Be Not Proud
Second: Isolation
by Lady Virgo
"Do not let
anger
Mold
your fear."
///
Light knew better than to just advertise to the world that he had captured Robot Masters in his possession. Letting them know of their location and their current condition would be a sign, welcoming the military and the current anit-robot movement- better known as the Arcadians –to come in a kill them. It would also prove the amount of advanced automatons Light still had in his possession, as wells as Roll and his still working creation: X.
But he would let it slip into public records that the particular ones he had in containment were no longer a threat. Be it they were torn apart by angry mobs, killed by another Robot Master or someone had found their remains among some wreckage. Light tried to keep tabs on which one of Wily's bioroids were causing the most problems, though many of those were hard for him to come by.
Oddly enough though, he had come to find that Slash, one of the robots created solely for the act of battle had merely two records of killing in his memory banks. One Robot Master and one human. The one human that should have survived this ordeal unscathed: Albert Wily.
Looking through the data, he thought that there had to be some sort of mistake. The Robot Masters all went into some sort of blind rage. They killed and destroyed without digression. Even the meeker bioroids lashed out with the call to blood.
Yet, somehow, Slash seemed immune to that wild, untamed hunger. He was well in control of his own self, his mind didn't swim in thoughts of violence, in fact- according to data –he seemed calmer and less inclined to that blind rage than before- though that intensity, that much sanity made his viciousness seem even deadlier.
Perhaps, thought Light, he actually /was/ immune to whatever virus Wily put into them. Perhaps there was something inside the robot that kept that virus from fulfilling its programming.
Teething pulling at his lower lip, the doctor looked at his data and fell into a deep, unshakable thought.
///
Roll had gotten used to doing housework long ago. Not just because she was programmed to do so, but also because neither Light, Rock or Auto ever did any of it. On occasions they'd help out with spring cleaning or clearing out a table for dinner, maybe even help to wash the dishes. But it was also done with lots of prodding on Roll's end.
But the one thing that she hated doing nowadays was laundry because it was the one thing that Rock willingly helped her with. Just one day, after she had taken the clothes out of the dryer, he offered to help and picked up one of their father's sweaters and just held it against him and sighed.
When Roll asked, Rock just said, as if it was something anyone would do, that the warmth made him feel he was alive. He would always help fold the clothes, pausing every once in a while to hold the fading heat of the clothes against him and think maybe he was real. Roll didn't know if she envied his thoughts or not. She tired not to think about it then. It almost seemed impossible not to now. Now she would wait until all the warmth had left the clothes before she folded them, not wanting to hold onto them for too long for fear that she would be drawn into the painful memory again.
She threw the recently dried laundry into a basket, leaving it on a table for her to get to later. And iron was kept nearby to press out any wrinkles that formed in the cooling clothing. As she waited for the heat to dissipate, Roll spent her time in the kitchen, fixing up some soup and a sandwich for her father. She knew the doctor rarely ate anymore- his thick waistline had already dwindled visibly –but she stilled cooked for him. Even if he had already died in his lab and was carried out by mourners and buried, she would still probably cook for him because she was supposed, because it had become habit.
Roll wondered what would happen to her once she was no longer needed. Probably still going through the same motions she always had until her body collapsed and her mind would still run the lists of things that needed to be done and imagined she was doing until it sparked and broke, the brittle mind finally corroded under so many years without maintenance.
But, she reasoned, she was needed now and she had best make do with that while she could. Who knew when her every purpose would be taken away from her.
The thought frightened her and her grip tightened on the handle of the dipper. When the metal yelped under her hand, Roll tugged her fingers from the bent handle, switching to the other hand and continuing as if that painful thought hadn't just sliced through her body and made her want to fall to her knees in desperation and cry.
Roll picked up the try and walked down to the lab. She buzzed her father on the number pad by the door and announced his lunch was ready before she placed it on the floor and left. She didn't like the lab, didn't like what it represented, what it meant with all those bodies that hung there like fossilized bugs.
But that, like so many other things, she blocked out of her thoughts- memories she forced into a cage and cornered with other memories she had no use to remember.
One such thought- surrounded by the others that hated it just as much as Roll did –wondered if that didn't make her as bad as any of those other humans.
///
He was dreaming again. He had to be.
Everything now was nothing but a dream.
He watched the world through a copper-tinted glass, watching as it passed around him. Sometimes he would dream nothing but a blank wall for hours on end. Sometimes he could see the face of that old man spasm and vomit blood over his hands. Sometimes he saw little Sierra smile up at him as innocent and naive to his true nature as she ever was. He hated it, the thing he had become. He knew he could blame that damned Rock and the old bastard all he wanted, but he was the one that allowed himself to become this beast, this incoherent animal he hated.
His only solace was in his memories, but even they betrayed him eventually.
When he thought about the good things in his life, his first thoughts went to his brother who did all he could to take care of him because no one else would. But every time he tried to conjure up Freeze's image, all he saw was his face, half blown off and just barely clinging to his endoskeleton. Wires hung out of his cheeks and out of his empty eyes, twitching out of reflex. When he actually managed to remember the pale face, smooth and submissive in his cold silver manner, all he saw was the tiny, timid smile, unable to look at his brother with emotions Slash couldn't understand. And then that smile would falter and disappear but that same submissiveness would never leave his eyes, nor would he look at any other point then the one too far off to see. His smooth brow would furrow and his skin would grow darker, until he began turning purple. His joints would bloat and gradually his hollowed cheeks would puff. Eyes bulged out of their sockets, still submissive in their grotesque misshapeness. Tears would come from his eyes, but they were thick and discolored. The same liquid would seep from his ears and his nose. Only then would he open his mouth and vomit the same thick fluids.
Then, over Freeze's shoulder he could make out another shape. Smaller but glinting fangs and scales in the dark. Green eyes flashing with possessiveness, Snake would smile at Slash, venom dripping off his fangs, burning Freeze's neck when they splashed against his skin. The shorter bioroid would laugh because he had Freeze and there was nothing Slash could do to take them apart because they were always together in his nightmares.
That was the second time he went insane.
The first time was in the memories of that beautiful little girl, so trusting and unquestioning of her faith in a creature she couldn't see, didn't know and could never understand.
Generally he would remember her as she normally looked with her hair in a braid and her nice little dress that her mother would meticulously clean for her. Then, sometimes, when Sierra looked at him, he could see her face melt on the polished white bone. Her arms would snap under his gaze and her skin would bubble and when he tried to hold her, gashes would appear where he touched her skin, cutting deep enough to tear jagged edges into her fragile bones. And he smelled it, the burning flesh and hair and even though all she would do was look up at him with blind eyes that melted and ran down her raw cheeks, he could still hear her screaming. And he could never save her and she would stand before him in her destroyed skeleton as if she were on display behind his eyes only.
It was only after his mind was ravaged and decimated by those visions that the poison in his veins would talk to him. It calmed his fiery nerves and told him there was nothing he could do. All he was able to do now, it said, was to kill and survive or submit and die.
He lived his life forever the servant of violence and that brought him nothing but pain. He couldn't protect the only ones he cared for, the only ones that trusted him and believed in him. There was nothing fighting could do that could make him happy. Except for maybe death. He suppressed that growing rage in his veins easily because his mind had already given up. It couldn't feed off his terror and anger any longer because the only thing he desired now was to die, it didn't matter by whose hands. The only ones he desired to see dead had already been killed, there was nothing left for him.
So he would sit in the prison of his mind and watch his dreams pass and wait patiently until the world was finished with him.
It wouldn't be long. He could feel it.
///
Two hours after she had dropped off her father's food, she no longer had anything to do. Worry tugged at the fringes of Roll's mind and she went back down that long stretch of corridor. And, just as she had thought, the lunch try still sat at the door, unchanged saved for the thin film of dust that occupied the lab as if it were a spa.
Scowling at the microscopic intruders, she forced herself down the hall and picked up the tray. Then she took it back to the kitchen, spilling the platters into the disposal- to join the last two meals.
As Roll washed the dishes, she frowned. This morning she had found Light's dinner sitting outside the door. She didn't think much of it. He didn't eat much at night anyway and when he pushed himself too far, would fall asleep at his workstation. Without so much of a shrug, she set his breakfast in place of the previous. Balancing it against her hip, she paged Light, letting him now his food was waiting for him. For a long moment, she received no response. Roll had narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Perhaps he was still asleep. Slightly more wary, she took the untouched tray to the kitchen and disposed of the food.
When she went to place his lunch outside the door, his breakfast was equally undisturbed.
And now, two hours later, the food still sat and waited.
No, Roll told herself. You have to go in. No more waiting around. He could be hurt, he may need help. Who else would help him? Everyone else is gone, you're the only one, now. No more blind eyes.
She was proud of the way her fingers didn't tremble, even though her body felt as if it were trying to fold in on itself. She didn't understand why she feared this room so much. Before she merely felt a tinge of nervousness whenever she went into the labs. Now, with the Robot Masters hung suspended there- little butterflies, struggling against their pins –the thought of going in nearly brought her to her knees.
Never before had she ever let a room fall into such a state- lived in, yet unlived in at the same time. Dust layered the tables almost half an inch thick, some dried chemicals were crusted into tables, burn marks tanning the walls from some long forgotten experiment. But the room was heavy with the stench of bodies. Sweating, feverish, the smell of a single- minded man on the brink of obsession impregnated the room with little ventilation and no windows.
Forget it. She told herself. It has nothing to do with you, don't think about it. All she was here to do, she convinced herself, was to make sure her father was okay.
She moved with tunnel vision, the capsule were just shapeless blobs of color, unfinished pieces of work gleaming lumps on the table. There was only one thing Roll would allow herself to recognize and that she found in a smaller room adjoining the lab. There, Dr. Light leaned against the edge of a table. Wires were crossing around him, hooking around the straight back of a chair. In the chair, pierced by wires, arms limp, chin at his collar and Light wrist deep in his head, Slash sat. Quiet, unresponsive, unconscious.
Roll bit her lip, the skin in the triangle of shoulders, back and neck crawled, bunching and pinching at the sight. Hesitantly she cleared her throat.
In surprise, Light looked up, magnifying glasses on his head. "Roll!" Though his eyes were bruised, rimmed purple and green, the old man didn't seem to feel any sort fatigue. "What are you doing here?"
"You missed three meals." She said, wincing at the timid note in her voice. "I was worried."
He shook his head, attention drawn back to the robot in front of him. "I'm sorry, I'm just really busy right now." He sighed, connecting and moving things. "I've lost all track of time."
There was a pause before Roll got the courage to ask: "What are you doing?"
"There's something wrong with Slash. I'm trying to figure out what it is."
Roll fidgeted, deliberately looking around the hatch Light popped open on the back of Slash's head. "How do you know something's wrong him?"
Gathering his tools, Light hooked his grounding clip before he placed a small screwdriver on one of the exposed circuits. Watching her fath- ....Watching him work like that made Roll uneasy. A reminder of things one wanted desperately forget. "Supposedly killed Albert. He's not a stupid man," he gave a pointed look and she let him continue uninterrupted, "he wouldn't have let his virus go around, working like it does without having some form of protection to himself. There must've been something wrong with Slash. Flawed wiring, corrupt circuits, something that allowed that to happen."
He severed the motor lines that allowed the artificial brain to command the body. Then, with a fine point, began to prod at the memories that lay dormant before him.
Roll jumped slightly when Slash's eyes snapped open. His gaze was focused on a spot no longer there and a terrifying, distorted cut of a smile was lashed across hi face, pupils dilated and, if not for the NO2 still pumping into him, she knew his eyes would be glowing like the frightening stare of the night.
"I'll kill you. Damn bastard, for all the pain you put me through. I'll make you pay for what you did to me. What you did to her." Light frowned and prodded again, deeper. Slash's face morphed, eyes narrow, back to its steady amber gaze, expression in that harsh, serious set she knew by instinct. "Leave me alone. I don't care what he does, what any of them do." There was a pause and Slash's gaze slid away, thoughts spoken as clearly as words. "No.... Not anymore." Again that long needle moved, this time Slash's face crumpled into the most despairing expression Roll had ever known, voice hoarse and so full emotion. "I want to see you so badly. Sierra...." An odd look filtered subliminally across the scientist's face, standing behind the robot and Roll couldn't help but feel that he was tampering with something neither had any right to touch. The needle moved again.
It surprised them both, the sudden wailing and screaming as Slash's head jerked around, trashing on a body sat stock still. His lips pulled back over teeth that seemed longer and sharper, fangs that gnashed and clenched. His eyes were wide, filled with more desperate rage and pain than any being should have to ever feel, matching thrumming loudly as it was suddenly struggling to keep up with the jump in Surge. Immediately Light twisted again and the noise abruptly stopped.
"Personally, I don't really care who you tell." Slash said calmly, blood dribbling down his chin, red staining part of his lip and teeth. "But, since I know you won't leave me alone until I tell you, fine. The one who makes me happy is..." He smiled suddenly- not his dark or ironic smirk, but something truly content- and said, "a human.
Dr. Light's wrist twisted, cutting off one memory and moved to prod at another when Roll suddenly grasped his hand.
She was hesitant, he could tell, something about this bothering her. "What are you looking for?" She asked him. "What is this supposed to accomplish?"
Gently, but with firm intent, he pulled his arm from her grasp. "If Slash is malfunctioning, I need to know why, when it happened, if maybe there's a way to stop it, and stop the other Robot Masters."
"But it's a virus that Wily put in there." She didn't know why she was being belligerent, but it just seemed far too wrong to her, prodding through painful memories without permission. Light would never have done that to her or Rock or the others. Why was he doing this now?
The old man shook his head. "No, there's something more to this, there's something in here that drove Slash beyond the blind rage controlling the others."
"How do you-" She was cut off by a sharp look. Roll looked away.
Light's face softened. "The reason why," he said softly, "is because I went through all the entries since the unleashing of the virus. From the media, from intelligence and from the Robot Masters we've captured. Slash is fully capable of killing thousands of people and most all of the other Robot Masters. But his records show he's only killed /maybe/ two Robot Masters and the only human he's attacked at all is Albert. I need to know why!"
"But, Dr. Light-"
"Dammit, Roll!" He suddenly snapped, eyes wild like lightening. "I need to understand /WHY/!"
She stepped back, afraid, shocked. His face was desperate and it forced Roll to remember that, despite it all, Wily was still his dear friend. He had to know, he had to understand. Not as a scientist, not as the judge and jury in the court of bioroids, but as a person who had truly lost someone they always hoped beyond hope would return.
He jabbed the needle in deep, frustrated and angry. Angry at the robot that defied its programming, frustrated at his own anger that controlled him. The point skidded and Slash opened his mouth, letting out a sharp squeal and static. His head suddenly dropped and Roll though, for a moment, that he was broken and her beloved father had killed him.
Then, slowly, he lifted his head, face calm, peaceful, an amazingly easy smile on his lips that made him appear handsome. "I missed you." He told Roll. "It seems like so long, even though it wasn't. I like being around you, you make me feel calm, like I mean something." His gaze fell a bit. "It's kind of embarrassing, I guess. But I don't want to be some fierce creature always fighting. Around you, I just want to be there, to help you and be depended on. I want to be close, I want to protect you. If it's actually possible for a robot to feel this way about anyone, I'd say I love you. I want to be with you forever." Then, she realized as her mind wrenched, he was speaking from a memory. "Even if you're just a little girl, even if you are human, I never want to leave your side."
It made her suddenly feel sick. This was his mind, his private thoughts. These were words he couldn't speak to anyone. She couldn't allow either of them to forces these precious memories out of him anymore.
"Dr. Light," she said quietly, "please...."
Rattled by the raw honesty in the robot's voice, he pulled the needle out, deactivating the memory and letting the robot's head fall to his chest. "Right...." he stuttered slightly. "We'll let him rest."
by Lady Virgo
"Do not let
anger
Mold
your fear."
///
Light knew better than to just advertise to the world that he had captured Robot Masters in his possession. Letting them know of their location and their current condition would be a sign, welcoming the military and the current anit-robot movement- better known as the Arcadians –to come in a kill them. It would also prove the amount of advanced automatons Light still had in his possession, as wells as Roll and his still working creation: X.
But he would let it slip into public records that the particular ones he had in containment were no longer a threat. Be it they were torn apart by angry mobs, killed by another Robot Master or someone had found their remains among some wreckage. Light tried to keep tabs on which one of Wily's bioroids were causing the most problems, though many of those were hard for him to come by.
Oddly enough though, he had come to find that Slash, one of the robots created solely for the act of battle had merely two records of killing in his memory banks. One Robot Master and one human. The one human that should have survived this ordeal unscathed: Albert Wily.
Looking through the data, he thought that there had to be some sort of mistake. The Robot Masters all went into some sort of blind rage. They killed and destroyed without digression. Even the meeker bioroids lashed out with the call to blood.
Yet, somehow, Slash seemed immune to that wild, untamed hunger. He was well in control of his own self, his mind didn't swim in thoughts of violence, in fact- according to data –he seemed calmer and less inclined to that blind rage than before- though that intensity, that much sanity made his viciousness seem even deadlier.
Perhaps, thought Light, he actually /was/ immune to whatever virus Wily put into them. Perhaps there was something inside the robot that kept that virus from fulfilling its programming.
Teething pulling at his lower lip, the doctor looked at his data and fell into a deep, unshakable thought.
///
Roll had gotten used to doing housework long ago. Not just because she was programmed to do so, but also because neither Light, Rock or Auto ever did any of it. On occasions they'd help out with spring cleaning or clearing out a table for dinner, maybe even help to wash the dishes. But it was also done with lots of prodding on Roll's end.
But the one thing that she hated doing nowadays was laundry because it was the one thing that Rock willingly helped her with. Just one day, after she had taken the clothes out of the dryer, he offered to help and picked up one of their father's sweaters and just held it against him and sighed.
When Roll asked, Rock just said, as if it was something anyone would do, that the warmth made him feel he was alive. He would always help fold the clothes, pausing every once in a while to hold the fading heat of the clothes against him and think maybe he was real. Roll didn't know if she envied his thoughts or not. She tired not to think about it then. It almost seemed impossible not to now. Now she would wait until all the warmth had left the clothes before she folded them, not wanting to hold onto them for too long for fear that she would be drawn into the painful memory again.
She threw the recently dried laundry into a basket, leaving it on a table for her to get to later. And iron was kept nearby to press out any wrinkles that formed in the cooling clothing. As she waited for the heat to dissipate, Roll spent her time in the kitchen, fixing up some soup and a sandwich for her father. She knew the doctor rarely ate anymore- his thick waistline had already dwindled visibly –but she stilled cooked for him. Even if he had already died in his lab and was carried out by mourners and buried, she would still probably cook for him because she was supposed, because it had become habit.
Roll wondered what would happen to her once she was no longer needed. Probably still going through the same motions she always had until her body collapsed and her mind would still run the lists of things that needed to be done and imagined she was doing until it sparked and broke, the brittle mind finally corroded under so many years without maintenance.
But, she reasoned, she was needed now and she had best make do with that while she could. Who knew when her every purpose would be taken away from her.
The thought frightened her and her grip tightened on the handle of the dipper. When the metal yelped under her hand, Roll tugged her fingers from the bent handle, switching to the other hand and continuing as if that painful thought hadn't just sliced through her body and made her want to fall to her knees in desperation and cry.
Roll picked up the try and walked down to the lab. She buzzed her father on the number pad by the door and announced his lunch was ready before she placed it on the floor and left. She didn't like the lab, didn't like what it represented, what it meant with all those bodies that hung there like fossilized bugs.
But that, like so many other things, she blocked out of her thoughts- memories she forced into a cage and cornered with other memories she had no use to remember.
One such thought- surrounded by the others that hated it just as much as Roll did –wondered if that didn't make her as bad as any of those other humans.
///
He was dreaming again. He had to be.
Everything now was nothing but a dream.
He watched the world through a copper-tinted glass, watching as it passed around him. Sometimes he would dream nothing but a blank wall for hours on end. Sometimes he could see the face of that old man spasm and vomit blood over his hands. Sometimes he saw little Sierra smile up at him as innocent and naive to his true nature as she ever was. He hated it, the thing he had become. He knew he could blame that damned Rock and the old bastard all he wanted, but he was the one that allowed himself to become this beast, this incoherent animal he hated.
His only solace was in his memories, but even they betrayed him eventually.
When he thought about the good things in his life, his first thoughts went to his brother who did all he could to take care of him because no one else would. But every time he tried to conjure up Freeze's image, all he saw was his face, half blown off and just barely clinging to his endoskeleton. Wires hung out of his cheeks and out of his empty eyes, twitching out of reflex. When he actually managed to remember the pale face, smooth and submissive in his cold silver manner, all he saw was the tiny, timid smile, unable to look at his brother with emotions Slash couldn't understand. And then that smile would falter and disappear but that same submissiveness would never leave his eyes, nor would he look at any other point then the one too far off to see. His smooth brow would furrow and his skin would grow darker, until he began turning purple. His joints would bloat and gradually his hollowed cheeks would puff. Eyes bulged out of their sockets, still submissive in their grotesque misshapeness. Tears would come from his eyes, but they were thick and discolored. The same liquid would seep from his ears and his nose. Only then would he open his mouth and vomit the same thick fluids.
Then, over Freeze's shoulder he could make out another shape. Smaller but glinting fangs and scales in the dark. Green eyes flashing with possessiveness, Snake would smile at Slash, venom dripping off his fangs, burning Freeze's neck when they splashed against his skin. The shorter bioroid would laugh because he had Freeze and there was nothing Slash could do to take them apart because they were always together in his nightmares.
That was the second time he went insane.
The first time was in the memories of that beautiful little girl, so trusting and unquestioning of her faith in a creature she couldn't see, didn't know and could never understand.
Generally he would remember her as she normally looked with her hair in a braid and her nice little dress that her mother would meticulously clean for her. Then, sometimes, when Sierra looked at him, he could see her face melt on the polished white bone. Her arms would snap under his gaze and her skin would bubble and when he tried to hold her, gashes would appear where he touched her skin, cutting deep enough to tear jagged edges into her fragile bones. And he smelled it, the burning flesh and hair and even though all she would do was look up at him with blind eyes that melted and ran down her raw cheeks, he could still hear her screaming. And he could never save her and she would stand before him in her destroyed skeleton as if she were on display behind his eyes only.
It was only after his mind was ravaged and decimated by those visions that the poison in his veins would talk to him. It calmed his fiery nerves and told him there was nothing he could do. All he was able to do now, it said, was to kill and survive or submit and die.
He lived his life forever the servant of violence and that brought him nothing but pain. He couldn't protect the only ones he cared for, the only ones that trusted him and believed in him. There was nothing fighting could do that could make him happy. Except for maybe death. He suppressed that growing rage in his veins easily because his mind had already given up. It couldn't feed off his terror and anger any longer because the only thing he desired now was to die, it didn't matter by whose hands. The only ones he desired to see dead had already been killed, there was nothing left for him.
So he would sit in the prison of his mind and watch his dreams pass and wait patiently until the world was finished with him.
It wouldn't be long. He could feel it.
///
Two hours after she had dropped off her father's food, she no longer had anything to do. Worry tugged at the fringes of Roll's mind and she went back down that long stretch of corridor. And, just as she had thought, the lunch try still sat at the door, unchanged saved for the thin film of dust that occupied the lab as if it were a spa.
Scowling at the microscopic intruders, she forced herself down the hall and picked up the tray. Then she took it back to the kitchen, spilling the platters into the disposal- to join the last two meals.
As Roll washed the dishes, she frowned. This morning she had found Light's dinner sitting outside the door. She didn't think much of it. He didn't eat much at night anyway and when he pushed himself too far, would fall asleep at his workstation. Without so much of a shrug, she set his breakfast in place of the previous. Balancing it against her hip, she paged Light, letting him now his food was waiting for him. For a long moment, she received no response. Roll had narrowed her eyes, but said nothing. Perhaps he was still asleep. Slightly more wary, she took the untouched tray to the kitchen and disposed of the food.
When she went to place his lunch outside the door, his breakfast was equally undisturbed.
And now, two hours later, the food still sat and waited.
No, Roll told herself. You have to go in. No more waiting around. He could be hurt, he may need help. Who else would help him? Everyone else is gone, you're the only one, now. No more blind eyes.
She was proud of the way her fingers didn't tremble, even though her body felt as if it were trying to fold in on itself. She didn't understand why she feared this room so much. Before she merely felt a tinge of nervousness whenever she went into the labs. Now, with the Robot Masters hung suspended there- little butterflies, struggling against their pins –the thought of going in nearly brought her to her knees.
Never before had she ever let a room fall into such a state- lived in, yet unlived in at the same time. Dust layered the tables almost half an inch thick, some dried chemicals were crusted into tables, burn marks tanning the walls from some long forgotten experiment. But the room was heavy with the stench of bodies. Sweating, feverish, the smell of a single- minded man on the brink of obsession impregnated the room with little ventilation and no windows.
Forget it. She told herself. It has nothing to do with you, don't think about it. All she was here to do, she convinced herself, was to make sure her father was okay.
She moved with tunnel vision, the capsule were just shapeless blobs of color, unfinished pieces of work gleaming lumps on the table. There was only one thing Roll would allow herself to recognize and that she found in a smaller room adjoining the lab. There, Dr. Light leaned against the edge of a table. Wires were crossing around him, hooking around the straight back of a chair. In the chair, pierced by wires, arms limp, chin at his collar and Light wrist deep in his head, Slash sat. Quiet, unresponsive, unconscious.
Roll bit her lip, the skin in the triangle of shoulders, back and neck crawled, bunching and pinching at the sight. Hesitantly she cleared her throat.
In surprise, Light looked up, magnifying glasses on his head. "Roll!" Though his eyes were bruised, rimmed purple and green, the old man didn't seem to feel any sort fatigue. "What are you doing here?"
"You missed three meals." She said, wincing at the timid note in her voice. "I was worried."
He shook his head, attention drawn back to the robot in front of him. "I'm sorry, I'm just really busy right now." He sighed, connecting and moving things. "I've lost all track of time."
There was a pause before Roll got the courage to ask: "What are you doing?"
"There's something wrong with Slash. I'm trying to figure out what it is."
Roll fidgeted, deliberately looking around the hatch Light popped open on the back of Slash's head. "How do you know something's wrong him?"
Gathering his tools, Light hooked his grounding clip before he placed a small screwdriver on one of the exposed circuits. Watching her fath- ....Watching him work like that made Roll uneasy. A reminder of things one wanted desperately forget. "Supposedly killed Albert. He's not a stupid man," he gave a pointed look and she let him continue uninterrupted, "he wouldn't have let his virus go around, working like it does without having some form of protection to himself. There must've been something wrong with Slash. Flawed wiring, corrupt circuits, something that allowed that to happen."
He severed the motor lines that allowed the artificial brain to command the body. Then, with a fine point, began to prod at the memories that lay dormant before him.
Roll jumped slightly when Slash's eyes snapped open. His gaze was focused on a spot no longer there and a terrifying, distorted cut of a smile was lashed across hi face, pupils dilated and, if not for the NO2 still pumping into him, she knew his eyes would be glowing like the frightening stare of the night.
"I'll kill you. Damn bastard, for all the pain you put me through. I'll make you pay for what you did to me. What you did to her." Light frowned and prodded again, deeper. Slash's face morphed, eyes narrow, back to its steady amber gaze, expression in that harsh, serious set she knew by instinct. "Leave me alone. I don't care what he does, what any of them do." There was a pause and Slash's gaze slid away, thoughts spoken as clearly as words. "No.... Not anymore." Again that long needle moved, this time Slash's face crumpled into the most despairing expression Roll had ever known, voice hoarse and so full emotion. "I want to see you so badly. Sierra...." An odd look filtered subliminally across the scientist's face, standing behind the robot and Roll couldn't help but feel that he was tampering with something neither had any right to touch. The needle moved again.
It surprised them both, the sudden wailing and screaming as Slash's head jerked around, trashing on a body sat stock still. His lips pulled back over teeth that seemed longer and sharper, fangs that gnashed and clenched. His eyes were wide, filled with more desperate rage and pain than any being should have to ever feel, matching thrumming loudly as it was suddenly struggling to keep up with the jump in Surge. Immediately Light twisted again and the noise abruptly stopped.
"Personally, I don't really care who you tell." Slash said calmly, blood dribbling down his chin, red staining part of his lip and teeth. "But, since I know you won't leave me alone until I tell you, fine. The one who makes me happy is..." He smiled suddenly- not his dark or ironic smirk, but something truly content- and said, "a human.
Dr. Light's wrist twisted, cutting off one memory and moved to prod at another when Roll suddenly grasped his hand.
She was hesitant, he could tell, something about this bothering her. "What are you looking for?" She asked him. "What is this supposed to accomplish?"
Gently, but with firm intent, he pulled his arm from her grasp. "If Slash is malfunctioning, I need to know why, when it happened, if maybe there's a way to stop it, and stop the other Robot Masters."
"But it's a virus that Wily put in there." She didn't know why she was being belligerent, but it just seemed far too wrong to her, prodding through painful memories without permission. Light would never have done that to her or Rock or the others. Why was he doing this now?
The old man shook his head. "No, there's something more to this, there's something in here that drove Slash beyond the blind rage controlling the others."
"How do you-" She was cut off by a sharp look. Roll looked away.
Light's face softened. "The reason why," he said softly, "is because I went through all the entries since the unleashing of the virus. From the media, from intelligence and from the Robot Masters we've captured. Slash is fully capable of killing thousands of people and most all of the other Robot Masters. But his records show he's only killed /maybe/ two Robot Masters and the only human he's attacked at all is Albert. I need to know why!"
"But, Dr. Light-"
"Dammit, Roll!" He suddenly snapped, eyes wild like lightening. "I need to understand /WHY/!"
She stepped back, afraid, shocked. His face was desperate and it forced Roll to remember that, despite it all, Wily was still his dear friend. He had to know, he had to understand. Not as a scientist, not as the judge and jury in the court of bioroids, but as a person who had truly lost someone they always hoped beyond hope would return.
He jabbed the needle in deep, frustrated and angry. Angry at the robot that defied its programming, frustrated at his own anger that controlled him. The point skidded and Slash opened his mouth, letting out a sharp squeal and static. His head suddenly dropped and Roll though, for a moment, that he was broken and her beloved father had killed him.
Then, slowly, he lifted his head, face calm, peaceful, an amazingly easy smile on his lips that made him appear handsome. "I missed you." He told Roll. "It seems like so long, even though it wasn't. I like being around you, you make me feel calm, like I mean something." His gaze fell a bit. "It's kind of embarrassing, I guess. But I don't want to be some fierce creature always fighting. Around you, I just want to be there, to help you and be depended on. I want to be close, I want to protect you. If it's actually possible for a robot to feel this way about anyone, I'd say I love you. I want to be with you forever." Then, she realized as her mind wrenched, he was speaking from a memory. "Even if you're just a little girl, even if you are human, I never want to leave your side."
It made her suddenly feel sick. This was his mind, his private thoughts. These were words he couldn't speak to anyone. She couldn't allow either of them to forces these precious memories out of him anymore.
"Dr. Light," she said quietly, "please...."
Rattled by the raw honesty in the robot's voice, he pulled the needle out, deactivating the memory and letting the robot's head fall to his chest. "Right...." he stuttered slightly. "We'll let him rest."