Chapter 10

Hiro and Karmi managed to hook up twice more that week, once in Karmi’s room after a study session and once right in their labroom when the two of them just couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Although they locked the door, because of the location they didn’t want to risk getting completely undressed and instead had a quick session on top of Karmi’s lab desk while still almost fully dressed. The experience was definitely both scary and exciting and they both knew it would happen again though they would likely take further precautions to make sure they weren’t caught in the act, like setting up a motion detector out in the hallway to give them forewarning if someone was headed to their lab.

During the week Hiro also put together a ground penetrating radar to help search for any undiscovered chambers in Obake’s partially destroyed lair. The explosion that was meant to wipe out San Fransokyo and the counter wave that Big Hero 6 created to cancel it out had damaged the underwater structure enough to collapse or flood much of it, but not the whole thing. With luck, there would be some undamaged tech that Hiro could find to help decipher Obake’s programming language and figure out just what was going on inside Trina’s cube. It was wishful thinking to even dare hope that he would stumble across Obake’s source code or even a backup archive but finding something as simple as a functioning computer would be of great benefit.

Because of the scale and risk of the salvage operation and because both Karmi and Megan knew what he was up to, Hiro decided it was time to involve the rest of the team. When they were brought up to speed they shared their concerns about trying to bring Trina back considering her previous actions but they also agreed with Hiro that if there was any way to help then they should at least try. He also relocated Trina’s cube to the lab at their headquarters and set up everything he thought he would need to continue his work there.

Saturday was a day they all had off from school or work so they agreed that would be the day to do their salvage run. Karmi and Megan wanted to accompany Hiro to the base, although they would not be going on the mission themselves and would just spend time hanging out at HQ while Hiro and the others were busy. The team reintroduced themselves to Karmi now that she knew their secret identities and after a little bit of idol worship, she reaffirmed that their secret was safe with her.

“I’ll ask one last time, are you sure this is a good idea? You haven’t forgotten that Trina did try to wipe out humanity, right?” GoGo said as they were all suiting up in what was essentially scuba gear. The waterproof armour and sealed masks would let them swim around effortlessly and breathe in even in the deepest and coldest waters the bay had to offer.

“No, I’m not sure and no, I haven’t forgotten, but it’s still the right thing to do,” Hiro replied. “You all heard her plea for help just before she ... If there’s any way to help her then I have to. My conscience won’t let me do anything else.”

“We understand,” Honey Lemon said, placing a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. “But should we find what you need and you do manage to rebuild her, what makes you think she won’t try something like that again?”

“She was just carrying out Obake’s orders, in the way she thought best. He wanted to build what he thought would be a utopia, but thought he had to wipe out San Fansokyo in order to do so. If we could just give her different orders, or at least let her choose what orders to obey, then I’m sure she would make the right choice.”

“And you think, what, that you can reprogram her?” Wasabi asked.

“Not reprogram, per se, but fix something that was broken.”

“The damage to his brain that Obake received when he was a youth made him unable to differentiate right from wrong,” Baymax said. “Hence why he felt no guilt at trying to kill thousands of people in order to achieve his goal.”

“Oh!” Karmi chimed in. “If he created Trina with that same mindset, that same lack of morals, then it’s no surprise that she did what she did.”

“Congratulations, Hiro. Your first girlfriend was a certified psychopath,” Megan teased.

“She was never my-!” Hiro began but stopped himself from taking the bait. “Maybe she is what we would call a psychopath, but it’s not her fault. She was designed to be that way.”

“There is unfortunately no known cure for psychopathy,” Baymax pointed out.

“In humans, yes. But Trina’s an android. She wired differently, quite literally. Besides, we were able to, um, fix Nega-Globby, weren’t we? Gave him what was essentially a brain so that he was no longer a crazed monster operating on pure instinct,” Hiro reminded them.

“Good point,” GoGo said. “Regardless, should Trina go all murder-robo on us again we’ll just have to stop her like we did before.”

The team all agreed and, now fully geared up, said goodbye to Karmi and Megan and headed for Obake’s lair. The search was painfully slow and uneventful, as they were underwater and the only light they had came from what they brought themselves, though the lights in Fred’s suit were more than powerful enough to illuminate most rooms. They also had to carefully make sure each new room they could enter was structurally sound enough that it wouldn’t collapse on them. Honey Lemon’s chemicals helped out with that greatly, creating super-strong plastics that could be used as support beams wherever they needed. They first made their way to what was left of Obake’s control room, where the man’s corpse still lay buried under several tonnes of rock and rubble, confirmed by Baymax’s scans. From there they headed further into the facility, clearing rubble where they could and having Wasabi cut right through walls where necessary.

Several hours later they still had not found anything salvageable. The collapse of the lair and subsequent flooding had short circuited and destroyed any and all electronics they had come across so far. “Hiro,” Baymax said as he floated near the end of one hall, “my scans indicate that the room on the other side of this door is still intact.”

“Any water damage?”

“Negative. It is completely sealed.”

“Great! Thanks Baymax,” Hiro said, brightening at the prospect of possibly finding something. “Now the question is how do we get inside without flooding the place?”

“I’ve got that covered,” Honey Lemon announced. “Everyone, gather up as close to the door as you can.”

They all followed her instructions, then Honey Lemon keyed in a complex formula into her chem-purse and produced three orbs. She smashed two of them together and they immediately began to expand and engulf everything in a ten foot sphere of some kind of semi-transparent foam that pushed the water out of the space they were occupying. Then she threw the third orb and it exploded into a thick sheet of ice wherever water met foam. The foam dissolved a few seconds later, leaving everyone in a large bubble of ice.

“There,” she said, “that should hold the water back, at least long enough for us to get inside.”

“Thanks Honey Lemon,” Hiro said. He was already digging out from his supplies a small portable generator that could power nearby electronics as well as a touchpad. Placing the generator on the wall next to an electronic keypad, bringing it to life, Hiro disconnected the panel from the wall and attached the underlying wires to his touchpad. Thirty seconds later he had hacked the door and it opened with a hiss of decompressing air.

Inside was a spacious room, though it was too dark to see what was actually inside. The team filed in and Hiro resealed the door behind them. “Fred, can you give us a little light?” he asked.

“Can I?” Fred replied excitedly and activated his floodlights.

“Ow! Hey! Watch where you point that thing!” GoGo said, shielding her eyes as she got a full blast of high-intensity light right in her face.

“Oops. Sorry GoGo,” Fred said, then pointed his lights towards the centre of the room.

“Now that’s what I wanted to see!” Hiro exclaimed. All around the room were robots, of all manner of shape and design. Some looked like oversized insects, others looked more like animals, and a few of them had humanoid shapes. In the middle of the room was a large table with dozens of tools and manufacturing machines with half a dozen partially made robots scattered about. “This must be where he built Trina! We’re bound to find something usable in here!”

“Slow down there, Hiro,” Wasabi said, holding out a hand as Hiro tried to run to the table. “Do you not see all the robots around the room? What if this is some kind of trap? We all know how dangerous Obake’s creations are.”

“I’m sure it’s fine, but if it makes you feel better ... Baymax, scan for energy sources.”