Blizzard
Base Zero
Rose Brachis stood
in the small, metal room that Doctor Nagura had
assigned as her quarters and stared at the two neatly
folded pieces of fabric resting at the end of the
tiny cot Nagura called a bed. The folded fabric was,
in actual fact, two of the skintight 'robosuits'
Doctor Nagura had spent years developing as part of
Project: Roboman, and three other robosuits were
already in use in New Orleans by the three young
people referring to themselves as Robomen.
Elsewhere in the
sprawling, underground complex, Doctor Nagura busied
himself developing a robot that he intended to use to
attack New Orleans and destroy the Robomen, leaving
Rose alone in her quarters with the new,
as-yet-untested robosuits.
Like Doctor Nagura,
Rose Brachis was a scientist - and she had thoroughly
examined the suits to get an idea of how they worked,
but she understood none of the technology behind
them; and although Doctor had said, weeks earlier,
that he intended to have Brachis help test the new
suits, his preoccupation with his robot war machine
had kept that from happening.
Now, Rose Brachis
stood alone, with what could possibly be the keys to
her salvation - but no idea what to do with them.
"I am
done."
Brachis turned
quickly to face the source of the voice. Doctor
Nagura stood in the entrance to her quarters, looking
very different to the man she had long considered a
friend. He wore a robosuit of his own, a combination
of black and dark red, but it was not that which
caught her attention - instead, she focussed on his
exposed skin... or what should have been
skin.
His entire face,
with the exception of a small patch above his right
eye, was covered by a thin sheath of shiny, silver
metal. His left hand was similarly covered, and metal
protruded through several openings in his right hand,
ringed with dried blood. The metal had even pierced
parts of the robosuit, and the man now looked more
like a cyborg from a science-fiction movie than the
gentle human being she had known.
Even more striking
than the netal visibly overtaking his body was the
fact that Doctor Nagura seemed to become younger with
every passing moment, and the man who had been
in his fifties weeks earlier appeared to now be no
more than eighteen or nineteen years old - younger
than his own son, Ian... who happened to be one of
the Robomen.
"Katrina is
complete," he said, and Brachis once again
noticed that even his voice had changed. The
scientist had once been forced to pause several times
even within the shortest of sentences, rarely able to
say more than two or three words at a time, but there
was no sign now that that had ever been the case.
"Soon, Miko will pay for what she has done to my
family, and then the Robomen will fall."
"Scott..."
Brachis said softly. "This isn't you! Jinsei put
that implant in your head... it has changed you.
You're not thinking like yourself. You're doing what he
wants... what Satoshi wants!"
Doctor Nagura
smirked, and the metal that covered his face moved
with him, as if it was as malleable as the skin which
Brachis hoped remained beneath.
"You keep
saying that," Nagura said. "Regardless,
Sorceress Miko and the Robomen die today."
Brachis stared at
the ground. She considered rushing to the man,
throwing her arms around him, shaking him - any
physical contact, anything that might remind him that
he was still a human, that it was his son he
was talking about destroying; but she remembered her
last attempt, three weeks earlier, to touch him - and
his chilling response.
"W-wait,"
she finally stammered out. "What about the new
robosuits? Didn't you want to test them?"
Nagura smiled.
"Of
course." He waved his hands in front of his
body, to draw Rose's attention to the robosuit he was
wearing. "This robosuit works perfectly. I
developed it before the supraterranean area of this
base was destroyed, before the Robomen betrayed me. I
am glad to see you are still willing to assist me
with the robosuits' development."
"Of
course!" Brachis smiled brightly, in the
desperate home of convincing her friend who had, in
many ways, become more like her captor, that she
genuinely wished to help him.
"Give me a
moment," Nagura said. He turned and walked
quickly from the room.
Good! Brachis
thought. This will distract him, and once I know
how the robosuits work, I can get out of here!
Nagura returned
carrying two small but bulky items, heavy metal
rectangles with black leather straps attached. On the
top of the rectangular boxes were numbered buttons
and a small circle with an LCD screen set into the
middle, with a small hinge at the top which Brachis
assumed was used to open the device.
"Among the
items the Earth Defence/Leadership Directorate stole
from me were devices like these. They are called Alert
Bracers, and I am sure that by now the Robomen
are using them - especially if that traitorous,
moronic Cog has been helping them,"
Nagura explained. "These robosuits work
differently. They are connected to these two Alert
Bracers, and only the person whose details are
programmed into the Bracer can operate the robosuit.
That way, these cannot be stolen from me like those
others."
"That's... a
great idea," Brachis told him. "But how do
you program the person's details into the Alert
Bracer?"
"You
don't."
"Then how -
"
"The Alert
Bracer contains a microchip which allows it to
recognise its user. It does not rely on simple things
like a retina scan, which can be easily circumvented
by anyone wielding kenez shards."
"Then what does
the microchip do to recognise its user?"
Nagura smiled again.
"The chips have
not yet been installed in these Alert Bracers,"
he said. He placed them down on the cot, beside the
folded robosuits. "Put on the green robosuit. It
will automatically conform to your shape and size. I
will be back in a moment."
Not happening,
Scott, Brachis thought. I'm not putting my
safety in your hands. In your current state, I'm not
sure that thing won't kill me.
She lifted the green
robosuit and allowed it to unfurl in front of her
body, as if she was holding it up to check whether it
was the right size. That was how Doctor Nagura found
her when he returned a moment later, with another
small box.
"You are not
dressed," he said simply.
"Sorry, Scott -
I'm a woman. These things take time."
She winked. "Oh - are those the chips?"
Nagura nodded.
"Are they
difficult to install?" she asked.
"Not at
all," Nagura said. "Your scientific
interest lies in physics, not robotics, but even you
could easily install these microchips. Put on the
robosuit and I will show you."
"Hold on!"
Brachis tossed the robosuit back onto the cot.
"This is all amazing. You've put so much work
into this! All your knowledge, and your skill - yet
you've made everything so simple. We could just take
these robosuits, and those Alert Bracers, and those
microchips and go... we don't even need this
laboratory or anything in it to configure them!"
"That is
correct."
Brachis stared at
Doctor Nagura. Behind him, a blue light flickered,
then dimmed, but the metal-covered man did not notice
the reflection and his female companion's eyes. Her
face softened and she smiled as she continued to look
at Nagura.
"What are you -
?" he began to ask, but his question was left
unfinished as a strong hand, clenched into a fist,
struck the side of his head and he fell to the
ground, unconscious.
The man standing
behind him shook his hand up-and-down and bounced
from one foot to the other, in obvious pain. He was
covered in black from head-to-toe - a black
balaclava, tight black kevlar vest, thick black
trousers, black boots and black gloves, and sparkling
blue energy sparkled around his body and slowly faded
away.
"Ow!" the
man yelped. "I thought being pressed against the
wall in the closet next door was going to leave some
painful cramps, but punching a man covered in metal?
A lot worse."
Brachis crouched and
picked up the box that Doctor Nagura had been
holding, then stood and returned to her cot.
"Thanks,
Sinclair," she said. "Your timing was
perfect."
The man in black was
Damien Sinclair, a captain in the Science Island
guard that Brachis had commanded before being taken
by force to Blizzard Base Zero and help captive. When
Brachis nominated Sato Senshi, another guard captain,
for Director Satoshi Kakeru's Operation: Guardian,
Sinclair had resented her; and when Satoshi selected
Sinclair over Brachis' recommendation, he allowed
that resentment to show.
Still, when a giant,
exploding robot destroyed much of Blizzard Base Zero,
he had saved both Brachis and Nagura. Brachis was
grateful, but it was gratitude without understanding.
Her confusion only increased when Brachis returned,
only hours earlier, to check up on her.
She collected the
two robosuits and the Alert Bracers and tilted her
head down at Doctor Nagura.
"Pick him up
and let's get out of here," she said.
Sinclair shook his
head.
"That's not
happening," he told her. "Satoshi thinks
Nagura's dead - he thinks you're both dead,
and I want it to stay that way. I'll take you to
safety but only because you are a prisoner here.
You don't deserve this. No-one does. But Nagura?
He chose this, and if staying here keeps him off
Satoshi's radar..."
"Then at least
help me destroy - "
"No,"
Sinclair interrupted. "You're not calling the
shots, Doctor Brachis. I don't work for you
anymore."
Brachis could hear
something in the man's voice, something she didn't
like. He didn't just resent her for
selecting Senshi over him; he hated her for
it. She felt that even the decision to save her was a
tough one for him to make, the result of a determined
debate between doing what he thought was right and
doing what he wanted.
"I think I
underestimated you, Damien," she said.
"Just be
grateful I came back for you at all," he
replied. "And waited to help you with your plan.
And haven't taken you straight to Director Satoshi,
instead of agreeing to take you to your friends in
New Orleans."
Brachis raised an
eyebrow.
"The
Robomen?" she asked. "No - I need the EDD,
to - "
"New Orleans or
bust, Doctor Brachis," Sinclair said, and
Brachis could sense something else in his
voice. The hatred was still there, but there was also
something she thought might be sympathy...
maybe some bad news he was trying to keep from her.
"Let's
go."
He stepped forward
and wrapped his fingers around her wrist. He closed
his eyes and slowly, their bodies were surrounded by
the same sparkling blue energy that had sheathed his
body when he appeared behind Doctor Nagura minutes
earlier. The energy grew brighter until, in a sudden
flash, they disappeared; leaving only Doctor Nagura
and a shimmering, fading blue mist in their wake.
Doctor Nagura rolled
onto his back and rubbed his eyes. Even unconscious,
the bright flash of blue raido energy that
marked the departure of Rose Brachis and Damien
Sinclair had been registered by his brain - which, he
knew, was as transmuted into metal as his outer
organs were. He sprang suddenly to consciousness and
returned to his feet, and took in his surroundings.
The robosuits,
Alert Bracers and artificial intelligence chips...
gone, he thought. So, Brachis betrayed me,
too.
He shrugged and left
the small quarters. He made the long walk down a
sterile metal corridor to his laboratory, where a
seven-foot-tall robot which closely resembled a human
female lay flat on its back on a silver bench. Beside
it were two boxes - one large box marked eternity
shards and another, much smaller box, labelled AI
chips.
He lifted the
robot's right hand and its smallest finger split in
half. Inside was a maze of wires and tubes, all
twisting and wrapping around one central shaft. At
the head of the shaft was a small slit. Holding
the robot's hand up high, he used his free hand to
reach into the box of AI chips and, selecting one,
inserted it into the narrow slit. He closed the
finger, concealing the tubes and wires, but did not
let go of the hand.
He took hold of the
box containing the artificial intelligence chips,
tightened his grip on the robot's fingers, and
smiled.
"Watch out, New
Orleans. Miko. Robomen. Brachis..." he
said. "There's a storm coming, and her name is
Katrina." He closed his eyes. "Eternity
Engine: Raido, Alpha 1." The robot's body began
to glow with bright blue raido energy, which
extended along the robot's hand to surround Doctor
Nagura's body and the two boxes he carried. Slowly,
the two metal-coated humanoid forms faded from sight
as the sparkling blue energy rained to the ground.
Yet, as they
disappeared from view, Doctor Nagura's voice could
still be clearly heard as he said: "Eternity
Engine: Kenez, Omega 0."
The falling blue
energy flashed with the dim reflection of bright red
light as it struck the ground, and both Doctor Nagura
and his robot could no longer be seen - or heard.
