Biodroid: Dawn of a New Age

Failed Experiment

-"...cough, cough, cough..."

-" I told you... cough, cough... that it wouldn't work, you old hag!" said Aiko as she recovered her breath, they started the testing of the mind join using the virtual conscience they have prepared for the experiment.

-"cough...shut up! cough, cough, we needed to be sure, if this had worked it would have shorten the whole development process by a week, at the least!" replied Dr. Fu as she recovered her breath.

-"At least you learned your lesson and did it on another room, not that it prevented us to get hit by the wave of the blast! Grant, are you alright?" Asked Aiko as she looked around for the rest of the team.

-"I'm alright, a few bruised but nothing that can keep me out of the next test, Alissa? How about you?" replied Dr. Grant Dubois as he stood up and inquired about Alissa.

-"Yes! I'm here! I'm Fine as well, we should do that again! That was Fun!" replied Alissa as she emerged from behind a console with a broad smile on her face, evidently she was indeed having fun.

-" I'm also OK, if anyone is wondering..." voiced a seemly upset Dr. Borg, since no one asked for his well being.  

-"Oh Stop it Ivan, you are used to this kind of things, I knew you were fine... " replied Dr. Fu at the same time she walked towards him and helped him up.

-"Is anyone hurt? Aiko? Dr. Fu? Somebody answer me!" it was Cpt. Edwards's voice, he probably heard the explosion and came to make sure everyone was fine.

-" Yes Nick, everyone is fine in here, there is nothing to worry about, everything is fine!" replied Aiko.

-"Everything is fine? It's been years since the last time something like this occurred, how is 'everything fine' ?" he said with a preoccupied tone.

-"Well...It's been years since we started developing something new, too...so there's that.." said Dr. Fu trying to justify the situation.

-" What happened here anyway?" asked Cpt. Edwards as Lt. Cruz emerged from behind him.

-"Ah...I see you brought your trusty sidekick Lt. David Cruz to our secret experiments, there goes the secret part of it..." said Dr. Fu with disdain.

-"We thought something went very wrong, I didn't know what to expect, if I had to rescue you all I wasn't going to be able to do it alone, I needed all the help I could get, besides Cruzie is my right arm, we can trust him and he was bound to know abut this sooner or later anyway." he said while he explained the reason behind Cruz's presence. 

-"Sigh...Alright Nick, I'l explain what happened, mean while, help us move the debris from the testing room, we need to clean that up." said a resigned Dr. Fu while motioning them both to help the rest of the team that was already walking towards the room that had exploded. Once inside the room, they noticed that there wasn't as much damage as they first thought, on the floor was the remains of one of the helmets used to make the resonance link,  one of the screens was also destroyed as was one of the consoles, the latter seemed like it melted from the inside out, no doubt, thought Nick, this was an electrical explosion, probably the reason of the sound and the little damage as only the equipment suffered, still, it was a good idea to conduct the experiment on a separate room. 

-" Do you remember the Lion that we were able to replicate virtually? Much like your conscience, Nick?" asked Dr. Fu.

-"I kind of remember you mentioning it, yes." he replied while he picked up the remains of the helmet.

-" Well, we where trying to merge it with a Biodroid's self, at first it seemed to work, so we started testing the resonance link with your virtual mind, that's when it went south and the equipment overheated and thus, resulted in what you see here: a meltdown of the equipment and the helmet." she quickly explained, without a hint of remorse or worry as she apparently knew that it could be a failure, no doubt used to experiments not working on the first try, then continued "But I'm sure that my calculations were correct... Something else I didn't take into account, perhaps?"

-"A Lion? What Lion? What virtual Nick? What are you talking about?" asked Cruz as he was in the dark about everything so he couldn't understand what was happening.

-"Ah yes, you don't really know what is it that we are doing here... Let me explain everything." said Nick with a broad smile, but before he could start explaining, Aiko cut him off

-"'WE'? What are 'you' adding to all of this?" she said while mocking him with a hint of annoyance on her tone, she then continued

-"WE, as in, WE, the R and D team, are creating a new type of biodroid…" started explaining Aiko, as she quickly summarized every detail of the new process, Cruzie's face changed from disbelief to awe, then to fear, then to excitement, then to concern, he displayed such an array of emotions that Dr. Fu thought he was going to go crazy.

-"So that's the core of it, now that you know about it, I'm gonna have to kill you to keep it a secret!" said Aiko with an evil smile on her face, which prompted everyone to start laughing and relax a bit more, everyone was laughing except David, he knew that Aiko had the inner strength to kill him if she meant it, Aiko was the person he fears the most out of the group, he respected her since the days of the academy when she was still a developer, he observed a strength in character in her that separated her from the rest of the R and D team, she was the only one to stand up to Dr. Fu and anyone else that challenged her convictions, she pretty much controlled Cpt. Edwards and he knew how hard she tried to make something out of Ken, she was so strict on him that it was a surprise that he was as carefree as he is still.

-"OK, so now that that's cleared up, what went wrong?" asked Nick regaining his composure from the joke and making everyone change to a more serious tone, David just watched the crew in awe as he still was assimilating everything that was told to him. 

-" I told granny here-." started saying Aiko, but was interrupted by Dr. Fu.

-"DR. FU!, Not Granny, you lazy woman!" she demanded. 

-"So, as I was saying, 'GRANNY HERE' paid no mind to my advice, I told her before we ran the experiment that we should build another helmet for this new 3 way resonance link, the strain on the old model is too much, I ran the calculations but, oh no! We had to TRY her way first to make sure that I wasn't wrong..." she said with but mockery and some insult directed at Dr. Fu, the latter just smiled and said

-"I didn't need to make sure you weren't wrong, my calculations indicated that it could work, I needed to make sure we tried every single possibility, if this experiment had worked we could have saved some time in the development, but alas, we need to create a new helmet to sustain the 3 way resonance link."

-"'Could' being the key word here, granny, maybe your calculations were wrong after all? although that would be a first...." replied Aiko as her thoughts trailed of while considering the calculations Dr. Fu made, she also thought 'It could have worked, more like, it should have worked...'

As they argued about the next step of the project, Nick asked David if he was alright, since he was silent since the explaining of the experiments and the new development project. 

-" Yes... Yes, I'm Fine Nick, this is just too much to take in all at once, I'm not a 'techy techy' guy like these 'amigos' here...but I think I understand the gist of it."

-" Good, now I need you to understand that this is a secret, this information cannot be known outside these walls, not until Dr. Fu decides the right time, got it?" he said with a gentle tone, already knowing his answer.

-" Of course Nick, this could be a game changer, but what will this do to our pilots? I Mean, the resonance link is hard to complete as it is, how will 3 minds work together?" he asked with worry on his voice.

-" That I don't know, but if someone can do do it, is this team here, I trust them, I know they are taking that into consideration with the calculations and everything they are trying to do." said Nick with the same warm eyes as he eyed the R and D team that was already in another discussion, ignoring the two pilots.

-" You two can go home now, everything is fine here, we have coffee, we slept a bit before the experiment in preparation to pulling another all-nighter, said hi to Ken when you see him later tonight, will ya?" said Aiko as she dismissed the pilots. 

-"Will do honey, be careful in here, all of you." he replied while directing a look at each and everyone of the R and D Team members and quickly pointing David towards the exit.

-" Good luck!" added Cruz while also giving them a thumbs up.

-" Hey David, before you leave, how is Ken doing in his training?" asked Aiko with a hint of a smile on her face, and noticed that Nick flinched and made a resigned face, like he was trying to avoid that question.

-" That's a long story 'jefa', I don't think you have the time right now-..." said Cruz and was interrupted.

-"I know when the right time is, SPEAK!" she said with her bossy face while making one of her hands into a fist and directing a look at both of them.

-"He lack's motivation, doesn't have a clear goal, doesn't ask questions in class, does the bare minimum and has been reprimanded twice in one week." replied Cruz with such speed that Nick was surprised at how much he was afraid of Aiko.

-"That little good for nothing son of 'yours'..." she said while looking at Nick with furious eyes, to which he flinched and all of a sudden showed fear.

-"I will make him right! I Swear-!" he started saying at the time she jumped towards him and started strangling him to which everyone but Cruzie started laughing. 

-" I'll kill you if you don't...You can't do anything right, Its been almost 4 days and he's already been reprimanded twice..." she replied as she let him be and walked back towards the R and D team that was laughing so hard that 2 of them, Ivan and Alissa, fell to their knees, Dr. Fu had to find a seat and Dr. Dubois was head first against a wall with one arm between his head and the wall and the other around his stomach, all of them panting and gasping for air while laughing. 

-"I will, just focus on what you have to do here, leave Ken to me... To 'US'! US, me and Cruize here, we will make him straighten the ship!" he said while throwing an arm around David's shoulders at the same time Aiko glared at David, the latter realized he was also doomed if they didn't find a way to make Ken realize his potential. 

-" pant...that's enough...pant hahahaha, enough of that, we need to focus now, Nick, any news from the other towns? …pant" asked Dr. Fu while she changed the subject and tried to regain control of herself.

-" Nothing new yet, I worry that there might be an attack very soon, I just can't pin point the exact location or town that seems more likely to be the target, I did sent Sgt. Miller and Sgt. Morrow in a recognizance mission this morning, hope to hear from them tomorrow morning." he replied with full seriousness now.

-" You sent just the two of them?" asked Cruz surprised, he didn't know about this mission, which was weird for he usually trusted him with such information.

-"Yes Cruzie, I was about to go tell you when I ran into Ken and the rest of the males of your platoon and had to 'adjust' a few things." explained Cpt. Edwards.

-"But why send just the two of them? Why not send a whole platoon? They could die out there!" demanded Cruz.

-"Do you truly believe I would send anyone to their death, LT. Cruz?" asked Cpt. Edwards with the same commanding tone he addressed anyone during formation, battle or reprimand, then continued " I sent them 'to gather intelligence', not to fight, Sgt. Miller will leave his biodroid in Callx and move forward on foot in a beggar's disguise, he will pass as a simple wanderer and report the movements of the federation past Callx, Sgt. Morrow will do the same but starting from Trout city. This will help deploy a faster response since they should be deeper into the federation's territory and report in before our radars can pick up anything." he concluded as he explained the plan to everyone.

-"Oh...I see,  I'm sorry sir, never should have doubted you..." said Cruz with evident embarrassment. 

-"That is actually... a pretty good idea Nick, did you come up with that on your own?" asked Aiko with both surprise and jest on her tone.

-"Very funny, honey, lets go David, we are no longer required here, we have a lot to do tomorrow."  he replied and motioned towards the big lab double door.

-" Good night everyone, again, good luck." said Cruz as he waved them goodbye.

-"Now, lets start designing this new helmet, I've got an itch I haven't felt in a long time... Come with me Grant, Alissa you too! I have an idea I would like to present both of you with." said Aiko with a smile and a fire in her eyes that Dr. Fu knew very well, she had an idea to solve the issue of the overload. 'I know that look, this might give us the impulse we need, meanwhile I'll work on some simulations of a few other animals' she thought to herself and her face must have given away her thoughts because Dr. Borg walked towards her and simply said 

-" I'll help you out!" with excitement. 

-" With what? You don't even know what I'm thinking." she asked with genuine curiosity. 

-" I don't know what is it you plan on doing, but nevertheless I will help for I know that it will be to further the development of the project and, since I am not required on the development of the helmet, and I prefer to work with you anyway, I'll help you out." replied Ivan with enthusiasm. 

-"Alright, come with me, I'm moving ahead with the virtualization of another animal species so we can have multiple minds to test out the new helmet." she replied while motioning him to follow here to her desk. 

-" Right!" he replied as he followed her, for Ivan, coming back to Dr. Fu was the best decision he could have made, he hated how he followed Dr. Rob Ullrich blindly after how everything evolved after that, and he felt that, no matter how hard he tried, he could not atone for the sins of helping in great deal create the first biodroids. 

-" Do you have any species you wish to start virtualizing, Dr. Fu?" he asked.

-" Well... we have a Lion already, that's a feline, so I was thinking of picking a canine species this time, you know, for diversity purposes." as she explained this, his face lit up and he nearly interrupted her with

-" I HAVE AN IDEA!" which caught her by surprise, he then continued with "Lets try Wolves!"

-" Wolves huh? I was thinking of using Dogs first, then move on to the more wild species within the canine realm, but please explain, why Wolves?" she asked with both amusement and curiosity. 

-" Well, ever since you came up with this idea, I thought that wolves would be the perfect animal, they are close to their cousins, the dogs, so they should have domesticable traits which should make it easier for us to develop into a resonance link while also maintaining their wild side which shall prove beneficial in both battle and regeneration...so... Wolves..." he said with a big smile.

-" Alright, lets start with Wolves them, get all the information ready, I will start building the virtual environment to containing the mind of a wolf." she said while she started typing commands into her computer console. 

As both sides of the R and D team worked on their separate parts of the projects, Dr. Fu thought about the failed experiment, how Aiko warned her but still should have worked, she retraced the steps and processes she followed and was sure that it should have worked, 'there must be something else interfering with the resonance link, there must be something else I've missed, something I Can't control perhaps?...' as her thought trailed of and she focused at the task at hand at the same time Dr. Borg dropped all of the info on Wolves that they found in the arc, thus beginning the development of a new animal mind, a new resonance helmet and, eventually, a new true self.

......