Wake Up Call

A/N: I was taking a short breather from TADL (.Doesn') and then, out of nowhere, this popped into my head. I thought it would be interesting to see how Ranma would handle the knowledge of being a fake person and have him read his own manga. And, unfortunately for those who hate this type of story, I had to make Ranma a girl. ^_^

Also, I've purposely left it open ended just in case I decide to continue it.

Disclaimer: I give credit to Rumiko Takahashi right here, and at a point further into this story.

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The dark and empty halls of the Tendo home were just about as silent as they could get at the moment. It was the early hours of the morning, after all, and not too long past midnight. It was also, unsurprisingly, one of the few times during which the stress level of the household environment was at a complete flatline. Every resident was either asleep in their beds or futons, respectively. Everyone, that is, except for the young man stalking the dark halls on his trek to the bathroom.

Ranma, clad only in his tank and boxers, casually slid the bathroom door open and strolled inside to handle his business. Despite having such an overly exciting and seemingly complex life, he managed to maintain a somewhat grounded perspective if only due to simplistic moments like taking a leak in the middle of the night. Even he knew that if he allowed himself to get too high on his horse that it would surely come back to bite him on the ass.

So, just like any normal guy who lived in close proximity to women, he had to remember to put the toilet seat back down when he was done. Besides, it would be bad for another round of chaos to be unleashed so soon as a result of his potential bathroom negligence, especially after the day's wedding fiasco. They hadn't even begun repairs on the dojo yet. That event, which he was sure to remember for a long time to come, had more than met his quota of craziness for the month.

He proceeded to wash his hands under the single knob faucet of the only present sink while utilizing the bottled hand soap that had been placed neatly off to the side. By now he was used to it but, at one time, the fact that only cold water ran through the bathroom faucet had bothered him. As if being a water magnet hadn't been bad enough while exposed to the wilderness on his long journey back to Japan, upon his arrival he had had the displeasure of learning that not all modern age households had both hot and cold on tap. Nowadays, though, Ranma was fully capable of shrugging it off, heading back to bed, and dealing with it in the morning. Sometimes, sleep was just too important to interrupt any further by taking the extra time to change back.

After drying her hands on the towel hanging adjacent to the medicine cabinet, she shuffled out of the bathroom and retraced her path back to her guest room to get in some more shut eye. The previous day may have been bad, but tomorrow always held the possibility of improvement. And, in Ranma's opinion, good days usually started after a good night's rest.

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Ranma awoke with a start. She knew right off the bat that something was wrong, as she felt a pounding headache slam into her like a tidal wave. She instinctively tried to reach up and rub her temples with her hands, but found herself held back by some form of restraint. Taking the next logical step, she opened her eyes to try and ascertain her assumptions. She got a little more than she bargained for.

She was unable to discern a significant amount of visual detail, due to the lack of proper lighting, but she was able to confirm a few things. First, wherever she was now is not where she had been when she went to sleep. Second, she was securely restrained in a sort of reclining chair-cum-operating table apparatus with metal cuffs fitted snugly over her extremities. Lastly, she was physically aware that some sort of electrodes, or other type of monitoring equipment, were taped onto various parts of her body from head to toe and could feel the dangling wires grow taught when she tried to shift her body in any direction. It was pretty obvious that they were hooked into something.

Resisting the urge to yell out and goad her captor into showing their face, she settled for wriggling her wrists and ankles in an effort to weaken the brackets on the cuffs before hopefully snapping them off. This, however, led to another discovery. Either she had been artificially weakened somehow, or the thin metal cuffs were constructed from a deceptively strong alloy. Her efforts were wasted regardless of the explanation and she quickly became aware of a growing frustration in the back of her mind.

Not one to give up so easily, she decided that desperate times called for desperate measures and willed her spirit to lend her enough ki to burn through the shackles if necessary. What she found boggled her mind the most, however. She could sense no ki within her body. Not only was the strength augmenting energy failing to obey her will, but she felt no link to it whatsoever. It was as if it weren't there, or didn't exist at all.

Now truly worried about her situation, she relented and sucked in a deep breath of air in preparation to verbally curse the asshole who had decided to play games with Ranma Saotome. Before she got a chance to utter even a single explicative, the lights went on and she was greeted with a nondescript voice addressing her over an intercom.

The voice, which addressed her not by name but by an obscure alpha numeric designation that she had no means of referencing, seemed to come from every direction. Ranma found that fact strange since she could see no speakers mounted anywhere on the ratty concrete walls of her boxy and doorless prison. After a minute, it hit her. The speakers were probably mounted by her head in the chair thingy, which is why it came in stereo.

The only new major point of interest she noted did seem to be pretty signicant, though. A large, floor length, glass mirror was embedded into the wall on her right hand side and, given the fact that she was being held against her will, she came to the conclusion that it was probably a one way mirror and that someone on the other side was watching her. Following this conclusion, she promptly turned her right wrist up as much as she could in the restraint and flipped the bird to whom it may concern. She was rewarded with a shock delivered, presumably, via the electrodes.

Ranma arched her body involuntarily and struggled to curse loudly through her teeth. When the electric rush finally ceased, she redoubled her efforts to overcome her restraints.

"Settle down GP-zero zero one," the speaker said. "You no doubt wish to be free of the restraints as well as obtain an explanation regarding your current predicament. However, you must show cooperation before your handler is allowed to enter the room. Any act of aggression will only slow your progress. We have no desire to drag this out and neither should you."

"Who the hell are you?" Ranma asked, cautiously. "Where am I?"

"If you manage to remain cooperative, we will let your handler explain the situation to you in person."

After a contemplative moment of silence, she relented. "Fine, I guess it's better than sitting around cluelessly. I'm warning you, though, you've already crossed the line with me by even bringing me here. Wherever 'here' is ..." she added as an after thought.

The one way mirror promptly slid open, in a door like manner, and revealed a youngish looking caucasian man clad in a white lab coat over casual tan slacks and brown polo shirt. The man's mini office, which had been previously hidden by the mirror, was less than a quarter of the size of Ranma's prison and equipped with a simple PC terminal on a plain looking desk. The man himself sat on a black faux leather swivel chair, which had been angled to face into Ranma's room. And, most importantly, there was a door behind him.

"And who are you supposed to be?" Ranma asked.

"Why, I'm your newly appointed handler, of course," the man replied. "The name's Hill. I'm looking forward to working with you and hope we can become a well coordinated team."

"Say what?" Ranma asked. "You mind telling me just what in the hell is going on?"

"Of course," Hill said before exiting his chair and strolling into the larger room. "You might find this a bit ridiculous at first but, I assure you, it's the truth."

"Enough already," Ranma nearly spat. "Just lay it on me and I'll decide what I do and don't believe, got it?"

After rolling his eyes, Hill continued. "Ranma, who you believe yourself to be, doesn't exist. He's nothing more than fiction. This also means that you essentially do not exist."

"Um ... I'm right here, idiot," Ranma said. "What are you getting at?"

"What I mean to say is," Hill continued, "You as a physical person in the real world do exist, but your conscious identity does not. Your personality is the result of an extensive mental imprinting meant to facilitate the emulation of any given example. In your case, the example given is Ranma Saotome."

"Uh ... I don't quite follow. Are you trying to say that I'm a crazy person or something?"

"No, you're not," Hill said, suppressing a frustrated sigh. "You're familiar with the concept of manga and comics, right?"

"Yeah, who isn't?"

"Ranma Saotome is the title character of a serialized manga. He is nothing more than a figment of some artist's imagination and you, my friend, were brainwashed into believing that you are him. You were the first subject of an experiment designed to test the outer most limits of this organization's ability to manipulate human minds."

Ranma was hard pressed to not laugh out loud at the absurdity of such a claim. Who did this guy think he was? "Look, buddy, I don't mean to rain on your parade and I'm sure you guys put a lot of thought into whatever this is you got going here, but you forgot one important detail."

"What do you mean?"

"The curse, doofus," she replied. "If you were going to have any chance of convincing me to believe anything, you should have thought about hiding the curse first. Guess you guys aren't as smart as you thought, eh," she said smugly. "Now, let's end this charade."

Hill shook his head while holding up a hand. "No, you're wrong about that. I don't particularly agree with whoever chose Ranma as the example to be imprinted upon you but, nevertheless, it was done. I think it was a stupid decision, although I guess it proves that anything is possible. I can't believe the higher ups let a bunch of damn otaku outline the project," he muttered as an afterthought.

"Uh ...?"

"One second," Hill said before walking back to his desk and retrieving his mug. Upon returning, he upended the contents over her lower right leg.

"Ow, that's hot," she hissed, in response to the steaming coffee. "Wait a second, there's no ... What the hell did you do to me you bastard?"

"That's what I was trying to say. There is no such thing as a Jusenkyo curse, that we know of. Also, I'm sure you've noticed by now that your strength is lacking and you are unable to feel the presence of 'ki' in your system. All the extra senses and abilities you had were completely fabricated. Whether or not 'ki' actually exists, the methods you used to summon it and the feeling associated with it's use were completely made up. You are a proxy of Ranma Saotome, only without all of his strength and fantastic abilities."

"But ... that can't be. I can see me," she said, indicating her reflection in the mirror off to the side. "I can see myself, I feel like myself, and I remember things that are too real to have been made up. Everything I feel, my whole life experience, tells me that I'm Ranma. It's impossible to fake a life. There's a rational explanation for all of this, there has to be. You people are just another group of bad guys who found a new way to try and catch me off of my guard."

"Consider this, Ranma," Hill said, stressing the name, "What you think of as the memories of your life are actually artificially rendered interpretations of events described in the manga, created using elements of reality to increase it's believability. You don't think we'd actually pump cartoon images into your head and expect you to interpret them as if they were real life do you? We're talking about high quality computer imagery combined with photorealistic likenesses of actual human beings who closely resemble their cartoon counterparts.

"Your appearance is no different. You were merely the closest real life approximation of Ranma, with the necessary potentials, available to us at the time this project was founded. The reason everything about you screams 'Ranma Saotome' is because we wanted it to be like that.

"Also, given the fact that many of the manga's most important events took place in a relatively short span of time, in regards to the age of your character, much of the background details that were only alluded to by the author had to be filled in by us. Even though a good chunk of your life never appeared in the manga, every scenario we implanted in your head was designed to elicit certain emotions that had the highest probability of molding you into the person envisioned by the author. All that extra background filler just served to reinforce the project's influence over you. Your old life was even overwritten in favor of our creation.

"Your life can actually be summed up as being one really long, action packed, and special effects littered three dimensional movie, complete with models donating their faces to serve as the characters you interacted with. It's made even more complex, though, due to the fact that we managed to program specific feelings to correspond with various physical states of activity, such as 'triggering the curse' or 'summoning ki'. It was all designed to allow you to feel what wasn't really there."

"Bullshit! And If I had had another life before this, then I would remember it! If you don't stop this game right now, I swear I'll - Ghahhh!" she screamed as another shockwave surged through her body.

"Settle down," the intercom voice reminded.

"You know, before accepting the position of your handler, I had to read through every file attached to you," Hill continued, unfazed by Ranma's condition. "It was a daunting task, to say the least. Anyway, the point is, I know a bit about the old you. Now, I'm not allowed to divulge too many details for you, but what I can say is something that you might find interesting. Apparently, prior to the inception of this five year project, it was your desire to forget everything. I can only imagine how crappy your life must have been to want to forget about it after living for only eleven years. So, as it turns out, in exchange for doing us a favor, we gave you what you wanted."

"No, I can't ... I won't ... this is a trick. Somehow ... it's a trick," she said, digging her fingernails into her palms as the electrical tremors died down. "Lies ..."

"Well, regardless of whether you believe it or not, you must still make a decision," Hill said, his mood becoming slightly darker. "Your fate now rests in your own hands and will depend upon which of two options you pick."

Ranma darkened. "What is it now?"

"Listen closely, because your very life depends on this," Hill said. "Your employment as a test subject has come to an end now that we've reached the conclusion of the manga. The vast amounts of data we've collected from using you have pleased the higher ups and, as a result, they have decided to make you a generous offer. If you so choose, we will grant you a position within our own ranks and train you accordingly. However, if you do not choose to side with us then we will be forced to terminate your life."

"Say what? With an offer like that, there isn't any room left for a choice. It's either your way or the highway!"

"Like I said, the higher ups made the offer, not me. What's it going to be?"

"Damn, why does it have to be like this? It's completely ridiculous, I haven't done anything wrong," she insisted.

"Look, the information surrounding your development must remain a secret. The data we've gathered will be used to perfect the creation of undetectable sleeper agents. Your subconscious mind already contains too much information pertaining to the inner workings of this project and could reach the attention of enemy organizations if we were to cut you loose. Normally, terminating you would be standard protocol but, as I said before, it's been decided that you should be given an opportunity to benefit us further. Who knows, maybe some of Ranma's good luck actually rubbed off on you."

"I can't stand it. Even though I don't believe your bullshit story, I don't wanna die."

"I wouldn't either," Hill said.

"Whether it's the truth or not, I'll never approve of any group that would even consider using a human being in such a way. It's just ... wrong," she said.

"Approval is not a requisite of cooperation," Hill replied. "Being loyal means you carry out orders despite your personal feelings. I do it all the time. I'm doing it right now."

"I don't get it," Ranma said. "You must know that I'll run away the first opportunity I get, so how can you be so willing to offer me a spot with your crew?"

"Well, this organization never allows it's more dangerous assets to operate without insurance and we've already got a policy out on you."

"Assets?" Ranma asked.

"As in property," Hill replied. "We own you. When we say eat, you eat. When we say sleep, you sleep. When we want you to fight, you fight. Anything we need, you do. And, the longer you remain useful, the more time you'll have to earn our trust."

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Ranma rubbed her wrists, still sore from her struggle against the metal bindings, as Hill led her through the dingy corridor that had been behind his office door and to an elevator at the very end. The ride felt short and Ranma was left to guess that they had only traveled a few floors.

When the stainless steel doors opened once again, Hill led his charge into what appeared to be a very roomy and well kempt apartment. He beckoned her to follow him as he gave her the grand tour of the place which, Ranma was surprised to discover, encompassed an area two to three times larger than the Tendo residence and had an upper level as well.

Hill focused mainly on the points of interest such as the bathroom, kitchen, bedroom, and closet, for starters. All of the aforementioned domestics, including a few others, took up only half of the first floor. The other half of the first floor was split between a small library, which also had a personal computer set up on a desk at the far end, and a dojo.

The dojo was pretty generic in design, but seemed to be fairly sturdy. Several swords, staffs, and other close combat weapons hung along one wall while practice dummies lined the opposing wall. Ranma was tempted to try and subdue Hill with anything she could get her hands on, but quickly dismissed the idea. He had said that 'they' had insurance against her being disobedient, and she didn't want to give herself away before she figured out the details behind it.

After letting Ranma familiarize herself with the layout of the first level, Hill took her upstairs. He merely yawned while Ranma gawked at the lengthy room with a high ceiling before them. It was a massive gym decorated with just about every type of weight training machine ever invented as well as several cardio friendly machines.

As they moved beyond the machines, they passed a rack of free weights and came upon a set up of gymnastic equipment. In addition to several rings hanging from the ceiling, there were multi level bars as well as balance beams.

Ranma's mind boggled over the lengths her captors appeared to be going to in their effort to convince her of their lie.

"Hey, what is all this for?" she finally asked.

"Your mind may have been trained in various forms of martial arts, but your body is far below par," Hill stated seriously. "This environment is meant to help you in areas where you are lacking, both physically and mentally, hence the library down stairs and the gym up here. While here, you are expected to conduct your own training and acheive a level of acceptable fitness. You are also to complete the various learning programs that have been installed on the computer downstairs. Many of them require you to read material provided in the library."

"Geez, you guys are really tryin' hard aren't you?" she asked, shaking her head.

"Also, as a reminder, your activity is constantly monitored through various forms of surveillance," Hill said.

"In other words, I'll never get the one up on you, so don't even try. Is that why you guys can just leave weapons lying around?"

"Well, yeah, that's part of it, but there's something else you're not going to like."

"Great, more good news," she sighed. "What is it?"

"I don't know if you've guessed it yet, but the little shocks you've been getting are coming from inside of your body."

"But, the little sticky wires ..."

"Were there to monitor your vitals," Hill finished. "The tracking device implanted in your head also acts as a conduit which interprets different signals we send it and responds by overloading your nervous system for the amount of time that we specify. Basically, we could kill you with the push of a button before you had a chance to do or say anything."

Ranma's face was scruntched into a fierce frown. I'll bet that's the 'insurance' he mentioned.

"Consider it extra incentive to cooperate," Hill added. "Oh, before I leave you, there's one last thing. If you still have doubts, I suggest you take a look around the library after I'm gone. You might find certain reading materials of great concern to you. Well, then, I'm off," he said before exiting the gym and disappearing from her view.

"What a prick," she muttered a moment later.

Ranma took one more look at the gym before deciding to head back down stairs. She made her way to the library, intent on finding what Hill had referred to. He had stressed the words 'of great concern' and she could only think of one thing that that implied.

Once inside the room of knowledge, she started visually scanning the shelves, hoping she would recognize it once she found it. Before long, she found what she was looking for. The row of thirty something paperbacks had a home on their own shelf. Each book had the same title printed on the spine in colorful font. It read Ranma ½ on every volume. She hesitantly reached for volume one and pulled it away from it's brothers.

No way ... they couldn't have ...

After steeling herself, she flipped the cover open and proceeded to read through it. The further she got into the story, the dryer her mouth got. It was hard to remain skeptical when her thoughts were described in the pages. How could anyone know what she was thinking, even if they had been spying? It wasn't possible, right? But if that was really the case, then that meant her captors were telling the truth and if they were telling the truth ...

She could feel her beliefs beginning to crack and splinter all around her even as she continued to read. All those hard years of training were wasted ... no, they never happened. She wasn't a martial arts prodigy or anyone's fiancé. Hell, she wasn't even a real man. She never was any of those things. She was a nobody. Her life as she knew it had no basis in reality. She flipped volume one closed upon finishing it and looked at the smaller text under the title. Story and Art by Rumiko Takahashi.

Her anguish had welled up to the point where she could no longer take it and she vented it by violently throwing the paperback across the room. She let loose a blood curdling scream shortly before grabbing the bookshelf in front of her and, in a fit of adrenaline fueled rage, ripped it away from the wall before dumping it on the floor. Before she could do anything else, she was overcome with the pain of the familiar electrical shock she had come to despise.

"GP-zero zero one," the same indistinct voice from earlier broadcasted into the room. "You will refrain from damaging our property."

When the tremors finally ceased, Ranma was little more than a quivering heap lying on the floor. She blinked away the tears that threatened to fall and peeled herself off of the floor. Once again on her feet, she forced her rubbery feeling legs to carry her to the next book shelf. She took a deep breath before latching onto the large wooden shelf. The jolting resumed as soon as her hands made contact. Ranma screamed defiantly through the pain and managed to bring down the tower of books before collapsing again.

"There is no need for you to demonstrate your feistiness to us, GP-zero zero one," the voice said. "If we are forced to discipline you any further, the pain will surely kill you. Is that your wish?"

Ranma rolled onto her back and gasped for air as she struggled to recover from the effects of the jolts. She contemplated the voice's words. Did she want to die now that she knew her life had been a lie? There would be nobody left to miss her anyway. All of her friends and family had been fake. It was definitely true that she had nothing to lose. She struggled to find a reason to keep on living before answering the voice's question.

"No," she replied in a low voice.

She may not have had anything to lose, but she had something to prove and she would need to keep on living to do it. She was the only one who could prove that Ranma had the capacity to be the best in the real world as well as the fantasy world. She could build herself a reputation that rivalled her manga counterpart. Through her, Ranma could become more than just a character.

"Ranma Saotome ... will live," she said, forcing herself to stand up and regain her dignity.

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The End.

Good news! As of 8/17/09 I have decided to continue this story in the form of a sequel entitled Exploits Of A Manufactured Personality, or EMP for short. Be sure to keep an eye out for it, I have a feeling it's going to be a good one!