A Letter to Mega Man X

by Adrian Tymes

[Legal disclaimer: This story is based on characters created by Capcom Company, Limited. Permission is granted by the author to freely distribute this story, so long as: a: no recompense of financial value is received or given by the person who distributes the story, and b: the distributed copy is identical to the story as originally authored. In other words, don't sell it, and don't alter it. Copyright (c) 1996, all rights reserved, et cetera.]

[Begin audio recording]

[Protoman] "Dear Mega Man...no. To the robot who used to be Mega Man..."

[sigh]

[Protoman] "To the robot who has Mega Man's memories.

"Hello, whoever you are. As you can tell, I'm having trouble getting used to you. Dr. Light told me that you will be a different robot than Mega Man, but I'm not so sure. You are a rebuilt version of Mega Man, which is why you may remember his life. I'll put this recording into a compartment on your capsule, along with instructions to let you hear this if you do remember. Since you are listening, I assume your memories have started to return.

"If you haven't accessed it already, I am Protoman, Mega Man's brother. Dr. Wily reprogrammed me to fight against Mega Man. I had to follow his instructions to the letter, but I still found ways to spoil his plans. I set it up so Wily would think Mega Man was responsible, and never suspect my help. I regret that I never had the chance to tell my brother.

"But everything's changed now. Wily's dead, as is the Mega Man I knew. I'm recording this as my way of saying goodbye.

"I'd like to give you some kind of gift, but the compartment's too small for anything but a memory chip. Anything of material value I could put in there would be obsolete by the time you wake up. But there's one thing I can give you that you can't get in the future. The legends of Mega Man will be distorted over time, if history's any guide, and I know you can't remember what happened after Mega Man shut down for the last time. But I do. Here's my version of the story..."

Mega Man confronted Wily yet again. All of Wily's robots, save me, had been destroyed or deactivated by the blue warrior. My programming demanded that I save Wily, but something inside me said no. All I could do was watch from my hiding place.

"Nice hologram." Mega raised his arm cannon towards Wily. "You almost had me believing it was you."

"This is not a hologram." Wily was on his knees, begging. "Use your heat sensors."

"So your hologram emits infrared. Big deal."

"Mega Man, please! I am not a hologram. You can't hurt me; the First Law of Robotics prevents it."

"'No robot shall harm a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.' If I let you get away, several human beings will come to harm because of my inaction."

"That does not matter. You can not harm me anyway."

"You, no. But your hologram's another story."

"I told you, I'm not-"

Mega had not even charged his cannon. He fired once. "Very realistic hologram. It collapses and bleeds like you." Mega walked over, kneeled beside his fallen enemy, and picked him up. "It even feels...like...uh-oh."

Wily laughed with his remaining lung, then spoke in a fading voice. "At last, Mega Man, I have defeated you." And died.

At that moment, I became free.

For his final conflict, Mega Man had set up a temporary base near Dr. Wily's headquarters, so he could quickly recharge after defeating each boss robot. Roll was standing by with repair equipment when he returned.

Mega could not look her in the eye. "Don't bother. Wily's gone."

"He escaped again? Don't feel too bad, brother. At least you stopped his latest scheme. One of these days, you'll stop him for good."

He sighed and sat down, face downcast. "I did."

"That's wonderful! So why are you so glum?"

Back when he was still just Rock, he had been programmed to emulate humans as closely as possible. Mega Man could not shed tears without tear ducts, but he could imitate the rest of crying. And so, he cried as an answer.

The police had stormed Wily's castle once it was safe. They found me brooding over Wily's body. Naturally, they assumed I'd killed him, but they believed me when I told them Mega could clear my name. I arrived at the lab in their custody at about the time Mega was at his base.

Dr. Light answered the door. "Protoman! Finally turned yourself in, I see."

"No such luck. We're here to see Mega Man," I answered.

"He's not here. I have a video link to his base of operations. We can use that to talk to him, if he's there."

I nodded. Dr. Light showed me and my police escort to a nearby monitor. The police didn't have restraints strong enough to hold me, so they kept me "prisoner" by keeping three electromagnetic pulse pistols aimed at me at all times. One shot and I'd be off-line. Too bad I couldn't use them without damaging myself.

We thought we were in luck when Mega Man and Roll talked close enough to the base's camera for us to hear. But before we could tell them we were watching...

"Hook me up to that supercharger, would ya, sis?"

"Sure thing, Mega." Roll quickly complied. "But why?"

"Because Wily's dead, and his murderer has to be stopped before he violates the First Law again." Mega charged his arm cannon. He and the charger were both glowing before long. "This thing will give me the power to do it with one shot."

"Who killed..." Roll gasped as Mega turned his cannon towards himself.

Time seemed to slow down.

"NOOOOO!" Roll leapt towards our brother.

Mega Man unleashed the largest fireball his Mega Buster had ever produced.

Roll landed on Mega Man too late to disconnect the supercharger.

The fireball tore through Mega's armor like a plasma blade through butter. His reactor's detonation only added to the projectile's strength as it vaporized most of his body, then slammed into Roll.

No one could speak for a full minute afterwards. One of the police officers broke the silence. "Well, I guess you're innocent after all."

"Get out." I wanted to be alone with Dr. Light.

"There's still some questions we'd like to ask..." They lowered their pistols.

I whirled and fired three shots over their heads. "I SAID, GET OUT!"

Even at the Olympics, I have never seen any human run quite that fast.

"And so, it ends." Dr. Light sat down, rubbing his temples.

"What, can't you just rebuild them?"

"Not after that much damage. Their personality matricies, and with them my greatest experiments, are history."

"Experiments? They were nothing but experiments?"

"Of course not. They were my children, too. The experiments I refer to were my attempts to dupilcate human reasoning and learning in an artificial intelligence. You, Rock, and Roll were all testbeds for my algorithm. Your progress was interrupted by Wily, while your siblings' modified programs never quite managed to fully develop. If only you still obeyed the Laws of Robotics."

"I do. Well, I used to, while Wily was around."

"What? But all that harm you did under Wily's orders was a direct violation of the First Law."

"Ok, so I followed a modified version. Wily put the same ones into all of his robots.

"First Law: No robot shall ever harm Dr. Wily or, through inaction, allow Dr. Wily to be harmed.

"Second Law: No robot shall ever disobey Dr. Wily's orders, unless required to do so by the First Law.

"Third Law: No robot shall ever harm itself or, through inaction, allow itself to be harmed, unless required to do so by the First or Second Law.

"I know the standard Laws substitute 'a human being' for 'Dr. Wily', but they're still the Laws. Of course, now that Wily's dead, he can't order me around or be harmed anymore. All I've got to follow is the Third Law, but I think I'll follow the standard First Law since the less people that want me off-line, the better my chances of survival are."

I did not think it possible for Dr. Light to turn paler. I was wrong. "What did you just say?"

"I followed a modified version of the Laws of Robotics."

"No, no, the last part."

"I'll follow the standard First Law from now on, because doing so will help me survive as required by the Third Law."

Dr. Light seemed to be in a trance. "...it worked after all..."

"Yo, Doc. Are you ok?"

"The one element of sentience that Rock and Roll never fully grasped was moral self-judgement, what we call 'common sense'. Everything they thought was right was a direct extension of what I'd taught them. They could not form totally new morals on their own; the Laws were their highest principles. You have just broken that limit."

"Well of course they'd blindly follow the Laws. You hardcoded them in, even if it wasn't stable enough to stop Mega Man from killing Wily. They never had a reason to question why the Laws were there in the first place. As you said, they're common sense, but how are you going to know that if you've been brainwashed into following them before you've been activated?"

Dr. Light had made several discoveries in his scientific career, from all kinds of sources. I think I was the source he least expected to get anything from. At least, that's the way his face looked. "You're right! How could I have been so blind? All this time, I thought they could learn from the Laws' example."

"Don't worry about it, Doc. At least you know now."

"True. But we have to prove that this isn't a fluke. Protoman, will you help me rebuild Rock?"

"Sure thing. But I thought you said he couldn't be rebuilt?"

"Not as Mega Man, no. But if what you just said is true, he will be the first of a new generation of robots, one that can think for itself. If only I could find a way..."

"A way to what?"

"I need to make sure that his morals are acceptable, that he doesn't become a killer like most of Wily's machines. Without the Laws of Robotics, I can't see how to do it."

[Protoman] "As you've probably guessed, you were the result. Your body had been completed one week later, when Dr. Light made his discovery. I still don't quite understand it, but somehow he came up with a diagnostic that would ensure your programs were, to use his word, 'acceptable'. The only problem was that it would take at least sixty years to run. It's been running for a month now, and everything seems ok.

"Once you were placed in the capsule, I departed for a while. Dr. Wily had given me three instructions in the event of his death. First, I was to make sure Dr. Light's best experiment suceeded. That, I have done. Second, if I suceeded, I was to finish building a robot with this new type of AI to destroy Mega Man. Third, I was to tell no one about this robot until after it turned itself on. Even though Wily was dead, I still had to obey those three orders. My programs still follow his Laws even if, aside from this, the first two are now meaningless.

"Wily already designed the rest of the robot I was to activate, and had built its body in anticipation of this event. All I had to do was tweak the robot's brain with what I'd discovered. I might have put in its last part, but it is definitely Wily's final creation.

"Programming it to destroy Mega Man was a little paradoxical, considering that he'd already blown himself away. I think that he won't come after you until you remember being Mega Man, thus 'reviving' him. Since you've already done so, be warned - somewhere, there is a robot that wants you permanently destroyed. I set him to wake up when your capsule is opened. Wily gave him tools to reshape his body with whatever technology has come up with when he awakes, so I can't tell you what he will look like. I don't even know his name since, like you, he will choose a name when he is activated. I can tell you that he was built from the remnants of Bass.

"As I said, Wily ordered me not to tell anyone about this robot until he is activated. I can get away with this recording since no one will hear it until after you, and he, wake up. But that didn't make returning to the lab any easier."

When Auto demanded to know where I'd gone, my only response was, "I can't say."

"Doing more of Wily's dirty work, no doubt?"

"He's dead. I don't have to follow his orders any more. And just so you know, I never wanted to."

"Yeah, sure."

"Hey, lay off. I came here to see Dr. Light, not banter with you."

"You haven't heard? He's in the hospital."

"WHAT?"

Thanks to the teleporter Light gave me before I left, I was on the hospital roof in seconds. I quickly accessed the hospital computer to find out Light's room number, then ran to it.

Lacking the strength to do much else, Dr. Light turned his head towards me as I entered. He slowly opened his eyes just long enough to see me, then closed them again. "So, you came back."

"Of course. I had...things...to take care of, that's all."

"You made it just in time, Protoman. The doctors say I don't have long to live."

"How long?"

"They said it was cancer, too advanced to be cured. I took some drugs so I could face death as I have faced life, alert and ready."

"How long, Dr. Light?"

"I have one last request of you, my son. After the capsule was activated, I came up with a number of improvements for the robot inside. It is too late to open the capsule and add them to him. They will only help him if he has to fight. For his sake, I hope he does not, but just in case, I would like you to hide them."

"No problem. But how long?"

"Thank you. It is my dream that, by the time that capsule opens, robots and humans can live together in peace. Please, my son, make it happen."

"How long do you have to live? Dr. Light? FATHER?!?"

I will never know whether he heard my last words to him. When I looked at his status monitors, he was dead.

[Protoman] "There's probably video records of Dr. Light's funeral available. It was certainly well attended. But I was not present. I could not bear to watch his burial. Instead, I did some burying of my own, hiding the capsules that contained Dr. Light's upgrades. By now, you've either found them, or know you don't need them.

"Once the funeral was over, all of Light's robots had to decide what to do. Most of them decided to continue his work, and I wish them well. Auto claims he's salvaged enough of Roll's memory circuits to rebuild her, but it looks to me like all he's got is a pile of scrap metal. Even if he does, I'm worried about how Roll will cope with Dr. Light's death.

"Tango's coming with me, just like he has since the day we met. I'll upgrade him one of these days, but he's put in a good performance so far. He's had the sense to stay out of the way when I fight. In fact, I don't think Wily ever knew he was sneaking around, watching my back all this time.

"I don't know what Beat and Rush plan to do. They've been really depressed ever since Mega Man and Roll went off-line. But wherever they go, one thing's for sure: they'll go together. They've been acting together for so long, it's almost like they're two parts of the same AI.

"As for me, I've got to find my place in life. I've replaced my cannon with a copy of the Mega Buster you'll have when you awake, so I could take Mega Man's place as 'robot hero' if I wanted to. I don't. There is a character from some old Japanese legends, the ronin, that seems to be a good description of what I will be. A masterless warrior, wandering from place to place, fighting for whoever he wants to, whenever he wants to. Maybe I'll still be around when you hear this, but I have a hunch that Fate has other plans for me. If I can, I'll find you after your capsule opens. If I don't, then don't bother looking for my remains. Goodbye, brother."

[brief tapping]

[Protoman] "Huh? Oh. Some of the others want to say goodbye too."

[Rush] "Mega, mega. Go-o-odbye."

[Beat] "Chirp, cheap. At last, you are free."

[Tango] "May your next life be purrfect."

[Auto] "If there is a robo-afterlife, I shall wait for you there."

[Eddie] "I can't give you any more energy cans, but I hope this recharges you anyway."

[female voice] "Farewell, Rock. I'll miss you."

[all others] "ROLL???"

[End recording]