"Colonel, there's another!" one of Dastun's men shouted as they crested the hill and saw Big O.
"Stop here," Dan told the driver, and repeated the command on radio. He knew who Big O was perfectly well, of course, but he couldn't explain without revealing his memories. His men were waiting for his orders. "We don't have the firepower to take them both on, let's watch and try to get a better idea of their capabilities," he said. "Then we'll know if we should call in the reinforcements or fall back to protect the city."
To his relief, even the most hawkish of his squadron had been taken aback by the appearance of the second megadeus, and seemed relieved by his decision.
God, the thing was fast!
Roger had figured out two things in the ten minutes since he'd gotten close enough to get his opponent's attention.
The first was that the other megadeus had far more flexibility than Big O. A punch that would have felled a lesser opponent failed to even dent this one--it was able to deflect most of the kinetic energy of the blow by the simple expedient of moving with it. He'd tried the hip chains twice, but it was able to twist and turn quickly enough to avoid them.
The second was that he'd grown woefully out of shape during his four-year vacation. He was puffing like a bellows and his forehead was dripping sweat and half-blinding him. He let go of the control long enough to run an impatient arm across his eyes and tried to get into a better position. Getting this megadeus pinned down was worse than trying to stop Big Duo!
"Maybe it's a training exercise," one of the privates suggested. They had been watching for nearly a half an hour, and there had been no damage to either of the enormous machines. Dan had to admit the young man had a point--it looked more like they were sparring than seriously fighting. He'd seen the other megadeus in position to deal some real damage several times, but he could have sworn the thing was pulling its punches. Still, Roger would have warned him if he'd intended to take Big O out, if only to avoid the city's inevitable response! And who was piloting the other megadeus? He'd never seen it before.
"I heard a story once about a giant black megadeus that protected the city," Major Collins said thoughtfully. "The bigger megadeus looks like the one I heard about. Maybe the story is true and it just needs to come out now and then to keep it from rusting up, just like you'd start a car every so often if you didn't drive it every day. This is a good spot for it, not many people would even know they were here."
"They don't seem to be interested in the city at all," one of the other men agreed. "What should we do?"
Dan had been puzzling over that very question, and had come up with an answer. "I think we should leave a small force here to observe," he said. "The rest of us should go back to the city and put the tank squads on alert, just in case. There's no point in causing panic if they aren't going to come any closer."
"That's true," the major said. "We might be able to fight off one of them, but trying to take on both of them might be biting off a bit more than we could chew."
Dan knew from bitter experience that taking on even one of them was biting off a bit more than they could chew, but he didn't mention that. "All right then, we're decided," he said. "Collins, you take my car and go back and put HQ on Red Alert. I'll stay here with Jackson and Walker--the bikes are faster and better at avoiding obstacles if we need to come back in a hurry."
"Right, sir," Major Collins saluted.
"There is something odd here," the Megadeus told his pilot. "This opponent has had several opportunities to cause damage and has refrained."
"Testing our capabilities?" Roger suggested, taking a few steps back from the other Megadeus and shucking off his sweat-drenched jacket.
"There is no ill intent," Big O seemed quite certain of this. "I cannot detect any machine-thoughts at all in this being."
That was odd. "Is that possible?" Roger wondered. He looked at the other machine and gasped in surprise. It had taken several steps closer while Roger's attention was otherwise engaged, but both hands were held up in a gesture that was universally recognized as "I surrender."
"All clear, tell all units to stand down," Dastun informed HQ when he was finished speaking to Norman. After some difficulty, they'd manage to patch Smith's butler through. The old man knew better than to say too much, but he did let Dan know that the other megadeus presented no threat to the city. As soon as his shift was over, he intended to head over to Smith mansion for some real answers. He would have liked to approach the two megadeuses to get a full explanation right then and there, but he knew that neither Jackson nor Walker would let him walk over to have a chat without one of them along.
He spend most of the ride back to HQ figuring out a plausible-sounding story to give to the reporters who would undoubtedly be awaiting him.
"It was just a kid! He couldn't have been more than sixteen!" Roger had finally arrived home and taken a long hot shower, hoping to draw out some of the pain from his tight, aching muscles. If he was going to lay claim to the title of Dominus, he needed to start getting a lot more exercise, especially with that dishearteningly large number of potential problems somewhere out there. Big O had assured him they would discuss it more fully later, and they had then focused on the task of getting the other Megadeus back to the kid's garage without it being seen.
Dan topped off his drink and took another long swig. "A kid with too much knowledge for his own good," he said. "You got the thing put away, then?"
"For the moment, at least," Roger said. "He really didn't mean any harm, that's why he was out in the desert, so he could practice with it and not hurt anything. I guess he's been doing that for a while, it's just that this time somebody saw him coming out of the tunnel just outside of the city and called the Military Police. It seems he found the thing and repaired it himself as an after-school project!"
"My Hobby," Dan snorted. "Was he going to bring it to school for Show and Tell?
Roger laughed in spite of himself. "I don't think he knew exactly what he was going to do with it, although he had some pretty idealistic plans" he said. "Most kids that age are into building cars, not megadeuses. What really scares me is the improvements he made. It's much faster than specs!"
"And now that Pandora's box has been opened..." Dan sighed. "Angel was hysterical when I called to let her know I was okay. Said it could undo everything she'd tried."
"I think she and Dorothy are downstairs," Roger said. "Norman said something to me about her intending to bring Angel over when she'd gotten her calmed down." He hesitated, not wanting to worry Dan more. "Big O doesn't seem to see it as a problem," he said finally.
"I don't know if I should take that as a good sign or a bad one," Dan said. "What are we going to do about that other megadeus? We can't exactly leave it there--if word of this gets out, it will start people Memory Hunting again."
"Well, there's a certain amount of that already," Roger said, "but there's no kingpin to take the most powerful items for himself, not yet. I was supposed to spend some time with the big guy later tonight to talk about what should happen next. I know we can't leave the other megadeus there indefinitely, but I'd take it as a real favor if you could just make sure there's an extra patrol or two for the moment--the kid has kept it secret all this time, and there's no reason to think that even if someone wanted it they could act on it in a day or two--moving something that large would take time to arrange."
"Sure, assuming they didn't just get in and pound their way out of there," Dan sounded even more worried. "But I suppose even more people would know about it if we took it out under guard."
"That's exactly what I was thinking," Roger said. "You gave the reporters the perfect explanation, so as far as anybody knows right now, it's just some equipment testing and a bureaucratic foul-up where one hand didn't know what the other was doing."
"The men won't talk either--they have it in their minds that the megadeuses are simply old tech that need to be run every once in a while to keep them in good condition," he said. "I told the squad that I'd seen the information, but didn't know what it meant at the time, and that I intended to review the files. It wouldn't be the first time we've run into that situation--there's a lot of files over at HQ, and they're still trying to get everything indexed again."
"Roger?" Dorothy called up the stairs.
"I'm here," he said. "Dan and I were just having a drink. Come on up." Both men got to their feet, Roger groaning as he was reminded once again of his sore muscles. He wished that he and Dorothy were on better terms--sometimes after a long fight if he was bruised and aching, she used to give him a good rubdown with some liniment. He doubted she'd be willing now, and his pride wouldn't let him ask.
They heard two sets of footsteps, and a moment later, Dorothy appeared, with a very calm Angel following close behind.
"You look like you're feeling better," Dan said to Angel, enfolding her in a warm embrace.
"Much better now," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I'm sorry if I worried you."
"If I'd been in your shoes, I'dve been just as upset," Dan reassured her. "I don't think anybody was too pleased at that moment." Both Roger and Dorothy nodded their agreement.
Dorothy turned to Roger. "He wants to talk to you now."
Roger turned to Angel and Dan. It was very rare indeed that Big O spoke to anyone other than him, and the fact that the Megadeus had communicated with both Dorothy and Angel meant it was important. "If you'll excuse me?" he said. "Please, feel free to get Angel something, Dan."
"We should be headed home, it's way past Jimmy's bedtime," Angel said. "Norman was keeping him amused, but I don't want to impose."
"Norman is enjoying himself and you should sit down and relax for a few minutes," Dorothy said. "He'll bring Jimmy up if it gets to be too much." She walked over to the liquor cabinet as Roger headed down the stairs. "Soda with a splash of Scotch?" she asked.
"Just a thimbleful of Scotch, please," Angel said, recognizing the determined tone in Dorothy's voice. It was nice to sit down in front of the fireplace and just relax. She accepted the drink and took a grateful sip. There was just barely enough Scotch to give it flavor--trust Dorothy to remember that she didn't really care for strong liquor when she was pregnant. She took another sip and set the glass down. "This isn't the disaster we feared it could be," she told Dan. "In fact, we were really lucky."
"How do you figure?" Dan asked.
"Well, as you know, you just can't tell who is going to have the Memories," Angel said. "All we know is that someone ends up with them sooner or later. We were lucky that the boy--his name is Jake, by the way, Jacob Morris--found this particular Megadeus, because it has no awareness."
"Meaning that anybody who could get it running could pilot it," Dorothy explained at Dan's uncomprehending look. "It could have been much worse. Jake is young, but fortunately, he was smart enough to have thought things through. He told Big O that he was thinking that his megadeus might be useful for rescue work--that's why he improved its speed and flexibility--but he said he couldn't just bring it out to a fire or building collapse or other disaster without being damn sure he could maneuver it without hurting anything."
"Thus, practicing out in the desert," Dan said. "I suppose that makes sense if you're sixteen and want to make the world a better place."
"Some boys become firefighters or policemen," Angel said, giving Dan a fond smile. "Jake didn't know that what he was remembering were Megadeuses, but the Memories were strong enough that he had a good idea of where he should be looking, and he looked until he found one. Big O calculates that there's enough parts and partial machines to fully assemble more than thirteen hundred Megadeuses."
Dan looked at them with a stunned expression. "How can you be so calm knowing there's that many of them just waiting for someone to trip over them?"
"At one time there were more than 15,000 of them," Dorothy noted. "When that was true, they really were out there just waiting for someone to trip over them--they were everywhere. Now, most of them aren't all that easy to find, which is progress of a sort. Paradigm City and the surrounding desert for miles around contain these fallen megadeuses, and quite a few of them are complete enough that there's no point in suppressing the Memories about them--any forgotten tech would be quickly relearned as soon as someone made contact with one of them, without any corresponding knowledge of the potential for destruction. The Memories contain that knowledge, so it was better to keep them."
"I'd completely forgotten why I hadn't deleted them, but Big O reminded me ." Angel said. "It's better that those who do understand the tech also remember the price of using that tech carelessly."
"So what happens now?" Dan said, trying to picture a world with 15,000 megadeus corpses and failing. He wondered if Dorothy had seen this with her own eyes or was just relaying information from Big O, but he really didn't want to ask. "While I trust what you say about the boy's intentions, that isn't going to do any good if anyone who gets into the command chair can pilot it."
"There's a method of fixing that as well," Dorothy said, "although I don't think Roger will be very happy about it."
"You want me to find Jason Beck?" Roger demanded in disbelief. "After everything that happened? You know as well as I do that he can't be trusted!"
"He is the man we need for the job," his companion's tone was implacable. "Dorothy is willing, and the sooner it's done, the safer all of us will be."
"Why can't someone else do it?" Roger began pacing the edge of the command center, trying to think of a way to accomplish the thing without having to involve Jason Beck. "Norman is familiar with her systems."
"There is no one else," the response was immediate. "Norman is familiar with her physical systems, yes, but not with her programming. There are currently three people who have sufficient Memories to do the job. One is eighteen months old, the other just turned four, and the third is Jason Beck. The longer this Megadeus is unbound, the more likely that someone with ill intent will gain control of it. We cannot wait for ten or twenty years."
"I understand, but... " Roger ran his hand through his hair, making it stand on end. "I'd like to at least speak with Dorothy about it. Will it keep for a couple more days?"
"After two weeks of inaction, the probability of discovery begins to rise drastically, becoming near 100% in approximately six months." A chart illustrating the increase appeared on the display. "While moving Big Trey will forestall that temporarily," the figures on the chart changed, "after four months the probability begins to increase again, and subsequent moves have little effect on the curve."
"Then I'll discuss it with her later tonight or first thing tomorrow," Roger conceded, although he still hoped for a better plan. He turned to go and was startled by a sudden wistfulness shading his companion's mental aura. "I've missed you, too," he said. "I thought many times that I'd come down to talk to you, but I didn't know if it was the right thing to do. If you preferred to sleep, I thought you had earned it and that I shouldn't disturb you."
Another three hours passed before Roger finally left his friend.
"I don't understand how you can even consider it!" Roger controlled his volume with an effort as they went around the subject for the fifth time. He was sore, he was tired, and what he really wanted was to mix himself another good stiff drink for sedative purposes and go to bed, and he'd said so three times now.
"I find the alternative far less appealing," Dorothy said. "I prefer that my memories remain my own this time."
"But... Jason Beck? After what he did to you? How can you possibly trust him?" Roger asked.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I trusted him, but I do I know that he has changed," she said.
"What makes you so sure of that?" he said.
"Because he has avoided getting into trouble for nearly four years," she told him. "The Jason Beck who stole my memories would have done something stupid already."
"He's probably just getting himself into a better position to cause trouble," Roger disagreed.
"I don't believe that's the case," Dorothy said. "I see him fairly often, although we haven't spoken and I don't think he's seen me. He seems to be pursuing a new career these days--he's working over at Samuel Tate's Gallery on West 25th."
Jason Beck working at an art gallery? Roger couldn't believe his ears. "Are you sure it's not just a cover for something... less savory?" he said. "I can't imagine him being interested in art."
"I believe that this conversation has become circular," Dorothy said. "You are tired, Roger Smith, and I know that you are in pain. I believe it would be wiser to talk again tomorrow after you've verified this information independently."
"You're probably right," he sighed, rubbing at the back of his neck to try to get the kinks out.
"I know I am right," she said. "We will talk again tomorrow. Sit down and have your drink." She left the room without bidding him goodnight, which was odd, but perhaps the idea of putting herself into Jason Beck's hands was more disturbing than she was letting on.
"Are you still awake?" He was lost in thought, considering some of the other things he and Big O had talked about while they were catching up on things, and was startled to see Dorothy standing next to him. She had a set of sheets in her arms with which she proceeded to drape the couch. She brought the bottle of liniment out of her pocket. "Come over here, Roger Smith, else you won't be able to get out of bed tomorrow."
His back had frozen up while he sat in the chair, and she had to help him stand and then help him remove his robe and pajama top. It was an act of grace, and he knew he didn't deserve it.
It was also acutely painful, sore as he was, but when she finished kneading the knots out of his muscles, she changed over to long, soothing strokes that had him nodding off after just a couple of minutes. "Time for bed," she told him.
He'd never realized before how careful she was not to break the spell of sleepiness she'd created, but, mindful of Big O's gentle but definite reproach concerning his habitual conduct with R. Dorothy Wayneright, he made himself pay attention. The key was the slow fluidity of the process, from helping him to sit up and get back into his pajama top to the short walk that ended with her easing him into his bed, which she had, at some point, turned back and warmed with a heating pad. He retained just enough consciousness to grab her hand as she pulled the covers over him. "Thank you," he said. He gave her hand a quick squeeze and released it.
He sensed rather than saw her smile as she lightly smoothed his hair away from his face. "You're welcome," she said. "Good night, Roger."
Roger was thoughtful as he returned from an early client meeting. His back was still sore, but it was nothing compared to how he would have felt had Dorothy not intervened, and he was grateful all over again.
"She wasn't pleased by your declaration of love?" he'd awoken with Big O's question echoing in his head. His admission that there had been no declaration had been what brought the reproach from his friend. "I fear you take far too much for granted where Dorothy Wayneright is concerned."
The Megadeus was right, that was the worst part. He did take things for granted. He assumed that Dorothy already knew he appreciated all the things she did, not just for him, but for Norman. He assumed that she knew him well enough to know that he never would have proposed marriage if he didn't love her. He assumed that his actions told her everything she needed to know.
But while actions were important, and while words without them meant nothing, sometimes the words were needed too.
He couldn't just bring up his proposal again and declare undying love, for all that it was the truth. She would correctly surmise that Big O had said something to him, which would remove any virtue whatsoever from the words.
He could however, begin treating her with due respect and appreciation. If she warmed to him, he could pursue his suit as seemed appropriate. If she did not, he would still continue to treat her every bit as respectfully. After all she had done for him and Norman, he owed her at least that.
It hurt to think that he might have lost any chance he had, but it was his choices that had led him to this, and he had no one to blame but himself. There would be no rescue via a Deus ex Machina, not this time.
"Oh, its true all right, although I can understand why you might find it difficult to believe," Big Ear said from behind his paper. Roger had originally planned to go directly to the mansion but had stopped by the Speakeasy on impulse. He walked in just in time to see Big Ear settling down at his usual table. "Word has it that Tate is grooming him as his replacement."
"Has he really given up his underworld connections?" Roger wondered out loud.
"Probably not," Big Ear said, "but he keeps a low profile. He was involved in some petty criminal activity for a time after the Event, but he hasn't engaged in anything of the kind for over a year--at least, nothing that anyone has heard about."
"Interesting," Roger said.
"He's been here a few times looking for information as well," Big Ear continued. "Information on art work--verifying where a piece was found, questions concerning the reliability of the finder, that sort of thing. He's acquiring quite a reputation as a difficult man to fool, and he's not afraid of doing his legwork."
"If it weren't coming directly from you, I would never have believed it," Roger said. "Dorothy believes he's changed. Do you find it true?"
Big Ear considered the question for a long moment. "The answer is yes and no," he said slowly. "His personality hasn't changed all that much, so in that sense, no, but he is more.... subdued. Less likely to fly off the handle. I could be mistaken, but if you asked me to name the change, I'd say he's acquired a bit of.... restraint."
The only restraints Roger could picture subduing Jason Beck were handcuffs or a straightjacket, but he kept his opinion to himself. "You've given me a lot to think about," he said, rising and dropping a folded set of bills on Big Ear's table.
Big Ear quickly covered the money with his paper. "I'll give you one for free," he said as Roger strode past. "There's some people you wouldn't much care for asking a lot of questions about exactly what was going on in the desert about three miles west of the main dome yesterday."
"Come in," Jason said with surprise when he saw his visitor. "Well, well. I can't say I ever expected to find you knocking on my door. What brings you here?" After listening to a description of what was needed, he smiled. "I can do what you ask, no doubt about it." he said. "It'll take about three months to put it together, including testing." His smile grew even wider. "It's going to cost you."
...to be continued
