As I will say in the next chapter, I am continuing this. Just wait.
Chapter 16: Needs to be done ~ - . . - ~ Tournament Saga
He would not usually drive the car, but the situation would not allow for that. He would either get someone to drive him, or more likely, let his car drive itself. That feature was still considered experimental, but it was a trivial task for him to perfect the coding on wheeled vehicles. However, either of those options left traces, and he could not allow for that. No one outside of this organization could know that he was there.
He rolled up to the gates and stopped before the armed guards. The guard one to his left walked up to the door of the car. The guard switched his gun safety off. "State your purpose." He said loudly, trying to get his voice inside the closed car. Little did he know, but there was a microphone put into the outside of the vehicle's structure. This allowed the man inside to clearly hear the guard's voice.
A monotone machine like voice came from the car. "Send a message to the general. The Doctor is here."
The guard still at the gate reached for his walkie-talkie. He then talked on it for what seemed to be a full minute, most likely getting the message through several people before the general finally heard it. Even though this army and establishment were fairly new, only springing up within the last 10 years, they were powerful and well established. Such to an extent, in fact, that the government did not want to fight them. This is exactly why the man in the car wanted to work with them.
While waiting, the man in the car looked through his tinted windows and noticed that there were mounted machine guns at the top of the fortification. 2 of them in fact, each above pillars that were to the side of the gates. It really was an impressive wall that surrounded the complex. The symmetry of the walls and the guard posts was quite pleasing to the eye.
The guard at the gate mentioned the other one over, talked to him briefly, and then talked again to the walkie-talkie. They both resumed standing next to the gate, weapons safety switched back on. The gates started opening, and the man in the car drove on in. He first saw the trees that were on both sides of the door, then when his eyes adjusted to the newfound brightness he saw the huge building that was in front of him. Upon going into the compound, he saw a dome-shaped building whose size can rival the biggest dome that the Capsule Corps ever made.
He was being motioned to turn left and then told to go all the way down and turn right. He followed these instructions. He drove past the 2 huge buildings to find himself looking at what looked like a city.
He really shouldn't have been surprised. He has sent drones out on recon missions beforehand. The first drone got blown up, but it helped him plan out and test the defenses of the base. He then sent a second drone in and was able to sneak it into what he thought would be the commander's building. He thought he was wrong, because he saw a little guy with red hair in a suit. However, he thought it would make sense for this person to be the assistant to the commander and some sort of mascot for the army. So he peered through the next window and saw a very tall black man in a very fine and classy suit, with paperwork in front of him and a phone in his hand. So he used the drone to open the window, then slid it inside.
"Greetings. I have a proposition for the leader of the Red Ribbon Army" the drone began in a monotone voice. The tall black man stood up and turned around to see a drone with what looked like a turned off television screen in the middle of it.
"... Ahh, excuse me. Something just came up, I will have to call you back." It sounded like the person on the other end of the line started saying something, but was cut off as the phone hit the receiver. "A proposition, ehh? And who might you be?"
"One moment please" The robot remained silent before a small green light appeared on its front. A voice came out "I assume I am talking to the Leader of the Red Ribbon Army. Are you him?"
"If you are looking for Commander Red, he is in the next room. However, he wouldn't look upon this breaking and entering as easily as I would, and would be quite annoyed. I am Adjutant Black. Now, before I answer any more questions, how did you get in here?"
"How is simple enough. I noticed several holes in your airborne defense. 'Why' would be a better question. I wish to join your ranks."
"And you went through all this trouble? You know, we have applications online for this sort of thing." The tall man in the room replied, a little surprised.
"No, you see, no one must know about this. I have an important job that I absolutely can not give up, lest I lose most of my funding. However, my desired research is in an area that would get my funding withdrawn. And you and your group can greatly benefit from this research. So my want is simple. I can design and look over all of your robotics and weapons, but in exchange I need money and a place to work."
"All this talk about research and robotics. Who are you?"
The screen on the drone flickered on, and a man in his mid-40's appeared. Light brown hair was slicked back on his head, and bushy hair of the same color shot out from under his nose, reaching out to each side like it was repelling itself.
The mouth moved "You might know me." He said.
Adjutant Black's face scrunched into a doubtful look. Then a flash of confusion appeared on it before became composed once again. "What does the world famous Dr. Gero want to do with us? We aren't exactly equipped with the best science facilities. We do have some decent mechanical facilities, but we make them out to be better than they actually are."
The Doctor's face remained as stoic as when he turned on the screen "As I said earlier, I need the money and research time. Of course I will also build, design, and share my knowledge with you and your company."
Adjutant Black stood there for a few seconds, processing everything and finally coming to a decision. "Can you come in person to discuss this with me? I feel that that would be the best move on both of our parts."
Gero knew that this was a tactic to test his loyalty. That did not have to be tested. He needed this if his son was going to live.
Dr. Gero drove up to the second tallest tower in the complex and turned the engine off. He put on a big trench coat and a hat before exiting the car. He opened the door and grabbed the suitcase that was in the seat next to him. Then he got out and got the suitcase out of the back. A valet parker walked up to the doctor, who noticed the gun on the side of the valet's hip. Gero got the keys and put them in the man's hand, grabbed his suitcase handle, and went inside.
He never bothered looking at the first floor of this building. As he walked in, the first thing that hit his eyes was the red carpet, stained with streaks of black. 'This must represented the Commander and his Adjutant' Gero thought to himself, finding himself pulling slightly harder at his rolling suitcase. Someone offered to help him with it, but the Doctor pushed on and made his way towards the elevators.
Once inside, the doors closed slowly behind him. A feminine voice ran through the speaker and said "Current location, ground floor. Destination, Commander Red's and Adjutant Black's offices."
The trip up was not long.
The elevator opened and he heard a woman's voice. "Welcome sir. I am to direct you straight to Black's door, which is the one on the right."
He followed her directions, and found himself in the room that his drone was in days previous. In fact, his drone was laying in the corner, turned off and deactivated as per Adjutant Black's directions.
"Ahh, Doctor, please come in and close the door." Black said.
"Thank you for seeing me Adjutant." The doctor replied, while bringing both of his positions inside. "I hope this shows how willing and dedicated I am to you and this corporation." He closed the door, and placed his hat and coat on the provided coat rack.
"Well I for one am glad that you joined. We could use a great scientist and mechanical engineer like you. Still, my only doubt comes with why. Why would someone like you want to work with a rogue nation of us? Wouldn't the so called 'world government' treat you better?"
The doctor simply reached inside his pants pocket and pulled out a tiny computing chip. "One day I came up with this." He said, as he tossed the Micro SD card over to Black. "This is the culmination of a week's worth of research. Inside is something that would not only be of great interest to you, but also would not line up with the government's morals. Even suggesting the idea would put me on their watch lists. That is precisely the reason that I came to you first."
Adjutant Black looked at the small chip in his hand. He furrowed his brows when he realized his computer did not take this small of a chip. He did remember that he once had a USB converter, though, so he opened his tech drawer and found it right where he put it. He plugged the chip into the converter right as Gero finished speaking. "Well, let's see what this little chip has to tell me." He stuck it into his computer.
Immediately a program opened up, and several messages popped up. "Don't worry about that. The program is just securing your computer. The information here is quite critical, and I am not in the mood to take chances."
The advisor to Commander Red nodded, and let the computer do its thing.
The screen quickly flashed green twice before returning to normal, all except for a screen that opened up smack in the middle.
Adjutant Black bent over and clicked the one file there was, and a new screen flashed open, grey, on top of the other one. The computer beeped. "I authorize." Dr. Gero said loudly from across the room.
The file opened.
It was a document that was consisted of only words opened up, most of them blue for they linked to other documents and studies that the Doctor did or collected. "You might want to sit down, reading this may take a while." The doctor began opening up the suitcase and taking targets on collapsible stands out and placed them all around the room.
A few minutes passed. The doctor set up all the targets around the room, and had pulled out a seat that was against the wall into the center of the room, with his briefcase and a target next to him.
"A mechanical human being, gifted with hyper abilities. A soldier that would need a fraction of the sleep a normal human would need while requiring less to function. Dr. Gero, do you think you are capable of doing this?"
"With enough time, yes, I would bet my life on it. I could build far beyond the specifications in the document. However, I would like to have the product completed within the next 3 years. I even brought an example of the first stage, semi-intelligent AI within a humanoid frame. I want to introduce you to android 1."
He stood up, picking the suitcase up as he went, placed it on the floor in front of him, and set the lock to 0-0-0-1.
The doctor moved his chair back where it belonged, while the suitcase started unfolding.
First it opened up like a normal suitcase would. However, unlike a normal suitcase, the inside was solid metal, the same metallic grey that the outside was. It was filled in solid, so it looked more like someone opened a softcover book halfway through.
Black got up and moved closer to this contraption, but far enough so that he felt safe. A bit closer now, he was able to see lines, much like a crack would look like, but smooth and very precise. He stepped closer as the robot kept making itself taller, and a minute later he was walking around and examining a metal skeleton.
After a full circle, he asked "Well, what does it do?"
"A variety of actions and tasks. But first, I would like for you to test something else." Dr. Gero goes back to his suitcase and pulls out what seems to be a gun. The Adjutant puts his own hand on his hidden gun, but drops it once he realizes that Gero was not only holding it nonthreateningly, but also pointed at himself. "Here, take this"
The advisor took it by the handle. "What's so special about this?" He held it with one hand, showing off his strength. It wasn't easy to hold an automatic rifle steady with only the grip. "It is the variant that our tropes use."
"Please, shoot the target." Dr. Gero said, motioning to the target in the back of the room.
Thinking himself familiar with the gun, the Adjutant goes to shoot it, trusting in the Doctor that the bullets won't go flying through the wall.
The metal pellets hit the target, most of them in or just around the center of the target. There wasn't much noise to each shot, yet the recoil was as strong as any normal weapon. Black looked at the weapon in his hand and said "This is perfect for our military training! We could save so much money using pellets instead of actual bullets, and make sure the range is safer. It does feel just a tad light, but that can easily be fixed..."
He paused for a second. "However, you wanted to show me something else, didn't you?"
"That is correct." Gero stated, holding his hand out to accept the gun back. "Even though the weapon might be impressive, I truly came to show you my robot." He walked over and held the weapon out to the skeleton like machine. "Android 1, activate!"
… Nothing happened.
"Android 1, take this gun and shoot at all targets. Fast actions. GO!"
Almost too fast to see, the android grabbed the gun and jumped across the room, hit the top of the desk and stopped himself immediately. It grabbed the gun, turned, and one by one, adjusted its aim so that it hit all of the targets in rapid succession, except for the one that was in front of it, facing away from the mechanical being. It jumped, flipping in the air, and while upside down, it shot the last target. The robot landed with barely a thud, indicating that it didn't weigh much.
"As you can see," Dr. Gero started to say, walking forward "My Android was able to not only able to hit all of the targets, but he had enough intelligence to try to shoot the middle of each of them." He continued, finally reaching the last target and turning it around to show Black. The target had a little metal bead embedded directly in the center of it.
"Now, this is as far as I am willing to program an Artificial Intelligence. Giving it a conscious is far too dangerous. However, this speed, grace, raw information. Imagine what it would be like if your best soldiers had access to all of these. Extra strength, speed, durability, knowledge of battle and battle tactics. Instead of me giving commands to this android, where if I perish then it does nothing, by attaching this power to a human, you can get an unstoppable soldier who can react in the battlefield."
The ranking officer smiled a huge smile. His eyebrows lowered in thought, and he looked truly evil for a few moments. Although he regained his composure shortly afterwards, Dr. Gero could still feel an evil vibe coming off of the man. I wish there was some better way of going at this. Alas, this is my only option. To save my son, I must unleash this evil. Thankfully he took my pitch about Rogue A.I.'s seriously. To be forced to make one of those would kill the world I want my son to come back to.
"You start immediately. I will have someone direct you to your new room, and then to your new lab. The current head mechanic will work directly under you. If you think there will be a problem with that, just tell me. The situation will be taken care of. That applies to any situation that comes up. You do understand that you will not be allowed to leave, nor send out any information to the outside world, right? Your family, if you have any, will never see you again, and you will never see them again. Unless we are able to take over their part of the world, that is. This is all for security measures."
The good doctor knew this would be the case. He left a letter that will mechanically drop from underneath the kitchen counter into the silverware drawer back at home if not deactivated within a day. He now would not be able to deactivate it.
"I thought as much." The doctor said, as he started packing up.
The Letter.
Dearest wife.
I know how worried you must be now. Not only with our son in the hospital, but also with me not coming home for the day. I am sorry that I cannot be home now, for I have found a way. I found a way to save our son.
Sadly, I cannot do it. Not alone, that is, with the limited time and resources I have now. I am now with some people who can give me the resources to save our son.
Please use the money I put into our account to live for the next few years and to keep our son in the hospital. I know it must pain you to see him suffer so, but worry not. When I return, I will have a cure to fix his degenerating body.
At first, think about this like I am on a long business conference. That is what you shall tell anyone who comes to ask for the first week. Use your own discretion from there. I believe in you. Please believe in me.
Burn this paper. A match and flammable striking paper are located inside this letter, all of it being extremely flammable. I will be back as soon as possible.
Stay strong for the 3 of us.
Love, from the man who is lucky to have you,
-Maki Gero.