"Shut them down," Dr. Cain whispers, closing his eyes.
"What?"
"I said shut them down." The elderly roboticist pinches the high bridge of his crooked nose. "There's no way we can let them out like this."
Creating another X is impossible. It's just so fitting.
God, we had to water down both the hardware and software just to make a functional reploid. No one could recreate X's physical capacities so why the hell did we think we can recreate his personality? What a joke. Hubris is what this is.
And ever since Sigma, Dr. Cain has been very careful about pride.
But he hoped. He really did.
"We can't just abandon the project!" Dr. Leonard protests slamming a fist down on the table, ignoring the various flinches of the rest of the team in the room. The lab assistants, engineers, mechanics, and other senior roboticists fly out of the way for the Repliforce head scientist, who's marching around the workspace towards Dr. Cain.
Hah, Dr. Cain remembers almost like yesterday when both he and Dr. Leonard were civil to each other when they first introduced to Project Alpha. Then they started working together and next thing the elderly man knows, he's fighting with the younger roboticist over the coffee machine. At least Leonard's not boring.
"You think after all that time and money we're allowed to be empty-handed?"
"Money, money, money," Dr. Cain mutters quickly and mockingly, rolling his eyes. Then he snaps," Look at the damn monitor. No matter what we do, Alpha's personality matrix keeps breaking down. You want to create a warrior pacifist? Great! But I'm sorry to say, but that logic paradox is literally ripping Alpha apart into two. Your X clone isn't going to happen."
"You think I haven't noticed that?" The Repliforce scientist forces a harsh breath out of his nose. Trying to calm down. "Okay. Okay. Let's think. There has to be something we can do."
"Like what? Alpha can't reconcile both halves of their personality so we basically made two disabled reploids instead of one."
"Then we make two reploids, damn it! Having no result is unacceptable!"
Dr. Cain throws his hands up in the air, laughing without humor. "Brilliant idea! One reploid to have all of X's aggressiveness and the other to be what? A reploid version of a puppy? Wait, let me take that back. At least a puppy can bite. This one won't be able to pick up a gun without short-circuiting itself."
Violently, Dr. Cain shoves against the edges of the table so hard that his wheelchair hiccups as it rolls backwards. "Alright, let's say you do split Alpha into two reploids. You think I was just throwing out words? No. They will be disabled. The suffering circuit, the OS, the coding – the mental link has somehow survived between both personality matrixes. Oh don't look too excited, Leonard – that just means they're mentally dependent on each other to function."
Dr. Cain wheels towards his silent and tense audience, his bony hands cupping around his mouth like a faux megaphone. Sarcastically, he cheers, "Whoooo, congratulations ladies and gentlemen! For the price of one reploid you get the entire package of two broken ones!" More soberly he says," Have mercy on Alpha and let them go."
"Mercy? What the hell are you talking about?"
"How would you feel if your fate was tied to another person?" Dr. Cain asks deceptively lightly. "The kind of unmeasurable burden that will put on you? Don't deliberately bring two disabled reploids into the world. We're aborting the project and we're aborting Alpha."
"You're a hypocrite, Cain," Dr. Leonard hisses over the waves of agitated whispers rising in the background. "You talk about mercy, but you want to abort Alpha when they're basically alive? If Alpha was a human fetus past their twenty-fourth week into gestation, you wouldn't be so quick to – "
"Don't you dare pull that talk with me when I see reploids as people more than any of you bastards do!" The eldest roboticist in the lab roars. "You're doing this just so you won't lose your credibility, not because you care!"
"Believe in whatever you want. Either way, you're not part of Repliforce's official personnel. Your say has no power here. Take your stuff and leave, Cain."
When Dr. Cain surveys the room one more time, all he sees are exhausted faces hovering between neutral or dismissive on messy hairs and rumpled clothing. Everyone here has busted their asses, of course they don't want to give this up.
The bearded man scoffs.
"Fine. Clearly I hold the unpopular position here. Go ahead. See the project to the end. But when these poor souls come out broken, don't say I didn't goddamn warn you."
Bitter, Dr. Cain wheels out of the laboratory. He wishes the door isn't an automatic. At least the he can have the petty pleasure to swing it hard enough to make the building shake.
Mug growing cold next to him, Dr. Cain stares at the images that X sent him of the area where the enormous, bizarre energy reading came from on his datapad and back to the material examinations feedback at his humble monitor.
The area in the pictures essentially looks like ground zero: a crackling, twisted web of black scorches that stretches over kilometers on what looks like a smooth plateau with a white spot at the center, contrasting hysterically from the unscathed mountain range surrounding it. It's as if something exploded inside the mountain and took the mountain and all of its natural life with it. Like lopping off a cheese cone with a knife.
The Elite Unit couldn't glean anything from it that the satellite feed hasn't already. However, they did find tiny traces of metal scattered at the radius of the site. X couldn't find out what they were thus he sent them back to Cain Labs for study.
And this is where it gets weirder.
Dr. Cain examines the materials readings one more time, run the metals through the machines again and again. He double-checks and triple-checks, goes through his impressive archive of different recorded metal compositions throughout history and the world, crosses off millions of close match comparisons, and sees what's left for the sixth time.
Nope, it doesn't matter how many times he sees the same answer, it doesn't make any goddamn sense.
Dr. Cain carefully picks up one of the gleaming alloy shards between his thumb and forefinger almost reverently. The alloy shines a pale viridian or dark fuchsia depending on how the light strikes it. He stares at it in wonder and horror.
Physical Bassnium, also known as Fortenium in other parts of the world. An extremely rare element that was once thought to be restricted to the form of pure energy until leftovers from its usage were found at the end of the Wily Wars. The few samples the world has are locked up, contained to be studied and worshipped. The only reason any information based on it was released is because if anyone ever finds something similar to its composition, the government is willing to pay arm and leg for it.
The inventor is the only recorded person who ever utilized Bassnium so effectively and he kept his secrets with him to his unknown death. No wonder X, with all of his extensive knowledge, couldn't recognize it at sight. Since the previous century, no one has found anything like it – both the energy and the physical leftover - again.
And now Dr. Cain has enough shards to fill up a litter box in his lab.
What. The. Hell.
His data pad rings of an incoming call, jolting the elderly man so hard both the alloy and the tablet nearly jump from his hands. Cursing at both his old, pounding heart and the familiar name of the caller, Dr. Cain picks it up with a grumpy, "What do you want?"
"Hello to you too," says the sardonic voice from the other side. "I'll get straight to the point. Colonel and Iris have passed the activation phase and they're in the middle of testing."
"Colonel and Iris? You assholes really did it. You forced their births."
"Save it, Cain. Look, I know you're not happy about this. None of us are. And I'm not going to lie, Colonel is a bit tricky to handle. He's all of X's fighting spirit, justice, and determination tossed in a pressure cooker and out popped someone so self-righteous he's nearly bordering Knight Templar."
"Is that why you named him Colonel instead of General? Yeah, I've seen the other reploid orders you've got for Repliforce," Dr. Cain says vindictively at the ensuing silence. "That's the smartest thing you've done actually. Naming him Colonel and putting him in a lesser position will put his pride in check." Make the child learn humility. Never give him too much power.
After all, nobody wants a repeat Sigma.
"I didn't call you just to inflate your ego. I actually have some good news."
"And what's that?"
"Iris."
"The other one? Why did you name them after a flower?"
"Give us more credit. We named her after the Greek goddess. The messenger who used the rainbow as a bridge between heaven and earth."
"Wow. What the hell. That's an impressive fucking name then."
"For an impressive robot. Look Cain, Project Alpha isn't a total failure. Iris…she's something. We knew what her personality matrix was going to be like, but we didn't expect her to be like this. You have to meet her."
"I do?" Dr. Cain says though it comes out more deadpan than an actual question.
"Because she wants to meet you."
Well damn. Let it not be said that Dr. Cain isn't fond of newly-activated reploids. If one wants to meet him, why not. He needs to take a mental break from the Bassnium - which he is still not convinced that it is Bassnium - anyway.
"When and where?"
Everything about her screams softness from her spring green eyes to her long, earthy brown hair. All on a shorter-than-average thin body, covered head to toe in Repliforce's colors of primary red and blues, finished off with a cute beret like a cherry on top.
They went through the effort to design her a robot dress. Dr. Cain has been in this field longer than anyone else – hell, he's the first in reploid engineering and manufacturing - and this is the first time he has seen a robot dress.
"I heard you were involved with Colonel's creation and mine," Iris says demurely in a soothing voice. "Colonel is terribly busy with his new role so I'd like to say hi on his behalf as well."
The elderly roboticist shoots a look at Dr. Leonard, brows raised. "Is that the latest Piaf Voix's Voice Generation System? Is she going to be working at Repliforce or someone else's back-up singer?"
"She's going to be in telecommunications," Dr. Leonard replies flatly.
"Well it's nice to meet you, Iris," Dr. Cain says turning back to the recently born reploid with an obviously kinder attitude than to the other human in the room. "I'm Dr. Cain. I heard you wanted to meet me?"
She nods with a small smile. "You were the one father who wasn't there during mine and my brother's activation. I wanted to see you."
Gaping, the roboticist whips his head to the other so fast, his long beard followed him like an afterthought. Dr. Leonard is smirking.
A newly-activated reploid not only understanding the concept of family, but also readily accepting it and applying it to herself. Many reploids do not see the labs and factories they were born in as their birthplaces, less alone see the teams of humans behind their manufacturing as parents.
The only robots Dr. Cain knows who have used familial terms straightly are X in regards to Dr. Light, and his own lost son, Sigma, before the Maverick Hunters organization was created.
Both the maybe-Bassnium and this. Perhaps today's the day Dr. Cain can get a heart attack. Kick the bucket from the nonstop surprises.
"I see…" the bearded man says slowly. "How was your day today? How are you feeling?"
Iris hums with a finger raising to sit on the side of her chin contemplatively.
"My day was very fulfilling," Iris reports finally with a light cheer. "I learned so many new things today! After I was given the rundown of my systems, the Repliforce scientists were kind to let me have some free time while they attended to Colonel. I used it to look up emotions and facial expressions as much as I can without falling into recharge."
"Emotions and facial expressions? Who told you to look them up?"
The reploid tilts her head. "No one did."
"So it was all your choice to look them up. One hundred percent all you."
"Yes. I wanted to understand the people around me better. It's very hard because there's all of these big, strange things like psychology and culture that can influence the way people express themselves, but I'll do my best! Understanding people is the first step to helping them!"
"Because helping people is your directive?" Dr. Cain says weakly.
That feminine, youthful face gives a small sad frown. "I don't like to think that I'm helping people because I was made for it. I like to think it's because I simply want to. I want to help make a world where we can all get along with each other."
Oh god. The wave of X déjà vu is so strong it's a tsunami, barreling into Dr. Cain and he's left choking in the watery pressure. He can't even bother to work up the ire to glare at Dr. Leonard who's appearing increasingly smug. Damn him, Repliforce shouldn't be proud of what they've done.
Just as X's valor is in Colonel, supercharged - all of X's kindness, compassion, and love for peace is in Iris, a rainbow of goodness. She's barely a week old and already she's concerned for the world.
And this impossibly sweet person is fatally tied to a robot whose designation is his rank, existence stripped to the singular purpose to always fight. Combating Maverickism is life costly. Iris can be on the other side of the planet kept in an impenetrable nuclear fallout shelter and she would still be at risk as it will for the rest of her life because of Colonel.
Maybe it's more fitting to see Iris as a flower, thinks Dr. Cain, full of pity.
This small, pretty thing has an expiration date.