Chapter Four: Doubts and Fears
As it was, X never came back to Zero's dorm. The blond had fretted and chewed up both of his gloves in worry, but he knew he couldn't go shrieking into HQ looking for X just because his bitchy ex-girlfriend wanted to chat. No, Zero was a mature Reploid and he would at least finish his filing and reports before tearing the place apart looking for his friend.
Besides, X was a grown Reploid; Zero couldn't try to shelter him forever. Maybe this talk would give X the real closure he needed and get the blue Reploid to let go of his darker views of that good ol' emotion of love. After the reports were done, Zero had plenty of alone time to seriously sit down with himself—in front of a mirror for good measure—and have a chat. He made sure, of course, his dorm door was locked with the password only he and X knew.
"Okay, self," Zero murmured, running his hand through his free-flowing hair. For a moment, Zero went ahead and studied himself over, looking for physical flaws.
Reploids were initially built with their armor on and were basically stuck with that same set of clothes for the rest of their lives. However, as before, scientists wanted to see just how close to human they could get machines, and thus came out the Year of Patches—every Reploid that wanted was invited to download special data and receive special upgrades all for free. These upgrades included a fully 'functional' human-like body underneath their birth armor.
Not surprising, Zero and X already had that luxury, of which is where said scientists got the start from.
Zero had gone ahead and downloaded and installed some of the data-upgrades, but never bothered with the body-altering ones. He never really paid much attention to his physical appearance except to manage his hair, which was his pride and joy. Staring at himself now, Zero briefly wondered if his creator, whoever he or she was, based him off someone. Unlike X, who had no real 'flaws' and was the near definition of perfect in terms of looks, Zero had small flaws here and there that no one but he (and X, who had a delightful time studying him to find said flaws) knew about.
Zero touched his nose with a fingertip. While not noticeable far away and hardly up close, if one seriously stared and studied him, they'd notice Zero's nose was slightly crooked, and one nostril was actually a fraction larger than the other. Zero's eyes were also not perfectly aligned, and in fact, one eye was a touch bluer than the other.
"Wait," Zero muttered, lowering his hand. "This was supposed to be a self-talk over realization of feelings, not a narcissist moment."
Tugging at the collar of his white t-shirt, then at his jeans, Zero suddenly found it hard to admit out loud what he was feeling. In his mind, he could easily input the text, I love X, a thousand times. And yet his voice box never seemed to register.
"Okay, Zero, you idiot," he muttered to the mirror. It reflected a handsome face, framed with gold, with its features twisted in annoyance. "For as long as you've known, X has been your best friend."
Baby steps.
"You already openly admitted you'd protect him, and die for him, and live for him, and enjoy spoiling him whenever possible." Zero nodded to his reflection. "To be perfectly honest, on the outside, it probably already looks like the two of you are…"
Dating.
Yes. That's it.
No, moron, say it out loud.
"The two of you are… d…" Zero facepalmed himself. "Dating. There. Okay. Yes. You two are pretty much life partners, minus the lovey-dovey part. However, Zero, you've now discovered you had, at some point, developed said feelings for X. You…"
Are in love with X.
"Yes, that's right." Zero groaned, grabbing a nearby cushion off his bed and beating his face with it a few times. "Okay!" he threw it aside. "Zero, you are in love with X. Say it with me… I am in love with X." he paused to take a deep breath, and suddenly he held that breath.
I am in love with X. Yes. I admitted out loud. Go, self-talking.
Zero let out the breath and it slightly fogged up his mirror, blocking his reflection, which he didn't care. He rested his elbow on the dresser the mirror rested on, his cheek leaned against his fist. He closed his eyes and continued to speak to his reflection.
"You broke up with Iris five months ago, stating it wasn't fair she had to wait around for you because you were gone all the time. That said, do you have time to pursue a romantic relationship with your best friend and battle buddy? Won't that be bad?" By Heaven, he was an idiot, asking and answering his own questions.
"Not really," he answered himself. Zero wouldn't admit it, but he actually did this a lot more than one would think. The self-talking bit. "You have the same job and spend all your time together, on the clock and off. You won't tell her, but admit you blew Iris off a couple of times to go hang out with X."
In light of this conversation, Zero realized he was not the least bit perturbed by his discovery. After all, he was a Reploid—what did gender mean to him? Not only that, he never cared what the humans thought of his personal life and views, he simply just did what was right and protected them. Sure, the close-minded community of the fleshlings might get offended that their great hero likes to romp with other males, but who were they to decide how Zero wanted to feel? Isn't that the biggest gift Dr. Light gave X, who was the grandfather of Reploids—the ability to have free will and emotions?
Zero opened his eyes and he frowned at his reflection. He didn't know his own age, but suddenly thinking of X as a 'grandfather' was certainly a turn-off.
"Talk about grave-robbing…"
~*~
"Oh, X…" Delia's voice dripped with sweetness and familiarity that it stung his still hung-over head.
X rubbed his helmeted head. "What did you want?" I can be civil. I am civil.
"I was meaning to get in touch with you, but I heard you reacted… badly to mention of me."
He felt like smacking himself, or maybe even her. "Gee, I wonder. Now what did you want?"
Delia flipped her pale-green hair over her shoulder. In a way, X saw a lot of Iris in her—she had that exaggerated and too-perfect womanly body figure, and her hair always appeared luxurious and begged to be touched despite its odd color. Her face wasn't as rounded as Iris', giving her a more mature look, and her eyes were a bit more narrow and magenta in color. Her odd looks were charming, and the way she looked at him, she was trying to charm him.
X wouldn't fall for it.
So Delia gave up. "Look, I get it, you're mad about the whole cheating thing," and she held her hand up before X could yell. "That's just me, X. I was given free will by my creator and playing men is my way of exercising it. Don't take it personally, I can't really help it. If it's any consolation, I actually felt bad."
"You're such a bitch—"
"But about why I wanted to talk to you," she cut in. "As you know X, all female Reploids now have the ability to 'reproduce' to an extent. Remember how you went with me to get the data?"
X remembered. They had talked extensively about it, since Delia had already been constructed before the release. Wanting to feel closer to their human counterparts, female Reploids asked for some sort of 'maternal' upgrade. Obviously they could not get pregnant—instead, a program was developed to mimic a sort of pregnancy process. The program could run automatically—as in it triggered when the female Reploid engaged in what she believed as a sexual encounter—or manually, whenever the female Reploid wanted and had the means to do so.
X didn't recall the details, but he knew the basic gist was the female Reploid would 'download' some of her man's personality data (if man was a Reploid—human males did not trigger the 'if-else' statement the program required, as male data was needed. They were supposedly fixing that, but X long since lost interest since his and Delia's break up) and, with some of her own, construct a basic program alongside her own. From there, her program worked the 'baby' program until it was cultivated enough to be installed into a Reploid shell, which often was built by the female and her male to their preference.
This, of course, wasn't making sense to X. "You got the data installed and we tried, but when left to run automatically, it has a twenty-five percent chance to randomly abort the program to simulate a possible human situation. We were the unlucky twenty-five percent and we never tried again."
Delia gave him a hard look. "I tried to do it manually, too, X, just recently."
"What? You little—"
She waved her hand. "Don't interrupt me. I wanted to try it and run a scan and see if it really was so 'random'." She dropped her hand. "This is where we get serious in this discussion and you quit trying to kill me with your eyes."
"Then spit it out, and if you think you can blame me for it, you got another—"
Delia sighed, almost over-dramatically. "X, your data was corrupted. It was so encoded that, when the program tried to decode it, it released an anti-hack mechanism. I had to have the reproduction simulation both uninstalled and the chip removed."
X blinked. "Corrupted data…? You sure you just didn't download it wrong?"
"I'm pretty sure. And as I'm not the one who's immaturely refusing to speak over something as little as unfaithfulness," she smirked as X scowled, "I wanted to tell you… your data acts like a virus."
This stunned X, and angered him beyond anything. Him? Housing corrupted data that infected others like a virus? Was she comparing him to Sigma?
So angered he was, X didn't reply, so Delia went on, "I suggest you talk to Cain and get yourself checked. Not saying you're a Maverick Virus carrier, X, but your data attacked mine. That is dangerous, even you have to admit."
And there X's anger went like water hitting a flame. If his data did act aggressively like that, then, could it be that the Reploids modeled after him and his flaws were really…?
"Yeah… thanks, Delia."
"Sure." She winked, and sauntered off, leaving X staring at the ground with wide eyes.
Could I be the true origin of the Maverick virus…? It's ultimately, all my fault…? What if…
What if I infected people? I brought forth Sigma, I could… I could cause people to go Maverick?
People like Zero?
X turned on his heel and dashed to Cain's office. Panic was setting in, and if he broke down in the hallways of HQ, there was hell to pay.
<--- PREVIOUS CHAPTER NEXT CHAPTER --->
As it was, X never came back to Zero's dorm. The blond had fretted and chewed up both of his gloves in worry, but he knew he couldn't go shrieking into HQ looking for X just because his bitchy ex-girlfriend wanted to chat. No, Zero was a mature Reploid and he would at least finish his filing and reports before tearing the place apart looking for his friend.
Besides, X was a grown Reploid; Zero couldn't try to shelter him forever. Maybe this talk would give X the real closure he needed and get the blue Reploid to let go of his darker views of that good ol' emotion of love. After the reports were done, Zero had plenty of alone time to seriously sit down with himself—in front of a mirror for good measure—and have a chat. He made sure, of course, his dorm door was locked with the password only he and X knew.
"Okay, self," Zero murmured, running his hand through his free-flowing hair. For a moment, Zero went ahead and studied himself over, looking for physical flaws.
Reploids were initially built with their armor on and were basically stuck with that same set of clothes for the rest of their lives. However, as before, scientists wanted to see just how close to human they could get machines, and thus came out the Year of Patches—every Reploid that wanted was invited to download special data and receive special upgrades all for free. These upgrades included a fully 'functional' human-like body underneath their birth armor.
Not surprising, Zero and X already had that luxury, of which is where said scientists got the start from.
Zero had gone ahead and downloaded and installed some of the data-upgrades, but never bothered with the body-altering ones. He never really paid much attention to his physical appearance except to manage his hair, which was his pride and joy. Staring at himself now, Zero briefly wondered if his creator, whoever he or she was, based him off someone. Unlike X, who had no real 'flaws' and was the near definition of perfect in terms of looks, Zero had small flaws here and there that no one but he (and X, who had a delightful time studying him to find said flaws) knew about.
Zero touched his nose with a fingertip. While not noticeable far away and hardly up close, if one seriously stared and studied him, they'd notice Zero's nose was slightly crooked, and one nostril was actually a fraction larger than the other. Zero's eyes were also not perfectly aligned, and in fact, one eye was a touch bluer than the other.
"Wait," Zero muttered, lowering his hand. "This was supposed to be a self-talk over realization of feelings, not a narcissist moment."
Tugging at the collar of his white t-shirt, then at his jeans, Zero suddenly found it hard to admit out loud what he was feeling. In his mind, he could easily input the text, I love X, a thousand times. And yet his voice box never seemed to register.
"Okay, Zero, you idiot," he muttered to the mirror. It reflected a handsome face, framed with gold, with its features twisted in annoyance. "For as long as you've known, X has been your best friend."
Baby steps.
"You already openly admitted you'd protect him, and die for him, and live for him, and enjoy spoiling him whenever possible." Zero nodded to his reflection. "To be perfectly honest, on the outside, it probably already looks like the two of you are…"
Dating.
Yes. That's it.
No, moron, say it out loud.
"The two of you are… d…" Zero facepalmed himself. "Dating. There. Okay. Yes. You two are pretty much life partners, minus the lovey-dovey part. However, Zero, you've now discovered you had, at some point, developed said feelings for X. You…"
Are in love with X.
"Yes, that's right." Zero groaned, grabbing a nearby cushion off his bed and beating his face with it a few times. "Okay!" he threw it aside. "Zero, you are in love with X. Say it with me… I am in love with X." he paused to take a deep breath, and suddenly he held that breath.
I am in love with X. Yes. I admitted out loud. Go, self-talking.
Zero let out the breath and it slightly fogged up his mirror, blocking his reflection, which he didn't care. He rested his elbow on the dresser the mirror rested on, his cheek leaned against his fist. He closed his eyes and continued to speak to his reflection.
"You broke up with Iris five months ago, stating it wasn't fair she had to wait around for you because you were gone all the time. That said, do you have time to pursue a romantic relationship with your best friend and battle buddy? Won't that be bad?" By Heaven, he was an idiot, asking and answering his own questions.
"Not really," he answered himself. Zero wouldn't admit it, but he actually did this a lot more than one would think. The self-talking bit. "You have the same job and spend all your time together, on the clock and off. You won't tell her, but admit you blew Iris off a couple of times to go hang out with X."
In light of this conversation, Zero realized he was not the least bit perturbed by his discovery. After all, he was a Reploid—what did gender mean to him? Not only that, he never cared what the humans thought of his personal life and views, he simply just did what was right and protected them. Sure, the close-minded community of the fleshlings might get offended that their great hero likes to romp with other males, but who were they to decide how Zero wanted to feel? Isn't that the biggest gift Dr. Light gave X, who was the grandfather of Reploids—the ability to have free will and emotions?
Zero opened his eyes and he frowned at his reflection. He didn't know his own age, but suddenly thinking of X as a 'grandfather' was certainly a turn-off.
"Talk about grave-robbing…"
~*~
"Oh, X…" Delia's voice dripped with sweetness and familiarity that it stung his still hung-over head.
X rubbed his helmeted head. "What did you want?" I can be civil. I am civil.
"I was meaning to get in touch with you, but I heard you reacted… badly to mention of me."
He felt like smacking himself, or maybe even her. "Gee, I wonder. Now what did you want?"
Delia flipped her pale-green hair over her shoulder. In a way, X saw a lot of Iris in her—she had that exaggerated and too-perfect womanly body figure, and her hair always appeared luxurious and begged to be touched despite its odd color. Her face wasn't as rounded as Iris', giving her a more mature look, and her eyes were a bit more narrow and magenta in color. Her odd looks were charming, and the way she looked at him, she was trying to charm him.
X wouldn't fall for it.
So Delia gave up. "Look, I get it, you're mad about the whole cheating thing," and she held her hand up before X could yell. "That's just me, X. I was given free will by my creator and playing men is my way of exercising it. Don't take it personally, I can't really help it. If it's any consolation, I actually felt bad."
"You're such a bitch—"
"But about why I wanted to talk to you," she cut in. "As you know X, all female Reploids now have the ability to 'reproduce' to an extent. Remember how you went with me to get the data?"
X remembered. They had talked extensively about it, since Delia had already been constructed before the release. Wanting to feel closer to their human counterparts, female Reploids asked for some sort of 'maternal' upgrade. Obviously they could not get pregnant—instead, a program was developed to mimic a sort of pregnancy process. The program could run automatically—as in it triggered when the female Reploid engaged in what she believed as a sexual encounter—or manually, whenever the female Reploid wanted and had the means to do so.
X didn't recall the details, but he knew the basic gist was the female Reploid would 'download' some of her man's personality data (if man was a Reploid—human males did not trigger the 'if-else' statement the program required, as male data was needed. They were supposedly fixing that, but X long since lost interest since his and Delia's break up) and, with some of her own, construct a basic program alongside her own. From there, her program worked the 'baby' program until it was cultivated enough to be installed into a Reploid shell, which often was built by the female and her male to their preference.
This, of course, wasn't making sense to X. "You got the data installed and we tried, but when left to run automatically, it has a twenty-five percent chance to randomly abort the program to simulate a possible human situation. We were the unlucky twenty-five percent and we never tried again."
Delia gave him a hard look. "I tried to do it manually, too, X, just recently."
"What? You little—"
She waved her hand. "Don't interrupt me. I wanted to try it and run a scan and see if it really was so 'random'." She dropped her hand. "This is where we get serious in this discussion and you quit trying to kill me with your eyes."
"Then spit it out, and if you think you can blame me for it, you got another—"
Delia sighed, almost over-dramatically. "X, your data was corrupted. It was so encoded that, when the program tried to decode it, it released an anti-hack mechanism. I had to have the reproduction simulation both uninstalled and the chip removed."
X blinked. "Corrupted data…? You sure you just didn't download it wrong?"
"I'm pretty sure. And as I'm not the one who's immaturely refusing to speak over something as little as unfaithfulness," she smirked as X scowled, "I wanted to tell you… your data acts like a virus."
This stunned X, and angered him beyond anything. Him? Housing corrupted data that infected others like a virus? Was she comparing him to Sigma?
So angered he was, X didn't reply, so Delia went on, "I suggest you talk to Cain and get yourself checked. Not saying you're a Maverick Virus carrier, X, but your data attacked mine. That is dangerous, even you have to admit."
And there X's anger went like water hitting a flame. If his data did act aggressively like that, then, could it be that the Reploids modeled after him and his flaws were really…?
"Yeah… thanks, Delia."
"Sure." She winked, and sauntered off, leaving X staring at the ground with wide eyes.
Could I be the true origin of the Maverick virus…? It's ultimately, all my fault…? What if…
What if I infected people? I brought forth Sigma, I could… I could cause people to go Maverick?
People like Zero?
X turned on his heel and dashed to Cain's office. Panic was setting in, and if he broke down in the hallways of HQ, there was hell to pay.
<--- PREVIOUS CHAPTER NEXT CHAPTER --->