Project X
Disclaimer: Mega Man and Everything else I reference belong to Capcom and their various owners. However, I own Xavier (well mostly), Zack (who I hope won't end up a Gary Stu), and my next Dr. Light (who I hope won't turn into a Sue)
Chapter 5: Thank You Very Much, oh Mr. Roboto
Dr. Light gasped,
"That must be the corrupted data." said Dr. Light as it dawned on her.
"I don't remember anything." said the boy, Cyborg X.
"People barely accept robots, Dr. Light, they'll never accept a cyborg." said the man.
"Dr. Cain, why would you think such a thing?" asked Dr. Light. The man (Dr. Cain) shook his head.
"What is it you are working on as of current that has the public in an uproar?" Dr. Cain asked.
"Bionics." said Dr. Light dejectedly.
"A cyborg by definition is a human with robotic limbs seamlessly integrated into their body. What you're doing is small compared to this boy." he said.
"You're right. But how do we make him look human?" asked Dr. Light.
Cyborg X had sat up and saw the data pad on the floor and picked it up looking at Mega Man X's blue print.
"You could pretend I'm him. I think I'm based off of this blue print." said Cyborg X.
"He's right." said Dr. Cain looking between the monitors and the blue print in Cyborg's X's hands. Dr. Light shrugged,
"It looks like the blue print would have worked had it been built, but there are a lot of bugs in it." said Dr. Light examining it, "This is way beyond anything I've ever dreamed of. But we couldn't rightfully call them androids, because we're going to replicate them after Cyborg X and this blue print."
"What if we call them replica androids or reploids?" said Dr. Cain.
"Reploids, I like it." said Dr. Light, "As for you, why not just call you X?" she said addressing Cyborg X.
"Sounds good to me." said X (Cyborg X).
Six weeks later
Dr. Light and Dr. Cain were up to their eyeballs in failed reploids. X was helping as best he could, Dr. Light and Dr. Cain teaching him about robotics as they went along.
"Maybe instead of improving the design maybe you should only fix what you can fix, and not try to innovate?" said X. Dr. Light and Dr. Cain looked at him and then seemed to mentally smack themselves and say duh!
"We were looking at this the wrong way." said Dr. Cain, Dr. Light nodded and they resumed working.
Their first successful reploid was made two weeks later. He, as he was masculine in design, functioned well. His name was Alpha.
X seemed alright with pretending to not be human but Dr. Light caught him looking hurt whenever some zealot yelled at her and Dr. Cain for treating him too humanly. There was also his longing for knowing who he was before he had become a cyborg.
'No one in this place is ever happy.' she thought
Six months later
Reploids, once they had perfected correcting bugs in the blue prints without innovating, were now almost an essential part of life. X felt obsolete as he was not only the semi prototype, but his human half made him…inefficient. It was strange, he knew he was originally human but he was so much more robotic now. Plus he was pretending to be a machine, and his emotions were numb from disuse. He had amnesia that much he knew but he had never retrained himself to be human. He'd read about other cases of amnesia in the past and some the patients had to be fully rehabilitated. By acting robotic he had stunted his own rehabilitation.
True acting a little human the world could see as him adapting or mimicking human life.
'It was your idea to pretend to be an advanced android.' a voice in his mind sneered at him.
"X!" said Dr. Light's voice. He turned to see the small scientist walking over to him. She looked upset.
"They-They're making us create hunters to deal with the mavericks!" she said, her voice partly sadness, partly outrage.
Mavericks had become a problem that kept getting bigger and bigger with no signs of stopping in the foreseeable future. Perfectly normal reploids would malfunction and break the three laws. X knew he could break them, but tended not to as to avoid raising suspicions on himself. He feared his human half would lose the battle with his forced behavior if anything should arise in the future forcing him to do the right thing by acting outside the laws.
He saw a change appear in Dr. Light as the hunter reploids were built. She seemed to less of the teenage roboticist and more of an adult trapped in a teen's body with every passing day. Sigma was the first completed and the 7'4 monster stood a foot taller than Xavier, forcing the tall cyborg to look up to see Sigma's eyes. He was a bald humanoid solely dedicated to his mission. X always felt a weird sensation near him. Had he been more human he'd have been able to label it as the emotion of jealousy.
Three months later
Sigma entered the base heavily damaged dragging a red reploid behind him.
"Repair him." he ordered X, who had been trained to fix reploids. X picked up the red reploid carefully and walked to the lab seeing Dr. Cain patching up Sigma. He laid the red reploid on a lab table and gathered tools to begin repairing him. Midway through repairing the reploid he realized the design was identical to the blue prints found for the actual Mega Man X. He kept working steadily, the damage beginning to be taken care of by the nanites that could take care of minor things if they had enough energy to run. X hooked the reploid up to a consol to run a diagnostic/replenish the reploid's energy. The reploid came too whenever X had returned from eating.
"Where am I?" the reploid asked.
"At Maverick Hunter HQ. I'm X." said X. The reploid seemed to be grasping for a name and finally said,
"Zero." Zero, well that explained the stylized 'Z's' on the reploids shoulder armor.
"You were heavily damaged, I repaired you, do you have any lasting memory problems?" asked X.
"Data is corrupted." said Zero after trying to recall anything before this point. X nodded,
"I will be back; I need to report to Dr. Cain and Dr. Light." he said. Dr. Light seemed preoccupied whenever X crossed the lab but Dr. Cain was still working on repairing Sigma. He approached Dr. Light who looked up and stopped working on what looked like a hunk of metal.
"The reploid is functional. No memories and we did not build him; his structure is nearly identical to the original blue print, not the revised one we authorized others to use." said X.
"Nearly identical?" she said, "How old do you estimate him to be, X?"
"I'm not sure." said X.
"I'll take a look at him." said Dr. Light. "I need you to go check out something in the hospital downtown. It's a simple maintenance job."
"Very well." said X.
Dr. Light crossed the lab to see the red reploid watching her oddly.
"I'm Dr. T. X. Light, you are?" she said offering a hand to the reploid.
"Zero. Is it common for a human to be polite to us machines?" he asked.
"Probably not; will you allow me to examine you?" she asked dropping her hand. Zero shrugged. Dr. Light looked at the screen displaying the blue print.
"Computer, bring up blue print X one." she said Zero saw what looked to be the blue prints of the android who'd tended to him.
"Cross reference." she commanded.
"95% match." the computer said emotionlessly.
"Carbon dating?" she asked. She saw the date and gasped.
"Over a hundred years old!" she said, "Do you remember who built you?"
"No." said Zero.
"Well everything else checks out. Someone must have gotten these prints and built you." said Dr. Light, "You're free to do as you please."
"What's with the blue android?" asked Zero.
"Oh, he's X. He was built by my ancestor, who was also called Dr. Light. We copied his blue prints to replicate him, so we call them replica androids reploids." said Dr. Light, "X is years beyond anything Dr. Cain or myself could have dreamed of ten months ago."
X arrived at the hospital and the staff led him through the maze of hallways into a basement filled with obsolete equipment. They led him to a large pair of doors labeled "Cyro."
"Our freezing tanks have been malfunctioning. Repair as many as possible and defrost those who do not need medical treatment as you see fit." said a doctor.
"Yes, doctor." said X. He moved around taking care of the defrosting medical needs patients. Then he found the others that were just volunteers for science. There was a group of frozen people off to the side with orange paint on the floor, orange signifying something to X, something bad. On the floor in red was written,
'Penal cyro tanks.'
'Criminals?' thought X in confusion.
He fixed their tanks seeing they all had dates input for defrosting so they could be punished further. One tank had him freeze; out of the tank stared a hauntingly familiar face.
"My name's Xavier."
"You will answer to whatever name I see fit to give you, cyborg!"
"Listen and listen well Cyborg X, you will not defy me. If you do I shall not only punish you but I also punish the good doctor and her ex-husband."
X shook his head, clearing it of the voices but that name,
'Xavier. X-avier!' he thought. 'My name is Xavier!' He fixed the cyro tank and walked over to see techs near a tank too far gone to restart the freezing process. He'd managed to fix every tank save that one. Luckily, it was one that was a volunteer for science.
100 years ago
Zack Watson had done some stupid things but this took the cake. Actually volunteering for this, was insanity! But he had nothing to lose, and everything to gain.
'Plus I'll see that slime ball brought to justice.'
Present
X walked back to the laboratory in good spirits. He actually smiled. He ran right into Dr. Light.
"I remembered my name!" he said happily.
"Name? Oh! What is it?" she asked.
"Xavier." said X(avier).
"Xavier, I like it!" said Dr. Light, "It suits you. Did everything go well at the hospital?"
"Yes. I only let one cyro tank defrost and it was safe to do so anyway." said Xavier.
"Let's celebrate your rediscovery of your name; I have some edible food in the staff dining room." said Dr. Light.
"Lead the way." said Xavier.
After a month, Zero had risen through the hunter ranks at an amazing rate, having chosen to join after Sigma complimented his fighting during a simulator he'd been fooling around in. He checked in on X and Dr. Light regularly, considering both good friends. X was good for always finding energy capsules whenever Zero needed them and Dr. Light was one of the few humans who treated him as if he were more than a talking toaster. They'd started poker night, Dr. Light cleaning everyone else out despite seeming to be the worst player. Dr. Cain didn't approve at first, but joined in, nearly beating Dr. Light.
Another month passed and Zero couldn't help but notice there was something seriously wrong with Sigma. He seemed to be talking to voices in his head sometimes but that was impossible: A reploid couldn't go insane! Looking back, Zero would wish he had reported his suspicions to Dr. Light or Dr. Cain. Just two short weeks after this observation all hell would break loose and one would be responsible; Sigma.
R&R, I will be posting through chapter 8 this time through