BLINDED BY SCIENCE
Chapter 3: "A Better Mousetrap"
by Bill K.
For the first time in a while, Ami Mizuno possessed conscious thought. Realizing she was laying on her side on a cushion, she pushed herself upright. As she did, her mind tried to focus jumbled thoughts into coherent patterns. Her droopy eyes looked around.
"From the way my body is reacting," Ami thought, fighting the disorientation she felt, as she looked her surroundings over, "I must have encountered an overwhelming electrical shock - -
perhaps a taser or stun gun. I clearly lost consciousness. But who could have done it? And where am I now?"
She was in a roughly six by six by twelve foot transparent cube. She sat on a bunk consisting of a single mattress and pillow covering a polymer support that ran horizontally from one side of the cube to the other along the back. At the foot of the bunk was a floor commode built into the cube. It was about three feet wide and two feet off the floor. On the wall opposite the bunk was another span from wall to wall. It was three feet off the ground and two feet wide. On one side was a well with a plate. Beneath it was a bench, also of clear polymer. On the other was a computer keyboard, its cable disappearing into the floor. There was no monitor or evidence of the hard drive it was connected to.
Ami looked down. Her clothes were gone, save for her conservative white bra and panties. Instantly uncomfortable, Ami's arms folded over her chest as she felt her cheeks burn. Trying to dismiss the humiliation she felt, the girl surveyed the outer room through the clear panels of the cube. The outer room was made up of white walls, a white floor and a white ceiling. The decor was so stark that one had to strain to see where the walls intersected. Still,
with the patience of a scientist, Ami looked the room over until her persistence was rewarded. Nestled in the corner where the walls met the ceiling was a tiny observation camera. Darting to the opposite corner, her eyes spotted another. Both cameras were trained on her cell.
"This seems to be a holding facility of some sort," Ami thought as her hand ran over the polymer wall of the cube, covertly judging its strength. "Obviously from the presence of the bed and an eating station, whoever is holding me plans to do so for a lengthy time."
Ami turned away from the wall and looked up at one of the monitoring cameras. She opened her mouth to challenge her watching captor or captors.
To her horror, nothing came out of her mouth. Ami's hand went up to her throat - - and that's when she felt the metal band around it. A pneumatic door huffed open to her right. Ami whirled and looked at the person entering.
"You exceeded the recovery time I calculated for you from the effects of the taser," the woman said, staring straight at Ami as she calmly, purposefully walked into the room. "My compliments to you for the efficiency of your physical conditioning."
Ami stared, unable to ward off shock. It was Viluy. Though this woman was about ten years older than the smug, arrogant sixteen-year-old that had aligned herself with the aliens led by Pharaoh 90 just three years previous, there was no mistaking the face. Her hair was still a platinum white and still fell in a leisurely curl to her shoulders. Her figure was still ample, but over ten years her frame had elongated to make her even more impressive.
The snowflake pattern costume was gone. In its place, she wore a simple beige knit top,
close-fitting with a turtleneck, a navy skirt hemmed just above the knee, and a white lab coat. Her navy pumps had conservative two and one half-inch heels. It was Viluy grown up, but somehow it was Viluy. Ami would never forget the malice of those ice water blue eyes glaring at her.
"You're surprised to see me," Viluy observed and allowed herself the merest hint of a triumphant smile. Ami tried to speak again, and again nothing would come out. "You can't speak, Mizuno, so stop trying. That band around your throat emits a small electrical current, just enough to keep your vocal cords paralyzed."
Viluy walked casually, confidently over to the cube and tapped on the wall near the keyboard.
"This keyboard is connected to a computerized voice synthesizer," Viluy told her. "Any communication you wish to make will have to be done through it."
The light of understanding came to Ami's eyes. She cautiously approached the keyboard,
moved the stool over to it, and sat down in front of it.
"I'm sure you have a million questions, Mizuno," Viluy said, a hint of mocking in her tone. "But then, I've made no secret of my admiration for your curiosity."
Ignoring the mocking, Ami began typing on the keyboard.
"This is a test," a hidden speaker said in a synthetic voice that was eerily like her own.
Ami nodded with grim satisfaction. Then she quickly typed another phrase. However this time no sound was produced. Puzzled, she looked up to Viluy.
"I took the precaution of eliminating four words from the synthesizer's vocabulary file,"
Viluy said smugly. "If you haven't deduced it already, the four words are 'Mercury', 'star', 'power' and 'makeup'."
She observed Ami's spirits fall with private glee.
"I also felt it necessary to relieve you of your clothing," Viluy continued. "With a mind such as yours, you might be able to find a way to escape using your shoes or belt or the cloth of your skirt. I know I could." Then she smiled like a cat playing with a mouse. "The humiliated look on your face is just a bonus."
"Why am I here?" the speaker reported after Ami typed.
"Because of all the people inhabiting the Earth," Viluy replied, calmly and dispassionately,
"you are the one person I regard as a potential threat. You possess both the intellect to figure out my plans and the ability to impede them. Because of that, you had to be eliminated from the equation."
"Then why am I still alive?" Ami asked through the synthesizer. "Or were you just keeping me alive long enough to gloat?"
"Gloat?" Viluy asked, eyebrow arched. "A need to gloat implies an emotional desire at odds with rational thought. I try to keep myself above such displays of emotion - - unlike you." Viluy casually sauntered around the room as she spoke, her arms clasp behind her. "It would be simpler to kill you - - in the short run. But I just can't bring myself to destroy the intellect you possess. Perhaps my judgment is being clouded by sentiment in this case, but I still believe that wonderful mind of yours can be harnessed - - harvested, if necessary." Viluy glanced at Ami with a puzzling smirk. "And history will ultimately prove me right."
Ami felt a chill run through her.
"My friends will find me," Ami typed.
"Your friends don't even know you're missing," Viluy informed her.
Without waiting for a reaction, Viluy took a remote from her lab coat pocket and aimed it at the wall. Part of the wall pulled down, revealing a video monitor. A picture came on. Ami gasped silently. In it, Usagi and Naru were shopping for gowns in a bridal shop, oblivious to the fact that they were being so closely monitored. Ami viewed the pictures with a critical eye. From the proximity of the shot, the camera had to be practically next to them, yet neither girl seemed alarmed.
Periodically a hand would come into the picture, seemingly from the person holding the camera. Was one of her friends unwittingly carrying a miniaturized camera, transmitting every move Usagi was making? But to what end? Ami shook her head. That hypothesis had nothing to do with Viluy's earlier statement.
Suddenly the camera shot passed by a mirror and Ami knew. Reflected in the mirror were Usagi, Naru - - and Ami. But she knew she hadn't gone on this trip with Usagi and Naru.
"This is a download of actual events," Viluy said, anticipating her captive's question. "I don't recognize the one with the chestnut hair, but the blonde is your friend, Usagi, correct? The one who majored in 'lunch'?"
"An impostor?" Ami typed. "Someone made up to look like me?"
"No, but you're on the right path," Viluy replied, enjoying the game. "Eliminate your preconceptions, Mizuno."
Ami looked at the picture again. As she studied it, she recalled what Viluy's fields of expertise were. Her eyes widened.
"An android?" she typed.
"Precisely," Viluy replied.
"But even you didn't possess the technical knowledge to produce a lifelike android," the speaker said for Ami. "An achievement such as this is a huge leap from nano-bots."
"Correct again," Viluy replied with a hint of pride. "It was beyond the technical capabilities of the sixteen-year-old you remember. But I've done a lot of growing in the last nine years and eleven months. And I also had access to some - - truly remarkable discoveries." Viluy turned away and looked up at the ceiling, grinning almost insanely, as she leaned against the wall of the cube. "It all seems so simple now, Mizuno, given what I know. Back then I thought I knew everything! And yet, there was so much I didn't know - - chief among them that there WAS so much I didn't know."
Her gaze dropped, revealing her smile had contracted into a satisfied smirk.
"I was an arrogant little fool back then. I confess it willingly. I actually thought I could string along the beings that had possession of Dr. Tomoe and his daughter until I could devise a way to take their power from them. Yes, I knew - - I was the only one of our ridiculous little band of 'witches' who recognized what Dr. Tomoe and his brat really were." Viluy grew somber. "But I realize now the ending of that chapter for me was inevitable, in one form or another."
"How did you survive?" Ami asked through the synthesizer. "And how have you managed to age so much in only three years?"
"As much as I'd like to take credit for planning for my escape," Viluy replied wistfully, "it was the result of what so many scientific discoveries of the past are the result of: an accident."
Ami cocked her head curiously.
"Though the designs were mine, my nano-bots were powered by energy supplied from the Pharaoh 90 universe," Viluy explained. "The energy was relayed to the wristband I wore and in turn broadcast to the nano-bots. When they turned on me, they managed to damage the wristband. The energy recoiled upon itself . . ."
"And caused a matter-energy flux?" the speaker reported Ami saying.
"You're branching into dimensional physics?" Viluy smiled. Ami blushed. "Very good,
Mizuno. Yes, when I disappeared, I wasn't 'consumed', as I believe everyone else assumed, by the nano-bots. Every organic part of me was hurled into - - what I can best describe as a temporal limbo."
"Please explain."
"Oh, Mizuno, you should see it!" Viluy gasped. "The only thing I could perceive was a dense white mist. I had the sensation of a solid platform beneath me, but nothing registered either visually or audibly. It seemed like I was lost in a vast expanse of - - nothing! For a moment, I thought I'd died and this was the afterlife. And then I heard a being approach. It was a woman. I couldn't make out any features, but she seemed dressed in a green and white uniform,
much like your sailor friends. And she carried a very long staff with a brilliant ruby red orb at the top."
"Oh my goodness!" thought Ami. "She's describing Sailor Pluto! She must have been transported into the temporal corridor we used to travel to the future and defeat Prince Dimando and Wise Man!"
"You know what I'm talking about, don't you?" Viluy observed. Ami turned away quickly. "Aren't you full of surprises. Well, we'll have to discuss this more in depth later on. Suffice it to say that when I saw what looked like another senshi approaching me, I turned and ran." Viluy smiled. "I didn't get far - - and yet I traveled a much greater distance than I could have ever imagined."
Not trusting herself to respond, Ami waited for Viluy to fill in the details.
"Do you know how famous the senshi were in 2216?" Viluy asked.
"You were transported into the future," Ami typed. "You said 'were'."
"Yes, the senshi were no longer alive. How long were you expecting to live, Mizuno?" Ami looked away again. "No matter. The advances in technology in 2216 will be remarkable."
"And you were able to survive in the future for over nine years?" Ami typed. "I can't imagine it, unless there was some sort of technological stagnation - - which clearly there wasn't. You must have been at a terrible handicap, both socially and educationally."
"Naturally," Viluy nodded. "Imagine bringing an eighteenth century person into the twentieth century. Then take that disadvantage and double it. That was the world I was greeted with."
"How did you manage it?"
"Are you truly interested?" Viluy asked, "or are you just stalling for time to try to figure out a means of escape?" She observed Ami critically. Ami stood her ground, trying not to show anything that would give Viluy another advantage. "Yes, I guess you are - - that insatiable Mizuno curiosity. Do you want to know the future, Mizuno? Or do you already know it - - you and your sailor friends?"
"If there's nothing to tell," Ami typed.
Viluy scowled. "My arrival wasn't noticed by many. To the humans living in that future era, I was an anomaly, but they were too busy fighting for their lives to dwell upon it."
"Fighting whom?"
"Androids," Viluy replied. She seemed to have a look of admiration when she said it. "Armies of mechanical humanoids. They look like us. But they never sleep. They never tire. They're unencumbered by human emotions such as sorrow, pity, remorse."
"And incapable of creative thought," Ami answered through her keyboard.
"Quite true," Viluy smirked. "That will be one of the advantages humans have over them in that future era. Only a human could create a virulent program that destroys other programs with speed and precision and utter ruthless malice and find a way to spread it to a million systems in a matter of moments."
"I know what a computer virus is," Ami typed. "There's been a great deal of progress in web technology in the three years you've been away."
"No doubt used by morons hoping to create some immature aura of superiority or by others for simple avarice. Ah, Mizuno, they lack vision, all of them. In my hands, I could bring this dawning computer age to its knees in days."
"Is that your plan?" Ami typed.
"Not at all," Viluy strutted. "Any computer that can hack into another computer can be hacked into. There are too many other agencies out there to hold at bay for long. It would be a short-term victory. And I didn't spend nine plus years of my life studying and learning on the run, keeping one step ahead of androids trying to snuff my life out for being human just for a single short-term victory."
"Amazing."
"What is?"
"Stranded in a dystopian future and all you could think about was conquest?"
"Don't judge me, Mizuno, just because I have the courage to act upon my natural superiority and you don't." Viluy regained control of herself. "Besides, you've jumped to an inaccurate conclusion. I didn't spend nearly ten years in the future plotting, as you assume. I spent it learning. New ideas and new technologies were at my fingertips, Mizuno. So what if I spent half of my waking life eluding capture or warding off hunger and exposure. I spent the other half absorbing all the knowledge gained by society over two hundred years. I know things now that you couldn't even begin to hypothesize."
Ami studied her captor, trying to decide whether Viluy was ranting from paranoia and dementia or from excitement over what she really did know.
"And then," Viluy smiled, "I discovered something that gave me impetus to find a way to return to this era." Ami started to type, but Viluy waved her hand. "Don't bother. I'll tell you. I'll tell you everything. I want you to know what I'm doing. I want to see the grudging admiration in your eyes even as you give me Sailor Moon's tired philosophy about love and charity."
"Sailor Moon is right," Ami typed. "You must not be as smart as you think if you can't see it."
"Sailor Moon is a joke told around campfires in the twenty-third century," Viluy sneered. "Do you want to know when she died, Mizuno? 2163. A battalion of androids stormed her crystal palace and stunned her into submission with electric field weapons. Then they tore her to pieces."
Ami looked on in horror.
"The rest of your friends were already dead. All except you. You were alive - - of a sorts. You led the assault on the crystal palace."
"Impossible," came the synthesized reply.
"I'm only repeating what I saw," smirked Viluy. "Don't worry, Mizuno. You weren't yourself. After your capture, your brain was removed for study and replaced with a cybernetic computer server. That's what led to Sailor Moon's ultimate defeat. Apparently she just couldn't strike down her good friend Sailor Mercury."
"You're just trying to provoke me," Ami typed, trying to keep her hands steady.
"I've seen the records," Viluy replied calmly. "Androids have memories that can be retrieved and stored, and they don't have to do it in books. I watched her die, Mizuno, as you stood over her, staring blankly."
"It won't happen that way," the synthesizer reported. "I'll make sure it doesn't turn out that way."
"Ah, but I'm here to make sure that it does."
Ami stared up at her in shock.
"Do you see that my android duplicate of you has left your friend Usagi?" Viluy asked. "Do you see where it's going?"
"The Tanaka Electronics headquarters," Ami replied.
"Yes. My android has the ability to penetrate the building's security through speed and stealth. And if it is spotted, why it's just a young girl who got lost while seeking the recruitment office and an internship with the company. You have a very innocent face, Mizuno. People tend not to suspect you of duplicity."
Ami watched the monitor as the android penetrated further into the building. It entered the outer office of the company president. A secretary got up to greet her. The android was very pleasant and disarming, then struck with the speed of light, breaking the woman's neck. It caught her and hid the body behind the desk.
Entering through the doors to the inner office, the android scanned the room until it found the president, Shinji Tanaka. Tanaka just had time to turn around before he felt an impossibly strong hand close around his throat until it was crushed.
Viluy turned and found Ami looking away in disgust.
"You'll never learn if you turn away from something new just because you find it reprehensible," Viluy cautioned her.
"Why, Viluy?"
"Viluy no longer exists. She was a creation of a juvenile mind playing at life and death. I prefer my real name of Yui Bidou, if you don't mind."
"What do you hope to accomplish?" Ami typed.
"Power," Viluy replied. "The power to control my environment. Business controls the people far more than governments do. Business also controls production and the economy. Through my androids, I will control business. It won't be easy. There will come discovery and with it rebellion. There will be times of strife. But eventually there will be an ordered society,
based on logic and intellect."
"It won't work as you envision," Ami typed.
"Oh, but it will, Mizuno!" Viluy laughed. "That's what I discovered when I was in the twenty-third century! I was the one who set the hordes of androids loose on the world! Now - -
in this era!" Viluy pressed her hands and face up against the lucite partition. "I've merely come back to fulfill my destiny."
continued in chapter 4