroyed to bring my sister peace at last, and then my father will see it for what it is and no longer hate me so. The metal mockery is not allowed to exist.
I laugh, not an entirely sane laugh, as I walk alone through artificial elegance.