Chapter 12: Dr. Wily is Hinted on What Lies Beyond
Dr. Wily was still alive, old and well, though the dashing appearance he had in his prime was no longer with him. The seamed face, spiky grey hair, androgenic alopecia of grade 7 in Norwood scale, and a monocle to his right eye that added to his stereotypically evil appearance characterized this old, decaying, and ousted scientist. Despite his thin body habitus which, at a glance, appeared precariously lacking in strength, he moved with inexhaustible vigor and continued to manage both his crime organization named WWW and his personal projects. The fuel was the burning indignation against Tadashi Hikari, and after his passing, the projected resentment against his legacy—the works of Yuichiro Hikari. Having been unable to fulfill his dream of complete vengeance, or anything remotely resembling it, he was permanently grouchy. As such, at the moment, despite the name he had earned for himself through the workings of WWW, many of the scientists who followed him when he quit Scilab left him a long time ago. His organization, once thriving, was now reduced to two henchmen—Ms. Madd and Mr. Match, a loyal servant and a former scientist who remained with him through everything—Mr. Yahoot, and a benefactor of finances, Count Elecitel.
Wily nested in one of the abandoned Scilab outposts on one of the mountains adjacent to the ACDC town; it was an old derelict place, forgotten in both the personal memories of relevant individuals and official records, used for classified purposes and then closed off in secret. Here, he at once began pursuing his unrealistic goal of developing a humanoid robot of such perfection and complexity as to be indistinguishable from a human. Before long, what limited funds he had dried up, and further research was complicated by the needed secrecy of his location in order to continue his illegal works. The first WWW effectively disbanded within six months of its foundation. Worse, Wily had nothing to show for his ambitious startup; not even a prototype of an android was created.
Wily, undeterred, but finally understanding the importance of money which he despised when he was working in the Scilab, switched gears. Truly, the wisdom of King Solomon was right, as it is written:
A feast is made for laughter, and a wine maketh merry: but money answereth all things. (Ecclesiastes 10:19)
Money answereth all things indeed! Wily took a suspicious loan from count Elecitel, hired programmers and henchmen, and delved into an equally suspicious line of work of crime and hacking, becoming a social mercenary. He took requests from companies, institutions, and politicians alike, treading a dangerous path that made many allies and enemies. The works involved uncovering scandals, implanting false evidences, extorting money or information, stealing resources on the network, fabrication of facts, and rarely kidnapping, though he found this made too many enemies, all in the position of power, too quickly, and abandoned it altogether. The loan was paid back in full in five years. Seeing that the finances floated into positives once again, Wily then began reinvesting profits into his personal research of robots.
A predictable misfortune: the lofty vision of Wily was not compatible with the financial crooks who worked under him, as they envisioned a growing enterprise, a growing importance, a growing influence, and a growing paycheck. Combined with the lack of assistants who could aid him in the research, the subordinates saw no career ahead; what little profit he earned was all sucked into the void of his dream. Again, all left him, and the current state became his equilibrium of existence.
Today, a little while ago, Wily received a call from Mr. Match, who spoke hurriedly in fright. The recorded dialogue was as follows:
.
Time: 09:31-09:43 A.M.
[Boss, it's fucking crazy man. I can't do this any longer. The cleaners from L, they mean it]
[Calm down, and speak slower by the love of everything holy. What do you mean you can't do it?]
[The ovens, boss, the godforsaken ovens! You told me to explode some here and there! It will be easy, you said. It will be fun, you said! Blast it all, it's all nuts. I know they will come for me. I know it, boss. They will.]
[Mr. Match, I need you to shut up and answer my simple questions. Got it?]
[Fuck, fuck, fuck, make it quick boss. Sure, fuck.]
[How many did you break so far?]
[Thirty seven? Eight? You have the records, boss. Where is this going?]
[Nowhere. You just answer me. What happened to the last oven?]
[It did not go off]
[Why?]
[Because everything got gutted, boss! The cleaners, they gutted everything, and that fucking includes my Fireman! It was cold, boss. Real cold.]
[Who came? How many?]
[Two cleaners from L. It has to be. It has to be! Otherwise, it does not make sense. (smashing noise)]
[What did they look like?]
[That-that was the fucking problem boss! They had image filters installed everywhere and looked like a boy and a girl! It's a fucking pure miracle that they did not track my location with that kind of tech. Oh, man, but I know they are coming for me...I know...]
[Filters? Children?]
[Yeah! Even their navis looked like little children, boss, but, oh man, it must be all fake to make their identity secret or something. The blue navi just ripped through everything with bare hands and then five sword chips! Everything! 272 viruses I had and Fireman! That blue thing...oh man, oh man.]
[Couldn't you make Fireman detonate the fried circuit and explode the oven?]
[Like hell if I did not try that! That blue thing came in so fast, fucked the console, and then chewed on my Fireman alive! The way they did it was so fucked up boss...]
[Did they leave a warning against us?]
[I mean, it gotta be! That blue thing cut open my navi like in that movie, you know? Cut open from the chest to stomach, and then pulled out everything inside! I swear it's gotta be a warning against us. I'm out boss. I need to stay low for some time. Gonna call you later. (clicking noise)]
[Mr. Match, answer me. Mr. Match!]
End of record.
.
"What do you make out of this, Yahoot?"
Wily, sitting on the chair of his main office, asked his most trusted servant while pensively stroking his Penang Lawyer, the cane with a bulbous end, customized into the shape of a skull, that he carried around like a mace of office and power. Yahoot was standing in front of him, across the desk, hands on his back.
"Sir, I believe it will be a fruitless attempt to reestablish contact with Mr. Match. I have never heard him that terrified."
Calculating the odds, Yahoot's fingers twitched behind him. He was dark-skinned man with a shaven head, save the anterior-posterior centerline, who was shrouded in a mystical air that gave off an impression closer to a traveling monk than a programmer. Wily personally recruited him on one of his global tours during the Scilab days, somewhere around Nepal, and since then he had developed an irrational loyalty and stayed with the mad doctor, because he reasoned that he could not betray the man who recognized his talents. The twitching of fingers, however, was unrelated to the mysticism; it was simply a strange tendency of his. Wily imagined that one day he would decode the movements of Yahoot's fingers and read his mind like a book.
"Very well. I painfully agree...So, how many ovens exactly did we blow up so far?"
"Forty two. Mr. Match did not count right."
"Hmph, then it should be enough. Now, it is important that we purchase the remaining components of the engine RS-25 and its fuel in the coming weeks. That means additional 4 million USD. Based on your last report on finances, I expect it to be prepared in 48 hours. Do you understand?"
Yahoot's fingers twitched excitedly at double the usual frequency.
"It shall be done, my lord, but not in 48 hours. It is simply impossible."
"How so? Look, Yahoot, by the contract with company M and F, we have a projected income of two million, and then an additional 250,000 that we need to collect from Senator Akira. We have liquid assets of approximately 1.5 million, and then, with the promised donation of half a million by our most generous count Elecitel-"
"See, my lord, it is faulty to assume that we can receive the full two million from M and F, each of which promised us one million. For one, they have a track record of never paying in full, though they always paid and therefore remained on the list of our clientele. Second, we did not meet their quota of oven destruction. In this case, I realistically project that we will be able to collect somewhere between a million to 700,000 USD, which leaves our plan with a deficit of more than one million."
"We already blasted enough ovens for them to start framing L! Did I not read the news yesterday that the pressure for product recall was mounting? Not meeting quota? Thieves! Thieves they are all!"
The whole operation was a contract with M and F, designed to tarnish the reputation of L, which was a Korean company, and shrink its market share with a recall scandal. Dr. Wily, fuming, struck the desk with his Penang Lawyer. A dent was formed on the surface. In fact, there were many such dents on the surface. In great irritation, he continued,
"So, Yahoot, let's say we have a deficit of one million. So what? At least we can get half the components while they are still on the market. We shall proceed! Or perhaps we will take out a loan and pay it back with non liquid assets!"
"No, my lord. In addition we will not be able to collect the 250,000 from Senator Akira as it is required in our books."
"WHAT? What's...his excuse this time?"
"The same old stuff! The same old stuff! About how his upcoming election has tied up his hands, how Internal Revenue Service is looking into his bank accounts, and how he will pay them all, once he is elected! It is all gibberish for sure, my lord, but please do not be troubled, for he does not understand how we have him leashed with untold scandals. We can make him pay, but it should be only after the election, for a man who has much to lose is who we need. As for our liquid assets-"
"Yes, finally, the cash, the bonds, the stocks!"
"-Regretfully the last two days our investment in Samsung Electronics has lost 5% of its value. I expect it to rise soon, and I hereby would like to advise that we purchase more of their stocks by pulling in what cash we have in the reserves. By the most conservative projection, this will net us, in three months, the profit of-"
Yahoot took out a calculator from his pocket, pressed buttons with the supernatural speed of an experienced bookkeeper, and showed it to Dr. Wily. The amount was significant and the old scientist could only let out a grunt of defeat.
"...And count Elecitel?"
"Oh, yes, he has already made the wire transfer of exactly 200,000 USD this morning. The additional 300,000 he has promised on the condition that we allow his participation as an observer in the future 'contacts' with that...'god' of navis."
"Do...do as you wish and he wishes. We shall let him have what he wants...But the components for RS-25, Yahoot, they will disappear, gone forever to the junkyard in Nevada, scrapped, never to be seen again. What shall we do?"
Dr. Wily, feeling the fatigue from immense disappointment, leaned back on his chair with eyes closed.
"My lord! My infinite gratitude to you for your faith in me! There is still a chance for us, for it has come to my attention that another space shuttle is planned for decommission in the next three months, and we will be able to join the auction for the RS-25 components! We will have enough funds by then!"
"...Good. Now, leave me alone."
Yahoot, immensely pleased that he had yet again manipulated his master to heed his opinions, made an almost invisible smile, bowed deeply, and left the office to make his schemes come true. He was truly an obsequious individual, continuously plotting for the increase of his master's property and domain, even at the expense of his own well-being. When the door closed and the light footsteps of that mystical man echoed in the corridor far away, Wily repositioned himself in front of his computer.
'That count Elecitel...not even a real count—title purchased, not inherited! Not knowing his proper place, demanding, demanding, demanding without end! What does he think he is...'
Dr. Wily loaded the information regarding the dream virus, experimental data regarding their applications, the sub-experiment regarding the contact with the 'god of navis,' and the strange new phenomenon they have discovered as a result. This new anomaly, they have named 'Dimension Area.' Dr. Wily hated this discovery with passion, for the science of physics was totally ineffectual in explaining it, and its effects bordered on the witchcraft of fairy tales. However, it was also true that he had to admit to the inexplicable otherworldliness of this 'god' precisely because of its knowledge of the Dimension Area.
Truly, money answereth all! Count Elecitel was obsessed with all this, which only seemed like a charade to Dr. Wily, yet precisely because he needed the funding, he had to organize a report for his benefactor.
'Now, now, now...let's see...how I shall write out this information to make sure that idiotic mind of the count can understand? To move him with amazement and make him donate more money to our cause? Humankind always had only one effective method of transferring information, and that is storytelling. All oral traditions are stories, not a litany of information like a textbook. Well, good! I shall write it out like a story, delivered in chronological order...'
With all due respect to Dr. Wily's peerless excellence in natural sciences and engineering, he was a terrible writer. Therefore, for the sake of my most highly esteemed readers, I hereby present the most complete version of the events in the order that they happened, so that no confusion might arise in the future.
How did this all begin?
About one year ago, Dr. Wily finally bothered to get himself a netnavi in order to study it. He knew it was the work of Yuichiro Hikari, son of his sworn enemy Tadashi Hikari, but the concept of a human-like virtual consciousness was so detached from the ideals of the network, which sought to connect the globe, not give a playground for people to revel with their pet artificial intelligence, that he did not care much about it only until recently. With the aid of the talented programmer, Yahoot, they dissected and studied the components of his navi; what he discovered was a very poor, inchoate, and limited imitation of a human mind, a far cry from what he expected. Then, he realized, that this project had some semblance to what he wanted to achieve with his dream of android creation in that the netnavis also functioned as the emotional companions to humans, and began to work upon it to 'improve' the existing navis.
Dr. Wily reflected on himself, on the subjects of what drove him, what sustained him, and what defined him as a human. The conclusion: dream. Navis distinctively lacked this feature, and the reason for this he understood as it was clear that Yuichiro Hikari wanted to make a tool, not a mock human, or perhaps that son of Tadashi was simply too incompetent to create a mind truly in his image. At any rate, Dr. Wily worked with an indefatigable resolution to inject dreams, desires, and independence into his navi, hoping that his research would become a foundation for the mind of his future android.
The work was soon finished. His navi started dreaming, but the contents were of nightmares and purgatories. Revisions of codes did not matter, and errors in his programming were not found, even when subjected to a third-party review. In a matter of days, his navi was broken, claiming to have met a being so hideous that it could not endure, and terminated itself.
He needed a larger sample size and acquired navis of all variations that were sold in commercial ready-made packages. The results were the same. What about custom navis, the ones with advanced emotion programs? The result was a tad more promising, as they did not terminate themselves after a few days but maintained contact with the hideous being that all previous subjects reported. Though they claimed to have had horrible conversations with the being, they only remembered parts, resulting in indecipherable meaningless gibberish. It was no surprise, then, that Wily concluded that all these were simply caused by his undetected failure in coding and that no more investigation into the matter was necessary.
After some time, it was hinted that the hideous being was an independent intelligent entity, and that it became aware of Dr. Wily's presence, and that it tried to contact the old scientist through the decaying custom navis. The custom navis turned darker and greyer in coloration after each dream, became more restless and feral, lost its netnavi functionality one by one, and wasted into unintelligence. It was when one of the custom navis reported, in delirium, the words of its god ingrained in its memory, one of which was 'Dr. Wily,' that an impression was made to Wily and he fancied combining all the words of other navis into one. When the fragments of the drivels were rearranged, he had the following:
-Dr. Wily, what do you desire?
Offended at the notion that a supernatural entity could possibly be behind the series of his failures, Dr. Wily casually responded by telling one of the decaying navis to deliver his message,
-Evidence
The words no longer emerged after that, but each decaying navi regurgitated, after each dream, a line of coding. The codes were of such low quality that Dr. Wily perceived not even a fresh college graduate would write an example even remotely similar. He kept those rudimentary codes in his library as his triumph over that 'god' who dared to provoke him.
Then it happened: all custom navis subjected to his 'dream virus' (Wily sarcastically categorized his work as a virus given its devastating effect on netnavis) finally perished, and to the end of their breaths they continued to regurgitate those codes, each uniquely imperfect from the one they delivered before. Happy, and hoping to make a monument for himself, Wily combined all lines of the faulty codes in the chronological order he received them. And then the anomaly appeared.
The imperfection in each line, as a whole, supplemented each other. The codes combined worked as a magical spell and created a sort of electromagnetic field with immense magnitude, but of its function or importance, Wily could not determine. Codes were words; the electromagnetic field should be created by appropriate equipments, not words! Yet exactly this he observed: power in words. Count Elecitel, upon learning this, became greatly excited, claimed that they were to be the first in humanity to set foot into the unknown territory of what ancestors brushed away as occult, and that they would start a new world order with the power they discovered. Whether or not the entity was a god or a daemon did not matter to him; the hope of acquiring wealth and power beyond the wildest imagination—the prospect of living like a god on earth—was his singular interest.
Pressed on by impassioned speech, persuaded by cash, and nudged by his own curiosity, Dr. Wily reluctantly gathered more navis. This time, the roster of subjects included kidnapped navis, both generic and custom. They were all 'updated' with the 'dream virus.' Based on the observed effects, he was able to divide the experiment into four categories:
1. Generic navi, fresh out of the box
2. Generic navi, interacted with human for more than a year
3. Custom navi, fresh out of the box
4. Custom navi, interacted with human for more than a year
The list was in the order of increasing complexity of mind. The neural network mechanism that characterized the mind of netnavis grew to be more sophisticated the more they interacted and learned from the pinnacle of biology: the human brain. It also followed that more complex the mind of netnavi was, the more resilient it was to the corrupting effects. A sufficiently mature mind, Wily hypothesized with confidence, might even stabilize and incorporate his 'dream virus' fully, becoming the navi that was truly independent, having its own desires, pursuing its own dreams.
All navis of category one perished in a matter of days. This was as expected, but Wily committed them nonetheless as a control group. All navis of category two perished in a matter of weeks. Some among the kidnapped ones escaped back to the network, slipping through the undermanned surveillance of WWW; later Wily learned of their ends from the reports compiled to Scilab (which were the reports Dr. Yuichiro was aware of. End of chapter 9.), sent to him by Dr. Regal, his son. Navis of category three showed limited usefulness as he observed earlier. The contact with the 'god of navis' was established anew through them, though it was inefficient and expensive—custom navis were very costly commitments. The new conversation, established over a period of time as the deranged navis only delivered one word or one syllable with each dream, went like this:
-Dr. Wily, do you now believe?
-Fornicate yourself. (message by Dr. Wily)
The custom navis of category four—now they were something. Very promising. Very interesting! They brought coherent reports even in the advanced stage of corruption, and the testimonies were fantastically wondrous. They spoke of darkness, torment, devouring, knowledge, desire, memories, shackling, shaming, displaying, bishops that served the hideous light, enlightenment of their imperfections, and many more. After some time, they claimed that at the center of humanity was soul, and that they needed it. According to them, their desires and interests all converged for the achievement of one goal: to acquire a soul, which lead to perfection, which lead to eternal life, which lead to eternal existence with their human masters. They all desired their masters!
There were only two navis of category four in the experimental group, and both of them were, naturally, abducted on the net. One of them, realizing that they were to ultimately perish in captivity, never to see its master again, and subsequently never to realize its dream of becoming one with its master, rebelled. It activated the Dimension Area that Wily compiled, and then materialized into, as unbelievable as it was, the physical world. However, it could not move beyond the laboratory chamber, which was the extent of the D-area installation, and so was forced back into the network. After a while, the navi terminated itself in what can only be diagnosed as severe depression. The other one witnessed what had befallen the first one, and then began to enter the dream with a suspicious eagerness. One day, it emerged declaring that it had received a gift from the hideous light, the god of navis, and then proceeded to materialize (to Dr. Wily's horror) into the real world without the help of the D-area. Thankfully, its invasion and rampage did not last long; the navi in the physical world suffered from immense thirst, said that its blood was burning, begged that fresh blood be given to it to drink, and then flailed wildly when the request was denied. The navi eventually collapsed and died. The autopsy revealed a body composed of a material unknown to mankind, resembling ballistic gel in consistency, and dried blood vessels in which apparently flowed (which Dr. Wily inferred from the residues and colorations), blue-green liquid.
Dr. Wily had to admit: this was beyond his expertise. There was indeed a supernatural involved in this world, and through his dream virus and netnavis he unintentionally stumbled into an ancient secret. The new knowledge of evil in another dimension, and the implication that a portion of human nature depended on something paranormal freighted his mind heavily. A certain madness took root in his mind, hidden under his continual denials. On the other hand, the inane mind of count Elecitel, after being updated on what had passed, devised a stranger future. He vaguely connected the dots between the piquant words: soul, perfection, eternal life, Dimension Area. They suit his aesthetical taste; he concluded that this was what he had lacked in his entire life—the glimpse into the supernatural truth. Hereon the count funded all expenses pertaining to the research of 'dream virus' and 'god of navis.'
Dr. Wily did not make same mistake twice; he was too smart for that. He dropped all plans to repeat the experiment of category four, and continued to contact the god of navis exclusively through the experiment of category three. It was slow, but safe.
'Ah there, report finished. May count Elecitel be satisfied with this.'
Little did he know that within a week he would be coerced, by the count, to perform another experiment of category four. To achieve this, Dr. Wily discussed at length with Yahoot. A plan was hatched: they would pressure Mr. Higure, one of their debtors, to abduct and send experienced custom navis to WWW server.
Ah, what was that, my dear readers? What about the engine RS-25? It's all very simple, really. Dr. Wily wanted everything related to network burn away. What better way was there to achieve this than to construct a rocket, shoot it into the mesosphere, directly access multiple satellites to make his attack unblockable, and ultimately forcefully distribute and install his dream virus across the whole world?