Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ Blinded By Science ❯ The Destiny Of Humanity ( Chapter 11 )

[ Y - Young Adult: Not suitable for readers under 16 ]

BLINDED BY SCIENCE
Chapter 11: "The Destiny of Humanity"

by Bill K.

"So what do you think of all this android stuff?" Jupiter asked Venus as they examined a
receiving dock in the complex Viluy had infiltrated and taken over.

"Machines that can be human better than humans?" Venus scoffed. "I want to meet the
machine that can be better at being me than I am."

"But think about it," Jupiter persisted. "There was no way you could tell those security
guards that charged us were fakes. And that Viluy android - - and the Ami android at the shrine."
Jupiter swallowed. "It's just - - spooky."

"This whole caper is spooky," Venus remarked as she examined a storage bin. "Viluy's
dead, but she's not dead. Is Ami in the future, is she in the present, is she even still alive? People
getting replaced by mechanical duplicates." She glanced over at Jupiter and spotted the senshi
meticulously brushing dirt off of her glove. That brought a familiar smile to the blonde senshi's
face. "Obviously you haven't been replaced."

Jupiter spotted her looking at the woman brushing her gloves and immediately stopped.

"I am NOT a neat freak, Blondie," Jupiter huffed. "Besides, I can tell they haven't
replaced you, either. I can still hear your head rattle."

Venus responded with a playful eyelid pull.

"Where is everybody?" Jupiter wondered.

"She's probably only got people she can trust working here," Venus surmised as she
examined a receiving log. "Or only androids work here and she fired all the workers. No, that
would cause a stir. She may have just given them layoffs or extended vacation to get them out of
the way. According to this log, they still get deliveries regularly."

"Of what?"

"Electronics and machine parts mostly. Probably to build their maniacal robot army of
doom!"

"Beats me why the film industry hasn't jumped on you yet," smirked Jupiter.

"Me too," Venus said in earnest.

Battle-honed senses caused Jupiter and Venus to turn simultaneously. Each senshi
spotted a group of dock workers advancing menacingly on them.

"Are they real?" Jupiter asked.

"Doubt it," Venus scowled. "We can't chance it either way."

"Right!" Jupiter nodded. Her tiara extended its lightning rod, but Venus's hand on her
forearm stopped her.

"Remember last time," Venus warned. "Better let me handle it." Jupiter stepped back
behind Sailor Venus. "Venus! Love and Beauty Shock!"

An expanding circle of golden energy exploded from Sailor Venus. It tracked across the
dock and slammed into the dock workers with the force of a bomb. The workers were thrown
against the wall like rag dolls and slumped to the floor. Jupiter hurried over and knelt down next
to the nearest one while Venus kept her hand extended, ready to use her Crescent Beam should
the fallen foe still have some fight. Jupiter pressed her hand to the man's neck.

"No pulse," she said.

"I didn't hit him THAT hard!" Venus replied.

"I know. Look at his chest. He's - - it's still breathing."

"Damn fakes," Venus muttered.
- - - -
The moment she realized there was another entity on her ledge less than a meter from her,
Sailor Mercury turned and fired. As she did, she realized that the shot was going to go wide and
miss the target. She also realized that it was the last attack she'd be able to make for a while. A
momentary realization asked if she'd have the time to recover?

A shadow shrouded by the thick fog Mercury had earlier conjured up lifted a long, thin
weapon up into the air. All fear drained out of Mercury. She realized that the androids weren't
carrying weapons. A new player had entered the contest, a fact confirmed by her visor readout.
This player was human, though not a human she'd ever scanned before.

For a moment, it seemed like the entire world stilled to a hush. Mercury wondered if she
were imagining it or if she'd momentarily lost her hearing.

"Chronos Typhoon!" came a clarion call of a voice, a voice Mercury recognized to her
infinite relief.

The air seemed to pulse with a burst of energy that Mercury experienced rather than felt.
With a swirl of cascading air, her fog dissipated. She could see the last android on their right,
hands dug into the side of the rocky incline, poised to leap at them. However, it was being
buffeted by a whirlwind of invisible energy. To her amazement, Mercury watched the skin on
the machine decay and rot away before her very eyes. In different places along the exposed metal
skeleton and synthetic musculature, wires began to pop, brittle from age. Circuitry sizzled and
spat or merely gave up and died. Gleaming metallic joints corroded and rusted away. In a matter
of almost a minute the android disintegrated from age before her very eyes.

She turned, astounded, to Sailor Pluto and received almost a timid smile in return.

"Sailor Mercury," Pluto nodded respectfully. "I am heartened that you are well."

"Pluto?" Mercury gasped incredulously. "H-How did you do that? It's as if that android
aged a thousand years before my eyes!"

"The entropy that ultimately fells everything in this world is the dominion of time, if of
anything," Sailor Pluto replied ominously. "Time is the dominion which I guard."

"You're the Pluto of the future!" Mercury gasped, realizing the truth. "Clearly your level
of power has increased from what I know of you if you can accelerate the effects of time on a
localized area." Another realization struck her and she looked up at Pluto with an intense stare.
"Are you pursuing Yui - - um, Viluy?"

"I am," Pluto nodded. "And you surmise correctly, I am a Sailor Pluto from a future far
distant from your current place in the time stream. This woman, Viluy, has brought about chaos
in her single-minded pursuit of her goals. She has interfered in the time stream and changed the
past so that a horrible present such as this has gone from a road not taken to a pathway to
destruction for all. And she has managed to close off the path to the future we both hold dear."

Mercury sagged against the rock face of the ledge. Her legs refused to hold her up and
she sank numbly.

"Then it's true," she gasped, barely holding back tears. "Sailor Moon and the others are
gone. Crystal Tokyo is in ashes. That bright, shining future I visited will never be. Chibi-Usa
will never . . ."

"Calm yourself, Sailor Mercury," Pluto said, squatting down next to her. "All is not lost.
I have seen everything this Viluy has done, for I am the guardian of time and it is my duty to see.
It is also my duty to act. For all of her genuine brilliance, Viluy is still a novice in the ways of
time. I am not and I have the power to act upon what I have seen."

Mercury looked up at her, hope flowering again within her.

"I have woven a very delicate, but very encompassing web around our foe," Pluto told
her. "And I have acted to repair the damage she has done." Pluto smiled proudly. "This time we
both currently inhabit is no longer real."

"What?" gasped Mercury. "Is that possible?"

"For those who travel the eddies of the time stream, yes. Consider this a path that once
was connected with a road. I have severed that connection. The path still exists, but it comes
from nowhere and leads to nothing. The road your time now travels is again the one which leads
to the future you once visited."

Pluto observed Mercury was only half-listening. Her mind was at the same time
pondering the chronological physics implied in what Pluto told her. The senshi of time smiled to
herself.

"Then you're saying this is a type of pocket universe?" Mercury struggled to postulate.
"A place in time and space that exists in and of itself?"

"Yes," Pluto nodded.

"Yet you imply that it can be reached by time travelers. Therefore, logically, it must be
somehow connected with the time/space phenomenon we entered through the Door of Time."
Mercury felt Pluto's hand on her forearm.

"You may ponder this new conundrum at your leisure once this fight is done," Pluto told
her. "But for the now, it is past time we were leaving."

Sailor Pluto raised her staff and gave it a quarter turn. Invisible energy seemed to engulf
them both and in seconds Mercury and Pluto were gone.

Below the ledge, staring up with a mixture of anger and anxiety, Viluy stood.

She had heard every word.
- - - -
Confronted with the forward surge of five androids, Sailor Mars froze for the merest
second in surprise. Then her instincts kicked into gear and she brought her hands up to invoke
her "Burning Mandala". But Sailor Neptune hadn't surrendered to surprise and surged ahead of
her.

"Deep Submerge!" Neptune called out. A wave of water sprang up from nowhere and
engulfed the androids, carrying them down the hall and buffeting them against the walls and each
other. Those not injured by the impact with the walls suffered damage to their internal circuitry
as the water seeped into them through any opening.

"I would have gotten them," Mars groused.

"I merely saved you the trouble," Neptune replied in a way that hinted that the point
wasn't worth arguing about. "Now what do you suppose they needed five androids to guard,
hmm?"

The green-tressed senshi walked through the scattered androids up to a door. Mars
followed, casting a wary eye at the fallen machines for signs of life. When they arrived at the
door, though, they found it locked with a keycard entry system.

"Now I'm really curious," Neptune joked. "Do you think you can do something with this
lock, Mars?"

The senshi stared at it for a few moments, turning over possibilities in her mind. Then
she settled on a course of action and nodded. Backing up a few steps and signaling for Neptune
to do the same, Mars jammed her hand down to her side.

"Mars!" she shouted. "Flame Sniper!"

The flaming bow and arrow grew into her hands as Sailor Mars pulled back the
bowstring. With an unshakable calm born of confidence, the senshi aimed at the lock and fired.
Her flame arrow shot across the hall and passed through the lock at almost supersonic speed. It
severed the bolt and the momentum of the arrow pushed the door out slightly. Neptune nodded a
compliment to Mars, then pulled the door open. Pleased with herself, Mars followed her fellow
senshi inside.

She no sooner gained entry to the room than she stopped. Eyes popping, Sailor Mars
looked around the room. Dimly she heard Sailor Neptune.

"Everyone, home in on my signal!" Neptune barked into her senshi communicator. "Get
down here, now!"
- - - -
"Usako," Tuxedo Mask said softly as his hands gently grasped the shuddering upper torso
of Sailor Moon. He didn't have to see if she was crying - - he could tell by the way she was
huddled against the wall.

"I'm sorry for crying," Sailor Moon squeaked, ashamed to let Tuxedo Mask see her tears.
"But to see Ami - - perverted into someone's plaything, even if it's just a copy of her," and sobs
overtook her again.

"I know," her future mate whispered, his grip giving her the strength not to dissolve
completely.

"It's not right," she sobbed. "It's not right that someone can do that. It's not right that
someone can take another human being and turn them into a-a doll for them to play with. Ami
has a mind and a brain and feelings! She's not a plaything!"

"Usako," Tuxedo Mask said, turning her to face him. "Desperate people do desperate
things. That android is a symbol of Viluy's contempt for other people and their rights as human
beings - - but it's also a symbol of Viluy's need for love and companionship and acceptance. She
may have done it because she didn't care who else it would hurt. But she may have done it
because she didn't know any other way to get what she needed."

"But Mamo-chan, it's wrong," Sailor Moon persisted.

"I'm not saying it's not. I'm just saying - - if I couldn't have you, but I could have an
exact duplicate of you, I might take it. It wouldn't be the same as having you, not by any means,
but it might help me get through the rest of my days."

Sailor Moon looked down and eventually nodded. However Tuxedo Mask could tell she
wasn't convinced.

Maybe that was a good thing.

"Everyone, home in on my signal!" they heard Sailor Neptune bark over Sailor Moon's
communicator. "Get down here, now!"

Sailor Moon's eyes went wide with alarm. She and Tuxedo Mask broke into a run down
the corridor. After two junctions, they met up with Luna and Artemis.

"Luna, what do you think it is?" Sailor Moon asked.

"In this chamber of horrors? That's hard to imagine!" Luna replied. "Hopefully it's
nothing worse! Oh, Sailor Moon, the ghastly things Artemis and I have seen! This Viluy is an
utter monster!"

Sailor Moon found herself nodding, against her better nature.

"Maybe they found Ami," Artemis suggested.

"I hope it's the real one," Sailor Moon sighed. Luna glanced curiously at her.

Approaching the signal, the quartet found the corridor littered with broken android bodies
amid puddles of water. Acrid smoke filled the air.

"Well I'd say Mars and Neptune have been busy," Artemis commented as the four picked
their way through the wreckage.

At once Sailor Moon screeched in alarm as something closed around her ankle. Looking
down, the broken torso of an android had reached out and grabbed her. Before she could do
anything else, though, Tuxedo Mask used his walking stick to knock the torso and hand away.
The three looked to Sailor Moon, who was trembling and on the verge of shock. Just then Sailor
Venus popped her head out the door.

"Artemis!" she gasped. "Get in here! You've got to see this!"

Forcing herself along, Sailor Moon followed the others as they ventured through the
security door and into the large room it guarded. She heard Artemis gasp in surprise.

The room had a forty foot ceiling and ran nearly the length of the complex. In it was a
huge assembly line. The line was entirely roboticized, automated to carry newly wired android
torsos down one line, heads down another and limbs down a third. Once the central nervous
system was attached through the skeleton, a complex series of artificial muscles was attached
along the assembly line.

Overhead, lines of preformed outer shells were carried to their destination. The shells
were clear plastic that mimicked human skin once a thin sheet of foam coating was applied. As
the androids passed along the assembly line, robot arms attached limbs, welded muscles into
place and encased the muscles in the plastic, which was then heat-seamed into place.

As the senshi walked through the assembly plant, they were ignored by the automation. It
continued doing its job as if they weren't there.

"How many do you think they're turning out at a time?" Mars asked, amazed by what she
saw.

"It looks like optimum output at the moment is ten androids an hour," Artemis judged.
"At that rate, working round the clock, they could have two hundred and forty produced per day."

"So how long have they been at this?" Jupiter asked ominously.

"They could already have enough to overrun Tokyo!" Venus exclaimed.

"Except that we don't know how long it takes to specify an android's appearance or to
program them to replace a human," Artemis cautioned. "These are all generic humanoid units.
They might be going into storage for now."

"There's some at the end of the room," Neptune pointed out. The group headed for them.
As they neared, they all saw a group of androids, both male and female, with specific features
and hair styles. Each one was lifeless and frozen into position. It was almost like viewing the
dead.

"Are they supposed to be somebody?" Venus asked.

"Yes," Tuxedo Mask said, pointing to an older looking android. "That's Dietman
Toguro."

"Is that her game?" Luna asked. "Replace key members of the Japanese government with
her android duplicates?"

"Perhaps," Neptune replied with a cocked eyebrow, "although I'm inclined to think its
more than that. Some of these androids we don't recognize may be key leaders in the business
and financial centers of Japan."

"Didn't I say that?" Venus asked, looking at Jupiter. "No, don't listen to Venus! She watches
too many monster movies!"

"Control government and the business sector," Tuxedo Mask summed up. "Use that to
funnel more money and resources into android production, expanding the replacement to other
countries until you've locked up the entire world. Then, from a position of superior strength,
turn the androids loose on the population. But to what end - - enslavement?"

"I'll try to remember to ask her later," Venus scowled. "Right now I say we trash this
place!"

"I agree with Venus," Neptune said. She turned to Sailor Moon, expecting an argument.
Mars and Jupiter glanced over, too, because they wanted to side with Neptune and Venus.

"It's the only thing we can do," Sailor Moon replied, her expression haunted. "We can't
let this go any further."

"I don't believe any of you have a say in it!" they all heard from the catwalks above the
assembly line.

As one the senshi looked up. Ringing the assembly line area on the overhead catwalks
were a dozen Viluys. Each one was armed with a deadly-looking rifle. Each rifle was trained on
the senshi, with four specifically targeting Sailor Moon.

continued in Chapter 12