Advanced Robotics

Early December 1989. The Soviet Union was in its downfall and riots
were breaking out in the streets. Communism was falling to the power
of capitalism. All the dreams of the revolutionary Bolsheviks were
crumbling before their eyes. Premier Mikhail Gorbachev met with the
American President to see about democratic reform in their country.
Though most of the population begged for this newfound freedom, the
union's educated elders faced their worst fears, as they knew that
they were ironically dubbed the evil emperors that they had fought so
hard to bring to their knees. They were the rebels, the punks, and the
outcast publics who had strived and fought so that they could rule
themselves under communism. They had to remind their fellow countrymen
that they were free and did not need such a radical change. They had
to show the true strength of the Soviet Union, a republic made of many
people with freedom and equality. The country's elders met secretly in
a small Siberian town named Latveria to discuss the end of these
democratic protests within the republic. This is what they did.

The train rambled over the steppes and ran through the snowy
countryside, darkness was falling fast and the sun setting in the
slowly shrinking Urals that they had just passed through that morning
left shadows seeping over the bare wasteland that was once filled with
trees and crops. Sitting in a quiet room in his car was an old, bald
man wrapped in blankets. His large moustache stood out from his face,
frozen in place by the cold air. He stared out his window at the
darkening sky, seeing the constellations beginning to appear. His
small glasses were barely covering his eyes as they sat on his large,
red, carrot-shaped nose. He sighed and tucked the blankets closer.
There was a sudden knock on his cabin door. He would not answer. The
frozen door slid with a shove as another man appeared. He was much
younger and slimmer than the old man, and he had black hair and a very
cheerful disposition. He wore a baseball cap and an overcoat. He had
two mugs in his hands. "Hey, old man," he said, "I'm back from the
diner car and look what I got!" The old man didn't move. "Huh?," the
young man looked puzzled. "Hey, are you finally dead, gramps? Wake up!
I got us some hot chocolate!"
"Watch your mouth, Lupin. I'm here," replied the old man, still
staring out the window of the moving train.
"Oh, sorry, Dr. Robotnik! I didn't mean it that way!"
"It's alright, Lupin. Come here and look at this."
"Okay, here's your hot chocolate doctor."
"How did you get hot chocolate? We only had enough money for train
fares to Latveria."
"Same way I got this hat and this guy's wallet. I found it in his car
while he was sleeping."
"Oh, good. You didn't get caught then. Come look at this."
Lupin and the doctor stared out the window of the speeding train. The
sun had set and trillions of stars lit up the darkness of the cold
Siberian night.
"Whoa," said Lupin as he gazed at the brilliance of the lights. "You
never see stuff like this back in Moscow. This is amazing!"
"Yes, these stars can only be seen with no other lights around, in the
peace of the countryside. Can you believe that our sun is just one of
these brilliant gas giants, and yet is just a smaller one? One of
these days, scientists like me will send machines to visit these stars
and examine them, and learn the secrets of the universe. Ultimate
knowledge. That is what we strive for. And we couldn't do it without
assistants like you, Lupin."
"Oh, come on, doctor. I'm nothing compared to you. Sputnik, the first
man in space, and the new robots in nuclear power plants were all your
ideas. You're a genius! I wish I was as smart as you, but I'm just an
assistant."
"Nonsense! Remember the ideas of Lenin and Marx? Everyone is created
equal and are given the same opportunities as everyone else, no matter
age, race, or occupation."
All of a sudden, the stars began to fade away. A red glow came from
the countryside. They looked down out the window and stared in horror
as the village they were passing was ablaze and crumbling to ashes.
Many homes and businesses were on fire and families ran for the train,
waving for it to stop.
"Damn it all," solemnly said Lupin, "communism has a new meaning now.
We're evil. We take control of others and use them for our delights,
remember? Look at these capitalist revolutionary bastards. Burning
down villages. Shooting all our comrades who still think that we are
right and they are wrong."
"That was a popular tactic in my day," said Dr. Robotnik. He stared
into the flames. "We would shoot anyone who even respected the czar
just to show the might of the people. I committed crimes that up to
this day, I wonder if this new government was worth it."
Lupin looked with awe at Dr. Robotnik and was silent for a few
moments. Suddenly, there was a thunderstorm of bullets. The train
screeched to a halt. The comrades looked out of the window but they
could only see the flaming buildings. They heard the room next door to
them open and voices shouting. There was a scream and then gunshots.
Lupin moved next to the door and pulled out a pair of desert eagles
from his coat pockets. The door slid open and two men with M-16s came
in and found the doctor. "We're the Chechnya liberation front," one
said, "All followers of the soviet government will be taken hostage!"
All of a sudden they stood stiff with their eyes wide as they felt the
metal barrels of Lupin's desert eagles on the backs of their heads.
Lupin snickered as he cocked the pistols.
"Just drop your weapons and we'll nicely throw you off the train,"
said Robotnik.
Lupin and Robotnik came out of their room as the train jerked back
into full speed.
"Disarm or kill any armed chechnyan you see. Whatever's easier, it
doesn't matter," said Robotnik. "I'll head to the engine and see
what's going on."
"Sure thing, gramps," remarked Lupin, "just make sure the train can
still get us to Latveria by tomorrow." He went into the next car and
immediately there was rapid firing. After it ceased, Lupin came back
into the car. "Dammit, I need a new clip!"
"Already?" said Robotnik, "hurry up!" Robotnik moved into the car
ahead of theirs but found no trace of life in there. In the next car
were four armed Chechnyans, so Robotnik reached into his overcoat and
pulled out a small green bouncing ball. He broke the glass and hurled
it into the car. The ball spurted out a wave of gas. The chechnyans
started gasping for air and started crawling on the ground. Robotnik
rushed in and started bashing the chechnyans with the butt of his
rifle and killed three of them. Suddenly one grabbed his gun and fired
at Robotnik. The bullet just bounced off his chest. "Oh, my god!"
screamed the chechnyan, "an immortal!" Robotnik fired a burst of
bullets into his body. "That was for scratching my armor."

Robotnik moved into the first class car, where the first thing he saw
were two armed soviet troops running towards him. "Comrades! We need
your help," called Robotnik, when suddenly they pulled out their
rifles and started to fire on him. There was a sudden explosion and
all three men were knocked to the ground. Lupin flew through the door,
hitting the two guards and knocking them out. "You used a grenade on a
moving train!?" yelled Robotnik.
"Yeah," said Lupin, "it's amazing I made it through security! Oh crap!
sorry comrades!" He looked at the soldiers he just knocked out.
"They're with the chechnyans," said Robotnik, "It seems our own
comrades are starting to turn on us." He heard the train whistle.
They headed for the engine.
They came outside in the freezing cold and saw smoke billowing
quickly from the engine. They crept into the coal car and looked over
at the two men in the engine. One was old, bent and quickly shoveling
coal, the other was in military uniform, mustached and held him at
gunpoint. "Come on, shovel faster," shouted the man, "It's another 100
miles until our destination!" Lupin and Robotnik looked at each other
and silently nodded. Lupin pulled a small pistol from his overcoat. He
then took out a silencer and a scope and connected them to the pistol.
He hid behind some coal and aimed at the military man's temple.
Suddenly, the engineer's shovel stuck Lupin right in the foot. "Holy
shit!" he cried, and the man looked up at him. He immediately aimed
his pistol at Lupin but the gun was yanked quickly out of his hand by
a small grappling hook and was brought back to Robotnik's hand.
"All right, comrade," shouted Robotnik, "What the hell is going on here?"
"Ahh, so you're the one we're looking for! I'm impressed, my troops
should have killed you!" He looked over at Lupin. "And who the hell
are you? We have no problem with you!" shouted the man.
"I'm his assistant, what'd you expect, dumbass?" shouted Lupin.
"I'm brigadier general Viktor Kromlin. Just come with me, sir, you're
under arrest by the new Chechnyan government!" said Kromlin.
"What are you doing attacking helpless villagers and killing all
soviets like us?" asked Lupin
"That is none of your business! Come with me or else I will shoot!"
"What a stupid answer," laughed Robotnik, "Your gun is right here in my hand."
"Not you, fool," yelled Kromlin, "Him!" He pulled out another pistol
and pointed it at the engineer. He looked at his target and stopped.
He screamed like a little girl as the engineer held his shovel over
his head and slammed it with all of his force down on Kromlin,
knocking him out. Robotnik jumped down into the engine and pushed
Kromlin over the side of the train. He looked up at the tired old
engineer, who was breathing heavily.
"Are you alright?" asked Robotnik.
"Gimme 30 minutes and a bottle of vodka," said the engineer, "and I'll
be ready to drive again. Wait, you're Dr. Robotnik? THE Dr. Robotnik,
hero of the Soviet Union?"
"Wow, doc," said Lupin, "looks like you've got a fan club."
"Come on, comrade," said Robotnik, "Let's get you inside out of the cold."
"Thank you, comrade Dr. Robotnik."
They went inside the train and grabbed the only bottle they could find
that wasn't shot.
"These reformers contradict everything they stand for," said the
engineer between gulps of vodka, "They preach liberty and justice for
all, but they really are just trying to get back at our government for
the so called crimes we have committed against them."
"What'd we ever do to them?" asked Lupin.
"The chechnyan government was taken over by us partially because their
leaders followed the czar, and partially because they are a small
nation of Slavic peoples inside Europe that decided to join the
communist bloc out of fear of the Soviet Union's power," explained
Robotnik, "Now that all the nations we used to control have fought
against us to govern themselves, the chechnyan people plan to do the
same thing, liberating all Russian people from themselves and telling
us that all people should choose how to govern their own cities."
"I know this is an inappropriate time to ask, doc," said Lupin, "but
what's so bad about democracy? It sounds okay to me!"
"Ahh, you damn young people," sighed the engineer, "Do you understand
why we revolted from the czar in the first place? He used us and
abused us, the peasants and workers of Russia. He took our pay, our
food, and our men. Comrade Lenin was the first man to argue with the
czar's power. We together are the biggest, most provocative nation
period. We shouldn't follow the czar and together we revolted against
his absolutist rule. After Lenin's passing, comrade Stalin showed the
world what happens when the common people band together to put an end
to fascist rule like Germany's. We won the war, yet suffered millions
of casualties that the other nations would be horrified at if they
knew. When Stalin made the German people pay for their atrocities and
stopped their flee from our grasp, the capitalists felt that we were
too hard on them. Ha! They know nothing. Soon, all of Eastern Europe
was in our power and all the peoples of every communist country were
equal under the law. The Americans felt that we were too powerful,
and stopped us from interacting with other countries with the same
ideals as us and decided to form a pact against us, meanwhile sending
troops wherever we would attempt to convert people and spreading
democratic ideas inside the Soviet Union. Soon, our comrades thought
that we were controlling them. We had fought and died to make this
paradise for them! We were a world power and we had given the people
the equality they had wanted, and they revolted because they weren't
equal and didn't have a voice in the government. Now comrade Gorbachev
is speaking to the American president to end these revolts, but
they're no good. These smaller countries are the most enraged and
filled with democracy, they are fighting to rule themselves and govern
however they want."
"What the hell do you mean by you young people!?" yelled Lupin.
"Look, he means that they are killing our people because America says
we're evil and we're going to stop it by going to the Latveria
meeting," said Robotnik.
"Ah, so that's where you two are headed. Well it seems you are the
only two still alive on this train, so it'll just be the three of us,
okay? I'll go with you to Latveria."
"Hey! This is a meeting of the Soviet Union's top scientists! No
commoners allowed!" shouted Lupin.
"He can come with," said Robotnik, "I wouldn't be that much of a
communist if he couldn't!"
"All right," said Lupin, "by the way, we never got your name."
"My name's Vladimir Zaroff, World War II veteran and proud Soviet. Now
let's go to Latveria!" Soon they were on their way, the three men who
would choose the outcome of the future of the world.