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CHAPTER 6
Tenma's voice leads Astro through the enormous underground complex up to a huge set of doors, which open "majestically" to a huge room with a walkway leading up to an enormous observation tank. In this tank are two glass cages with Zoran and O'Shay inside.
Astro tries to fly over and break them out, but his jets can't start somehow. He tries again, but to no avail. Tenma mentions over the radio that he's configured the room to keep Astro from utilizing his powers in any wya. Tenma in person steps into the observation tank, and assures O'Shay and Zoran are alive, and that Astro ought to have a word with O'Shay.
"Professor, are you okay?"
"All right, my boy. And you? "
"I feel better since I've found you two. Nobody's hurt you?"
"It's not that he wants to hurt us..." O'Shay said in a sad voice.
Tenma raised an eyebrow threateningly. O'Shay looked down and said: "So he told you?"
"Dr. Tenma claims that it was he who created me, and you had me taken away and reprogrammed. Tell me this is not true!"
"My poor little...sooner or later, you would have known, but I wish that you could've learned a better way..."
Astro was petrified. He felt his mind go to pieces, collapsing under the weight of this terrible confirmation.
"Why didn't you ever say anything to me?" he pleaded weakly.
"You are young, I didn't want to disturb you. I always knew I had to say it; I waited for the right moment...and now we're here. I'm sorry... "
Tenma gloats about this, declaring O'Shay a thief, but:
"That's wrong!" protested the old professor. "I protected him from your influence. I haven't stolen him like you claim. You wanted a weapon, a robot serving your sinister ambitions. When the authorities seized him, I didn't want him to be destroyed! I felt that this boy was better than what you had planned for him!"
Tenma is annoyed and sends an electric shock into O'Shay's chest. He turns to Astro and tries to talk him into joining him, insisting, "No more homework, tests, obligations." He even offers to reconfigure Zoran to keep her with them, and Astro is absolutely disgusted at the idea of someone manhandling her. But he tries to keep calm, knowing it'll be the only way to get out of this.
"I need a little time to think," he cried to the doctor. "Everything I learn disturbs me..."
"I understand, Astro. Think of all the benefits I offer you, and choose your destiny... "