The Family Business, Part IV

<Snip>
Row upon row of incandescant lights activated as rusting generators
that sounded like they hadn't been used in decades fired up
underground.
The lights revealed immense machines stretching out as far as the eye could see.
However none of these marvels prepared the unfortunate entity known as
John Smith for what happened next.
A holographic version of HIMSELF materialized directly in front of him.
"Heya mate. Long time no see!"
</Snip>
Who: John Smiths numbers one and two
Where: Superior Defence Laboratories
When: Do you really care?
Smith stared dumbfoundedly at the digital doppelganger standing before
him. As he stared, he realized that the hologram was not an exact
duplicate of him, just extraordinarily similar, probably a close
family member. The problem was, Smith had no close family members he
could remember.
"Who...who are you?", he stammered.
"I'm your dad! Can't you see the resemblance?"
"Well, yeah. What the smeg is going on here?"
"I'll get straight to the point. For going on a hundred years now the
Smith family has been supplying the mob, high-end gangs, private
armies, and mercenaries with extremely powerful weapons."
"Private armies?!"
"Why of course! They're growing quite fashionable in the business
world. Even Mcdonalds has one now."
Smith didn't even bother to reply to that statement.
"So where do I fit in to this? Why didn't you ever tell me? If you're
so well off howcome I was put up for adoption?"
"You don't understand. The Smith's have been doing this for
generations now. I wanted you to do something with your life that
didn't involve blowing people up."
Smith choked back a snigger as he recalled his last encounter with his ex-boss.
"And now, after all these years, you've changed your mind?"
"Don't get me wrong son, if I had my way I'd never have told you.
Things have become...difficult."
"How so?"
"It probably hasn't escaped your notice that I'm dead."
"So what, its just you running things here? Thats impossible, no one
man could run all this, even a living one."
"There are several generations of Smiths working 'round the clock in
here. Since the hard-light hologram was introduced we've had no real
need to create heirs every generation. Unfortunately
some...comlications have arose. "
"Complications?"
"We've become infested with a colony of self-replicating robotic
scorpions. Research and Development were developing them for
reconnaisance type missions, but they developed personalities and
escaped into the waste disposal system."
"Why can't you just go in there and fix it? As a hologram, you're
virtually indes-"
"They've tuned their optical sensors to detect ambient infared energy
signatures found in light bee emmisions."
"So after all these years you call me up because you need some loser
to go clear out your sewer? Up yours."
Smith turned to leave and began walking towards the door.
"If you walk out that door you'll never know who you could have been,
can still be."
Smith froze.
All his life he had wondered about his real family. Who were they,
what did they do, why didn't they want him. Now he had that chance. It
would probably never come again.
John Smith turned around to face the man claiming to be his father.
"I'm going to need some guns."
<OOC: To be continued...>