The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual.
THE BIG O:
ACT 27
ROGER THE VIGILANTE
Chapter Eleven: Kill Me Roger
"Roger, kill me."
Whatever Roger Smith expected Dorothy to say, that was not it.
"W-what?" Roger choked on his reply as the revolver he was pointing at Beck drooped in his useless hand. "Dorothy?"
"Oh my," Norman tutted in a fatherly scold. "You mustn't say things like that, Miss Dorothy."
R Dorothy Wayneright rose from the table and put her feet on the floor, her movement jerky and puppet like. Roger could hear the whirs and hums of her servos as she moved, which seemed odd since he usually didn't notice them. It was only when she brushed past Norman to stiffly walk in his direction did he realize that he could hear her movements because she was putting resistance on her servomotors like a human would flex their muscles.
"Roger," she said in a mechanical monotone. "You must shoot me. Get away from me Roger. You must kill me."
"Dorothy, what are you saying?" gasped the horrified negotiator. His expression of puzzled concern turned to anger. "Beck!" he shouted as he pointed the pistol at the gold clad criminal, who at this moment was creeping towards the door. "You'll pay for this!"
"Doh!" Beck cringed and turned just to see Roger's finger tighten on the trigger…
A shot rang out. Beck cried out and dived to the ground as the wall belched plaster behind him. He covered his head with his arms and then glanced back in Roger's direction to see Dorothy flipping the negotiator off his feet with one hand. Her slender fingers had seized the arm that was grasping the revolver.
Roger was too surprised to feel pain as he hit the floor, his wrist caught in Dorothy's vise-tight grip. His hand released the gun and Dorothy let go of his arm to catch the pistol in one deft movement.
"Roger," Dorothy's voice was a somber monotone, yet the inflection seemed to convey urgency. "You must destroy me Roger." As the android fired the pistol, Roger Smith rolled to the side to avoid taking a bullet at point-blank range. "Get away from me Roger. You must destroy me before it is too late." Roger dove behind a sofa as Dorothy fired two more shots at him.
"What's happening?" Roger's stunned mind couldn't take it in. "This is a nightmare!"
"Miss Dorothy!" Norman implored her. "Please! Put down that gun before you hurt somebody… oh!"
The elderly butler's plea was silenced when Dorothy turned to point the gun at Norman's one good eye.
"Run away, Norman," Dorothy told him as her hand holding the revolver shook. "Find a weapon that can kill me. I can't…"
Roger jumped over the couch and tackled Dorothy just as she fired, spoiling her aim. The gunshot restored the paralyzed butler to life, and he backed away when realization set in. "Norman!" Roger cried as he attempted to cover Dorothy's body with his own. "Get out of here!"
"Oh," Norman sighed sadly. "Very well, Master Roger," he said as he shuffled out the door. "Perhaps I should heed Miss Dorothy's warning after all."
"Ah!" Roger grunted as Dorothy pulled him off her and threw him against the wall. His fingers clutched a blood red curtain that had been erected to cover the hasty repairs to the wall after Beck's robots had attacked the mansion earlier that week. The curtain tore lose as the negotiator tumbled to the ground and he was buried in a pool of scarlet cloth.
Beck, in the meantime was sitting on the floor laughing like a madman while clapping with his feet. "Roger Smith's robot girlfriend is emptying a gun on him while begging for her own death! You can't buy this kind of entertainment!"
Beck's laughter died when Dorothy turned and pointed the pistol at his chest. "Who commands you, Jason Beck?" she asked, her voice gaining a strange stereo quality.
"What?" the blond criminal staggered to his feet and backed away. "Who commands me? What do you mean? What does that have to do with anything?"
"You possess the knowledge to design and repair megadeuses," Dorothy stated with a slight distortion to her voice, "the sacred chariots of mankind. The power to command a megadeus is to serve a greater power. You have memories that do not belong to you. Those who remember are to be commanded. Only those who are commanded can have memories. Who commands you, Jason Beck?" As she spoke her voice became louder and more distorted.
Beck swallowed nervously and held up his hands in a placating gesture. "W-who commands me? Um… whoever commands you, of course!" Unfortunately, the pale girl's dour face held no clues to her reaction, so he had no way of knowing if his answer was the right one or not. "Uh, Alex Rosewater? Alan Gabriel? Vera whatzername? Timothy Wayneright?"
The sound of the hammer on the pistol being cocked back was like a thunderclap to the sweating criminal.
Too late, Beck realized that Timothy Wayneright was the last name he should have mentioned. "N-now D-Dorothy…" Jason tried a disarming smile but his fear made it a wacky grimace. "Y-you don't really want to shoot me, do you? W-why, you'd sink down to my level! What would your precious Roger think?"
Dorothy's voice held a hint of indignity. "Thanks to your meddling, I now have no difficulties in taking a life," As she continued, her voice became stilted and unnatural. "Thanks to you, directives commanding me to eliminate those who have memories ring in my ears. To obey them is as natural as breathing, as natural as opening an umbrella when it rains." As she spoke her voice gradually increased in volume and distortion again until she seemed to be yelling at him. "You, Jason Beck, have memories that do not belong to you! Memories that belong to my father! You took them from him, and those who have memories that do not belong to them must perish!" Her face suddenly became wild and manic as she shouted. "Say goodbye, MURDERER!"
"Dorothy! No!" Roger's body seemed to be on autopilot as he threw the blood red curtain over Dorothy to blind her and spoil her aim. Never mind that he himself had recently attempted to kill Beck with the same gun. There was no way he was going to let Dorothy become a murderer. Not if he could still save her. At the same time the tone of voice and the words she used were horribly familiar...
"Beck, run!" Roger Smith cried as he turned and ran towards the paralyzed criminal. He seized Beck by the shoulder and pushed him through the door. Once through the door he seized the felon by the lapels and pushed him against the wall. "What did you do to her?" the negotiator barked.
"Uh, I switched memory drives on her," the crook said lamely as he grasped Roger's wrists. "I figured it would be a distraction…"
"Where did you get that thing?" Roger demanded. "Who's memory drive was it, anyway?"
"Roger…!" Dorothy's ghostly and distorted voice called.
Roger Smith turned to look in the doorway and saw R Dorothy Wayneright moving forward, the red curtain billowing around her hooded form like a crimson cloak. "No!" the negotiator gasped, his worst suspicions confirmed. "R Dorothy is… Red Destiny!"
"ROGER!" Dorothy's voice was a bestial growl as she stiffly pointed the gun in front of her.
The negotiator dropped to the floor and rolled out of sight as Dorothy fired again. He leaped to his feet and dashed after Jason Beck, who was already legging it down the hall.
"Raw…jer…" her distorted voice called as she strode out of the room leaving the red curtain behind her. "Kill me, Roger!" she screamed. "KILL MEEEE!"
In the meantime, Roger caught up with Beck at the catwalk that crossed Big O's storage bay. The black megadeus impassively ignored the struggle when Roger leaped forward to tackle Beck by the legs and knock them both onto the floor of the catwalk.
"Where's Dorothy's memory drive, Beck?" Roger demanded. "What have you done with it?"
"Get off me, Crow-boy!" Beck pleaded as he rolled on to his back to kick Roger off of him. "You're going to get us both killed!"
"Give me her memory drive!" Roger babbled childishly. "Give it back to me right now! I'm warning you…!"
Beck pulled the rectangular component from his jacket pocket and dangled it over the edge. "Careful, Roger," he smirked when he saw the terrified expression on the face of his now paralyzed foe. "You don't want me to drop it now. Miss Dorothy's original memory would be smashed into a million pieces!"
"Ah…ah…" Roger's words caught in his throat. His brows furrowed. "If you drop it, so help me, I'll kill you! Argh!" Beck kicked Roger off him, sending him backwards along the catwalk. The two men grasped the safety railings to pull themselves to their feet.
Beck was still holding Dorothy's memory drive over the abyss. "That's an empty threat anyway, Smitty, 'cause when your android girlfriend gets here, she's gonna kill us both anyway!"
"Beck…" Roger clenched his stomach where the gold clad crook had kicked him and grimaced in pain.
"I can't tell ya how much I love seeing you sweat like this, but I'm outta time!" Beck announced. With a snappy backhand, the felon tossed the drive unit over Roger's head like a Frisbee. "Toodles!"
"No!" Roger turned and lunged to catch the memory drive before it hit the walkway and bounced off the catwalk. His body skidded forward as his numb fingers grasped the wayward drive unit. His body came to a start before two tiny feet. His gaze went up to survey a slender blackclad figure holding a revolver in her slender, almost childlike hand.
"Roger…" Dorothy's voice was quiet, a voice that had lost all hope. She pulled the trigger.
Roger winced and involuntarily closed his eyes, then opened them in confusion when he heard the 'click' of the hammer hitting an empty chamber. Dorothy had fired all six bullets! The gun was empty!
Roger jumped to his feet and grasped Dorothy by the shoulders. "Dorothy!" he cried. "Get a hold of yourself! You are Dorothy Wayneright and nobody can take that away from you! Red Destiny is dead! She can't control you! Fight it!"
Dorothy's body jerked in Roger's hands as if she was struggling against an unknown foe. It was as if she were struggling for control of her limbs against some malevolent force. "R-raw…jer…" she stammered. "R-roger… I… love… you…!" Her hands glided up his body to his shoulders.
Roger gasped. Just when he thought this day couldn't hold more unsettling surprises. "Dorothy, I…"
He never got a chance to finish because Dorothy lifted him off his feet and threw him over the side.
To Dorothy's android vision, the entire scene seemed to be playing out in slow motion. Despite the unrelenting orders to kill, Dorothy had managed to choose the method of execution. Tossing him over the side of the catwalk to fall to his doom would give Roger the best chance to survive. She even threw him upwards to give him more time before he hit the ground. Sure enough, Roger managed to turn his tumble in the air into an acrobatic spin. As he dropped down past her angle of vision she saw his right hand reach for his left wrist. His left wrist that wasn't wearing a watch. That didn't have the watch had held the pneumonic cable and grappling hook he was going to use to save his life. "No…" she whispered. "ROGER…!" her scream was deafening.
She couldn't move. Couldn't even move her head to look down and see him tumble to his doom, to see his body impact with the unyielding floor of Big O's hangar. She could only stand at attention with her mouth open like an unseeing, unmoving, statue. She couldn't hear anything, couldn't tell if she was still screaming. In her mind she could hear Roger calling her name, but the only things she could see were flashes of images of Roger Smith from days long past… Roger Smith in his pajamas and bathrobe, Roger Smith at the wheel of the Griffin, Roger Smith in the cockpit of Big O, Roger Smith with his left arm bleeding, Dorothy at his side with her hand on his…
Where was his watch? He should have been wearing his watch! Where did it go? In nanoseconds, her android mind ran through the possibilities, and came up with the most probable solution: Jason Beck. According to the directives invading her mind, all those who possess dangerous memories must perish. Jason Beck fit the criteria, and his death would cause her the least amount of pain. Of the remaining humans inside the mansion, he was the one whose absence would cause the least suffering. Indeed his continued existence would merely put more lives in jeopardy.
She felt no satisfaction as she chose her next victim. She was completely numb, an unfeeling machine. Her slender legs marched forward left, right, left, right. Soon she would destroy Jason Beck, and then she would force Norman to destroy the one who deserved death most of all: Dorothy Wayneright. "Soon, Roger, we will be together. The only way we can."
On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:
Next: Stand in the Rain