Three years later...
Light sighed deeply. "It still won't work."
"Let's go over the design one more time. Maybe we missed something, again," Wily said with false hope.
"Probably." The two examined the diagram that they both already knew by heart. As Light looked at the diagram, an idea began to work it's way out in his head.
Wily sighed and turned back to their robot. "I still don't see what's wrong with this stupid thing. It's exactly like every other robot we've designed," Wily complained.
Light spoke slowly, still thinking, "maybe that's the problem..."
"I don't quite follow you."
"We're trying to build this robot like a regular robot, right?" Light started to get excited as his idea became clearer and clearer to him.
"Yeah, I've sort of noticed that already." Wily said sarcasticly.
"That's just it! It's not a regular robot." Light started to pace around their home lab. "It's a humanoid robot. We should be building it like a human."
"I don't see how that'd make any difference."
"But it does! Regular robots only have bits and pieces of a body. Not all of it has to move, or function even. But a humanoid robot needs a sort of nervous system so that power can get to all it's systems."
Light moved over to the robot an opened a panel on the center of the robot's chest. He waved Wily over and pointed at the knot of circuits and wiring at the center of the robots chest.
"Look at this, we have its 'brain' in the center of it's chest. We need to completely rebuild this robot as if it were an artificial human, which it will be. We need lungs, a heart, and a brain in the right place. We need veins and nerves."
Wily gaged. "You mean we spent three years building the robot backwards!!!"
"I'm afraid so."
"But.. but this means we have to start all over again."
"Well, look on the bright side, we have the frame done."
Wily thought for a moment then looked Light in the eyes. "What's its name?"
"What do you mean?"
"You want the robot to be a human, so give it a name."
Light nodded. He thought it over for a few minutes and then came to a decision. "Protoman."
Wily and Light both stepped back from the robot they were building.
"Your turn to do the honors." Light said.
Wily reached inside the robot and flipped it on. He shut the chest panel and stepped back. The robots eyes open and it sat up. Light looked at Wily and smiled.
"Hello. How are you?" Light asked Protoman.
The robot didn't respond. It just sat there, unmoving. Wily leaned across and waved his hand in front of its face. Still, they didn't get a reaction. They tried a few more times, with no sucess. Regretfully, Wily reached inside the chest panel and shut the robot off. They both watched silently as it sank back to the table.
"I don't get it. Why won't it work this time!!!" Wily said, frustrated.
Light suddenly whacked his head with his hand. "I've got it!" He exclaimed triumphantly.
"What?" Wily asked.
Light chuckled. "We forgot to make it think."
"You lost me."
"We want this robot to be able to do more than one thing, right?"
"That was part of the general idea..."
"Well, we forgot to make it so that it can access different pockets of information. All it has linked are motor controls. The information is all there, it just doesn't know how to access it."
"How do you propose we solve that?"
"Simple, we make it so that it can think. It'll be able to take the initiative and anticipate things. It'll be able to make choices, within the boundaries of it's programming that is."
"Are you sure that's wise?"
"What do you mean? Why wouldn't it be?"
"You're making an emotionless robot that can think on it's own, Tom. What if it decides the world would be better off without humans or something like that? It would emotionlessly wipe us all out with no regrets, no qualms." Wily pointed out.
"Oh, please. It won't have that much free will. What I'm talking about is making it able to decide 'paper or plastic,' 'this drink or that one,' 'the red tie or the blue tie.' You know, that kind of thing. The trivial, insignificant choices."
"It still could make that decision. If it got a hold of some internet site that was anti-this or anti-that, it could decide they're right and get rid of whatever the site was preaching against," Wily protested.
Light thought it over. "Alright, we'll put in some basic commands. We'll program them so deep that they can't be erased."
"Like what?" Wily asked.
"Well, first we'll have 'never harm a human,' and 'follow the commands of your creators.' How are those?" Light said.
Wily slowly nodded and smiled. "I'm relieved now. As long as those guidelines are in place, we're safe."
Light grinned. "You worry too much."
"One of us has to."
They returned to work. After a few moments, Wily looked across at Light.
"What's next?" He said.
"Pardon?" Light said as he looked up.
"After Protoman's done. What are you going to build then?"
"I don't know." Light looked Wily directly in the eyes. "I really don't know." He looked down at Protoman. "It all depends on how he reacts with this world. Like the name suggests, he's our proto-type. It all depends on him."
They silently went back to work.