Ranma was barely aware of the countless worlds and fates he bypassed before he was finally spat out of the rift. The pigtailed martial artist only vaguely registered the room full of stunned faces as he flew by into some kind of tubular chamber.
Before he could even start to get his bearings or begin to react, the chamber slammed shut and sealed itself with a sibilant hiss. It immediately began to flood with a strange dark gray, metallic slurry which tingled on contact with Ranma's skin. It also had some kind of paralytic effect because Ranma found to his growing panic he couldn't move as the tube quickly filled up.
Fortunately for Ranma, the substance also acted as an anesthesia, and he was asleep before he could begin to panic from the slurry covering his nose and mouth.
"What the hell just happened, Tendo?" Dr. Genma Saotome wondered in shock.
"It seems that some sort of dimensional rift opened up, sucked in your son, and deposited someone else into the Infusion Chamber," Dr. Soun Tendo reported in a dazed tone, unwilling to process the sheer unlikelihood of what just happened.
"Not just someone," the lab tech, Nodoka Saotome, said from her monitoring station. "That data from the Chamber indicates it is a DNA match for our son."
She had been alarmed at first, thinking something terrible had happened to her son, but the DNA match between Ranma and the person in the chamber relieved her.
"But he didn't look like Ranma," Dr. Tendo argued. "He was dressed differently, had a silly pigtail, and he looked much better built."
"I'm only telling you what the data is indicating, Dr. Tendo," Nodoka informed him.
"Well, it's too late to do anything now," Dr. Saotome shrugged. "We can't stop the Nano-Infusion once it's begun. Whoever the boy is, it's lucky that he is a close match for my son or the infusion process would likely kill him."
"I'm just worried about the experiment, Saotome," Dr. Tendo admitted. "If the process fails, then Dr. Akagi will likely get all our funding for her Genetics Lab. She already has two units ready for the Evaluation Trials."
"Bah, weak little girls," Dr. Saotome sneered. "Genetically engineered or not, combat is a man's field."
"I'm not so sure, Saotome," Dr. Tendo said uncertainly. "I've heard Dr. Akagi's 'Angels' have exceeded expectations. What if this boy doesn't cooperate? We'll have nothing to send to the Evaluation Trials. We should have had a back-up test subject."
"You know we both agreed that none of the other candidates that applied were acceptable, Tendo," Dr. Saotome reminded his colleague. "Your youngest daughter was the closest, but we both agreed to exclude her. My son's friend—that Ryoga boy—was too unstable, although this might have cured his lousy sense of direction and improved his emotional state. Still, if it hadn't we could have unleashed something as bad as the enemy we face. No, Tendo, we will just have to hope that we can convince this boy to work for us should the Infusion Process prove successful."
"I know, Saotome," Dr. Tendo sighed. "I just feel we must do all we can to stop the menace of out former employer, Dr. Happosai and his 8 Treasures Cyber-Systems Corporation. If only we could have stopped him twenty years ago..."
Twenty years ago the world had been a thriving global community. While over-population was a problem, steps were being taken to correct it. Great arcologies were constructed in most of the world's major population centers and in such untapped areas as the shallow waters of the continental shelves.
Huge Multinational Corporations had emerged, driving both the economy and the technological development of the planet. One of the smaller of these, barely even large enough to be considered such, was 8 Treasures Cyber-Systems headed by Dr. Happosai Akukage.
Dr. Akukage was not a nice person by any stretch, but he was a brilliant cybernetisist. His designs for cybernetic replacement limbs early in his career allowed him to keep his corporation in the global market and attracting the brightest of the new scientists. Genma Saotome and Soun Tendo had been among those. Happosai had shared their interest in the possibilities of nano-biotech and had immediately hired them.
However, Happosai was a bitter man, perhaps due to his small stature and unremarkable looks leading him to be rejected by women in favor of more athletic examples of men. He was also a pervert with a diabolical plan.
He had wanted to use the technology that Genma and Soun were developing to enslave the female population of the planet. With him as their master, he would control the world. After all, if all the women were completely loyal to him, then those thick-necked, brainless jocks would have to come to him if they wanted female companionship. In the meantime, Happosai could leer at, smell, taste, and, most importantly, fondle all the female flesh his perverted heart desired.
Unfortunately for him, his lackeys, Genma and Soun, discovered his plan and had an attack of conscience. They confronted the old pervert, bearding the lion in his own den. A fight had broken out and resulted in Happosai being mortally wounded. However, before he expired he was able to download his consciousness into the Company Net. Genma and Soun were lucky to escape the facility before Happosai managed to gain control of the automated security systems.
Shortly after that, Happosai unleashed the world's first nano-virus which rapidly spread across the world. It wasn't a particularly nasty virus. It was easily stopped by the air filtration systems on the arcologies or even a simple respirator if one had to be outside. However, it was lethal once a person breathed a certain amount of it and there had been little success with removing the self-replicating virus from the atmosphere. As a result, the whole planet became covered with a slight haze. People who lived outside an arcology began dying in droves. Those that were left lived led a squalid, dirty life as nanite dust settled on everything and people were unable to go out without protective clothing and respirators.
The national governments soon collapsed in the ensuing riots and the acologies became self-governed city-states. Access was strictly controlled and more than a few massacres transpired as panicked populations tried to force their way inside to the safety and comfort of the clean filtered climate of the arcologies while security forces fought to keep them out. Only the best and most talented were able to gain residence in the arcologies.
As if this weren't bad enough, there was less sunlight reaching the surface of the planet and the climate outside was becoming colder as time went on. It promised to be a severe problem in the future, perhaps even bringing about the next ice age. Steps were taken to find a solution and more arcologies were being built as fast as possible for the remaining population.
Unfortunately, Happosai was still a threat. His automated factories began to produce armies of gynoids which he spitefully sent forth to attack the arcologies. These gynoids appeared as attractive, scantily-clad young women. They generally attacked in small groups, attempting to infiltrate human populations before they began destroying the infrastructures. They were also exceedingly hard to destroy since anything less than an armor piercing bullet failed to penetrate their subdural armor and it took quite a few of those before enough damage accumulated to stop them.
With attacks coming more frequently and one gynoid able to take on a platoon of fully armed troops, programs to create soldiers that could fight them on even footing were being developed all over the world. Cyborgs were the only currently available weapon that could go toe to toe with the gynoids, but not many people would volunteer to be cyberized as it often left them looking more machine than human. Instead, alternatives were being looked at such as genetic engineering and nano-augmentation which would allow the subject to appear human and live without any sort of stigma with the rest of the society they were protecting.
It was into just such a program that Ranma had stumbled into.
Read the comments on this episode
See other episodes by Iridium Heart
(Posted Sun, 13 Jan 2008 12:41)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.