Author's Note:

Alright, this one took a long time because of school. I'm about three weeks behind in all of my classes, so this didn't get finished until now. Expect one more chapter before the first of November, and then we move on into Season 2. X20 will be just as long as X19, since they are both one-hour specials for a Season Finale of sorts :-)

On a cuter note, I handed in X as a manuscript to get into a Creative Writing class. I was rejected, second year in a row. It looks like yours truly just doesn't have what it takes to be a writer, as far as the literary community at UBC is concerned.

---

"I have had dreams and I have had nightmares, but I have conquered my nightmares because of my dreams." - Dr. Jonas Salk

   The morning light was shining in through the curtain slits over the window next to the bed. On any other day, the freshness of a new morning would be completely welcome by Anyi. Unfortunately, today was a day where the light only served to intensify a rather severe soreness in her eyes. Her short brown hair was tussled about a blue silk pillow which she was lying against. She opened her eyes, half-expecting to see a fused wire grid, her old coffee machine, and a broken couch with scrap metal. She quickly realized that she wasn't in the lab down in the basement of UCO, but rather in an expensive-looking bedroom. Anyi groaned as she sat up out of bed, surprised to see that she had spent the night in her wrinkled clothes. She shook her head to get out of her morning haze, but it only served to intensify a slight headache.

   'I must have been drinking last night,' she thought in a daze. 'Right! I spent the evening talking with X. This must be the bedroom...wow, it looks incredible!'

   She inhaled deeply and realized that it smelled like someone was making breakfast outside. The door to the livingroom was open and it was obvious someone had just finished using the shower in the bathroom which was connected only to the bedroom. X must have got up and taken a shower without waking her up. She yawned, stretched, and got out of bed. She hadn't had a good shower for at least a week and frankly, it was beginning to get very embarrassing. She had only agreed to stay with X yesterday, but before that she had almost nothing, living out of the lab in the basement of the UCO Physics building. She unhooked her clothing and slipped out of her jeans and shirt. She walked into the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Her eyes were a bit puffy, and her hair was a scraggly mess. She brushed her hair back from her face and ran the water in the sink. A handful of water would definitely bring her to her senses. She finished washing her face, feeling a bit more refreshed. Her headache was nearly gone and she didn't feel quite so groggy. Closing the door behind her, she slipped out of her white underwear and decided that a shower would wake her up even more. That was when she noticed a small bluebird perched on the windowsill next to the toilet. X's bluebird, Beat, just stared at her quizzically and resumed singing it's song. This was the first animal Anyi had ever seen outside of an Habitat Ring. She visited the local HR7, which was about an hour from her parents' house, back when she was just a small girl. At the time, she didn't realize that animals were kept in these rings to prevent them from dying prematurely in the harsh technological environment of Cluster One. She smiled at the bird and stepped into the shower unit.

   She started the water and just stayed underneath the showerhead. The intense experience of her hospitalization from a few days ago was starting to wear off, being taken place by the task of trying to fix Roll's memory core. However, Anyi realized that she was also very relaxed. This was the first time she had ever been in a real apartment since she had moved out of her parents' house. Up until now, it was all labs and tents. She was also glad to spend time with her new friends, X, Zero, and Zinc. Of course, they haven't had much time together. While she was busy fixing Roll, they were trying to figure out who had ruined the excavation in the first place. She hoped that they would find an answer soon. For some reason though, she wasn't scared about it anymore. She felt really safe, just where she was right now.

   Anyi stopped the water and opened the shower curtain. The bluebird was still perched in the same place, singing. The mirror wasn't fogged, and Anyi realized that she had been standing underneath cold water for the past ten or fifteen minutes.

   'Well, whatever the temperature...I really needed that,' Anyi took a blue towel from the rack next to the sink and began drying off. After she was done, she wrapped the towel around her chest and waist and tied it in the back. She used her hands to brush her hair back into it's original position and went into the bedroom. She saw the suitcase she had packed yesterday; it was lying at the foot of the bed. It was also open and empty. Anyi couldn't remember unpacking, and she was sure she wasn't that drunk last night to forget doing it. She remembered everything else from last night, so she decided that maybe X had unpacked it after she had gone to bed. She checked the drawers, but found white and blue shirts which definitely were larger than her size. She was puzzled as to the whereabouts of any of her clothing, except of course, for the dirty pile on the floor. She opened the door to the bedroom further, and peaked out through the crack. She was greeted by the sight of a kitchen table with food.

   "X? Are you out here?" asked Anyi. X came from behind the corner which was next to his fridge and looked at her initially with a smile, until he saw that she wasn't exactly in the most decent state of dress.

   "Um...Hi Anyi, I--uh, yeah it's right there." He pointed next to Anyi. Anyi looked down and saw a laundry basket with her clothing. All of her clothes were dried and clean pressed, folded into a neat pile in the plastic basket. "I finished them this morning when I got up. You might want to put something on before you sit down and eat."

   Anyi nodded, a bit confused. She didn't know X had learned to be so incredibly well-kept. She just never put the two thoughts together; X can play football and fight and think like a detective, but he knows how to cook and clean.

   It was very odd.

   Anyi took some clothing and went back into the bedroom to get dressed. She re-emerged, wearing a pair of jeans and a green t-shirt claiming a love for limeade, a drink she really liked. Every once in awhile it annoyed her when a waiter would bring back lemonade instead.

   "Well, you're looking nice this morning," X finished putting down a plate with an omelette on the table. "I just finished making breakfast, so have some if you're hungry."

   "Wow, I'm starting to wonder just how far your cooking talents go," Anyi smiled and sat down at the table. The morning sun was up and was flooding the entire room with light. The poor shadows in even the most obscure corners didn't stand a chance. X poured her a glass of orange juice.

   "Make sure not to stare straight into the shining sun," X laughed. "It can be a bit dangerous. I haven't every had a human in my apartment, except for my landlord Mrs. Petersen."

   Anyi started cutting into the omelette in front of her. She hadn't had such a "formal" breakfast since she had left home. In fact, she was starting to realize just how much she missed all of it. She'd have to make it a point to visit her parents while she was still in Cluster One.

   "So, I guess today is the day we find out what's wrong with Roll?" asked X anxiously. He had been waiting patiently for the answer, but Anyi could tell he was hopeful that the Holo-Imager would reveal why Roll had burst out so irrationally yesterday.

   "Yeah, I scheduled an appointment with Ivan at the Planetarium," Anyi paused and took a few bites of breakfast. It tasted really good, a lot better than the microwave crap and cafeteria food which had been in her dietary system for a number of months. "So, you've got a class today, right?"

   "Yeah, I've gotta teach and maybe pull the Crosser Club back together. I haven't been there in a week, and usually I'm there after school everyday. Besides, I've really got to get around to fixing my bike in case they need it for the competition on the weekend. I know it's only Thursday, but who knows what might come up tonight... --At any rate, I could be very busy tomorrow."

   Anyi knew X probably wanted to spend time with Roll once she was completely fixed. Anyi never had any siblings, so she didn't really know what it was like. One thing was for sure, Roll was probably the closest to being family to X.

   "So, do you always get up this early?" asked Anyi, trying to keep the conversation going.

   "Not really, I just...had a really strange dream. It woke me up early."

   "You mean you have dreams just like..." Anyi paused, remembering to tone her enthusiasm from causing her to spout something possibly offensive, "--everyone else?"

   X smiled and looked up at her as if she was a nut. As if it was weird she would be wondering that androids had dreams just like everyone else.

   "Yeah, I do. But this one was really...I dunno, real to me," X's voice trailed off and he sat there poking at his food. Anyi decided not to push it further until later when they would both have enough time to talk about it. As it was, the clock on the wall was telling her that it was almost time to go. Anyi finished the omelette and downed the glass of juice. They spent the rest of breakfast eating in silence.

   ***

   Zinc watched as Zero put the last few wires in place. They had stayed up the whole night putting the network grid back together. A dozen soda cans were lying on the floor, consumed in order to provide energy where regeneration would only slow them down. Mostly Zero worked in silence, trying to salvage any melted wires and basically attempting to reconstruct what he could. The job had taken a lot longer than Zinc figured it might. It was alright though, he got to ask Zero about all the legends. He wanted to know what stories were true, and he was surprised to discover that all the stories about Zero were true.

   How he used to be Maverick. How he killed his own lover to save everyone. How he was destroyed and miraculously brought back to life. All of the stories were true and that somehow made Zero more cool, knowing that they were more than just stories. They were Zero's life. Zinc was also filled in on what had happened shortly before he had met Zero in the store. When Zero saved Zinc from his old master. Zinc didn't get most of it, just that they were at an excavation site, looking for the original Megaman ( and that was very very cool ) when they were attacked. Now they were trying to figure out if it was the government and if Yaven Enterprises had something to do with all of it. Of course, Roll was a bigger concern to everyone right now, it seemed. Zinc didn't know much about Megaman, so Roll was pretty much unknown to him. The only thing about Megaman that Zinc knew was what he had looked like, and that was just because Zinc looked nearly exactly the same with only a few aesthetic enhancements.

   "Hey Zero, what are you going to do today?" asked Zinc, trying to make more conversation.

   "Hmm...I dunno. We'll have to wait until Anyi fixes Roll, I guess. I'll probably just go visit X and maybe take a walk," Zero replied, not looking up from the last tangle of wires.

   "Oh...we aren't gonna go beat up the badguys?" asked Zinc, a bit disappointed. Zero stopped working and gave Zinc a strange look.

   "Why? Are there badguys we should be beating up?"

   "...Well, what about Yaven?" asked Zinc.

   "I don't think breaking into a building with government ties would be too smart or too successful right now," replied Zero. Zinc just shrugged; the answer was obvious.

   "Well, I'll go with you! Together, we can defeat all of 'em!" Zinc went into his rather bad impression of mocking martial arts. He never was programmed for it, only programmed to stock ammo during the war. Zero just shook his head with a smirk on his face.

   "You and I!" Zinc continued his demonstration with candor. "Zinc & Zero! Team Z^2!"

   Zero just stopped working and asked Zinc incredulously, "Z^2? What kind of name is that?"

   "It's an acronym; isn't it good?"

   "Um..." Zero just paused. "I don't think so. It sounds a bit...stupid, sorry."

   Zinc just huffed and dropped his arms by his side. Before he could speak, Zero beat him to it.

   "Look, Zinc you don't want to get into a fight. Trust me, it's not as fun as it looks. Both participants lose, that's what X always used to say."

   "Well," Zinc sighed, "still, I'd like to help you. It's kinda always been a dream of mine."

   "Hmm..." thought Zero quietly. "was it the kind of dream you have when you see the stars?"

   "Yeah, I guess you could say that," Zinc was confused by Zero's accuracy. Had Zero had dreams of the future when he gazed upwards as well? "Why?"

   "Well, far be it for me to get in your way," Zero replied. "I guess from now on, you're my assistant!"

   Zinc smiled and sat down on the couch. He was excited that Zero was giving him a chance to be an assistant. It really was true, he always wanted to meet Zero and help him when he was in a pinch. Be the one who saves him; a bit of a boyhood fantasy. The equivalent of turning the backyard into Sherwood forest to take on the dastardly sheriff.

   Zero stood up, apparently finished. He walked over near the couch. The capsule which held Roll was between the two. Zero put his hand on the glass; Zinc thought Zero must recognize her from somewhere. Perhaps Roll and Zero were friends before Zinc met him, he wasn't sure.

   "Do you have those kinds of dreams too?" asked Zinc innocently. Zero paused and whispered something under his breath.

   "Not anymore; I used to know people who did. One was a...long time ago," said Zero, tapping his fingers on the glass and keeping eye contact with the resting woman beneath the glass. Zinc shifted uncomfortably.

   "Well, I think I've got it fixed!" Zero said, changing the subject. "Better give Anyi a call, and we'll be on our way to see X at his class!"

   They both walked out of the laboratory together.

   ***

   "Alright class, this is a seminar, so nothing special you need to remember for an exam."

   X was in front of the class, dressed in a dark blue business suit. He had wire-rim glasses on and his hair tied back into a ponytail, mostly just for professional effect. He opened his briefcase and called up the files with notes on his keyboard. All fourty desks in the classroom had receivers so that X's files on the subject would be made immediately available to them electronically. The class was so small because it was a Graduate Student class for Computer Science, involving the development of Artificial Intelligence. The room was fairly new looking, finished in a deep dark red. The seats were set up in stairs, making it look like a miniature theatre. The only thing out of place was an old-fashioned projector for the outdated screen behind X.

   He knew the teacher, Mr. Sobernivsky, a short black-haired German. A real professional on the subject. Through a series of quirks and lunches spent together, Hicthi Sobernivsky was one of the few humans whom actually knew about X being an android. X was a professor in the same subject as Hicthi, but X didn't teach a regular class. Instead, Hicthi would allow X to take over the class about once or twice a term, so that his students were aware of the Artificial Intelligence Seminars which X did semi-regularly. X really liked Sobernivsky because of his passion for the Reploids, although he did pity Hicthi's students for having to make out the words passed through his extremely thick accent from the Russian Provinces.

   "I am Professor Layne, perhaps some of you have attended my Seminars," X was surprised to see a few heads nodding for such a young class. "Well, you're gonna be bored, because this class doesn't cover anything quite so cool for an opener."

   A couple of chuckles, most were still getting over the surprise of a teacher with long blue hair, a muscular build, and a sarcastic manner. At first, X bet they thought it was some sort of Fraternity opener as a joke.

   "Alright, I've got blue hair; I'm sure most of you have noticed. For those that I just woke up with such an odd phrase, you really should stop sleeping through such an interesting class. Now, how many of you are planning on pursuing careers in Artificial Intelligence?"

   A couple more hands went up. X smiled and continued covering the class. He went over the current state of AI, being toned down and banned by research on Earth. Anyone wanting to pursue such a career would have to leave Earth for Venus or Mars. And of course, no one in their right mind wanted to go to Mars. So X started describing the basics of Reploid Artificial Intelligence, and got the reaction he always did from a class. They would gasp in surprise, wondering how a teacher got away with talking about such an illegal subject completely avoided by Media and textbooks alike. He went over the degradation of code algorithms and how theoretically a program could run forever, but in practice they always fall apart in the end. He assured everyone that no one could ever program as well as Dr. Light had managed, and tried to convey just how much of a genius Thomas Light really was. Everything went as planned over the next fourty minutes, until a young upstart decided to interrupt him near the end of class.

   "If this Dr. Light guy was such a genius, why did he create Reploids so they could kill eachother?" asked a student. She was wearing a plaid vest and had an old-fashioned notepad in her left hand. X was surprised that a student was questioning him. It almost never happened, not just because how little the general person knew about the subject, but it was considered taboo to talk about Reploid AI. In the general public opinion, sking why AI is wrong was up there with the question of why incest is wrong.

   "Good question," X was happy someone at least was interested, even with a question which showed a bit of naievity. "Why did God create humans so they could kill eachother?"

   The student was a bit startled by this question, as if the question had no real premise in reality. X smiled and motioned for her to come down in front of the class. The student stood up and timidly stepped down, probably a bit afraid of having her opinions known to her entire class on such a volatile subject.

   "Alright,..." X paused. The female student made eye contact with him warily and was probably unnerved by his towering height over her.

   "Um...Emily," she replied nervously.

   "Alright, Emily, tell me what the difference is between Reploids and Humans?" he asked simply. Emily looked at him as if it was the dumbest question in the world.

   "Well, they're made out of wires and we're made of flesh and blood."

   "Really?" asked X in surprise. "So you've switched your major from AI to Biology or Electromotive mechanics now, have you?"

   The student was a bit confused by this obviously inaccurate observation. Most of the class was also confused, with a few chuckles in the back.

   "Well..um, no," she didn't know what else to say to that one. X could see Hicthi out of the corner of his eye, giggling.

   "Hmm...okay. Well, according to your field, what makes Reploids different from Human?"

   "Well...they're violent-minded. Most Reploid AI is too unstable to hold together for more than a few years, and they can't operate within normal society created by humans."

   X smiled. Really, he was laughing inwardly by the whole argument. He really didn't find it offensive, because he could tell just how unsure she was by the whole argument, probably handed to her on a plate by PR.

   "Well, that's a good argument," X looked up at the rest of the class. "Raise hands on how many people think this is a good argument."

   Some of the class was assured by X's statement that the argument was correct and raised their hands without really thinking about the problem, X could tell. There were always a bunch of sheep in every class. A few more hands went up over the course of an entire minute. The students which hadn't raised their hands were getting fidgety from all the silent attention. In fact, only a handful of students didn't raise their hands.

   "So, Reploids are more violent-minded than humans, right?" asked X. Emily nodded slowly, a bit nervous from all the class participation.

   "When was the last time a Reploid was accused of murder?" asked X.

   "Well...didn't they have a war?" asked Emily. "The media didn't really cover it much, but from what I heard, lots of reploids were bent on destroying us."

   "Well, you're right about that," replied X. "Some Reploids wanted to destroy the human race, and the others wanted instead to live with humans peaceably."

   Emily nodded at the affirmation of her statement, thinking she was going to get out of this debate free from embarrassment.

   "You know, I can think of a similar situation in history," continued X. "It was about 150 years ago when Canada was further north and America wasn't so far south. The Germans decided that some humans were impure and were bent on the destruction of everything that wasn't German. Yet, Canada and America rose to the occasion to defend all the Europeans sieged in the attack."

   Emily paused, apparently remembering something from gradeschool history. Her face immediately dropped at the memory of World War II.

   "Some Reploids went to war to protect humans against those that would destroy them. If you ask me, that sounds a lot more human to me than you suggest," X smiled. The look on many of the student's faces in the class were equivalent to that of a deer caught in a headlight.

   The bell rang and the students immediately collected themselves from the uncomfortable position to leave the class. X was disappointed that he couldn't go further with such an interesting argument, wishing she had asked the question earlier. He was however glad that Emily decided to stay behind. Her head was down, she was probably embarrassed that she had made such an ignorant statement about Reploids...at least that's what X hoped.

   "You know a lot about Reploids, huh?" asked Emily. X just smiled and nodded.

   "It is in my job description," X said simply.

   "I'm--I'm sorry about what I said," Emily sincerely apologized. X just put a hand on her shoulder. Hicthi meanwhile was gathering his briefcase on the table.

   "Don't worry, lots of people don't really know Reploid AI, but who knows? You might get to know it if you're lucky. There are a couple of rogue groups on Venus trying to develop a 'cure' to the Reploid instability."

   "Oh," was all Emily could say.

   "Ahnol' u gittin luncht wit me?" asked the nearly incomprehensible professor from behind.

   "Yeah, just a sec," X said to Hicthi, and then turned back to Emly. "Any other questions you have for me?"

   "Well...I wanted to ask you about instinct."

   "What about it? How do you program a Reploid with human instinct?" asked X, referring to a comment he had made during the lecture. Emily nodded. X sighed, trying to think of an answer, but there wasn't one.

   "I really don't know how it was programmed, I just know that Reploid instinctual reaction time is a lot faster than humans," said X.

   "Wow...you've measured Reploid instinct before?"

   "...You could say that. For one thing, programming reaction time must have been difficult for Dr. Light, but he found some way to do it. And it was a lot faster than the normal human. The strangeness of it was that the program execution would normally take 10 milliseconds, when the average human reaction is around 9 milliseconds. That means that in theory a Reploid should have slower instincts, but I guess Dr. Light found a way to compensate for such a problem."

   "How much faster are they?" asked Emily. X laughed and thought maybe a demonstration was in order.

   "Hicthi, do you have that Timer program in your briefcase still?" asked X. Hicthi nodded and re-opened his briefcase to load it up.

   "Okay Emily, this is simple. When the briefcase beeps, just hit the 'Enter' key. We're going to measure your average reaction time."

   X sat Emily down at the table in front of the empty classroom. The Timer program was loaded and ready to take measurements. Emily fidgeted a bit, calming herself down to see just where the demonstration was going.

   "Okay, Emily, get ready to start hitting the Enter key for everytime the program beeps, which will be at random intervals. We'll take five measurements just for a rough sketch of your reaction time."

   The program began, and Emily did exactly how X instructed. After a few minutes, Emily had finished, ending with a reaction time of about 9 milliseconds just as X said.

   "Dr. Layne, I don't really see what this proves," she seemed disappointed as if she suspected X would only do the first part. What she didn't know was he was going to help her with the second part as well, though.

   "Well, I just proved that the human reaction was what I said it was. Here, let me sit down."

   Emily stood up and let X run the program himself. She was immediately impressed with the very first beep of his own measurements. She figured it was probably just a jittery fluke and watched the rest of the results. The average reaction time came back at an incredible .73 milliseconds. The strange thing was that every time Dr. Layne did the test, it was always .73 milliseconds, never varying. Her mouth was agape at the amazing demonstration of speed.

   "Yeah...it makes you wonder how Dr. Light was ever able to fix that problem," said X. Emily's eyes were filled with wonder and suspicion.

   "You...you," she stuttered, raising her finger. X just nodded.

   "Yes that's right, I am holding a Seminar in a few months. Hopefully you can remember by then, I would sure like to have another argument," X smiled enigmatically.

   "Well--" Emily attempted regaining her composure. "Actually, I'm an exchange student from a college in Athropos and I'm leaving very soon...but I'll try to attend one if I'm ever in Cluster One again..."

   Hicthi resumed his chuckling, watching a stunned Emily walk out the door.

   "Well...," X stood up and looked at Hicthi. "that was fun!"

   The two just laughed until a loud knock on the open door. X could see a flicker of red hair and realized that Zero had come by to visit.

   "How'd the class go? I saw that last student," Zero stated simply. X packed up his briefcase.

   "The class was alright, but that one student was pretty interesting," said X. Zero nodded.

   "Yeah, I guess you managed to talk some sense into her. You took a pretty big risk with that move you pulled."

   "What do you mean?" asked X.

   "Well..." Zero shifted against the door uncomfortably. "She might not have been so sensible. I think you were just lucky she didn't scream."

   "Maybe. So what are you doing here?" asked X.

   "Just wondering what you're up to, that's all," Zero stood up from leaning against the doorway and entered the room.

   "I was about to grab some lunch," X took his briefcase off the table and proceeded to walk out.

   "Okay, let's go! Zinc's around here somewhere, I think he went off to buy another soda. We stayed up pretty late last night."

   "Alright sure. Sorry Hicthi, but I've got an old friend in town," X turned around and waved goodbye. Hicthi just smiled and shrugged. "See you tomorrow!"

   "Yah, see you. Old frens r de bes kindr!" Hicthi walked out the other exit.

   "What'd he say?" asked Zero, looking perplexed.

   "Just saying goodbye, that's all," X smiled. If Zero couldn't understand Hicthi, then the students were in a lot of trouble come note-taking time.

   "What's with the glasses?" asked Zero, promptly taking the glasses off X's nose.

   "Hey give those back!" laughed X. "I need them to look like a dork!"

   "Just like the other teachers, huh?"

   They both laughed and walked towards the cafeteria.

   ***

   The room was literally a blank canvas. A large circular room with a white metal finish was all that was there. No defects in the coated aluminum surface and definitely no scratches. In fact, this room was kept in better condition than the 8.2 meter telescopic mirror at the Planetarium. Of course, considering that even a nearly invisible defect could scatter photonic transmissions by nearly 67%, the Holo-Imager was probably the most expensively kept area in the entire place. Anyi stood in the center of the room, accompanied by her friend, Dr. Ivan Saunders. The only notable gear the two were wearing were headsets in order to provide communication to the main computer and the controller outside the room, who would be monitoring the energy field levels.

   "Alright, Allan, let's make a last sound check," Ivan spoke into the black headset. "Can you hear us, it should be transmitting at 33.7 decibels."

   "Yes sir," came the slightly crackling voice over the headset. It had only been recently that high quality headset transmissions were possible inside the Holo-Imager, because there was an immense radio-field output which interfered with all radio transmissions, and digital feeds disrupted the output by the Holo-Imager. It had only been recently that they had found a way to insulate one type of energy with another, using the Annular Confinement Method which had been developped for alternate transporter technology. Anyi smiled, realizing that this invention was made possible because of her own field studies. It was gratifying to see some indirect results of her own work.

   "Okay, start the output at 2 Gigaquads/second and we'll see if that helps," Ivan suggested. Anyi winced at the level of generality Ivan was using. It was apparent that because Allan was new to the Planetarium, he probably had never handled the Holo-Imager controls. She only hoped Allan wouldn't slip and end up flaring the image, making her painfully blind for a minute. She knew from experience that minutes tended to be very long under those kinds of conditions.

   "Right, Doctor, I'm reading a data block of 204.6 billion hue on the Spectra analysis; I thought you said the maximum output would be only 16.3 million," Allan's voice showed a lot of concern.

   "Um, I may be able to explain that," replied Anyi to reassure the new assistant. "This memory file is from an android, so it may have been recorded within the entire spectrum. Please just adjust output to the visible light spectrum only, we don't want to get any distorted visuals."

   "Oh...Okay, it's leveling off. Output should be available in about 3 seconds," said Allan. Ivan and Anyi prepared themselves to enter the translucent world which was quickly becoming opaque around them. The pinks quickly deepened into reds, the smooth polygonal surfaces grew bumps and textures, the shadows began to arise to counter the light sources which were pouring forth, and the background became more and more solid. Soon, the two scientists were standing in a room completely frozen in time. Anyi immediately recognized it as the room which she had investigated at the excavation site back in the Antarctic Region nearly three weeks previous. The site that had been so quickly destroyed by a team. Probably sent by someone who had something to hide. The blue walls with red panelling were frozen with various computer readouts. They were standing in the center of the laboratory, adjacent from the office which was just across the room. They could see Dr. Light behind his desk just through the window. It looked like he was sorting through some DVD cases. Anyi started walking around and noticed that the wall of capsules, which they had found beneath the floor at the site, was right behind her. In it, she saw Roll sealed inside a capsule, seemingly devoid of life.

   "Hey, Ivan, come take a look at this over here."

   "What is it?" Ivan quickly walked over to peer over her shoulder. He saw the small girl in the capsule and quickly gasped in surprise.

   "Now who could that be?" he asked quizzically, pointing to the young girl in the capsule.

   "Hmm...this is the old, younger version of Roll. The weird thing is that we didn't find a younger version of Roll in one of the capsules at the site. I wonder what could have happened? Maybe they made a transfer of some sort," Anyi theorized.

   "Sounds like it," Ivan agreed. "By the way, I checked the readout on one of the consoles over here. It says that the date was February 23rd 2040...that's exactly 10 years after the recorded construction of Megaman. Isn't that weird? It's also only a few months before the Terran War broke out..."

   "No, that sounds about right according to Dr. Aldayr who was in charge of the site. What's really weird is that Dr. Light is sorting through DVD cases. From what we saw, he used paper documents to record his work. Maybe they have some sort of programming information...?" Anyi's voice trailed off in wonder, just as Ivan's voice did.

   They walked around a bit more. Anyi would have bumped into the table in the center of the room, but since it was a hologram, she passed through it instead.

   "You guys doing alright in there?" asked Allan.

   "Yeah...yeah, we're fine Allan," Anyi reassured him. "How is the loading going?"

   "Well, it says..um, MEM022340-22 is 75% complete, you should see the program start running in about another minute," the voice stammered a bit.

   Anyi paused. She suddenly realized how the indices worked!

   "Wait," Anyi had to be sure. "Allan, could you read the filename to me again?"

   "You mean the, um, MEM022340-22?"

   "...I get it," whispered Anyi. "Hey Ivan, this program is an hour long!"

   Ivan looked up from Dr. Light's desk and raised an eyebrow. He walked through Dr. Light's head and through the wall to face Anyi directly.

   "What makes you say that?" asked Dr. Saunders.

   "The filename is the date itself! 02/23/40 is the date this occurred, and I bet 22 means that it's 10:00pm right now in this program. The memory files must have been stored in one hour increments," Anyi knew that the information seemed trivial. But knowing the way filenames were stored could give them further insight into what dates and times certain Reploids were activated. With a bit of luck, one could even measure the degradation of code and even find a cure!

   'I'm surprised no one realized such a simple thing before. Even the Science journals didn't cover this fact when they were discrediting the possibility of Reploid Intelligence Reconstruction,' Anyi thought. Of course, she knew better than anyone that most journals were more or less owned by Public Relations. She found it odd that PR was against the idea of Reploids. If anything, they should be all for it; to them, the reploids were a bunch of free servants to be programmed anyway they pleased. Anyi figured X was the expert on Reploid history, so she'd ask him later.

   "It's so incredibly trivial," whispered Ivan. He was probably thinking the same thing that Anyi was thinking. If no one had discovered this until now, chances were that no one was doing any serious research into the Reploid Intelligence Reconstruction dilemma. Nobody cared. Anyi started to realize what it was about humans that made X and Zero so mad sometimes. They were being ignored, just like the homeless were over a century ago. Now, one hundred years later, there were barely any. But a hundred years to wait on a problem was ludicrous, especially now, since Reploids certainly couldn't last that long.

   "Alright, the program is ready to run. You two better find a comfortable place to stand in all of this," came Allan's voice through their headsets. The two quickly positioned themselves in a corner near the capsules. "Okay, now the program has managed to extrapolate where Roll was standing in the room during the attack. Some things are going to be a bit fuzzy, because they weren't seen at the time by Roll, so the program will be emulating the probable situation."

   A hologram of Roll Caskett appeared in the center of the room. She was playing with Eddie the Fliptop. Immediately, her blonde hair became animated as she shook her head from side to side.

   "Noo! Eddie, that's not how the game is played!" Roll exclaimed. Anyi smiled at the Fliptop device; it was one of the few blueprints she had recovered from the excavation site. At the moment, a half-made Fliptop was in her suitcase back at X's apartment. Unless he had moved that as well.

   Anyi and Ivan just looked at eachother as they watched the two play a game of cards. The cards were special, with different symbols on each of them. Apparently the rules were to cancel out elements in the other player's stack. However it was played, Eddie didn't seem to be getting it. In fact, Eddie didn't have any hands to begin with. Anyi and Ivan watched the two for a few minutes; Rock apparently was missing from the whole scene. Suddenly, the floor below them shifted sideways with a whirring noise. Anyi felt a bit of a jump in her throat, thinking she was going to fall. Instead she floated in mid-air. Rock jumped out of the hole, followed by a taller, red robot.

   "Who is that?" asked Ivan, who wasn't exactly an expert on modern history.

   "I believe that's Blues; Rock's older brother," she replied. "He was called Protoman in the media, because he was the first one built."

   "Rock, Roll, Blues...what the heck is with the names?"

   Anyi just shrugged, "I don't know, history books are vague on that point."

   "Hey, Doc! We managed to install that chamber downstairs!" said Blues. He was wearing red armour plating, which was adorned by an oddly out-of-place yellow scarf. Rock playfully punched Blues in the shoulder.

   "You mean, *I* got it installed! You wouldn't stop yammering about Sarah," Rock grinned. "Somebody needs to run a diagnostic on your systems. They'll find you have abnormal hormonal input levels in your subroutines!"

   Blues laughed, "Yeah, you're probably right...but I still think she'd have it with me!"

   Roll looked up at the two, "Eddie's not getting this game you taught me, Blues."

   "Really?" Blues paused for a second. "I figured he could learn it since all the hands are played open. He wouldn't have to worry about holding his cards up."

   Rock and Blues chuckled a bit more as Dr. Light walked out from his office. Anyi moved out of the way so she could observe the events more clearly.

   "Thanks you two, we should start moving the capsules down there and begin the installation. Once that's done, we'll have the capsules out of the way for good," Dr. Light smiled. "Then I'll finally have enough room for the new transporter device."

   "What do we need a new one for?" asked Rock. Anyi looked back at Dr. Light's office and realized that some papers were now spread across the desk. He must have been reading something while Roll was playing the card game with Eddie.

   "Well, I figure we might as well move the lab back to the US. I'll need a pretty big power source to pull that off," answered Dr. Light.

   "Why bother moving it, anyway?" asked Blues.

   "Well, with Dr. Wily finally gone, there's not much point in keeping the place hidden anymore."

   Rock and Blues both just shrugged. There was a flicker of sadness in Rock though, which was odd. Anyi thought that Dr. Wily was their bitter enemy, so it didn't make sense that they would be sad that he had died. If Anyi remembered correctly, Dr. Wily died on the morning of this program in a jail cell. Of course, she wasn't sure how well she could rely on information before the Terran War.

   Anyi and Ivan watched all three robots help out and haul the capsules down into the basement. Dr. Light was fiddling around with the wiring in the back to disconnect them, distracted a bit by a purring Tango at his feet. Once they had finished bringing the capsules into the basement, Dr. Light pulled out some DVD cases. Anyi and Ivan were left on the top floor, the entire scene being moved downstairs.

   "Damnit, we lost the visual," said Ivan, referring to the scene being in the basement.

   "Computer: Adjust visual range, Z-axis 2 metres," said Anyi calmly. Immediately the entire environment moved up exactly 2 metres, giving Anyi the feeling of floating down through the floor and hovering over the basement. "Now adjust to nearest polygonal sector; ground function XY-axis."

   "Oh yeah, I forgot that the computer extrapolated memory, and wasn't actually a true playback itself," Ivan smiled sheepishly. "Damnit, I gotta use this thing more often...my old age is starting to make me forget simple things."

   Immediately the computer compensated, and they came to rest on the ground of the basement. Now the place seemed familiar to Anyi. The capsules were lined up exactly the way she remembered it from the excavation site. She then realized that the old version of Roll was in one of the capsules which was to be found destroyed at the site.

   "So, what is this gonna be for, Doc?" asked Blues. The red robot was leaning up against the wall, his sun-shades off to account for the poorly lit room. Rock was leaning up against the other side of the basement.

   "Yeah, this part of the lab isn't set to be dismantled. How are we gonna beam it with us?" asked Rock.

   "...We aren't," replied Dr. Light. He seemed rather sombre and the happy mood of before died down a little. It was then that Anyi noticed a few glitches in the program. The sound seemed to be skipping and a number of colours were out of place. Even the hologram characters were moving erratically.

   "Allan, what's happening up there?" asked Anyi.

   "Nothing, this is how the info was stored. We must be getting to the corrupted part of the program," he replied.

   "Look," Dr. Light continued, "you both know that I'm restricted to bringing X online because of the government. I just don't have 43 years left in me...I was lucky they even allowed me to try and create X seven years ago so soon after my--"

   "We know," Blues replied. "But you only finally finished him a few months ago! Why not break the rules again, like you did with Roll!"

   "Look, I only got away with it because no one was paying attention to Roll," Light replied. "Everyone will want to see the newest version of Rock...it's hard to keep someone so legendary out of the public eye."

   Light, of course, was referring to Rock's immense popularity amongst little kids and adults alike. Anyi even had an old vintage Rock action figure in her closet somewhere, right on top of her stack of Megaman games which the videogame industry had so cheaply cashed in on.

   "So what's the plan?" asked Blues. Roll was just staying in the background, very quiet.

   "I'm going to transfer Rock's program core to X," replied Dr. Light.

   "What!?" Roll was suddenly very animated. "But he'll be gone for 43 years, that's not right!"

   "I'm---getting cold now, and you must understand my *glip* daffodil," replied Dr. Light calmly.

   Anyi stood back in confusion as Dr. Light went off into a speech transversed with obscure words.

   "Allan, what the hell are you doing up there?" asked Ivan, a bit angry that the situation had been cut off.

   "I...dunno, the vocabulary compensator is trying to sort through the increasing garbage in the program," Allan replied nervously. "There's something seriously wrong with this memory file...I can't fix it!"

   "Out of sight, I'll do bisque," replied Rock. Blues groaned and said something, but only beeps and error messages came out.

   "Computer: Mute audio," Anyi said calmly. She would have to do without audio for the rest of the hour.

   Dr. Light pulled some DVDs out of his labcoat. Anyi realized, those were the DVDs which he was looking at so intently. Dr. Light then ushered everyone back upstairs. Before Anyi could adjust the Z-axis, they came back down holding a lifeless X in their hands. This version of X was adorned with the same blue armour as Rock, as well as the same hair. In fact, it really looked like an adult version of Rock if anything else.

   'Come to think of it, I could see it in Zinc and X before,' she thought.

   They put X into one of the capsules, and Anyi realized that it was in one of the ones which had been ejected. Dr. Caine had theorized it before, and now it seemed to prove correct. He believed that the capsule had been launched or beamed into space in order to be caught in a degrading orbit, so that X would land on Earth after the 50-year rule was completed. It looked as if Dr. Light had planned on doing this with all 8 of the capsules, or perhaps the other capsules were there just in case there were any failures. At any rate, Anyi knew that five of them would successfully launch and the other three, which weren't even installed into an ejector, would not. One of them would contain X, and the other four...Anyi didn't know.

   "Dr. Solieu, I think I can get the audio back for you," came Allan's voice. If he could, than Anyi must have severely underestimated his computer skills.

   "Some of these capsules are for informing you in the future," said Dr. Light. "They will contain my hologram, which I have programmed myself. Each capsule contains enough messages to cultivate any further need to upgrade your program, Rock. Also, the capsule is designed to appear in random locations and be self-replicating, using it's own transporter to be near your position once you have made it safely back to Earth."

   "I understand," said Rock simply.

   "Good, after this is done, I will be attending Evelyn's wedding...I haven't seen her in awhile," said Dr. Light grimly. Anyi could tell that Dr. Light was in a lot of pain from that statement. "So, I won't be able to check on your systems once I've got the lab back in the US."

   Anyi noticed that Dr. Light looked a lot older than he did in textbooks. She couldn't even guess at his age beneath that thick white beard of his. The nostalgia was suddenly jolted as the whole image went fuzzy. Anyi heard a large explosion from outside and suddenly, most of the room turned into a strange sort of static. The image had been lost and now, only sound remained.

   "Wily's creations are dead, and now my wrath will be upon you!" Anyi couldn't recognize the voice, since the static seemed to destroy most of the vocal qualities. Although she was sure she heard it somewhere before.

   "Who the hell are you?"

   "I'm his final gift to you..."

   The static became unbearable, and more explosions followed. Anyi couldn't make anything out. That was when she got a brilliant idea.

   "Computer: Switch to Infrared spectrum," said Anyi. Ivan gave her a strange look, before realizing that the whole scenario had been recorded at every possible spectrum frequency. The static cleared a bit, and Anyi could make out a few shapes. It seemed that there was a fight happening, two against one. She figured it was probably Rock and Blues taking on the slightly larger figure. All sound had been completely lost, which she actually didn't mind since the static was getting annoying. Suddenly, bits and pieces of the image started skipping.

   "I'm sorry you guys, the memory file corruption is really bad up here. I'm not sure how much longer I can keep the image running," said Allan. "In fact, playing it beyond this point may make the information irretrievable, so we probably should stop!"

   "No, keep going! The file is backed up in the Holo-Imaging Temp Storage anyway!" replied Anyi. She was too curious about this event to stop now. The explosive sounds returned, and she thought she heard Roll scream. She then saw an image slump over, and realized that Roll must have just been shot. Part of the image returned, and Anyi thanked Allan silently for his programming expertise. She saw the black shadow of the villain throw Blues into one of the capsules against the wall. The capsule became sealed and Blues immediately went off-line. Dr. Light had opened the wall panel and was crouching inside out of danger. Anyi then realized what was going to happen. She gasped and closed her eyes when she saw Rock jump in front of Roll to take the hit which was coming straight for her. Instead of destroying Roll, it blew off Rock's left arm. Rock crouched down in pain and the file shut off.

   "I'm sorry guys, the next memory cluster is completely damaged. I can only get the last two minutes of the file. I may be able to coax sound, just hold on," said Allan.

   The room went back to it's empty white sheen. The destruction that Anyi witnessed vanished in a burst of photons. Suddenly, the image came back on. Roll Caskett was lying on the floor, damaged. Her head had severed and melted wires sticking out of the side. Roll had probably managed to distract the enemy, but not for long. Immediately, the capsule against the wall burst open, glass flying everywhere. Blues came out of the capsule, enraged. The villain appeared as a crash test dummy.

   "Computer: Freeze program," Ivan said. "Allan, why does the villain look like the base model?"

   "Well, the visual of Roll has gone off-line, so the computer doesn't know who the villain is. There is no probable visual it can give us," replied Allan, "Apparently, all that Roll was able to record after this was sound."

   Anyi shook her head. She somehow figured it wouldn't be this easy. Ivan allowed the image to resume. The villain and Blues got into a hand to hand fight, wrestling on the ground. Anyi saw that Roll was struggling to stand, trying to activate a broken capsule. It was then that Anyi realized that the old version of Roll must have been obliterated. Anyi could see that Roll Caskett was blinded by her damage, because she was fumbling with the capsule controls. Suddenly, the capsule came on-line under it's own power. Caskett was obviously going to try and absorb the power from the capsule systems to destroy the enemy or at least help Blues. Suddenly, the room returned to it's staid metal shine.

   "Damnit, Allan, what's the problem this time?" grumbled Ivan.

   "I...I don't know, I'll try to get more for you, but the file has almost completely segmented itself. I can't guarantee more than thirty seconds before it's completely irretrievable!"

   The image came back on, and they both saw Blues holding a damaged Roll Caskett. Blues brushed the tattered hair which had blown across her face. The older version of Roll was completely gone, as well as all of the capsules launched. Anyi realized that Blues must have somehow trapped the villain in a capsule and launched him into space to get rid of him. The system was probably designed so that all the capsules would launch at once. Anyi saw some debris lying in front of Dr. Light, who had slumped over dead. Blood was all over the walls, and especially spilling over the white labcoat. Anyi felt a tear running down her cheek and she was much too scared to even breathe. Blues was holding a piece of Rock's helmet in his other hand and was apparently weeping. Caskett finally went off-line and Blues just held her close, as if he was trying to make sense of what just happened. It was fairly apparent that they were not expecting someone to find or attack their base. Anyi remembered that their base had been destroyed before by Bass. They might have relocated the base to the Antarctic region to avoid detection, now that Bass probably had all sorts of information on them. Of course, the villain had said something about Wily's inventions being destroyed too. Blues sealed Caskett in one of the capsules and began reprogramming. Anyi watched over his shoulder and saw that he was attempting to bring her back online. The capsule indicated that it would take a long time to finish the repairs.

   Anyi realized that Roll Caskett must have taken too much damage in the attack to be repaired completely by anyone else other than Dr. Light. Although it certainly looked like Blues was going to try. Before the program shut off for the final time, Anyi saw Blues activate the launch sequence for X's capsule and activate a shuttle uplink. The program began to flicker as Blues began uploading the DVD cases marked, "Rock" into the launched capsule. The metal room re-appeared in the disintegrating image. Anyi realized that X must have had all of Rock's memories and other preliminary files, but the core which made up Rock's being was probably destroyed when he had died. Anyi also realized that the last minute of the visual shouldn't have been possible by Roll's memory files...unless it had been added later by someone else. It was another mystery, but Anyi knew she wouldn't be able to handle it just now. She had seen something horrid and her thoughts were flying by in a jumbled mess. She put her hand over her mouth, thinking she was definitely going to be sick from what she had just seen.

   Anyi looked around the white-metal room, the photons holding the holographic shapes now gone. She felt like she had just awoke from a nightmare.

   ***

   "...You're telling me you worked here for that long and only Hicthi knows!?" Zero exclaimed. X nodded, the two were hanging off eachother with wine bottles in their hands. The two guffawed and Zinc, who was wedged between the two, joined in the laughter.

   The three were walking in a crowd of people on a sidewalk which came around the bus station. Green hills and trees were everywhere, giving the whole university a sort of quaint village with tall buildings sort of style. Students made up large crowds, walking about with their books under their arms. X, Zero, and Zinc were the only odd ones out, obviously just coming from the Vista Vista in the Student Union building.

   "Well, I think Emily might have caught on!" X blithely giggled, which was something he didn't do often at all. He hadn't been so cheerful since Zero had left, and he was glad that his best friend was back in town. The two were good at keeping the other in a good mood. It had provided invaluable during the war.

   "Maybe we should have showed her the jet, see what she thought about us being rich too!" Zero laughed, but Zinc just blinked.

   "You guys...own a jet?" asked Zinc.

   "Um...well, not really," said X. "I mean, we do, it's more of an investment..."

   Zinc's eyes just glittered with wonder and the two adults went back to their laughter. They continued walking down the road, laughing about old times. Like when OctDec had nearly flown a Hovie straight into a brick wall during his training, or getting into drinking contests with simple humans. They kept up the laughter until they reached the track. There, Zero let out a low whistle.

   "Wow, nice track. You guys have a Crosser club or something?" asked Zero.

   "Yeah, we do. You wanna take a look?" asked X. Zinc jumped up and down in excitement.

   "Great, that would be so much fun!" exclaimed Zinc, who had had a passion for Hovies since he was brought on-line. X shrugged and led the two into the main warehouse junction which was on the left side of the starting line. The track was fairly simple, with only one corkscrew loop and a number of barrel roll magnetomers. Still it was a popular track because the civilian walkway extended all the way across, allowing spectators to see the Hover cycles at all times. X knew it was quite a thrill to hover over or below the crowd as it screamed and hooted. He had been one of the better racers on the track, but he wasn't so well known because he didn't race often...at least not officially. His bluebird chirped and flew off his shoulder to go and sit on a tree. X opened the door and showed them the inside of the warehouse.

   It was barren and grey. Of course, it was completely set in concrete, which explained the atmosphere. A bit of dust and the smell of oil permeated the air. The three walked inside, their steps echoing against the distant walls. There were a line of bikes in the center of the room, with random equipment lying around on the ground. A few oil stains spoiled the cement, and the walls were hidden by cardboard shelves filled with boxes of metal tools. The lights were dim and hung from red steel girders overhead.

   "Hey boss," the voice was from the only person working on the bikes. A short man in a blue uniform covered in oil stains.

   "Hey Jerry, meet my two friends, Veron and..." X realized that Zinc would immediately sound way too strange. "this small guy is my nephew...Zi-Biiieeen, my nephew Ben."

   Zero just eyed him with a look reserved for idiots. X just shrugged, he didn't know what else to call him.

   "Okay," replied Jerry. "Say, Mr. Layne, did you come by to fix your clutch?"

   "Yeah, that was the plan. You think you can show these guys around the track until I get it fixed?" asked X. Zero raised an eyebrow.

   "You're still racing around with these things, huh?" stated Zero matter-of-factly.

   "Yeah," X laughed, "I loved riding these things back then."

   Zero nodded and followed Zinc, who had wandered off after Jerry into the back. X struggled with the clutch, trying to bend it back into it's original position. It was delicate work alright, but X never did like using power tools to handle the job. After a few minutes, Jerry came back with Zero. Zero just let out another low whistle.

   "Nice place you got here, X," said Zero. "How'd you manage to score it?"

   "I founded the club a couple of years ago," replied X. "For some odd reason, these guys hadn't yet discovered the sport which was catching on in America. At any rate, I managed to persuade the Student Union to let a professor start a club. We've only got twenty-seven members this year, but it's become extremely popular."

   X stood up from the bike, and wiped his hands clean. It certainly was a beautiful bike. It had a white chrome finish with blue highlights along the sides and bottom. Certainly a force of machinery to be reckoned with. In fact, it was the best bike in the warehouse. X had managed to put together a formidable bike. Not a surprise, considering that Machinery was his specialty during the Reploid Wars. Along the side of the bike was the name, "The Blue Bomber".

   "Hey, why don't we take it for a spin, see how good it handles now," suggested Zero, who was passing his hand along the side, checking the engine.

   "Okay, sure," X shrugged. Zero had an instance of a wicked smile.

   "Jerry, where's your bike?" asked Zero innocently.

   Jerry just looked up from the ground with a puzzled look on his face.

   "Why?"

   "Well, you can't expect X to go out there alone, do you?" asked Zero.

   "Uh..." Jerry squirmed a bit. "Gimme a sec, but be careful, and don't ruin the new finish!"

   Jerry walked off into the back of the warehouse again. X eyed Zero suspiciously.

   "What are you up to?" asked X.

   "What? Afraid of a little friendly competition out on the road?" asked Zero.

   "How long has it been since you piloted a Hovie?" asked X.

   "Not as long as you might think."

   "Cool!" Zinc was suddenly a fireball of energy. "I'm gonna get to watch you two in a race!?"

   Zinc started jumping up in down, obviously the suggestion of the race had killed his shyness, bringing his enthusiasm into play in a big way. Jerry returned from the back, rolling a stainless steel bike called, "The Mean Machine". X knew that in a race, his bike could beat Jerry's bike no problem.

   'I suppose Zero just wants something to do,' thought X.

   "Great! So how is this gonna work?" asked Zinc. Jerry went around to the front of the bikes and turned on the headlight cameras. Immediately, two of the twelve televisions overhead came on, showing the point of view of each bike.

   "Okay, let's make this a bit more interesting," said Zero slyly. X just shrugged again.

   "What do you mean?"

   "How about...we perform the Paranoid Eyes?" the suggestion from Zero made X's eyes go wide.

   "...Zero, we're in broad daylight, and the race hasn't been cleared. Do you know how dangerous that is?" said X. He couldn't believe what Zero was suggesting.

   "What's so dangerous? We've both got good reaction times and we can set the race to a higher altitude than ground level, avoiding a lot of traffic. But we'll put the end of the race somewhere in downtown to make it more...interesting."

   Even Jerry at this point was pretty much scared of the possible outcome. Zinc, however, was confused.

   "What is this Paranoid Eyes?" asked Zinc, who knew a lot about Hovies, but nothing about racing them. X turned and looked down at his friend.

   "The race has a starting point and an ending point. In between, the on-board computer completely randomizes the route, so the race is in an unknown and possibly dangerous area which has never been raced before. Normally, the Paranoid Eyes is how the final tournament goes and you're lucky if even three bikes manage to make it to the finish line."

   Zinc's eyes got wider, but not with fear.

   "This is gonna be SOOO great!" Zinc exclaimed. X raised an eyebrow, a bit frightened by Zinc's confidence in both of them.

   "Damned straight," agreed Zero. "Hey X, you may want to take off those glasses and put on some racing goggles."

   "What for?" asked Zinc.

   "Well, we need to know where the path is, so the goggles highlight the path in front of us in blue. That way, we know where the path goes and when to turn. If the bike strays more than 10 meters from the path, you get disqualified."

   "Oh, so you both have to follow a path!" Zinc figured out how this was going to work. "So where's the endpoint gonna be?"

   "I dunno, what do you think X?" asked Zero. X sat on the blue bike and looked over at Zero.

   "Well, if we're really gonna go through this, I guess we could just meet downtown in New Sydney somewhere."

   "K, how about that place we ate at yesterday...what was it? The Red Dragon?" Zero asked, and X confirmed with a nod. X programmed in the end destination and the bikes confirmed the endpoint. X started up the bike, and the headlight flickered with the roar of the engine.

   "Wait, sir, you two should be wearing helmets!" Jerry yelled, scrambling for the safety equipment in the crate across the room.

   "Don't worry about it Jer, we'll be back in about a half hour probably!" X yelled back as the two bikes roared off into the distance.

   ***

   X was looking up ahead through his windshield, following the blue path which was curving up around the spectator catwalk which hung over the race track. The blue path was quickly leaving the surface of the track into an almost ninety-degree turn upwards into the sky. At the moment, his opponent Zero was biting the dust. X knew that this race could be easily won by him, considering that X's bike was in a much better condition than Jerry's machine. X saw that the path was about to quickly wind down, nearly into the bus station and disappear through the small patch of trees which would lead them right past the Physics building. X briefly wondered if maybe he shouldn't bring a tape of the race later for Anyi. She did express interest in the racing after all, although he suspected it was because of the machines and not the race itself.

   X took another glance behind him and realized that Zero had disappeared off of his radar mirror. X raised an eyebrow, wondering where the heck is opponent had gone. Suddenly, up ahead, Zero's bike came up from the ground. It twirled in a sideways barrel roll to avoid the beam which held the bus to the wires that would guide it through town. X's reflexes were fast enough to prevent him from colliding with the invading bike. That one second could have easily ended in a serious injury. Down below, X could hear the crowds of students which were gasping at the display of Hovercycle accuracy. A couple of students cheered on "Dr. Layne", apparently surprised that X could Hover so well across sky. At the moment, X had a more pressing concern. Zero had managed to ride the gravity fall-out produced by X's bike. Zero must have dipped the full ten meters and rode out the acceleration to shoot past X. X hadn't seen a display of such sporting magnitude since he had started racing.

   'Maybe Zero remembers some old tricks after all,' X smiled, finally meeting an opponent worth the full processor power to bother with outmaneuvering.

   "Hey, X, how's the gravity back there?" Zero's voice came through the speaker which was positioned above the handlebars.

   "Oh, you ain't seen nothing yet," X chuckled.

   The blue path quickly lead them into the trees below, the loud winds causing a whistle through the dense branches above. X quickly maneuvered, knowing that one wrong move would cause a devestating collision with a tree. Zero was up ahead, and rose into the path; X knew it was time to make his own move. X pushed the Nitro-overdrive button, causing both the gravity fall-out and the nitro to throw the bike into a velocity jump which could easily destroy the bike. X figured he'd just fix it later.

   His bike jumped, clearing a branch which Zero had gone under, and when his bike returned to the path, it came down right in front of another branch. X knew he was blocking Zero's vision and quickly jumped off his bike to avoid the invading branch. Zero wasn't so lucky and collided head-on with the wood in front of him. X took a glance back and saw that no one was sitting on the bike behind him. X smiled, until he realized that the bike was still accelerating.

   'Damn, Zero must have engaged the Temp Pilot...but then where did he go?' X thought. Where ever Zero was now, the Temp Pilot was only designed to stay on the path for ten seconds. After that, the pilot would be disqualified if the Temp wasn't disengaged.

   Immediately, as if to answer his question, Zero's arm came up over the seat of the steel bike. Zero managed to clamber back into his seat and disengage the auto-pilot before hitting any more branches. X realized that Zero must have caught onto one of the tailpipes at the very last millisecond.

   "Well, I'm impressed," chuckled X.

   "Ha ha. Yeah, my payback's gonna be a bitch," retorted Zero sarcastically. X raised an eyebrow in confusion until he heard a Nitro go off behind him. X saw Zero's bike shoot up from behind, but X shrugged. He knew he could easily catch up soon. He hadn't counted on Zero holding onto a branch from behind. Zero grabbed X's back fender and hit the brakes. Immediately, both bikes collided with the gravity fall-out, causing X's primary sensors to go off-line, essentially blinding him. The branch snapped back, sending the X's Hovie into a tailspin only a few meters off the ground. The same thing had probably happened to Zero as well. X switched his vision into a different spectrum to compensate for his temporary blindness.

   X immediately realized that the two bikes had snapped back with the branch and that Zero had let go at the right moment to off-set X nearly the full ten meters off the path. However, X wasn't so easily fooled, even by an advanced tactic such as this, and managed to hit the brakes before he went off course too far. Zero accelerated into full-gear and took off.

   "Where the heck did you learn that?" asked X, bringing his bike back up to full speed.

   "The real question, is how the heck did you get out of that?" asked Zero back. "I've never seen anyone avoid disqualification when I did that!"

   "Blinding a Reploid isn't as effective as blinding a human," X laughed. Zero murmured a curse.

   The two bikes were flying through the sky, now over the trees themselves. It was pretty much smooth sailing all the way into town, with only a few curves to worry about. X and Zero both rode the inside of the curves by nearly the full ten meters, racing like true professionals. The bikes finally accelerated past Mach 1, causing a ripple of sound to pass over the road out of UCO below. The sound was slightly muffled by the fall-out, but it still got the attention of everyone below them. Hovies in a real race barely ever reached over 600kph, because even with the g-force compensation (which is the cause of the gravity fall-out), human bodies cannot handle the pressure for very long. In fact it was very rare that a bike ever broke the sound barrier, even though they could hit speeds of upwards to 800kph. Another fact was that now the bikes were traveling faster than humans could compensate for; but it was not exactly a fact that was going to slow these two down as long as they kept their MGS activated.

   The two bikes sped right into the heart of downtown, the path starting to take curves which were strange and difficult to compensate for at Mach 1. Finally, both bikes were forced to slow down to a mere three hundred kilometres per hour, which was a turtle's speed compared to the past five minutes. The path rode up onto the side of a building, the two bikes aligning themselves with the wall. X looked below him, the windows that looked into the building were flying by at what could still be considered break-neck speeds. The path turned left, which brought them upwards towards the roof. A lot of businessmen drinking coffee and sorting disks seemed to be confused by the jets of blue and grey which passed by their windows.

   "How you doing back there?" snickered Zero. X engaged another nitro and managed to catch up to Zero in a neck and neck fight for first.

   "I'm doing just fine!" X yelled over the screeching whine of his engine. Zero smiled as the two bikes flew off the wall and came within inches of hitting one of the satellites perched on the roof. The two bikes hit the cement rooftop in a scream of sparks as they re-compensated the gravity loss.

   "Let's make this jump a bit more interesting," said Zero, referring to the gravity drop-off in the path up ahead. "Let's disengage the gravimetric safety, and enter free-fall!"

   "Sure, what the hell," X was passed caring if the end result was a possible death. He hadn't had this much of a challenge in ages. In fact, his soldier programming craved it. X smiled and hit the button to disengage the safeties. Zero obliged by doing the same. They then both revved their engines to fly off the building together into oblivion at insane speeds.

   ***

   The streets were busy with hustle and bustle, horns beeping and street vendors selling their various wares. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, the blue complimented by the hideous white glare from the Sun overhead. There were a number of tall buildings in the area, all reaching in heights that were easily half a kilometre. In the past, buildings of this size were legendary, but now it was considered a rather normal height. Screeching and whining came from overhead, which echoed across the concrete walls of the buildings in the area. Two small metal cycles came flying over the edge of the Scotia Bank roof, plummeting underneath the weight of gravity. Two bodies accompanied the cycles, except they weren't even sitting on them. Instead, they were caught in a nose-dive freefall, falling nearly as fast as the cycles themselves.

   X's shirt was rippling loudly across the fierce winds which threatened to pierce the both androids in half before they even got near the ground. Next to him was Zero, whose shirt had actually come off in the course of the fall, hanging off of his left arm. Zero let out a loud yell which was accompanied by X's laughter.

   "How you doing over there, X?" yelled Zero with a smug look on his face.

   "I'm doing just fine, but I don't think the people down there are too comfortable with this," X was referring to the number of screaming people down below in the overcrowded streets. "I have a feeling we'll be in the news tomorrow."

   The ground was getting closer at an unfathomable speed which would definitely kill them both in the free-fall position. X and Zero, holding hands in their freefall managed to catch up with the bikes and landed in their respective seats. The ground was only a mere twenty metres away, and the blue path was about to curve upwards into an alley between two buildings on the opposite side of the street. Some people kept screaming, but most were amazed that such a stunt was even being attempted outside of normal television daredevil publicity. They re-engaged the safeties, missing the tops of cars by inches as the bike stressed and whined against the pull of gravity to stay on the blue path which was laid out for them both.

   The loud windrush caught up with them, filling X's ears with the noise of what they had both just attempted. The path indicator was now giving them the signal that they had both just entered the last leg of the journey. They were both still neck and neck, each now with only one nitro left. The path rode up in a small sloping angle over the brick wall in the alley, leading them into a construction site which seemed to be deserted. The onboard computer was designed to stay away from populated areas and the path wasn't changing up ahead. That hopefully meant that no one was there.

   The bikes sped off through the spaces in the wood boards and entered the building. Within the building, the path took a number of odd turns, the next turn being nearly one-hundred-eighty degrees. X tightened his grip on the handles, preparing to steep right into the turn. As he leaned towards the ground, nearly pulling a barrel roll, he noticed that Zero's bike just kept going and hit a wooden ramp up to the next floor.

   'What the heck is Zero doing? He's gonna get disqualified!' thought X madly trying to determine if another trick was coming. X turned his head back towards the blue path and saw that it went out one of the windows without glass installed yet. Out the window, he saw the New Sydney Hospital which was only a block or two away from the Red Dragon on the other side of the street. That meant the path was going to take a steep right outside the window. X calculated the variables and realized that only a few seconds remained in the race.

   Suddenly, the ceiling crashed in, metal bars falling directly in the path of X. He tried to pull a steep turn out of the way, but one of the bars caught the bike. Unfortunately for X, he kept going through the air. He quickly hit the ground at nearly one-hundred kilometres an hour. He rolled across the wooden boards, sparks and dust flying in every direction to escape X's path across the floor. Finally, he stopped rolling, coming within inches of the edge on the other side of the building. He stood up, shaking his head. X heard a whining sound from behind him and ducked, watching Zero's bike follow the steep path right towards victory. Except there was no one on the bike.

   "Hi X!" yelled Zero cheerfully from behind. Zero was covered in a thick layer of dust, walking away from the fallen bars. Zero leaned against X's stopped bike, coughing some of the dust out of his secondary coolant.

   "Zero! What the hell are you doing back here!?" X was completely lost for words. He just kept stuttering, trying to figure out what just happened.

   "Well, I had to stay behind so that I could cause the bars to drop in front of you at just the right time," winked Zero.

   "...B-but, you'll lose too!" replied X.

   "Nope, the auto-pilot lasts just long enough to--" Zero was suddenly interrupted by a beep from X's bike.

   "The bike entitled, 'The Mean Machine' has won the race," said the computer voice calmly. X just raised an eyebrow, realizing that Jer's bike must have crossed the finish line mere seconds ago and was powering down the bike. Zero laughed and shook his head.

   "Who said I had to be on my bike for it to pass the finish line?" asked Zero.

   X facefaulted, he couldn't believe he fell for such a stupid and completely insane trick. What bothered him even more was the fact that in order to avoid major damage to his bike from the collision, he had ended up tearing out the clutch he had just finished fixing before the race.

   ***

   The two bikes, covered in dust, were outside the Red Dragon. X and Zero walked in through the doors. The place was as busy as last time, the smell of wood and oyster sauce filling the entire restaurant.

   "Hehehe, I got you good," Zero patted X on the back to mockingly console him. X just shook his head.

   "Alright, alright, you got me. I'm still trying to figure out how you got to be so good, though," said X.

   "Well, you weren't too much of a challenge, really," said Zero. X just looked at him with a suspicious eye. "Hey! That's what you get for racing the champion of the Laguna Sec Crosser Athropos region from Venus."

   X widened his eyes, realizing he had just taken on one of the best racers in the solar system. He had never guessed that it could have been Zero beneath the 36 suit. Zero started cackling maniacally for effect. X also couldn't believe he had assumed that Zero would be rusty at bike racing. If anything, Zero loved them more than X ever did. Still, X never could beat him in a race, and it didn't look like things would be changing soon. X was in the midst of his thoughts of losing when Zero shook him out of it. Zero turned surprisingly serious.

   "Hey," Zero whispered. "That's Anyi over there! I wonder what's wrong?"

   X looked up and saw that Anyi was indeed sitting at a table in the far corner. It looked like she was extremely distraught. X shrugged in response to Zero's questioning look and they both walked over to her table. Anyi saw them but didn't seem to care, she just went back to looking at her soup.

   "...Anyi, what's wrong?" asked X. Anyi tried her best to smile, but it didn't come out so well.

   "X..." Anyi just shook her head. She must have seen something terrible today. That was when X remembered that she was analyzing Roll's memory files this morning.

   "It's about Roll, isn't it?" asked X.

   "...It's about a lot of things," replied Anyi somberly.

   ***

   [Plot comment: In X11, Roll stated that it was 30 years since she could remember. Correction: It's 40; and X was placed in a 50-year seal, not 30. I would like to thank Fanatix for bringing that to my attention, X11 is now corrected!]

   [Plot comment: Ivorycruncher has mentioned that Richard Wily should be Albert W. Wily. This will be corrected in the final draft of the story. For the remainder of chapter uploads, it will be Richard. If anyone else sees plotholes or inconsistencies, please bring them to my attention so they can be corrected in the final draft!]

   Author's Comments:

   Damnit, that took a long time.

Michael Raymond Vendittelli (LimousineDriver)