A/N: I wasn't sure I was going to get this posted - the upload failed 5 times and I still don't know why! Anyway, one last post this weekend and the story is finished, although I may follow Shadow on a bit as he regains his understanding of Gerald's true legacy...but that's another story, literally. The last part (s) uploaded just fine, so they're ready to go - come back Saturday for 9iv and the Epilogue.
iii. I Was Sane Enough...
Gerald sighed softly as he closed the chest plate on the Gizoid, banging lightly with his fist to click it shut. He'd just removed the Chaos Emerald after running the Gizoid through a variety of exercises. That part was finished, he hoped. "Bring hope to all humanity," he said quietly to the inert robot. "Use the powers you may contain for good, to help people...and I hope you will be more successful in that than I was." He paused, then shook himself sharply as he realized he was listening for a reply - not from the Gizoid, but from the internal voice that had been whispering at him recently. It worried him a bit, but he chalked it up to stress and grief; he was NOT going to report to the Island medical unit and let the military doctors poke around in his mind. Aside from the fact he didn't trust them, he had too many secrets he dared not reveal. "I don't know how it came to this," he continued his soliloquy to the silent gold puppet that had once destroyed the world, pacing back and forth across the room. "I only wanted to help people. How did I get from bioelectronics to Ultimate Weapons? It always seemed to make sense at the time. Now I feel like the man who told the judge 'Your Honor, I was sober enough to know I was drunk.' Was it a mistake to create the Ultimate Life-Form? I wasn't sure when I wrote that question in my journal, and I still don't know. I wanted to use Shadow's immortality to help cure Maria; and I would have! I had solved it!" He whirled towards the immobile robot...and paused, panting, as the sudden rage drained as quickly as it had come. "But then it all went wrong," he paused as a memory niggled, then huffed a sound between a laugh and a sob as the memory came clear. Maria had loved that song, singing with all the poignancy and innocence a young girl could muster. "'I dreamed a dream in time gone by.' Well I did, and it certainly did turn to shame. But not Shadow. He's far more than I could have dreamed, in spite of me. I wanted a cure, a defense, an Ultimate Life-Form, even at the end a weapon, but" I ended up with a son, who will far exceed his 'father'. The last part was not said out loud, even in the manufactured privacy of his lab. GUN had been criminally careless thus far in failing to recognize his talent with computers, but there was always the chance that someone might crack the code he'd put in to modify the images and sound recorded by the cameras. He has absorbed Maria's soul directly; what I tried to program into the Gizoid, Shadow has acquired by birth and upbringing. He knew from Shadow as well as his own evaluation that Shadow would have done anything for Maria, and still would - whatever promise he had made her, he would fulfill it. While I... he looked at the Gizoid. I have done what I can with this one, now I must get it out of here if possible to prevent someone undoing the changes I have made. And the Emerald must go as well, it's too powerful to leave in military hands. But Shadow...
(Shadow will be the weapon they desire but not as they expect. They will pay for their lust for destructiveness with their own destruction.) Gerald started and stared around again. Shivering involuntarily, he thought firmly, Shadow is not a weapon, he is a person.
Now I know I'm going crazy, I'm answering back to my own subconscious. Still, there was a certain allure to the image of Shadow obliterating the GUN base with the Eclipse cannon. He had dreamed it a few nights previously and had difficulty shaking the image. STOP IT, Gerald! The important thing now is to get the Gizoid out of here. And the Chaos Emerald. Later, once Ivan's got the Gizoid safely hidden and the search has died down some, I can send him the activating phrase and he can activate the emotions-base AI and bring it to life. "Bring hope to all humanity," he muttered again; that was the activating phrase. He pocketed the Emerald and hauled the Gizoid back to the place he'd been keeping it when he wasn't working on it; a spot carefully chosen for being out of range of the security cameras' line of sight. He'd also placed a large box in the blind spot at one point, straining rather theatrically as he dragged it to suggest that it was far heavier than it was, rather than completely empty.
Now, carefully keeping the camera range in mind, he loaded the Gizoid into the box. The box supposedly contained "critical robotic components" that he'd "ordered" from Ivan's corporation (at great savings to the government, of course); per instructions he'd slipped out around the e-mail censor, Ivan had in fact shipped him a box containing several large plastic bags full of water. The water had been drained surreptitiously before he'd hauled the box to his lab. Over the next few days he'd complained loudly about being shipped the wrong parts, and emailed the same complaints to Robotnik Inc. (Being certain that those - like the original order- passed through the censor). Ivan had responded with the shipping code to return the shipment at no charge, and today was the day it was to go out. He packed the Gizoid and added a copy of his diary and a small box containing the Chaos Emerald, carefully wrapped in plastic. Strolling back into the camera's range, he carefully placed the box that had contained the Emerald into the small laboratory safe. Leaning over to hit the communications switch, he called Supply.
"I need a pickup for this box of components. I can't believe my own son could mess up my order so badly, but I'm not going to be able to finish this robot until I get the correct parts sent in. I've put the Emerald in the safe here in the lab, that will allow me to continue the adjustments if I get any new ideas to try. Anyway, I've boxed the parts up, and got the label Ivan sent on it, so if you can send someone to deliver it to the dock for shipment I'd appreciate it."
"Acknowledged. Someone will be sent at once. We can put the Emerald back in our safe– "
"No," interrupted Gerald, "I'd rather keep it here; this project's been delayed enough already and if I have the emerald here I can work on it without pestering Supply at two in the morning when inspiration hits." He'd checked the work roster and knew that Lt. Andrews was managing the Supply stores today - and Lt. Andrews had more than once been on the receiving end of middle-of-the-night inspiration from researchers on Prison Island, and he valued his sleep.
As he'd expected, Lt. Andrews permitted him to keep the Emerald as long as it was safely secured. Gerald assured him it was safe - safely on its way out of the military's reach, he clarified mentally - and signed off. Soon after, he sent the box containing the Gizoid and the Emerald on its way, and received word about an hour later that it had left the Island and should arrive at Robotnik Inc. within the week. He sighed in relief and turned his attention to a new sleep-training program for Shadow. Pulling up the security camera footage that he'd resaved in his own files under new names, he began putting together a tape of the shots of Maria and Shadow running, and the scene in the lab; he was recording a voice-over "Remember what they have done Shadow, what they have taken..." when abruptly he realized what he was doing. With a feeling of shock, he slapped at the keyboard to clear the program, starting to shiver at the realization that he had been starting to sabotage his own plans. Sternly he tried to put his thoughts back into order, not realizing as he did so that he had actually SAVED the new program rather than deleting it.
His mind kept returning to his dreams, not only the grandly vengeful ones of destroying the GUN base, or even the planet, but the odder, more subtle ones, where he'd adapted a video camera to uplink to the ARK and set the programming on the ARK so that it would activate the rock shield to camouflage the colony as soon as any communication with the camera was finished. Or made other changes to the base's programs, or the ARK's. He shook himself and focused his mind firmly on dinner as he headed for the mess hall.