Good Samaritan
Sonic never much believed the tales the fishermen liked to share. Not because they lied about the size of their catches—though they did that often enough—but because what they said was so far beyond his daily experience that it seemed absurd to talk about them. Magic stones that granted your every wish, beings of mercy and chaos delivering judgment, ancient cities floating in the clouds … For an island-bound hedgehog whose biggest worry was trying not to drown every time he tipped the boat, all these fantastic myths proved a little hard for him to swallow.
In the hushed whispers coming from Len's hut, from a low-hanging branch where he could eavesdrop on the old men, he caught enticing pieces of rumors. Across the sea there lived a race which had never glimpsed anyone with fur or feather, as they had none themselves.
A proud people, the men called them, but greedy. Their bodies were weak, but their wills were as steely as the machines they deployed to uproot forests. Intelligent, but their spirits as creeping black as the oil with which they stained the ocean.
They were engaged in another bout of such gossip when a sharp crack announced Sonic's arrival. He fell onto a bed of leaves and climbed in through the open window. "I'm glad we don't hafta deal with them, that's for sure." Giving the ring of elder seals a smile, he plucked a twig from behind his ear and beamed at Len. "What's up, old man? I miss story time?"
"Take off your shoes, son. You're tracking sand on the carpet."
One elder thumped the butt of his rod like a gavel on the rug. "Lennie, you're too soft on that boy," Mr. Harris declared as he scooped chowder into a wooden bowl. Oh, were they starting their 'Sonic is a bad boy, no food for him' tirade early? Dinner and a show? "Lil' troublemaker been causing us nothin' but grief lately. Oughta kick him out till he learns some respect."
"Who, me?" Sonic accepted Len's bowl with a small nod and began to shovel chowder into his mouth, much to the annoyance of his company. With his cheeks puffed out, he pointed the dripping spoon at himself. "You guys mus' be thinkin' o' somebody else, 'cause I shine my halo every day. Right, old man?"
Scowls deepened the lines on those wizened faces. Len sat back in his wicker chair, choosing to rock on its creaking hinges rather than answer.
"Hooligan!" Mr. Harris stabbed the rod's end in the young hedgehog's direction. Heedless, Sonic chugged down his bowl. "You know what you did! Yesterday you blasted by and sprayed sand all over my haul!"
"This true?" Len asked. "Son."
Sonic opened his stuffed mouth to protest, then swallowed a hunk of bone stuck in the meat. True, he'd been practicing his Peel-Out all along the eastern coast yesterday, storming up spindrifts just for fun. But he'd avoided all the boats in the area, so for Mr. Harris to claim he soiled his catch meant that A, he had serious memory issues, or, the likelier B, he was telling an outright lie to get him into enough trouble to make him do free chores again. He was about to argue that particular point when he saw the exhaustion in Len's face.
Giving a light sigh, he stood and clapped his hands together with a bow, albeit a bit stiffly. "I'm sorry. I promise I'll look before I run next time."
Len snatched the bowl out of his reach as he parked tail onto the floor. "Ah-ah. You'll also make it up to him. First thing tomorrow morning."
"Aw, what?" he cried. "But I was gonna tune up the Tornado tomorrow—"
"She can wait."
Before he could protest further, a green glow bathed the hut. All conversation halted then and there as an unearthly radiance claimed everyone and everything in the room.
Sonic rushed toward the window. Climbing atop a footstool to boost his height, he craned his neck as far westward as he could.
He peered up at the starry sky, stained by a fading green cut sliced across it.
"A meteor?" he whispered. Shooting stars typically flashed a brief glimmer before disappearing; they didn't linger faint ribbons in the sky. And this summer the island had drifted far too south in the sea to effect a borealis. This was some strange new phenomenon, and as he gazed curiously at it amidst the murmurings behind him, he felt an anxious kind of excitement flutter in his gut he couldn't quite explain.
Another glimmer caught his eye. The coconut trees at the edge of the forest bowed their heads. The green glow flared as it touched their tops. A distant boom rattled the horizon, spitting up a pillar of sand and trembling vibrations throughout the hut.
He had sprinted halfway across the island by the time Len cried from the open doorway: "Son, wait!"
The cottage shrank from view. Moonlight smoothed the sea into a luminescent sheet of glass. For a moment or two the only sound was that of the puff-puff his soles made slapping the sand. His shadow flickered a blue silhouette against the beach's silver-white, and his arms and gloves appeared to glow subtly as they pumped in front of him, as though they'd been dusted with starlight. A tingle started up the base of his spine; he sensed something brewing, and that feeling told him it wasn't the usual pre-meteor weirdness.
It wasn't difficult for someone of his speed to track the dissolving streaks. His sprint wound down when he ducked through the brush clearing. Embedded in one of the trunks was the source of the light.
Sonic's eyes widened as he gingerly approached.
That's some meteor.
Brilliant veins snaked from it, winding intricate swirls along the height of the coconut tree, until root to leaf tip was laced with them.
He took a step back at a faint rustle. The tree shivered its branches, swaying drowsily as if it had awakened from a deep slumber.
And, to his awed eyes, began to grow at an impossible speed.
The trunk widened, the leaves swelled. The ground split as its roots emerged; the coconuts plunged and cracked themselves on rocks littering the forest floor.
Curiosity burning his mind, Sonic tried yanking out the rock before the tree swallowed it. It refused to budge, despite hooking his fingers around its perimeter and wrenching as hard as his arms would allow. With each insistent tug it sank deeper into the mulch, until at last it won out and forced him to relent his grip.
Like a radiant heart, it lit the bark from within, continuing to pulse more dazzling blood through its host.
Such beauty awed him. Every leaf on this otherwise nondescript tree shone; he could even see the tiny network of capillaries delivering nutrients to the swirling coconuts if he dared peer closer into its tissue.
The amazement lasted but a wondrous moment before dread immediately took its place. Sonic dashed out of the forest, thoroughly freaked by this inexplicable occurrence.
Should he take this as a sign of trouble instead? Call Len and the others? How was he going to describe what this meteor just did to a random tree without seeming like a total nutcase? Worse: what if it contaminated the rest of the forest by the time he rushed them over?
His mind raced so fiercely that he didn't notice the piece of scrap metal lying in his path. His cuff snagged on it, sending him toppling belly-down onto the sand. Grit prickled his abdomen, and he pushed himself up, dusting himself off with a slight inner groan that Mr. Harris might have been onto something about looking both ways after all.
With the last of the sand cleared from himself, he nudged the metal aside with his toe. He was startled a bit to realize it was warm, pealing smoke at its edges.
Here he found himself gazing down a scattered trail of similar metal shards. Where they ended, obscured by murky air, was on a scorched patch of sand where a round figure lay prone in the tide.
Perfectly round, in fact: it was as spherical as the rubber ball he sometimes bounced against the side of the house when he was bored. At first Sonic almost believed it may have been a massive beach ball someone lost from the ferry—boy, did Len slip some funny stuff in his soup or what—before realizing it was actually breathing, a living being surrounded by steaming hunks of metal.
Although Sonic proved barely a help in these types of situations, too often presenting a sink risk himself, his altruistic instincts kicked in, and he ran off without a second thought to the strength of the tide washing over the capsized creature. He splashed through the water, lunging just in time to grab its torn red sleeve before it was sucked back out to sea.
"Hey, I gotcha!" he called over the roaring crests.
No response.
Pulling the creature toward the shallows seemed an even more gargantuan task than pulling that rock from the tree. For one thing, this seal had spindly legs and oddly oval-shaped flippers, hardly ideal for paddling itself to safety. Not that it even could at the moment—the wrist Sonic dragged was limp, and for those few terrifying moments as he heaved it onto the shore, he feared its utter quiescence.
He gave home a worried glance. Might not have time to get back to the hut. Sweat and salt water dripped from him as he looked down at this peculiar creature, hairless pink as a newborn baby except for its full, dribbling mustache.
"Listen," he said, sniffing hard as he scrubbed his mouth on the back of his wrist, "I don't wanna have to hit you, but … " He pressed his ear against its chest, listening for a heartbeat. Thank heaven, one fluttered underneath.
Due to the creature's odd body shape, he couldn't accurately estimate where its ribcage might be. Inhaling a quick breath, Sonic balled his fists together and prayed he wouldn't accidentally hurt it.
As he wheeled his hands above his head to deliver the first blow, the creature sputtered awake. It jerked, flew its hands over its mouth. A terrible jag followed, and at length it coughed up a slimy piece of flotsam.
It looked at him.
And screamed.
"What are you?" it shouted, thrusting an incriminatory finger at him as it scrambled backwards on its haunches. "No! Get away from me!"
Just as Sonic raised his palms to show he meant no harm, it pulled out a small ray gun. A jagged line of singe blazed the shore inches beside him. The beam shot up a tree, which bubbled and sagged into two melting halves.
"Hey, what'd ya go and do that for?" Sonic yelled, snatching the gun away. "Jeez!"
The creature grew such a pale shade it looked as though it would become sick again at a moment's notice. Sliding a hand over its mouth, it tottered to a stand and began to flee him. It only gained a few yards before stumbling once more into the rolling tide.
He would have shaken his head if his ears hadn't pricked at the faint shouts of Len's group approaching them. Sonic's shoes slapped the wet sand, and he knelt beside the creature.
"Don't move, okay?"
A small wave foamed over the round body.
It groaned.
Sonic glanced at the weapon in his hand. A sleek device with a tiny orb at the barrel tip, orbited by three red rings, not much bigger than a tacklebox handle. Wasn't anything a self-respecting fisherman would've been caught dead carrying, that much was for sure. Had the creature retained better aim, this nasty little piece of work would have gutted him like last night's supper.
He hurled it like a skipping stone over the sea, watching it leap over the crests before it finally disappeared with a satisfying plunk. Then he dashed off to meet the old men.
"He's taking my bed?" Sonic asked. Len snapped out a blanket for him on the tiny couch.
"Just for tonight."
"All right, but he better not touch my stuff." Drawing in a breath, he swung his arms at his sides and stared at the fire. "He is okay, isn't he?"
"Everythin' seems to be fine, but I want to bring Doc over tomorrow just to make sure."
"You sure he'll still be asleep by then?" Sonic scratched behind his ear, thinking about the creature's fortunate miss with the laser. He didn't want to believe this was all coincidental with the arrival of that odd gem (meteor, his stubborn mind maintained) but he also feared opening his mouth to tell Len just to get an earful about the Chaos Emeralds. No Emerald he'd ever heard of made a tree grow twice its size.
Heck, maybe he'd dozed off while Mr. Harris lectured at him and was actually dreaming up his own strange myth.
Don't be dumb, he admonished himself. You know what you saw.
Len tucked the blanket's corners into the sofa cushions while Sonic paced tight circles around the rug's perimeter. Giving it one last smoothing over, he said, "You'll be fine by yourself," and blew out a candle, further dimming the room to starlight.
Yeah. About that.
"What you did for him was kind," began the old man, "but … "
"But what?"
Len sighed, patting the blanket. "You better take a seat before I tell you any more."
"I can stand." He tapped his toe impatiently.
"He's a runaway."
Sonic's mouth slackened. "How do you know that?"
Len ignored his question. "Got to return to his own world."
"Must not be a very good one if he ditched it."
Len gave a mild shake of his head. "Not all who leave home are discontent."
Now Sonic stopped fidgeting for once. "You think he's some kinda criminal?"
"I'm saying you oughta keep your guard up," Len said, and took a few shuffling steps to better see him in the dark, his voice lowered to a murmur. "You got a good heart, son. I'd hate to see somebody take advantage of it."
"Well, they won't."
"Get your pillow."
"I'm not tired."
"We don't know a blessed thing about him," Len went on. "There's a difference between giving people the benefit of the doubt and bein' thick."
"That what you thought about my folks, too?"
"Ain't talking about that."
"No?"
"No. They had a little one they needed taking care of." Another patient shake of his head told Sonic he meant that. "He could be a saint, but that don't mean I'd trust him. No one goes seeking this ol' island unless they desperately want somethin'. Even if it's just to get away."
He had to admit the anonymity of their guest did puzzle him. Where could he have come from, anyway? As the same place as that meteor? With the South Sea so wide it swallowed a large chunk of the globe, it was difficult to imagine what lay beyond. And if what the old guys said about this island shifting through dimensions was true, illusion one moment and reality the next, traveling beyond that barrier seemed about as alien to him as touching down on another planet.
A snore rumbled in the other room. Sonic turned back from it and noticed the old man had turned to the picture of his folks in the battered oval frame sitting over the mantel. Len picked it up, and he rubbed his arm.
He knew that photograph as well as his own face. The young family was photographed in front of the Tornado on a lovely day with the sea glittering behind them. His mother cradled him while his father, wearing a less scuffed version of the aviator helmet he kept in the Tornado's storage compartment, stood with his arm draped around her. The two of them beamed at the camera.
The only ill-content in the picture was him. With his newborn eyes screwed shut and his tiny fists clenched, he kicked his legs from within the confines of his swaddling cloth, bursting to be let free.
"Son." Placing the photograph back in its rightful place, Len hobbled over, his gait unsteady like it usually was, and laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry so much. If he wants to go home, he'll find his way back."
"Yeah."
Don't wake up yet.
Don't wake up yet.
Don't wake up y—
The creature flew its eyes open—their shade a vivid sky blue—and immediately collided skulls with Sonic.
"Ow!" He fumbled for his glasses on the nearby dresser, next to Sonic's miniature model biplane and string of origami hedgehogs. Thumbing them onto the bridge of his bulbous nose, he frowned steeply at the wincing boy. "You again! Can't you leave me in peace?"
Yep … he's awake.
He sat up in the hammock, its net creaking under the strain of his weight, and released a prolonged groan as he massaged the tender welt on his forehead. "Ugh, your head's as hard as a rock," he complained. "How fitting."
"Sorry," Sonic said. Wasn't really sure how to respond to that. "Anyway, I'll bet you're probably wanting breakfast. Are ya hungry?"
"Am I hungry?" he balked. "I'm conversing with a giant blue hedgehog, and you want to know if I'm hungry?"
"Hey, at least you got the hedgehog part right. Eggs or pancakes?"
"Oh, yes, that sounds positively lovely. Why not a brunch while we're at it?"
"I only know how to make eggs and pancakes. Sooo."
"It was a joke."
"Oh? Wasn't sure you knew how to make those."
His stomach growled, betraying him. He huffed an irritated sigh and crossed his arms over his chest.
Sonic turned for the kitchen when he realized, shoot, he'd thrown his gun into the ocean last night, hadn't he? Would he notice it was gone? Or throw an even bigger fit if he did?
He pivoted on his heels, intent on distracting him before he could. "So, uh, what kind of seal are you? You from up north?"
"A seal," he said incredulously, his voice somehow biting and flat at the same time. "Yes, of course. And I'm the duke of Soleanna. And I've also lost my mind." The seal scattered the dust on the floor beneath the hammock as he slumped onto the net. "Stranded. I didn't make it. Now I'm hallucinating talking mice … "
"Hedgehog," Sonic corrected, a little pointedly in this instance. No offense to the mice on South Island, but it always annoyed him when people mistook the two. "My name's Sonic, by the way. How about you?"
"From the way my luck has been going lately? Mud."
"Listen, you really sure you're fine?" Sonic asked. "You seem okay to me, but maybe the doctor oughta to get those scrapes checked, just in case."
The seal's mouth twisted. "I am a doctor, you twit."
He didn't mean to laugh. Really. It just sort of … blurted out of him.
The minute his lips curled into a smile, the seal ground its teeth. He was fairly certain his mustache would have frizzed up like the fur on a hysterical cat if it weren't so dampened at the moment.
"Go ahead, laugh. I assure you, my genius can run circles around your rodent intellect."
Rodent wasn't much of an improvement over mouse, but he decided to let that one slide.
"Actually," Sonic said, "looks like you got that switched around, doc. Running circles 'round people, I mean. No one's got me beat there."
"Right … "
"Show ya." Plucking an apple from a little woven basket on the kitchen table, he offered it to his guest. The latter accepted it with an immense measure of skepticism, his strange blue eyes narrowed over his lenses as if expecting it to host poison.
Then Sonic scurried onto the footstool, threw the latch and let the curtains flutter in the cool breeze. "Throw that out the window. Ten rings says I'll catch it before you can blink."
As he said this, the doctor's expression morphed from skeptical into outright cynical. The door was all but barricaded by stacks of Len's equipment: tackleboxes, nets, coolers and wooden barrels. He'd arranged it so neither Sonic nor their visitor would be encouraged to venture outside while he was out retrieving the doctor on Westside Island.
"What, are you going to dive outside and make off with it?"
"Nope," Sonic said. "I'm gonna push all that stuff aside, yank that door open, run outside, and catch the apple, all before you can say, 'Whoa nelly.'" He grinned, arms tucked impishly behind his back as he clicked his heels against the floor. "Unless, a'course, a big smart doctor like you can't stand to be wrong."
The doctor snorted in derision. "I'd rather not entertain any more of your delusions, little boy," he said, "but if it'll get you out of my hair, very well." He flexed his arm and prepared to hurl the apple out the window, but not before taking an enormous bite out of the core. "Fetch, you rodent."
No sooner had he said this, a gale blasted the room, leaving him to sputter in the wake of a storm of sand and dust. In less than the span of a blink he found himself staring at the shiny Fuji apple inside the hedgehog's palm, complete with his wide bite marks so there would be no question Sonic pulled no tricks.
He sat up, spine rigid. "How in blazes … ?" He snatched the apple to examine it from every angle while a grin played on Sonic's face. "Do it again."
"Len'll get mad if we throw out all the fruit."
"Then go fetch a rock or something! You can do that much, surely?"
"I ain't a dog," Sonic protested.
The doctor clamped a hand around his wrist and dragged him outside.
"Hey! We're not supposed to leave the hut!"
"Do my ears look broken to you, Sonic? Did you not just say you're not a dog?"
"Well, yeah, but—"
"Then you can manage your own time without having someone else do it for you."
"'Cept you're the one doing it for me anyway," Sonic muttered, then said: "Can you please let go? You're hurtin' my wrist."
They marched a little ways toward the edge of the forest before he finally decided to let him have his wrist back. He glanced around their lush tropical environment, hands propped on his hips as if seeking inspiration.
Birds crooned while the ocean rocked against the shore. Sonic squinted at the sun, the endless waves, the Tornado a red speck in the hazy distance, the cotton-candy clouds drifting by on a whim. Couldn't see anything much different than what he'd been seeing for years.
After a good minute the doctor snapped his fingers. "That's it. That's where we'll start." And sprinted toward the hut before Sonic could ask for clarification.
The young hedgehog couldn't help but flinch as he saw the man dig through the pile of Len's belongings, rummaging for … well, whatever it was he wanted. A pair of fishing lures rolled down the gentle dune on which the hut sat, and he had to resist the urge to hop nervously from foot to foot as it was all scattered, thrown out in disarray. Oh, no, not the rods, those were Len's good lucky ones—now he was gonna have to clean all this junk strewn in the yard before he got home—
"What're you doing?"
"This'll have to do!" the doctor shouted back, waving a battered worm bucket in the air.
Much to Sonic's mounting confusion, he knelt in the sand and hastily piled it into a messy dome, positioning the bucket over it as a mold to keep it in place. Eventually he chucked the bucket aside much like he had with Len's other things.
"I want to see if your speed has other effects."
"Like … building a sand castle?"
The doctor leapt to his feet, oddly spry for such a heavy man, and pointed at the saddest sand castle he'd ever witnessed. "Run around this dune in as tight a circle as you can. And don't stop until I tell you to."
"What are ya, my gym teacher?" Sonic asked with a hike of his shoulders. "What's it gonna do?"
"That, dear needlemouse, is for me to know and for you to find out."
So weird. But he guessed it wouldn't hurt giving it a go. Beat having to stay in the house all day, at any rate.
Ducking his head, Sonic assumed a marathon runner's starting position and stretched his calves, lifting his heels against the bracing sand. He gave his tail a slight wriggle for luck like he usually did.
On your mark.
In theory, the move he called the Peel-Out wasn't hard to do. Theory being the key word. He hadn't had much chance to practice, what with the likes of Mr. Harris complaining about it all the time.
While he was used to whirlwinding his feet, the Peel-Out required extra muscle coordination which he hadn't quite gotten the hang of yet—there was a major difference between running naturally in a straight line and forcing yourself to blast forward. Though no one had explicitly taught him this, experience had informed him that the hedgehog body was meant to gain speed by tucking and rolling. By gaining momentum, not by generating it. And though he thought rolling was barrels of fun, the rare Peel-Out done correctly blew rolling clear out of the water.
Get set.
Still, stinking it up meant bad news, and at about six feet from the shore, he'd better believe he had a lot to stink. At such a close distance, it would be way too easy to lose balance and go careening into the ocean.
"What are you waiting for?" the seal cried. "Go!"
Might as well have cracked a starting shot. An immense boom lashed the air, pulling everything from the treetops to the seal himself.
Sonic lost all form as he melted into the wind. Upside-down and right-side-up again, the vertical world swirled into the horizontal; the chain of islands broke from the sea and floated away, the gulls whirled madly, colors popped and flashed before his eyes … He only laughed into the wind, the sound dissolving somewhere behind him. Once he accelerated fast enough, he'd blast off in a dizzying vortex of loops and spins. Fun for a certain speed-demon, enough to churn the juices of the hardiest stomach.
He kicked up a storm. The trees and grass began to sway, bowing their heads to his speed. Out of the corner of his eye he caught the seal cupping his hands around his mouth, with his mustache flapping to one side:
"Faster!"
"I'm goin' as fast as I can!" A cold splash exploded in his face. Sonic's concentration broke as he coughed back the bucketful of salt water the doctor had hurled at him. "Okay, I get it! You don't hafta drown me!"
"Gah, you were in the way! Just keep moving those feet!" He came running back with the bucket and this time drenched the correct target, then reached out with an astonishing speed of his own and managed to haul Sonic free from orbit. They both jumped as the sand comprising his path billowed whorls of steam thick enough to blind them for a moment. Its expanse hissed as though it had been quenched in a forge.
As the wisps faded into salty ocean air, Sonic deigned another look. To his amazement, the ring of sand where he'd peeled out glistened sleek, silvery sheets. Within the hollows of his footsteps an odd, iridescent material bubbled in puddles too thick to be liquid, but weren't quite solid, either. A cloud sailed overhead, waving ribbons at its wandering reflection.
"Just as I suspected," the seal declared. "Your friction turned this silicon to an amorphous solid."
"A-mo," Sonic said, panting, "a-morph what?"
"You know!" He dismissively flapped a hand. "Amorphous. A solid whose atoms are arranged more erratically than those of an organized solid."
"What?"
"Oh, never mind."
"If it's solid, why's it all slushy?"
"What do they teach you here, nonsense?"
"I'm pressin' one for English as hard as I can here, doc."
The seal gestured toward the ring as though it were self-evident. "Your speed generated so much heat in so little a time it turned the sand to glass."
Once his mental lightbulb's struggling filament finally ticked on, he glowed. Wow, he really did that?
The seal clamped a meaty hand over his wrist, stopping him from inspecting it closer. "Enough to peel back that blue hide of yours, as a matter of fact. It's going to take an immense amount of time to cool without equipment. Even so, I suspect it'll only produce thin sheets once it crystallizes … well, as much as one may claim amorphous solids 'crystallize' … but it's a start."
They watched it foam in mutual silence.
Drawn by the faintly volcanic scent of smoke, a pair of gulls touched down on the beach. They bobbed their necks with curious burbles and waddled toward the ring. Alarm spiked inside Sonic; rushing forth flailing his arms, he shooed them back into crying flight.
He raked a hand over his head as their white curves dipped into the great blue sky. "Looks like we're gonna have to put a fence around this or somethin'."
Then he froze, for that thought had entered completely unbidden into his mind. If he was being honest with himself, it was something Len would have said in these circumstances. He'd just performed an amazing feat, and that was all he could think about, propping up some stupid fence?
Still, he had to think of the wildlife. Maybe a sign, in case this ring decided to collapse into a sinkhole.
A chill bolted down his spine. He whipped around. Oh, jeez, what if it did form a sinkhole? What if a little kid wanted to splash through these puddles, or some small animals mistook it for a watering hole?
It seemed the doctor wasn't concerned by any of these possibilities, as he simply turned for the cottage lost in his own musings. He was soon washed over by a typhoon of sand as Sonic ripped past him and sprinted around the yard in a frantic hunt.
Spitting out the grit, he pounded a foot against the ground, trampling the grass under his heel. "You could stand to warn me before you dip me, you know!"
"Where's the shovel, doc, you remember?"
"How should I know? It's your home, isn't it?"
"I can't find it!" Sonic cried as he pawed through Len's belongings. Spying the bucket, he slapped his (apparently rock-hard) forehead: "Wait, what am I doin'? Duh! I can just—"
"Just what—?"
Another crackling boom cascaded a second wave over the doctor.
Sweeping the bucket along the coastline, Sonic piled an immense dune over the ring, letting it grow higher and higher until the mound rivaled its neighboring trees in height. Even if children or animals were so inclined to touch the dangerous material, they'd now have to dig through several feet of sand just to reach it, and buy the glass underneath enough time to cool without alerting Len to its presence. Two gulls with one stone, as he would say.
Sonic skidded to a halt before the incredulous doctor and beamed, his arms thrown wide. "I make problems with my speed, but I can solve 'em, too. Now stay still, I'll have you cleaned up in a jiff!"
The doctor threw up his hands to shield himself from the wind that blasted onto him from every direction. When the thunderous gale subsided, he looked down to find the grit plucked from him as though he'd been vacuum-pressed.
Sonic grinned ear to ear awaiting his reaction. He was right. It was a start.
His guest sniffed. "Not bad. But you missed a spot," facetiously picking a single grain off his shoulder. "Now that's much better." An awkward moment passed as he realized Sonic was twirling in hyper little circles. "Are you dancing?"
"Oh yeah, no more chores, no more gettin' in trouble for me … " he sang to himself. Humming a bright tuneless melody, he looked back at the Tornado, his red cardinal and his eventual ticket outta here. Even though his fantasies centered on her taking him far away, the seed of another exciting idea was beginning to take root in his brain.
"Hey, doc?" he asked. The doctor snapped the hem of his pants to dissuade a hermit crab that had latched on. "You think if I get fast enough, I can run across the sea?"
The crab held on for dear life as he yanked its spiralled shell. "Hmph! Now don't go getting carried away. You'd have to expend incredible amounts of energy just to make the attempt. Besides, I doubt your body density would even allow that."
He stuck out his hand. "Hi, I'm Sonic. Have we met?"
For years, this was the story that would seem too absurd to tell. Not to Tails, not to Amy, not to anyone. The tale of how fate brought him his future in the guise of his worst enemy, the man who wished him dead but always seemed to come back for more, with whom on that day he shook hands.
Plus … a crab was dangling off the side of Eggman's pants.
"Doctor Robotnik. And no, I don't believe we have."
"What's this?" Len asked, as Sonic shoved a napkin full of glittering chips in front of him. They gleamed delicately in the evening light, when the sun faded into an orange haze in the west and the first dusting of stars appeared high above.
"I made 'em!"
Len plucked a turquoise chip from the pile with slightly shaky fingers and squinted at it. "Made 'em?" he parroted.
"Yeah, the doc showed me how. He said a bunch of junk about glass being amorpho-whatever, I don't know about all that stuff. What I do know is, if I run really hard in the sand, I can turn it into glass, and then we polish the round bits. Look." Turning over his wrist revealed a charm bracelet he had strung together with the various glass beads, interspersed by the occasional seashell. "These things are awesome! Maybe we could make a few extra rings selling 'em at the market or something—"
Lowering the chip, Len merely tucked it back inside the napkin with a soft sigh bristling his drooped whiskers. "I'm glad you're happy, son."
He went back to sitting on the dock, staring out at the water while the sunset painted it a shimmering rose gold. An idyllic lull had fallen over the sea, broken by the yearning cry of an airborne gull.
Sonic picked at his homemade bracelet, spinning its multicolored beads across his wrist like a miniature Ferris wheel. Whatever exuberance he had felt until now had begun to wilt a little. Sure, the beads weren't anything great, but they weren't nothing, either.
The real issue at hand was his speed. Len preferred not to talk about it, about his special gift that separated him from the other kids. Even now he was looking askance at the way Sonic pumped his dangling legs over the dock's edge, unable to keep still for the briefest of moments.
He wasn't sure if Len resented his speed, or would have rather he'd just been more normal. Len had no other children, no spouse, no extended family. His only real company were the crotchety old men he liked to entertain. For years Sonic had been the crux of his life, but that didn't make anything easier for either of them when a man who preferred a more leisurely life had to handle a storm of a child.
At times when the rift between them grew a little deeper than usual, Sonic found himself dreaming about his birth parents. As a very young child he would fantasize about running down to the beach to find his mother and father still in the Tornado, encouraging him to hurry up with kind smiles, waiting for his quick steps to carry him to them so they could see the world together.
Sometimes it seemed his speed was the only release from the daily grind. Stir-crazy, the old men would say. But none of them knew how it felt to make his blood sing as his steps flew across the ground.
He just wasn't fit for this kind of life. He was rash. He knocked things over. He couldn't fish worth a darn, only catching the occasional tire or dirty shoe when he did feel up to it. He'd run Christmas Island to death and knew South Island like the back of his hand, and still felt as though the pressure of waiting for a single boat to carry him somewhere else, somewhere new would make him implode.
Maybe that was why Len and the others talked so much about these myths. If he couldn't keep him still in body or in spirit, he could stimulate his mind, take him to other places he might never go otherwise. But the mere fact remained that he wanted to have the choice. Robotnik had been right; if he waited on Len to carve out a life for him, then it was possible nothing exciting would ever happen to him again.
He needed to start taking charge of his destiny, whether Len liked that or not. How many more times could he pick sand off the Tornado, only to tell her 'One more year'?
Len cleared his throat, and said something odd that halted his racing train of thought.
"He's no seal."
"What?" Sonic's fingers paused from spinning his bracelet. Resuming pumping his feet over the dock, he chuckled. "Heh, real funny, ol' man. Ya got me good there."
"I'm not jokin' you, son. He's no seal. Never was."
The implications of what the old man was trying to tell him began to sink in.
"Wait." He hopped to his feet. "How would you know what humans are? I thought you said you lived on this island your whole life."
"Like I told you yesterday," Len said, in his maddeningly patient tone, "not all who leave home are discontent."
"So you went there." And the questions burst through the hole pricked in the dam: "How? Why? What'd you do? What'd they look like? Are they that bad? Probably not, right, you just wanted me to think that so I wouldn't leave, huh?" he demanded over the old man's bowed, Budda-like head. "Why did you lie to me when you said they were just dumb stories?"
A lure bobbed in the water. Slowly Len cranked the reel and let it trail back to him with growing ripples, his every move so deliberate he always seemed to fear breaking something. To have told Sonic that he'd once known restlessness like he did … He couldn't help but feel it was another myth. Just another story to placate him, tuck his burning questions to bed.
"You upset?"
"No," Sonic sighed. He collapsed into a cross-legged position on the planks, his shoulders slumped. "I don't know. I just wish you'd told me sooner."
Gathering up his rod and his tacklebox, Len nudged him gently with his rubber boot. "C'mon, let's go home. You can tell me all about this lil' business venture o' yours."
He didn't really feel like it anymore.
"Boy," Mr. Harris snapped his fingers to drag him back to reality, "I say, you got your head stuck in the clouds? You brought the wrong cooler again."
Sonic didn't notice the worms squirming in the box until a few of them ran over the sides. "Oh." He let it drop with a yawn, infuriating the old man into storming off with an angry mutter.
Bored to tears, Sonic stretched his arms over the stern. The sun's warmth seeped through his skin, made him feel fuzzy, lazy. He relaxed so much, in fact, that he trailed his hand through the water and would have dipped under had the old man not hurried back to catch him just before he capsized. His drooping eyelids flew back up as he slapped the water in a frenzy.
"My bracelet!"
"Never mind that now!" Mr. Harris lifted him up by the gut and planted him on the gunwale—much like an adult placing a squirming toddler into a high chair, he thought with a touch of sourness. "Come over here an' help me wrangle 'em up."
The old man turned a rusty crank and hauled up a net swollen with dozens of trout. Sonic lurched back to avoid getting smacked around by their fins.
A link in the net snapped, spilling writhing fish out the back. Mr. Harris bolted for a rope extension and shouted at him to gather them back up before they escaped.
But it was like gathering sand in a sieve. They slid out of his grasp, for one thing, and the ones that resisted, the spirited fighters, whipped their fins and tails at him to lose him. The rocking of the boat combined with the slicked floor made it hard to maintain any solid footing for long enough to stuff their twisting bodies back into the net Mr. Harris was furiously knotting back together.
Sonic veered in every direction, more and more trout slipping from his embrace. "C'mon, guys, cut me some slack!" One of the lashing fins sliced his arm, drawing a thin red line that promptly dripped blood.
He reflexively dropped the entire school. Most of the haul bounced over the port and launched themselves right back into the sea with foamy splashes. Their remaining companions, meanwhile, flopped helplessly at his feet.
Sonic looked up with slight trepidation, his eyes as liquid as theirs as the old man squatted rigidly at the sight.
Getting up stiffly, he rubbed his palms dry and strode toward the boy.
Uh-oh, lecture time.
Which he decided to forgo for once.
Mr. Harris roughly grabbed his arm, grunting once at the wound.
"All'a days to forget the first-aid kit. These things come back to take a big chomp outta ya, don't they." He tore a length of cloth from a spool clipped to his belt and wrapped it tightly around his arm. Sonic sucked in a breath at the bitter sting.
"Now see," he said, wagging a scarred finger at his scrunched nose, "ol' Lennie put you to work more often, you wouldn't be doin' that."
That managed to sting even worse. Sonic forced himself to bite down on his tongue and resolved to do as he was told for the rest of the day, nothing more.
Otherwise, it was a long day of a whole lot of nothing but staring at the ocean waiting for the torn net to become full again. Even the fish were bored, it seemed. He trudged back home, where Len was sawing vegetables with the same blunt knife he used to gut trout.
Sneaking up behind him, he stuck out his bandaged arm. "Hey, look, old man. My first battle scar."
The blade nicked the heavy wooden board, dicing the purple-white stalks into tiny chips which he carefully swept aside. Leeks, Sonic noted, by their pungent smell. Len was never bothered cutting 'em but they made his peepers burn something fierce.
The old man gave a faint wrinkle of his nose. "Put some swab on it 'fore it turns nasty."
"I know, I know." Sonic dragged the footstool toward the cabinet, then paused. "Hey, you seen Robotnik anywhere?"
"That his name?" Len asked. "Not at all."
His dad's aviator helmet planted squarely on his head, Sonic fiddled around with the thick, old-fashioned goggles. He knew he looked like a dork, what with his ears sticking twin triangles out the leather cap and his irises stretched to bug-like proportions. But he liked the snug fit, the chunky lenses. Something about wearing it comforted him.
Leaning back in the pilot's seat always dusted with sand, he grasped the yoke and gave it a small shake. "I dunno, girl," he told the Tornado. "Feels like people are stringin' me left an' right … "
"Playing pilot, are we?"
Hearing another voice made Sonic scramble to yank the helmet off and stuff it into the storage compartment as quickly as possible. No one outside of Len knew this was where he came to think, and he dreaded having something stupid he said get heard while having let his guard down. Sometimes the island kids were ruthless about that sorta thing.
Giving the compartment door a hurried slam, he shouted over the side wing: "You didn't see that!"
"Please. That's hardly the strangest thing I've seen today."
Sonic jumped out of the Tornado and jogged toward Robotnik, who stood about twenty feet away with a cloth sack slung over his shoulder.
"Long time no see, doc," the boy greeted him. "Thought you were with Mrs. Welby?"
"She's apparently visiting her 'sick' daughter off the island. Flu. I've got no such antibodies, so it's pitching a tent for me tonight." Robotnik dumped his cloth sack, letting an odd array of supplies tumble out: a hacksaw, a stone chisel. Nothing that really suggested he intended to rough it for the night.
Sonic picked up an awl. "Where'd ya get this stuff from?"
The awl was plucked from him and tossed once in the air before Robotnik confidently caught it again. "Bartering does wonders, my young friend," he said, "but I won't have to worry about a thing once I extract the heart of that tree."
He pointed at the strange, fate-touched coconut tree that had grown to a monstrous size and now towered over the rest of the forest like a statue over a crowd. Even though it was difficult to tell in bright sunlight, its leaves radiated painted swirls.
Word had gotten around of the meteor, as most homesteads had felt the vibration of impact as Len's had that night. People had begun leaving modest offerings at its foot as a sign of respect, so he wasn't sure about Robotnik coming in and outright taking the meteor for himself. Even if he didn't really believe in gods and fate, he still respected their followers enough to leave cave and forest altars alone when he went exploring.
Besides, what would he want with that thing?
Sonic followed Robotnik through the brush into the clearing where the meteor had landed. Silk ribbons fluttered from its smaller branches where those who paid their respects could reach them. Woven baskets of varying colors and patterns inhabited the tree's concaves. Within them sat a plethora of offerings from a people who asked nothing of the gods except one more year of good land and sea.
He was beginning to feel uneasy about this.
The meteor agreed that it shouldn't have been extracted. Robotnik's stone chisel crumbled the moment he pounded a rock against it. The awl bent. The saw's teeth shrieked an awful noise, like nails on granite, but hardly dented the impenetrable bark. The repeated failures escalated into frustrated growls and cursing his luck until the doctor tore away from his efforts, squatting down with his hands on his knees.
Idly, Sonic tangled himself inside a mixed stream of ribbons. "You're never gonna get it that way."
"Bah. I'd kill for a proper power drill." Robotnik nodded at him, beckoning him with a wave. "You can saw through things, correct? Help me cut it down."
Oh, no. He should've known this was going to happen. Letting go of the silk, Sonic dallied to buy time for an excuse, scratched behind his ear. "I'unno, an innocent tree for a dumb rock?"
"That 'dumb rock' so happens to be a Chaos Emerald."
"Sure, and I'm Santa Claus, here to give ya some coal for lyin'." He might as well spit it out, he supposed. "Sorry, doc, but I'm not ruining the forest just so you can get the prize inside."
Sonic froze; was that a flicker of a cat-like smirk he caught out of the corner of his eye, or was he just imagining things?
"Sonic, do you know what it means to have leverage in a situation?"
He narrowed his eyes. "You mean like blackmail?"
"It could be. But not exactly." Pacing toward one of the concave altars, Robotnik lifted an offering of fish bones, running a finger along the delicate ribs before setting the basket back. "I'm not surprised such a concept is foreign to you, really. You live in a place where every resource is communal. You share food, equipment, ideas. Where I'm from, you fight for every scrap you have or else it's snatched out from underneath you."
"Sounds dog-eat-dog."
"It is. But it's also taught me how to cut a mean deal." Robotnik clasped his hands together, appearing altogether too amiable. "There's no risk involved if you leave the Emerald alone. However, you have everything to gain by helping me. If you assist me with this one itty-bitty task, perhaps I could get your Tornado running again."
In that moment, warm blood rushed from his cheeks to the tips of his ears, for what he was proposing was nothing short of a minor miracle. It had been his long-cherished dream to fly her one day, though he'd always assumed 'one day' meant years from now.
Could doc really do it? Deliver on such a hefty promise? Where was he gonna get the gas, the tools, the replacement parts? Would Len be okay with it? Aw, heck, should he really be looking a gift plane in the propellers? He could fly her when he wasn't a grayed old man.
Wait; don't blow it. Look cool. Sonic gazed sidelong at his eager face, doing his best to feign calm.
"It's just one tree."
Shadows of ribbons flickered across the forest bed.
"One tree," said Robotnik.
He heaved in a breath and looked up toward the crown of light where the sun glittered like a precious jewel on the tree's head. Regret filled him that this extraordinary giant was soon going to be demolished.
"I'm gonna need you to back up, then."
Robotnik gladly stepped aside. "Now you're learning."
Instead of revving up as expected, however, Sonic grabbed a branch and kicked off into a climb.
"What are you doing?"
"I wanna make sure this tree doesn't fall and hurt the other trees."
"It's the width of a tank!" Robotnik called back. He dwindled the higher Sonic scampered up the massive trunk. "I doubt it'll give even if you laid a siege cannon to it!"
"Just lemme do this my way, all right?" Gripping his fingers into the bark, he finally pulled himself onto the apex, where the wind blew green fringe around him and the view showed him the entirety of South Island.
He drank it in. The forest, the checkered grass; the totems and winding hills, the boats fluttering their toy-like sails over the shimmering ocean; the waterfalls and caves; the ferry to Westside Island, the houses and shops like shells embedded in the soft white curve of shore. At this altitude he had a bird's view of his tiny home. This was where he ran and lived and laughed and stank at fishing. This was it.
Sonic swung his legs off the huge, spongy leaf on which he perched, glancing down at the opening where Robotnik waited expectantly for his own miracle to happen.
He raised his arms to the sky, closed his eyes.
Inhale.
His plunge before the great tree blasted up columns of dirt and moss and baskets now devoid of offerings. He burrowed himself through the bed of roots guarding the trunk before he had a chance to think too hard about any of it, slashing them apart and worming his way inside the hollow, slitting the tree's belly wide open with the gnawing cut of his spindash.
The Emerald at last touched air and flooded the forest with an intense glow, throbbing a few pulses of neon before dimming; Sonic propelled it out of the gash, shooting it out onto the uprooted grass before Robotnik's feet.
Exhale.
"It's mine!" Robotnik shouted gleefully. "All mine!" He snatched it up while Sonic reeked of friction, burnt sawdust filling his nostrils. The young boy caught his breath as he hung limp over the side of the opening, trying to ignore how the leaves overhead began to shrink and curl.
"The Chaos Emeralds … " Sonic crawled out of the nook, smeared the perspiration from his brow. "What exactly do they do?"
"A better question would be what don't they do?" Robotnik raised it to bask in its glory. The sun shone through the Emerald, twinkling luminous rays from its translucent facets. The light flickered pleasantly as it moved over Sonic, like a soft hand caressing his cheek. "Ancient civilizations far more advanced than ours have used them to sustain their societies for centuries. Imagine what exquisite artistry machines can perform with this sort of power!" At that, he bounced giddily the way a small child bounces with anticipation at the fair.
"Could people use that power?"
Robotnik tossed back his bald head and laughed at the notion. "They're welcome to try, of course, but that'd be like juicing up your Tornado over there with nuclear material. Organic tissue would explode into a million pieces if it ever came into contact with such concentrated energy."
"Why?" Sonic asked. "I mean, it's probably not that much different from using wind or water if you just used a little—"
"Boy, you can't use a little of a perpetually self-sustaining power source. If I could, I'd be halfway around the globe by now." Then it occurred to him: "Is that why you wanted to know if you could run across the sea?"
"I can't swim," Sonic blurted. "Okay? They keep trying to teach me, but I don't wanna learn."
"Why not?"
"'cause," he said stubbornly, feeling a defensive heat prickle his cheeks. "My folks wanted me to take up shrimping, they wouldn't have left me the Tornado. She might not look like much, but she's gonna fly me to the moon someday."
"In this state? She'd have to crawl."
"Yeesh, now you sound like one of the old guys."
"How dare you," Robotnik snapped. "I'll have you know I'm in the prime of my life!"
"I said you sounded like an old guy, not that you were one!" he shot back. "It's not like I don't wanna see the world, but I can't just ditch Len."
A pause. "You know," Robotnik said, examining his reflection inside the Emerald, "I've had many such discussions with my own father." His grave tone gave Sonic the vibe that 'discussion' was the kinder version of the word he truly intended.
He tried to picture Robotnik's father, another human in the shape of an egg: shiny bald, ruddy complexion, bushy mustache, so temperamental he bordered on childishness … But because his only frame of reference was the doctor himself, his imagination failed to create anything but an exact replica. A reflection.
Although he'd never voice the thought aloud, it seemed to Sonic that Robotnik didn't see people as they really were. In the back of his mind he couldn't help but feel as though the doctor perceived the world as a giant mirror, reflecting himself in enormous magnitude, from every possible angle. Often he was pleased with what he saw, but there were times the mirror deprecated him, plunging him into a smoldering, almost dangerous sort of mood.
Sonic had begun to understand Len's warning.
"Is he one of the people you're trying to impress?"
"I've got nothing to prove to that fool." Again, the word 'fool' was nearly spat, as if he wanted to be rid of some bad blood.
"What's the rest of your world like?"
Robotnik snorted.
"That bad? C'mon, I know you can do better."
"I can, but hardly anyone else sees that." Tucking the Emerald into his pocket, he kicked at a basket, scattering its orange hibiscus petals to the wind. "You jump through all their hoops, expecting just the slightest scrap of recognition in return, and what does it bring you? Laughter! Ridicule!" He delivered the gash in the coconut trunk a similar kick, unleashing a loud string of curses as the tree retaliated.
Sonic piqued a brow. "You're lucky I live with sailors."
The pain crushed into his toe made him cradle his foot. "It isn't right! It isn't fair! If only I could find a way to bring the Emerald back with me, then they'd see! Then they'd regret ever having said it was a fool's errand—"
"What's it matter what they think? You found the Emerald, didn't you? Shouldn't that be good enough?"
Robotnik's mouth tightened.
"In my world," he said, "hedgehogs aren't blue, and they certainly don't talk."
Needless to say, the doc wasn't adjusting particularly well to island life. The neighborhood found him a sour tenant, which meant for the next few weeks he bounced from house to house. Rumors trickled back that he was prone to sneaking off in the middle of the night, though where and why, no one could say with any measure of certainty. Others said he was oddly insistent he could "improve" their way of life, whatever the heck that meant.
He'd come full circle when Mrs. Welby sent him to stay at their hut again. According to him, she'd caught the flu from her daughter just to avoid him.
He arrived carrying a pair of hairy coconuts over his chest, a sight that would have made Sonic snicker aloud if he weren't holding the ladder Len was standing on to fix a hole in the roof. Either he didn't notice the humor himself or chose to ignore it; he thrust them at Sonic. A foul odor seeped out of them, melting the young hedgehog's grin as he pinched his nose in disgust.
"Aw, man, where'd you get those?"
"Let's just say the fresh fruit peddler and I agreed to disagree," he deadpanned, scowling down at them. "Is there anything on this island that isn't a coconut?"
"Fish," Sonic said. Looking up to make sure Len was too busy weaving the new rushes into the thatch to hear, he covered his mouth. "If I never see another trout smoothie in my life, I'll be a happy hedgehog."
Robotnik dropped the coconuts. "Where's your sextant?"
"Please and thanks? It's in my room. Why?"
He ducked inside the hut and came out holding the intricate gold instrument to his lensed eye, the other squinted closed. "I spotted another island last night, but can't find it again for the life of me."
"'cause you're facin' the wrong side. Westside Island is that way." Sonic pointed a little ways north of his current position. "Hey. Can I ask ya something?"
"Mm."
"What do you do when you're by yourself?" he asked. "People in the village say you go off in the middle of the night."
A soft word from Len told him he could let go of the ladder now. Startled he hadn't even noticed the old man having climbed down, Sonic nodded, and let him go back inside.
Robotnik shifted his hold on the frame and twisted the regulation screw, readjusting the instrument's mirror to his liking. "I," he said as he scanned the horizon, "am trying to plot a new course that won't end in complete disaster."
Sonic kicked a pebble. "Good luck with that. I've been tryin' for eleven years."
"Ha. I figured as much."
He didn't like the sound of that. "Figured what?"
"Eleven years old. You're still a child."
The reason the neighbors refused to deal with him was his attitude. He just didn't get along with people unless he put on a saccharine act, unless he wanted something. And while he himself was far from perfect, Sonic felt his words stoke his temper. He could take any punch to the ego until they played the age card. Drove him crazy, and before he knew it, he was blurting out stupid things again.
"Yeah? Well, at least I'm not some old man who crashed my ship and went bonkers at the first person who tried to help me!"
The doctor replied with a derisive huff. "Pardon me for being incredulous at things I've never seen before!"
Sonic bristled, marching in front of him. "What, so now we're 'things' to you?"
"That's not what I meant, you brat! Quit twisting my words!"
"Then what do you mean?" he asked hotly, poking a thumb into his chest to emphasize his point. He glimpsed Len peeking out at them through the curtain, the flash of worry as he passed enough to give him a second of pause. Despite that, he felt his temper continue to rise. "If I can't get off this island, what makes you think you can?"
"Give me another Emerald and I'll show you. As a matter of fact, I might just leave you in the dust for acting so rudely to me!"
"Maybe I'll follow you!"
"Using what? A flying pig?" Snapping away from the sextant, the doctor jabbed its eyepiece at the irate hedgehog's chest. He grinned maliciously as Sonic smacked it away, and dangled it above his head. "An admirable dream that you think you can soar. You're a rock, Sonic. A big, blue, impish rock. And until you grow up, you're never leaving this stinking place."
With that Robotnik threw the sextant down and tried strolling off, chin held high so he could have the satisfaction of belting out the last word. He took but three long strides before a gust of wind dusted the air, and Sonic blocked his path, akimbo, quills raised to sharpened points, toe tapping out a hard rhythm.
His ears swiveled low against his head.
"Take. That. Back."
Robotnik simply brushed him aside as though the boy were an ordinary peasant His Majesty suddenly deemed not worth addressing. Who died and made him king? Each time Sonic flashed in his way, trying to intercept him, or at the very least deflate his arrogant walk, was met with failure. The snubs were enough to churn hot blood to his ears. He felt if he opened his mouth he could bellow steam.
"Fastest 'thing' on the island, remember?" he shouted at the doc's retreating form. Planting his feet wide, he hollered into the breeze. "You can hide, but you can't run!"
"Son."
Sonic ran over to him. "Len," he said, grabbing him by his knobby shoulders, "he's not right, is he? I'm not just gonna grow old on this island … am I?"
Briefly, Len squeezed his hand. This small, tender gesture made him feel a pang of regret for even asking.
"I wouldn't listen to him. Robotnik … his body's grown, but his mind is like a child's. Ain't no one wants to care for an overgrown child."
"Even you?"
"No," he said quietly. "You was in such a rush from the time you were a tot. Walk fast, talk fast, finishing your supper the second I put it down in front of ya. Could barely keep up."
A wan smile deepened the creases around his eyes.
"Maybe the others were right. Maybe I been too soft on you. But can you blame me for that? Just a lonely fisherman wanderin' the beach one night when it was stormin'."
The baby wailed from its soggy swaddling cloth. He huddled the poor thing close to his chest to give it some warmth when out fell a damp photograph. The infant sneezed as he bent to pick it up, and resumed screaming and thrashing its arms and legs as though it meant to unleash its entire living will out on him.
As his gaze followed the rain-swollen coast, he watched the sea thrust a massive wave onto the sand. It then receded, sucked back into the current. A red biplane lacking passengers glistened on shore.
"What on earth … ?"
"But, I been thinkin'," Len said. "Maybe I been selfish myself, holdin' onto that gift for as long as I have. There comes a point where we have to choose between what's comforting and what's right. And often, what's right is hard to bear."
His newborn quills molted into a pale shade of sky blue, and he called him, simply, "Son."
The months passed, and Son gathered enormous strength in his legs, toppling over furniture in his endless bursts of energy. As soon as he learned to walk he'd amassed a collection of bumps and bruises, but bore them all with a dazzling smile before running off to play again. A smile, he regretted to say, that melted his anger before it could even start.
A tiny maelstrom, the hut was always left in shambles in his wake: nets tangled in knots, the wicker chair on its side, ash scattered from the hearth, Son joyfully banging spoons against overturned brass pots, performing live concerts for the wooden toy figures strewn before him.
Frazzled, the old man would scoop the squirming boy in his arms: "Son, don't do that!" "Son, you'll hurt yourself!" "Son, stay still!"
The little boy kicked his legs and giggled. "Son-ic! Son-ic!"
Chores grew with his escapades. A thistle broom to sweep the sand he tracked in the house. Untangling the nets he rolled around in. You can play in the Tornado once you're finished helpin' me make dinner. He seldom liked it, but he needed the discipline. In those days, Len feared he was raising a force of nature rather than a child.
"Even though it hurts, I decided, son, for your sake I oughta let you go. You won't be happy here."
"I hate fish," Sonic declared when he was just tall enough to peek into the chowder pot. Pinching his nose, he stuck his tongue at the hunks simmering in the sauce. "Can't we eat something else?"
"Ain't fish. It's clam."
"It stinks!"
"It'd be wrong to keep the wind to yourself. It grows restless."
"What were you thinkin'," Len hollered, his hoarse voice cracking, "tryin' to run out to the ferry? You coulda drowned!"
"I almost caught it."
"I almost lost you! Ever think of that?"
Sonic lay wrapped in an old vapor blanket on the couch, staring up at the low ceiling. He trembled from an inner chill the fire couldn't seem to alleviate. His lips had been as blue as his fur by the time the ferryman had salvaged him.
He closed his eyes.
No matter what Len said … He was fast enough. He just had to concentrate more, was all. Maybe then he'd skip over the water instead of being the rock that sank.
"What," Sonic said, incredulous, "what're you saying?"
That was when Len entered the hut and returned with precisely what he meant. A small red tank of gas with a worn blue ribbon tied around its handle was placed at his feet.
He stood, stunned, before being enveloped in a tight hug from the old man.
As he deepened his grip, Sonic wandered a hand over his back, patting it. Finally set free. Years of staring at the same unyielding sea and wishing he could discover what the rest of this world had to offer had flooded his mind from the time he could walk … But … Why did the notion now harden a lump in his throat? He didn't consider himself the sentimental type, and yet …
Len was the first to let him go. Wiping a prickle of moisture from his cornea, he nodded softly at his boy.
"Just promise this sappy ol' man one thing," he said. "Always be kind to those you meet. You never know where they come from, where they been."
Drilling noises. Len snored in the other room, practically deaf to them.
Sonic stuffed a pillow over his head to drown out their relentless screeching.
He awoke to a quiet so thick he imagined the screeching must have been a dream. He sat up in his hammock, and slipped his feet into his trusty crimson sneakers.
Grabbing the tank by the door, he yelled a hearty goodbye at the hut and dashed for the Tornado. He popped the gas cap and shooed the beetles that scattered out.
"G'wan, get! Ain't your home no more, no siree."
The needle on the fuel meter rose for the first time in years, climbing one sluggish mark at a time toward the F.
Sonic looked back once, giving his tiny hut a small smile. Then, deciding there wasn't a second more to waste, hopped into the pilot seat and fastened the chin straps of his father's helmet. "All right, girl, it's show time."
The propellers wound up, spinning until they disappeared. She took off beautifully, diving headlong as though she'd never missed a day of flight in her life, skimming the barest farewell caress over the ocean's silky surface.
Higher and higher, his body prickled from the same awe and thrill as when he'd climbed that tree. The world spiralled away. In a matter of moments, he would dissolve into the vast ocean blue to see what lay beyond. He was finally going to be fr—
A flash like lightning cracked in the edge of his vision, and metal shrieked in his ears. With a panic he yanked back the throttle, realizing the needle was dipping too quickly and too sharply back toward E to bring her down safely.
The flash pierced the plane's left wing and punched a ragged hole. The aluminum peeled back like flower petals; the engine belched a thick thrust of smoke and before his mind could properly register any of this, he was hurtling back toward the earth.
Sonic ducked his head to brace for impact. She skipped over the crests before swerving over the beach, splashing wheels through the tide and finally crumpling in front of the woods once her damaged wing gave out underneath her, dragging him to a complete halt.
For a few moments, he sat motionless, not daring to breathe or open his eyes. Because he knew if he did, he'd have to acknowledge that awful truth.
He was earthbound again.
Once the panic of imminent harm dissolved from his system, anger rushed in its place, so full and complete it engulfed him. Releasing a long, raw cry of sheer frustration, he tore off his helmet, jumped out of the pilot's seat now tilted on its side and pounded his fists into the hot, yielding sand, beating his knuckles against the earth that would never let him go.
"I'm gonna be here forever!" he screamed. "I'm gonna be here until I die!"
Silence.
This entire island responded with silence.
Inhaling shakily to prevent the hot films of moisture from developing into full tears—no, he would not cry, not like this—Sonic climbed to a stand, his heart fluttering a skittish bird underneath his ribcage. He gave his poor crashed cardinal a worried glance, wondering how he was gonna explain this.
He realized no one had come. In fact, in his haste to leave, he hadn't noticed the sheer lack of boats out on the water. Only the sea rumbled at him.
"Len?" he called, his voice bouncing a tinny echo across the empty beach. "Mr. Harris? Anyone?"
A round shadow eclipsed the sun behind him, invading the sand before him.
"How lucky for you, my friend," a voice said, in a tone so sweet it could have rot someone's teeth, "until you die won't be for much longer."
He turned.
The Chaos Emerald glowed a pupilless iris in the aperture of a floating ship. Attached to the ship's bottom by a heavy iron chain, a capsule swung slowly as it hovered a foot off the ground.
" … What are you doing?" Sonic advanced a step. "What the heck is that?"
Robotnik grinned from behind the controls.
"That, my dear hedgehog," he said, "is for me to know and for you to find out."
A laser struck.
There was no time to think, no chance to question. Sonic leapt out of the way as a concentrated beam much like the one he'd dodged the night they met blasted through the shore and peppered his crashed biplane in fire, scorching its twisted wing even further.
Anger sizzled up his spine.
BAM.
The first time he smacked into one of Eggman's buckets of bolts, he rattled his bones more than the machinery. The chain jostled, but not by much. His skull ached from the dent he'd bashed in the side of the capsule, and the doctor howled when he saw Sonic cradle his head, which only fired him up.
The capsule came crashing down, shaving off grass blades as a ton of steel hurtled inches past him. In that passing glimpse he caught Len and Mr. Harris, a bunch of forest squirrels and seagulls trapped beneath the thick pane of glass, all beating on it, shouting wordlessly for him.
Sonic ground to a stop, balling his fists until they quaked. "Why are you doing this?" he shouted, equal parts bewildered and infuriated. One chance. That was all he'd give him for his answer. "Let them go, Robotnik! They never meant you any harm!"
"Oh, please. The only thing a good Samaritan gets is stomped on," the doctor replied with nothing more than a nonchalant shrug. He leaned forward, as if the challenge in his words had already been lost. "What do you think you can do, Sonic? You crashed your only means of escape and you fell for my act hook, line and sinker. You made your bed, time to lie in it. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got some other islands to claim. Ta-ta," he sing-songed.
Sonic could only see that capsule getting away from him, could only think of the best way to stop it was to not hold anything back anymore. He couldn't afford fear now.
Planting his feet against the waves, he revved his legs until he felt the lines between where they began and the wind ended blur.
"Cute, boy." Robotnik curled his lip, tilted his head. "Real cute."
He wove his way through the wild beams fired at him and trapped the doc in a vortex, swirling rock and sea foam and even hunks of branches ripped loose from the woods in his bid to free the capsule, letting unfettered debris lash out at him.
However, Robotnik caught onto his scheme a bit late. "Wait! Stop!"
The heat from the Peel-Out melted the ship's aperture and pried the Emerald loose. He cried out as it rolled dangerously toward the sinking pool of amorphous liquid springing from Sonic's furious dash.
"No!"
The chain links creaked, warped, nearly severed. Just a little more—
"Begone, you irritating rodent!"
Robotnik denied him that victory. He wrenched the ship away and knocked Sonic down with the capsule before that happened, making a beeline for Westside Island. A firm threat pulsed in his ears as he skidded across the eddy:
"You're going to regret this!"
Sonic rolled over.
"Ditto," he whispered.
Taking the Emerald, he dashed into the forest.
He knew what he had to do.