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Headspace WilyDrome - Experimental Labs Wily's spaces always have a sort of familiarity to him, as he likes a place where he can feel at home and get his creative juices flowing. As such, this is already the most cluttered part of the base. The floors are blue, as they are in the main halls, the walls a bright white. However, where they are not lined in terminals and monitors, Dr. Wily has attempted to hang posters. Some of them are in magnetic frames, and hang neatly on the wall, but, about halfway through he seems to have gotten bored with this decoration scheme and switched to plain old double-sided tape. Handwritten charts and diagrams are hung up intermittedly, as well as a large white board where Wily can scratch plans he later erases in fits of creativity. The rest of the room is a disorganized collection of equipment and desks, not properly lined up with one another. Some desks are cluttered with all manner of devices, while others are untouched, maybe the home of future projects. At the very back of the room against the arch of the wall is a locked vault: Dr. Wily allows no one but himself to access this 'extra' lab, and heaven only knows what it's for.
Dr. Wily [Dr. Wily] [RM] Evil Labs
Clockwise leads to WilyDrome - Medical Labs. Getting a message from Doctor Wily, Gemini reports to the labs. He seems a little curious about the circuimstances, since it seems like he was called in personally rather than a general call-out to everyone. But he's an obedient sort and enjoys things that seem like upgrades.
Evil Labs
Contents: Dr. Wily is currently in his laboratory, reviewing some complicated plans for what appears to be some sort of large chamber. Could be for yet another base, yet this certainly doesn't look like any Skull Fortress variation he's built before. Behind and all around him, of course, are various tables and pieces of large equipment, hunched over half-finished giant robots, and things of that nature. Even Bowl Man can be found among the rubbage, inactive and lifeless. "Poor Bowl Man," Gemini says, looking at the big bowling ball and shaking his head. But his pity does not last long. "Hello, Doctor. You wanted to see us?" "Ah, Gemini Man," says Dr. Wily. He turns off the monitor showing the plans with a blip, not because they're anything particularly important, but because he has more important things to pay attention to now. "I've been reviewing the repair logs and I see you're do for some routine maintenance. I can also upgrade your memory capcity slightly during the procedure, you may not notice the difference but you never know when it'll come in handy." "Okay," Gemini says. He walks over to the nearest repair slab and sits up on it. His eyes are rather blank. He's not sure what to expect, so he's just going with the flow. He might be just a touch nervous. He lays back on the slab and puts his arms on his stomach. Then he shrugs his shoulders. "Whatever you need to do, feel free." Dr. Wily nods, and opens up a port on the back of Gemini Man's neck, submitting a key electric signal to his systems to place it in diagnostic stasis. It's entirely painless, although it might be a little weird. Dr. Wily then connects a cable to the same port to his master programming computer (totally airgapped from the horrors of the internet, of course!). In the strictly literal sense, massive blocks of code appear on the screen, scrolling by with each inquiry. Dr. Wily programs 'on the metal' as it were, and a Robot Master's program is largely an incomprehensible matrix of hardware commands that very few people (perhaps no more than two!) might hope to comprehend. Dr. Wily probes the code by querying specific blocks and sending special debug statements to test the interactions of each region with the others. What this all really means to the doctor is very different... Gemini Man's head, at least at the entry point, is a little dark but quite structured. Tall towers of crystal shoot up in strange locations, perpendicular to a ground that is transparent, opening up on starry darkness. Occasionally a path of information, like an electrical pulse through a nerve, shoots between links made from stars down below. Above, the 'sky' is black, but everything seems as if it's lit anyway. There are waterfalls here where information flows from one place to another. Sometimes they are frozen, which might indicate a passageway not in use. Overall, it's pleasantly cool in here. Gemini Man is sitting on the shore of a small pond set in glass. Or at least one Gemini Man is doing that, though he looks kind of short for Gemini Man and his eyes are rather big. Perhaps a slightly chibi Gemini Man. He's playing with a trio of Pen Pen. Dr. Wily walks up slowly to the slightly chibi Gemini Man, tapping his cane on the glasslike floor as he goes; his arrival is therefore unlikely to come as a shock. "Hello there," says Dr. Wily kindly to this Gemini Man in a slightly softer than normal voice, "enjoying yourself?" Chibi-Gemini looks up at Doctor Wily, and breaks out in a grin. "Hiii! Dad! You never come in here anymore." He hops up and gives Doctor Wily a hug. On his feet, he's about half the Doc's height. After the hug he walks over and picks up one of the Pen-Pen. He holds it under its arms, hugging it to his chest. The Pen-Pen doesn't look comfortable in this position, since its arms are stubby, but Chibi-Gemini doesn't notice. He blinkus at the doctor. "Are you looking for something? Can I help?" "I would certainly appreciate a guide," says Dr. Wily, returning the Gemini Man's smile. "after all, things change so much between visits. But first, tell me... is there anywhere here that I cannot go?" "Okay!" says the Chibi-Gemini. He is very eager to help Doctor Wily, his favorite person. His foot scrapes a little on the ground, and he looks down at his toes, when Doctor Wily asks if there's anywhere he can't go. "Wellll... You can't go in the bad sectors. I'm not 'llowed either." "The bad sectors?" asks Dr. Wily. He turns away for a moment, looking out over the landscape, as far in the distance as he can see from this particular vantage point. "do you know when they appeared?" "They've been around a lon' time," says the Chibi-Gemini. His little Pen-Pen struggles, but helplessly, like a held kitten. "You want me to show you where?" he asks. "Yes, please," says Dr. Wily, tapping his cane on the glassy ground again and reading himself for potentially a long walk. The little Gemini has plenty of energy. Eventually he does drop the penguin, but it tries to waddle along behind him as best it can. The other two keep playing by the water. Chibi Gemini comes to a small stream in the glass landscape and hops over it. He looks to make sure that Doctor Wily can do that, too, but it's not a very wide stream. Ahead are two crystal towers that turn like great spirals up in to the blackness. However, the little adventuring party doesn't come close to approaching them before the Chibi-twin turns a hard right down what seems like a narrow alley. He steps in for a bit, and when things widen up, there is a great wall ahead. It looks as if it's held in with a slightly glowing green force shield, keeping whatever is behind from spilling out in to the rest of the brainscape. The stuff behind appears like swirling darkness, with the occasional streak of deep green or violet. Another sort of Gemini is standing in the alley here. He's leaning casually against the wall. He's about the right height to be Gemini Man, but not wearing a helmet or his over-armor. Instead, his hair is slicked back, and he has a black leather coat on above his typical underarmor. He still has his usual boots. He's casually smoking, and occasionally looking at the dark swirls. They're interesting in a laundromat, screensaver sort of way. Dr. Wily taps his cane every few feet as he approaches the second Gemini Man, coming up to him. He glances back down the alley behind them, to see whether he can see the towers from here... but he can't, of course, because they took a right-angle turn from the path that lead to them to get into the alley. It may not mean much to the Geminis but to the doctor it's a good sign. The geography here is important for what he may have to deal with later. "Those things'll kill you, you know," says Dr. Wily in a half-mocking tone, like one smoker might say to another. The towers are currently too hidden to see. There's probably some of the major operations going on in them, if the Doctor plans on heading there later. The little Gemini gets slightly behind the Doc and points at the big bad broken sector, even though it's clearly obvious. The smoking Gemini just smiles, and laughs. It's a slightly hoarse laugh, but his voice is normal when it comes out. "Not likely, Doc, considering I'm a robot. Hey there, squirt," he says to the little guy, but then seems to pay him no mind. "You out here to gawk at the system damage?" "I hope I can do slightly better than that. I'm glad to see you here, at least," says Dr. Wily to the taller Gemini Man in all honesty. "How long his this been here?" He rests a comforting hand on the shorter Gemini Man's shoulder. "I dunno," says the jacketed Gemini nonchalantly. He taps off some ash, but the cigarette doesn't get any shorter. "I think most of the bad sectors are left from the Sigma Virus. There's at least one new one that's damage from the Force Metal Armor - /not/ the most well-thought-out of your plans, you know." "Be nice," says the Chibi, and pouts. The Smoking Gemini doesn't get any nicer than this. "Security programs by routine block off the bad sectors and keep them from corrupting the rest of the place, but I don't really know any more about it. If you want geek questions, ask the Geek. He's around here somewhere, I guess." Dr. Wily smiles at this Gemini Man, too, but the kindess he showed his shorter version is notably missing from the expression. "I didn't hear you objecting at the time. More importantly, I wonder if you're really telling me everything you know." Dr. Wily gazes out at the forcefield, and the black void beyond it. "Which of these was the first to appear?" "Yeah, yeah. If this is about what I know, I don't. Technical crap isn't my business," the Smoking Man answers. But he can answer the last question. "Step outta the alley, go up the ridge and take a left. That's the first of them. Watch your footing up there, old man." "I will. And I suppose you don't plan to come with me, do you. Well then, you had better summon 'the geek'," you can virtually hear the single-quotes in the doctor's voice, "or tell me where to find him." "I-- I'll come with you, dad," says the little Chibi-Gemini, tugging on Doctor Wily's coat. "Yeah, sure, whatever. He'll be there when you get there," the smoking one says. He doesn't appear to be moving from this spot. He might be too cool to give a damn. He wasn't lying about the path ahead, however, which is how he described. "Very well," says Dr. Wily to chibi-Gemini, "but keep your wits about you. You might want to go back to the lake if it gets too scary..." he smiles, "don't worry about me, I'll be fine." The doctor proceeds out of the alley and begins carefully up the ridge, using his cane to test the ground in front of him where it seems suspicious before moving on. "Okay," the Chibi-Gemini says. "Some parts are scary," he says in agreement. But he follows along. He grabs his penguin again, and the little think squacks as he drags it with him, behind him like a ragdoll. The ridge up the side, as the Smoking Man described, is a little bit bumpy in places, as if made of ground crystal at strange angles, and slippery in others. It's a tough climb. The Chibi-Gemini does take it with relative little effort, but falls behind the doctor to some degree because he's dragging the Pen-Pen behind him. It occasionally squeaks when it's bumped on a rock. At the top of the hill, a great dome-like structure, perhaps twenty feet around to the virtual scale, looms out of the darkness suddenly. It's another bad sector that seems, partially, to be cut in to the white and clear shards of earth below, but held back by the same kind of green shielding. It's a stable structure, around which the world has apparently moved on, crystallized, fossilized, with new shards growing up around it in places. As promised, sitting on a small white bench, there is another Gemini with several floating screen structures around him. He sort of resembles Gemini's internet avatar, with streams of data constantly pouring across the transparent panels in his chest. The crystals on his helmet occasionally sparkle electrtically, and his eyes are always moving as he attempts to aggregate whatever nonsense he's seeing on the screens. "Something interesting, I take it?" says Dr. Wily as he comes upon the .EXE Gemini Man. Dr. Wily gazes out over the dome and frowns, and then gazes up into the blackness of the night sky, to a particular spot of emptiness that looks like every other spot of emptiness. Dr. Wily is loading some programs into his own master computer, the one currently connected to the real Gemini Man. It doesn't directly effect this world at present, but .EXE might pick up a notice on one of his monitors that some compadible entities are being prepared. "Oh, hello, sir. Nice to see you about. It's still a stable structure," says GeminiMan.EXE. He does this without looking up at all from any of his many little monitors. "Are you loading a scanning algorithm of your own? This particular sector was the first bit made corrupt by the Sigma Virus in the year twenty-two eight-teen. The damage was sealed by Number Man. Our automated security program has been handling the damage by rerouting information. At first it was a concern, but, as time passed, anything lost has either been replicated, or was apparently of no use to us." Chibi-Gemini sits on the bench himself, though it takes him some work to climb on to it. "Your smoking friend told me this was the oldest problematic sector," responds Dr. Wily matter-of-factly, matching .EXE's tone, "do your archives confirm that?" "Yes, sir. There's no intrinsic structural damage of a date from before that time," GeminiMan.EXE explains. "I would estimate that the total volume of bad sectors on this drive is totaled at seven-point-six percent of the overall drivespace, with this sector being the largest. The second-oldest error was related to an erasure incident in the year twenty-two-nine-teen, some time after the Force Metal explosion. I believe you handled this incident by proxy with your drone counterpart as you yourself were on the planet Mars at the time." He says all of this impassionately; just the facts, really. "But ample drive space remains to cover all system needs, I take it," replies Dr. Wily. "These areas will be partitioned off more efficiently during defragmentation, which I'll get to when I'm done with my examination." He taps his cane on the floor in front of him, wrapping one hand over the other and leaning on it in front of him. "Show me the construction and modification logs from the first half of 2215." "Ah, yes, the other Mars-related incident," says the EXE Gemini with the same dispassion. He types a few things in the air. Then he spins one of his screens around, and shows the doctor directly. There are a few glitches noted in the log, and a particular time when nothing was logged at all. "You will notice some missing memory sectors from that particular era as well as a result of Stardroid interference. That drive space has however been reclaimed and has been over-written by normal operations. Some fragments in that personality sector still remain. You will encounter him if you aren't careful, or if you go looking of course. I reccommend the left tower... Well, I don't reccommend it on general principle, mind you." He looks at Doctor Wily directly for the first time, but it's brief, then he returns to his screens. "As to your first question, despite the damaged areas this unit is operating at hundred-percent mental capacity currently." "I see," says Dr. Wily. "Well then, a portal to the pond please, and then to the entrance of the left tower on a thirty-second delay." Dr. Wily smiles down at chibi-Gemini, placing a hand on his shoulder once more, "Daddy has to go meet someone now, and I need you to look after the pen-pen for me. Can you do that for daddy?" "Okay!" the Chibi Gemini shouts out. He clasps his hands. "Thanks for lettin' me come along too!" "Suit yourself," says GeminiMan.EXE. He pushes a few more air buttons, and opens up a little white wormhole for the doctor's easy transportation. Dr. Wily steps through with chibi-Gemini, taking them back to the pond. He watches for the few seconds delay specified, and then goes back through, returning not where he came from but to the base of the left crystal tower. Dr. Wily pauses for a moment and flickers. A brief flash of light blue appears in the sky where the master computer is connected, and the doctor is imbued with an entirely invisible forcefield conforming exactly to the outer edge of his form. Thus defended from any sudden surprises which might cut his trip short, although certainly the field is not guaranteed to withstand anything and everything he might encounter, the doctor enters the tower. It's dark on the inside, and not dark in the same omni-lit way as the exterior. However, stepping in further, there is a glow of a light up ahead, and then, another. The Doctor eventually reaches an elevator system, a black metallic grav-tube, its exterior lined with many colored buttons. There is a green level, a gold level, and a red level, the red level being at the top. Dr. Wily presses the red-button and steps into the grav-lift, again leaning on his cane in front of him. While it moves he checks to see whether he can establish a radio connection to .EXE from here. It takes a second, but then a small window pops up in the elevator, as the doctor is headed up. "Hello. Do you require further assistance?" asks the GeminiMan.EXE voice, his face in the monitor itself, even if he can't keep his eyes focused directly on the screen. The lift itself moves slowly upward. "Merely establishing a connection just in case, don't let me keep you. While you're here, though, information you may have on him that might be relevant would be appreciated." A small pause, as it seems like EXE is looking something up, or just considering the question. "He's very arrogant, you know, but several of us are, except for those of us that are insecure," he finally explains...perhaps unhelpfully. The elevator slows to a stop, the door in front of it shut. The door is black, but a faint red glow is visible all around it. "Hmm," Dr. Wily muses to himself over the connection, while waiting for the door to open. He raps on it with his cane after a moment. "I don't need a detailed analysis, but can you estimate his contribution to overall system stability?" "I would require time to calculate this," GeminiMan.EXE says, and sounds a little apologetic about it, "But I believe he is assimilated in to the personality and is currently fairly vital to our operations." The door opens up in to a hallway. The hallway is very different from the exterior of the tower, and, frankly, looks to be too long to really properly fit inside the thing at all. Brainspaces don't have to make Euclidian sense. The hall is made of reddish stone, and lit by torches deep in to its depths. Near the end, there are sounds of fighting, and screaming. Dr. Wily is pleased that he's found what he was looking for, on the one hand, and yet what he was looking for is certainly not something that pleases him in its existance. Tappinghis cane on the red stone, Dr. Wily proceeds down the hallway with a calmness that is suggestive of his own arrogance. The sounds of pain get louder as the doctor continues on. There is a small flight of six steps that lead downward in to a pit, and then the room beyond: which resembles a giant arena. Torches light all around it. It's a domed interior, but all made of the same old stonework. Some of it is naturally red, but as one approaches the edge of the pit, it's a stone color stained red only by something that resembles blood. In the bottom of the pit are men fighting; they're simulated human men that look like they're wearing very little armor, something that resembles the collusseum as these soldiers ward off bright red lions that fight back at them mercilessly, ripping in to their flesh and spraying an exaggerated amount of gore. Something that looks like Gemini Man, but, also, not, sits on a black throne at the far side of the combat pit. His front armor is festooned with a great more spikes than normal, his helm twisted up in to horns. There is a red jewel on his chest, his eyes glowing the same color. They look directly out at the doctor from this seat. There is something held in his right hand, though hard to see in the flickering torchlight. "Well, well," says the doctor, "look what we have here. A ghost of a ghost. How do you like this world of crystal night my son and I have created?" "I'm very happy here," says Gemini Mars. He has a hoarse voice, sounding much the way Gemini did when originally possessed. He taps his left hand, idly, on the throne's arm. It appears to be clawed, and clicks loudly. There is a scream of death from the bottom of the pit as the last man dies. A lion begins to feast upon his corpse. "Are you here to do battle, old man?" Mars asks in a slightly amused way. "I WELCOME YOUR CHALLENGE." The shout booms across the arena. "Oh, but you should already know, I don't play by the rules. Rarely even my own, and especially not other people's," says Dr. Wily. He reopens his radio connection to .EXE. "I have a little experiment I may want to try, Gemini," he transmits, "prepare to open a portal to sector X9B, awaiting my signal." .EXE will recognize that one, even though he's never been inside; it's behind a very solid door. A very solid door with a picture of a snake. "You're recieving temporary access authorization now." The doctor smiles, arrogantly, at Gemini Mars. "Do you imagine you posess weapons against me?" "Very well," says GeminiMan.EXE, as much as he dislikes opening this particular sector. Gemini Mars stands up from the throne, clenching his right hand. What he held in it was a human heart, which bursts spreading blood all over his red right hand as the claws dig in to it. He does enjoy the carnage so. He does not lunge forward immediately, but instead spreads his hand over the arena itself, as if giving instruction. The men in the pit have been ripped in to unrecognizable shapes, and both of the red lions leap forward at Doctor Wily. Fortunately, his force shield itself will hold. This portion of Gemini may believe he has the power to harm the doctor, but... perhaps still reluctant to do so directly... He begins to pace, however, around the edge of his pit. The doctor's eyes widen naturally in reflexive human shock as the lions leap at him, but they just as quickly return to calm when the forcefield holds. "Now," transmits the doctor to .EXE. From the portal, the snakes pour forth... slithering and coiling around and over, ranging in size from grass snakes to huge anacondas. Their skin is some strange state halfway between real and robotic, and one finds upon close inspection that they're really not very detailed at all. In some places, one can't even clearly make out the division between one or another. Because these aren't real snakes, so much as they are the /essence/ of snake. They don't cause any physical damage to anything. That's not what they're for. Dr. Wily has already installed his own containment shield around the red level, to prevent any of them from accidentally reaching other places. "GAH!" Mars shouts with an immediate cringe back, despite the lack of immediate danger. The lions change targets immediately, and begin grappling with the snakes instead, biting and being bit, in equal measure. "Suppression protocol. You old bastard!" The enraged Gemini fragment lunges forward and rips at one of the slithering programs directly. The snakes don't react well to being attacked. Most of them upon being bitten or struck vanish immediately - no reaction or expression of pain on their part, they simply cease existing unceremoniously when struck. "Thank you," says Dr. Wily to .EXE, "that will be all. Reset the protocol. I'll change the access authorization after you've done so." "Yes sir--" The portal to that protocol immediately closes, which ceases the flooding of snakes, EXE complying with the doctor's wishes. The Gemini Mars program rages until everything immediately in front of him is gone, which takes a moment, perhaps enough for the doctor to step out if need be. One of the lions clears the area around itself, but is wounded. It seems frustrated that the snakes' disappearance leaves it nothing to devour, but rips distractedly in to the nearest available torn limb from an earlier victim. "Well, well," says Dr. Wily, musing over the results of his little experiment but not vocalizing his thoughts. "what are we to do you?" He takes a moment to refresh the integrity of his shield back to its maximum while Gemini Mars is busy. Gemini Mars gets back to his feet, glaring the doctor down. He notices now the shield around him that protects him, and his bloody hands clench and unclench in frustration at his own current impotence. "Nothing. Do you presume that the system of this deadly warrior can function without ANGER, RAGE, and HATE? I AM THE GOD OF WAR!" he shouts, and it echoes in the rafters of his small domain. "You made me. But battle FORGED me." "For now," says Dr. Wily. "However, do not imagine that the parlor trick I showed you represents one iota of my true power here. There are locked off parts of this world beyond the capacity of your imagination." Dr. Wily might be exaggerating or outright lying, but he suspects Gemini Mars has no way of knowing that, and at least a few good reasons to believe it. "Enjoy your new home, Mars, and give me no reason to evict you." With the last word and a final smile, Dr. Wily vanishes from the landscape. In the real world, Dr. Wily closes the diagnostics program. As promised, he then proceeds to install some new micromemory chips into Gemini Man's hardware and properly connect them to his system, increasing his total capacity by 8.2. After this he runs a defragment program, moving around the physical location of some information storage for optimal accessing without effecting Gemini Man's mental landscape at all. It's all finished rather quickly, and Dr. Wily then transmits the reactivation signal. "You will FACE ME SOMEDAY--" Gemini Mars begins to scream, and it has the same echo as his other words. But... the Doctor has already gone. Gemini stirs slightly in the real world, and blinks his eyes a few times, as everything recompiles. "Good morning," he says, at first in the stiff way his digital inner-geek spoke. "Evening still," says Dr. Wily cheerfully, disguising any inner concern that may exist, "it didn't take too long. Although I suppose there's no real time here in subspace, is there?" He chuckles to himself, tapping his cane lightly on the screen which now displays innocuos (and to Gemini Man likely meaningless) numbers on general system performance. "The upgrade went well, I think, but just to be sure I'll have you check in again in a week or so. Of course, be sure to report anything strange that may come up to me immediately." "Okay. No problems, we hope." Gemini shuts his eyes again for a second, but everything does appear to be operating normally. He stands up from the slab and gives Doctor Wily a salute. "Thank you for the additional processing power. We will report if there are any changes in performance, good or bad." A pause. "Or neutrally. Will that be all?" "Yes," says Dr. Wily, "that will be all for now. Keep me posted on status of our objectives as updates occur. Oh, consider the objectives Burst Man mentioned in his recent briefing a priority in addition to existing tasks, they're relevant to a plan I've been working on." Gemini Man nods. He doesn't seem to mind too much listening to Force Commander Burst Man. ...There are worse things. He leaves without further comment.
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