Author's note: I've been negligent these last few chapters in recognizing my beta reader's incredible help. MungoJerry beta-reads all of my fanfictions these days; a great writer in her own right, she's also been an indispensable source of inspiration and correction for this story and others. Please visit her profile and take a look at her stories if you have a spare moment.

Thanks for reading, and please enjoy!

Chapter 3: In which an inspiration changes the world.

"I'll tell you later, my acrylic's getting cold."

"'…owned!' Best frag grenade moment ever."

"More eggs, Eddy!"

"When d'ya think it'll come through?"

"What now, did we run out of graphene?"

"Naw, no way. Put your money on another blaster, he'll never get it fixed."

"No flavor in these things. Ugh. Got any carbides?"

The babble of the cafeteria spilled out into the hallway like a noisome cloud, joined by the off-white broadband emissions of that demon called the Sun. Blasted reploids. Blasted windows. Blasted hunger.

That was the core of my frustration. The Voice I found in subspace had promised me kingdoms and armies of researchers in exchange for opening the gate to subspace, but had yet to do so much as cure the common hunger despite all my progress. My feet carried me reluctantly towards the wretched room we call a commissary.

And why do they call it that? Because reploids insist on calling their features after human names. We take in needed materials, we eliminate degraded parts, and the unwashed masses insist on calling it "digestive" processes. Ridiculous. I wished for the 45,709th time for a way to legally secede from the reploid race.

I turned the corner with a disdainful twirl of my pure white lab coat. The chaos of the room burst upon me in its full, wretched force: reploids talked, laughed, and did whatever else they pleased while satisfying their nutritional needs. Morning brought in one set, lunch another, dinner yet another round of them, drifting in and out and passing needless gossip from table to table. All this license and liberty, yet Signas refuses my most reasoned requests for meals by delivery. Repulsive.

"Well, if it isn't Young Mister Gate! What's on the brain today? Summore gravitons in a magnetic well?" Eddy laughed a guffawing laugh and waved his ladle. Droplets of nutrient mixture flew off in all directions, including onto the battered, mismatched armor plating that marked the reploid as another of the Hunters' broken, outdated, bloodthirsty barbarians. "You're just about gonna die if you keep up thinkin' that hard!"

I approached him calmly despite his blasphemy against science. One day, all people will acknowledge the truth. Raising the bowl from my most recent meal, I stared the fool in the eye and requested, "Iron, magnesium, and trace amounts of heavy water, please. Thank you."

He grinned. "Whut, ya mean soup? Here."

The reploid slopped a heaping ladleful into my dish. It contained all manner of unnecessary elements, and he'd failed to add the heavy water. I turned away without a word and walked to the so-called salad bar.

So-called. I refuse to name pyrhhonic zirconium crystals "lettuce." However, the so-called salad bar includes heavy water as an element of the so-called vinaigrette dressing, so I dumped a healthy amount in my bowl and turned to leave the room.

Before I reached the threshold, the oddest feeling of quantum rattling betook my body. A chill ran through my internals; an intense buzzing sensation followed, like the static from a nearby teleportation, but all through my body instead of merely on my communications link. My bowl shivered and disappeared.

Before I had time to lament the loss, the bowl and its contents appeared in my hands anew. I stood and stared at it for a second before remembering my surroundings. Raising my head, I left the evil cafeteria as slowly as my trembling frame permitted. Only once my laboratory door slid shut behind me did I look at the bowl again.

When look I did, the sight set my scientific reasoning spinning. A baked, glazed clay bowl carved with primitive insignia sat in my hands; steam rose from the sour, acidic fluid within. I spotted chunks of minerals and flakes of metal still dissolving in the foamy solution. Traces of blackish mist curled around the bowl as if caressing its glossy surface. My salival glands activated in preparation to consume it.

Needless to say, I ignored the worthless autonomic response and dug up my analytical gear instead. The mess and chaos of my laboratory no longer disgruntled me; Signas' idiotic policies no longer meant a thing. Finally, after years of labor, rejection by the scientific community, lack of funding, Maverick interference, disregard by humans and reploids alike, and months of time at worthless Maverick Hunter Headquarters, my persistence and brilliance had finally paid off.

I took careful readings of the exotic radiation emanating from the bowl of nutrients. Without a doubt, it originated from the universe X and Zero had recently visited; just as those robotic barbarians had transformed into human warriors there, the soup from there had transformed into reploid nutrients here. My "breakfast" had almost as certainly turned into human food upon transference there. Mass-energy, momentum, form, and particle composition all had the potential to change in a subspace interaction, but more abstract qualities remained intact; all had occurred just as I predicted.

In short, after only a week of reploid testing, my theory had proven itself to the utmost in the closed-loop transmission of that soup. My person had acted as the center of a spontaneous transference event mediated by the contortion of spacetime itself. I, as the anchor point of X and Zero's expeditions across the universes, had become a literal gate between worlds. And if I had functioned as a gate for only one random event so far, then to mechanize and weaponize the process I needed only take a few simple steps—starting with a new form of Multi-Dimensional Interface.

The voice from the outside laughed and spoke in the words of its ancient, growling language. Its volume grew and expanded to fill the corners furthest of my mind; equipment shook as my hands began to tremble with the rising intensity of the event. I felt power crackling through my neural pathways, whispering secrets, murmuring plans, filling me with the knowledge necessary to one us together as join.

It had spoken to me often in the years since I presented my Grand Unification Theory to the Department of Defense. They had laughed me out of the building, but the Voice from subspace had comforted me, stroked my broken pride, and shown me the wondrous truths behind my infant theory. In my brilliance I had stumbled upon the secrets to dream up from waking, and reach the treasure buried under the stars. I had madnessed already into descent for him; only now I straggled to tools the needed build.

Yes, ah. And the subject tests. Needed I more to send.

A knock at the door startled me from the scintillating beauty of my inspiration. Enraged, I prepared to destroy the offender with my mind before remembering the fragility of my delicate body and chose to hide instead. Under ordinary circumstances, concealing myself has worked many times and should have worked again. Ordinary reploids have the common decency to respect a man's privacy.

Unfortunately, Zero, that befouled red fiend, cares nothing for common decency.

AGAGA

I wiped some reddish waffle crumbs off my blouse as we walked. Adding a little powdered iron oxide had drastically increased the utility of the breakfast, although I wondered why he had kept trying to massage my shoulders while we cooked. Then I frowned as those thoughts gave way to worries about our destination.

"Commander…are you sure this is a good idea?"

X smiled at me without slowing his pace. We had almost reached Gate's laboratory. "Yep. Don't worry so much, Alia. We're going to be fine. Soon Zero will be fine too."

Despite everything, I smiled and felt myself relax a little. X has that effect on people.

"All right, if you're completely sure." I glanced up to the LED screens above the doors on this hall. X greeted a couple of reploids as we passed them, and finally I saw the sign marked "Dr. Gate" in red letters. "Here it is. X, he doesn't want visitors; he's got his sign in red. See?"

X glanced briefly at the sign and frowned. "Odd. He usually doesn't bother with that. Hmm…"

I glanced at my watch. Reploids need timepieces about as much as we need acne medication, which is to say that we don't, but my creator Dr. Solinar gave me a gold-alloy wristwatch as a present a few years ago and I wear it for his sake. I guessed it was possible X would give me presents like this now that I was his girlfriend, and in that case, maybe I could convince him to get me lab equipment instead.

Anyway, the watch's dials pointed to 11:03 AM, well into Gate's official workday. My commander tapped gently at the door to his lab. "Dr. Gate, are you in there?"

No one answered. He looked at me, shrugged, and smiled sadly. "I guess he's not interested in company. I worry about him, too, sometimes. Wh—oh."

X's eyes focused on something behind my back, and I turned around to see Zero coming around the corner. The beam swordsman stopped, stared at us, and then approached with a scowl.

"I'm not going to talk science with him. Gate's going to send me somewhere and none of you are going to stop me."

Apparently ignoring that rush of a statement, X stepped back to allow his friend to shoulder past. "It's locked."

Zero glanced up at the red sign, scowled more, and punched in the door like a cheap piece of tin. "Lock shmock. I'm Zero."

The robot sauntered through the opening without another word. His heavy crimson boots treaded down the ruined door like a welcome mat. X walked up and stood at the threshold like a ghost; I stood close and looked over his shoulder. At a time like this, I didn't know whether to do girlfriend things to him or not, so I settled for a safe option and put my hand on his shoulder. Maybe it didn't even make a difference through his armor, or maybe it was just the thought that counted, but he reached up and held gently onto my fingers.

Zero muscled his way through the debris "Gate! I got a job for you. Get out here. Gate!"

X glanced back at me and followed Zero in.

XAXAX

I picked my way carefully through Gate's laboratory. Zero strode ahead of me. After a quick look around the central room, he made tracks for the researcher's private sleeping chamber. I stopped and made a more careful scan of the laboratory before going on. That was the only reason I sensed Gate hiding in one of his storage cabinets.

His breathing gave him away. Androids and reploids don't have to breathe all the time, but it helps with a few of our processes; without training, it's easy to forget you're doing it and ruin a good hiding spot. Even as the thought crossed my mind, he remembered to hold his breath and Zero came back into the room.

"He's not back here. Dang slacker, skipping out on the job." My red-armored friend stomped back in, saw my expression, and opened his mouth before I signaled for silence. He followed my glance to the cabinet and growled. "I'm trying back again later. You can do what you want."

He stomped loudly towards the door, banged his foot on the leg of a workbench, and abruptly sprang across the room to Gate's hiding place. The researcher didn't have time to sneeze before the android had ripped off the cabinet door and hauled him out by his collar. As Zero glared intently into his face, I thought I saw a flash of hatred interrupt the fear in Gate's expression. If Zero noticed it, he didn't react.

"You're the biggest creeper I've had to touch in two weeks, so I'll make this short. You're gonna send me out to some universe where I don't have to see anyone I know. I don't care what it looks like and I don't want to come back until I say so. Just send me somewhere with lots of bad guys and leave me there. You got that? I want out of here!"

0X0X0

His face twitched while I waited for a response. I glared into his cowardly expression for what felt like a minute before X's voice broke in on the stare-down.

"Zero, I think you need to put him down."

I didn't turn away from Gate's quivering face. "Don't interrupt, X. I'm going to pummel him if he doesn't let me go."

"He's not going to do anything unless you put him down. It's going to be all right, Zero." I heard shuffling noises as the reploid moved in on my position.

I snarled and tossed the researcher to the floor, then turned on X. "Don't you see? I can't be around the rest of you freak shows anymore! I'm going to hurt someone unless I get out of here! Make him help me leave!"

He shook his head. "You don't have to hurt anyone if you don't want to, Zero. Control your emotions or—"

"They're already controlling me! Dang it all, X, why do you think I killed Iris?" I threw out my hands. "I couldn't save her because I was afraid of dying! I'm a loose cannon who'll take out whoever he needs to when death is on the line!"

"That's not true, Zero. No one's braver in a fight than you are." The lines on X's face hardened. "Everyone knows you did what you did to save the Earth. It had nothing to do with your personal safety and you know it."

"Fine then!" I cut the volume, dropping my voice to a deadly hiss. "I want to go because I'm tired of being around all you idiots. I can't stand people who'll sit around at a desk all day while Sigma comes back from the dead again. You can fix your problems without me."

"That's not why you want to leave either. If you really thought we had a chance of finding Sigma's hiding place, you'd have been out looking for it since the war ended. Why are you really trying to leave, Zero?"

The room stood silent for a moment while X tried to break me with his gaze. I swear, he's like a basilisk when it comes to staring people down.

…don't ask me how I know what a basilisk is. That was a very bad day.

"You don't understand. You can't understand, X." I wrenched my gaze away from his and grabbed up the creepy egghead reploid again, bringing his face within inches of mine. "There's no life for me here anymore! Gate, send me away before I break you in half."

The Blue Bomber's voice broke in again. "Don't do this, Zero. I won't allow it."

G0G0G

"You can't stop me. Last warning, you pointy-faced egghead."

I felt the fibers in my collar stretch and break one by one. Zero looked at me and I confess my short life flashed before my eyes.

Dark rage boiled out of the voice from subspace. It wanted to reach out and strangle the meatheaded android's neck. It wanted to devour his soul and command his body as cannon fodder in an army of the undead. I, however, wanted to live through the rest of the day, so I abandoned the useless fantasies the voice presented and concentrated on a way to avoid death by the Red Ripper's freakishly powerful hands. The sound of my own voice surprised me.

"I'll send you anywhere you want. Let me go and I can do whatever you need me to do. Just let me go."

Having satisfied his urge to see me grovel pathetically for my life, Zero dropped me for the second time and turned on his companion. "I'm going to go through with this. You can't stop me, X."

The blue-armored android shook his head. "Running away from your problems won't solve anything. If Iris' death hurt you that badly, you need to stay here so your other friends can help you get over it."

Zero snarled again. The sound made me tremble all the harder. Scrambling away on my hands and knees, shuffling through equipment broken in the invasion of my laboratory, my artificial frame pulsed with a terrible burning sensation and I knew true hatred. The voice reminded me of Zero's desires, and my mind conceived of a dark, evil thought, like a germ from the pits of Hades. In time, that germ from the darkness would hatch a cockatrice to loose our fury on an unsuspecting world.

Soon, no one would ever invade Dr. Gate's marvelous laboratory again.

AGAGA

Zero snarled again, but weaker than before. His hands clenched and unclenched. For the sixth time in four minutes, I thought for sure he'd draw his saber. X stood in front of him like a cliffside holding back the waves, quiet and resolute. I felt sad for Zero, but he needed to calm down and talk to us instead of going off on his own like this.

Without another word, he stomped out of the room in a huff. X looked from him to Gate and then back to me, then left to chase down Zero. I considered going with him, but the sight of Gate getting up off the floor of his Zero-wrecked laboratory made me hesitate. Someone had to clean up the Red Ripper's mess.

"I'm sorry this happened, Dr. Gate. If it makes you feel any better, Zero's wrecked my work once or twice too. He's like a natural disaster sometimes."

Gate didn't reply. He simply looked around at his damaged and disordered equipment, picked up an odd-looking device, and glanced up at me with an expression that reminded me of how I look at bugs. I pursed my lips and continued.

"I can help you clean up and repair some things if you want. I'm familiar with a lot of this machinery from my own work."

His expression never changed. "Dr. Alia, I have work to do. Please go."

I blinked. "You don't want any help at all? Are you sure?"

Again, that expression scarcely changed, but suddenly I felt uncomfortable. I took a step back, and another one. Words didn't come to me. On his end, Gate didn't say anything more until I had nearly reached the door.

"It's going to be a good year for science, Dr. Alia. Once I've opened the way to subspace for good, our projects will just get better and better."

The researcher smiled. Stuttering out a goodbye, I tripped over the wreckage of the door and stumbled ungracefully from the room. He simply stood there and watched me until I had gone.

Walking away down the hall, I shook my head. Gate always struck me as a little odd, but never crazy. I decided the creepy effect must have come from my own imagination.

I needed to report Gate to the psych ward back then. Back then, we had the power to stop all this from happening. Now it's too late.

Now Zero and X can never come back.