In the Mega Man games, we, as the players, have full visibility of everything on-screen—even things that would be out of the characters' lines of sight. We can see enemies behind walls or on floors above the heroes, and attack through those barriers without retribution. I've attributed this to extra sensors. X and Zero aren't reliant on sight and hearing alone. They have more; that more lets them "see" things normal beings can't.
That doesn't mean they see everything. Sometimes, they can't see what's right in front of them.
"Hey. Could you help me?"
Two Hunters, Pollus and Castus, stopped in their tracks. A reploid in Hunter support staff colors was standing outside a storage locker. He wore a plaintive expression. "What with?" said Pollus.
The reploid sagged in relief. "I'm Aegis—one of the junior armorers. I was sent by Douglas to retrieve some components from this locker. The trouble is, it's… er… locked."
"So unlock it," said Castus, in a low, slow, careful voice.
"I can't," whined Aegis. "The contents are high value, so it's a limited access locker. You know, the ones that only have a single key-holder? Moe is the only person who had access to this locker. He was called to field duty to support an assistance mission in Shiloh, and never came back."
"And no one thought to check the locker until now?"
"Now's the first time we needed it," said Aegis. "Douglas sent me up here to get something from the locker, but… well, I can't get it open. I can't go back to Douglas empty-handed! He said he'd use my arm for spare parts if I couldn't open the locker!"
The Hunters glanced at each other. "You know Douglas is the biggest hugger in Hunter Base, right?" said Pollus.
"Oh, easy for you to say," Aegis said. "It's not your arm on the line."
The Hunters rolled their eyes, almost in synch. "Fine," said Castus. "We can help, but what do you want us to do?"
"Thank you," said Aegis. "Just… help me get into this locker, could you?"
"What's so hard about that?" asked Castus.
He and Pollus looked at the locker properly for the first time. 'Locker', each of the Hunters decided, was too mild a term to describe the thing. It had the heavy, thick feel of a safe. It was large, almost scraping the ceiling; it was anyone's guess how it had ended up here. The door fit into a backstop which made an air-tight seal. There was no hinge to undo, no gap between door and frame to exploit, no screws to remove to attack the knob.
It was, the Hunters silently agreed, quite a secure place to store valuables.
"I don't have the key to open it," said Aegis. "Moe had his main keys on him when he left, and we don't know where he kept his spares."
Pollus frowned. "Tell me again why Moe took his keys with him on an assistance mission."
"I don't know!"
Castus was banging around the edges of the door, which fit quite snugly into the locker's frame. "Looks like the door's secured top, middle, and bottom," he said. He stepped away, thought for a moment, then returned and began banging again, this time all along the door's top edge. "Huh… there are more bolts up here, they're just not engaged. I wonder why…"
Aegis looked pensive for a few beats, then reached into a satchel resting against the wall. He drew a small instrument from it, which he pressed against the locker door. "I think… there," he said. "The lock has electrical connections leading top and bottom. I bet if we tried to compromise the lock, these other bolts would engage. Then we'd never get it open."
"Sure we would," said Pollus. "Just grab a breaching charge and be done with it."
"Breaching charges are shaped explosives," said Castus crossly. "You wanna spray everything inside the locker with molten metal? Go for it."
"Don't go for it!" squealed Aegis.
"Fine," said Pollus. "Let's blast the lock out."
Castus rolled his eyes. "Did you miss the whole "extra bolts will engage" thing?"
"Fine, I'll get a pulser and short that stuff first."
"You want to use an ee-em-pee weapon? Here? Inside Hunter Base?"
Pollus went sullen. "It'd work. Well, what about you? If you're so smart, what's your idea?"
Castus pursed his lips. "We could cut the bolts with a beam weapon."
"All of them?" objected Pollus. "All seven? With that little clearance? You'll be carving through the safe itself."
"Well, that's a thought," said Castus.
"No!" said Aegis. "We don't know how the contents are arranged. Any cutting in to the safe and you risk slicing or burning or spraying metal on the valuables!"
Castus shot Aegis an annoyed look. "No one knows how the insides are arranged?"
"Moe did," said Aegis ruefully.
"I'm going to be sending Douglas a sternly-worded memo," Castus promised. "Well, what if we popped the top? I don't think there are any… um…"
He and Pollus were looking up towards the top of the locker. It was hard to tell where the locker ended and the ceiling began.
"Through the ceiling?" said Pollus doubtfully. "And through the next level's floor?"
"I was thinking we'd tip it over first."
They looked at it again.
"How?"
Castus grunted in frustration. "Okay, what if we walked it over to the stairwell? That has a higher ceiling, there's room to work there."
"Can we even move it?" asked Pollus.
"Here, grab that side, and I'll get this side…"
Aegis watched in amazement as the two Hunters moved in synch, positioning themselves on either side of the locker, bracing themselves, and pushing.
And pushing.
And… pushing.
"Um…" Aegis began. "…is it supposed to be moving?"
"Yes!" the Hunters barked at him as they sagged away from the locker. One person pushing, one pulling, and they'd managed to move the locker not-at-all.
"What is in this thing?" demanded Pollus.
"We'll… we'll never know if we can't get it open," said Aegis.
"That sounds like a you-problem," Pollus began, but Castus waved him off.
"I'm not crazy about it either, but rust me if I'm giving up here. What if we…"
The hallway wasn't a major thoroughfare, but neither was it wholly out of the way. Over the course of the next half an hour, the increasingly frustrated Aegis, Pollus, and Castus were joined by a handful of other Hunters. Some offered genuine suggestions, or more hands for (unsuccessful) attempts to move the locker. Others lingered for the spectacle alone.
The crowd grew. No progress was made. The locker remained stubbornly closed.
Eventually, X and Zero came by. They stood back, observing for a time, X looking thoughtful, Zero frowning. Then X leaned over and whispered something to Zero. The red Hunter's eyes went wide, then snapped into focus.
"Okay, you know what? I withdraw my objections to the breaching charge," said Castus sourly. "Bring up one of those and let's just blow this away."
"You can't do that," protested Aegis, voice and face distressed. "You'll destroy everything inside, and we lose the locker in the bargain."
"No loss," grumbled Pollus.
"I'm sorry for asking for your help," Aegis said.
"Look, let's just find the manufacturer and bring them in."
"Into Hunter Base? Are they cleared?"
"They will—oh, Zero!"
Every Hunter knew to give Zero the right-of-way. They parted before him, leaving his path to the locker clear. Aegis opened his mouth to talk to Zero, but he never spoke. He could tell the words would never hit their target.
Zero was already at the door. His hands were on it. Gently, gently, moving from place to place, by touch alone—his eyes were closed. He made no sound, and neither did his observers, as if no one dared break his concentration.
His hands moved around the lock—touching for a moment, moving, touching, moving. Then one of those hands balled into a fist. The Hunters braced themselves for violence.
The fist hand went to Zero's side, grabbed a handful of hair, and pressed the tress against and into the lock.
The blinking of the crowd was audible.
The blinking was louder when, five seconds later, there was a click.
Zero's eyes snapped open. One hand went over his back, perched above his saber. His other gripped the door's handle.
He threw it open. It banged against the wall. He leaned forwards, into the opening—
And stopped. Whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't there.
Applause erupted behind him. He whirled about, confusion bright on his face.
"Thank you, Zero!" said Aegis. It was plainly startling to Zero, who stepped away from the armorer, blinking rapidly. "We couldn't have done it without you!"
Zero's head jerked about distractedly before landing on X. The blue Hunter was smiling. Zero set off straight for his fellow squad leader. The Hunters parted for him but kept clapping.
"What?" said X innocently.
"You said there was a Maverick in there," Zero said accusatorily.
"No I didn't," X said breezily. "I said I wondered if there was a Maverick in there." He turned to go. Zero, far from mollified, hurried after, his hair swaying gently behind him.
"But then unlocking that thing was pointless," Zero complained. "I wasted my time."
"Not at all," X replied. "You were a great help to all of those Hunters. They're grateful that you aided them."
Zero's brow wrinkled as he applied his considerable intellect to the problem. It didn't seem to help. "So?" he said after several seconds.
X's mouth dropped open. Then he smiled. "Well, someday you'll understand. We'll keep working at it."
"Now you're just being obtuse," Zero pouted.
"I believe in you," said X, "so I believe that someday you'll get it. While we're at it, we're also adding layers to your reputation, Sudden-Death Man."
Zero scowled. "I like being Sudden-Death Man. It's useful and safe."
The smile broadened. "And we'll keep working on that, too."
"Keep working at what?"
"The reason you're bad at jan-ken-pon."
"You can't be bad at something random!"
"Exactly."
"You're mean."
And you thought robot hair was just decorative.