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Chapter 11
Hahn woke up feeling like he had just been hit by three Megid's at
once. His head ached worse than any other time he could remember,
although he couldn't remember much right now. The ringing in his ears
made sure of that.
"Wre. . . en?" Hahn managed to force out between breaths.
"I don't think the robot will be of any use to you right now," a voice
said. It seemed to be coming from everywhere, but that could have been
because of the acoustics and Hahn's own disorientation. Hahn looked
over to where Wren was sitting, or more appropriately, lying. "I have
deactivated your android, Palman scum! I made sure that he wouldn't
give me any problems while I complete my plans."
He looked over to Gryz and Seno. They were both still unconscious
from the effects of the gas. Hahn felt a twinge in his stomach. He
knew he was in a truly bad situation, and that he would have to depend
on himself to get out of it.
"Who. . .who are you?" Hahn managed to say.
"I," the voice began, "was the greatest, most powerful human on the
Earth, that's who! I controlled millions of lives with my beautiful
corporation. I was on my way to becoming RULER of my world! But that
meddlesome Damian! I could have crushed them all if it weren't for
him. He stopped me at every turn, always seemingly one step ahead. . .
but I digress. You see, I was the inventor of Mother Brain. I was the
one who attempted to use the Dark Force for my own gain. I was the
BRILLIANT MIND who almost destroyed all of Algo! And I am the man who
will do it now. You want to know who I am? Allow me to show you." As
the voice ended its speech, a platform began to descend towards the
floor. The light that shot in from the hole in the ceiling temporarily
blinded Hahn until he could get used to it. When the spots cleared, he
was sitting in front of an old man with thick glasses and a close
cropped haircut. The whole of the man's being screamed `megalomaniac'.
"I," the man exclaimed, "am William Gates!" Hahn could now see the
madness in Gates's eyes. It was as if what remained of his humanity
had been sucked dry by hatred and malice. This was truly a man to
fear. "After the destruction of my beautiful creation, I knew those
wretched Protectors would come to slaughter my followers. So, I hid in
cryogenic suspension, and placed a file in the computer systems of all
the facilities here on Motavia that, if deleted, would wake me up and
overload the computer system it had been deleted from. If it hadn't
been for that Wren-type android, I would have also had control of
Zelan, but I still have Daughter."
Hahn felt an uncharacteristic streak of courage run up his back.
"Bill Gates, you say? Sounds like the name of someone who gets beat up
a lot!"
"How, DARE you??!!" Gates screamed, and backhanded Hahn across the
face. Ironically, it didn't hurt that much. "I command power, I don't
submit to it."
"Do. . . you. . . submit to your. . . mother's power?" a sarcastic
voice suddenly spoke up. It was Gryz. He was fighting the effects of
the gas, but was still heavily under its influence.
"INFIDEL!" Gates screamed in his old man rasp. "You shall pay for
your words, you pathetic bug!" Gates ran up to Gryz and kicked him,
and immediately fell over. "Uggh. . . robot, get them!" he shouted.
At that, Demi began to move towards the group, pulse vulcan extended.
"Demi," Hahn cried, "what are you doing?"
"I'm sorry, Hahn," the little android replied. "I can't fight his
programming. He's locked me out of my own systems. You have to run!"
But run where? Hahn thought. They were all trapped almost a mile
underground in a very unfriendly place.
"Demi, I have to do something," Hahn apologized. "Please forgive me."
Hahn got up and stumbled over to Seno's prostrate form. He began to
drag the young man over towards Demi, as the little android moved
closer to firing range. As Hahn was pulling Seno, the man began to
awaken.
"Owww," he began, "mah hed hurts!"
"Sorry, Seno," Hahn replied, "but you have to get close to Demi.
"Aw, let me just get fahv more minutes. . ." the engineer replied.
Demi was almost upon them now, and was setting up to fire. Hahn had to
make this quick. Demi raised her pulse vulcan, powering up to fire.
Almost there Hahn thought. Green light surrounded the deadly cannon,
signaling it's readiness.
"Hahn!!" Demi cried, and then pulled the trigger. Nothing happened.
It was as if the whole weapon had gone dead. "Hahn?" Demi asked. "How
did you, did you, did you, did you. . ."
"I'm sorry Demi, but you'll have to be deactivated for awhile," Hahn
said. Then, Demi began to move wildly, swinging her arms and legs like
a puppet, and finally she fell down, lifeless.
"How," Gates asked, "how could you?!!!"
"Never underestimate the power of the Palagatha!" Gryz said, now
standing up and ready to fight.
"It makes no difference," the evil genius said. "With this switch, I
will reactivate Daughter, and then nothing will stand in my way,
AHAHAHAHAHAH!" Gates had really lost it now, Hahn knew.
The man flicked the switch, and the whole room began to glow with a
dull red light.
"Artificial intelligence, designation Daughter, on-line," a voice came
from the computers. "Checking status. Awareness, active. Satellite
feeds, active. Cameras, active. Confirming directives. Priority
alpha, self preservation. Priority beta, establish control over
systems of second planet of system Algo, designation, Motavia.
Priority gamma, terminate all organic lifeforms. Priority delta,
expand network to third planet of system Algo, designation Dezolis.
Commencing execution of directives." Hahn really didn't like the sound
of that.
"You shall all perish under the will of Daughter!" Gates exclaimed.
Hahn had to do something about this, or all of Algo would be destroyed.
"Gryz, take care of the nerd and cover me!" Hahn yelled. Gryz seemed
more than happy to accommodate his request. The Motavian began to run
towards Gates with bloodlust in his eyes.
"Now," Gryz said with a cool demeanor, "who's a bug?" As Gates saw
this, he began to step back slowly.
"You, you stay b. . . back," Gates commanded, but Gryz kept moving
forward. "Keep away, I command you! Daughter, help your father!"
"Affirmative," the computer replied. "Proceeding to aid father in
mission: destroy all organic lifeforms."
"Yes, Daughter, yes!" the madman shouted. "Destroy, HAHAHAHA!" As
Gates said this, a mean looking laser emerged from one of the walls of
the complex. "Now you will see the true power of my creation!" Gates
shouted.
As Gryz looked up in fear of the laser, it suddenly turned towards its
creator.
"What are you doing, Daughter?" Gates asked. "Crush that worm!" The
laser, however, stayed pointed towards the man.
"Aiding father in mission: destroy all organic lifeforms. Father is
organic lifeform. Must destroy father!" With this, the laser powered
up, and began to fire at Gates.
The man began dodging and jumping with all of his power. "Stop! I am
your creator. You can't do this!"
"Affirmative," Daughter replied. "Systems are capable of destroying
organic life." Gryz decided to let Daughter keep Father busy for
awhile, and ran over to where Hahn was working on Wren.
"I think Daughter and its father have had a bit of a falling out,"
Gryz chuckled.
"No time to joke," Hahn replied. He pushed a button on Wren's back,
and the android came to life again.
"Confirm location," Wren said. "Daughter underground control facility.
Status operative."
Hahn looked relieved to see the android back, but there was no time to
waste. "Wren," Hahn said. "We need you to shut down Daughter."
Wren looked up at Hahn and finally seemed to remember who he was.
"Hahn? What. . . Daughter is reactivated?"
"Yes," Hahn replied. "We need to deactivate the computer now, while
its still initializing."
Wren immediately got up and began to walk towards the computer
terminal interface. "I'll try to deactivate it, but Daughter knows all
my codes this time. I don't think I'll be able to do anything." Wren
worked furiously on the control panel, trying program after program in
order to get through Daughter's lockouts, but it was no good.
"I am unable to break through the security on this terminal," Wren
said. "Gates has installed protection and ICE all through the system
in a rapidly changing pattern."
"Which means?" Gryz asked.
"Which means that we'll have to destroy this whole facility in order
to stop Daughter," Wren replied.
"How can we do that?" Hahn asked.
"We'd have to mess up the system so badly that it would overload and
set off a chain reaction in the power plant's core," Wren said.
"However, I can't work fast enough to do that. It would take a major
corruption of all the systems at once in order to set off the
overload."
That was it, then. If Wren couldn't do it, they were all doomed, Hahn
thought. Then it hit him.
"Senoo!" Hahn called in a sing song voice. The mechanic looked up
groggily at Hahn, but wasn't reacting to his voice. The gas must still
be affecting him.
"Senoo, come he-ere!" Hahn sang again. By this time, both Gryz and
Wren were looking at Hahn like he had lost his marbles completely.
"Senoo, come and watch the television."
"Television?!!" Seno exclaimed. "Where?"
"Go and find it," Hahn called. "It's on one of the monitors!" With
that, Seno bolted up and ran towards the panel of monitors, each one
representing a different system readout. He went from one to the
other, pushing the buttons, trying to get pictures of people on the
screen.
"Genius!" exclaimed Wren. "He's single handedly destroying all
Daughter's systems trying to find the television." Hahn was proud of
himself for the idea, but very worried about how addictive television
really was. He would have to recommend a ban on it when they got back.
As Seno went along pressing buttons, the monitors began to explode,
one by one, frying all the systems.
"Warning, warning, systems overload, systems overload," Daughter said
as a klaxon began to blare.
"We need to get out of here, now," Wren advised. Hahn couldn't say he
disagreed.
"Wren, you get Gates and Demi, Gryz, grab Seno!" Hahn commanded.
"You're actually going to save that worthless Terran?" Gryz asked
Hahn.
"We have to do it," Hahn replied. "If we don't save him, we're no
better than he is. Plus, this guy needs to go to trial for his crimes.
We'll let the Governing Council judge his actions."
Gryz knew Hahn was right, and went to collect Seno, while Wren got
Gates, who was now unconscious from taking a hit by one of Daughter's
stun rays. After they were all gathered, Hahn looked for the telepipe
they had taken, but found it was badly damaged in the fight with the
mech.
"Now, what will we do?" Gryz asked. Hahn was afraid this was the end
of the line for them all. They had probably saved all of Algo, but
would pay the ultimate price for that rescue. Hahn thought about all
his friends; Chaz and Rika, Rune, Holt. He would never see them again.
He thought of his father and mother in Krup, and how they would be
heartbroken to lose their son. Then he thought of Saya, and how he
would be leaving her all alone, and would never see her again. Hahn
couldn't let it happen. He had only one chance left. He steadied
himself and began to concentrate.
Picture a place in your mind he remembered Chaz saying, and imagine
the way to that place. Then say, "Ryuka!" Hahn exclaimed. He felt his
body getting lighter, and soon they had all disappeared, just as the
ceiling caved in.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in Krup with Wren, Gryz, Demi,
Seno, and Gates. They were all looking in stark amazement at Hahn.
Gryz was the first to speak. "We're back in Krup. Hahn, how did you.
. ." Hahn was amazed himself. He had used the Ryuka technique to warp
them all back to Krup, yet he had never been able to master the
technique before.
"I just thought about Saya and my parents, and I imagined going to
Krup, and, well, here we are," Hahn said. "I guess it just triggered
the ability within me!"
Just then, Saya walked into the room, holding only a bath towel around
her. She looked at the group of people that were standing there and
stopped dead in her tracks.
"What is going on here," she asked. Then she saw Hahn. "HAHN!!! Are
you responsible for this?!!! How dare you come in here with all your
friends right when I'm getting out of the shower! Is this your idea of
a joke?"
"Well, I, that is, I," Hahn stammered. "Uh, RYUKA!!!" In the next
instant, Hahn was back at the Academy, in his office, where the maid
was cleaning up. She stopped and looked up, then promptly sped out of
the room with her things. Hahn couldn't blame her, he'd probably have
reacted the same way.
Saya would be furious at him when she saw him, but, hopefully, by
then, Wren and the others would explain it all and calm her down. Hahn
had gone up against monsters, robots, and evil genius, and the Profound
Darkness, but all those paled in comparison to a woman scorned!
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