February 27th, 20XX, Tokyo Municipal 9th District Court

Judge Kanda: It would be helpful if you could answer Mr. Furukawa's question, Doctor.

Light: Fine. The answer is no, Mr. Furukawa. My children's code is not corruptible. It's ridiculous that you'd use some claim my ex-colleague made a decade ago as evidence... (snorts) He hasn't been in his right mind for a long time and you know it.

Furukawa: Still, as the saying goes, a stopped clock is right twice a day. Dr. Wily was correct about your industrial robots being corruptible, after all.

Light: It's a different source code. You're comparing apples to oranges.

Furukawa: But the two of you worked together to develop that very source code.

Light: You keep trying to argue that my children are a safety liability. It's nothing but fear-based nonsense.

Furukawa: After the horror that we lived through years ago, it wouldn't be unwise to be afraid.

Light: That horror has passed thanks to my son whom you want to kill.

Furukawa: And thanks to the stringent rules imposed by the regulatory board, which have since ensured that disasters like those will never happen again.

Light: There isn't one shred of proof that destroying properly working robots keeps anyone safe.

Furukawa: A decade of peace is proof enough for most people. Judge, the plaintiff has been pleading for an exception on the basis of DRN-001 and DRN-002 being highly advanced, special… But as I have argued it would be deeply irresponsible to make exceptions. If they are vulnerable to hacking just as any other robot, they must comply with the same rules and their expiration dates must not be postponed. I would now like to call my next witness, Dr. Albert Wily.

Light: What on earth? Al? Is that really you?

Wily: Long time no see, Tom. I only wish we were meeting again under happier circumstances.

Light: What are you doing here? Whose side are you on?

Wily: The same side as always, Tom. My side.

Judge Kanda: Gentlemen, save the chit chat for later.

Furukawa: Thank you for coming today in spite of your frail condition, Dr. Wily. Ten years ago you claimed that the source code of DRN-001 and DRN-002 is corruptible. As the co-creator of that code, what is your professional opinion now?

Wily: It most certainly is corruptible. I know that for a fact. I've known it for a long time.

Light: That's a lie!

Judge Kanda: Dr. Light, I'm losing my patience with you. Mr. Furukawa, go ahead.

Furukawa: You sound quite confident in your opinion, Dr. Wily. What makes you so sure of yourself?

Wily: (shrugs) Because I've cracked it. In here. (points to own head) It's a puzzle that's vexed me for ages, you know. But in prison, it became something of an obsession. I hand-wrote bits and pieces of it on every scrap of paper I could find. Pondered over them every day for hours. I was compelled to figure it out. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but just before my release I realized I'd done it, just like I had known I would.

Light: So what? Perhaps you only think you've cracked it.

Judge Kanda: Gentlemen!

Wily: No. It's true that in this timeline, I have yet to put my calculations to the test. I don't want to test them. But if the opportunity arose, I might not be able to stop myself. So you'd better order Rock to stay away from me. Use the second law. Do it today for his sake and especially mine, would you?

Light: What the hell is this, Albert? Some kind of a threat?

Judge Kanda: One more outburst from you, Dr. Light, and I'll throw you out of this courtroom and your appeal along with it. And Dr. Wily, I'm not sure who you're talking to, but you're not making any sense.

Wily: No. It's a warning, old friend. Act on it while you still can. Help me break the cycle!

Judge Kanda: Mr. Ishitori, could you please escort Dr. Wily to the door? Dr. Wily, thank you for your testimony. You're finished here. Go home and get some rest.

Wily: You've got to help me, Tom! I'm trapped in a reverse causality loop, and so's your boy. Make sure he doesn't come to visit me. You don't have much time. Call him. Do it now!

(Dr. Wily departs)

Judge Kanda: Mr. Furukawa, why did you subject us to that?

Furukawa: Judge, I'm not sure what happened. The witness seemed perfectly sane when I spoke with him before.

Judge Kanda: (rubbing his temples) Well, let's take five.

The face I despised, half hidden in shadow, peered out at me through the crack between the aluminum door and its frame. Furtive, skulking, just like the vile creature it was attached to, one visible eye scanned me up and down and blinked once, twice. I glowered at it. Then the face disappeared once more into darkness, the door was opened wide, and there was all of Dr. Wily, liver-spotted, bent-backed, and leaning on his walker. To my surprise he was smiling at me with an odd, relieved kind of smile.

"There you are, finally," he said in a weary voice, and sighed. "I was wondering what took you so long. You have no idea what I've been through."

I had just been through quite a lot myself, and couldn't care less about the old codger's feelings. With a lunge forward I grabbed him by the collar of his bathrobe. "Where is Rock? What have you done to him?"

Dr. Wily tottered toward me with a gasp and clasped his hands tightly around his walker. "Let go, will you?" he said. "My back is killing me."

"Why'd you do it? What's in it for you, anyway? Don't you know there's no point anymore? Dr. Light is..." I stammered. "Dr. Light is…"

"Of course I know he's dying. What kind of monster do you think I am? You think I'd kick the man when he's down? Just thinking about it gives me indigestion. I let go of my grudge years ago. These days, my only ambition is for a nap. And maybe a bowel movement, if I'm lucky.

"I don't have it in for your family anymore. I'm done."

"Liar! I saw your message on Rock's phone." I thought of Duo soaring toward the Kuiper Belt wormhole without us, never to return to Earth again, and grit my teeth in anguish. "And then there was your testimony last winter when you said you were going to test your 'calculations' on him."

"You saw that also, did you? Good. I can explain everything if you'd come in. I want to help you, and perhaps you can do a little favor for me. Now let go of me, for chrissakes. That's an order from a human being."

"I don't have to take orders from criminals!"

"Even so, this is no time for you to be seen acting willful and difficult, is it?" He lowered his voice to a whisper. "Those brutes at the regulatory agency put a tracking device on you, didn't they? One concerned phone call from a neighbor that you're menacing innocent senior citizens, and soon they'll be on your tail with their plasma rifles. What's going to happen to your truth-seeking venture then?"

Those bullying words, wielded to put Dr. Wily back in control, nevertheless contained a logic that resonated. I glanced to my right and left. Not a soul in sight, but for how much longer? With a groan, I released him. "I wouldn't say innocent."

Dr. Wily shrugged, straightened himself, and flashed me a smug, lopsided smile.

"Now listen. I promised Rock I'd save you, and I intend to try. But," he said, pulling his robe more firmly around himself, "you must remember that I'm old and tired and can't handle a lot of excitement. Are you going to come in, sit down, and act civilized so I can tell you what happened to your brother, or not?"

In the past I would have hesitated on the doorstep, wary of becoming an unwitting part of one or another of Dr. Wily's schemes. But having nothing left to lose had done wonders for my courage, and I hurried inside and shut the door.

Whatever vague, half-formed idea I'd envisioned of the old madman's post-prison home, this wasn't it. Dim except for the cold glow of one fluorescent kitchen ceiling light and a mini-TV mounted in a corner playing the nightly news on low volume. Nearly empty but for two ratty brown armchairs, a lamp on a fiberboard side table, and a small mountain of cardboard boxes lining one wall. The latter seemed to have long been forgotten and were in the process of slowly caving in under their own weight. The air was heavy and stale. Dr. Wily could barely walk unaided, so of course cleaning, or unpacking those boxes himself, was out of the question. Was there no one around to help him? If he died here, how long would it be before anyone noticed?

For just a moment I felt a pang from deep within my programming, an involuntary call to action. I pushed it down, and in its place nursed a deliberate and delicious schadenfreude. If Dr. Wily had lived a decent life, Rock and I would have taken care of him in his old age. He had no one but himself to blame for having to spend his last days destitute and friendless.

"Well, here it is," he said. He lifted one hand palm-up and brandished it around, as if anticipating my judgment of the place. "I bet you never imagined the great Albert Wily would wind up in a dump like this, did you, kid?"

I shook my head. Indeed, I had not.

"You know, it's funny. I often get the feeling things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to. Like I was meant to ride on one track, but a switch got pulled and I ended up on another. Do you ever feel the same?"

Oh, yes. A million times, yes. But I was repulsed by the idea that he and I might share anything in common, and I didn't answer.

Three things in particular about that horrible place caught my eye. The first was a faded and dog-eared hardback of Advanced Quantum Physics on the side table, one of the only objects in the room not covered in a year's worth of dust. The second was the way the two armchairs faced each other, as if Dr. Wily had entertained another guest here not long ago.

The third was a hallway to my left that ended in darkness. Halfway down it, the rectangle outline of a door frame stood out against the gloom, illuminated from the inside by a faint yellowish light. Something about that light made me shudder, although I couldn't understand why. For a few moments I found myself unable to look away from it, until Dr. Wily's bony fingers rapping on my arm startled me back into the present.

"Here," he said, and gestured at one of the armchairs with a tremoring hand. "Get comfortable. I've got a harrowing story to tell you. Two stories, in fact. But I don't often get visitors, so you're going to have to endure some small talk first. And I'm also going to need a cup of tea." Then he turned away from me and ambled toward the kitchen. I watched him go with wary eyes, feeling my grip tighten against the back of the armchair he had offered me. I now had the unshakable conviction that, two nights ago, he had offered this same chair to my brother. For the first time, I felt afraid.

I sat down, fidgeting anxiously with the seam of Rock's jersey. I told myself not to let my imagination wander, and fought a losing battle. Where's Rock? His body, I mean? Is it here in this apartment? Down that hall? Cut it out. Focus. Pay attention. What's Dr. Wily doing now?

Dr. Wily was still shuffling with his walker toward the kitchen. It seemed that pouring himself a cup of tea would take a while. Making me wait for the answers I needed was already cruel enough, but the insufferable git just had to whistle as he went. He seemed positively cheerful. Intolerable. I yanked Advanced Quantum Physics off of the side table and prepared to hurl it at him. But of course the first law kept it glued to my hand, and I stifled a frustrated scream.

Without seeming to notice, he disappeared behind a stainless steel rack shelf full of instant noodle packets and potted succulents. Then came the click of an electric kettle being plugged in. "But what about you, Roll?" he said. "Need something? Maintenance? A scan? A charge?"

"No."

"Still don't trust me? Not even after all these years?"

"Not a chance."

"That cheek." He chuckled. "My former self managed a good few times to pull the wool over both your brothers' eyes. But not you. Never you. I wonder if there's anything I could do to prove to you I've changed? By the way, why haven't you hacked that tracking device yet, clever one?"

"Second law. The judge ordered me not to."

"Thwarted so easily, eh? I bet you'd like that thing disabled."

I narrowed my eyes in his direction.

"I expected that reaction from you. But if I know you, you'd hatch a half-decent escape plan if only it were gone. I wish you'd let me disable it."

"Why would I let your grubby hands anywhere near me?"

"Because I want you to survive. And I'm willing to put myself through a certain amount of bother to give you a fighting chance."

I stared in the direction of the kitchen, exasperated. Dr. Wily was dangling a proverbial carrot in front of my nose. But he had never extended an offer of help to any robot unless there was something he wanted in return.

"I didn't come here to talk about me," I said. "Where is Rock?"

"Not so fast," he answered, and tsk-tsked me as his face reappeared in the doorway. "I want to talk about you. You're just going to have to put up with it." With stiff half-steps he maneuvered his cup and saucer onto the side table, then lowered himself with sighs and groans into the armchair across from mine. The walker was now between us. He tried to move it out of the way with a few weak sideways kicks. It didn't budge, and he gave me a long, sheepish, helpless sort of look.

I jumped to my feet, picked up the walker, and plunked it down beside Dr. Wily's chair. "Okay," I said, my words coming out like a growl. "Talk."

"Thanks. Now, let me get a better look at you. It's been so long since I saw you last."

"Not nearly long enough," I said, and retook my seat with my arms crossed.

After my impatience for Dr. Wily to finally sit down I now found myself squirming under his icy blue stare, and I wished we could have continued our conversation from a distance.

"You've aged well," he said, and winked at me. "You still don't look a day over eleven. Though, I never knew you were a Giants fan."

"This was Rock's shirt, you idiot."

"You know, even if you've been nothing but unpleasant toward me since you got here, I'm glad you came. Very glad. What was it I called you that time long ago, back before Tom and I had our falling out?"

"A vacuum cleaner that talks back."

Dr. Wily smirked. Clearly he still regarded himself as a great wit. "Right. Well, wouldn't you say you've grown quite a bit beyond that designation?"

"I was always beyond it."

"Perhaps you were."

His hand as he raised the teacup to his lips was shaky and feeble, but his eyes were full of restless energy. "You know, I kept up with those appeals hearings and I found them quite interesting. The morning before I testified, that scumbag Furukawa got Tom to admit under oath that you know your way around your own code now. Tried using that to make the case you're dangerous. Lived too long, got too big for your britches. But is it true?"

Slowly, I nodded. I couldn't understand how any of that was relevant.

"There. You see?" He hastily put down the teacup, splashing a tiny tea waterfall onto the cover of Advanced Quantum Physics. With his now-free hand, he made a celebratory jab in my direction. "Don't you know what that means? Why, it means your genius has reached a level comparable to even mine."

These words opened up old wounds within me, and my hands on the armrests clenched themselves so tightly they hurt. "Horrible old git!" I said. "My whole family's dead or dying, and you're still crowing about how much of a genius you are. I don't care."

"You misunderstand me."

"How?"

"From what I hear, you can code and you can hack. And why shouldn't you, after working side by side with Tom all your life?" He crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair, looking positively relaxed. For him, this conversation seemed to be nothing more than mildly stimulating banter. "What I want to know, my girl, is this. Do you think you can go toe to toe with me? Can you undo something I've done? Restore something I've erased?"

"I don't know," I said through gritted teeth. "It depends on what you want restored."

"It's your brother."

My hands unclenched themselves and began to tremble. Many of the data points I'd gathered about Rock's disappearance came together, and a vague but terrifying picture was emerging. "What have you done to him, Dr. Wily?"

"It isn't what I've done to him," he said, scowling. "Quit saying that, would you? I already told you I'm not at fault.

"Right now Rock's dead, in a sense. I think. But it might not be permanent. Perhaps you could help sort that out. He's kind of a… well… like a Schrodinger's cat. You see, your brother's been reprogrammed and taken through a time portal thirty-seven years into the past. All right, I'll admit I played a small part in that. But I didn't do it of my own volition, understand. I was forced to do it... by my own past self."

I looked away, distraught, not knowing which of his words I could believe. He's mad, I thought. Dr. Light and Judge Kanda thought so too. Perhaps his words were nothing more than a senile old man's delusion.

Or he's lying. That would be the Wily I knew. And had always known. I squeezed at the hem of Rock's Giants jersey, feeling disappointed in myself. What a fool I'd been to come searching for the truth here. Biting back tears of rage, I got up and made for the door.

"Now, hold on," said Dr. Wily, with a sudden fluster in his voice. "Where do you think you're going?"

"Home," I said. "I've got three weeks to live at most, and I won't waste another minute of it on you."

"Nonsense. You'll go home and do what, exactly? Clean that empty house? Wait politely for the recycling center to come and collect you? No. Be sensible. Let me disable your tracker. This is the last place on earth anyone would look for you. You'll be safe here."

"I can't trust you."

"Besides, I thought you wanted to know what happened to Rock."

I blinked back tears. "I know enough. You used the promise of saving me to lure him here. And then you did something terrible to him, out of spite."

"But that theory doesn't quite add up even to you, does it? After all, you read my testimony in court from last winter. You saw that I begged Tom to keep Rock away from me. Of course, I didn't know then that Tom was going to have his second stroke that very hour. I foresaw the major events, but didn't have a lot of the finer details, like exactly when and where. I was too late, but you can't say I didn't try to help!

"I didn't want any harm to come to Rock, and you know it. That transcript embedded in that long-term eidetic memory of yours is irrefutable proof."

I paused with my hand on the doorknob, playing back my memory of Dr. Wily's testimony. I couldn't deny there was some credence to what he had just said.

"You seem to believe you can predict the future," I said.

"I could predict the future, up until two nights ago. The parts relating to my life, at least… and, since I was present for it, how your brother was going to meet his end. For thirty-seven long years, my life has played out exactly as I foresaw it would. No matter how hard I tried to steer a different course. It's been a life without free will, without being able to make a conscious choice of any significance, and it's been awful."

"I've heard a lot of wild excuses and fake apologies from you," I said, shaking my head, "but you've outdone yourself this time."

"Don't leave, Roll." Dr. Wily sighed. That uncharacteristic, sad sigh was the closest to a please that I'd ever heard from him. Out of the corner of my right eye I saw his crestfallen face looking up at me, and I turned away. "After all, you're the only one who stands a chance of bringing Rock back."

"You never cared about us. Why would you start now?" I tried very hard to keep my voice free of pathos. The last thing I wanted was for Dr. Wily to think I wished he'd care. I definitely did not.

"Because I'm ninety-seven years old, and I'll likely be dead by the end of the year. A lot of humans, when they get to the sorry state I'm in, start thinking about their legacies. And mine? All the robots I ever built are long gone. But you and your brother… well, I did have a hand in your design, after all. If the two of you are all I've got left, I'll take it - even if I do have to give some of the credit to Tom."

"You mean most of the credit."

"Roughly half."

"Nearly all."

"My point," he said, "is that my feelings about you have shifted. You see, the scenery can change quite dramatically, depending on where you..."

A disgruntled, mechanical chattering interrupted him mid-sentence, and out of the darkened hallway waddled a yellow metool. It gave Dr. Wily an angry glare from beneath its helmet.

"Now, now," Dr. Wily said to it. "Don't be jealous. I didn't mean to say they're the only legacy I've got left. Of course I've got you, too. And what a good legacy you are. How about a scratch? That's a good boy."

I turned around and stared at the scene in front of me, dumbfounded. Dr. Wily was hunched over in his chair, scratching and tapping at the metool's shell with unabashed affection. The metool was wriggling upward into his touch, emitting a low and rhythmic noise that sounded a little like a cat's purr. It closed its eyes, appeased.

"That model was outlawed years ago," I said.

"You'll keep a secret, won't you?" Dr. Wily looked up and gave me a wry smile. "Don't worry. He's been de-weaponized, and he's perfectly safe. I call him 'Met,' short for 'Methuselah.' He requires a hell of a lot of regular maintenance, but he does make for half-decent company when he's in a good mood."

Had Dr. Wily changed? No. Impossible. In his words I had not detected even a hint of remorse. And yet, somehow, I felt he was telling me the truth about Rock, or at least most of it. At last, he seemed to be speaking without games, masks, or pretense. My host's eyes on me were strangely earnest.

"Dr. Wily," I said, "where is Rock?"

"You're asking the wrong question. He isn't anywhere now. But if you go through the portal…"

"Where's the portal?"

"It's in my bathroom. Down that hall and through the door on the right."

Suddenly I was reminded of the strange, unnatural light I'd seen coming from beneath the door in the hall. If Dr. Wily had planned to spring a trap on me, this would have been the time to do it. Frightened out of my wits, yet helpless to resist his challenge, I was now under his spell. From the moment I'd first noticed that light, a part of me had known the answers I was looking for were there. On timid feet I crept down the hall and through the encroaching darkness. I was aware that I'd turned my back to Dr. Wily, and that I ought to be more careful, but the light was at the forefront of my mind. For the first time, I heard humming. The light source had a sound. It was both low and high at once, pulsing, turning, whirring, with a timbre that was neither natural nor mechanical. It was a sound that didn't belong on Earth.

And behind that door, once I'd opened it, was a terrifying sight to match.

"Dr. Wily! What… is that?"

Spanning ceiling to floor, a shining, translucent, gold-tinted elliptical, like a galaxy turned on its side, hovered in the center of Dr. Wily's bathroom, rotating slowly counter-clockwise. Immersed in its unsettling radiance, my synthetic skin seemed to be glowing. The air around me tingled as if it was charged with electricity.

"It's a time portal. Haven't you been listening at all?" Dr. Wily was now standing next to me, staring into the bathroom with weary eyes. It seemed that he was sick of looking at the thing. Beside him, Met shuddered.

"And Rock went through there?"

"If there was anything left of his mind capable of being salvaged, there's where you'll find it." He put a wrinkled hand on my shoulder, but not to comfort me. It was a grasping, vindicated kind of hand. A hand trying to lay a claim. I shoved it away. Nevertheless, in spite of myself I was now hanging on to Dr. Wily's every word.

"I have two stories to tell you," he said. "Rather, one story from two perspectives. The first is from the point of view of my thirty-seven-year-younger self. The second is from the me of two nights ago, when the deed was done. Put those together and you'll have a fair understanding of what happened to your brother. You're not going to like it, so prepare yourself.

"I don't know what the future holds anymore, but I can make at least one prediction. Once you've heard my stories, kid, you're going to want to go through that portal like you've never wanted anything before in your life."