Chapter 7: Old World Blues
Getting the stealth suit was more uncomfortable than Dee expected, not just because she wasn't good at stealth but also because the suit itself was too tight on her and had a voice that wouldn't shut up. She could only assume it was just speaking to her as she ran the stealth course until she got it right after which she immediately stowed the talkative suit in her bag and put the green scrubs back on. Then she was attacked by more of Dr. Mobius' Robo-Skorupi. This time she was prepared and it only took one or two Thunder Punches to destroy them, unfortunately because they were indoors she wasn't able to dodge back far enough to prevent shrapnel from ricocheting off the wall and shredding her clothes. By the time she cleared the facility, her second set of scrubs were in tatters and she reluctantly put the stealth suit back on.
"Will you love me if I help you hide?" the suit asked in a feminine voice as Dee finished putting it on.
"I don't know how to answer that," Dee felt uncomfortable for more reasons than the tightness of the suit.
After that, Dee decided she needed more supplies than the meager remains of science projects in the target facilities and proceeded to scour each still active building she came across. Her effort bore fruit not just in the form of preserved food and stimpacks but also her second favorite choice of weapons: grenades! Mostly frag and a couple plasma but most importantly, pulse grenades, the bane of robots and which would hopefully not harm her. She was ambushed by three Robo-Skorupi that evening and tested the pulse greandes, taking out all three with a single well-placed blast.
The next day, Dee was out of the Sink and searching again, even braving the labs where the Ninjadrill had been created. All she got from that was proof that the giant insect Pokemon hybrids were anything but sterile, and she smashed their eggs for good measure before using a Blaze Kick to ignite the nests lest there be any larvae leftover. This only confirmed to her just how messed up the experiments here were and it made her shudder to think at how many were dead out in Kalos because of Dr. Borous' genetic experiments.
After she was sure she'd found everything of value, and nearly died half-a-dozen times to the monsters that roamed the crater, Dee headed for the X-2 Transmitter Array and readied herself for whatever challenge lay before her. She was surprised and relieved to find that it was almost comically simple: she just climbed up the stairs inside the array, up onto the satellite dish, carefully climbed up to the array itself and detached the antenna. She didn't even have to break it despite it being a bit taller than she was. She was ambushed by Robo-Skorupi again but this time she kicked them off the catwalks so they exploded far below and out of shrapnel range then ran back to the Sink.
Despite the impatience of the five floating brains, Dee decided to wait till the next day, sleep, eat and shower before she returned to the Think Tank. As she ate she pondered what the purpose of all three pieces of tech were used for. The Antenna seemed like it could focus brainwave patterns and part of the Stealth Suit's abilities was to regulate heartbeat and track its wearers condition to the point it could automatically inject stimpacks if she was badly injured, which had happened when she was caught in a fight with three Porygon and barely survived taking a Hyper Beam to the chest. It seemed odd that this tech to stop Mobius was more biologically focused, maybe if she had learned more about medical science she'd have a better idea. She mulled that over as she pulled the Stealth Suit back on, holstered the sonic emitter and strapped the huge antenna to her back before she headed for the elevator to the Think Tank.
Like before, she saw all five working at their stations and even waved to Dr. 8, who waved a screen back, before she ascended the stairs to talk to Dr. Klein.
"HAVE YOU DONE ALL WE ASKED? IF NOT, WE WILL NOT HESITATE TO ASK AGAIN." Dr Klein didn't even turn to greet Dee.
"I did, got the emitter, the antenna and I'm wearing the stealth suit," Dee wanted to draw the antenna to show it off but the pacification field stopped her, as it was heavy enough to use as a weapon.
"Psst, who do you think is cuter: Dr. Klein or Dr. Borous?" the Stealth Suit whispered in Dee's ear.
Dee ignored the suit as Dr. Klein spun around, "WHAT? YOU DID? YOUR SURVIVAL, LET ALONE SUCCESS, BARELY REGISTERED ON MY PROJECTIONS. NOW, ALL I NEED TO DO IS CHECK MY TRANSMISSION DATABANK, MOBIUS IS ALWAYS FILLING IT UP WITH HIS PSYCHOTIC CALLS…" He processed for a moment, "OH YES, THERE'S THE SCHEMATICS, JUST LIKE YOU SAID. HOW TRUTHFUL."
Dee did her best to fold her arms, "So do you have everything you need to stop Mobius now?"
"YES HMMM. AH YES. YESSSS… YES… AH HMM." Dr. Klein bobbed up and down a couple times.
Dee looked down at the emitter in its holster, "I think I have some idea what they do, antenna focuses brain waves and the stealth suit is a cardiac regulator… so maybe the sonic emitter," something clicked in Dee's mind, "It could serve as a spinal vibrator."
"YES, YES THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT I THOUGHT," Klein blustered, "SO NOW WE CAN USE THEM TO UMMM…" he trailed off again.
"I've had a lot of time to think about these things as I've been wandering and examining other technology in the crater," after the last couple days spend in an environment saturated with technology that put stuff from Vault 18 to shame, the scientific part of Dee mind had reactivated seemingly out of osmosis.
"UNPOSSIBLE! LOBOTOMITES AREN'T SCIENTISTS I… JUST NEED TIME TO ANALYZE THE NON-BIOLOGICAL ASPECT OF THIS ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY…" Dr. Klein turned back to his computer then back to Dee.
"I think the sonic emitter might work as a sort of electronic lock-pick, but only for things here in Big Mountain." Dee wanted to draw the emitter to give it a better look, "I found some notes that said it only works to shut off the forcefields here that use a specific frequency. So if it's tuned to similar frequencies the antenna and stealth suit are using it might let me bypass the Forbidden Zone entrances."
"YES, I WAS GETTING TO THAT!" Dr. Klein cut her off, "THERE, I FOUND IT BEHIND THE PROGRAMMING EQUIVALENT OF COFFEE STAINS. THE OVERRIDE SEQUENCE TO OPEN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE DOOR IS IN THE SCHEMATICS."
"So I can go there and stop Mobius, then get out of this place?" Dee asked, hopefully.
"YES, YES! JUST GO THERE AND PUT AN END TO MOBIUS BEFORE HE PUTS AN END TO US! ONCE YOU RETRIEVE YOUR BRAIN FROM HIM WE CAN BE FREE OF HIS ATTACKS AND RANTING!" Dr. Klein seemed almost giddy, "I'LL JUST UPLOAD THE CODES TO YOUR ROTOM-BOY AND YOU CAN BREAK IN ANY TIME."
"Good," Dee turned, "I'll be back with my brain before you know it." She hurried towards the elevator that led to the crater then checked the location of the Forbidden Zone on her Rotom-boy before she set off.
Either the inhabitants of the crater were scared of Dee now, or she had cleared out enough to seriously thin their numbers, either way she didn't run into anything dangerous on the way to the Forbidden Zone. She stopped a short distance from the entrance and saw it was surrounded by huge faceted red stones. If she concentrated she could feel strange hostile energy emanating from the stones; even checking around the other side she found the entrance surrounded by the same huge stones. In the end all Dee could do was walk past them. The energy from the red stones was drawn into her and it felt uncomfortable, but didn't seem to affect her adversely. She didn't have any way to analyse them so she just used the code from her Rotom-boy to open the dome entrance and stepped inside.
The dome was dark and Dee could just barely make out a railing in front of her when Dr. Mobius' voice boomed from right ahead. "Attention: Visitors. Combat experiment in progress. Please put on your goggles and take your Rad-X now. The X-42 Giant Robo-Drapion… is alive!" Ceiling lights flicked on and Dee beheld a giant Robo-Drapion, easily the size of a small house inside the massive hanger that Dee had stepped into. Dee made a mad dash for a small observation building to her right and ducked below a window as Dr. Mobius' voice continued to boom out from the robot. "Awaken, my pet, initiate your search-and-destroy protocol in the name of all that is Mobius!"
"Is it time to fight?" The stealth suit spoke to Dee.
"Shh!" Dee kept her voice to a whisper, "I can't take that thing head on, even with all these pulse grenades." She heard the robot stomping around, but not coming closer, seemed the Stealth Suit was living up to its name at least which gave Dee time to search for an alternate plan of action.
There was a computer on a nearby desk so Dee crawled over to it as best she could and accessed it, thankfully it wasn't password protected and she found three accessible files. One described the information on the Robo-Drapion and how it wasn't effectively shielded against pulse and EMP weapons, like the sonic emitter, and how its tail laser would also irradiate anything it struck. The second was a short paragraph about how ineffective the Protectron test targets were against all the Robo-Drapions newest upgrades. The last was the option to activate said Protectrons. Dee chose to do so and peeked out at the hangar in time to see four pods on the right-side wall that opened to reveal the Protectrons. Thankfully the Robo-Drapion turned to engage them, frying one with a single blast from its blue tail laser.
"Oh… it looks like the target drones got activated and – oh how cute, they're engaging the X-42 Giant Robo-Drapion. Let's see the shrapnel fly!"
Mobius was right, they wouldn't last long, so Dee frantically scanned the hangar to get the lay of the land. The edges of the hangar had numerous metal observation rooms connected by catwalks, the nearest on being on her right up a short flight of catwalk stairs. She bolted from cover and almost ran smack-dab into a force field. Even as the Robo-Drapion was finishing off the third of the Protectrons he pulled out the sonic emitter and shot the force field, which shut off and let her dive in.
Thankfully there was another unlocked computer terminal in there and Dee frantically read through the documents, hoping to find something. Perfect! It described how the Robo-Drapion had a backup generator installed to power its tail laser but also that it was too powerful and would result in the laser overloading if activated because the robot's systems couldn't handle the slapdash addition. Dee activated the generator right as the last Protectron was destroyed.
A large explosion came from the Robo-Drapion and its tail shuddered then collapsed behind it to drag on the ground. Dee didn't have time to sigh in relief as it finally spotted her inside the small hut.
"Sneaking done. Fighting now." The Stealth Suit quipped as Dee dashed for the room's exit just in time to avoid the room being crushed by the Robo-Drapion's claws.
"I still can't fight that thing!" Dee dove for cover as the robot searched for her frantically. Dee held her breath until it seemed to lose track of her then carefully made her way to another stairway up to another metal hut. She made it up unnoticed, then froze as she spotted a turret less than a meter from her. It didn't move; it seemed to be offline or at least not primed to fire. Dee snuck into the next hut when the Robo-Drapion's back was turned and was relieved to see another terminal.
This was one locked and Dee had to carefully hack the password from the system. She froze each time she heard the Robo-Drapion turn then resumed when she was certain it wasn't going to attack her. Finally, she broke through and found out it was the turret control terminal and hastily set the turrets to target the Robo-Drapion. Four turrets around the hangar came to life and opened fire with gatling lasers on the robot which diverted its attention and let Dee make a dash towards the next room even as the Robo-Drapion reached up with one of its claws to rip the turret nearest the control station off the catwalk and take a good chunk of the support with it.
There was another terminal, visible through the glass and the stairs were right there below her. Hearing another turret get smashed, Dee jumped down and hit the ground barely feeling it. She hadn't really tested her ability to take long falls before but didn't have time to process that relief as she charged up the stairs and into the room, only to find the terminal was heavily encrypted! She didn't have time to search for something else and the encryption had to mean it was important so she frantically put her skills to work to decipher the password.
A third turret was destroyed as Dee felt a migraine building from the pressure, despite the prosthetic brain in her head. So many choices and she couldn't risk a lockout as she pieced together the password. The last turret was destroyed and Dee knew she was a visible target with the glow of the computer screen illuminating her. She heard the Robo-Drapion stomp towards her, massive clamp-like pincers raised to rip the room off the wall!
Finally she broke through and entered the password! Barely having time to consider the options she saw the line 'initiate emergency shutdown' and selected it, 'are you sure, it will…' she didn't read the rest and chose yes! There was a sudden pop and a surge of energy as the Robo-Drapion shuddered and collapsed to the hangar floor.
Dee let out a massive sigh of relief and collapsed to the floor as the hangar went silent, only to almost jump back up as a huge explosion ripped the Robo-Drapion apart, scattering its body all over the hangar. Dee peeked out just to make sure it was destroyed, then wiped her brow and made her way over to a door at the back of the hangar atop a catwalk. Time to face Mobius.
Beyond the door, Dee found herself in a laboratory almost identical to the Think Tank, except there was only one Brain-in-a-jar there and no pacification field. With the broken eye-screen it could only be Dr. Mobius. Dee readied herself for a fight and approached Mobius, only to hear him singing a strange song.
"The electron's connected to the… neutron. The neutron's connected to the… meson. The meson's connected to the… proton."
Dee stopped a few paces from him, taken aback by his seemingly obliviousness to her presence. "Dr. Mobius?"
"Mmm? Y… oh… hello there. Eh…" he squinted his one good eye screen at Dee, "you… are there, aren't you? Forgive my confusion, so hard to tell these days." He paused, "You seem familiar, somehow. I'm guessing… eh… you're here for your brain, perhaps? It's just up there." He pointed to a stationary brain tank installed at the top of the central catwalk, where Dr. Klein would hover in the Think Tank, "Such a nice brain, young, very bright."
"Thank you?" Dee was completely disarmed by the fact that, instead of the psychotic rambling madman she'd heard blaring through the Robo-Skorupi, he sounded more like a senile old man in a retirement village.
"It's a little hard to see you, can you step to my left… er, your right FOV cone?" Mobius was alarmingly polite.
"Ok," Dee stepped to the side so she was right in front of the working eye-screen. "My name is Dee," She introduced herself.
"Ah, that's it, you're coming into focus nicely, Dee. Depth perception's a problem with this broken monitor of mine, went black a while ago. That's old age for you!" Dr. Mobius chuckled, as much as a brain in a floating robot could. "Should look into getting the right eye-nerves re-attached, just that it would always see the wrong things. The flying Squirtle were the worst. Not even sure if you're real, never spoken to a talking Lucario before, or is this all in my head like that old cartoon movie? I'm surprised you got past the big red stones outside, they seem to repel all humans and Pokemon. Maybe you being half of each is part of that."
"I'm real, and I'm a Poke-person, humans aren't the dominant species anymore, since the war we've mutated into Pokemon-human crosses and we've inherited the Earth," Dee eyed Mobius warily. "What were those stones?"
"Really?" Dr. Mobius sounded fascinated, "I did speak to another like you, or was it two? Good to know it wasn't just a hallucination then either." He seemed to be a step behind the conversation, "And those stones were from… err… Gallar I think. Or was it Alioli? You know, I can't remember."
"You're not at all what I was expecting," Dee was still ready for a fight, if it came to that
"Really." Dr. Mobius sounded amused, "That implies pre-conceived notions – theories and hypothesis about this meeting? Please extrapolate. What was I… supposed to be like?"
"A psychopathic mad-man who set a bunch of killer robots out to kill me and the Think Tank," Dee was straight to the point.
"Ah yes, you mean the threat I sent to the Think Tank, I must have been tripping hard on Psycho when I sent that, need to in order to work up the rage I need to threaten them." Mobius sounded amused. Then he noticed Dee fidgeting in place, "Is something wrong, physically I mean?"
"This suit is just tight, but that's not important right now," Dee knew about Psycho, a pre-war drug that could drive its users into killing rages, probably used during the Final War, "Right. Well, I need my brain back. Why did you even steal it?"
"Oh a variety of raisins…" Mobius rotated his dead eye screen like one would a hand, "you're something of a homily. Er, anomaly? You're really quiet special, and not in the cranially-challenged way."
Dee could tell he wasn't faking what seemed to be senility as he mispronounced words, "How am I special?"
"You see, you are the most successful brain extraction experiment ever performed here at Big MT." Mobius explained, "A victim of your own success, as it were. If you were to go back with what your brain knows about the procedure and the technology you recovered, well…"
"Yes?" Dee leaned in to hear what he was going to say.
"…your brain could be popped back in and you could walk right out of here. Can't have brains moving around of their own volition." Dr. Mobius finished.
"That's exactly what I want, but how does the technology I found help? I figured out they have biological applications," Dee pulled out the sonic emitter and held it up to examine it.
"A brainwave focuser, cardiac regulator and spinal vibrator," Mobius said, "They are the missing key that allows for the reattachment of your biological components."
Dee nodded then holstered the emitter, "I see, but why was my procedure successful?" Dee pointed to herself.
"Well… you see… there was a strange, err, wrinkle in your brain that had to be worked around and healed when subject to the extraction that left you cognizant," Dr. Mobius scrunched his screens together for a moment, "a tiny hole left by something… intruding on your gray matter.
Dee just stared, her mind flashing back to where all her most recent troubles began.
"But the truth is, the game was rigged from the start."
*BANG!*
Dee touched the middle of her forehead, "The bullet in my brain! That's what made it work?"
"Yes! That's the raisin for it! A little spec of metal and a tiny hole that gave the auto-doc just the right wiggle room to fix the procedure and work, usually new arrivals just start wandering around and acting like ferals after my extraction procedure. Can't let the Think Tank know there's an outside world ripe for the pickling."
Dee had started to walk away when Mobius' words made her freeze halfway up the stairs. "Wait… you did those brain extractions? You're the reason there's Lobotomites running around the crater!?"
Dr. Mobius heard the distress and anger in her voice so he turned to face her, "Yes, it's sad but after a… disagreement we had I knew I couldn't let them roam free. Even if I set the Auto-doc to perform those surgeries it was their original design. You've seen what they're capable of so I had to keep them locked here at Big MT so they won't wander out and subject the rest of the world to their experiments. It was the hardest thing to do, mucking with their programming and even renaming them to reinforce the recursion loop. And, of course, threatening them every so often to scare them back to square one. They've just forgotten many things, sitting in their brain bowls: friendship, the thrill of discovery, love, masturbation, the usual."
"Recursion loop?" Dee ignored the last thing Mobius had said and then something clicked in her head, "You mean you lobotomized them to keep them here? Wait… loop names: Klein, O, manDala, 8's an infinity symbol and ouroBorous, even your name Mobius, they're all loops!"
"Yes, exactly." Mobius seemed to beam at his cleverness, "They think in loops so get stuck into cycles of just messing with their own research, with the occasional threat to scare them from any new ideas that might crop up. They almost broke out of it when the other visitors that came escaped brain extractions. One of them even snapped them out of things before I sent an attack against them."
Dee turned fully to face Mobius, "Did you meet any of those visitors?"
"Just saw them on the monitors: one was human and the other two were Poke-people like you, I think, thought I was hallucinating them until you walked in. One of them got mad enough to ask why they didn't remember their own histories, nearly broke the loop before they escaped. But they did and it took a month before I got the loop started again and they forgot the visit, mostly," Mobius shook his tank side-to-side like a head, "I can't stop you and your brain from leaving, but please try to be kinder to the Think Tank. We were friends once, and I just want to keep them and the world safe from each other. I know you have to go back but you'll bring them the secrets of brain re-integration."
Dee didn't answer, but turned and walked up to the tank where her brain was kept.