Author's Notes
An expansion to the ending of Chapter 03 has been added.
Chapter 01-03 have been editied and reposted
The trip back to Robotropolis was as uneventful as the journey out had been. No resistance was met, other than a foolish band of wannabe rebels. These couldn't truly be considered rebels because their leader was more of a con artist then a true freedom fighter. The group had picked this area for their territory because of the low traffic that passed by. This way, they could continue living the high life of heroes without risking any of the dangers involved. That carefree lifestyle changed when this group had the misfortune of coming across Unit 935. Now, rather than rebels, they were nothing more than additional robians that served under Unit 935's command.
Upon arriving at the entrance to Robotropolis, Unit 935 gave his clearance number to enter. This done, the group made its way to the heart of the city, where only two organic beings resided anymore. One of these beings was Robotnik, of course, and the other was his nephew, Snively. However, Robotnik did not want even his nephew to be aware of this discovery just yet, so he had sent him off to another newly-discovered area: A strange floating island that must have a very strong source of power that was capable of keeping it afloat in mid air.
This hovering island would serve as an interesting distraction to keep, not only the attention of those meddlesome Knothole Freedom Fighters far away from his latest discovery, but also Snively's as well. He knew his nephew far too well, as the short man was loyal, but he also had a track record of betraying people that was a mile long. One of the only reasons Robotnik even enlisted his help was because of his expertise in technology, and the fact that, if he did not recruit his nephew and prove, without a doubt, that he was going to rule the planet, Snively would quite possibly stab him in the back, or maybe even reveal his plans to the mobians before the strategies could come into full effect. In order to keep him under control, the dictator constantly belittled the smaller man, making him think that the only way to survive was to be his lackey for life.
Ordering the others in his group to take the former wannabe rebels off to where all new robians went to receive their assignments, Unit 935 continued onward. The Kangaroo Robians followed close behind, still housing the parts for the roboticized Cream, Cheese, the other Chao, and Vanilla as they entered into a special lab. This secret room was where Robotnik did all of his testing in private, far away from the prying eyes of his nephew and safely out of sight of those meddling Freedom Fighters. Robotnik ordered the Kangaroo Robians to open their pouches. When they obeyed his commands, he immediately began placing all the parts for Mecha Cream and Mecha Cheese, as well as the other robian Chao, on a nearby table.
He brushing past the roboticized mother, leaving her to lay in pieces within the Kanagroo robian that still contained her. Mecha Vanilla was no different than the thousands of other slaves that he had gotten before, thus reassembling her could wait, as she probably only had minimal information regarding what he was truly looking for at the moment, anyway.
Starting with her feet, the tyrannical dictator began reassembling the child robian piece by piece until, once again, Mecha Cream stood before him, completely intact.
He then lifted up her left ear, pressing both a button inside there and one on her belly button simultaneously, holding them down for five seconds. A panel on her forehead, which had used to be a medium tan stripe, popped up to reveal a number of buttons and knobs. When robians were completely shut down, as he had done with the Rabbits, he had to manually reactivate them from the control panel located somewhere on their bodies. This was only natural, as it was exactly what you might do when you have turned off a computer, or some other device, completely. The only way to restart something is through the power button located somewhere on the machine. Sure, a remote could work, but why risk having such a dangerous thing, for the robians, falling into the wrong hands? This could easily lead to the loss of his entire workforce, as well as a good portion of his military grunts. Having such a remote control for activating robians could be especially disastrous, since he possessed a few slaves that were good for something, beyond basic factory work and other things of that nature.
Shaking those thoughts from his head, he focused on the panel that had appeared on Unit 3185113's head, where the control panels of most rabbit robians were located. Briefly checking over everything, he noticed quite a few things that he would have liked to change but, because he had not altered the basic blueprint of the roboticizer, he was forced to leave them alone. Thus, all he could do was press the power button and wait for the robotic six-year-old to start up again.
Her dull red eyes brightened up to normal as the CPU began powering up. Her irises reappeared as the more advanced programs within her computerized brain began to restart.
'Activation of Unit 3185113... complete. Mandatory quick system check….complete. All programming is running to the standard of Master Robotnik. Status of Personal Accessory Unit…deactivated. Beginning remote activation.' These were all of the 'thoughts' running through young robian as she can back online.
Robotnik was rather shocked when Mecha Cheese seemed to start up on his own, flying over to his mistress as she looked towards her own master.
"Activation of Unit 3185113...complete. Awaiting your orders, Lord Robotnik." Robo Cream said, standing at attention before him.
"Why has Unit 3855195 activated as well?" he asked.
The robian rabbit's head cocked slightly to the left, processing this request before stating that Mecha Cheese was her personal accessory unit. This basically meant that he was practically an external part of her because of their close friendship prior to getting roboticized. Thus, when she was activated, he restarted as well.
With that revealed, she followed her master's next order to sit down on a table, giving the appearance of any ordinary child that was getting a check up in a doctor's office, since, while she sat on the table, her legs could not reach the floor and she just stared out at nothing. What was about to happen was anything but this, as Cream was a dark blue robian and Robotnik was just a man with a doctorate degree.
Pulling out a cord, he plugged it into the outlet located in her right ear, connecting the robotic rabbit to his computer. At that instant, her eyes switched once again, as lines of information in the form of zeros and ones seemed to replace her pupils and irises, the strange symbols filling her black eye regions.
As this was done, a folder popped up on the screen of the computer that she had been connected to. This file folder was titled 'Unit 3185113's Memory Banks', and within it were many folders with various titles and dates, all organized in neat little row of ten, and there seemed to be well over a hundred thousand separate files in total.
Robotnik was amazed to see that someone so young had so many memories contained within such a tiny little head. On scrolling through them casually, he saw that only about five thousand or so of these files were even related to her memories at all. The majority of the files were just her bodily functions categorized in great detail and visible for him to see. Those regarding the control of Mecha Cheese numbered well into the thousands. Finally, near the bottom were files that were different from all the others as, rather than being in the form of folder icons, these icons were of his own face, numbering anywhere from three to five thousand in total.
Apparently, all of these files were the programs that keep Mecha Cream under his control. Robotnik never would have thought that it took this many files to establish his commands but, then again, the mind was a very complex organ with a lot of mystery still connected to its inner workings. What was laid bare before him seemed to be both the tangible and intangible workings of the brain, albeit a roboticized one.
He had little time to actually look though all of these folders, a task that could take years just to complete, as what he saw in the first folder was only the tip of the iceberg. Searching deeper into the main folders, he found thousands of other sub-folders, and beyond those were a thousand more, and this continued as he looked further. He squeezed his temple in frustration, knowing that it would be a great help if he could look though all of these memories and find a way to create more useful combat robians, or better workers, not through roboticizing them and hoping for the best, but by creating them through altering their memory banks.
This would only remain a sweet dream since, if he was having this much trouble with a six-year-old robian's memory banks having well over a million folders stored in the entirety of her CPU, then he could only imagine that the knowledge levels got larger and larger as robians got older. This could even lead to a possible drain on their max performance, as well. While senior citizens, and previously disabled robians, could work just the same as their 'younger' and 'fully able' counterparts, it was clear to him that they were somewhat slower and needed their parts checked more often. A mobian whose legs had been paralyzed before getting roboticized might be able to walk around like it was no big deal. However, such robians sometimes just stopped in strange places and needed a jolt to continue onwards, always claiming that there was a servo malfunction within their limbs, or faulty feed from their CPU.
Senior citizen robians just did not seem to have battery lives that compared to the other robian slaves. Though they were virtually useless to him, robian children did seem to have the longest battery lives, being able to go almost an entire year, in some cases, before needing to be recharged. Teenagers would place second, as that whole 'rebellion phase' some of them went through had converted into them being some of the most productive workers. Apparently, to a robian, being a 'rebel' meant working twice as hard, and on half as much, as everyone else. Adult robians just seem to be the standard workers, with senior citizens being simply average.
"Unit 3185113, sort all files in accordance with this order: all folders containing any information on Chao and Unit 3855195, then all folders regarding any functions and operations, from the most basic to the most advanced, and finally, just useless junk data." Robotnik ordered.
"Affirmative. Order received. The will of Lord Robotnik will be carried out immediately." Mecha Cream's disembodied voice said, though her mouth did not move, the words seeming to come more from the computer than the roboticized child.
Mecha Cream began sorting her memory banks to fit the design of her master, rather than allowing the information to retain its natural order. In the meantime, Robotnik was slowly piecing her former mother back together, though, out the corner of his eye, he noticed that it seemed like Mecha Cheese was in data mode as well. The dictator simply shrugged this off as simply being part of who Mecha Cream was, as she had claimed that Unit 3855195 was an external part of her being, and there were likely tons of folders that it had retained as well.
It turned out that Robotinik had gravely underestimated just how long it would take a six-year-old robian to organize everything from such a short life as a mobian into three separate categories. Six hours passed, and she still was not done. In fact, he had hooked Mecha Vanilla up to another computer, having her perform the same memory sort, though with one extra category. Surely, if it took this long for one child robian to organize all available data, then it would certainly be counterproductive to even attempt doing something like this with even a fraction of his robian workforce.
Finally, after a full week of waiting for her to finish, everything had been sorted. It came as quite a shock to learn that it had actually taken Mecha Cream longer to organize her memory banks than the older rabbit robian, despite her having started later. This was not just because of the fact that the robian child had more data to sort though regarding Chao, information that she had, consciously and unconsciously, been aware of while she had been a mobian. There was also the fact that, compared to her roboiticized mother, Robo Cream's CPU was not able to run at the same speed. Similar to how computers can get faster over time as new things are developed and created to make them run even faster than the previous generation, it seemed that robian CPUs were similar in the fact that, the younger the robian, the less advanced their CPU was. If anything, children as robians were comparable to computer models from the past, the exact model being determined by their age prior to being roboticized, while their adult counterparts were the present day models. It was a rather strange twist for Robotnik to notice that older mobians were amongst those with the fastest CPU, almost as if the reason they ran out of power so often, and were only average workers, was because their CPUs were so advanced that the power drain was enormous on their bodies.
As for why child robians had CPUs that were less advanced than those of their elders, well, that could go back to the original purpose of the roboticizer, which was not to make robotic slaves, but simply to save lives. Thus, the most advanced CPUs belonged to the oldest of those who had been roboticized, just as normal adults and senior citizens are considered the ones with the most life experience and knowledge. When they were roboticized, their CPUs were made to reflect this, as the mobians were simply supposed to become robotic versions of themselves. The whole loss of free will was merely an unfortunate accident that Robotnik had decided to take advantage of in order to further his own selfish desires.
I would like to thank
nightmaster000 and blaze firelight and cream for reviewing this story
blaze firelight and cream for reviewing Chapter 04 as well editing Chapter 01, 02, and 04
Lord Zero X this story to their Story Alert List