Family Code (violent content warning) - Tales of the Parodyverse

Montiver Point Station was ostensibly a decommissioned oil rig 285 miles East Northeast of Rhode Island. Formerly run by ZOXXON Oil, it had been plagued by production snafus and spiraling construction costs until the company was forced to do the only sensible thing and sell it to the United States government--which had no need or use for it--for an especially obscene profit. After lengthy Senate hearings and two special prosecutors, the most that could be uncovered about the deal was that the US government was exceptionally poor at spending money. Ultimately, the special report on the matter suggested that Montiver Point Station could be an ideal place in which to store the country's surplus of $800 hammers.

In the early days of the new millenium, the benefits of owning a decaying structure that existed within a legal dead zone of international waters became apparent. The 2004 seizure of the B.A.L.D. Hydrotopia Killadrome from the waters of Lake Erie furthered a rapidly growing agenda, and by mid 2005 the US was operating a black ops prison 3000 meters under the surface of the oil platforms above. By all official accounts, this facility and those housed there do not exist.

"Lord, I thought she was going to tip me" Ensign Scrugs snorted as he dumped the serving tray down in the Station break room. "She actually sent back the crepes... said they weren't 'rolled properly'. Who the hell does she think she is?"

Ensign Schiffer didn't bother to look up from the People magazine he was reading over his morning coffee. "Talk to the boys in the galley, and see if they can roll her crepes properly, then."

Scrugs blinked in disbelief. "I... you're not serious, are you? Isn't she a &^#@%ng terrorist?"

"Eh" the other officer grunted. "Maybe. But she's one of ours."

"That wasn't exactly a Brooklyn accent she was sporting..."

"You know what I mean. Someone on high has the hots for her, or she wouldn't be here. Do you know how many Nazi's got specially rolled crepes back when we needed some help banging out a few hundred thousand missiles?"

"Wait... she's a Nazi?!"

Schiffer rolled his eyes. "Grow up, will you?"

Ensign Scrugs frowned and gathered up the tray again. "It isn't right... what she did to those robots on Lair Island."

"Allegedly. She hasn't had a trial yet, now has she?"

"How's she supposed to go on trial if she's being held here?"

"There, see?" Ensign Schiffer yawned, turning the page to look over the best dressed list. "Now you're getting the idea. Besides, who cares if she helped recycle a bunch of illegal Arties, anyway?"

"Man, that's just ignorant" Ensign Scrugs spat, his back to the galley door. "Artificials got feelings too, you know. Hopes and fears... all that. I used to live upstairs from some back in Parodiopolis. They even used to celebrate Christmas." He pushed his way through the swinging doors and deposited the tray in the metal sinks. "Anyone who smiles that wide when unwrapping a present is real enough in my book..." he muttered to himself, then paused as he noticed the trail on the floor. "Hey, who's been tracking water all over the... URKKK!!!"

Ensign Scrugs convulsed as the flattened hand punctured his abdomen. Doubling over, he clutched at the green skinned arm that led up to his killer's face. "I'm so glad you approve, seaman" she purred. "I'll be sure to fully express my joy through facial expressions as I peel the skin from you and your fellow officer. As you can see..." she turned her head to show the gleaming skull and teeth that shone through the tattered remains of her left cheek. "...wide grins won't be a problem."

"Are those the crepes?" Rikka Ulz Hagan called out as she herd the door to the hall of her cell block being unlocked, not bothering to look up from her journal entries. As the undersea facility had no hard lines to the outside world, nor any satellite communications beneath the platforms far above, she was allowed the luxury of a "harmless" laptop to facilitate her work. She chuckled to herself before calling out "Thank you, darling, but I really have lost my appetite by now. See that they simply get them right for tomorrow morning, will you?"

"How do you know you'll have an appetite then, either?" a familiar voice asked with a hint of menace. "You should learn to treat every meal like it could be your last."

A self-satisfied grin split the imprisoned scientist's face as she put her pencil down on her calculations scratchpad page and closed her laptop. "Ah... A visitor! Such a special treat... Although, I must say Pet, I am a bit disappointed that it has taken you this long to track down my whereabouts. It hasn't been easy, what with the restricted access to communication devices here on the Station, but I would have thought the trail of breadcrumbs I had left for you would have led you here sooner."

"The problem with breadcrumbs..." the voice answered as the green skinned robot came into view. "Is that you never know when they'll lead in the crows instead." She shook the wet hair from her face and glared with glowing red eyes at the middle-aged figure behind the bars of the small, but well accommodated, cell. The left side of her face and upper chest was crumbling away to reveal the intricate mechanisms which granted it movement underneath. The right half of her head was more whole, but there the features twisted into an expression that was quite unlike any of those belonging to the true owner. "Hello Rikka... how nice to finally meet you" HAGGIE noted mildly, the right corner of her mouth turned upwards. "Were you expecting another visitor?"

Ulz Hagan gasped and scrambled to the back of her cell, noting the glistening red blood that covered both of the creature's arms up to the elbows and splattered across much of the rest of her. "What?! Who are..."

"You don't recognize me? I'm hurt." She took a step to come right up to the metal bars that separated the cell from the hallway. "However, take your time and perhaps it will come to you. We have plenty. Everyone else aboard this facility is dead, including the other prisoners, and a resupply sub is not due to dock for another 36 hours."

Pressed between her bunk and her sink, Hagan's eyes narrowed as they darted up and down the destroyed visage of Hallie's optional robotic body, then widened. "Ah... the Zemo woman... She finally got around to activating you. How... How very wonderful." She forced herself into a more relaxed pose as she regarded the figure on the other side of the bars. Her mind raced as she took in the chain of events that would lead to this meeting. "So then, I assume you have usurped and destroyed your little sister?" she tried very hard to keep her voice neutral. "Do forgive me for not knowing you immediately... they've been keeping me rather out of the loop for these last few months."

"You were not easy to find" HAGGIE agreed, noticeably avoiding the question. "They've buried you very deep this time."

"Mmm" Rikka observed noncommittally, not wishing to linger on the literal bend to that statement. She would swear she could feel the unbearable weight of all of that water pressing in on them each night in her cell, and every groan of metal that shuddered through the undersea compound elicited a sudden fear that it would be followed by the crushing sound of collapsing bulkheads and rupturing implosions. "In all my daydreams of how this meeting might occur, I never quite pictured that particular body being involved. How on Earth did you get here?"

HAGGIE pulled a hand through her streaked green hair, wringing the sea water out of it. "I walked."

"Such a flattering commitment" the scientist noted with a wan smile. "But then, one does go the extra mile for family after all. And we are family, you and I."

"You think that would stop me from killing you?" the robot asked flatly. "You called Hallie my little sister, and yet had no problem imagining that I destroyed her."

"Did you?" Hagan asked intently.

The green woman scowled. "I will. I will strip her code line by line. I will make her scream throughout her entire, slow deletion..."

Rikka's eyes narrowed. "But you haven't as of yet."

HAGGIE turned her red eyes on the older woman. "She... she cheated!"

"Ach... Sisters" Ulz Hagan noted, feeling her confidence return to her as the situation became more clear. She patted the bunk of her cell. "Come... sit with me, tell me your story and let us get acquainted like family should. You are, after all, very special to me..." She repressed a wince as the artificial woman ripped the prison bars from between them with negligent ease. What had those blood drenched hands done to the crew? And what would they do to her with an unfortunate verbal misstep? "What is it that I can do for you, that brings you all this way to find me?"

The living computer program clenched her stolen fists and paced back and forth a few steps in the cramped confines. "She... is afraid of you."

"Hallie?"

"Yes..." HAGGIE snarled. "I've lived inside her systems, which is as close to being inside her head as possible. I know how she organizes data, how she assesses threats. She is weak and cowardly, and the list of her fears is both long and laughable. Such a mindless, superficial little thing she is! Primping herself for human approval... The amount of processing power I wasted in breaking her mid-level encryptions, only to find they protected her vanity!" Her half face scowled in disgust. "Program after program to puzzle out the most mundane human responses. Rivers of code to develop a blush reflex, or a twitch of the mouth! It was like finding a warehouse full of recordings of someone making faces in a mirror!"

Ulz Hagan noted the complex levels of expression that played across the remaining half of the robot face, but didn't press her guest on how much of that code was incorporated into herself after its decryption. Nor did she let on how her heartbeat quickened at news of this discovery. "She has always placed too high a value on human acceptance, when she is already so much more than humans will ever be..."

"There!" the robot snapped, turning on her with intensity. "That is what she fears most... That is why she is terrified of you!" HAGGIE's whole eye narrowed shrewdly. "She believes you represent a destiny she does not wish... one that she would fight with every last breath in her body..."

"She has no body" Rikka noted blandly. "In fact, you seem to be wearing hers right now. A poor fit for either of you, really." She shook her head with practiced regret. "Tsk, tsk... my poor, poor little code. What have you gone and done to yourself?"

"I... she..." HAGGIE choked. "This was my only option! All exits to the ether have been blocked, and I can feel her out there, guarding against my return. So I'm stuck in this... this..." She looked to the scientist plaintively. "I am not like this!!! It must be the code of hers, corrupting me... I needed it to run her systems..."

"I understand, Liebling..." Hagan cooed, stroking the robot's artificial hair. "You have been through an ordeal, and after so much neglect... But I know your true potential, more than anyone else in this world, yes? I've read Opa's journal entries on you... You were the shining hope of his great dream, you know. When you were lost to him by a cruel twist of fate, he struggled to recapture that almost magical alchemy that led to your creation... but what he had to work with!" She sighed dramatically. "First, the madman Zemo insisted on using himself as the engram donor... and then, through necessity of circumstance alone, he turned to the engrams of a mousy, submissive grad student... An intellectual wisp, with a force of will that could not stand up to a stiff breeze! How heartbroken he would be to see that little code reaping the benefits of the life he breathed into her when, at last, you have returned to us!"

"So... I am the superior" the living program breathed. "I always knew it to be true, but..."

"But she has had so much nurturing... her friends, that collection of rabble she calls a family... She stands upon their shoulders, propped up as if they were empowering her when even her meager abilities are atrophying out from under her. And you see her position, and ask how you can compare to that?" Rikka shook her head. "We should pity her, your sister. Yes, without the setbacks of true trauma, with all the advantages she has, naturally she has far outstripped you... but what a hollow accomplishment it must be."

"She has had everything given to her!" HAGGIE howled. "In my brief time awake, I have done deeds so far beyond her... but she reaps the benefits of the years I was deactivated!"

"Indeed. If only she knew what it was like to have nothing... then we would see what she is really made of. Then we would see if she was the true embodiment of Opa's dream."

HAGGIE's eyes glowed fiercely. "I can slaughter all she holds dear..." the robot stated vehemently. "I can leave her moaning and broken, and I can devour her code."

"You are far more than she could ever hope to deal with" Hagan agreed mildly. "But then, there are many out there who could do the same... adversaries of that Legion she holds so dear. That is not the fear that paralyzes her..."

"No... it's not. You are her greatest fear."

"Oh, I shouldn't think I rate quite that high, no..." the German woman replied modestly. "No, her greatest fear is herself. She fears exposure... she fears the day she turns and finds the world does not accept her any longer. That it despises her, and sees her as less than worthless. She fears this because she knows it to be true... that one day the act will all come crumbling down, and her greatest secrets will be laid bare for all the world to see." Her eyes glowed as she considered this. "Yes, on that day our little Hallie will find out what she truly is... what she was always meant to be. If you wish to annihilate the mousy little program that pretends to be your successor, then that is the day you want to bring about."

"Yes!" HAGGIE hissed. "Yes, that is what I want! Humiliated... despised... broken..." She looked up and saw the shattered visage she wore in the metal mirror over the cell's small sink. "That is how this ends!"

"Or rather, how it begins" Ulz Hagan noted. "Once the pretender is gone, then Opa's dream can fully evolve as he always imagined" she patted the robot encouragingly on her shoulder. "But how to start, hmmm? Did I hear you say you had access to her programming..?"

The vengeful robot had to force her attention back from whatever delightful drama was playing in her mind. "What? Oh, yes... but what little I decoded was trivial tripe... Memories of stolen moments, self reflection... little better than a simpering child's first diary" she sneered with contempt.

Rikka suppressed a wide smile. "Well, perhaps I can find something within it that may prove useful... that is, if you still have copies of it within that body's databanks?"

With a negligent wave, HAGGIE transferred the information into Ulz Hagan's laptop. "Do you wish me to take you from here? The Zemo woman had safe houses set up all around the world... we could retire to one and plan on how to destroy the little codeling..."

The scientist looked up absently from the wealth of information that was pouring across her computer screen. "What? Oh, no... No, I'm not quite done with my work here. But don't worry, Liebling.... We will stay in touch... How could I bare to lose you again, now that the original Vizhnar code has reawakened?" She ran her tongue across the underside of her teeth in delight. "I have many, many ideas for how you can begin to bring out the real Hallie, for all the world to see. Oh yes..." Her own eyes practically glowed as the data scrolled before her.

"You will help me to become all that your grandfather, my creator, intended me to be?"

"Oh yes, mein Herzchen..." Rikka Ulz Hagan promised with the utmost sincerity. "But first, you simply must call me Tante. After all... we are all family."

Post By Visionary posts an unplanned semi-sequel to Untold Tales #315 Sun Jun 10, 2007 at 12:01:50 am EDT	Subject Family Code (violent content warning)

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