The Big O and all of its settings and characters are owned by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual.

"And Forever" Lyrics by Chie, Composition/Arrangement by Ken Shima

THE BIG O:

ACT 28

SCAPEGOAT

Chapter Twelve: Epilogue

It was few days later that Colonel Dan Dastun finally arrived at the white tower that was Roger Smith's home. "To what do I owe this honor?" Roger teased when he greeted his old friend.

"Some smart aleck invited me over, remember?" Dastun growled.

"Oh yes, that's right," Roger smiled mischievously as he poured himself and Dastun a drink. "This calls for a toast. To the man of the hour."

"I'm surprised there's anything left in that bottle," Dastun said as he took a full glass tumbler from Roger's black-gloved hand.

"Thank Dorothy," Roger shrugged. "I would have drank myself to death if it wasn't for her. She got me out of my shell and put me back to work."

"Something bothering you, Roger?" Dastun raised an eyebrow. It wasn't like Roger to admit weakness.

"You're probably wondering why I didn't use Big O to overthrow the Paradigm Corporation," Roger replied, deflecting the question. "The people are ready for a change. All I had to do was give it to them. They would follow such a powerful symbol too."

"And you made me that symbol," Dastun muttered. "I spent two weeks in jail. What took you so long? I thought I hired you before I was arrested."

"If you're not happy with my work, you could always go back," Roger winked.

"I ought'a put you in the pokey," Dastun sparred. "But I won't 'cause I'm curious. Okay, I give. Why didn't you take over the city? You've got a good reputation. People would follow you."

"Do you really think that I'd be that different than Alex Rosewater?" Roger asked, all levity leaving his face.

"You'd have to work real hard at being worse," the officer shrugged. "What? You're gonna give me that 'power corrupts' stuff and all that?"

"No it's just that…" Roger sat down on a couch and looked away.

Dastun sighed and sat down in an easy chair. "A lot happened while I was in the big house huh?"

"No it's not that," Roger shook his head. "It's just that ever since the Ellen Waite case I've been plagued by these visions."

"Visions?" Dastun queried. This was new.

"Call them memories, lucid dreams or hallucinations if you like," Roger nodded without looking at his friend. "They seem to get worse whenever I face the white megadeus or Gordon Rosewater."

"Well, you flattened the white megadeus and Gordon Rosewater died in a fire," Dastun offered. "That should leave you in the clear."

Roger had to bite his tongue to avoid asking whether or not Dastun found a body. He took a breath and faced his friend. "Dan, when the Union launched its aerial assault and Alex Rosewater tried to destroy the city, I saw the sky disappear to be replaced with giant stage lights." He paused as he let that revelation sink in. "Do you really think anyone that far gone should be running the city? It's bad enough that a nutjob like that has access to a megadeus, but being in charge of policy? No thanks!"

Dastun took a breath and let it out slowly. "Roger… we all saw a lot of strange stuff that day. Maybe the Union or the white megadeus released some kind of gas that made us all hallucinate. I myself saw a movie called Winter Night Phantom that starred a guy called Dan Dastun as the cop."

"You're kidding!" Roger smiled and shook his head.

Dastun didn't smile. "Nope. And in the audience there was this little boy that looked just like me at that age. What are the odds of that?"

"Any old girlfriends you need to look up?" Roger offered.

"I found out about the attack on the city when a shell collapsed the roof of the theatre," Dan continued. "I wasn't hurt but a piece of shrapnel almost split the kid's head open. If he survived that wound's going to leave one hell of a scar."

"A scar?" Roger blinked. "Exactly where did that boy get hurt?"

Dastun removed his hat to reveal the intricate network of scars on the right side of his bald head. "Right… here," he said as his finger traced the pattern across his dome. "What are the odds of that, huh?"

"Yeah," Roger agreed weakly. "What are the odds?"

"So you see, a lot weird stuff happened on that day," Dastun continued. "You aren't alone in this. The whole town went nuts. We just have to find a way to get it sane again."

"Do you ever wonder if that boy really exists somewhere?" Roger asked him. "Do you really think he's you or something?"

"I just get down on my knees each night and thank God that I'm too stupid to think about it very much or truly understand what it means," Dastun replied grimly.

"You're smarter than you think you are, Dastun," Roger nodded ruefully.

"Just don't tell the Paradigm Corporation that," Dastun grunted. "They're looking for a honest cop who's too stupid to take bribes and too dumb to seize power. And for the time being, that's what I'm going to give them."

Roger took a deep breath and bluntly asked the question he'd been dreading. "How long do you think it will be before someone in Paradigm decides that a dead hero is easier to control than a living one?"

"I don't know," Dastun admitted. "I hope its not anytime soon. Paradigm's forcing me to milk my popularity for the moment, but I don't dare get too popular. It will make them think that I'm getting ideas."

"You might want to wear a bulletproof vest when you're at work," Roger cautioned.

"And when I'm at home," Dastun sighed. "Looks like I'm going to have to watch my back more than ever now."

"If things start to smell bad, you can always crash at my place until the wind changes," the negotiator offered. "We can make plenty of room here."

"What's gotten into you?" Dastun snarled. "It would drive you crazy to have me here and we both know it. Why are you being so nice all of a sudden? Giving a condemned man his last request?"

"No, my motives are purely selfish," Roger assured him. "Dorothy said that I push all of my friends away. A guy who's losing sight of reality shouldn't isolate himself or he won't know fact from fiction after a while."

"Do you do everything that android tells you to?" Dastun cracked a smile.

"Only when she's right, which is getting to be too damn often," Roger admitted ruefully. "Whose advice am I supposed to trust, the girl whose clockwork brain can see things objectively or the crazy guy in the black suit who's just seeing things? I need some help getting my head on straight, that's all. And you need someone who can watch your back. The door is open. If you want we can both win."

"Be careful, Roger, I just might take you up on that offer," Dastun warned him. "I may be too proud to ask for help, but I'm not as stupid as I look either. If you're not careful, you might get yourself a new roommate."

"Let's hope Paradigm City calms down before it gets that far," Roger shrugged. "If you got the time, would you like to go shoot some pool?"

"These lucid dreams of yours really got you shook up, don't they?" Dastun smiled as he rose to his feet. "No thanks, I gotta get back to covering my ass. Tell you what: Let me know when you go to bed and I'll drop by and tuck you in," he joked as he put his hat back on.

"What's the penalty for striking a military police officer?" Roger quipped as he stood up too.

"These days?" Dastun shrugged, "Who knows? Probably capital punishment or something. Oh well, something good had to come out of this. Thanks for everything, Roger. Watch your back."

"You too," Roger nodded as they shook hands.

"Tell Dorothy thanks for me," Dastun said as he turned to leave. "From the sounds of things, I have her to thank for getting you off your ass."

"Behind every great man there's a woman, Dan," Roger chuckled as he walked him out the door. "Mine just happens to be a tireless, unrelenting android."

"You should go pretty far then," Dastun said as they got to the elevator. "I gotta find me a woman of my own," he joked.

"Got anyone in mind?" Roger said as he pulled the lever to descend the car.

"How about that blonde girlfriend you got with the Union?" Dastun shrugged. "You know, Agent 316? Angel? From what I understand she's got both the foreign agents and the Paradigm Corporation out to get her. There's one woman that wouldn't be needlessly endangered by being within ten feet of me. She's expendable because she's a target already!"

"She's not hard on the eyes, either," Roger said as the elevator reached the ground floor. "Unfortunately I haven't seen her ever since the Union bombed the city. Well, I haven't seen her when I'm sane at least," Roger corrected himself thinking back to his dream of being in an insane asylum. "I'm looking for her myself. I hope that she can help me make sense of all the things I've seen…"

"Or think you've seen," Dastun added as Roger opened the door to the elevator to let them out.

"That's right," Roger nodded as they stepped out of into his office. "Hopefully she can explain your trip to the movie theatre too."

"Huh," Dastun grunted. "More like it she'll just have a story of something crazy she witnessed at that time herself."

"You're probably right," Roger sighed as they strode to the door. "I just hope that she's still around to tell us that story."

"Me too," Dastun sighed wistfully as well. "To tell you the truth, I'd like to be able to protect her. It might make up for…"

Roger looked over at his friend carefully.

Dastun was just staring at the wall, not really looking at anything. In his mind's eye, the officer saw a foggy dock where a police officer was forced to shoot a blonde foreign agent who just happened to be the woman he loved.

Roger was quiet, giving Dan all the time he wanted to decide whether or not to continue.

"…Well, let's just say that it would make up for a lot of things," Dastun finally finished. "We rounded up a lot of foreign operatives at Paradigm's orders. They probably deserved it, but…"

"But what, Dan?" Roger asked him.

"I know that your little Angel had no intention to harm anyone or destroy anything," Dan finished. "There's a lot people who were born in this city who can't say the same. She's not a bad person, Roger. I don't think she is, anyway. Like me, she just had a job that asked her to do things that she didn't always believe in."

"I'd settle for just believing that my name is Roger Smith and that I really live in a place called Paradigm City," Roger muttered.

"What is this, a contest to see which of us is more messed up?" A smile crossed the officer's craggy face. "If I play my cards right, I'll be in charge of the military police, and as for you… did you get any money out of this?"

"Enough to make you think that I own my own mint," Roger's smile was no longer bitter, but smug.

"I thought so," Dastun said as he opened the door to leave. "I'll leave you to your fancy clothes, your expensive car, your butler and your pretty little robot housekeeper while I go out and take total control of all of the military ordinance and law enforcement personnel in the city. We sure got it rough, don't we?"

"We'll manage somehow," Roger smiled as the colonel walked outside. "See you around, Dan. Watch your back."

"I'll do that," the officer called over his shoulder. "You just remember to watch yours! No telling who Rosewater shared his dirty little secrets with!"

Dastun had a point, Roger reflected when he shut the door. In the last few months, it seemed that nearly everyone knew that he was the pilot of Big O. The Paradigm board members seemed ignorant when he had met them the other day, but it was hard to believe that they didn't know. Would they see him as a threat? What dirty trick would they pull to get back at him? Oh well. Tomorrow was another day.


The next day…

Roger awoke to hear a thunderous concerto being played in the parlor just outside his room. Sleep still in his eyes, he burst out of his room to shout at the android girl whose fingers danced across the keys of a magnificent grand piano.

"R Dorothy Wayneright!" he roared. "What is the meaning of this? Did you move Instro's piano all the way up here to annoy me?"

"This is a new piano that arrived this morning," Dorothy explained while she continued to play. "This is the final payment from the Paradigm Corporation for your consulting services. If you remember, you asked them to provide me with a new piano since Instro's had been damaged by the weather."

Roger pulled on his hair and growled in frustration.

NO SIDE


Dorothy and Roger sit on a large hourglass the size of a barstool. Behind them is an orange background. The sound of a piano and the duet of a man and woman singing can be heard.

Sometimes I feel so all alone

Finding myself callin' your name

When we're apart, so far away

Hopin' it's me that you're thinkin' of

Could it be true, could it be real?

My heart says that you're the one.

There's no one else, you're the only one for me.

Yes, this time my love's the real thing.

Never felt that love is so right.

The world seemed such an empty place.

We need someone we could give our all.

Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever.

Could it be true, could it be real?

My heart says that you're the one.

There's no one else, you're the only one for me.

Yes, this time my love's the real thing.

Never felt that love is so right.

The world seemed such an empty place.

We need someone we could give our all.

Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever.

Never felt that love is so right.

The world seemed such an empty place.

We need someone we could give our all.

Baby, it's you, we'll be together now and forever.


On a desk filled with hourglasses a phone rings. Norman's hand picks up the receiver and a sinister voice says:

The Nine Muses of Death