Ch. 11
The next morning was most decidedly embarrassing time period Zero had gone through up to that point. He sat with Allouette (only after her copious begging and pleading), and her mother and sister. Jordan said nothing, nor did Zero, and they both blushed profusely any time their eyes turned far enough to catch the other in their sight. Cornelia was at a loss, looking confusedly back and forth between them, utterly perplexed at the absence of conversation between the two.
"Goodness, you two! What on earth is wrong?" She finally had to ask. The two only blushed and turned away. "What on earth…" she shook her head and mumbled under her breath something about youth and restlessness.
"It's 'cause Jordan saw Zero naked last night. I saw." Allouette piped up. Zero blushed even more, and Jordan even began to even turn a bit purple.
"I take it I shouldn't inquire…" her mother said in a manner that said several things, one of them being What the hell were you two doing?
"No…" the two said in a unison that, if possible, made them even more embarrassed. The confused, and now somewhat unsettled mother suddenly looked up to see her younger daughter stand up and run to Ciel and Calliope, who sat across the room from them, on the other side of the gap made by the two columns of long tables that filled the mess hall, Ciel was red-faced as well, and avoiding Zero's gaze as best she could. Allouette tugged violently at the loose sleeve of the large sweater Ciel wore until she finally turned around, and Allouette cheerfully invited the two over to sit with her. Ciel tried half-heartedly to refuse, but Allouette wouldn't hear of it, and pulled and asked and pleaded until Ciel reluctantly agreed to come with her. Ciel slowly stood, and calliope followed almost motionlessly and walked over to the table where the other three sat.
"Mum, this is Calliope! Mr. Zero rescued her from the train yesterday." Allouette said cheerfully, sprightly and grinning.
"Well hello there! I'm Mrs. McAllister. " Mrs. McAllister smiled, glad to get away from the deeds (Or misdeeds) of her daughter and Zero.
"Salutations" Calliope said flatly.
"Are you just going to leave it at that? At least introduce yourself." Cornelia looked at the little girl in a chastising manner, as if she were her own child.
"I am hacker type battle-ready Elf module 0003, ICA-542, codename Calliope." She said in an even more monotone fashion than usual. "Is there anything else you wish to know about this model?"
"Oh, If that isn't the cutest thing!" Cornelia giggled; she liked kids a lot.
"Cute? I'm unsure that I understand." Calliope was unused to this odd description of her actions. "Would you please elaborate?"
"Oh, how precious!" Cornelia was now holding her hands up to her face and bouncing up and down as she laughed like a little schoolgirl.
"I still don't understand…" Calliope was confused.
"She just finds your maturity level amazingly high for such a small child." Ciel said under her breath, trying to avoid being noticed as much as possible.
"Am I a child?" Calliope remained perplexed.
"You look like one, and for a motherly person like her, that's enough." Ciel was speaking out of the side of her mouth, and mumbling slightly.
"Humans are so odd. It is so inefficient to convince yourself of a falsity when one should be devoting energy to reality instead." Calliope was rather condescending in her speech; she was obviously a very efficient program.
"And so mature too! Why couldn't my children be more like you?" Cornelia was practically beside herself with fascination over this child.
"I am programmed to let no emotions interfere with my decision making; that is all." Calliope remained dubious of the woman who was obsessing over her from across the table.
Zero stood, deciding that he didn't want to hang around anymore, and headed for the door to the hall. He walked down to the elevator, and hit the button to go up. He watched the large, circular doors open above him, as the hole slowly gained size. He walked out of the warehouse like he normally did, and launched himself up onto the adjacent roof, where he sat and stared out at the sun, already well over the tops of the buildings. He sat and thought. He sat, postulating, formulating, creating, until the entire mess became all too befuddling, and he decided to stop. He was growing a bit bored, and was about to go in, when his internal radar picked up an energy signature behind him. He turned, and saw Calliope gliding gracefully over the dirty rooftop.
"Salutations." She said stoically.
"Hello." Zero replied.
"Cornelia asked me to find you and ask why you left breakfast so early." The tiny, disproportioned girl sat beside him and turned her vast, far-too-large-for-her-head eyes to look at him.
"I just didn't feel like hanging around any longer, it's not like I eat." Zero said in a voice that betrayed his irritation to the subject.
"Your speech patterns are forced and harsh, my database shows that this is evidence of anger and irritation, might I ask what has troubled you so?"
"It's nothing."
"If you are sure you want to say nothing."
"I'm sure."
"Very well." She turned toward the rising sun that Zero was enraptured by.
"Wait a second, How did you know Cornelia's name?"
"It is in the databases that in your presence Ensign 35084, Ex-wife of former Commander Michael McAllister, mother of Allouette McAllister and Private First Class Jordan McAllister, is to be referred to as Cornelia in your presence."
"So Cornelia's nothing more than an alias?" Zero hadn't for a moment suspected that as her real name, but had given her the benefit of the doubt. Of course, being burnt to a crisp, ripped in half, and attacked by a large multitude of berserk robots tends to drive such trivial thoughts as a name out of one's head.
"Of course it is, you didn't seriously believe her, did you?."
"Then what is her real name?" Zero leaned down closer, as if he would miss it when she spoke, and would never hear it again.
"That information has been classified. I am not permitted to tell you."
"You What?" Zero was getting very angry at all of the secrecy.
"There is a call for you." Calliope spoke again before he had a chance to respond.
"Wha-?" Zero was entirely confused. His state was not helped by the fact that as soon as he turned to look at Calliope, her image was fragmented and blurred. Soon she gave way to an entirely different figure; a short, Hispanic-looking man with a wide mouth, curly black hair, and a lab coat. His expression was one of fear.
"Zero? Zero are you there?" He was panting as he spoke.
"Yes, I'm right here, but who are you?" Zero was still perplexed.
"Damn! Zero! Zero, please! Anyone, if you find this message somehow, Please help me! This is Dr. Mendez of the New Spain(1) BioGen research labs, We are under attack by Neo Arcadian troops! All of my colleagues have been killed, this is a distress signal; Please, I have a top secret project here that they absolutely cannot be allowed to obtain!"
"Doctor, I'm right here! What do you need?" Zero was confused as to why the doctor hadn't responded when he had spoken back to the doctor's hologram that had come up in Calliope's place.
"He can't hear you; obviously, he is able to send out information, but has no way of receiving it." Calliope's voice came from the small computer chip that remained suspended inside the hologram. The doctor continued his pleading while continually looking back over his shoulder, he seemed to be cornered. "He has sent us coordinates."
"Send them to my pheo-" Zero realized with a hiss and a short string of curses that he had left his bike behind at the warehouse before he followed the truck carrying Calliope.
"Your Hoverbike was recovered yesterday when our troops invaded the supply base that was transporting me previously. It has not been returned to base yet." Zero Sighed with relief at hearing his bike had been recovered. "Besides that, we're in Japan. It would take precisely 13.46 hours at top speed for you to get there, and by then the lab will be long gone. I suggest you take a Jumper(2), I can send the coordina-..."
"We have a Jumper?" Zero was quite ready to beat someone for not informing him of these kinds of things. Zero leapt off of the building without waiting for Calliope's answer, and ran to the warehouse, punching in the code to the elevator, and heading down. He ran into the Command room, and grabbed Ciel's shoulder.
"Zero? Is something wrong?" She asked, turning towards him.
"Where's the Jumper? And why didn't I know we had one!" He snapped at her.
"The-the Jumper? Why do you need to-"
"That doesn't matter! Just tell me where it is. And why didn't I know about it!" Zero was veritably yelling now.
"It's on the lower level, just past Cerveau's lab, but why do you need it?" Ciel was rather scared at having been accosted so, and was getting annoyed at how annoying and repetitive Zero was being.
"Doesn't matter!" Zero said, running off, "And why didn't I know about it!" He ran out with out giving her a chance to answer. He leapt out of the elevator before it even reached the floor of the lower level, rolling past Cerveau's lab, and to the door into the wall that he assumed led to the Jumper. His assumptions were challenged when he stepped into the small, brightly lit room, containing only a large, circular, bronze colored platform raised from the floor. He could only guess that this was the Jumper, and stepped up onto it. As soon as his foot made contact, a small beep sounded from the far end of the platform, and a small square piece of metal slid away, providing room for a control panel to come up after it, perched atop a bronze pole that held it a meter-and-a-half off the ground. Zero pushed the only button on the panel, labeled "activate", and it did precisely that; The large screen that dominated the remainder of the panel's surface turned on, displaying a poor Computer graphics image of a young woman's head.
"Hello, my name is Jennifer, How may I assist you in your jump today?" She smiled at him.
"Hello, Jennifer…" Zero was taken aback by the odd interface, "I need to get somewhere."
"Are you suggesting that you take the Jumper? This has been deemed very dangerous; would you like to learn more about the dangers of people and reploids jumping?" She smiled jubilantly as the words 'yes' and 'no' appeared below her, and she looked down at them as if they were the things that brought her the most joy in the world, then up at Zero as if he brought her more joy than the buttons. Zero raised an eyebrow, but pressed the 'no' button without questioning the primitive program further. "Okay, if you say so." She smiled broadly again, "So, where do you want to go?" asked, then proceeding to stare blankly while waiting for the answer.
"I need to go to the BioGen labs in New Spain." Zero replied, keeping his voice as monotone as possible, so as not to cause her to hear something he didn't intend her to hear.
"I heard that you need to go to the big jam nads in nude plane, is that what you wanted?" She seemed totally oblivious to the bizarreness of the location she recited to him.
"No." Zero was aggravated now.
"Where do you want to go?" She smiled again.
"New Spain." He replied flatly.
"I heard that you want to go to mule pain, Is that what you wanted?"
"No." Zero said through gritted teeth.
"You seem to be having problems with this interface, would you like to input coordinates, or pick the location from a map?" The buttons showing the options materialized below her, and she smiled at them as if they were friends arriving at a party. Zero pressed the one that had 'map' written on it. He was very pleased to see this going properly as a worldwide map appeared on the screen, several small red dots flashing on it.
"What are the dots, Jennifer?" Zero crossed his fingers as he spoke to Jennifer, hoping she would hear him properly.
"Those are all Jumpers currently detected on this system." Jennifer beamed at him again. Zero was surprised she had heard properly.
"New Spain." He spoke loudly and sharply, and was relieved to see the light on what he had always known as Guam flash more brightly. A small window popped up from it, and he tapped the button displaying 'Jump now'.
"Ready to Jump?" Jennifer cried in a sickeningly happy manner.
"Yes." Zero snapped back.
"Then please stand back, and do not place any appendages or items you do not wish transported outside the ring, and anything you do want transported, please place securely and completely on the platform. All reploids should back up their memory banks now." Zero plugged his fingerflash into the port on the side of the panel, rerouted the fingerflash's connection into his main hard-drive, and transferred his memory in a compressed file to the annoying girl in the screen. "Thank you for Choosing Sony(3) to supply your Jumping needs." Two small slats beside the control panel opened, and long, thin, segmented sheets of the same bronze colored metal as the rest of the Jumper came out, and began to coil around the platform; forming a ring all the way around Zero. Electricity began to crackle and arc along the edges of the ring, and a light glow began to emanate from everything within the ring. Zero suddenly felt odd and light-headed, and then felt his feet fall out from under him, but he didn't fall. Instead, he floated there, unable to feel anything from the knees down. The sensation grew upwards, spreading all the way up his legs, through his torso, and across his arms. As the numbness grew up his neck, he became very sleepy, things started to blur together and go dark until his system was unable to maintain itself, and he shut down completely only after hearing Jennifer exuberantly calling to him "have a nice day!"
New Spain was not the most appealing place Zero had ever been, he could tell that already. He could practically feel himself sticking together under the hot sun; though it was September, which meant late winter given that he was in the southern hemisphere. The Jumper he had been transported to was practically falling apart, sitting in the middle of a building that was literally falling apart. As soon as he had arrived on the other side, he was thankful that he was in one piece before he realized that there were no walls surrounding him; only tropical rainforest. A few bricks and low crumbling excuses for fortification were all that remained of the building that had once housed the Jumper. As soon as Zero had stepped from the Jumper, Jennifer's face had popped up on the screen to welcome him, but had fizzled out and fallen to static before she could finish; The Jumper was dead. Zero looked up at the sky; partly cloudy and very hot. The humidity was nearly palpable as he pushed through the rough, unyielding forest. He checked his GPS every few minutes to make sure the rough going hadn't inadvertently turned him to one side or the other. Soon enough, he came across a roughly cut path. That merged into the same direction as he was going. He decided it would be much easier to take the path, and did so. As he walked along, he picked up traces of all kinds of animals, and even saw a large tropical bird as he passed under one of the branches. At one point, he noticed a rustling in the bushes beside him, and managed to make out the small, glaring yellow eyes of a lizard peering out at him before they turned away and slid off into the darkness of the thicker foliage. Zero shook off the rather unsettling image, and kept walking.
Within the next fifteen minutes, the clouds grew thick and heavy, covering the sky with grey. The air was much cooler now, but even more humid than before. A light rain started to fall; only furthering Zero's dislike of the island. By the time Zero reached the lab, the rain was falling in torrential sheets on the tall, white walls of chipping paint of the decrepit building. How on earth can someone work here? Zero thought to himself. He walked toward the clearing in which the building lay, glad to have something other than the repetitive tropical flora and fauna he had seen the whole time flanking the trail. While he was still a hundred meters out, two pantheons that had been left to guard the door charged towards him, their arm-mounted weapons pointed straight at him. He ducked under their first volley, and leapt forward from his crouched position, keeping low over the ground while he drew his saber and spun around, slicing their midriffs. He planted his feet on the ground, but his awkward angle made it difficult, and he face-planted in his attempt to land. While he was recovering, he felt two sharp burning sensations, one on the middle of his back, the other grazing his shoulder. He growled and turned around, activating his chameleon component, and swinging his saber in a wide arc. The Icy cold had plenty of room to jump from raindrop to raindrop, quickly growing out, and freezing both of the pantheons, legs and torso. Zero stood, heading to the lab, remembering he needed to hurry when one of the already cracked windows flew outwards in shards under the force of an explosion from the inside.
Before he could cross the sixty meters left to the lab, he heard loud sloshing noises behind him as something with much larger feet than he came running up behind him. His radar sensed precise distance, and Zero waited for his opponent to get within a meter of him before he leapt up, back flipping over whatever had been charging him. as he looked down at the thing, all he saw were scales. He landed on his feet, with his opponent in front of him, still heading forward. It managed to stop, and whirl around to face him. Zero saw what he would have first taken for a giant lizard, except that the thing's body looked like that of a human's. It was covered in green scales from it's alligator's snout to the long lizard-like tail that swept back and forth behind it, except the underbelly, which had the latitudinal yellow bands of a snake's belly. The same eyes he had seen before now gleamed at him through the rain. Zero was facing down what could only be described as a dragon.
"Calliope, have you seen Zero?" Ciel asked the short little girl.
"Yes. He wnt to the BioGen Labs in New Spain, apparently they were under attack." Calliope looked up only long enough to answer, and then looked back to the computer screen.
"What?" Ciel bellowed.
"Yes. He went to the BioGen Labs in New Spain, apparently they were under attack."
"You don't have to repeat yourself; it's a figure of speech." Ciel rolled hr eyes at the young girl's robotic attitude toward everything, "Why did you let him go?"
"Dr. Mendez sent out a distress signal. Zero felt obligated to go." Calliope seemed to be bothered by the anger Ciel was expressing at the situation.
"But alone? You of all people should have checked statistics!"
"I did. There was a seventy-five percent chance of survival, and a fifty percent chance of recieving no serious injury." Calliope neglected to look up this time.
"Ugh! If he were to get hurt, though, how would we help him if we have no idea where he is?" Ciel was frustrated not so much with the situation anymore as she was Calliope.
"Dr. Mendez would inform me."
"But you said Dr. Mendez is under attack, He could be-"
"Dead? No. He created me, and I checked he stability of his position. he can hold out for another hour, at least." Calliope still wouldn't even so much as look at Ciel.
"Oh, whatever." She rolled her eyes at the unchanging demeanor of the girl, and walked over to the central terminal. A scan of New Spain instantly revealed him to be right in front of the lab. "Iris." She said to the officer as she happened to pass by.
"Yes ma'am!" Iris instantly saluted.
"Gather the best men from your unit, get them battle ready, and head for New Spain, locate Zero at the BioGen Research lab, and assist him in whatever way he needs you. He will be first in command for this mission. Take the Jumper."
"The Jumper, Ma'am?" Iris' salute faltered a bit, as the thing was only used for emergencies.
"Yes, and that also means reploid soldiers only. This could make our efforts for Calliope useless; We have to secure the research at that lab, otherwise, we will lose this war."
"Yes Ma'am." Iris' Heels clicked and she promptly turned around, running off to follow her orders.
"Now we sit and wait." Ciel sighed, and hit the code red button in a bored manner as the soldiers began scrambling. "I always hate this part."
The monster was breathing heavily, and its thick snorts could be heard over the rainfall. It stared angrily at Zero; obviously it was upset. Zero re-drew his weapon, and waited. The monster roared at him; charging forward. Zero jumped high again, flipping forward and holding his saber straight up; intending to slice the thing's head. All Zero was able to see was a blur of green scales as the lizard-man swerved with unfathomable speed underneath the searing blade. The monster whipped around, bringing its tail up, and whacking Zero with it, sending his flying to the ground with force that would kill a human. Zero only felt immense pain as he landed, and was unable to recover before the dragon's jaw came hurtling down towards him, teeth bared. It was all he could do to bring his free arm up, and grab the upper jaw, and hold it off while the beast snarled and plowed itself forward, hoping to break his strength. Zero shoved the monster's head up, gaining only barely enough time to roll out of the way before the giant maw came crashing back down. the two stood simultaneously, facing off again. The beast's panting was slightly heavier, and the great, muscled arms hung limply before him. The beast made a strained noise, as if crying out in pain. Zero thought for a moment he heard a voice trying to speak. The monster charged again, the same strained roar echoing from its ugly mouth. 'Why?' Zero was sure he heard it this time; but had no time to think about it as he was forced to get out of the way.
"Whyyyyyy!" It roared a third time and lunged forward. Zero jumped to the side again, trying to understand what it was saying. "I didn't..." Its voice seemed pained and weary, its eyes were deranged and bloodshot, "Do anything!" It crashed into the ground where Zero had been standing moments before. " Why does it..." It repeated the process, attacking Zero, "HURT ME?" He slashed at Zero, who was unable to evade the last attack completely, and felt the five claws dig into his side, leaving long gashes along it. What does it want? Zero was unsure if he could fight this thing; it seemed innocent. "GRAH!" It resorted to a grunt this time as it bounded high, aiming to take Zero's head off. Zero leaned back, falling to the ground, his legs bent. As the lizard passed over him, Zero kicked up, sending the monster up into the air, and landing on its back with a thud. "AAAAAGH!" The beast roared in pain as it landed. It wouldn't get up, it lay there, clutching its abdomen where Zero had kicked it. "It hurts!" It bellowed in its strained, unearthly growl, "It hurts! Why!" It began to get to its feet, trembling. "YOU!" It pointed at Zero, "You made it hurt!" It tried to run to Zero, but it tripped, falling flat onto the ground. "RAAAAAGH!" The roar of pain burst from the beastly mouth yet again, "It hurts!" The beast lay writhing in pain on the ground; obviously, strong as it was, its pain tolerance wasn't very high. Zero walked warily up to it, saber held in a defensive position. The lizard had begun to calm down a bit by now, and its eyes remained fixed towards him. Zero looked back into the monster's face, and saw the eyes slowly changing; the narrow, slit-like pupils slowly contracted back to a circular shape, and the tightened muscles relaxed slightly. The beast panted heavily now, seemingly too weak to fight anymore. "P-please…" It said in a still unearthly, but less feral than before, "K-kill me."
"What?" Zero was taken aback by the thing's words.
"K-kill me. I have no more reason to live, let me at least die by my own hands and not those of fate." His words were eloquent and precise; he must have thought this recitation out long ago, and waited for the day he could ask this favor of someone. "I'm a monster." His words slowly became more and more hushed, more and more whispers, as if even speaking caused him extreme pain.
"I-I will." Zero said, feeling guilty for having so hated a thing with such human emotions. "You were a good man; I will give you a proper burial when I can." He raised his saber straight up, pointed down. He began to cry as he pulled it up to plunge it down.
"If you see my wife and daughter, tell them I love them." With those words, Zero nodded, and stabbed the man in his chest, pulling his saber across in a downward curve, then straight back across; Seppuku, a warrior's death of honor. Zero withdrew his weapon, and sheathed it on his back. As he walked towards the laboratory, he could do nothing to stop himself from breaking down into sobs. He was just glad no-one was around to see him cry.
Footnotes:
New Spain is what used to be Guam, and the southern portion of the Northern Mariana island group. As soon as Neo arcadia was established, a vigilante group in Spain held protests to the 'reconstruction of the communist regime' they believed Neo arcadia was establishing. Neo Arcadia promptly dropped a series of tactical nuclear strikes on the country, rendering it a smoldering wasteland. The U.S. Embassy in Japan managed to confiscate a letter chronicling when and where the strikes would be, but was only able to evacuate a small portion of Spain before they were attacked.
After the previously nigh-unpopulated islands received this influx of better-educated people, several scientific advancements were made with some previously unknown resources the Spanish found on the Island (The Islands, being as small as they were, quickly ran out of resources, so the materials are now synthetically manufactured in labs) This discovery launched the refugees into a rebellion for independence.
By the time this had happened, The U. S. Had joined the fight against Neo Arcadia (The only reason they hadn't been wiped out by the fearless use of nuclear warfare was because they had seized control of Neo Arcadia's nuclear facilities) and were unable to fight against New Spain as well, so they allowed them to take their independence. New Spain has, since then, rebuilt Alliances with the U.S. and now fights with them against Neo Arcadia.
A Jumper Is a teleportation device that uses radiation to break bonds between molecules, then uses Fiber-optics to send them rocketing individually through a tunnel at nearly light speed, and reassembles them on the other side. Obviously, due to large amounts of radiation, a human cannot use the Jumper. In addition to the radiation factor, the few brave or stupid enough to attempt so were rendered vegetables, or mentally retarded for several days to several weeks afterwards. A single human managed to make it through with severe amnesia. This subject died of brain cancer in six months. Most scientists took this as proof that there is a 'soul'; or some force in a human that exists beyond the mere physical molecules, and that once the molecules were sent, the 'soul' needed time to transfer itself to the teleported body. A reploid is capable of using a Jumper, but it is considered risky, and is not advised; approximately one-third of all reploids who have ever 'Jumped' were no more capable than simple maintenance droids afterwards, and one-half of the remaining two-thirds suffered amnesia. The problem of the amnesia has been since solved by allowing a Reploid to back up their hard drive in the system, and allowing them to retrieve it on the other end. Many of the scientists that support the 'soul' theory believe that this has also proven the existence of a kind of 'half-evolved soul' in reploids: a 'soul' that doesn't have as much influence as it does in a human body, so that a reploid is more propelled by logic than the emotion that humans feel. As a reploid ages, this 'soul' seems to develop more, and as they are more and more influenced by the outside world, the more and more human they become.
The well-known Sony® Company died out in 2064 after their first line of Household robots proved to have a defect that would cause them to eject limbs at high velocity whenever they were over-stimulated. Their Jumpers, however, have remained functional through the years, a large network having been set up before hand. The Resistance scoured the world in the first year of the war to find the Jumpers and move them to remote locations and mask their signature in an attempt to keep them out of Neo Arcadia's hands. Since Sony® has died out, there has been very little advancement made to the Jumper system, and the automated assistants remain primitive and stupid.
Author's note:
I'm so sorry about being so slow, I'm hoping and praying that I'll care enough to write faster from now on. If you guys want to send me a kick in the pants if you think I'm being too slow, feel free, I'll appreciate all the help I can get. Anyway, Thanks so much for reading, please tell me what you think about it, I seriously want to know if I'm doing well or not (I'll even take suggestions for what you think should happen next, since I don't have an outline or anything mapped out yet). By the way, I want to know if you think I'm going too far from canon or not, I realized that comparing this mission to the original one in the game, it's quite different (For those who had trouble understanding, this was my extremely different way of telling the first factory mission). If you guys like it this way, I can keep it, but if you think I should go more canon, I can do that too