The Forgotten Memory
[finding out Andrew's past.
edited by PN
The name for Andrew's father will be Doctor Lucent - suggested by PN]
The over worked scientist hurries over to meet Andrew. "Andrew, my boy! You are back! Well, look at you, look at you!" then he notices the others, "oh, you have made friends as well. Well, hello everyone, make yourself at home here. Any friend of Andrew’s is welcomed here." The man seems to be overjoyed. It would have been a joyful time if they had not found the hints that lead them to believe that something is very wrong here.
"Excuse me, Doc. Lucent." Andrew finally decides to interrupt the old man.
"Doctor? Now, now you should be calling me father!" The old man seems to be getting upset over this particular detail.
"I am sorry... Umm… father..." Andrew seems to be having a hard time adjusting which is even stranger, considering that he is an android. "..are you the one who created me?"
"Created? Well, yes and .. well.. no.. I mean.. your mom had a huge part on carrying you and all, but yea, I did make you-you, this body.." the man mumbled, with his volume going up and down.
"..I do not understand what you are trying to tell me." Andrew looked at the old man, confused.
"Well, I am a man so I can't have babies. That was your mom's job." The man seems to be happy when he mentions Andrew's mom.
"But, I am an android. A human female could not possibly have given birth to me."
"Oh, is that what's confusing you. Ha, that is where I step in." the old man winked at Andrew, "you see, I made this body of yours." The old man said very proudly.
"..What?" Ashila is taken a back and now everyone is lost.
"Well, yes, your mom carried you for a good 10 months and gave birth to you. And you were the cutest and the sweetest thing in the world." The old man's eyes brighten as he remembers the past.
"......" everyone waits for the old man to continue.
"You were beautiful. All full of life and hope and yes, your first gift to me was to water my hands. Haha" Old man laughs at the thought of it.
"....." Ashila is trying hard not to laugh out loud. Andrew would be red faced if he could.
"How can that be..? I do not make 'water'.." Andrew presses on.
"Ho, you did, you did. Ha ha and you laughed afterward thinking it was funny." The old man is happy, even his face looks younger. "You see, you were a happy lad, a good and sweet one. Everything would have been perfect if it was not for the accident." The smile fades and the old man's face turns dark, a shadow covered his eyes, and tears welled up. "I am sorry.. it was my fault.." Tears stream down along the old man's cheek.
"What happened?" Ellen asks.
"You see, I am in charge of creating a stable and plentiful energy supply. I have worked on it for years, and could not even be with you on your birthdays." The old man's face is full of regret, "finally I found it, the endless bountiful energy. It was hard to reach, but it was not impossible. And it is worth every effort.."
The old man's eyes light up again. "I was overjoyed. Your 12th birthday was coming up, and I wanted you and your mother to see it first. You were having the time of your life, asking about everything, and your mom was happy knowing that I will finally be able to come home everyday, and be the father that I never was."
A sad smile covers his face. He then looks up at Andrew, "I am sorry, had I known that it was too powerful to be controlled with our technology at the time, I would have never let you get close to it.. You were so happy to just see my work, and I thought everything was fine, only it wasn't."
**Flash back**
The young teen pushes his face up against the window to a large chamber. Inside a light shines almost as bright as the sun. "Wow, is that it? Is that what you have made?"
"No, no, I did not make it, I found it." The tired but happy and kind face replies and winks at the teen.
"Wow, that is sooo cool." The boy did not care whether the man had found it or made it. The important thing is that his father made it happen, and he has the bragging rights to it. The boy does not look away from the light as he speaks.
The light flickers a little at this moment, and then it starts to shrink. The alarms sounded, and a worried voice come out of the speaker, "Doc. Lucent please come to the central control room ASAP!"
"Stay here, it is safe!" the man runs toward the end of the hall, his mother had just caught up with them and saw the man pass her in a flash. "Wait, I will come too." Just as they rushed outside an explosion come from the chamber. As a safety, the door to the viewing room was locked with the boy inside. The two can only watch as the light flashes again and disappears completely.
The boy is now on the hospital bed, pale faced, and dying, the burn has destroyed most of his body, and his face is covered with bandages. The green light on the monitors to the side jump with every weak heart beat. The mother and father can do nothing other than cry and watch as their son slowly dies. With all their technology, they cannot save their own son.
**Back to present**
"That accident left you dying on the hospital bed, and there was nothing we could do." The old man wipes his face,
"we needed time to save you, and so I made a deal with the hospital to keep you in suspended animation, until the day when we find a way to save your life.
For the past ten years, I have worked hard to find a way to reverse the damage. But it finally came to me that your body was beyond repair. I brought it back here." The old man opens a bio chamber covered in frost showing a badly injured boy who would look as if he were asleep, if not for the bad burns on his face, "I can't watch you die like that. You were too young to die; you have not had chance to experience life.
So, I used what I know and made you a new body. The energy source was a challenge but I managed to link it to the very power that destroyed your body and it worked. I did a brain map and copied your brain into that body and he opened his eyes and called me '‘father.' Sasha, your mother was overjoyed to have gotten her boy back. We named him Andrei, the same as his birth name."
"Wait, you said Andrei, not Andrew." Ashila points out.
"Yes, his name was Andrei.." the old man turns to Andrew, "that was the first you. He was a good lad, but he learned how to manipulate the power source that I had given him and became very powerful. That power turned him into a monster.." the old man shakes his head in grief. "Finally I had to destroy him with my own hands, but I failed. And he came back to me with vengeance. I can't blame him. After all, everything was my own doing. With Sasha’s help, we manage to trap him in a space where he cannot get free despite his powers. This had broken her heart and I wanted to somehow make things right, at least for her.
And so I made you, your body was adaptable but not indestructible, and limited your power output; hoping that would somehow keep the same thing from happening with you.. However when Sasha found out that I made you, she was afraid that you would be like Andrei. She came in to the workshop and deleted your brain map. I manage to restore some of it, but there are parts that are lost forever...
When you opened your eyes, you did not call me father, instead you asked how should you call me in a polite manner. In fact, you have lost most of the memories of ever living with us. But you seem to remember locations in an odd way." The old man is in his own thoughts now, "you see, somehow you where left with vague senses of places that you have seen when you were little. But being very calm and unemotional, most people would not take you as a real person. You seem to lack the livelihood that Andrei had. Sasha died soon after you were finished, and she cried on her deathbed pleading for you to forgive her because she tried to kill you. At that time, you simply repeated that 'you are not angry and you do not hate her, and that she should not cry, it is not good for her health.' When she died, it seems that part of you too died with her. You stopped talking, and would stand in front of her grave for days. I could not bear it.." the old man shakes his head, "it does not matter what others said about you, you still had so much feeling left in you. If you had a human body, you might have fallen sick yourself and died.
After watching you for a month acting like that, I decided to lock up that part of your memory and send you out into the world somewhere so that you could start over. The energy source was powerful enough for me to open a gateway, sending you far away into the future. I was sure that I would not live to see you again, but at least you would have a chance to live a life of your own. And maybe, just maybe, you would find a way to come back to me. .. And you did.. My, my, how you have turned out. Just let them look at you now; you are as lively as any human being. And you have made such a great number of friends."
The room is quiet now, everyone is still trying to process the information.
Having just found out his own past, Andrew seems to be somewhat in shock. Though his face did not change, something inside did, he seems to be under tons of weight and will collapse at any time. "..Is that mothers grave outside?" Andrew struggles to find something to say.
"Yes, it is."
"I will just go visit her then." Andrew slowly turned and walked out.
"...... An.." Alex wanted to say something but he could not find the right words.
"..... ......Grrrr.. That stone head..!" Ashila scratches his head, frustrated, "I will go after him.." and runs after him.
The old man watches, and is somewhat confused because he senses that there are other things that he does not know that are going on between the two. "What was that about?"
"Ashila comes form E-fy, the planet around the 'energy source' you found. You opened a dimensional rift directly into the Sun in his solar system. The people on his planet were already using that sun as an energy supply, and you just tipped the balance and trigged a massive meltdown of the infrastructure of the sun. That sun is now a red giant and getting bigger at an alarming rate. It has already swallowed five interior planets, and E-fy is scorched. The people there have fled, leaving their planet to the sun’s mercy. It is only matter of time before it becomes a black hole. And if we don’t close the dimensional rift, our world may be taken down with it." Alex dryly explaines the situation to the old man.
"..no.." the old man is in shock.
**Outside by Sasha’s grave**
Andrew stands there like a stone. Ashila stops short of him, "hey, you ok?"
Andrew turns to look at him, "I am alright."
"Yea? You look like you are crying."
"I don't cry."
"Come on, everyone knows that you cry," Ashila walks closer to Andrew and points at his chest, "in here, you are crying if not dying."
"I am a machine, I do not feel.." Andrew said, as if trying to convince someone.
"Andrew, don'’t blame yourself for what happened, it was not of your choice. And you know it." Ashila looks him in the eye, "I always called you a stone head because you keep saying that you are a machine and that you are not subject to human emotions, but everyone here know that you are affected just as anyone else. You only keep saying that so you can have a excuse not to show them."
"I.. my existence is responsible for destroying your world.." Andrew replies, "if anything, you should be after me for causing that.." His words are cut short by Ashila’s punch, "...!"
"Is this what you want? Do you really want to fight me!?" Ashila is furious.
*** [fight] ***
The fight is over now, both are exhausted, but the score is settled. Andrew sits on the ground looking at the puffing Ashila who must have used lots of energy up in the fight. However, Andrew was not as badly injured as he would have been. "You did not focus all your powers on me.." Andrew stated to Ashila.
"Of course, you would be in pieces by now if I did." The ever proud Ashila answers, "look, Andrew. Despite everything that happened, the fact is that neither of us wanted for it to happen. We did not choose to be made. We are made because our creator wanted to make us. Therefore, we cannot be held acounted for the mistakes they have done. What we can do is to be responsible for our own actions. It is how we live our life that will define us as who we are." Ashila said trying to convince Andrew.
"...." Andrew seems to be in his own world, "I know this may sound odd, but I always thought of you as a friend. When I found out that I might not be able to call you a friend, something felt wrong. I don't understand it."
"Ha ha, and you keep saying that you are just a piece of machinery!" Ashila knocked Andrew on the head, "that is called feeling, and you are not the only one who feels that way. But, I must say, you are a lot stronger than I expected. You will be hard to fight if we are in a full out battle mode. It almost makes me want to fight you. It will be great."
Andrew looks at Ashila, "I know that I do not want to fight you again, you will never use your full power against your friends, and that will not be a fair fight."
Ashila smirks at Andrew, "do you think I will let you win that easy?"