This is the second episode in the two-parter. I know the pilot episode is a bit boring; I have to deprogram the Megaman fans from certain expectations from the fandom. This means throwing in a lot of (what would normally be considered) unnecessary detail to slowly get all of you settled in MY take on the world. I'm not on medication this time, at least.

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"Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly."
- Langston Hughes.

The long field of short blue grass was daunting to the little bird. She pecked around, hoping for some trace of food. It had been scarce the past few days amongst these giant shiny rocks. She hoped to find more inside one; she was lucky to find an entrance. She hopped up on the wooden log and pecked a bit more. It looked like there wasn't any food around here either. She just had to be more persistent! The bird decided to go in further and flew over the field. She landed near a rock face with a gold line running along the ground. She sensed movement and ducked behind a short fat tree to avoid being spotted. Once she was sure of safety, she resumed her quest. She spent some time scouring the walls in vain for any missed holes. Suddenly, part of the wall shot out at her! She tried to fly, but it was too late.

X opened his bedroom door and walked straight to the bathroom. 'I haven't shaved in awhile.' It wasn't an accident; he simply didn't feel like it the past few days. It was hard to find things to do when he was given time off. Watching hair grow, sleeping in a bed, eating and drinking; he knew how it all added up. Strange hobbies had developed during his short-lived vacation. He stroked the stubble while looking in the mirror. He decided to get rid of it; the five-o-clock shadow look didn't suit him.

X grabbed the razor and it came alive at his touch. Two small bolts of electricity fired across the opening at the tip, forming the teeth. He brought the razor to exactly .468 centimetres distance and watched the electricity dance across his face. He ran some water to wash up, happy to see the filtration system back online. He'd have to remember to thank his landlord.

"Chirp!"

'Chirp?'

"Chirp!"

'What?' X raised an eyebrow. He poked his head out the bathroom door to see a little bluebird hopping across the carpet.

"Chirp!"

"Um...hi?" responded X. He was pretty sure that the city birds were programmed to avoid flying into buildings. The bird looked up at him and chirped again; it was starting to look frantic.

"Are you looking for food?" X's question got nothing but more chirps. X measured the stress levels in the bird's voice. It wasn't just frantic; the chirps sounded too realistic. The city wouldn't mass produce birds with an artificial syrinx. Such an advanced electroactive polymer was usually reserved for humanoid machines. This bird came across as simply too... real.

"Chirp chirp!"

"Why don't you fly away little guy?" X realized he knew absolutely nothing about living animals; he wasn't sure what to think of meeting one. Maybe there was something wrong; the bird might have flown into a window by accident or something. X called up his external pressure database to determine how much Newtonian force he used to open the door. There was definitely a stutter in it's movement. He then estimated the mass of the bird at a glance.

"Oh," X's face turned glum. "Ah...crap, I'm sorry."

The bird flailed a little, trying to move with just the one wing. It was starting to become distraught. X took an x-ray snapshot with his left eye; he wasn't familiar with bird biology, but even he could see the problem.

'Well his left wing is broken. Good going, X.'

The bird chirped again.

"Okay okay, hang on a second. I'll think of something," X ran a search on first aid for simple avian species. His research was interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. He turned around in a jolt.

"What the--" X was startled until he saw Zero's face. Zero had an amused, but impatient look.

"I got a cab waiting downstairs, how long does it take you to shave?"

"I--well," X just stepped aside and gave Zero a good look at the bird. "I don't suppose you have some food on you?"

"What, I carry birdseed with me now?" Zero shook his head. "Wait, how did it even get in here?"

"Gee, let me think. He either flew in through an open window or has learned the art of turning doorknobs with his beak."

"Touché," Zero bent down to take a look at the bird. "Well, it's obvious that the wing is broken. Here let me just...."

Zero popped open his left wrist and pulled out a few small metal picks. He gently picked up the bird and began fashioning a makeshift bandage.

"Since when do you look after birds?" asked X.

"It's not rocket science," Zero raised an eyebrow. "Actually, you probably find that easier. Can we go now?"

"Is he gonna be alright if we leave him here?"

Zero waved off X's concerns and walked back into the livingroom. X took one last look at the bird before leaving. It wasn't just rare to see a real bird these days, it was impossible. Just how did this bluebird get out of a high-security habitat?

***

The ride to UCO was boring. They were both sitting in the backseat of the yellow cab. Zero wasn't much for conversation; he seemed busy watching the news on HV. Zero never showed interest in human politics, so it was probably just to kill time. X resigned himself to looking out the window. He looked down at the street; this highway was raised off the ground and plated with green copper. It was common for older vehicles and public transit to use the ground. X looked up at the wide streetlights and then ahead further down the road. In another time and place, he would have been familiar with this long highway.

X looked at Zero, who was still watching HV. Every bump in the road ran a thin line of static up through the image. Even though the two hadn't really seen eachother in years, there didn't seem to be anything to say.

X sighed. This was going to be a long trip.

***

Closed - Moved to Room 03.

"Shit!" Zero kicked the door in frustration, but not hard enough to break it. He was mad, not stupid. The musty booksmell of the dark yellowish hallway reminded X that they were in a school building and he whispered to Zero to keep it down. X walked past his friend and tried the door; it wasn't locked.

There wasn't anything left; the brown linoleum floor was completely clear of everything. There were outlines in the dust, showing where old equipment had been sitting. There was nothing left in this dark room but an old wood smell.

"They moved the stuff already? I thought I had another day," X said. Zero shrugged.

"Guess I'm not helping you move today after all," Zero paused. "Hang on, didn't some of it belong to you in the will?"

"Well...most of it was rented equipment from UCO. Maybe they thought I took my stuff already and just moved everything."

"So where is this room three?" asked Zero. X shrugged.

"I don't know, I've never been in the Physics building before. Maybe there's a map around here."

The two went back out into the hallway and began to wander aimlessly. X made a quick note of the numbers on the doors and realized that Room 03 was probably in the basement. After some searching for the stairway, they made their way down. The atmosphere in the basement was quite different. Everything was encased in concrete; the floor had little yellow caution markings which warned of radioactive materials. X was reminded of the feeling of a military bunker. Eventually, they came to a rusted brown metal door at the end of one hallway. The glass in the window was cracked and a little yellow post-it note said, "Room 03". The white blinds prevented either android from getting a good look inside.

"You have got to be kidding me," Zero frowned and shook his head in disbelief.

"I think this is the place. Let's get it over with," X reached for the doorknob, only to have it come off in his hand with a metallic springing pop. X closed his hands tightly in a short wave of frustration, feeling the metal in the knob bend around his fingertips.

The door creaked loudly as X pushed; the rust on the hinges were visibly flaking away from all this movement. X heard some rustling from behind the door and it was then opened the rest of the way by someone else.

"I thought I heard something! Welcome to room three!" she put on a big grin for both of them.

'Oh no,' X couldn't believe it. The door opened the rest of the way, revealing the woman from last night. This time, she was wearing a yellow sweater and pants covered by a large white labcoat. She waved at X.

"Hello, I was wondering when you would show up!" She waved them both in and shut the door. The place was an absolute disaster of various wires and computer hardware half-connected and strewn about the cold concrete floor. Two diagnostic capsules were up against the far wall; they weren't even connected to anything. A couch and a bed were in the far right corner, obviously used and covered in various parts. The insulation was visibly hanging from the ceiling. The piping and heater in the far left corner suggested that this place was only some sort of a boiler room.

"And...you are?" asked Zero. Unlike X, the nature of the room didn't distract him. X started to pick through the old metal gadgets.

"I'm sorry. My name is Dr. Solieu, but please call me Anyi!" She led them further into the room and took a seat on the couch. "I'm an old student of Dr. Caine. You must be Zero!"

Zero looked visibly shooken that this human knew his name. X took him aside in a whisper.

"Dr. Caine told her everything, I saw her last night and she knew about me too."

Zero looked back at X and then at her. He regained the small drop in his composure.

"Sorry, I'm not used to...", Zero paused. "humans knowing who I am. Just who are you?"

"Last I heard, she was studying teleportation in the USE," X beat Anyi to answering the question. She had a puzzled look on her face and then smiled at X.

"I guess I'm not the only one who's been digging around personal files," Anyi said slyly.

"It wasn't hard to find information on you, UCO has entire articles dedicated to your invention of Solieu Fields," X said.

"I heard something about that..." Zero furrowed his brow, trying to remember. "Something to do with the old teleportation isn't it?"

X knew all about it. Some scientists in Southern Canada were testing teleportation in a desert twenty years ago. They determined that overuse caused a slight shift in the electromagnetic field of the planet, severely affecting weather. It explained a lot about the unstable shifts; the government paid it no attention until it became critical. About ten years ago, during the war, import/exports were banned from using teleportation. It became illegal across the solar system, except for extreme military emergencies; the useage of it by Maverick Hunters was almost always restricted.

"--we're still trying convert Higg's particles... we might have something on it by the end of next year," Anyi was trying to explain the concept of teleportation theory to Zero. It was obvious he was confused and probably didn't care. Zero tried to shift the conversation.

"That bed over there looks like it's been used. Is this your...um...'place'?" Zero asked.

"Ever since I got back from Europe two weeks ago!" Anyi patted the couch. "I know, it's not much. But I've been too busy spending all my time on the records left by Dr. Caine."

X picked through some of the stray papers on the table. A lot of it was systems output from Dr. Caine's first run-through on X's capsule. X thought all of it was under lock and key, confiscated by the government. Apparently Dr. Caine managed to save a lot of his research. It's a good thing he was never found out before he died.

"Dr. Caine was hoping I'd take over his research. I'd be happy if you could both help me out!"

"But you're so young..." X didn't know how to finish that sentence.

"Besides the research was banned after the war," Zero said. "I thought you were a physicist or something; why would Dr. Caine turn over his robotics research?"

"I became a physicist because of the ban," Anyi spoke quietly. It seemed to upset her. "Well, I won't be doing robotics with you guys anyway. I told you I took over Dr. Caine's work; his latest project didn't involve robotics research."

X and Zero looked at eachother. Zero was confused, but X was surprised. That was because X knew the old doctor better than anyone in the room. Dr. Caine only had two loves: Robotics and Archaeology. And apparently his latest project didn't involve machines.

"Wait a second, did he actually manage to work out those orbits?" X asked. Anyi smiled at that comment. She jumped up from the couch and started pointing out her scribbled notes on the pages in X's hand.

"So you know about them?" Anyi giggled. "Actually, Dr. Caine was never very good at lagrangian mechanics. I can see why he contacted me last month."

"And?" Zero asked, obviously having no interest in sorting through the notes himself.

"And so I finished his calculations; they were a little off but nothing major," Anyi faulted slightly. "I wish he could see it."

"Wait, so what are these orbits?" Zero interjected, still lost in the conversation.

"When my capsule landed from orbit it was still too early," X said. "Dr. Caine was obsessed with finding the original launch point. He was able to determine the exact launch date and he extracted data from the capsule that showed a number of trajectory shifts made by the attached boosters. They burned out trying to keep me in orbit; he was able to determine when they finally died."

"Actually he figured out even more than that," Anyi said. "I had to make a few corrections, but there wasn't much left for me to do. It still took two weeks though. And at least now I know where to look."

Zero sat down on the couch, trying to sort through all the information. X smiled; Zero would remember that both of them were born from capsules that were launched into space decades ago. Determining the original launch point would mean--

"Hang on. Are you saying you found Dr. Light's secret lab?" Zero asked. Zero rarely showed interest in history, but even he should know the importance of that discovery. "So does that mean you figured out my original launch point as well?"

Anyi shook her head. "The data from that capsule was lost... almost as if it was wiped clean. We don't have a launch date or anything. Honestly, I'm surprised Dr. Caine got his hands on it; that cave collapsed shortly after Sigma went crazy."

Zero nodded and relaxed his shoulders. His excitement was lost. X put a hand on his shoulder to cheer him up.

"Don't worry; there should be something about you in that lab. We're pretty similar hardware; maybe we really were both launched from the same place, as suspected." X looked back up at Anyi. "So where is this place anyway?"

"Well, that's the weird part. I've run the numbers again and again, but they seem pretty determined to lead us there."

"Where?" asked X. If it involved uncovering his past, he would chase even the smallest clue to the ends of the Earth.

Anyi paused before finally answering. "It's somewhere in the Arctic Circle."

'Chasing it that far is exactly what we have to do.'

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Author's Comment: Man, the conversation involving Anyi is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. Other than that, it's basically the same chapter as before. Well, we've finally got a starting point for the series. Hopefully we finish with the boring setup soon and move into actual characterization. It's funny, but I suspect that these new chapters are actually shorter than the original. Well let me know what you think.

I'll see you guys next week for the first flashback episode!

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