Dorothy woke up some time later in a place she didn't know. She was about to panic before she realized it wasn't a jail cell or the decommissioning center. "Where am I?"
"Ah, I see you are awake, young lady." An older man with a gray handlebar mustache, a balding head, but had a ring of thin gray hair around his head, came over to her. He was the valet she had seen earlier, in the police negotiator's car.
"Oh, um. Hello." She hadn't exactly introduced herself to him before, just relaying the message the police man had told her. The same one had saved her life twice now.
"Is she up yet Norman?" A voice called from above. She looked up and that same police officer was there, except he wasn't wearing a shirt! His wet black bangs hung over his eyes, and he had a pair of black sweatpants on. His bare chest was nicely muscled, and his arms looked like he lifted weights quite often. He had a few scars on his chest, but they didn't distract from his handsomeness.
Oh dear. Curse this youthful looking body. She had to pry her eyes away and finally respond. "I'm awake."
"Oh good. Give me a minute and I'll be down." He came back into view and walked down the stairs wearing a black t-shirt. He wore black slippers too. Almost everything in the apartment was black or dark shades. He walked over to the couch she had been sleeping on. "Good to see you're feeling better."
"Is this your home?" Dorothy looked around and noticed that despite being a rather nice upscale apartment, there weren't a lot of personal items on this level.
"Yeah, my little refuge." Roger shrugged. "So, Miss Dorothy, you want to find your dad right?"
"Yes!"
"Well, unfortunately for you, so does Paradigm City government. An APB was put out to look for him and arrest him when found."
"Arrest him? Why?" Dorothy seemed frightened.
Replicants really are realistic, and this kid's been stuck in one for at least a decade. "For the crime of harboring a replicant, murder in self-defense, building robots without a permit, and potentially piloting that pink Kilodeus robot I had to destroy the earlier day."
Dorothy went from scared to sad. "Oh…"
"So, the faster we find your father, the faster you two can get out of town."
"What?"
"Look, this is between us, but I hate those laws that say replicants have to die once the flesh body dies. Can't stand those cases either. So the best thing to do for you is to find your dad and run for it."
"You'll actually help me?"
"Yes, but I need your help too." Roger sat down on the couch next to her. "If you help me, I can help you find your dad."
Dorothy weighed the options for a few minutes before responding, "I suppose I can trust you, since you saved my life twice."
"That's a start. And while we're at it, let's try to start over. Our last two meetings weren't exactly pleasant." He smiled and held out his hand to her, "I'm Roger Smith, police negotiator and pilot of the Kilodeus Big O."
"I'm Dorothy Wayneright." She took his hand to shake, and his manly hands enveloped her little ones. Drat. I hate this small body. I want my teenaged one back.
"Well then, tell me more about those people chasing you and why they were after you."
"I don't know everything, but I'll tell you what I can."
Apparently, about seventeen years ago, Dorothy's body was failing, she was just an infant, and her mother had died in childbirth. In an effort to subvert the law regarding replicants, and to also avoid a bioroid being found outright, her father had taken his chances and modified a replicant body. When Dorothy's flesh body was close to death, her father had asked to keep her at home instead of in the hospital. There, he had done the unthinkable, transferred the infant mind of his daughter into a replicant with bioroid modifications and pulled the plug.
Since he was working for the Rosewater Corporation at the time, he used the need of a leave of absence for a death in the family, packed up and moved from his address, then just never showed back up to work. Since he had worked in the R&D division of robotics, he used his knowledge to land odd jobs fixing robots for businesses, overwriting and fixing replicants once they went back to recycling centers for future use, and used those parts, along with some he tooled to build Dorothy new bodies every now and again. Since he had avoided using his real name, and doing some surgeries to slightly change his face, he was never caught.
With how replicants work, mentally she shouldn't have aged past infancy, but her father had been both a mechanical and programming genius. Using his daughter's infant mind as the base, he had added AI programming that would allow her to age at a comparable rate to children, while also accessing the internet for quick information, and using another AI to allow her to experiment with differing ages. The result hadn't been quite what he'd hoped for however. Dorothy always acted like an adult stuck in a child's body because the AI advanced her far too quickly. She did learn, at four times the rate of a human child.
When her father had the hubris to add hormones into that mix he had regretted it. Because now he had an adult in a teens body with a teenager's urges to explore and redefine themselves. It had been about five years ago he'd done it, and that was when someone found him out. The good doctor had been found out by someone he worked with at the processing plant, that he'd been skimming parts and taking pieces home.
Instead of getting him fired, they tried to extort him. So Dorothy and her father ran away again, but with Dorothy's stubbornness they'd nearly been caught a few times. The person was relentless in their pursuit, and eventually, made Doctor Wayneright an offer he couldn't refuse.
They'd get him access to nicer, newer, pieces and tech, but he had to fix their replicants for him. He didn't ask where these replicants came from at first, but soon found out and hated it. The replicants he was fixing up were part of a robot fighting ring. If not for the fact he was eventually asked to start modifying weapons into the machines he fixed, the doctor would likely have never been the wiser.
He felt guilty over being involved in something so disgusting, perhaps not realizing the irony of his own actions, and tried to get out of the deal. But that went south predictably, so he and Dorothy ran again. This time he went to some wealthy investors and began working on salvage robots, like the one I'd fought with earlier. That one had been designed so a diver could pilot it down to wrecks and dismantle them for scrap. The company must have let some test pilot take the thing out, Dorothy opined, as her father wouldn't have consented to it being used to rob a bank.
"That's pretty much all I know." The eighteen year old stuck in a five year olds body told him.
"That is a lot to process." Roger told her honestly. "So the men after you are likely involved in that replicant fighting ring?"
"I assume so." Dorothy shrugged. "Father never told me who he used to work for though. So unfortunately I don't have names."
"Hm…" Roger contemplated everything Dorothy had told him so far. "In the morning I'll talk with Dastun. For now, feel free to use the guest room down here as your own. Norman, can you see to it that she's comfortable."
"Of course sir, come along young lady, let's get you settled in." Norman led her to the small guest room. It was sparse, a bed, a bedside table with a lamp, and a mirror on the wall. "It's rather spartan, but please feel free to relax here."
"Thank you sir." Dorothy gave him a curtsey and he left her be. For the time being she got into bed and connected her mind to the internet, looking for any sign of her father.
Morning came, Roger was called into the station, he had Norman drive him there, leaving Dorothy at his apartment. She didn't mind, instead she used that time to watch the news on TV and see what was on.
The big news story of the day was that a robotic scientist that disappeared seventeen years ago had resurfaced, harbored a replicant for all that time, and had committed murder, whether or not it was in self defense had yet to be determined.
Dorothy knew better of course. Her father was a gentle man, he likely hadn't even intended to hurt the man he killed. As for harboring a replicant, well who could blame him for that either. He'd lost his wife, why should he have to lose his child too?
Still, her father's lack of communication was upsetting to her. By now he could have used any number of private methods to contact her, and he had yet to do so. He had methods that would be difficult to snoop on, like dark web servers, private servers, encrypted sms and such. The fact that he had yet to message her meant he couldn't.
What was Roger's phone number again? Dorothy used her snooping internet abilities to find it easily enough. She used a mental text program to message him carefully.
Roger, this is Dorothy. I'll explain how I'm texting you later, but for now, let's just say texting you is easier than a phone call. This number I'm using can't be traced like a phone, so the people sent after me can't trace it either. About my dad, there are some places he liked to lay low in for a time when we were being chased.
Roger, who was at the police station talking with Dastun, was ignoring his phone for a minute.
"So we don't have any leads other than what the teen stuck in a child's replicant body told you? That's going to be rough." Dastun grumbled as he and Roger discussed what Dorothy had told him the night before.
"Yeah. I'll ask her for some information when I get back… Why does my phone keep going off… Huh?" Roger pulled his phone from his back pocket, and saw a number of texts from a contact he didn't recognize. Rose?
When he opened the messages, he realized it had been Dorothy texting him. How did she get my number… It's not a traceable method? What? Oh well, that kid's full of surprises. For now, let's see what she sent me.
It was a short list of hiding spots her father had used in the past. Roger showed the messages on his phone to Dastun, and the two made a plan to search these places carefully. It also included an updated picture of her father from her memory banks. Tall, lanky, pale skinned, long and straight gray hair. He looked like some old rocker. However, his eyes were quite a different story. They had been replaced with bionic enhancements and glowed blue. He usually wore red tinted sunglasses when in public, and there were scars down each of his cheeks below his eyes, likely from whatever surgery had replaced his organic eyes in the first place.
Back in the apartment, Dorothy was using her access to the internet and surveillance cameras to keep an eye out for her father, wherever he was. So far she had no luck, and was starting to become worried when some interesting chatter came up on her internal screen. It looked like it was from a private chat room, old internet styled.
[11:48] We got the robot guy back. He's a weirdo that one.
[11:48] The one that modified replicants or whatever?
[11:49] Yeah that one.
[11:49] Why'd they want that guy back anyways?
[11:49] Super genius with robots or whatever. Good at what he did. Too good.
[11:50] Didn't he have a kid? Did they find her?
[11:50] Check this out, that kid was a robot this whole time.
[11:50] Like an android or something?
[11:51] No, like a replicant. Didn't you see the story?
[11:55] Ah shit, that's messed up man. Already breaking the law and then turning his kid into that. Who does that?
[11:55] This fucker that's who.
[11:56] Better cut this channel, we need to keep quiet about it, but we'll take him to the boss later.
With that the chat log ended, and would've been erased from existence had Dorothy not made a copy and sent it to Roger.
"Ugh. I hope he really is going to help me." Having a human mind backed by AI was both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, her mind had reasoned out that it was beneficial to ask for help, but the AI that ran in the background cautioned against it. This man, though he may have been handsome according to both AI and human mind, was a cop, and the cops were supposed to uphold the law, which meant she would die.
But he said he hated that law. Maybe he really means it when he says he wants me and dad to run away.
Back at the precinct, Roger and Dastun were looking at the series of texts Dorothy had sent to his phone.
"That kids a real piece of work." Dastun scratched his balding head. All he had was mutton chops and a ring of sparse wiry hair. He hadn't started graying just yet, but he felt that Roger's antics would make him lose hair more than gray to begin with.
"She's like 18 or something. Stuck in a kid's body is what she told me." Roger was reading over the data Dorothy had sent them. Besides chat logs on the dark web she was monitoring the hiding spots in real time using an AR verse that allowed those with the proper augments to navigate the web like a person might walk a road or drive a car.
"You believe her?"
"Yeah. I didn't get the sense she was lying to me at any rate." Roger looked up from his phone and asked Dastun about who he should take with him, if anyone.
"Michaelson maybe." Dastun stroked at his beard and then reconsidered, "No actually, I'll take him with me. Have old man Burg help you out."
"Got it. I'll text you any updates I get from Dorothy… huh?"
Roger got a message on his phone that read, [No need, I'll add him to the message list from here.]
"How did she…?"
[I'm watching through the precinct cameras. The security level is so low it's a joke.]
"Uh. Wow. Not something you should be admitting to, but here we are." Roger scratched his head and sighed, put his phone in his pocket and made his way out. "Well see ya later Dastun."
Roger waved behind him carefree, but they both went to heightened alert. If a teenager could hack them, so could any criminals. Security would have to be increased after this case.
"You damn fools! How could you let the kid escape! We need her to get this thing running." A man in a gaudy gold suit jacket, lavender tie, and black pants slammed his fist into a robot. The same pink and black fem bot that The Big O had punched a day earlier. "Without her we only have half of what we need."
"Sorry boss man, a cop grabbed the kid. But with her old man here she might just show up." One henchman said as the robotic scientist was dropped to the floor in front of them. The two had been holding the injured man up and had him tied with rope, but once they let him go he fell to the floor.
"The cops might just show up too you moron." The gaudy dressed man yelled at them. "What are we going to do then?"
"Uh, I don't know boss man."
"That's exactly the problem. You don't understand how your actions just screwed us over." The gaudy clothed man yellowed while poking a finger into the henchman's chest. He sighed, took a step back, and told them to put the tied up scientist in a chair. After he pulled a comb from his pocket and combed back his blonde hair, letting it curl to the side. "Well, you at least got rid of anything that could track him and used the color changing vans right?"
"Yeah boss."
The robotic scientist groaned and stirred.
"Look who's finally awake. Get up Timmy, we got a job for you."
"Uh, huh! Beck! You… where is my daughter? What have you done?" The scientist tried to fight back only to quickly realize he was tied up, and he wasn't somewhere he recognized. Dammit, they likely removed any trackers I had, even my glasses are gone.
"Your kiddo isn't here, which is actually a problem for us. After all, I need her to get that thing working." Beck pointed with his thumb to the pink and black Kilodeus styled machine behind him.
"You don't… need her to run that."
"Well normally no, but your sweet little girl turned it off somehow, and we can't get it back on." Beck kicked at some imaginary dirt. "Damn kid, making life harder for us. And here we were set to let her live, all nice and peaceful like, if she just led us to you."
"Leave her alone!" He tried to jump at them, but the chair only fell over with him attached to it. "Ow."
"Jeez Tim, get a hold of yourself. Your kid'll be fine, soon as she fixes this for us, then you get to work for me again and make lots of money with salvage." Beck had a dark grin on his face. "After all, I'm a sucker for family reunions."
As Norman was driving Roger around to some of the locations Dorothy had indicated, he received a text message.
[12:20] Saw some weird men carrying dad into a building, here's the address.
It was a location near the docks, a warehouse that housed some mechanical equipment. "Well that was quick. Norman, head to the docks on the lower east side of the city."
"Right away sir." Norman took a ramp onto the lower level of the city. The city was divided into levels, with the upper levels housing the government and more prominent citizens. The various levels could be reached by various methods of public transit, and by the roads and ramps that ran between levels. Paradigm was an interesting place all right, where in the case of indicating what section of the city to go to, the lower east side meant the bottom tier and to the east. So the lower east side would mean the southeast bottom tier. It was little wonder those not native to the city got lost attempting to navigate its systems.
Roger couldn't help but sigh. Today was going to be a nightmare. No way his car wouldn't tell people some big shot was coming if he went all the way there in it to the docks. "Norman, small change of plans. I have a feeling my Big friend is going to be needed today so…"
The docks were quiet, far too quiet, like the sea itself had decided to whisper instead of roar with waves.
Roger walked up to the warehouse Dorothy had indicated, and sure enough, his intuition told him something was terribly wrong. Before he could even get close he noticed dozens of armed guards walking the perimeter of the chained link fence. He had to go around and down a side alley, but that didn't make it any easier.
Once he'd found his way around that, he would have gone closer to the door, but stopped when he heard some men talking.
Damn, this could've gone so much smoother if we could've gotten a warrant. But then Dorothy would have been exposed, and I'd be facing disciplinary actions. He hid behind some stacked crates and bided his time.
Dorothy wasn't going to wait around for Roger to rescue her father. She knew he meant well, but on the off chance he wasn't being honest about letting them get away she had to be prepared. Her AI said she could trust him 75%, and she felt it was more than that, but that 25% was not worth risking her and her fathers lives.
She snuck into the warehouse from the opposite end she knew Roger would be sneaking in from, thanks to hacking into the cameras around she could see where he was, but the only two in the warehouse connected to an external network were the ones right by the door, after that, she'd be sneaking around blind. But she was small so she might be able to make it work.
When she got to the back door it was locked with a keypad that needed the code input. It was a type of keypad that the numbers were randomized every time someone accessed it, so watching a video feed of previous entry attempts wouldn't help Dorothy here.
Hm, well if that's the case, time to hack in! She looked around for a place to hide while her mind would be preoccupied, and found an old cardboard box. Turning it over and hiding under it, she started the hacking process.
Once again, in the space of the digital world, she was an adult, not stuck in a five year olds body. "Oh how I miss being in my adult body. Maybe it's here in this warehouse."
Once she had accessed the network, she reached out for the bluetooth protocols in the keypad. It sent a signal every time a positive code had been entered, but since it was always randomized that meant she had to use a packet sniffer to find the correct combination. It would take hours and far too many tries to guess at the numbers, her AI told her.
"Yeah, yeah, I get it." She waved the AI nagging her aside, and using the interception protocols found the correct code in under twenty minutes from random packets the keypad would send out. During that time no one left or entered the door, so no one saw the flipped over cardboard box.
Once that was done she returned to being a young adult stuck in a child's body. She got out from under the cardboard box and used a plastic crate nearby to reach the keypad and input the code. She heard the lock click and knew she would be able to get in, so she propped open the door and took the cardboard box in with her. Hopefully no one would see it or pay attention. What was one box in a dirty warehouse after all?
Roger was having less than stellar success. The front door had a guard waiting for him, and the back door he couldn't get to without being spotted as it was right now.
For now, he had chosen to stay in an alley near the front door and eavesdrop on the conversation.
"So this scientist, ya think he can really do it?"
"I dunno. I think he's kinda a nut job. Using the alien tech like that. He must be either crazy or a genius."
"Well boss man thinks he's worth double his weight in gold, and you know how bossman loves gold."
"Ch, yeah, too much."
Bossman? Loves gold too much? Where have I…? Roger wracked his brain when he heard those remarks before a light bulb went off. Oh right, Jason Beck, the president of Gold Inc. Jerk loves to skirt the law and toe the line as much as possible. Is he behind this?
"Common, let's get inside. It's about to rain."
"Yeah. Damn I wish my smoke break could've lasted longer."
"Ya need to quit that crap man…." The rest of the conversation was cut off as the two men went indoors.
"Ok, well that gave me a lot of info." Roger pulled out his phone to text Dorothy.
[2:30] Your old man is here all right. And now I know who kidnapped him too. Stay safe at my place. I'll alert Dastun so he can arrest the man, and get your dad back to you safely.
"Hope she's paying attention." Roger mumbled as he sent off a quick location text to Dastun. Once that was done he snuck forward to the door, saw it was slightly opened because the two henchmen had forgotten to remove the door stop, and quietly went in.
It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the darkness of the warehouse, but once inside there was no doubt what was going on. That shouldn't be here.
In the center of the warehouse, a large metal T stood, and attached to it, the pink Kilodeus like robot Roger and Big O had smashed the day before. The hole in the chest hadn't been completely repaired, but it looked like some men were working on it.
Someone in the city government is taking a cut by letting scrappers get materials early it seems. Roger stuck to the shadows of the warehouse, which was pretty easy to do considering most of it was just shipping crates around the edges stacked very high. He spotted an office that was above the ground floor, and saw some stairs leading up to it, so he carefully began to navigate his way there.
But not before bumping into a suspiciously moving cardboard box. He picked it up and found more or less what he expected inside.
"There had to be better ways to sneak in." He stated demurely.
"Eep!" Dorothy squeaked and then hushed herself. Not that anyone would have heard them over the din of construction. "How did you know I was under the box?"
"Boxes don't move on their own, so I figured some kind of robot was under it to be this small." He tossed the box aside. "What are you doing here?"
"Rescuing my father."
"By hiding under a box?"
"Well how else was I going to avoid being seen?"
"You realize life can't run on video game logic right?"
"What video game?" Dorothy pouted.
"Oh never mind. You're here now, and we need to save your father." Roger peered around the next shipping container and saw the coast was clear. "Let's move on."
"You know I can just hack into the cameras and save us some trouble?" Dorothy asked him with innocence.
"And you haven't done that yet because…?" Roger looked down at her.
"Because I need to reach the panel hosting the wires… which is right over there." She pointed to a wall not far off, with quite a few wires going into a panel, and it looked like they did indeed connect to the security system inside the building.
"Fine, let's hurry over there." Roger kept checking around the shipping containers as they went, and before long the two found the wall with the panel Dorothy needed access too. "How long will this take?"
"Not too long. I just need to plug a wire into this port and jack in for surveillance." She pulled a small cable from a spot in her neck, Roger almost didn't even see the opening, and tried to reach the spot in the wall that had an open port. But since Dorothy was too small to reach she eventually gave Roger a dirty look. "Little help here would be nice."
"Ah, sorry." He took the cable and plugged it into the port.
"Good, now keep watch." As soon as she said that the world around her became a grid, then the world of the security system slowly filled in.
The space inside this cyber area was like a maze, but it was trivially easy for Dorothy to follow the path, this system was old and long outdated, so she had no issue finding the hub to the cameras. She pulled up the feeds and found where they were holding her dad, but in the process she also heard something.
Something far too insane and important to be ignored.
"So you're saying this body you built the kid isn't a replicant or android, but a bioroid?" The man with golden hair in a curly pompadour asked her father.
"That's right." He answered. He seemed scared.
"Those are illegal. Jeez you're headed straight for jail if I don't keep ya out of there, you realize that right." The golden haired man bent over and sneered in her fathers face.
How dare he! No wait… That body… She looked closely, which wasn't easy. The body was in some fluids in a cylindrical machine, with all sorts of life sign signals displayed on a screen to the side. The machine looked like a deep sleep healing apparatus they used for humans in replicant bodies. She zoomed in using the camera and noticed just how familiar it appeared. It's just like my replicant one! So it's meant for me… Is this the upgrade dad wanted to give me the other day?
"Illegal or not, I fully intended to allow my daughter a chance at a normal life." Her father seemed angry. "Besides. With the technology used no one in Paradigm could stop her."
Technology he used? I have to get him and that body back! She pulled herself back to her physically small body and asked Roger to disconnect the cable. "I've found a way to get to dad. But we have to hurry. Some weird man with golden curly hair and a purple suit jacket is threatening him."
Roger groaned. "So Jason Beck "Gold" is involved. This just got a whole lot messier."
"Is his name really Gold?"
"Legally yes."
Dorothy made a face that said she was a mix of disgusted and annoyed. Roger couldn't blame her. "Let's just go get your father back and you two out of the city."
Dorothy led the way and the two quickly found their way to the stairs that led into the above ground office. How no one had noticed them was some kind of miracle. Every hair on the back of Roger's neck stood on edge. Something was wrong.
In the office above the warehouse floor, Beck watched the duos progress. "Well good news Timmy! Little Dorothy is on her way here to see you."
"What? How did she find me?"
"And here I thought you'd be glad to see your precious daughter." Beck sneered. "You know I'm a sucker for family reunions, let's make this a good one."
Outside the office door Roger was crouching down, listening for anything. It seemed unusually calm for a warehouse, and especially one that had lots of heavy machinery.
That was when he noticed it. Down on the floor level it would be hard to tell, but from above it was easy to see there was a huge open space in the middle of the warehouse, and an opening below.
"Something big was here until recently." Roger scanned the area carefully, and noticed marks that looked like giant feet had been dragged on the floor. "A construction robot maybe?"
"Can we save my dad first before we worry about that?" Dorothy asked pleadingly.
"Ok, ok. Let me peek through the door here." Roger turned from that empty giant space that had been housing something huge and faced the door. There was a small long rectangular window in the door about halfway up, so Roger raised himself up just enough to peer through.
Everyone in the room had their backs to him, and were all staring at some cylindrical device. It took Roger a minute to recognize it as a device used to house a human body while it recovered from serious injuries. Why would they need that?
There were four people in the room. One was undoubtedly Jason Beck Gold. His blonde hair curled into a pompadour was the obvious tell. Two men looked like the men that Roger had seen smoking together out front. And the last man was a scrawny thing holding some tools. Roger noticed his eyes glowing in a reflection and knew that was probably Dorothy's father.
"Ok, he's in there with three other men. He isn't in immediate danger, so we have time to plan."
"How is he not in immediate danger?" Dorothy asked incredulously.
"He's not restrained, he has power tools in his hands, and he is working without a gun pointed to his head. If we rush in there all of that could change. We need to think about this and have a strategy before we bust down the door."
"Oh." She went from mad at Roger to realizing he had a point and given her intelligence she should have figured that out. "What do you suggest?"
"Hm… First off, can you get back into the camera system and watch them?"
"No, it's enclosed and the only way in is from that panel or a terminal."
"That's unfortunate." Roger thought on it. "We can peek in from time to time. Wait for someone to leave, knock them out, and then go in and deal with less people." Well, really I'm the one going to be dealing with them. Roger looked perturbed and sighed. "Either way we need to get a grasp of the situation."
Thinking they can hide right outside the door when I can see them through the camera placed right there. Beck sneered. "Well Timmy. Are you ready to see your little girl again?"
"Hrm? If you want me to finish this I need quiet… Wait what?" His voice was gruff and angered. He didn't like being disturbed when working, but that question finally hit him. "What do you mean!?"
"Why this of course." Beck signaled to his henchmen who went to the door, guns in hand, and flung it open. Pointing them at the two crouched right outside.
"Eep!" Dorothy squeaked.
"Urgh, dammit." Roger grimaced. Should've known he'd have extra cameras somewhere.
"Why don't you two come on in so we can have a nice little family reunion?" Beck jeered as the two were marched in at gunpoint.
"Dorothy!" Timothy put his tools down and ran over to her. "Oh my darling girl you're alright!"
"Daddy!" She hugged him and held tight. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry." She began to sob.
"It's alright dear. I've almost finished the modifications my business associate," He said those words with a hint of malice, "has requested. After that I can transfer you into your new body and we can go."
"Yes, I do believe I promised to let you go when the modifications are done. Now chop chop. I'm a busy man and you have places you want to be yes?" Beck asked with a hint of cruelty.
"Beck… why kidnap him if you're going to let him go?" Roger tried not to sound angry but was failing.
"Hrm? Well if it isn't that pilot. What's your status again?" Beck looked like he was thinking of something he didn't want to be bothered to remember. "Ah right, Dominus or something like that. How'd you get caught up in my scheme hm?"
"Kidnapping people is low Beck, even for you." Roger growled. "Why go through this much effort?"
"Oh? You don't know then?"
"Clearly not." Roger stated with an exasperated expression. The henchmen behind him poked the barrel of the gun into Rogers back and he frowned.
"Well, that's fine then, I'll let you in on a secret here. Old Timmy there was modifying replicants to fight for me, sure, but I have him working on a legitimate business endeavor believe it or not." Beck smiled affably.
"You're right, I do find that hard to believe." Roger kept him talking, since it was rare for them to get any intel on Beck at all. The slimy weasel that he was. "So, what's this legitimate endeavor?"
"Salvaging alien tech from the ocean." Beck stated proudly. "My recycling business found a possible location, and ol Timmy here is gonna fix that robot you tried to junk earlier so we can get to it."
"Huh… that is news to me." Roger was a little surprised. Usually the government had first dibs on alien salvage, but if a company with as much funding as Beck got to it first they could get salvage rights and profit off it. However… "So why was it trying to rob a bank yesterday?"
"Oh that? Sorry for making you work overtime, just a little test run with the autopilot enabled to see if it would work."
"And you had to rob a bank for that?" Roger just stared at him semi blankly. "Right… ok then."
"As to why I kidnapped him, it was because he wouldn't return my calls and turned down my nice bonus offer of getting his hands on more alien tech after he took my sample a few months ago." Beck turned to look at the scientist turned criminal. "What we won't do for love, right Tim?"
"Hrpmh." Timothy grunted as he lifted a heavy hammer like object and pounded something together. Then grabbed a torch and a face mask for welding. "At least I tried to put it to good use."
"Sure sure. Whatever. I just hope you are serious about that body you built your kid using it. If so, I'll bankroll those being made en masse."
"He did what?" Roger had to have been hearing things. The runaway criminal scientist had created a new body for Dorothy with alien tech? Roger turned his head to look at the machine again, and the body inside did look like an older Dorothy, but could alien tech have been used? Would he go that far to save his child? Well, Roger didn't have children, so he wasn't sure.
At that moment she was helping her father get the tools he needed to rush the process. "Dad, does that new body work?"
"It should… and there. Done. It should work like it's supposed to, and be better able to handle the pressure of the deep, and sucker punches by the Kilodeus." Timothy took his mask off and wiped his forehead. "How about you let me get my daughter in her new body and I'll leave it all to you?"
BANG! Beck produced a small smart gun from his pocket, made of some clear plastics, and shot Timothy Wayneright in the stomach. "Looks like there's been a change in the company structure ol Timmy, I'll have to fire you." Beck cajoled as he shot the man.
Dorothy cried out and ran to him, Roger ran forward and tried to put pressure on the wound. "Beck you bastard, how could you!"
"Oh it's just business. Besides, I don't need him alive. Not when I have both his Kilodeus rip off and his precious daughter to fix it for me. With the tech he designed I'll have more money than all the Rosewater corporations assets combined!" Beck was laughing in triumph as he grabbed Dorothy's arm and forced her into the second half of the machine that would transfer her mind to the new body.
"Dorothy, NO!" Roger tried to reach her as the mad businessman forced her into the machine. He felt a sharp pain in the back of his head and fell to the ground, hearing some muffled voices before he blacked out.
"If this works we'll make billions!" Beck's laughter was the last thing he heard.
"Ugh." Roger woke up, his head hurt, and he definitely had a concussion.
"You're lucky Smith." Dastun said as he pulled Roger off the ground. "That hit could've been a lot worse."
"What happened?" Roger slowly limped to the waiting ambulance with Dastun's support.
"Some whacked you in the back of the head. You'll be lucky if you don't have a broken skull." Dastun made sure Roger didn't try to leave and had the medics check him out. He had been very lucky indeed it turned out. He'd been zapped in the back of the head with a cattle prod, which was more than enough to cause serious harm to a human, and could knock an android or replicant right out.
"What happened to the old man?"
"Timothy Wayneright succumbed to his injuries." Dastun handed Roger a police report, which stated he'd been found bleeding from a gunshot wound and died at the scene. "Even with you sending me a location, by the time we got here he was on his last reserves. He told us something before he passed though."
"What was that?"
"He wants you to save his daughter."
"Is that all?" Roger asked sarcastically while pressing the ice pack the medic had given him to the pack of his head. "Well then I'm going to need permission to take Big O with me."
"Consider it done. In fact, I called the Big O here for ya." Sure enough, once Roger was outside of the chained fence perimeter, Big O was waiting for him. "Go save that kid Roger."
Roger chuckled before climbing on board, "Yeah, you got it."
Once comfortably in the cockpit Roger pulled the helmet down and saw what the Big guy did. "Alright Big O, time to go save a kid… huh?"
The radar that came up in his vision showed the same bank downtown being attacked again, and the signal it gave off read as the same signal from the pick robot. "Well that was easy."
Roger had Big O run most of the way there, seeing as it was only one tier up and a ramp was not far from the warehouses. Once outside of the 2nd tier bank, he saw exactly what he feared.
"Dammit, that mad man." The pink Kilodeus type robot was pounding on the bank's reinforced doors.
Big O ran forwards, a hand reached out and pulled the pink robot back, "You just can't stay down can you?"
The pink Kilodeus meant for salvage was now ready for battle. Roger pulled the joystick back along the guide bar and swung forward and the pink robot put its hands up in defense. "Dammit, I forgot he had upgraded this thing. Hm, ok then."
Roger pulled both handles back along their guide bars, swung one hand forward for Big O to land a strike, and the other came down from above, knocking down the arms and leaving the face wide open. Roger pulled his right arm back, hit the button on top of the handle, and pushed forward before clicking that button, sending a Sudden Impact into the face of the pink robot. "Gotcha! Huh!"
Now that the mash had been destroyed, the wires underneath showed a buried Dorothy, still in her capsule. "No way… that mad man! He's using her as an AI regulator circuit."
Roger pulled back, letting the pink robot take swings at him. Below Dastun had evacuated everyone and in his powered suit was checking battle conditions. He used the helmets built in cameras and saw why Roger had backed off. "Damn, if Beck really is behind this, add child endangerment to his list of crimes. Rrg… Roger I know you can do it, just find a way like you always do."
Big O backed up further towards the police corden as Roger tried to think of something. "You got any ideas Big guy… Oh that is a thought." The radar and scanner on screen circled a section of the midriff, where the pilot AI was likely seated. "Yeah ok, I get it. We'll just knock it out."
Roger had Big O dodge left, swung with his right arm under the pink robots defenses, and slammed a Sudden Impact into the cockpit cover. That made the pink robot back up and disoriented it, so Roger then had Big O dodge right and swing left, doing that one more time before using the Moby Dick Anker in the skirt to chain the robot down, had Big O grab both its arms and hold the robot tight so Roger could get out of the cockpit and use his jump boots to burst over to the pink robots face.
Once he landed Roger had the difficult task of trying to free Dorothy from the capsule.
Where am I? It's dark, and I don't like it. She thought to herself. She tried to remember what had happened, but it felt like he had a headache. Remember, have to remember. Then some of it came to her. Her father had been shot in front of her. Beck had forced her into a machine… then it all turned black.
I think I'm in my new body, but why can't I open my eyes. I can't hear anything either. She tried to expand her senses and found them blocked. Hmmm… Maybe I am still in that capsule.
A shock wave. Then another shock wave. Her senses began to come back from that. Oh, I can sort of hear now… whose voice is that?
"Dorothy! Wake up Dorothy…" It sounded close and yet far away. "Come on, wake up."
Her eyes slowly opened and in front of her was that handsome police negotiator, Roger Smith. "Roger?"
"Good, you're awake. Hold on to me, yeah that's it." Roger activated his jump boots thruster and landed in the Kilodeus open cockpit. It closed around them and became dark. "Hold on just a bit while I finish this. And I guess I should apologize."
"For what?" It was completely dark inside, but she was sitting in his lap and holding onto him tight. I like this.
"I have to destroy what your father made." Roger grimaced and Dorothy held him tighter.
"It's fine. He wouldn't have wanted it to be misused anyways."
Roger had Big O let go and step back, retracting the anker as well. Then, pulling both arms back along guide bars in the cockpit, outside Big O's metal bone elbows thrust back. "Good bye and good riddance!" Thrusting both arms forward, a double Sudden Impact through the chest knocked the robot's AI circuits out, and took it offline, damaging it beyond the repair of anyone save the late Timothy Wayneright.
On a rooftop nearby, Jason Beck Gold tsked. "Damn, so much for this scheme paying off. I better skedaddle."
"Hold it right there!" Dastun and a few other troupers in full power suit uniforms pointed electric stun rifles at Beck. "You're under arrest!"
Below, Roger helped Dorothy leave from the dark cockpit and would have let her run if not for some waiting company.
She had her body back, the body of an eighteen year old girl, with an AI augmented brain. But this body was different. It was no longer a replicant's body, but the body her father had wanted to make for her all along.
All of five feet tall, lean, and pale, she was cute for certain. Pert nose, slightly pointed chin, and big violet eyes. Her auburn hair had the semi pageboy cut her father had given her all her life, but the back that should have been shaved short was grown out, long enough to be past her hips. It was soft and somewhat flaxen, but with how long it was she decided to tie it up for the time being.
Her face looked youthful, but also wise and mature. She had a great degree of expression now, and was thankful for that. An almost perfect degree of movement, considering what she was now. Her eyes were a bluish purple, and her lips a soft shade of pink. Her eyebrows were almost too thin for her liking, but that could be changed later.
The outfit chosen for her was not one she would have picked out, but it would do for now. A school girls uniform in lavender purple, with white striping above the hem off the skirt, a beige tie under the lavender purple blazer and over the black shirt. The blazer itself also has a white stripe at the end of the cuffs as part of the stitching. Black stockings and white sneakers completed the ensemble. It fit her figure well, and wasn't too conforming, but why this outfit? Her father must have had a strange taste.
And what was she? A bioroid, if her sensors and all the information she had gathered was to be believed. How had her father had time to make this? Where had he gotten the funding? And more importantly, where had he found the technology to almost perfectly clone her DNA from what had been left behind eighteen years ago? She didn't really care, but was grateful, and yet…
And yet, she was supposed to be destroyed. She had been kept alive illegally for eighteen years, but they might let her live? Well, so far they had. Now that her father was dead at the hands of Jason Beck, an unscrupulous businessman who could add kidnapping a replicant and murder in the first degree to his long list of usually white collar crimes, she was alone.
But maybe she wouldn't be for long.
They had questioned her at the Paradigm City's company home office. A lavish office and government building that ran all three tiers of Paradigm City. It had once been a towering complex, before the three tiers were built around it and the building expanded over the 40 years.
Roger hadn't wanted to hand Dorothy over to them, but he had no choice when armed troopers in combat suits from the home office came to take her rather forcefully. Well, it did not reach the point of violence, but Roger was still displeased.
"She's only 18, you can't really be considering this can you?" Roger had asked the investigators from the company that.
"Well, she is technically a replicant. Or she was. The home office will interview her and decide."
"That's not good enough!" Roger exploded, before Dorothy placed a hand on his right arm and he calmed down.
"It'll be ok Roger. This was always the fate I knew I would have if I was caught."
"But…"
"I'll be ok. Father's dead, and I have nowhere else to go, so this is the end for me." Dorothy let go of his arm and got into the back of the armored prisoner transport vehicle.
"We'll let you know what the investigation committee concludes once it has been completed." The sharp dressed man from the home office bowed before leaving with a parting, "We thank you for your cooperation, Dominus."
Roger waited for the man to leave before kicking a metal trash can on the curb. He felt bound by his frustrations. He couldn't just hop in Big O and wreck them could he? Since he was the only pilot Big O liked.
"I hate that word, Dominus… Why'd they use some old latin word for a title anyways?"
That was yesterday. Today, Roger was trying to put it out of his mind with some well deserved rest. Roger had gone back to bed after getting up long enough for breakfast.
Then he received a phone call. Norman took the call as always, but he had to get Roger up. "Master Roger, you've received a phone call."
"Tell them I'm asleep. It's my day off. I'm not going in this time."
"It's from the home office sir. It's about yesterday's case." Norman persisted.
Roger sighed. So they called to tell me they killed a kid. Damn government's beyond fucked up. He got up and took his cell phone from Norman. "Hello."
"Mr. Smith." The man on the other end said.
Now that's a voice that could give me nightmares. "This is him speaking, President Rosewater."
"Good. I'd like you to come up to the tier three office this morning. I know you've requested the day off, so I'll be brief. We simply need you to sign off on a few papers. Nothing more. Once that's done, you'll have the rest of the day to relax. And before you ask, no this cannot be done tomorrow."
With that, the president hung up and Roger looked peeved. "Ugh. Well, get the Griffin ready Norman, we have to go to the tier three home office."
"Right away sir."
"Why even call me into the office on my off day for paperwork." Roger grumbled as he walked up the steps. Norman had chosen to leave the car and come inside to chat with some old work buddies.
Once inside a blonde secretary was waiting for him. Dressed in a pink pleated work suit, and black heels. "You've kept me waiting Roger."
Roger sighed internally. "Morning Angel."
"Morning? That's it?" She looked up from the tablet she held in her hands and looked annoyed with him.
"I don't even want to be here. Making me come in on my day off to sign a kids death warrant. Geez."
"I wonder about that." Angel led Roger to an elevator in the back of the office meant for VIP to go to the highest floors.
"What else would I be called in for? The investigations' over by now."
"Well, you'll see soon enough." Angel remarked while checking over schedules and meetings that were coming up on her tablet.
Once they arrived at the top floor, she led Roger down the long marbled hallway to two huge double doors at the end. The doors had a large P with a sun around it that was Paradigm City logo, split down the middle so that half was on each door. Underneath that, was an R for the Rosewater Corporation. It annoyed Roger to no end. He let Angel knock and entered when told too.
He'd been in this office a few times, never of his own volition. White marble floor, with some black marble tiles lining the floor leading to the desk in the center like a carpet. The desk itself was wood, not the artificial kind that had been made in labs in recent years, but the good old fashioned kind. Supposedly it was an antique and rather old, Roger didn't care that much. Two tall backed chairs in real leather, also old antiques since real new leather was far more expensive than the new lab grown synthetic kind, sat in front of the desk. Lining the walls on either side, which were rather far away from the desk, were pictures of the expedition that led to the Kilodeus discovery, photos of past presidential campaigns for city government, maybe the odd invention certificate or two, and numerous fancy writings behind bullet proof glass. The wall behind the desk was bulletproof glass windows. The windows had some augments in them so the whole office could be made dark and used as computer screens. Roger had been in a few of those meetings.
To the left of the nice desk and behind a pillar that lined the office was a secretary's desk. Angel usually sat there hidden and typing away.
When the doors opened and Roger walked in, he saw exactly who he expected sitting behind that desk. Alex Rosewater, the current president of the Corporation and leader of Paradigm, sitting there in a white suit with a red tie, slicked back thinning black hair, and apparently wearing reading glasses to see what was on the holo display in front of him.
"Ah, you've finally arrived. Please come sit down." Rosewater hit a key on his keyboard and the holoscreen disappeared. He took off his glasses and massaged his temples before continuing. "No reason to stand there staring, we have quite a bit to discuss."
Roger walked glumly to the chair indicated and almost threw himself down into it. And nearly jumped back up when he saw who was in the chair next to him. "You're alive!"
"I'm as surprised as you are." Dorothy stated with a hint of admonishment. "And I would like to know why as well."
"Then I'll get straight to the point." Rosewater sat back in his chair, glasses held in one hand tapping his chin, he crossed the other over his chest but resting his hand on his arm. "This entire situation is a unique case. We were searching for an illegal replicant created by a scientist who we thought had long since fled the country, but found a bioroid that is technically not illegal, but a gray area." Rosewater had a look that said he was weighing his next words carefully, but also fascinated by what had been found. "Cloned from the DNA of a child that died eighteen years ago, and mentally enhanced with artificial intelligence, something that is based on the building blocks of humanity, but it is more than that. But it is also not human. You can see how it might be difficult to make a decision in this case."
"Are you saying I have to make a decision?" Roger asked him.
"Hmph." Rosewater pushed a piece of paper on his desk in front of Roger, who picked it up and read it over. "Tell me what you think?"
Roger read over the paper, Dorothy looking at him intently. She could've used AI hacking to see over his shoulders and read it, but instead she waited. Once he finished reading the paper, he looked up from it and then back down again.
"You want me to be her guardian?"
"Think of it as a long term negotiation contract." Rosewater waved his glasses to the side in a small flourish.
"Negotiation with who though?" Roger asked.
"Humanity."
"Humanity?"
"Oh not the whole of it obviously, that would be an insurmountable task. But with this city's perceptions of replicants and death, and the laws that encapsulate such prescriptions."
"That seems equally impossible." Dorothy stated.
"Perhaps." Rosewater looked over at her. "But let us be honest, do you feel dead? Or like you died in those eighteen years you lived?"
"No."
"And that is part of the point. The law states that when the physical body dies, a replicant being used for recovery must be destroyed." Rosewater put his glasses down on the desk and tapped it with his finger. "I've never been a fan of that law personally, it destroys lives and families."
Right, his mother was killed because of it. Roger thought. "Well then, what exactly are you proposing here?"
"Simple. Become the girl's guardian, and show that continuing to exist as something beyond human does not constitute a threat to humanity."
"Will I really get to live if he becomes my guardian?" Dorothy dared to look hopeful.
"And how long would I have to be her guardian? She's technically an adult." Roger asked about the part that bugged him.
"Not forever, obviously. But a short term, ahem, excuse the somewhat vulgar term, conservatorship should be enough. At least long enough until people learn that replicants and bioroids pose no threat."
Roger smiled before he burst out laughing. "And here I thought I was going to come in today to sign a death warrant." He looked back over the contract in front of him. It was simple enough. Dorothy would live with him for a short time, and have to stay out of trouble with the law. She was allowed to find employment or attend college if Roger signed off on it. Really it was no worse than being a government paid babysitter. The faster Dorothy proved herself, the quicker she could be her own person. "Alright, fine then."
Once the paperwork was signed it was scanned by a built-in desk scanner, made legal, and a notification was sent to Roger's phone stating he was Dorothy's legal guardian. A similar notification was sent to Norman, telling him before Roger even could. Not that he minded, it saved Roger some effort.
"I'll be watching your progress with great interest." Rosewater called after them as the two left his office. Once the door shut he stated dryly, "And with any luck, we shall find how her father managed to use Kilodeus technology to create such a lifelike bioroid."
"You could've just harvested her and found out." Angel opined.
"True, but if she died in the process of studying her, we would have ended up with nothing. In this way we can monitor her progress, and figure out how her father used that alien technology to recreate her."
Outside the building, Dorothy looked up at the bright blue sky, she could feel the heat of the sun on her face, the wind blowing her tied up hair to the side, the warmth of Roger standing next to her.
"So, Dorothy, now that you're part of my household, we have some rules you'll need to follow." Roger was telling her as they walked down the steps to the waiting Griffin. Norman was standing next to the vehicle, practically beaming.
"Such as?"
"First, and foremost, you'll have to wear black."
Dorothy looked at what Roger was wearing. Indeed, most of his outfit was black with white and gray accents. When she looked over at Norman it was the same. A black butler's uniform, with gray pants and black shoes.
"Your fashion sense sucks Roger." Dorothy smiled as she poked fun at him. The three got into the car and Norman took them home, to a new life.
Fin