| Chapter Twenty: End of Innocence Night settled over Hunter Headquarters, bringing with it a special type of calm. Now that the Blackstar mission had finally blown over, those involved could begin to relax for the first time in a good while. Soldiers and commanders alike stretched out their legs in the lounge and discussed things other than combat. For most of the Hunters, nothing had changed throughout all this time, since only a few soldiers had been sent out after Blackstar 5041, and the only other people affected by the mission were friends of the wounded. As far as lounging commanders, Zero and Mason were no exceptions. They sat not in the lounge, but on the balcony of Zero’s private barrack. Hunters were garrisoned at the Headquarters building, which was a giant hexagonal complex with several extensions such as garages, laboratories, and the barracks themselves. Zero’s dwellings overlooked the rather beautiful garden at the west end of the complex. The garden was composed of five rings of varying types of flowers, trees, and shrubs all growing around a central fountain. The fountain had a large ivory sculpture of an eagle resting his wings while perched atop a waterfall—from which the fountain’s water flowed—centered in a pool of about fifteen feet in diameter. The groundskeepers made sure the water was always crystal clear, and the work they put into the garden was some of the most tedious labor that went on inside Hunter HQ. It was worth it, Zero had said many times to himself. The garden seemed a bit too peaceful to be part of a military base, but then, they weren’t really a military, were they? They were an organized collection of mercenaries, in truth. They were salaried to go out in packs and take care of renegade Reploids, and sometimes to handle local disputes…“police work” as several Hunters acidly called it. If the Megacity System ever went to war with another system, the armies from each Megacity would merge and do the fighting. Since the Hunters were in no way affiliated with the Megacity Army, they were not officially an army, and they made the most of it, installing such un-military things as the garden. In truth, it was the real “lounge” of the Headquarters. Many a man or woman could always be found taking part in the peace that the place offered, whether they were relaxing on one of the benches scattered throughout the garden reading a book or simply listening to the sound of the water flowing from the falls. It was a serene corner of a most un-serene world, and while everyone who entered it knew that the peace was temporary and not really complete, they still found solace from their troubles inside it for however brief a time it was. Zero had used his rank and position to secure one of the barracks with balconies overlooking the garden, and while he hated admitting it, the Great Zero often needed to bask in the simple calm of the garden, especially when he had a lot on his mind. And I certainly have a lot on my mind, the crimson Hunter thought as he sipped from the clear glass of wine in his hands and set the crystal container down on the table next to his chair. The alcohol in the wine had no effect on his systems, and he and Mason only drank it because they both enjoyed the taste. Their human creators had labored hard to give the Reploids as many human tendencies as they could come up with, and some nutter had had enough free time on his hands to develop a way for Reploids to get drunk. Since Reploids could consume liquids ingested by humans to convert to generator energy, this scientist had developed a light mixture of flavoring and a new liquid element called dendrydium. The dendrydium found its way to the Reploid’s CPU and dulled the systems and senses in order to reach the surreal feeling of drunkenness. There was no hangover afterwards, but there was still a catch: if you dulled the senses too much, they would of course inevitably shut down completely. So, a Reploid had to watch how much they drank, just like a human, or else “alcohol poisoning” would get them, too. Neither Zero nor Mason had any desire to get drunk, and so they had opened a bottle of wine from Mason’s private stash. Few Reploids actually liked the taste of wine—they didn’t mind beer, because like their dendrydium solution, beer didn’t have any definable taste other than “bitter”—but these two were exceptions. The crystal goblets were Zero’s. He didn’t have many things like that laying around his living quarters, but he’d picked up the set while on duty in Megacity 12—London—and had decided to keep them around. He tended to like shiny things, and though mostly he looked for shiny armor, old-fashioned swords, and so forth, he did occasionally pick up something different. Besides, he knew, at least I can play the “good host” role when the damned inspectors come to check us out. “I envy you this room,” Mason said finally, after staring down at the flowing fountain beneath them. The air was cool, and neither man was in any armor. It really was amazing how much a Reploid looked like a human when dressed down. Zero wore a loose fitting shirt and a well-worn pair of khaki pants; Mason, always somewhat stricter in attire, stuck to a blue officer’s coat and a white shirt underneath, as well as neat black pants. He’d been born and raised as a combat officer, and planned on living up to that image fully. He was just like Colonel. Pushing his old friend from his mind, Zero broke his gaze at the garden below to smile in Mason’s direction. “Rank hath its privileges, Mace.” Mason chuckled and nodded his head slowly, but not slow enough to stop his lengthy, thin black hair from catching the breeze and fluttering slowly to the right of his person. For all his care for proper attire, Mason had for some reason never bothered to trim his hair to the traditional military buzz cut. “Probably, there won’t be many more nights like this…” Zero raised his eyes to the sky. The moon was a little less than half full, but it was scarcely seen anyway due to the sufficient cloud cover. At least it wasn’t raining. “It should have been done already.” Mason sat still for several seconds, staring back down at the fountain. He finally responded, but didn’t avert his eyes from the clear pool of water below them. “You know better than that, my friend. It should have been considered, yes, but not done.” He shook his head in a resigned manner. “We can never act in time.” The two were silent once more. Again, it was Zero who broke the silence. “Seems pretty dumb, doesn’t it? I mean, we’ve known about Seraph Castle for almost two months. It’s just been sitting there, and we haven’t even considered an attack on it.” He gripped the glass of wine to his right and raised it to his lips, but he didn’t drink from it. “We just wait, wait until the Mavericks make the first move. Remember what the first move was last time?” Both men spoke in even tones, not letting much emotion fill their words. Mason continued on in this manner. “Sky Lagoon was unfortunate, Zero, but probably unpreventable. How were we supposed to make the first move? We had no one to move against. Repliforce was not our enemy until after Sky Lagoon fell on the city below it.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “But I know how you feel.” “There’s been a major battle at the quarry,” Zero said at length. “Which we began,” Mason pointed out. “It was our move, not theirs.” “There’s been a battle in Steel Alley…” “Isolated incident, and not a single Hunter was killed. That’s not going to attract any special attention.” “Who knows what they’re doing in that castle?” Zero finally got to the heart of the matter. “They could be assembling some death weapon—hell, they probably are assembling some death weapon—and we’re just sitting here and letting them do it.” He set down the glass and punched his left fist into his right hand. “Dammit, Mason, we could overtake that castle in a day!” “Probably,” Mason agreed. “Probably. But to do that, we’d need Megacity Army vehicles and infantry in addition to our own forces. And to get that permit…” “’If the government is going to send these brave people out to fight and die,’”, Zero quoted the Megacity Army rhetoric verbatim, “’then there must be clear and sufficient cause for alarm. Lives cannot be cast away easily.’” “It sucks,” Mason said, sipping his wine. “But that’s the way it goes.” “How are we on building a case?” Zero asked as he stretched out his legs a bit. “Not so good,” Mason admitted, leaning back and shutting his eyes. “We can prove that they were smuggling things, but Mavericks always smuggle things. We can prove that the troops are highly trained and that there is a definite leadership among the enemy, but no one will care, because…” “Because it’s not Sigma,” Zero thought glumly. For once, things would be easier if he were alive. Damn. “Right. Sigma goes down and people automatically think they’re out of the woods.” Mason took a long drink and set the empty glass down. “Civilians are idiots.” “We can’t urge them to consider the fact that taking down Seraph Castle now could prevent a bigger problem in the future?” Mason’s eyes opened slowly and he smiled. “What do you think?” Zero sighed and sank back into his chair, and Mason continued in a more subdued tone. “If something is happening in the Catskills, it’s unimportant. The Mavericks don’t have the numbers to launch a major attack. If they’re planning some one shot deal, then big deal; it can’t be that bad, and once they’ve used up that trump card we’ll just sweep them clean like we always do. That’s what they’ll say.” Zero snorted. “Sigma only had but twenty men under his command in the last war, and yet they started the fall of the most destructive chain of dominoes in history. ‘They don’t have the numbers’, my ass.” “True. Honestly, though, I’m not immediately worried about an attack from Seraph Castle, either.” Zero tilted his head and stared knowingly at his old friend. “You believe that they’re just going to use that place to regroup, and rebuild their army.” “Yeah. If I were the new Maverick leader, I would know full well that I didn’t stand a chance yet against the Hunters. It may be years before I ever even considered launching a major attack.” Mason grinned without humor. “And why not? I’d certainly have the time. So long as I behaved until that dreadful day, the humans wouldn’t do anything about me.” Zero’s smile was equally mirthless, and he drained his own glass of wine while he mulled over Mason’s hypothesis. It made great sense, except… “If that’s the case, there’s still one thing that doesn’t click.” “What’s that?” Zero sat a little straighter in his chair, staring again at the moon, which was peeking out of the clouds more so than usual. “Why here?” “Excuse me?” “If you were going to rebuild an army…why would you choose to do it in Megacity 5? Why would you choose to do it right next door to your rival? We have the largest, most important Hunter base in the world right here. How could any group of Mavericks think that they would be allowed to grow much larger here of all places, without being extinguished first?” “Arrogance, perhaps,” Mason offered, though he knew Zero had found a major fault in his hypothesis. “But yes, arrogance only goes so far, and arrogance to that level would be stupid…and this new Maverick leader has proven that he is far from stupid. The only reason I’d make a base this close to this Headquarters would be…” “To attack us,” Zero finished slowly. “But with what? Doppler tried with a whole fleet of attack choppers and failed. Storm Owl’s air force never even made it close. What could those Mavericks have in tiny Seraph Castle that they think would do what superior numbers and superior firepower failed to do?” “Who knows?” Mason said quietly. “Perhaps they aren’t planning a regroup or an attack. Perhaps they aren’t as smart as we expected. Perhaps this was just a loose colony of Mavericks that Sigma happened to escape to first. Perhaps there’s another larger base somewhere in the world where the next master plan is brewing.” Mason closed his eyes again, resting his head on the comfortable chair’s backrest. “As usual, we won’t know for sure until they take that first step.” Silence reigned once more. Both soldiers were more than a little troubled by the realizations they had come to that night, and the insult to the injury was that they could not do anything about it. They had to wait for the Megacity Army to decide that the threat was great enough to devote troops and lives to a war effort, however short that war promised to be. Zero broke the silence one last time. “It’s a scary feeling.” “Very,” Mason agreed immediately. Fear was nothing to be ashamed of, not for these two when they were together. They were officers—brothers, in a sense. They had seen and done things that normal men could never have seen, done, or even imagined. Fear was natural sometimes, especially here, since the “feeling” they referred to was one that could not be described. “It’s like a bad vibe is surrounding this whole mess.” “Something really is going to happen, and soon.” Zero said what the “vibe” told him to say. He had no evidence; he just knew it. “And I have a feeling it won’t be any kind of ‘regrouping’, either.” Mason departed fifteen minutes later, jesting that the wine was getting to his head. Zero walked out to the balcony after seeing his comrade off and closed the doors leading outside, but he lingered at the sight of the garden before completing his task. He was tired, but suddenly sleep seemed unnecessary. The garden was beckoning him. The peace he had just by being above the garden wasn’t enough; he had to actually go down there and collect his thoughts. His thoughts…they were coming rapidly now, and he cursed them for it. While he’d been talking to Mason, Zero had been able to focus on one problem, but now all the others came flooding back inside of his mind. The garden was deserted, as it was rather late now, and Zero had a perfect opportunity to just sit and think. Still, he wasn’t sure he wanted to dwell on some of the things in his head. They were easier to ignore, and he was afraid that thinking about them would force him to admit truths that he didn’t want to admit: truths about human-Reploid relationships, truths about his own life, truths about the Hunter organization, and all kinds of things he figured he’d do well to stay away from. In the end, what decided him was something Mason had said not twenty minutes earlier: “If I were the new Maverick leader…” “If I were the new Maverick leader,” Zero whispered to himself, knowing full well whom the new Maverick leader or leaders had to be, “I would do everything in my power to bring the Hunters to their knees, and I wouldn’t let anything at all get in my way. Not after what they’d done to me.” And that was not a thought he could sleep on. He left his quarters and covered the short distance to the staircase with slow, deliberate strides, thinking already. The Mavericks would, as usual, get the first move. The first move was always something very confusing and devastating. He remembered the very first move, when Death Rogumer had flown away from the then-small Hunter HQ building and destroyed everything on its route to the construction site where Sigma was assembling his floating palace. Technically, that hadn’t really been the first move, but only Zero really remembered that. There was another who was there with him, and who would remember, but it was not something either of them wanted to dwell on. He was in the garden now. He passed row after row of beautifully arranged flowers and shrubberies and made his way directly to the fountain. He sat on the marble lip of the pool, twisting his body halfway around to stare down at the clear, rippling water. He couldn’t cleanse his mind with this new image, though. The plants had already placed him back in that forest, back at that time, back when innocence ended for him and the war had really begun. Damn. This wasn’t what he’d wanted to think about, but he had no choice now. His mind was already replaying the actions, and the undisturbed peace that loomed through the garden actually worked against its lone occupant, offering him no distraction. He was a prisoner of his mind. It was supposed to be a routine mission, Zero remembered. Explore the Yates Forest outside the Catskills and take care of the crisis that had emerged. Mavericks had taken a family hostage, the intelligence report had stated, and Commander Marne was to take his whole unit in there to make sure that the Mavericks—there weren’t supposed to be many of them at all—didn’t kill any of their prisoners. But there were no hostages, and there were more than just a few Mavericks. They’d come out of nowhere, swarming like locusts over the surprised Hunters. Marne had been Zero’s first commander, and he had taught the young Reploid a lot about life. Marne had trained Zero exclusively, seeing an opportunity in a Reploid who wanted to avenge the life of his recently murdered friend, and he’d been right on the money. Sigma himself had recommended Zero to Marne, and while Marne suspected that Sigma knew something about the crimson Hunter that he didn’t, he respected Sigma’s judgment enough to know that Zero would do him well as a member of his unit. A Maverick gunner had blown Marne’s head to bits almost immediately, and the unit was suddenly leaderless. They were all young, under trained, and lacking serious combat experience. For some reason, the Mavericks were highly trained; masked, and well armed…they made mincemeat out of Marne’s unit. The running had been frantic, Zero remembered. He’d never run so far so fast in his life. Everyone was shooting, and everyone was screaming. The Mavericks were shouting barbaric war cries, hunting the Hunters like dogs. The surviving Hunters were trying to flee the forest, and no one knew who was alive or who was dead anymore. Zero didn’t remember the exact moment when he’d united with Gradient and Zion, but they had all arrived at that fateful clearing together. After expressing joy at being alive, they very briefly surveyed the scenario. There knew that there was an exit trail ahead of them, perhaps a half-mile forward, and with the amount of Mavericks in this forest, they had to get moving fast. Zero sighed at his reflection in the pool of water as the ripples reminded him of the most shocking aspect of that day. They’d each seen it at the same time, the diffusion of colors on a tree that signified the activation or deactivation of a cloaking device. The only thing left to be cloaked was a green head, retracting a long red tongue into its fanged maw, and then vanishing entirely. It had become instantly clear why the Mavericks were so well off—Sting Chameleon was leading them. Sting Chameleon had betrayed the Hunters, and was on a mission to destroy Marne’s entire unit. It didn’t occur to any of the Hunters then that the entire unit would not have been in the forest were it not for Sigma’s order. Sigma had planned this all, but they hadn’t known that. They’d still looked to Sigma as their commander and their ally. Zion had saved all three of them from death. He’d tackled Gradient to the ground and swept Zero’s legs out at the same time. All three of them came down just as the tracers from Maverick heavy machine guns had screamed over their heads, destroying all the surrounding trees. Zion was the quick thinker, and while he followed “The Book” exactly and to the point of annoyance, he really was a good soldier and a clever improviser when things got tough. Gradient wasn’t so good at that sort of thing, but once someone told him what to do, nothing stopped him from doing it. The exit to this hell was ahead of them. They could make it. He’d dashed out to the clearing, drawing enemy fire and providing the cover the other two needed to make a run for it. A few Mavericks had entered the clearing then—they’d been lucky. The main force of Sting Chameleon’s unit had been off chasing a larger group of Hunters. It wasn’t until this point that Zero had realized that Zion was nursing a nasty leg wound. The martial Hunter didn’t let his handicap hinder his performance at all, and he destroyed many a Maverick that came his way. Gradient was shooting with perfect aim, and while Zero certainly did his share, for some reason he had never been able to accept that he’d done just as well as his comrades. Their deeds seemed far more notable than his on that day. The single worst moment of that day was seeing the ride armor. The exit was so near, but now they had this new menace standing in the way of their newfound hope. Zero knew that Vile, Sigma’s favorite lieutenant, had a monster of a ride armor that was reinforced with incredible titanium alloys, making it all but impervious to conventional weapons. Fortunately such projects were remarkably expensive, and there wouldn’t be many ride armors at all in the world that were as powerful as Vile’s toy. Still, this ride armor had been quite formidable. It had charged into the clearing and slammed its giant fist into Zion’s chest, throwing the Hunter far back into the trees, where he lay in a stunned heap. Its pilot had then turned the battle body against Zero and Gradient. Ride armors had always been the only enemy that struck real fear in Zero’s heart. He knew it was partly because he’d been destroyed once whilst sitting atop one of them, but even before that he’d been intimidated by the big, wide mechas, which resembled a regular body, only with larger legs, a broad barrel chest for a cockpit, and gargantuan fists used for pulverizing dash attacks. The enemy mecha had zoomed towards Gradient, using the propulsion systems installed in its back, and a wild dance had begun. The two Hunters had held off the ride armor for a little while before Zion recovered from his injuries enough to fire off a shot. Ride armor mechas typically have a reinforced clear shield that slides over the cockpit to protect the rider, but these earlier designs lacked that particular function, and there was nothing to shield the Maverick inside from Zion’s shot. Gradient dashed up and leapt towards the mecha, firing at point blank at the rider inside. At the same time, the pilot had been executing a desperate last minute maneuver, turning the ride armor to face Zero. With its pilot suddenly dead, the ride armor didn’t finish its turn, and the weight imbalance caused the goliath machine to fall over…right onto Gradient. The clear fountain water was disturbed by the sudden intrusion of Zero’s fist. Gradient had been the first friend he’d ever made, and that armor had crushed his torso. His head and shoulders had emerged pitifully from the wreckage, while his legs lay limp on the other side. Gradient’s final attack had ignited the coolant in the dead Maverick’s body, and soon the fire spread to the weakened ride armor. Zion had literally been forced to drag Zero away before the mecha exploded, taking Gradient with it to the great beyond. Yes, they’d escaped, that was true. Yes, they’d been filled with hatred and vengeance when they’d learned that Sigma was behind everything. And yes, they’d hunted Sigma down the same way Sting Chameleon had hunted them, and yes, they’d put an end to his dreams of genocide. But that day would never be erased from Zero’s memories, and the loss of Gradient was a wound that would never close. From that day on Zero had done everything in his power to protect whatever other friends he made. That was why, he knew, the deaths of Colonel and Iris had nearly driven him to suicide. No, he’d never told anyone that part, not even X. Zero sighed, regaining control of himself, concentrating on the constant, tranquil sound of the water crashing down into the fountain. What was he fighting for? He’d asked that question of himself as he’d flown away from the dying Final Weapon. Did all the Reploids turn out to be Mavericks, after all? He’d killed the two people who were as close to him as X was, and it hadn’t helped that Sigma had forced him to reexamine his bloody past. Yes, he’d been a Maverick, and had almost killed the Hunter Sigma in an abandoned warehouse. But he’d been defeated and dragged back to the Headquarters, where Sigma insisted that Dr. Cain study him. Cain had immediately taken pity on Zero, for reasons unknown to the Reploid, and had jointly agreed with Sigma to integrate Zero into the Hunter army. Sigma wanted me to join him when he went Maverick, Zero now knew. He was planning on having my power on his side. It is my “destiny” to work with him, and destroy all the humans. If that were true, then everything he’d worked for had been a lie. All of his friends were really his enemies. All those he had killed, like Colonel, Iris, and even inadvertently General—X had actually battled General to defeat while Zero had been having his conversation with Sigma—had died for no reason. He would have been a failure. He knew now, after forced self-evaluation and help from X and his other companions, that that was not true. This was his path, the path he had chosen for himself. No “destiny” ruled his life. He had the ability to think and make his own decisions. He was a “Reploid”, after all. But at that moment, as he reentered Earth’s atmosphere from the blackness of space, he’d been on the verge of ending his life and rejoining Iris and Colonel, and all the others who had gone before him. He knew this was foolish, of course—he was a machine. The concept of an afterlife was absurd for him. But it was surprising how strong the lure of illusion could be to a thoroughly disillusioned Reploid. “Why did you live?” he asked his reflection in the calming water. He still didn’t know that. Perhaps he’d find out in time, but he knew that he couldn’t die yet. Something would happen that he alone could handle, and if he killed himself before it happened, then many more would die by his hand, in a sense. Footsteps broke him out of his thoughts. Someone else was in the garden, and Zero already had a sinking suspicion of who it was. He was right. “Your hair is wet,” Dr. Cain said helpfully. “Hmph,” Zero mumbled, realizing it for the first time. The tips of his long golden ponytail had found their way into the cool water while he was immersed in his thoughts. He wrung the hair in his hands, squeezing out the water and looking up to face Cain. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?” “Very funny, sonny,” Cain said with a bit of a sneer. “As I recall, the only time you’re up this late is when you’re up to something illegal. Am I right?” Zero forced a grin onto his face. “Those who break the rules would not be wise to tell the chief warden about it.” Cain shook his bald head slowly, fixing Zero with a half smile. “You never change.” “I don’t know about that,” Zero admitted, regretting it as soon as the words left his mouth. Cain didn’t take the bait yet, though. “Came out here to get some peace and quiet. I’ve just been in a meeting with politicians and an angry Caligula.” “Christ,” Zero said with a shake of his head, invoking the name of a man who certainly had no bearing over the Reploid people, “how bad was it?” “Oh, you know,” Cain said with a shrug. “Caligula insisted that now was the time to strike. He said the same things we’ve all been thinking, but the representative from the government said that until a definite plan was drawn up, his peers would probably be skeptical.” “No offense, Cain, but is your race hell bent on self destruction, or what?” “You have no idea,” the old man said with a short bark of a laugh. “I read somewhere that self destruction was in our nature. Perhaps that explains things.” He shrugged again. “Or we’re just stupid.” Zero did laugh this time. It was quiet until Cain asked the question that he’d hoped Zero would answer unbidden. “So what brings you to this place at this time of night?” The Reploid stared back down at the water. There really was no escape, he knew. “Thinking.” Cain surveyed his pupil for a few seconds before speaking, and his tone suggested that he was less than pleased. “You haven’t talked to a soul yet, have you?” “I’ve been busy,” Zero protested weakly, knowing that defense would be torn down immediately. “Bull,” Cain said simply. “You’ve had plenty of time on your hands. You know X has been worried sick about you?” “X worries too much.” That at least was true. X had a great heart but at times he could seem an awful lot like a mother hen, and that annoyed people. “I’ll give you that,” Cain allowed with a tired sigh. “But I’ll confess that I’ve been a little worried, too. Sometimes you have this look on your face, and I’ve only seen that look once before.” Zero stiffened. He’d never actually come out and told anyone just how messed up he’d been after the fourth uprising, though Cain seemed to know all about it. The old man was extremely good at reading people, and there was no way to hide anything from him. Zero accepted this reluctantly; he had too many things he wanted to hide from people. “What am I going to say to X?” he said in a voice that was almost a whisper. He was staring down at the pool again, looking at his reflection, knowing that the last of his defenses were crumbling. Should he go any further? Should he finally tell someone the dangerous things that had come out of Mortar’s mouth so many days ago? The words came before he could place any restriction on them. “How do I tell him that I hope Sigma never goes away?” Oh well. Cain’s face remained blank, but he didn’t wait long before speaking. “You know, words like that can’t be spoken lightly. I’m sure you have a nice explanation for them, and I’d sleep a whole lot better if I knew what it was.” No choice now, he knew. He’d more or less told Cain that he wanted Sigma to live, and to carry on his plans forever. If that wasn’t a declaration of Maverick allegiance, nothing was. He blessed and cursed his choice of words, figuring they came from the smarter portion of his CPU; he was now forced to elaborate on them, or suffer consequences. He had to get this off his chest now…finally. “You remember Mea, don’t you?” His eyes didn’t leave the water. He hated talking about Mea, but he had to start somewhere, didn’t he? “Humans killed her.” Cain’s head tilted. “Go on.” Zero took a deep breath. “There was an organization led by the Megacity Army that forced Reploids to work for them…slaves, if you will. They were forced to go out and kill powerful Reploids, because if a Reploid got too powerful, well…” He motioned blindly with his left hand. “Just look at Sigma.” Cain tried to keep his voice level, but the tiniest bit of concern seeped into it. “And these people killed Mea?” Zero tried hard not to choke on the lump growing in his throat. “The humans gave the order, and the man who did it was…well he was a sniper.” Cain didn’t ask anything else, so Zero stabilized his breathing and tried to focus. It was time to spill everything. “These assassins were forced to kill in this way for some time. They did fail, however, by letting Sigma go unpunished, and so when he attacked, they disbanded the program. They tried to kill all of the assassins because…well…” Cain nodded and picked up the slack for his struggling friend. “If the Reploid Hunters knew what the humans had been up to, then they would have all ran off to join Sigma in a heartbeat.” “Yeah,” Zero said, very weakly. He would have done the same thing, he knew. He would have gone off and killed the people who’d ordered Mea dead. Destiny averted? “They were hunted down like dogs, but a few of them survived.” He proceeded to the heart of the matter. “The sniper who killed Mea escaped. He was at the 12th district quarry, and he was there when the Maverick reinforcements came to help Blackstar 5041. The new leaders of the Mavericks, I think, are these survivors.” Enslaved, used, shamed, and eventually forced to flee from people who wanted to brutally murder them…I’d think any survivor of that chaos would be a particularly effective and brutal Maverick commander. Shit. Cain was thinking the exact same thing. He leaned against the fountain, his face etched with concern. The wise old man realized instantly everything that Zero had come to realize already, and the weight of the secret settled on his chest like a sack of bricks. “Therefore, the Mavericks will be particularly brutal this time around.” He frowned. “But there’s more, isn’t there? Your original statement about Sigma hasn’t been explained yet.” “I know…” Zero fidgeted uncomfortably. It was hard for him to admit fear to anyone, and he was lucky in that respect, because there was very little that frightened him as far as battlefield situations or enemies. It was the psychological battles that tended to get the better of him, and he carried the foolish yet common idea in his head that soldiers who had to ask for help in these crucial areas were somehow weaker than other people. But again, his earlier words gave him no choice but to answer, and if there was anyone Zero could trust he figured it would be Cain. And X, he realized suddenly, and not without a pang of guilt. “Well?” Cain prompted at last, raising his eyebrows briefly. “It’s got nothing to do with the immediate situation…regarding these Mavericks and all.” Zero tried to avoid eye contact, staring instead at one of the well-groomed shrubberies near the fountain. “It’s the whole conspiracy thing…with the Reploid assassins.” He took a deep breath and just said it. “If the humans could do that to the Reploids once, they certainly could do it again, when the wars are over, to make sure that there isn’t another Reploid who gets as powerful as Sigma did.” Cain went very quiet, which would have unnerved Zero greatly except for the fact that Cain was showing emotion. His head lowered slightly and he shut his eyes, rubbing his hand on his temple as though it would smooth out the wrinkles in his brain and let him find the right thing to say. At length he looked back up and stared Zero in the eye. “You got this from Mortar, right? That day you interrogated him in the slums?” A nod. “I didn’t say anything in the report. I didn’t say anything to anyone, because something like this…even if it’s just a rumor, it could…” “It could blow us out of the water,” Cain finished. “If the Reploid Hunters heard it, panic would run rampant. They’d all march off and join the Mavericks, just like…” He paused, and his face looked as it would after he had just tasted a particularly sour grape. “It’s just like what the humans of this alleged conspiracy were afraid of. The Hunters would be finished.” It was Cain’s turn to look at the ground for a while, and when he looked back up at Zero the crimson Hunter thought the doctor of archaeology—he had become the big businessman he was now after he discovered X, the first Reploid, in a capsule on an archaeological dig—looked a little older than he had a minute ago. “I take it you believe what Mortar told you?” Zero nodded cautiously. “I know, he’s a Maverick, and he could very well have dreamed up the story just to spread misinformation and panic among us…but if that were the case, wouldn’t he have already told other people?” “You’re asking me?” “Point.” Zero frowned, accepting his dark hypothesis. “He’s telling the truth. He has to be. I don’t have any evidence, no, and I imagine if there ever were any evidence the leaders of the conspiracy would have erased it by now. But I just…I just know. It’s just too plausible.” Cain chewed on that for a while. “I agree,” he said weakly. “It is plausible. I am very ashamed to say it, Zero, but it is plausible.” The old man frowned inwardly and silently damned his bigoted race. It was because of discrimination and maltreatment that the Maverick Army came to being in the first place, and the cold acts Zero had just described seemed like something that indeed could have happened. Humans wanted to control as much of the world as they could. It made them feel safe. They wanted to control anything that they thought might hurt them, in hopes that they could stop it from becoming a threat. But Cain’s race never looked at the big picture, did they? No, the scientist admitted, at least not the ones in power, and even if they did it was only in hindsight. And indeed, if the Megacity 5 government had done something like this once, they might be tempted to do it again. A new matter of import ferreted its way into Cain’s brain. “Thornton and Komanov. Were they involved in this program?” Zero’s face drained of emotion. “Yeah. That’s what clinched it for me. Mortar was very satisfied about their deaths. It all made sense then, evidence or no. He didn’t name any other names,” the Hunter added, anticipating Cain’s question before it was asked. Cain frowned again. This made it all the more plausible. Thornton and Komanov had been killed in particularly brutal ways, and the investigators really could not put a finger on any form of motive. If Mortar had been telling the truth, it all could make simple sense: vengeance. This was a worst-case scenario. Good Reploids like Zero often carried the flak for the bad ones, and while Zero was loyal to his friends, fear could work on anyone. If Zero knew that the humans threatened his life, he’d defect eventually. Who wouldn’t? Cain certainly would, if he were in Zero’s shoes. Shit…Komanov and Thornton, two high ranking and well respected figures in the Megacity Army. They were human figureheads, and if this was how it really was…what were they, really? Murderers? If humans as well respected as these could do this, what about the less respected ones? Zero must see all humans as villains now. Cain drew a breath, weighing his words carefully. He wanted to show Zero that these humans were in the minority, that not all humans were like that. He found that the easiest way to do that was to merely state his honest opinion. “You want Sigma to stay alive forever, because as long as he exists, the humans have a reason to keep you Reploid soldiers around, right?” Zero flinched. “It’s…well…” He damned himself for the thought, feeling remarkably guilty. “I know it’s selfish. He kills so many people, every time…innocent people…but still, you know…” He motioned weakly, and struggled hard to get out his own honest opinion. “He does provide a sort of insurance for us, yes.” Cain sighed quietly and with a lot of pity. He had never been in a situation like this himself, but he somehow found himself perfectly understanding Zero’s fears nonetheless. “Zero, I do not envision a mass Reploid genocide any time soon. I do not even anticipate a repeat of this conspiracy Mortar told you about.” He smiled as reassuringly as he could. “You forget that before the wars, Reploids were used to do everything humans couldn’t do. You guys are the perfect astronauts. You can mine in areas too hot for humans to enter. Specialized Reploids can even explore the ocean. Your race is just too useful.” Existing solely as a workhorse didn’t thrill Zero that much, but at least the doctor was giving him a shard of reasonable hope to latch onto, and latch he did. “I suppose…” Cain went on, seeing that the truth was actually working. “Look at all the other discrimination cases in history. Eventually, society accepted the discriminated parties, however grudgingly. But it took time.” Cain tapped into the deepest reaches of his historical knowledge. “Negroes were enslaved throughout the world, and even when they were for the most part freed they were still discriminated against. They were treated as inferiors and as something less than human…much like the Reploids, except for the human part.” Zero nodded his head to indicate that he was still with the doctor, and so he continued confidently. “But eventually equal rights settled in, and though there was still some discrimination, the blacks could be accepted as equals in society, and things were made right that way. It’s like that with every race, human and mechanical.” “So you’re saying,” Zero interpreted, “that when the Mavericks do go down, there will be hard times, but eventually…?” “Yeah,” Cain nodded, telling the Hunter what he needed to hear. “Everyone makes mistakes. It will take a long time to smooth out the wrinkles caused by Sigma’s people, but in time…” There really wasn’t much else to say. Both of them stared towards the ground, letting things sink in. Zero mulled over Cain’s words and found them sensible, as sensible as anything Mortar had said, and perhaps even more so. The realization that Mortar’s proposed future was not the only possible future erased much of the doubt and uncertainty from his mind. He felt peace return to his thoughts, and he was fairly certain that this peace had nothing to do with the garden. They’d both said their words. The conversation was over, by rights…there was nothing left to say. “How’s the war council doing?” Zero asked, looking up with eyes that conveyed silent thanks. “Sluggish,” Cain replied simply, his own eyes conveying their own form of thanks. “I’ll check tomorrow morning and see if anything came up during the night.” They both nodded to each other and Zero remained in place until his boss—as a commander, Zero technically only had to consider Signas his boss, but no one disputed Cain’s claim to the Hunter agency, Signas included—turned and left the garden. Only when Cain was gone did Zero spin on his heel and walk back to his quarters. He was tired and fairly slow, but he did move with a bit more spring in his step. For the second time in not so long a while, Zero realized that things might not be so bad after all. |