New Megaman Battle Network

A complete reimagining of the universe and stories of Megaman Battle Network.

Side Story: The History of Forte


Chapter 5: Experimentation

Bass strolled casually along the Net space of the SciLab research area, heading to one last location before he was to retire for the night. Perhaps he would return to Undernet Square for a few days, to relax and recharge before setting out again. While he didn't particularly like residing amongst the uncouth vermin that populated the Undernet, he preferred the company of Navis to that of humans, especially that of Serenade. She was far from his intellectual equal, but she was a surprisingly empathetic individual for being the self-proclaimed "Queen of the Undernet". She was able to regularly offer perspective on his situation, as well as a sparring partner. Only one other had ever been so relatable to Bass, and he had left his life a long time ago.


Over two and a half years had passed since Bass's battle with the Cybeasts, and almost all of the intervening time had been spent studying humanity from the shadows. He had hoped that Serenade was right, that the human race was mostly virtuous, with only a few corrupt individuals. From what he had observed so far, however, he wasn't too sure. It seemed that there was an even split between virtue and corruption among those he had observed, and for many people both would reside within, jockeying for position in the person's soul. If there was anything he knew for sure, it was that humans, on the whole, was far from rational.

He had made an attempt to study humans of all kinds, from different races, classes, and all sorts, but the question of morality proved to be extremely difficult to isolate. There were certainly some links between specific demographics, but that only raised additional questions as to extenuating circumstances, and trying to plot out all the causes and effects of the actions of the human race was a trying task. Still, he continued, mostly undeterred. He felt that if there was anyone capable of completely mapping the complexities of this problem, it was himself.

There was one noteworthy incident where he had tapped into the office of the Prime Minister of Electopia, in order to study the effects of power on a person's morality. This had ended up being a serious mistake. He had anticipated that there would be Net security guarding the Prime Minister's office, but he had severely underestimated the strength of the protective Navis, and he was forced to flee the scene. Looking into the matter later, he realized that the data of himself, garnered by Dr. Cossack, was being researched and routinely applied to the latest generation of Navis. He made a mental note to train and increase his strength routinely, lest he someday be surpassed by a stock model.

Despite all his observations, however, he remained unsatisfied. He had been nothing but the impartial observer of random happenings and interactions, which was hardly an ideal way to gather information on his subjects. He had no control over the situations he observed, and in many cases his information was woefully incomplete. What he needed was a controlled situation, one adhering to the scientific method that his SciLab peers cherished. If he was to truly analyze these humans, he would have to stop observing, and start experimenting.


Bass finally reached his destination, which was a small, round device planted into the framework of the Net. Bending down, he touched his hand and focused, absorbing the information that the device had gathered. He had installed devices like this all over the SciLab network; they were designed to capture information about experiments and research going on between the country's top scientists. He found this to be much more efficient than being present for the experiments themselves, as this allowed him to keep himself up-to-date while he was exploring the world via the Net. He had been to other countries and observed the research there, but not much of it was of much concern to him. The rest of the world had a ways to go before catching up to Electopia's ingenuity.

He sighed, turning to leave, when he heard a beeping sound in his ear. Touching his ear to receive the message, he saw one of his devices reporting activity within SciLab, far later than he would have expected.

"What's going on?" Bass searched for the source of the signal, quickly finding it and traveling to the Net space where the work was taking place. A minute or so later, he had located a room where several machines were active, but from what he could analyze, the work going on was nothing like what usually happened at SciLab. Could there be hostile intruders?

He tapped into the security camera mechanism, taking a look into the room. Expecting to find burglars or something similar, he was surprised to find a young woman sitting in the corner of the room, holding a baby in her arms. Scanning the rest of the room, he quickly found another body, one that he recognized this time: Dr. Yuichiro Hikari. Bass raised his eyebrows again, listening in on the sound the camera was picking up.

"So how are Tomoe and Vikos doing, anyway?" the man asked. "How's their little girl doing?"

"She's very colicky, it sounds like," the woman answered. "I think they're all barely getting any sleep." Bass recognized her as Haruka Nakashima, Dr. Hikari's longtime girlfriend. From the looks of the child on her lap, and the golden band on her ring finger, they had gotten married and reproduced in his absence. He shrugged this off and continued to listen.

"Oof," he answered, half-focused on the conversation as he worked. "I'm glad Lan hasn't been that way… so far, anyway." He glanced back. "What was the name they went with? They couldn't decide, right?"

"Right." Haruka nodded. "Tomoe wanted to name her May, after her aunt from Netopia, but Vikos kept insisting on his sister's name, Melemai. They ended up meeting each other in the middle and calling her Maylumai."

Yuichiro chuckled. "Never heard that name before. That's one way of setting it, I guess."

Bass shook his head, annoyed; this wasn't of any interest to him. He scanned the rest of the room for clues as to what they were doing here, and his eyes quickly came to rest on what seemed to be a cradle. Lying in the center was another young baby, with a number of tubes connecting it to various devices around the room. The child looked somewhat sickly, especially in comparison to the other baby, who was cooing happily on his mother's lap.

Haruka sighed. "God, I can't believe we're really doing this. Our little Hub... he might..."

"Hey now, don't talk like that," Yuichiro replied, trying to make his voice comforting. "This is purely an emergency measure. I don't expect anything's going to happen to our son, and you shouldn't either."

His wife nodded, stroking the hair of the child in her lap. "I know... I know..."

Emergency measure? Bass wondered. What are they up to? After a quick search, he managed to locate, through the Net, the devices the child was connected to. Several of them were life-support devices of one kind or another, which was not a surprise. One of them, however, seemed to be connecting the child directly to the Net, which was bizarre. He continued investigating.

"You're sure this is safe?" Haruka prompted.

"Of course I'm sure," her husband replied. "I've tried this on myself several times, and some of my co-workers. There's no side effects whatsoever. I've checked thoroughly." She nodded, his words not doing much to assuage her fears.

Bass finally managed to find the Net device that was currently connected to Dr. Hikari's son. Looking inside, he saw an extremely complex set of data arriving from the child. After looking it over for a minute, he deduced that it was something like brain wave activity, or human DNA. Intrigued, he followed the path of data further inside the machine, but it didn't take long to find its destination. Inside the data collection device, on a pedestal, stood a completely blank Navi of moderate height, the apparent recipient of this child's brain wave data.

He quickly realized what was going on. Faced with the prospect of losing their son forever, Dr. Hikari had put his scientific mind to work, and was storing his child's DNA, his thoughts, and his soon-to-be-formed personality into this Navi. What death would take with its cold hand, technology would preserve, allowing this child to live on in one form or another. Yet another example of humans trying to cheat death with science, Bass thought to himself. As he watched Yuichiro's pained face look down upon his sickly child, he could hardly blame the man.

This project of Dr. Hikari's breached the line between man and machine rather obviously. How would this Navi be treated, if it did indeed contain the "soul", as they called it, of this human child? Would he be identified by his human side, or the side of him that was a tool for human use? And if the child did get better, as his parents hoped, what would become of this blue Navi? Bass had a sickening feeling that the Navi would simply be disregarded and treated like any other tool, the human side of him completely ignored. He watched as the data flow finally slowed to a stop, entering into the Navi. Its appearance began to change and shift over the next minute or so, until the Navi was covered in a blue bodysuit, with armor on his head, hands and feet.

This poses a great number of interesting questions, he thought to himself, as the machine he was residing in started emitting a satisfied beeping sound. I should investigate this further...

Dr. Hikari walked over to the brain-capture device and pressed a few buttons. "Perfect. It went off without a hitch."

The young boy's mother stood up. "So Hub... his personality, his soul... it's in a Navi now?"

Yuichiro nodded. "A copy of it is, anyway. I've done it very extensively, more than I ever have before. There isn't going to be a single part of our son that will be missing. I guarantee it."

Haruka smiled and took her husband's hand, squeezing it tight. "I'm so glad... thank you, sweetie. I don't know what I would have done if we had lost little Hub completely..."

He reached out and pressed a couple of keys, and the blue Navi appeared on the screen, to his wife's delight. "That's him?" she asked.

He nodded, smiling. "The machine estimated what he would look like at about 12 years old. Cute kid, isn't he?"

She smiled and nodded in agreement. The two held each other for a few seconds, feeling a large weight lift off their chests. Their tender moment was rudely interrupted, however, as a series of alarms suddenly filled the air.

"What the-?!" Yuichiro quickly turned toward the source of the noise, as the baby in Haruka's arms started crying, disturbed by all the noise. The man's heart dropped as he realized that the sounds were coming from Hub's life-support devices, and were accompanied by tiny, flashing warning lights. "No, no, no!"

"What's going on?!" Haruka cried out, as they ran over. "Did something go wrong?"

"His life support systems are malfunctioning!" He exclaimed, panicked. "But how... never mind. Call an ambulance, quick!" She nodded and ran out of the room, as Yuichiro stayed, trying in vain to repair the devices sustaining his son's life.

"This can't be happening... I can't lose you, not like this..." He frantically hooked his PET up to the machines, trying to observe the damage, his blood turning to ice as he found his answer. The machines hadn't just come to a stop; their internal mechanisms had been almost completely destroyed. He collapsed into a chair, consumed by both confusion and despair. He reached down and rubbed his son's head gently, tears leaking from his eyes, praying that the ambulances would arrive in time.

By the time they did arrive, Bass had long ago left the network of SciLab. He would return to the Undernet and recuperate for some time, before setting out to observe again, equipped with a new perspective on his monumental research task.

"Nothing personal, Dr. Hikari," he muttered to himself, as he departed. His first experiment was underway.