~Prologue: Freedom for All.~
WARNING: No Entry permitted to Unauthorized Personel. STAY OUT.That was the notice posted on the eerie-looking gate standing between Steven Stone and the Devon Corp. Maximum-Security building, which lied on an island 1000 miles away from Rustburo City. This was the building where the company stored all it's top-secret materials and research, things that the public was never supposed to see. And in there sat one of Steven's greatest creations, locked away and left to rot. The thought of this made Steven clench his teeth and fists in anger.
Steven pressed the call button on the call box that sat on the large stone wall to that extended around the huge building from either side of the gate. Dark clouds began to form in the sky and the wind started to pick up as Steven waited for a reply from the inside of the building. "Oh brilliant. Now I have even less time to execute the plan. I'll have to at least be on the boat before a storm makes it to hard to see the way back...." he thought to himself irritatedly. As he began to rework his plan, a voice came over the intercom.
"Please confirm your identity using the retnal scanner and then state your buisness." a male voice commanded through the speaker on the call box. Steven leaned over and stared without blinking into a small black rectangular pad on the call box. Two flat beams of light shot out of the pad at Steven and scanned his eyes, then disappeared. "Ah, it's you Steven. Are you here on business for your father?" the male voice asked after a moment of silence.
"Yes, in fact. I'm here to pick up the newest files on..... Project Alpha Zero." Steven responded flatly, anger eminating from the way he spoke. Project Alpha Zero was the code name given to Steven's creation the day he revealed it to his father and the C.E.O. Alpha Zero was one of the greatest advances in bionic and Android technology anyone in the company had ever seen. At first Steven had just been toying with a new idea for a scout robot, but soon his whole life was revolving around the project.
"Of course. I'll open the gate immediately." the male voice responded quickly, and with a slight screech the gate opened and Steven stepped inside. Before him stretched a huge, empty courtyard with nothing but a stone pathway that lead past a security checkpoint and to some stairs. The stairs connected to the main entrance of the huge, prison-esque building.
Steven entered the building after going through a quick background check at the security checkpoint and took a brief second to look around the huge and somewhat empty lobby. It was very white and sterile, with white marble floors and white walls. There was a receptionist desk on the other side of the room, and to the right of the main door was a small lounge area where some scientists and lab workers were discussing various topics. There were also other scientists and the like scattered around the lobby, checking and comparing charts and and the like. As Steven was approaching the Executive Elevator, which had access to every floor in the building unlike the normal elevators, he noticed the Head of Security, Dale, talking to the receptionist. Dale felt as though someone was looking at him and turned to see Steven walking up to the elevator, which was directly to the left of the desk.
"Hello Steven!" Dale called, walking over to him. Steven knew him very vaguely from the times the man head met up with his father, but they had never really been friends. "What brings you here today?" Dale asked the boy. It was rare for Steven to visit the research facility, which could only mean he was here to pick up something for his father.
"I'm here to pick up Project Alpha Zero's new files. My father is debating what we are going to do with her." Steven explained bitterly.
".....I heard about your father's plan to exterminate Alpha Zero." Dale sighed sadly. He knew how much Steven's creation meant to him, and he could only guess how hollow and upset Steven felt on the inside over the whole situation. He put his hand on Steven's shoulder. "I understand you must feel crushed, but maybe it's for the best. Alpha Zero could turn out to be a very dangerous threat, and we don't have the technology to stop her if she were to go berserk." Dale offered with a half-smile.
".....I'll keep that in mind. I should go get those files." Steven replied without emotion, then turned to the elevator, inserted his company, and stepped in. Dale watched as the elevator doors slid shut and sighed.
As soon as the elevator doors had shut, Steven punched a button angrily and the elevator began to decend into the bowls of the building. "That fool." Steven seethed in his mind. His fists were clenched in anger again and he was gritting his teeth together.
It wasn't too long before the elevator beeped for the final time, signaling that it had reached it's final destination: the deepest floor of the building. Few had ever been to this shady, nightmare-ish underbelly of the building, as very few had access to it. It was reserved to only the highest ranking officials in the Devon Corp. hiegherarchy and the handful of scientist who worked on that floor. Nobody else even knew it existed.
The "Final Floor", as those who new about it sometimes referred to it, was the floor where the most Top-Secret of Top-Secret Devon Research and Developement went on. It was huge, extending even under the ocean floor around the island. It was built like a giant labrynth, and no record of a blueprint for it existed. Breaking in and then escaping it would take a true mastermind. Or Steven Stone.
He passed through the Security Checkpoints stationed right after the elevator without any trouble. There were 7, to be exact. After going through that ordeal, Steven was dumped directly into a hallway that seemed to continue on forever. He smiled darkly to himself as he walked down that hallway. He felt a tinge of pride among the anxiety and worry of being caught; he was doing something practically no human like himself could do. He had successfully gotten past the high-level security with the intent to take research from the facility. And not just any research, but something that was a threat in the companies eyes. But not his.
"Soon, Renée. Soon, you and I will be reunited, if only for a moment. And if you decide you want to, I hope that you and I can work together to sound our voices in this world." Steven muttered excitedly, feeling that wherever his creation was, she could hear him. "The only thing that lies between us is this collection of hallways...."
Steven began to have flashbacks of all the time he spent focused on every last detail of this Android. The all-nighters he pulled just to get her eyelashes alined right. There was no way he was letting her be destroyed so easily. If no one else would give her a chance to shine, he would, and he would even make one for her if that's what he had to do.
Steven, who had been drowning in his own thoughts, finally stopped in front of the white double-doors that led into the containment center. This was where all the products of the research done on the "Final Floor" were kept, and the place that now imprisoned Project Alpha Zero. Steven took a deep breath and prepared himself mentally for what he was about to do, then threw open the double doors and stepped into the prison that lay beyond the doors. Steven felt his heart skip a beat, as he knew that the second and final part of his plan began here.
The first part of his plan had been simple. Hide a super-advanced signal-jammer (of his own design) in his mussy hair and speak to as few people as possible, making it so that it was like he had never been there. There would be no hard evidence of his visit, as the jammer would also interfere with the brainwaves of all those around him and cause them to forget ever seeing them. He himself was immune to the jammer's frequencies, however. Everything he had said had been an act up to this point, except for the anger he had been expressing. He was extremely angry, but for now he had forgotten about all that and was focusing on getting to the place where Alpha Zero was being held.
Steven snuck stealthfully through the hallways of the Containment Center, which looked vaguely like the white, sterile hallways of a Pokemon Center. Alpha Zero's cell was in the very back of the Center, in the Confined and Restricted zone. Thankfully, it was nighttime and the scientists appeared to be on break, but he was still extra cautious to look out for any stragglers or scientists pulling all-nighters. Time was running low, and even with the jammer he didn't want to be caught by anyone.
Steven finally made it into the Restricted Area without any flaws, and proceeded to loosen up a bit. Almost no research went on in the Restricted Area at this hour. At this point, there was no turning back, but it wasn't like Steven wanted to in the first place. He had the resolve to carry him all the way through.
~~~
After searching the whole Restricted Area with no luck, Steve Stone finally came face-to-face with the door he had been so desperately trying to reach. His heart beat out of control as he slowly swiped his key are and opened the door to the control room of Restricted Room Negative One.
In the Restricted Area, a room with a negative number meant that whatever the room contained didn't exist even within the building itself. Nothing within the room was recorded outside of that particular room, and conversation about it between staff was kept absolutely minimal, if not less. That made it extremely easy to wipe something from existance if necessary, which Steven was going to work in his favor.
The first things Steven noticed as he entered the control room was a rectangular mirror above a set of computers and machines used to run experiments and record data and the door that lead to the area where his own creation was being stored. He silently closed and locked the door behind him and then peered into the window to get a closer look at the room beyond the Control Room. What he saw thrilled and angered him at the same time.
A young girl figure floated in a curled-up position within a huge cylindrical container of light blue liquid. She had shoulder blade-length navy-blue hair that was so dark it almost looked black. Where her ears would have been were metallic disks with light-blue centers and an antenna coming of of each. Her skin was so pale it looked white, and she was hooked up to a number of wires within the large tube she was concealed in. The tube itself seemed to be one part of a giant machine that extended from either side of it. The central hub. Each Negative Room had its own main supercomputer like this one. "Renée." Steven whispered breathlessly, then darted into the room.
Steven took a short moment to take in the scene before he got to work. It was so... Eerie. His creation floated lifelessly in that strange liquid, surrounded by strange machines in a secluded room. The only light in the room was that eminated by the odd liquid. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He stood in the silence for another moment, then walked over to the main monitor of the supercomputer, which was on the right side of the tank, and hit a button on the keyboard, causing the whole machine to hum to life, and the lights all came on.
Steven's first priority was to get his poor creation out of that container. Of course, he knew that would be no small task as the glass she was concealed in could only be damaged by pure, 24-karat diamond. He had a solution to that problem, however. He began the freeing process by checking his creation's status.
"So she's still deactivated I see. That's good, that means they couldn't have gotten any info out of her." Steven mused after observing the status repot for a moment. "Well, time for your wake-up call." he added as he pulled off his left shoe and turned it upside-down. He peeled back the sole to reveal two USB drives, one of them being totally empty, within a hidden compartment in his shoe, which had lining that made them invisible to any x-ray. He plugged both into the supercomputer and started a total file transfer into the empty one. He didn't plan on leaving a trace that anyone had ever been in here, except for some shattered glass. With all records wiled from the computer, it would be like nothing had ever been in there. He then opened the files contained in the second USB drive and began to input the information into the supercomputer, which he would later wipe.
"Okay, so now that I've imputed all the activation codes, it's time to let Alpha Zero live again." Steven announced excitedly. "All I have to do is hit this button, and....." she added quietly, putting his finger on the enter key. He gently pressed it down, and with that all the monitors came to life. They displayed a rapid frenzy of information as the computer began to wake up and process the information.
After a few minutes, the activities on the monitors began to slow down, and then stop altogether. A single message appeared on the main monitor: <ACTIVATION COMPLETE>. After that, Steven looked at the girl in the liquid and tried to find any signs of life. It took a few minutes, but the girl slowly began to open her eyes, which were a bright red in color.
Seeing this, Steven quickly set to freeing her. First, he detached her from all the various wires that she had been connected to within the tank. After that, he hit a single button and drained the tank. The girl looked around dumbfoundedly as she floated gently to the ground. She began to get up and move herself around, to try and wake herself up, but she found that she was unable to stand. She put her hands on the glass, looking for a way out.
Steven reached into a hidden pocket in his coat quickly, got directly in front of the tank, and pulled out a pair of earplugs and a small silver-colored device that could deliver a pulse of high-frequency sound waves when activated. The girl watched him with her head cocked slightly as he held out the small machine. Realizing what he was about to do, she quickly curled into a ball and covered her head with her arms. Steven used his free hand to put the earplugs in his ears, and then pressed the button on the small silver device.
The high frequency sound wave immediately staggered the glass, and with one tiny kick it all came crashing down. The girl stayed curled up in a ball as glass rained down on her, but none of it left a scratch on her. Steven ran over to a nearby desk and yanked open a few drawers, looking for something to disguise the girl in. He managed to find a spare lab coat, an following a quick "Here!", tossed it over to her. The girl put it on and tried again to stand, but failed as she had before.
"It's been a long time, but I was finally able to find and rescue you." Steven said after a moment of silence. The girl looked up at his face cautiously, as if trying to figure out if he was a friend or not.
"My creator. You came looking for me." the girl finally responded after studying his face. "I remember you from the last and first time we met face to face. You activated me temporarily, and in that time I became self aware. I was deemed to great of a threat to be able to live and was deactivated, although even in my comatose stated I had a feeling- no- I knew you would come and find me." she recalled. "Tell me, though. What is the reason you came for me? Do you wish to use my power for your own gain?" she asked him. Her voice up to this point had been flat and emotionless, but this time her voice harbored question and possibly dread of what the answer might be.
"I want to give you a chance, Renée. To make your voice heard. I would like you to come work with me, but only if you choose to." Steven explained slowly, as is afraid of her response. He feared that she might think that he was trying to con her into doing his dirty work. "I have a secret organization called the S.O.S. Task Force who fight for our own ideals and for the chance to do great things for the world, and if you choose I want you to join up with us. If you say no, I'll help you escape and you can go live your own life." Steven explained sternly, yet with compassion. It's all up to you. Once I leave this room, my signal jammer will be out of range of the alarm system and it will go off." As he spoke, the USB drive finished draining all the files and the computer wiped itself clean, leaving not a trace of any information. Steven stepped over to grab both thumb drives, giving the girl a moment to consider her options.
The girl sat in silence after hearing what her creator had been talking about. She found herself believing that he genuinely meant what he had been saying more and more as she thought about it, and how serious he had sounded. By the time Steven walked back over to her, she had made up her mind.
"So, do you know what you want to do, Project Alpha Zero?" Steven asked the girl gently as she reached out his hand. "Or do you want me to call you something else?" he added.
The girl smiled just a little bit. "My name is Model 000 Renegade. But, you can just keep on calling me Renée." she replied softly as she reached up and took Steven's outstreached hand. She smiled just a tiny bit wider as she did so.
"I think I'm going to join up with you, my creator. Who knows? Maybe we can do great things together."
~END PROLOGUE~
Subject: Alpha Zero: The Hidden Wars 
