Antarctica.
Unbearable
at the best of times, deadly at the worst, Antarctica
is not a place most people would like to visit -
unless, of course, your name is Sato Kiko, you are
getting paid a fortune, and your new boss lives in a
giant robot head at the South Pole.
That's
right. A giant robot head. Half-buried in ice. At the
bottom of the world.
Kiko
was not a person to be easily awestruck, but even she
found the massive metal visage that greeted her as
her motorised sled passed over the peak of one last
snowdrift to be beyond anything she could
have imagined; and that was saying a lot, considering
she had spent the previous four years of her life
preparing for that very moment.
"Wow..."
she could not help but whisper as she pulled her sled
to a stop and disembarked. She collected her single -
large! - bag and began to approach the site, which
had been surrounded by cyclone fencing with guards
posted at regular intervals. One of the guards
stopped her as she made her way through a narrow
gate, and asked to see some identification.
Kiko
reached into her bag and retrieved a small card
detailing her name, age and the purpose of her visit,
which she handed to the man. The guard lifted a
walkie-talkie, spoke into it briefly, then ushered
her forward. Kiko continued the long, featureless
trek from the security checkpoint to her new home,
entirely unable to take her eyes off of what lay
ahead, and wondering all the while about what the
future had in store.
Kiko
began to tremble slightly as she realised the main
entrance to the building was, in fact, the robot's
'mouth'. Two more guards saluted her at what passed
for its lips, and she paused, temporarily unsure
whether she should enter. The whole scenario just
seemed bizarre to her. It was a giant robot head,
and somehow, her own mind just could not get
past that fact.
The
'lips' parted and Kiko saw a well-lit entranceway,
which only caught her attention for the briefest of
moments because, standing right in front of her, was
her long-time hero and idol:
"Dr.
Nagura!" Kiko almost shouted the man's
name as she realised who was waiting to meet her. As
far as Kiko was concerned, Nagura Scott was an
absolute legend, the greatest biorobotics expert on
the planet, someone she had looked up to from the
moment she was able to even guess at the importance
of his work.
She knew
that he would be there - he was, after all, the
base's commander - but she had no idea that he would
take the time to meet and greet her. Her knees began
to tremble, she dropped her bag, and a moment later
found herself kneeling in the soft snow, sobbing
loudly.
"Miss
Sato?" Dr. Nagura took a few steps forward and
offered a hand to help Kiko up. He waited patiently
as she wiped the cold tears from her eyes and
accepted the gesture, but he could not help but
recoil when Kiko finally looked up at him. Her eyes
were wide with utter delight, the broadest grin
Nagura could even imagine spread across her face. For
a moment, he thought she may have gone insane, but
Kiko soon composed herself and bowed her head
slightly, showing proper respect to her new employer.
"Um...
you might want to stand up," Nagura said.
"It must be cold... in the snow..."
Kiko
blushed. She lifted her bag with one arm, and took
Nagura's hand with the other. As stunning as she
found the giant robot head to be, Kiko was far more
amazed by Dr. Nagura. He had actually spoken to her!
He had touched her! And, Kiko realised, he
was someone she could certainly stand to look at -
he was tall, slender, with long black hair and brown
eyes, and he looked closer to thirty than his actual
age of fifty-seven.
Yes.
Kiko had a crush.
"Did
you... enjoy your journey?" Nagura asked as he
showed Kiko through the almost featureless corridor
leading into the centre of the complex. "I am
sorry... we could not provide a guide. Due to our
remoteness..."
"It
was fine," Kiko told him. "Although I did
knock on the side of another robot head a few
kilometers back..."
Nagura
smiled, a wide, straight-toothed, dazzlingly white
smile that made Kiko's knees tremble once again.
"You
are... funny," he said. "You will... fit in
well here."
They
continued walking down one long corridor until Kiko
could see another set of thick, heavy metal doors
ahead of them. An armed guard stood at attention on
each side of the entryway, but they were not what
drew Kiko's attention - a boy in a body-hugging red
and black jumpsuit, a boy Kiko guessed to be about
her own age, maybe a little younger, danced
between the other two men.
"Come
on!" he said. "This is so boring!
I can't believe you do this all day!"
Dr.
Nagura and Kiko stopped a few feet away from the
three men, and the two guards saluted. The boy, with
his back to them, continued his energetic bouncing -
until he backed into Kiko, tripped, and hit the
ground hard.
"Ow!"
he cried. He returned to his feet quickly and rubbed
his left hip and thigh. "Hi!"
"Miss
Sato," Dr. Nagura said. "Allow me to
introduce my... son, Ian."
"Call
me Ikku!" the boy offered Kiko his hand, and she
enthusiastically shook it, but she wasn't sure about
Dr. Nagura's claim that Ikku was his son. Nagura,
like Kiko, was clearly of Japanese ethnicity - Ikku,
on the other hand, with wide blue eyes, longlight
brown (almost blonde) hair, and an unusual accent
made Kiko think he was more likely English or
American, but she knew it would be rude to bring that
up.
"What
are you... doing here... Ian?" Dr. Nagura asked.
"In a... suit... no less?"
Ikku
turned to face his father. "Dr. Smith said we
can't do anything else without you, so I thought I'd
- "
"You
thought... wrong!" Dr. Nagura suddenly seemed
angry, which stunned Kiko. Her first instinct was to
defend Ikku and urge Dr. Nagura to calm down, but he
returned to his usual, calm demeanour before she even
had the chance to open her mouth. "The suit
never leaves... the chamber. You should... know that."
Ikku
bowed his head slightly. "I'm sorry, Dr.
Nagura."
He
calls his father 'Dr. Nagura'? Kiko thought. That's
just weird.
"Come
along," Dr. Nagura told Ikku. "Miss Sato is
the... newest member... of the project. Follow us...
to the chamber... and we will show her... what we do
here."
Ikku
nodded and, as the guards opened the massive doors,
dropped in line behind Kiko and his father... which
caused him to again collide with Kiko as she, once
again awestruck, stopped moving to stare at what she
found beyond the doors.
The
complex's nerve centre was abuzz with activity.
Technicians analysed data at workstations in a
massive pit that Kiko knew must extend into the
frozen earth far below the base of the massive head.
Dozens of guards moved in and out of a beehive-like
maze of corridors leading to and from the pit,
carrying papers and beakers of coloured fluid and
other items Kiko guessed they were transporting for
the various scientists who worked there.
"You
seem... overwhelmed," Dr. Nagura grinned at her.
"Not what you... expected?"
Kiko
shook her head.
"You
have impressive... credentials... Miss Sato,"
Dr. Nagura told her. "But I assure you...
nothing you have learned can truly... prepare you...
for the work you will undertake here."
They
continued to walk along the edge of the pit and out
through a downward-sloping hallway. Like the first
corridor Kiko travelled along, the walls, floors and
ceiling were featureless except for small fluorescent
lights placed at regular intervals. The hallway
twisted several times and Kiko felt that she could
almost sense the earth just beyond its
walls, weighing more and more heavily on the metal
framework as they moved deeper and deeper.
Finally,
they arrived at a transparent plastic panel which
blocked the entire corridor; beyond it, Kiko could
see four more guards, each with a long rifle slung
over their right shoulder.
Dr.
Nagura really likes his security! she
thought.
One of
the guards nodded as he saw Dr. Nagura approach and
slid a small plastic card in front of a red panel on
the wall. The plastic barrier quickly slide into the
ceiling and Dr. Nagura led Ikku and Kiko through. The
guard again gestured with his card, and the panel
slid back into place.
The
guards stepped away, and Kiko followed Dr. Nagura
into one last chamber, where several white-coated
technicians watched peered through a plastic window
into a large rectangular pit.
Dr.
Nagura motioned for Kiko to stand beside him and see
what the other technicians were watching. There was
another boy, once again around her own age, wearing
an identical suit to the one worn by Ikku - except
where Ikku's was red, the other boy's was blue.
The
'blue boy' could have passed far more easily for a
son of Dr. Nagura than Ikku ever could. He had short,
spikey black hair, brown, narrow eyes and a smile
that was very similar to that of the elder Nagura -
in fact, Kiko thought the two men's features were
close to identical.
The boy
in the blue suit flawlessly cartwheeled and
somersaulted his way across the floor, pausing
periodically - at the instruction of the technicians
- as they examined data pouring onto the screens of
two monitors located in the centre of what Kiko heard
one technicial call a 'viewing bay'.
"Miss
Sato," Dr. Nagura addressed her without facing
her, his eyes fixed on the graceful, atheletic boy
below. "That is... Sei. He joined us one year
ago, and already has mastered phase one of the
project."
The
project, Kiko thought. That's not the first
time he has mentioned it.
Kiko
realised that she had no idea what she was doing.
After years of studying in Japan, doing her best to
follow the general, theoretical work of Dr. Nagura,
she had received an entirely unexpected email urging
her to come work at Nagura's top-secret Antarctic
base. The email - the only contact she had
with the base - had explained that Dr. Nagura knew
her work and considered her a valuable potential
asset, but never specified precisely what she would
be doing.
What
she was seeing seemed totally beyond her field of
expertise, and she could not help feeling that Dr.
Nagura had make a mistake.
"Sei,"
Dr. Nagura spoke into a small microphone, and the boy
immediately looked up at the viewing bay.
"Proceed to... phase two."
"Dr.
Nagura..." Kiko began.
"Be...
patient," Dr. Nagura told her. "You will...
see."
The
rectangular pit darkened, and Sei slowly made his way
to its very centre. He shot his arms directly out to
his sides and closed his eyes. He rapidly brought his
arms back to his body then stretched them directly
above his head, while shouting: "Let's go,
Robo!"
Incandescent
blue energy crackled around Sei's body and Kiko saw,
for the briefest of moments, thick metal armour
forming across the arms and chest of his blue
bodysuit - but the energy soon faded, and the armour
vanished with it.
Kiko
jumped up and down excitedly. "What was
that?!"
"That
is... why you are... here," Nagura told her.
"That is... the project. Our attempt to
combine... human biology with... robotics
technology... to create the ultimate... soldier...
the ultimate... scientist..."
Kiko
understood. Her specialty, while studying Dr.
Nagura's broad areas of research, was the application
of robots on human physiology. She was nothing close
to an expert in the field, but at least she
understood what Nagura wanted her to focus on.
"Miss
Sato..." Nagura began. "Welcome to...
Blizzard Base Zero. Welcome to... Project:
Roboman."
Somewhere
in the Pacific Ocean
"Get
in there!"
The
young man in black roughly pushed the woman in pink
and white into the force-field surrounded cell, took
a step back, and saluted the similarly black-garbed
guards who stepped into place in front of it. He
walked away as the woman screeched and hollered after
him, down a long corridor that led to a small,
dimly-lit office.
Sitting
at a desk opposite the office door was a short, lanky
woman with her long, brown hair tied into a ponytail,
wearing the same black clothing as the young man
standing before her. She looked up from a laptop
computer over which she had been working diligently
and closely scrutinised his uniform, making sure it -
like everything else under her care - was perfect.
Black
boots, tightly-lace? Check. Black shirt and trousers,
pressed and crease-free? Of course. Black utility
belt, gun holster firmly secured? Always.
Dr.
Rose Brachis, the head security officer on the
floating island officially named 'Alpha 7', but known
colloquially as 'Science Island', knew that she could
always count on her deputy to be the epitome of
everything her Security Corps was intended to
represent.
"Senshi,
you may stand down."
The
young man allowed his body to relax, but did not step
further into the room. He waited patiently as Dr.
Brachis returned to studying her laptop screen before
addressing him again.
"Is
the prisoner secured?"
"Yes."
Brachis
turned her attention back to the laptop while she
entered a string of commands into her security
database.
| PRISONER
DATABASE |
ENTRY #149 |
(Click for
higher-resolution image.) |
Name: Unknown
Alias: Sorceress Miko
Status: At Large
| IncarceratedDetails:
Displays ability to use
as-yet-unidentified energy she refers to as
'magick'. Can conjure minor illusory minions
called 'pixies'. Claims to represent a holy
enclave determined to destroy all modern
technology.
In 2008,
attempted to summon 'Zuvaal' to Earth;
thwarted by Eternity Guard (see ref:
EG-2009z) but escaped capture.
Update:
Claims to have knowledge of betrayal
within Earth Leadership/Defence Directorate.
To be interrogated with utmost care.
|
Brachis
again looked up from her computer. "I have
updated her status. Has there been any news on the
information she provided?"
"The
information has been confirmed by our operative at
Blizzard Base Zero and passed on to the EDD,"
Senshi replied. "They plan to attack
tonight."
"Good,"
Brachis said. "In the meantime, keep an eye on
her. We don't yet understand the full extent of her
abilities and cannot risk her escape. I want her
analysed, processed and interrogated as thoroughly as
humanly possible - I'm counting on you, Senshi."
Senshi snapped his
back upright and offered a salute, then turned on his
heels and marched out of the room. Once he was gone,
Brachis returned to her computer and continued
typing.
"Senshi,"
the screen read, "remains our most viable
candidate. Submitting recommendation to Science
Officer Masumi Kakeru tonight. Will need replacement
deputy ASAP. Will be a shame to lose him; he
possesses a lot of potential."
Dr. Brachis saved
the file, shut down the laptop, turned off the lights
and left the room.
I hope he can
forgive me, she thought to herself as she began
to long walk home.
NEXT: The
assault!
