It began as a distant flash of violent colour against the drab surroundings, but the pulsing, singing whine bounced off every towering wall, little more than a hissing whisper by the time it reached his strained ears.
The scream of a SWATbot's belly-mounted laser blaster. Sonic would have known the sound anywhere, in any setting, but most vividly against the background of endless mechanical noise that dominated Robotropolis. His senses were always ready to detect it, recognise it, match it against the array of sensations in the back of his mind that were everything familiar to him – a set of sounds and smells and feelings that should have been reserved for experiences like that first annual whiff of a warm, fresh summer breeze, untainted by smoke and pollution. Or the sound of one awesome uncle shouting that lunch is ready, and the debilitating aroma of hot, seasoned chilli dogs ready to smack you in the nose upon arrival.
Those sensations were still there, of course. But they lay dormant in his head, dreamlike and surreal, like they had happened to someone else. Almost like Sonic had lived, and died, and risen again as someone new, whose recollections of that past life were just glimpses through a narrow viewhole into someone else's experiences. And they would probably stay that way until the past once again became the familiar, and the defiant plunges into danger, into smog-ridden, choking, suffocating Robotropolis were relegated to unpleasant memory.
Sonic shoved his wistful musings aside, his ears cocked for further repetition of the sound and his head jerked painfully in the direction he thought it might have come from. Like a cold statue, he remained frozen in the posture he'd snapped to upon hearing it.
It had definitely been a laser; the noise had catapulted around the long, vast network of alleyways, its source maybe a short distance away and not easy to pinpoint with any accuracy. He couldn't help but marvel at the fact that the blast hadn't, just for a change, been aimed at him. Sonic grinned, but the amusement didn't last long. SWATbots shooting at him was still preferable to SWATbots shooting at his buddies, or worse – other Mobians who probably wouldn't be quick enough or practised enough to dodge the shots.
Still, no immediate danger for him and his gang, and tearing away now to hunt the conflict down would leave them without a lookout. Sonic forced himself to relax, blowing out the breath he'd been holding and clasping a hand to his chest. His heartbeat beneath it was quick and darting, a swift but intense rhythm drummed by his old friend, Adrenaline, and one he intimately knew the dance to.
He stood in the shadows of a deep alleyway, surrounded on most sides by looming, claustrophobic walls that turned the sky into a distant trickle of dismal, churning mud far above his head. This time of the year, there should have been a wintry chill in the air, but as ever it was warm and humid, rendered that way by the pollution that riddled the city's core. Sometimes it was so bad, spending more than a few minutes in the bad air could plain knock a person out, or worse, though thankfully that wasn't the case today - the worst of the smog hovered far overhead, blocking out the midday sunlight. From a high viewpoint away from the city, the thick clouds sometimes looked like a bloated swarm of malicious insects. Not that the comparison to pestilence was inappropriate for someone as parasitic as Ol' 'Buttnik.
As though they were buzzing over a carcass, Sonic thought wearily. Sometimes it really felt like they might be. Anyone who had seen as much of their ruined home as he had was unlikely to find it easy to envisage it ever being alive again. Sonic scowled at his own morbid thoughts, squeezing his eyes closed for a moment and blinking them furiously the next, hoping that might straighten out his line of thought, connect it back to his renowned supply of optimism, but this place . . . It was like a siphon, the atmosphere draining positive thought and replacing it with the mental equivalent of a bad taste in your mouth.
He rolled his aching shoulders, his back stiff from its habitual posture of forced alertness. His nerves were wired with the ever-familiar tension of just being in a city whose very foundations seemed to want him and his kind equally consumed by the metallic infestation that was killing it more and more everyday. If they ever turned Robotropolis back into Mobitropolis, he figured he'd probably be a cripple from all the crouching and skulking. Or maybe a paranoid old war veteran, like a couple of the older survivors of the Great War he remembered spinning conspiratorial tales, back when he'd been a kid. . .
"Sugar-hog!"
He snatched his gaze in the opposite direction, where the indistinct silhouettes of his companions were crouched around a modest selection of plump sacks. The thought of hijacking more of Ol' 'Buttnik's supplies instilled some much needed cheer in his thoughts.Sonic cast one last look along the alley, seeking out in particular an opening in the tall walls that led out onto a main, dilapidated street, from which patrols and SWATbots were most likely to appear. But the gap in the narrow horizon was devoid of movement – the coast was clear. He straightened, sprinting towards the freedom fighters with a broad grin that caught the minimal light and was apparently infectious because they greeted him with their own less confident, but no less enthused mini-versions.
"You guys ready to juice?"
In front of him, Bunnie hefted a sack bigger than a girl had any right to carry, one long ear flopping unconcernedly over an eye that winked her confirmation. Sonic glanced over the others – missions to lift much-needed parts from Robotnik's factories were as straightforward as a life-risking dip into Robotropolis could ever get, and for that reason Bunnie was the only other experienced freedom fighter in the group – four pairs of anxious but determined eyes, belonging to a number of newbie team members, stared back at him, bobbing in the darkness in a collective nod.
Young, he thought with a moment of worrying doubt. But it was gone in the second it took him to remember, with unfailing surprise, his own age, and to recall how much younger he'd been when forays into Robotropolis had become the norm. Sonic flashed them a thumbs-up, prepared to pound them with praise and encouragement the second they got back home. But, that laser . . .
There was a semi-apology in his expression even before he turned to Bunnie, his grin turning sheepish. "You got enough people to carry the loot, Bunnie?"
Bunnie blinked, her eyes narrowing with shrewd, but complacent, suspicion on the hedgehog. "We're gonna be one down, Ah'm guessing?"
"You got it in one."
"Sonic . . ." No nickname meant Bunnie at her most serious, and the hedgehog awarded her the courtesy of an equally solemn regard. "Sally'll tear strips outta mah hide if you're not with us when we get back."
"I hear ya." Sonic gave her biological arm a reassuring mock-punch, his knuckles very faintly glancing against her shoulder. In amused return, she raised the bulk of her mechanical one, clenched fist and all, and Sonic lifted his hands in playful defence. "I just have to check something out. Make sure you get everyone home safe – but I betcha I still get back before you do."
Bunnie unfurled her fist and planted the hand on her hip, arching an eyebrow at her younger delegates with a classic lopsided Southern grin. "Ah do believe we've just been issued a challenge, guys and gals. Let's get our behinds movin' already. Come back in one piece, Sugar-hog, or you'll have Sally to deal with. And if that don't scare you, nothin' will."
Sonic saluted, waiting just long enough to make sure his friends made it out of the alley. Bunnie led the group covertly down a junction, her movements enviously careful and silent for someone cursed with metal limbs, and she turned to give him a discreet wave before she and her followers disappeared from view.
Still, monotone lifelessness surrounded him now, but that worried him. Robotnik was no idiot – his SWATbots were programmed well enough not to shoot at nothing, And now that he had no further obligation to his comrades, it was time to make sure nothing bad was happening to someone else.
He aimed himself in the direction he'd originally marked out as the place of conflict and shot forward, his feet barely seeming to touch the filth-ridden floor. Running through Robotropolis was sometimes like running through a long, endless corridor – out in the forest when he ran, streamers of colour and movement blew past on either side of him, his speed turning an already complex, fascinating world into something infinitely new and exciting. But the city was grey. It was dark, it was dull, it was lifeless, and it was grey. And running only made everything greyer. Trust 'Buttnik to take the fun out of everything the city had once been.
Sonic backpeddled suddenly, coming to a sharp halt with his nose just inches from a junction in the complicated network of back alleys. The wind rushing over his ears had distorted it, but he knew he'd heard something. And sure enough, even as he stood still, a series of quiet, discreet clinks sounded from his right, coming from the path of the junction.
Silently pressing against the wall, Sonic edged with painstaking precision into the vulnerable crossing, his cheek pushed hard to the grimy surface of his support. To his surprise, the narrow alley only continued a few feet to the right, where it opened up into a larger lot. Sonic couldn't see much of it, a wall interrupting his field of vision, but in a split second he was against it, listening intently for movement.
Whatever it was didn't sound like a scuffle. That could mean anything. His mind, in particular, was focused on the possibility of some helpless Mobian in the grip of a SWATbot, probably hurt, possibly dead, but not likely to be. Killing potential workers was inefficient when a quick robotocisation could turn them into the most loyal slaves Robotnik would ever need.
Sonic felt his jaw clench with renewed anger, and slipped around the final corner.
What he saw didn't immediately make sense to him. The lot looked like it might have been the back of a large store in the past – its walls were lined with old, industrial-sized rubbish bins, most of them ironically empty while trash piled up around them, probably swept there by breezes through the city and wedged against the obstructions.
In the middle of the area was a downed SWATbot, legs still twitching in the air and a faint fizzling just barely audible from its metallic corpse. Sonic couldn't tell exactly what had taken it down, but he felt the clue was probably in the scrawny, cloak-shrouded shape sitting hunched on its upturned belly and tugging at its mounted laser.
Whatever it was had its back to him. But the cloak, while blending effortlessly with the greys and browns of the city, didn't quite cover the thin, dark-furred arms that worked away at the laser equipment. The creature was no robot, and that was all that mattered to Sonic. He stepped further into the lot.
"Hey!"
The creature froze, and then its head jerked towards him. For a long, chilling moment, Sonic found himself gripped by a pair of intense feline eyes, reflecting unnatural colours in the minimal light. Very, very slowly, the cat dismounted the SWATbot, toes spread, her movements deliberate and careful until she was straightened to her full height.
Sonic opened his mouth, but couldn't find his voice. There was something menacing and disconcerting in her stance and relentless regard. Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that the spot she'd been sitting over on the SWATbot's underside.
It was a smoking hole.
It was times like this that he wished he didn't hate Robotnik, and all associated metal and mechanical things by default. Maybe if he didn't, he wouldn't be quite so quick to put his faith in all the furry residents of the planet.
He had certainly put his trust in the wrong animal this time, because from beneath her cloak, the cat slowly withdrew a heavy object that looked suspiciously like a SWATbot's belly-mounted laser.
And then with all the calm proficiency of a seasoned expert, she pointed it in his direction, and shot him.